Single Start Path Ascendancies

I believe that the current ascendancies in POE 2 are great. The ideas and build diversity behind them are interesting and solid, encouraging playstyles related to the base class that they are part of yet not restricting it to solely those options.

The current hiccup I have with it concerns the Bloodmage ascendancy for the Witch. With this particular ascendancy, your first two ascendancy points must be spent in order to acquire Sanguimancy as a prerequisite to all other ascendancy nodes. This in some manner feels as a partial waste of ascendancy points as there are no options to chose from for this regarding this ascendancy.\

I understand that requiring the life costs for spells when choosing this ascendancy is a necessity, and it is one that I fully agree with. The idea of a Bloodmage is to use blood to empower abilities. However, it seems an excessive sacrifice to choose this ascendancy and require its first two points to be spent identically for all in order to gain benefits prior to choosing paths for diversity. In my mind, this partially defeats the point of the POE 2 tree concept where it is all a choice and cost vs benefit analysis.

While I cannot offer a complete solution that would remain within the game's balance, an idea as a starting point for consideration might be such: When an ascendancy is first selected, a benefit (which may or may not also contain a downside such as to spend life for skills) be granted as part of that ascendancy, and is in direct relation to what the inherent goal of that ascendancy may entail. For a specific case such as the Bloodmage, this would remove the need for the Sanguimancy node and allow immediate selection and choice by the player in customizing their builds, though I do not know if any of the other nodes in this specific case would require a reevaluation of strength as they would be easier to obtain.

This may or may not be a permanent solution to such an issue. The strength of the inherent benefit, seems to me, should be relatively "minor" as attempting to address such an issue should not result in a rework of all ascendancy classes.

While I am currently only aware of this ascendancy being entailed within this case, I do know that there are many others coming as the game is still in early access.