Dual-Wielding Melee "Dream" Ranger — Possible in early access?

I have always been interested in off-build melee builds whether it was dual dream sorc in Diablo 2 or the Dual Dreamfeather Ranger builds from the early days of PoE...

So my question is ... is a dual-wielding melee Ranger possible in early access?

I noticed the ranger has access to some decent dual-wield and melee damage nodes prettymuch straight downwards from their starting position. I plan to make good use of these, plus the nearby life leech nodes as a starting point. I have started my passive tree by taking the fast travel path downwards from the evasion rating start position, to boost early strength while heading towards that nearby cluster of melee damage nodes. I will also hoover up as many attack speed nodes as I can.

So far at about level 10, just using mace strike with rage support, I am dishing out way easier boss kills than I was on my warrior at this level (somehow?!?!). Does the ranger have a higher base attack speed or something? Feels like it (or could just be the animations that feel that way?). I have focused on taking equipment with +life or defense.

Note that we only have maces and mace skills to work with here when dual wielding - ie; usually the slower of the 1-hand weapon classes. I would way rather build this around swords or axes but they aren't out yet...

Draft for skill tree here - v1
Draft for skill tree here - v2 updated


Considerations:

- What ascendancies would you go for if you were trying to make a melee ranger?
- What would be your top clusters to pick up on the passive tree?
- What skills would you build around?
- What stats on gear are most important? (Life?)
- Secondary weapon setup?



Edit: Some further thoughts on ascendancies:

Deadeye tree: Wind Ward and Thrilling Chase look great to me for boosting frenzy charges and defenses.

Pathfinder: has nice slow immunity and flask buffs or even just some extra passive points.

Not sure which way to go here. Is Tailwind a bit useless for melee since it resets on hit? Do we even have reliable frenzy gen/consume in melee in EA?

Update: Approaching level 20, about 600hp, have all the dual wield nodes and going to hit some health regen nodes and life steal nodes next. I don't actually have any life steal on my gear yet, though. Feels like the missing piece for this build

I have just landed in act 2 and this build feels way stronger than my warrior at a comparable level — I'm just so much faster already with a few move speed and attack speed nodes. Using a lot of infernal cry so far.

Currently mulling over whether Resolute Technique is actually the way to go on this build. Feels like I kinda can't do an Iron Reflexes / dex / crit build here since we need str for maces, which means we will be lacking on dex/accuracy and the best way to solve that is probably just with RT?

Question for the community — do you think this build would benefit from Vaal Pact? Unwavering Stance? Bulwark?

Its also tempting to swap out some nodes for the endurance charge nodes we path beside, for +2 max charges ... thoughts?

I'm interested to see what you come up with