Opinion on Balance and Uniques

Simply put, there are too many ascendencies that are essentially bricked by not using one or more unique. When I say bricked, I mean not competitive or supportive at all. When I say bricked I am thinking to myself "if this were a group setting, is this person a contributor or a liability (e.g. Being carried). That said the first two classes that come to mind are infernalists with boots of ullr, warriors current with viper cap, generally Caster classes with atieres skull cap.

Should these unique make these classes more powerful? Sure, makes total sense. Should the classes feel absolutely terrible, useless or burdenous without them? No.

Balance has long been an issue. Look at bloodmage as an ascendency. Look at spark as a spell. Look at gear and what can be gained as an offense or defense. There is tons of work to be done but before any of it can be done, the classes themselves need a good balancing.

Uniques and Balance in one sentence with no negation makes no sense.

Theres many not-leveling uniques that were thrown in and forgot about completely.
Ex.
Mind of the Council,
Heatshiver.

Both seems very interesting items, but are unplayable due to how low the numbers are.
I loved the idea of Melee Mana stacked with Mind of the Concil. I was thinking: Whoa, It's gonna be great on my chonk which leeches ES with mana leech!
Then GGG removed ES leech from Chonk... But even without that happening, there were The Deepest Tower that gave like 400% incrsd dmg, now there is Constricting Command, and even a rare helmet with ES + Subterfuge mask is hard to beat.