How do you survive to actually do anything?

You need to know what the 1% of dangerous encounters for your build are and react properly.

"

SFSC wrote:

I've always played hardcore, because getting anywhere on standard is near impossible unless you were lucky enough to have some legacy items...

That's just not correct. It's easy enough to get a character into the 70s or 80s in Standard, and at that point you can grind The Catacombs for the Chaos recipe, currency drops, and to level your character and gems that you can eventually sell. It's terribly boring, yes, but the whole idea of this game is that you need to live on it and grind your eyes out in order to make crazy builds (a philosophy which I personally think sucks since the game banks on your addiction instead of hoping that you stick around because you're actually having fun, but it's hard to complain when this is still the best free video game I've ever played).

Also, dodge. Seriously the strongest defense right now. Phase Acrobatics + Atziri's Step (which is cheap) go a long way in protecting you. Now imagine if you can run Arctic Armour on top of that (with maybe Rathpith Globe in place of Atziri's Step). It's really solid. Of course you need good mana/ES/mana regen gear to make that happen since Acrobatics decreases ES (and you need EB for AA), but that's what the nasty grind is for. Dodge plus high speed (think Queen of the Forest) is also amazing and really fun.