Early Access Accumulated Feedback - Viewpoint: Level 90 Bloodmage (Chaos DoT - then Detonate Dead)

Hello. I am trying to write a neutral-toned feedback post that goes over some of my experience in the PoE2 Early Access. I'll try to organize my comments to the best of my ability, though some may be a bit difficult because of their interconnected nature.

I played one character so far, a level 90 fully ascended bloodmage. I have completed the basic atlas tree and the atlas boss tree (minus pinnacle points). I have done a few of the content specific bosses, but I have not tried the citadels or pinnacle boss yet. I have completed up to floor 3 of the Trial of the Sekhemas, and have fought the trialmaster.

Bloodmage

Chaos DoT

From level 2 to level ~71 I played with mostly Chaos DoT spells and the Dark Effigy totem. My experience was alright, but I definitely felt impeded by my choice in ascendancy. Every upgrade in skills and gear felt like my power was spiking up to a near-neutral level but then I was weakening to under the curve until my next spike. I ended up switching off of Chaos DoT right before the 30% damage buffs to the Chaos DoT spells.

-I think that the Chaos Dot Spells are likely in a balanced, but highly ethical position after the damage buffs. However, they just had very poor synergy with the Bloodmage ascendancy (will circle back on this later).
-Dark Effigy totem's quality doesn't seem to be working. I think the skill is quite interesting, and I was looking forward to making a build around it but the quality not working is quite an issue for consistent wither stacks.
-Decaying Hex doesn't seem to work with blasphemy curses - if this is intentional, then the gem wording really needs to be clarified. It also seemed like the decaying hex degen was not being counted for Dark Effigy projectiles?(could be mistaken about this, it has been a while since I played it)
-Contagion targeting (and targeting in general) seemed a little off and sometimes went on enemies that were relatively far away from my cursor


Detonate Dead
This skill is very strong damage wise, but also comes with odd clunkiness. After I swapped to DD, I was immediately doing well on my character and could quite effortlessly start progressing up to higher content. I hesitate to say that the damage is 'too good', but I do suspect it is overperforming a bit. I think that DD is the skill that synergizes strongly with bloodmage, in a way that likely makes bloodmage characters overwhelmingly more likely to use that skill. This is not just do to it being a strong skill, but also because it is one of the only skills that can be played in the face of the harsh penalties of the ascendancy as it does good damage at low gem level.

-Damage is on the higher end, likely in range to be adjusted in balancing.
-Feels almost mandatory on Bloodmage. Not just because it is so good, but also because bloodmage struggles on most other skills. I really feel like the ascendancy needs to be reworked instead of just nerfing DD - DD could be good on other ascendancies, but bloodmage feels like it needs DD to be good.
-Targeting seems off on this skill as well, especially when using minions with Sacrifice. When using detonate dead, it always wants to prioritize actual corpses before minions. This is fine typically, but the skills can prioritize corpses from too far away from the cursor, leading to the explosion happening a third of the screen away from my intended location.
-Some map layouts have small obstructing features or pillars that really disrupt the targeting of DD. I'm fine for there being a line of sight restriction, but it gets very awkward sometimes. The crypt map has been especially problematic for me - the small pillars in the middle of the halls prevent a lot of my skill detonations.
-There seem to be times where the skill fails to cast when targeting minions that are too close to you? Its not 100% consistent but is definitely noticeable after being in enough confined spaces.
-Delirium mobs seem to despawn instantly on death, which isn't a problem in normal maps that much but I couldn't imagine doing a simulacrum with this skill. I think ritual mobs also have their bodies consumed, but it isn't instantly so you can still detonate their bodies. Not necessarily a point that I think needs to be addressed, but just wanted to say that while this skill is strong, it is also content limited.

Bloodmage overall
Bloodmage is an odd ascendancy to me - it incorporates a lot of unique elements but then has very generic nodes. I think this ascendency has a lot of potential and really like the concept.
-Not only is it the only ascendency to require the same first two point allocations, it is also the only ascendency that requires 6 linear ascension points allocated to reach any one node (and it has two of these!). Given that the first two points have to be spent in the same location, it also has the least diversity of nodes to choose from compared to any ascendency in either game. From seeing other ascendancies that give skills, I am really surprised that there are no following nodes that augment the effect of life remnants.
-Life recovery is difficult to get a meaningful amount of
-There is uncertainty as to if the crit damage is applying correctly (likely is, but isn't being reflected in the skill info).
-If you play any high leveled skill that has a cost, you are using a large chunk of life that would otherwise be buffing your damage with crits.
-If you aren't a crit build, there really isn't enough benefit for the cost of being forced to take life remnants (getting less remnants from not critting, still having high costs). The defensive benefits are difficult to utilize when you are spending your life and not critting as well.
-It feels like sanguimancy is only a viable option if you play either DD or a skill with no cost, and the node really needs more of an upside. It feels very bad to have a class where the first ascendancy is nearly always a hard negative without more ascension points. It can still be designed to be a change of gamestyle/come with penalties but it needs to either have more befits or give more ascension points with that node. Maybe even let all forms of healing overflow life instead of just the remnants, or let it give a stacking life regen when you pick up remnants that can overflow life. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I think it needs help
-I wish there was better UI design with overflow life so that I can perceive damage that I am taking better. This is especially the case after having grasping wounds damage over time effect.
-Infinite curse duration is not a useless stat, but it feels very boring with such few synergies (basically only stronger curse effect nodes while negating duration penalty). While I wasn't playing DD, I used this node as a handicap because the cost of curses was so high that I simple couldn't afford to curse multiple times in a fight.
-Bloodmage actually feels very strong in combination with DD, because you get to maintain overflowed life most of the time. However, this can not be said for other sills.
-Can't seem to quality life remnants

Minions
With using Sacrifice for Detonate Dead, I did end up using minions. I hope that certain things can be improved on minions, not because I think they are weak but because some things are quite aggravating about them - and I don't agree with the idea that they are balanced by the clunkiness. I think their clunkiness should be improved in some regards, and if they are too strong then just balance them in addition to that.
-Minion body blocking: I can understand that you want their to be a weight of the existence of minions, but it is really difficult to do many layouts with minions constantly getting in the way of each other. Lost Towers are a nightmare because I have to constantly command my minions back and forward until they go through the doorways in single file. This combined with the fact that minions die when they get too far from you instead of teleporting to you makes me not want to do lost towers. It would be really nice if they could start phasing past each other if they have been stuck for two seconds or so
-There are some enemy types which can destroy minions - one is the red fly mage dudes, and I'm not sure who the other is but they make my minions glow purple and then explode. I'm not really against their existence, but....see next point.
-Minion deaths resetting a global respawn timer can feel very awkward. Especially when combined with the body blocking and enemy types that destroy minions.
-I use skeletal brutes as my minions, and I really wish they were allowed to slightly walk ahead of me when I run in one direction for long enough. I don't mean like a screen ahead, but it is annoying that they will quickly run up to me, pause to let me get away, and then catch back up.
-The minion command button is nice to have, but struggles in certain regards. There seems to be an issue with elevation (especially when commanding them to go to a higher elevation) where they will sometimes just ignore it. I also wish that I can cancel the command faster than the natural timeout duration or by running far enough away. If I want to keep moving quickly after giving a minion command, I have to keep continuously giving commands to keep them moving with me.

These are all of my opinions and observations from my time in the early access so far. There are a lot of people talking about other details like crafting, so I wanted to give some different feedback specific to my experience.