Why not add in some stats when you level up?

I think if you got a bit of health, mana, and maybe one of your primary stat on level up it would help characters keep up with the ramp up of skill costs / monster damage as they level even if they have terrible luck with gear drops.

You can get most of those, except Life from passives, which you get from levelling up.

This would be in addition to the passive points. I am 91 now and it definitely feels like you need more life and mana at this point than you can reasonably get from the passive points that are going into stats. Gear is so hit or miss that it is very very easy to have serious issues with life / mana at the higher levels. It almost feels like you have to stop leveling your skills up due to mana issues. I don't know if this is the same for the int based classes but definitely for the dex based ones the costs of skills vs mana sustain via flasks / mana regen etc feels off.

Maybe I have just been too unlucky with gear but this should really not be an issue. Leveling up skills should not feel punishing it should feel fun and rewarding.

if we had better gear/drops... we wouldn't be worrying about this (just my opinion)