Wisps Are a Poorly Designed Mechanic – Here’s Why (And How It Could Be Improved)

I’ve been playing a good amount of the current content and wanted to give some focused feedback on wisps. I think the core idea has potential, but right now the implementation feels frustrating and unpolished in several ways:

1. Wisps Are Too Hard to Locate
You don’t know where wisps are when entering a map, and often you spend time running around looking for them. In many cases, by the time you actually find a wisp, you’ve already cleared all of the rares (and thus you find 0 wisps), which makes the whole mechanic feel like a wasted opportunity.

For reference, I am running boss maps exclusively with the guaranteed wisp within a boss map atlas node. I do not find a wisp in at least 25% of my maps - I know they're there, but I kill all the rares before I find them.

2. Infection Process Is Too Slow
Even with the atlas passive that speeds things up, wisps take far too long to infect monsters. The range is too short, and the infection speed is slow. I’ve had many instances where a rare dies off-screen before the wisp even has a chance to infect it. This forces you to play extra carefully, which slows down gameplay. This is especially frustrating when you're trying to maximize rewards but feel punished for having good clear speed.

3. Wisps Get Stuck and Slow Down Gameplay
Wisps are slow and the entire navigation implementation feels unrewarding. They lag behind every map I run (70% MS deadeye - which hits 100+ with +move speed shrine, HH buffs, etc), forcing me to backtrack or slow my pace unnaturally. This drags down the otherwise fast and fluid gameplay loop.

Suggestions for Improvement

Here are a few changes that I think could make wisps a lot more enjoyable and less of a chore:

Wisps Should Follow the Player: Instead of chasing wisps around the map, have the wisp follow the player at all times. When the player attacks a rare, the wisp infects it automatically (even instantly if needed). This would let us focus on the core gameplay loop rather than babysitting a mechanic.

Spawn Locations: Either spawn the wisps at the start of the map or at least make them visible on the map UI. This would remove the randomness and ensure players can reliably engage with the mechanic every map that they appear.

Faster and Smarter Wisps: Wisps should be much faster and always keep pace with the player, no matter the movement speed.

Overall, I like the concept but right now it feels like the mechanic fights against the player’s natural rhythm. Making these adjustments would keep the gameplay flowing while still delivering the benefits and flavor of the wisp system.