Pathfinder ascendancy update

Pathfinder ascendancy can only be used with a small variety of skills and indigon. At the same time a lot of bonuses are wasted or not useful.
There was a lot of thing to cover, so I've separated them in different topics.
Everything mentioned is my opinion based on limited knowledge. Other opinions and mistake corrections are welcomed.

Problem: Master nodes value
Pathfinder's nodes Master Surgeon and Master Alchemist don't provide a lot of value for 2 ascendancy points. Some build may even consider taking small nodes with flask bonuses instead. Build that take there nodes most of the time just don't have any choice (for example elemental builds).

Problem: Ailment removal
"Remove ailment when flask is used" mod does not protect from shocked/chilled/burning ground, so that other mitigation source is needed, making ascendancy node less useful.
A lot of life recovery from life flasks decreases the value of bleed/ignite removal.
New immunity flask mods and ailment mitigation sources introduced in 3.16 make there nodes even less meaningful.

Problem: Chance to freeze/shock/ignite
There are three places in the passive three with the same effect (but lower chance). In Ranger part of the tree it's not even a notable passive.
Also chance to freeze/shock/ignite is more thematically connected with Veteran Bowyer node that with Nature's Boon. It barely synergies with flask charges generation.

Nature's reprisal and Build diversity
15% more damage to attack skills is too low compared with other ascendancies an same investment (2 point from ascendancy tree start). For example Elementalist gets 25% more damage with ignites or Deadeye gets' 60% more for all projectiles with Far Shot.
There are not so many chaos attack skills (only 7), compared to number of skills able to ignite or shoot projectiles.
Physical to chaos conversion options sources are limited (Replica Innsbury Edge converts 50%, other sources have 30% at max), so it's too expensive to fully convert to chaos.
Poison is still an option, but stepping away from poison related skills will result in lower damage. There aren't a lot of non-chaos physical attacks with ailment damage bonus (earthquake, blade flurry, maybe something else).
Chaos skills AOE increase is a good bonus, but spells don't get any damage from ascendancy and there are currently only 3 chaos attacks with AOE tag.

Possible Solution:
Half of the ascendancy needs rework.
Nature's Reprisal damage bonus should provide more damage or not be limited to attacks.
Adding Explosive Concoction was a good step, but that's only one skill.
Ideas for ascendancy bonuses: flask effect is also applied as spells or elemental damage increase (so that indigon is not mandatory), provide a damage buff for each flask used recently, add an extra flask slot.

Thanks for your attention!

Agreed on all these. Pathfinder basically is only playable as a poison character (and not a particularly good one) or doing something ridiculous with CoC or some other MoM mana-stacking shenanigans.

I feel like she needs an overheal from life flasks + enkindling orbs keep some amount of recharge during flask effect node. Too many of her nodes are stupid "bonus while under flask effect" type nodes which wouldn't look out of place on some other ascendancy.

EG Veteran Bowyer looks like an elementalist/inquisitor node.
Nature's Reprisal looks like a trickster node.
Master toxicist looks like an assassin node.
Nature's Adrenaline is literally a shitty rapid assault/avatar of the chase (depending on if you have onslaught or not).

Ground effects aren't really the problem with Master Alchemist, being able to clear off elemental ailments with any flask without having to dedicate an affix to it is still incredibly powerful. The issue is you tend to just immediately get statused again since it doesn't provide any immunity or avoidance after.

An internal delay of at least a couple seconds before you can get statused again would be a decent improvement for Master Alchemist's defensive utility. Master Surgeon could use the same treatment for its staunching effect. Master Surgeon needs to pick up an offensive effect of some kind and have its heal on flask use moved to Nature's Adrenaline and changed to regenerate % of max life per second while affected by any flask

Master Alchemist's 20% freeze/shock/ignite chance also doesn't make much sense now that it no longer provides 40% increased elemental damage, and Veteran Bowyer is an unappealing node for the same reason. Elemental damage Pathfinder is just completely outclassed by Raider, both defensively and offensively, so both of these nodes really need to get looked at

Master Alchemist gaining elemental conflux while affected by flasks could open up some interesting ailment-stacking builds and would still fit in with its intended identity. Regardless, Master Alchemist is extremely overnerfed now that it no longer provides full ailment immunity so it needs something to get it back up to par

Nature's Reprisal is a bit overnerfed as well and could probably have its damage bonus changed to at least provide 15% with hits and ailments, if not just plain 15% damage. I wouldn't mind if it gained some splash damage for melee skills in addition to its 30% AoE increase, to help out Pestilent/Viper Strike builds a bit. Lord knows strikes need all the help they can get

Pathfinder in general isn't really designed to use spells anymore but if it were changed to support them better I'd like see it gain 2-4 additional node paths for it instead of having its existing ones altered.

There's really nothing wrong with its nodes mostly being oriented around flask effects since that's meant to be its entire identity, but its small nodes' numbers haven't been touched in ages despite flasks being dramatically weaker than they were when Pathfinder was first introduced so those could stand to be bumped up a little bit. Pathfinder had a ton of stuff nerfed because of how broken perma-flasks used to be, but they're not nearly the issue they once were so I think the class could stand to regain some of the power it lost

[edit] sad to see there's no improvements to Pathfinder in the 3.16 notes, here's hoping PF at least gets some fun stuff to play with in the new skill tree I guess