Feedback on Plasma Blast and Ascendancies.

Okay, let me first address the elephant in the room. What do you mean you need to complete the whole Sanctum or the whole Ultimatum to get the last point? Aren't those supposed to be pinacle encounters? If you make a pinacle encounter mandatory for ascension, then you will have to nerf it hard enough that it's doable by every character SSF with a very incomplete build (or at least one of them is). That would cap the maximum difficulty of if, making it less fun on the long run for people who actually enjoy the mechanic. The counterpart to this is that it makes for a misserable time for people who don't enjoy the mechanic. Ascendancy points are often very important for a build to function, a character may be built around one of them or it may provide them with a replacement tool for a very costly investment otherwise. In my oppinion, this whole idea needs rethinking. I think ascendancy should not be walled behind difficulty at all. It should be something anyone can do solo, without specializing in anything.

With that out of the way, let's talk about Plasma Blast.
I have reached maps with a Glacial/Fragmentation rounds setup, works well enough. For big damage, I use Plasma Blast. The skill feels great and I don't think it should be fundamentally changed. But some adjustments would make it even better:
I think every skill should be accessible at about the end of Act 3. Getting it after the first boss of Act 5 is kind of waaay too late. Yeah, respec is a thing, but you are literally more than halfway through your skill points (it's about level 55 that you get it, out of realistically 85). This is not just related to Plasma Blast, and I also had this issue in PoE1. I don't see a point to unlock the skills so late.

Now about the attack itself. I love how it feels. I think making it scale with attack speed, or letting you release it early would completely defeat the idea. Some suggestions would be:
- Give it a two timing release: one at about one second with waay less damage, no guaranteed shock, no explosion, etc; and another one at the full charge. This would let us use it as a main skill for clearing. But this is not a "must" nor it's something that's really needed, it would just make it feel better.
- Very slightly reduce the attack time. About 1.8 seconds or so instead of 2. 2 seconds means you have just not enough time to make use of a freeze or stun on certain enemies, as they teleport or dodge immediately after recovering, and you don't get to make use of "against stunned enemies" and the like. This is not neccesary either, but would make the skill feel soo much better.
- Change the recommended supports. I don't know what the idea was behind those recommendations, but faster reaload does pretty much nothing for the skill, and lightning exposure is a joke: you are not using a 2 second charge railgun as a support tool, and if you get one off, you are not getting another one anytime soon. And not recommending Momentum is really weird, as it fits so well.
- Please, make it a detonator. I know it doesn't make much sense to detonate a gas cloud with a lightning skill, but being able to blow up Stormblast Bolts with it would be fun.

Now to actual issues with the sill.
If you hold down the fire button during the loading animation, the bolt won't start charging immediately. In fact, it won't start charging at all until you release the button and press it again. This requires the player to have a very precise timing on the firing button. I think it's not intended to work this way.
The mana cost. What the hell? Why does it have to be so ridiculously high? I'm using my mana on setting up for it to work, missing a window because I ran out of mana feels really bad, and the Merc doesn't have any access to mana on his side of the tree (the closest would be a mana flask node, but even that is not really all that close).

+1 for the two stage idea, currently you either waste your 2~4 seconds charging it to cancel the animation or you pray that whatever is coming your wait do not one shot you(It usually does).

I had to remove the skill to not be tempted to use it, it is cool but always end up with me death as its feels it almost there and will be out before you have to dodge something.
With such a long wind up it makes you want to not waste it, otherwise just spamming something else is more efficient.