General Feedback and Blood Mage vs other classes

I have a Blood Mage that is almost level 70 and, at first, it didn't feel bad since I am still relatively new to POE by most metrics, and I was taking my time with learning POE2 with minimal knowledge. That said, here's my feedback broken up into different parts:

Blood Mage:
As stated, my Blood Mage is nearing level 70, but I have given up on advancing it forward right now. Blood Mage seems to be heavily geared towards minion builds, and if you do anything else, you're at a serious disadvantage. I like using Chaos damage but there aren't that many pure Chaos spells and relying on Contagion and Essence Drain can only take you so far (which isn't even far tbh) before feeling like you're seriously behind on power.

Now, you can say to just become a glass cannon and go full spell/chaos damage, but the a big problem with that is that there are only 4 direct Chaos spells for Witches at levels 1, 6, 22, and 31. Then the Chaos nodes are far away from each other and coupled with minion builds (explained later)

The other Chaos skills require enemies to be afflicted by Chaos already, but you gotta get to level 22 just to get the 3rd direct Chaos spell. The first 2 tiers of spells ONLY offer TWO Chaos spells, but offer 5 PHYSICAL spells, 4 of which are Minions, and then one Curse. So out of 8 skills in the first two Tiers, you get TWO Chaos spells. The third tier doesn't even offer a Chaos spell, so you could say out of the the first TWELVE skills to choose from, only TWO are Chaos. By the time I got to this point, I started taking spells from the ELEMENTAL category because I did not want to run minions, physical, or curses.

This shaped the progression of my Witch and I started just using the Elemental skills, and after I switched my power spiked immensely and I was clearing mobs and bosses so much easier than before. Fast forward to now, and playing the Blood Mage is not fun. It was cool at first, but it is just a slow and hard battle each time now. I have switched to a Merc and the experience is night and day.

General Feedback:
I enjoy the game overall. I like skill system as it is right now, but having to rely on random drops can be problematic, as well as Skill Gem level relying on the Act that you are in. Having one guaranteed Skill Gem drop upon reaching the level requirement would be nice, so you have more to look forward to from leveling up, aside from a passive point that might not do much. But then you should get at least one more guaranteed Skill drop from beating the boss of the Act you're on, as well as a guaranteed Skill drop every 2 or 3 levels, rounded down to the nearest level requirement (so if you hit level 20, you get a Level 2 Skill Gem). This would help people over-level a little bit.


Passive Tree:
Respec costs have been adjusted (thank you) and I think they should always carry a cost. Don't really have notes here.

As far as nodes go, as outlined before, the Chaos nodes are not within a decent proximity to each other, and to fully maximize Chaos damage, you have to take nodes that are geared towards Minion and/or Curse builds. Vile Mending, Entropic Incarnation, Left Hand of Darkness, and Void (although Void is not too bad in relative to the others). All these paths, save for Void, REQUIRE you to invest in Minions to some degree, when all you want is increased Chaos damage. Madness in Bones offers Chaos damage in the form of providing a GAIN of Physical Damage AS Chaos damage, so again, making you invest in either Minions of Physical Damage to do more Chaos damage.

Regarding the distance, if you search "Minion" on the Passive Tree, you so SO MANY nodes VERY close to each other. But look up "Chaos" and they're SO FAR spread out it makes it seem like Chaos nodes were an afterthought. And to top it off, the nodes that are far away don't even seem to offer a big payoff for the investment of going so far.

Event Horizon and Spaghettification give big damage, but also give big drawbacks. If you're thinking "Get Chaos Inoculation, you'll be fine" No, you won't. The "Lose 3% of Life..." states that it WILL kill you. So the "Maximum Life becomes 1" is just one-shotting yourself. Pure Chaos gets you "Gain 11% of damage as extra Chaos Damage", with the pathing giving 40% Increased Chaos damage. Altogether these are decent nodes to go after, but they're so far away that you're just struggling in power and defenses if you try to rush it.

Lastly, there is Dark Entries, which gives "+1 to Level of all Chaos Skills" but it is crazy far from everything else. If rushing this, while picking up Lingering Horror and Pure Chaos along the way, it will take 38 points. You'll be level 30 something just to get here, meaning you will be STRUGGLING so hard with so few spells and so few defenses. If you take a more modest approach, picking up defenses and other notables along the way, you'll be close to level 50 or 60 depending on your pathing.

All that said, Chaos is in a bad spot right now, and the layout of the nodes only make it worse.

TL;DR
Mostly a fun experience and I like the mechanics of the game in a general sense, but the Witch side of nodes need some remapping, specifically around Chaos, as well as more Chaos spell options that don't rely on an enemy to already be afflicted with Chaos. Lastly, Blood Mage needs a rework of some sort, but I'm not sure what it is. I just know that it feels bad to play almost as soon as you get the Ascendancy.

EDIT:
I forgot to add that the targeting of spells/attacks is annoying. If I want to place an Ice Wall, or something in front of enemies, sometimes the targeting system will just put it on TOP of the enemy, which would then put it BEHIND them since they are generally running at me. I know some people want this, but if there was a way to turn this off that would be greatly appreciated. Like, let me just have my mouse be the exact spot I want to put it or aim my weapon.