Ascendant is slower paced and much more challenging than Perky. For me perky lost all enjoyment after about 3-4 hours, once you hit lvl 35 and go to MMM and get 300k pp an hour from vendor drops and then buy 350/19 weapons and 1k hp all/all in every slot after 30 minutes of farming everything is trivial and there's no point.
On ascendant I just started up playing a wizard for the first time ever, played an enchanter before back in Kunark era but that's the only int caster i've ever done. definitely different but they've buffed casters a bit and wizard seems pretty strong now, as long as I can cast without getting interrupted. this is just leveling idk how they are doing in raids.