I see. In a Maddening context, personally, I consider the need for low HP to be a big, and universal, issue with these builds, as being at low HP in a game where reinforcements show up before enemy phase is just asking for trouble. I ten billion percent agree on Defiant abilities though. They just aren't worth it. Also, don't enemies eventually get so strong that you cannot survive one round against them? Setting up low HP builds would be really hard if that's the case... using devil weapons can help with that, but that's kinda slow.
Also, are auxiliary battles EVER worth it on Maddening??? I am very heavily leaning towards no.