A newbie's ideas vs the frustration of hitting a brick wall

Dear GGG, dear POE community!

As a somewhat new player of POE in general, I’ve been absolutely fascinated by the possibilities of creating your own builds and fantasies. As someone who comes from a DND background, creating a flavourful power fantasy and bringing it to life is very central to my appeal for RPGs. To me, it’s flavour first and power second.

Your version of a Chronomancer hooked me in! Whereas some parts are tried and true for the archetype (Time Stop in particular), I was fascinated by Quicksand Hourglass. The idea of my Character slowly embodying Time itself and having “heartbeats” at consistent intervals felt novel and exciting! It makes the concept of Time feel godly, a living entity in itself, expressing itself through a chosen one. It’s not me wielding Time, but the other way around!
Apex of the Moment might then add to the feeling of being chosen, as time flows slightly differently around the character.

I wanted to add layers of slows, as if enemies had to enter different time zones and I imagined, that Blasphemy + a Curse + Zone of Control would create a second bubble that around me that keeps expanding and contracting, due to Quicksand Hourglass, a visible Heartbeat! Up to this point, I cannot truly confirm or deny whether this works or not, since the change is so gradual and enemies approach at wildly different speed.

As a newbie, I would really appreciate to have an option of toggling on/off the Presence AOE and Aura AOE. This doesn’t need to be fancy animations at all, but I’m having a tough time playing as good as need be, without a visual indicator in hostile environments. I want to debuff my enemy with lesser Resistances against elemental damage, but it would also be great to know, whether the Apex of the Moment will still slow them. I’m still a sorceress, so there is a sweet spot in distance where I impair them but am in less danger. At the moment this is a guessing game.

So here I am, at Level 60, waiting for the rest of my fantasy to come kicking in. Those who are well versed in POE will laugh at me in just a bit, because they know better:

Inevitability socketed in Blasphemy, through which the heartbeat becomes a painful one for enemies around me! Does the community think this is a good skill, pre 0.4? Hell no! Am I going to make the numbers even worse with Blasphemy and 60 Spirit cost? Absolutely! I wanted time itself to work alongside me, again!

Ritual Cadence is of major interest to me, since Time would cast spells through me, every 2 seconds, on the dot. I have not yet found a great application of it, but the thought of it makes me giddy. With delight, I have found an absolutely stupid answer to this lingering possibility: Add Barrier Invocation to the build and use the last Ascendancy Points on Footprints in the Sand! The skill itself was not of major interest to me, as I was leaning toward Rapid River for most of my brewing. However, the thought of Time rewinding me, since I got myself into danger and my shield got too low, is way too funny. So I decided that I would work towards socketing it into Barrier Invocation and let time be a Helicopter Mum that rewinds me to a random point beforehand.

I felt a bit disappointed, when I found out the hard way, that none of these ideas is possible. For those who don’t know, just as I didn’t, you cannot socket Ascendancy skill gems into Meta gems. I’m certain that GGG has good reasons for restricting it to that and I’m, more or less, in the dark of the consequences that a change to this system could have.

I’ve been mulling it over for a while and would have to experiment a lot to find an answer for new ways that work, but ultimately a new fantasy to go towards.

So now I’m faced with this game that I enjoy but I’ve hit a brick wall on my ideas. With all this being said: I can only leave these suggestions and pleas as feedback “from the ground”. A new player’s experience with the game, nothing more, nothing less.