melee chains are less about hybrid as bringing all your charecters varying values to a degree that the spawn quality of the mob is overwealmed and unable to counter.
this can be maximised in many ways and lifesteal will still work well when factored into it
my best tip would be to look for two or three strong aspects on each and every part of your gear and try to balance them together while bearing in mind what is required over the various lvls to succeed.
dex/int/vit (heavy classes vit should be considered as the base def or a tier plate is very effective in comparison to the standard blows struck by the relative mobs) their requirements, optimal and behaviour
the best melee is the one who does not need to heal but just kills everything spawned, with a heavy class you should be able to have quite a long natural chain without incredible gear.
your weapon, heal charm, str and heal mastery should be considered as aspects which effect how swiftly this will occur. str is out of place there as it is a stat once more and should be optimised by tier rightly.
loads of stuff works in all sorts of ways when properly applied. conversely a 200 ee weapon will not make you lvl on it's own nor is it required to do so.
i am a little worried about the term hybrid as when it is understood that is fine but when not so you can have mediocricy across the board which will ofc not work in any aspect