Feedback after finishing act 1 as chaos dot build

I just finished act 1 as a chaos dot build. Here is my feedback (no spoilers).

Difficulty
I really like the difficulty level and I think it feels very appropriate. Unlike PoE1, it actually feels like you are playing a fleshed out version of the game from the beginning rather than "the easy part" of the game. I do hope that the difficulty curve is flatter than in PoE1, because if things escalate as much as in PoE1, I expect the later acts will be too hard.

The main contributor to me enjoying the combat is the monster compositions. It always feels like there are several levels of threat in the area, and I like dynamically switching focus and attention between the enemies as new ones appear on the screen. It feels like every zone has a threatening enemy type, and that really contributes to my enjoyment.

Secondarily, the pace of boss attacks coupled with the great telegraphs make them very enjoyable to fight.

However, if this is how it feels playing a dot build, I am a bit woirried about the more active playstyles. I can imagine that melee builds wouldn't really have the action economy to both deal damage and dodge enemy mechanics at the same time.

Essence Drain and Contagion
I don't hate it, but I don't enjoy the current ED/Contagion interaction. It is possible that later on things will smoothen out a bit, but I think their interaction is kind of flawed currently. The main thing is that the more enemies there are the more potent the combo is, but the harder it is to pull off. There is a sort of anti-synergy which, regardless of balance, just feels bad.

When you've got enemies coming at you in groups from different directions while you are dodging around and repositioning, the cast- and projectile speed of ED/Cont. aren't fast enough to outpace the enemies moving about and chasing you. If you open with Cont., then by the time you cast ED the Cont. mob might be at the back of the pack and won't be hit. If you open with ED, then by the time you cast Cont. the pack will often have taken a denser positioning (since they are moving towards you and clumping up), which makes Cont. unable to precisely target the mob you want.

It usually works out in the end if you spam both skills, because eventually there will be overlap between the debuffs and then the chain starts. In terms of balance, it works, but it is somewhat frustrating to use.

My suggestion for a solution would be to make Contagion prioritize a target with chaos DoT near the target point, rather than how it works now (which feels a bit wonky and hard to target precisely).

Edit: After clearing act 2 I am getting a bit more used to how contagion works now. I still think it should be easier to target one way or another, but even if nothing changes it is not horrible.

There is also a lot to be said about the Decaying Hex curse support and how it fits into the greater chaos DoT context now that Contagion can spread it, but I think that is more of a balance discussion for later. For now, I think there should be some attention put towards making Contagion work better with single target dots.