How playable is melee without Red Death?
My personal experience with Red Death is I set my mind on putting points into it after encountering enemy mid-Cuanacht who had just been one-shotting me if I slip a parry.
Afterwards I pretty quickly realized that Red Death made me functionally immortal. In theory it means that I'll always survive at least three hits against anything, in practice there's no limit on chugging healing potions in this game, so as long as you stockpile enough and aint' getting one- or two-shot death simply becomes a choice. What's more, upgrading your health becomes suboptimal because most potions and foods don't scale to your health pool, so you can focus on going all-in damage and crits, and dealing more damage means taking less damage due to shorter combats.
I'm currently level 68 rogue-type character, 10 in Endurance, 60% armor, cleared Cuanacht, Sarras and cakewalking Act 3 right now. The only somewhat tough enemies I've faced after acquiring Red Death were Percival due to her combos, and the very first boss in Sarras due to ranged attack spam and knockdown spell (same moveset as Galahad).
Thoughts?