League start balance feels slightly too hard

For context, this was 1-3 days of the start of the league prior to all the balance we have now, so these opinions may be outdated now.

My league start experience in 0.1 and 0.2 both felt the same, though 0.1 I had no knowledge whereas 0.2 I did know a lot. In 0.1, I started with monk and I felt weak because I knew zero PoE mechanics so I was learning as I played. In 0.2, I started a Huntress and I had all the knowledge from 0.1 and PoE1 and yet I still felt weak because a decent weapon. Another thing that contributes to feeling weak early is the skill gem choices for quarterstaff and spear. I feel the Lv1 and Lvl3 skills generally are not good standalone. When I found a better base spear, I would transmute and augment. Most of time, the stats looked underwhelming and I did not feel much increase in power. League start felt tuned to assume you had a blue weapon right out the gate after Clearfall. When a league starts, you have basically nothing except what you get from the first zone. No gold to buy movement speed boots or a blue weapon or even craft a blue weapon.

Eventually I found the unique Chainsting spear which near mid Act 1 around the Crowbell area. It looked strong so I put a rune and a few quality on it and I was able to comfortably use that weapon until mid Act 3 where I drained the Vaal city. While I understand there are leveling uniques, this does not seem to be that intention because the unique affixes was not what made it strong. It simply having a low lvl requirement with a high base damage made it strong.

Balance is hard to judge because I was playing normally so enemy nerf patches were ongoing while I was progressing the campaign. Overall, prior to finding the unique spear, Act 1 mobs felt a bit too tanky like it expects us to have good weapons so early. Getting to Act 3 with good gear, white, magic, and yellow packs felt appropriately balance where white die quickly, magic requires a bit more effort, and rares require using multiple skills. Campaign boss balance felt great in all cases. They felt appropriately tanky where I can use combos and see many boss moves before they die unlike 0.1 where bosses just melt before they can do anything with any competent build.

Beginning areas in Act 1 should be tuned down to assume a player has a white or a weak blue weapon and Lvl1 skills should have at least one good standalone skill for mobbing. Example would be quarterstaff in 0.1 where I would auto-attack a lot because the skills did not seem great on their own like falling thunder requiring power charges to annihilate mobs and Glacial Cascade which should have been my go-to skill, but my idea of a Monk did not associate ranged attacks with a strong skill you should spam to do damage.