I've been trying to make this HC build viable for over a year - time to give up?

Premise:
HC, shadow, melee, dual daggers. Build that is capable of surviving and contributing it's part of damage in party play in HC leagues and clearing all content (atziri, by today's standards), though skipping "skippable" stuff (non-storyline) is fine. Maybe not even Atziri I guess, because I'm pretty sure it's just not possible.

Haven't been able to do it and I've been keeping an eye on this build for well over a year now (back before atziri). Made plenty of other builds that are viable with trash gear and are able to complete the game just fine, but I've been trying to make this one the longest and simply cannot succeed with it.

Mainly, there's never enough points to get all the stuff I'd need: life/defenses/es, dual wield stuff, and dagger/crit stuff. Every time I try to plan the build out, it ends up without any dagger/crit nodes (might as well use swords), without any 2w nodes (might as well go shield for defenses), without enough life/survivability (can't do HC), has poor damage (can't even clear a summoner/regen pack), or just lacks in everything and is very meh overall (100% damage, 100% life, 100% crit/20% multi at level 80, shit like that). Can never get all the necessary tools needed into one build.

So I've been trying long enough, I think now I've given up hope of this ever happening. I'll leave it to you guys to give it a try, and maybe you can succeed where I failed. I guess the upside is I won't expect much so you won't get any criticism from me. :( Good luck.

If you use Spectral Throw, I see no reason why a dual dagger shadow wouldn't breeze through Atziri (or anything else, for that matter). It would be weaker than a comparable 1h+shield Spectral Throw, but not so much weaker that it becomes unable to do things.

If you feel "impure" using Spectral Throw, then that's rough because it's the only way a glass cannon in melee is going to work -- by getting the fuck out of melee.

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1h+shield >> dualwielding in virtually all cases. The survivability is always more important, especially in HC. Dualwielding, for the time being, is purely an aesthetic choice at cost to player efficiency. The benefits are simply not there.

Spectral Throw >> all other melee skills due to clear speed (less player movement) and range (less player mitigation required). Flicker/Leap come close to the clear speed since they solve the movement problem, but it's still dangerous in HC to flicker into an enemy like a Multiple Projectiles caster.

ST also hugely improves your damage since you can continuously dps from range, only moving when threatened, whereas "true melee" has to constantly be moving and is constantly threatened.

I do not expect these issues to ever be fixed or addressed in PoE. Probably not in PoE2 either unless GGG seriously goes back to potatoes and gets their power fist.

What you're saying describes my experience also. That's why I decided to let the community try :(

Probably just isn't possible but who knows, someone might come up with something.