I rolled a Monk, just to try it, it's said to be the easier of the two melee focused classes. My god. I've smacked all main bosses without dying a single time, Act 1 main boss in his last phase was ended in one go; he didn't even get to summon his friends. The damage output is insane, at least for now. I have over twice the DPS my Mercenary or Warrior had at the end of Act 2, except I'm still at the very beginning of Act 2 (stacks yield about 950DPS at level 21, and this is without the Tempest Bell wreaking havoc).
For early game (Act 1 and 2 at least), I can't see how anything beats this for bosses, it literally takes less than 6 seconds to mangle many of them (that's the duration of the Bell).

Looks like you found a good build early. I went in blind and my chosen build was pretty bad for act 1 and 2. I pivoted to another build and destroyed act 3.

Waiting for Marauder to roll my 2nd character.

Nice! Monk is fun to play, and can really dominate. I've killed all three Act main bosses on the first attempt. It's actually the weakest against regular mobs, I'm prone to getting swarmed, and getting both high Armor and Evasion is very hard with the current crafting system/tools. I just beat Act 3 normal, the boss was a breeze, but I actually died right away on Cruel (5 Hags summoned bullshit around me, slowing me and eating my HP in two seconds flat).

I think Cruel offers much better gear; literally the first Quarterstaff I bought from Renly increased by DPS by about 40% after using a few orbs. I'm going for Attack Speed, Cold Damage and Frost Build-up + Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage. Bosses are absolutely melting most times, I usually take them through each phase with a no-hit record, if I manage to Freeze them (and once that effect wears off, they're Stunned due to me whacking them 30 times with the Bell on).

Finally caved on my Tri Elemental Spark build, and went with Ice Strike Monk - the infamous Elon Musk build LOL.

It decimates absolutely everything. Also some of the most fun I've had in an ARPG in a long time, Ice Strike is such a fluid ability!

I have an Ice-Strike Monk as well, but I'm struggling with survival on Tier 8 and 9 maps now. He has great damage but is really squishy. My strongest character on maps is the Infernalist Witch with minions - she stands there and watches as an army of undead carpet-bombs the area. Bosses die pretty quickly as well. I have had three BS deaths on Trials of Sekhema though, I'm really tired of that shit now.

I haven't played an ARPG this much since Titan Quest, at least not counting hours per day on average. PoE 2 is truly something.

Yes! a great follow up to POE 1 which remains one of my all time favorite games.

One thing though that I feel they still havent managed to quite figure out, is the ease of creating builds that work maybe if just for the Normal Campaign, without external researching etc. Like I feel experimenting with skill gems, builds, and item crafting should be more accessible in the early game.

I felt without looking at build guides, and trading the game is a bit too hard, and even if you do figure out a way to progress, you might be stuck without the necessary gems, or gear.

Diablo usually gets this right, although with the simplistic skill system its hard to get it wrong just be default.

I'm doing my first character without looking at any guides or specific tips for the class right now. Warrior, Leap Slam, Boneshatter, and Totems. Finished the normal campaign yesterday, just about done with Act I on Cruel now. It's going well, for the most part, but I learned a lot about the systems during the 130 hours I played before I rolled him. Armor has been boosted, there's an actual difference. Along with a shield, there's some measure of tankiness now compared to the first Warrior I rolled.

It is complicated, especially managing synergies can get messy without guides or aid. But I also like the complexity. That's why Titan Quest and Grim Dawn are so amazing as well; it's complexity with a purpose. And build variation is great as well (Titan Quest's system was really brilliant when it launched).