First of all shirking fortification was essentially turned to uselessness, this effects mostly melees. 20% fortify is now 4%. About hatchet:
Fortifying Strikes - Changed activation condition from three consecutive light attacks to one heavy attack.
Since fortify was nerfed in general, the 15% fortify of this passive is like 3%. Then why even taking the 3% away by making it proc on heavies only, that’s overkill. So in total hatchet has around 30% less damage reduction now.
Next up is Enraged Strikes: Changed from being all basic attacks to Heavy attacks and Abilities
Instead of nerfing it by 5-10% like they did with bow passives, they made it pretty much useless. They reworked useless passives of fire staff while at the same creating unusable ones for hatchet. Sounds like inconsequent game design for me.
And the last one: Berserking Refresh Upgrade - Updated to be 5% life steal while berserk is active instead of granting a flat amount of HP while active.
I like the idea of life steal, it makes absolute sense and it’s a smart way to nerf this passive, but 5% is a joke in PvP. To heal the same as before you’d need to do about 70k damage. This should be at least 20%, especially considering the other hard nerfs to surviveability.
One thing about defy death: if you really decide to change it to 500hp + 50% health, exclude it from working while bow, musket or lifestaff is held offhand.