Feedback after completing the campaign on all 6 classes.

So i just completed the campaign on all 6 classes avoiding build guides/just playing the game. After completing this I looked up guides/other stuff to see how close I ended up to the meta naturally playing the game. But here are the builds I did

Mercenary - Gemling Legionnaire | Grenade Focused build spamming grenades.

Monk - Invoker | Icy Strike/Tempest Bell Focused build

Ranger - Pathfinder | Gas Arrow/Poison Focused build

Warrior - Warbringer | Perfected Strike/Hammer of the Gods build

Sorceress - Stormweaver | Spell Crit based build where I swapped build around as I got new staves (in order to try out all the spells)

Witch - Blood Mage | Hexblast/Blasphemy build

Now for the actual feedback section.

Mercenary: Had a lot of fun with the crossbow, ended up being my second favourite playthrough, Enjoyed how the grenade build worked out but ended up feeling like 90% of the time I was just using flash grenade because of the low fuse timer, only ever used the other grenades after stunning things. Was really tempted to make a second mercenary that focused on the crossbow bolts.

Recommendation: Cluster Bombs Passive: SUPER awkward getting 1 additional projectiles on nades without having a bombard crossbow/other source of additional projectiles, without increased AoE if you fire directly at an enemy both grenades will miss. Had to constantly spec in/spec out of it throughout the campaign. maybe a solution could be "gives 2 additional projectiles but reduced grenade damage"

Armour: Stacked armour on the Mercenary and Warrior and it felt bad, felt like I had to play better/avoid more mechanics then energy shield characters or evasion characters

Energy Shield: I feel like it might be a bit too good, real easy to get A LOT of energy shield, letting you simply survive anything that comes at you, Might be too many sources of energy shield on the passive tree

Evasion: Felt basically the same as PoE 1, so no complaints

Monk: Lots of fun AFTER getting a few levels in, the first few levels feel super awkward/weak, basic attacking just ended up being better for a while. But once the build gets started it was the easiest of the classes to complete the campaign on.

Recommendation: Icy Strike/Tempest Flurry to Level 1 Skill Gems, Vaulting Impact to Level 1 Skill Gem, Falling Thunder/Glacial Cascade/Frozen Locus Moved up to 3/5. Too many skills that require set up/power charges early that just dont feel good to use, give the basic stuff first then easy the characters into the charges/setup.

Warrior: Felt the clunkiest to use, and a lot of abilities felt like they didnt have a purpose or had such limited purpose it wasn't worth trying to use. Ended up using molten blast for clear, perfected strike for single target for the majority of the campaign as they felt the least awkward to use. Hammer of the Gods might be the most satisfying ability in the game though, love hammer of the gods.

Recommendation: I think having some of the pay offs for those clunky skills earlier might of helped them feel better to use, and maybe a raw attack damage/attack speed increase on some of the abilities so they arent slower and deal less damage then a basic attack. Perhaps Sunder as a level 5 Gem so that you can utilize armour breaker earlier or something and molten blast as a level 1 Gem to some early clear abilities, as like monk they just used basic attack for the most part early.

Ranger: Had a lot of fun with ranger, me and my buddy played different builds and both of them worked out, I like the poison abilities, I like the synergy they had with the other poison abilities, was a lot of fun to play and felt decently powerful.

Recommendation: Not a lot i would change. Maybe plague bearer/herald of plague could use a look at? despite being a dedicated poison build i already had the poison spread from ascendancy and plague bearer just dealt less damage then my normal poison stuff even with me tryna pump it up

Sorceress: I tried out a lot of the spells as I was swapping skills based of the staves/wands i could get to drop. I think a lot of them are really fun/satisfying to use. Ended up going Chaos Inoculation, Mind Over Matter, Eldritch Battery to try that out, had a major problem with being stunned/with not a whole lot of ways to combat being stun locked (as the Max ES to stun threshold nodes dont work with Eldritch Battery).

Recommendation: Like ranger, not a lot i would change. Maybe the archmage/spark stuff was too good/could be toned down, but other then that it generally felt like Frost > Lightning > Fire. And maybe a % Max Mana as Stun Threshold Node somewhere for CI, MoM, EB set up

Witch: I started out wanting to play with minions... but very quickly dropped minions as they felt horrible with how quickly they just died to everything, Swapped to using chaos spells/the dots. Felt okay but basically as soon as I had access to Hexblast all those abilities stopped being used, as why wait for a DoT to kill them when I can just one shot them with Hexblast. Blood mages first ascendancy point is a downside, even after solving the downside I feel my character would be stronger without it, BUT the nodes after that are really good (10% spell leech is really nice). Despite the drawbacks of blood mage, ended up being my favourite playthrough as hexblasting things was pretty satisfying.

Recommendation: Bring Back AoE Contagion, Single Target Contagion felt horrible as if enemies body blocked the the thing you were tryna kill with Essence Drain it just made you have to recast contagion on that target, or Essence Drain first into Contagion. Bring Back Wither from PoE 1 as a way to apply withered/clear early mobs. Sanquimancy: Add something to give some character power to this ascendancy so it isnt an immediate downside/something you avoid picking until second ascendancy. Maybe Bonus % dmg based off health spent. Not gonna talk too much about minions as i dropped them early so dont have more feedback for them.

I am now gonna start mapping with these 6 characters and then report back after i have end game feedback.
And If people have discovered solutions to the any of the negatives I have stated, feel free to comment and I will try them out and see if i change my opinion.