I have prepared a rather exhaustive list of ideas for Awakening Witch changes. They are meant for inspirations, potential source for balance change ideas and entertainment to some extent. In no way am I expecting or asking for every single changes listed. They are my creative homebrews for inspiration, which I hope other Awakening Casters might like to see included and advocate for OR just to discuss about for the sake of discussing. If a Dev looks at this and find some ideas interesting to build from, so be it. Enjoy!

As usual, I try list changes that excludes direct damage changes. I try to keep most changes in a minimalistic aesthetic, proposing changes that already have historically been done with other classes except when they obviously are not (Voltaic Pulse, Lightning Blast, Equilibrium Break both being larger changes).

Nota Bene, some changes might be valid for Awakening Wizards. But, I do not go into it in depth as it is not the purpose of the thread. For instance, Magical Evasion, Teleport and Elementalization changes are realistically applicable for both specs. Beyond that, I do not wish to express myself too much about it since both Awakening Casters have really started to set themselves apart in tierlists and playstyles (Behavior in battle is too different, damage pattern is different, class matchups is different. They are a different class).

Credential: I have been playing Witch and Awakening Witch since release of both classes and I have been there since. I have been active in the PvP scene on NA since then, doing sieges, nodewar, AoA, AoS, BA etc etc.   I've participated in a number of Arena of Arsha guild tournaments representing Barcode and Notorious (2x 4th places) and played as Awakening Witch in those competitive structured environments. I am active in a number of discussions involving Casters in the different medias, meaning that I've certainly been inspired by a number of different players. I have been bug testing and bug reporting for the community lately, involving the many reports regarding Pet Damage and accuracy. 

Awakening Skill Changes

 Fissure Wave and Pefect Sign 

Air Attack (re)added

Core Fissure Wave removed  

Frontal Guard added while casting Fissure Wave (Disclaimer! Yoke of Oredeal protected CC is moved to Fissure Wave + Sign)

Super Armor added while casting Perfect Sign

Elementalization, Magical Evasion or Teleport available while casting

10% cast and attack speed slow removed

-20 AP debuff for 10 sec added to Perfect Sign

Core: Fissure Wave is used in ~99.5% of the situations. As such, a similar change that was applied to Awakening Wizard a few years ago is implemented where Chilling Wave stopped being the 2nd Protected CC skill of the kit.  As such, Fissure Wave inherits from such a change where Yoke of Ordeal knockback is removed in favor of granting Fissure Wave the default protected CC status.

Additionnally, Fissure Wave Flow, Perfect Sign is changed back to Super Armor to alleviate Awakening Witch weakness against classes able to reach her back quickly. 

During the Knockdown's aerial phase, Down Attacks are unavailable, yet, Air Attack is available. Fissure Wave used to have Air Attack on the skill. Adding back Air Attack to Fissure Wave should provide the skill with a better Combo Damage while keeping its trading power intact. 

The minor Cast and Attack Speed slow is removed in favor of the reintroduction to Awakening Witch original minus AP debuff (from Equilibrium Break). -20 AP debuff for 10 seconds is added to Perfect Sign as a mean to give Witch a more pronounced defensive signature.

Voltaic Pulse

Area of Effect increased to match Prime: Voltaic Pulse and Flow: Voltaic Tett AoE. (Approximatively 1 character width radius increase)

MP recovery properly applies to Tett Blessing 3 extra hits

Press A,D,W or S to move without collision during cast animation, up to 1,5 second, and cast releases when movement is stopped

The proposed change for Voltaic Pulse is highly experimental. The change in mind would allow the Witch to slide around in a slightly levitated posture. She would be able to maintain this special Super Armor movement to maintain a more mobile, both agressive or defensive posture during fights. The maximum movement lenght should be close to Elementalization distance. The idea is to first cast the skill via SHIFT + F, and then to use directional keys and camera to move according to the desired direction. You should be able to move away to a certain extent from Grapple attempts, or move behind enemy frontal guards.

Lightning Blast

Changed to launch 2 additional beams for a total of 4 attacks.

Magical Evasion, teleport, elementalization and any lightning skills available while casting after the 1st attack.

Special cast conditions (RMB after Detonative Flow and Magical Evasion) begins at attack 2 and is therefore cancellable at any point.
RMB to combo to Barrage of Lightning at any point after 1st attack.

Total animation length increased by approximately 50% (overall cast speed improvement)

The proposed changes for Lightning Blast is to allow a prolongation of the initial cast if the Witch does not command another skill after the first beam attack.  For a slightly longer duration, the Witch will strike with a barrage of Lightning beams continuously, up to 4 at a slightly increased pace compared to before. Lightning Blast was initially introduced to distinguish the Awakening Witch with more ranged attack options, it is generally used as such, but is limited by a number of factors: the Witch is easily disrupted by the animation lenght of the skill, causing her to be overly punished by mobile foes and unable to appropriately respond; and if she succeeds, the ranged pressure is only momentarily maintained and not high enough to threaten the opponents. 

The proposed changes would alleviate both of those issues while maintaining the design ideas of the skill. (While also being damned cool)

Equilibrium Break

First hit (stiffness) removed

Frontal guard removed.

Bound removed.

Changed to apply stiffness on hits.

Added frontal guard -20% on first hit

Casting speed significantly sped up ( det flow speed)

Crevice of protection, magical evasion, elementalization, teleport available during cast

Damage reduced in PvP by approximately 20%

<Gorr Effect>
Animation sped up to match new casting animation lenght

Awakening Witch's arsenal is mostly composed of a base amount of slow protected skills. Given that, she lacks in her opportunities to extend a combo beyond her usual 'safety'. Additionnally, Equilibrium Break has been confronted with an identity crisis since the addition of Lightning Blast, which also acts as a Frontal Guard damage (that can be camera turned too!), making Equilibrium Break obsolete in general for PvP. The Awakening Witch has problems dealing with blocks, doesn't have enough quick unprotected skills, and lacks a quick stiffness option to do a 2.7 CC combo.  By removing Equilibrium Break Frontal guard, and turning the skill into a quickly casted stiffness damaging skill, we'd be able to give the skill a new identity. It is meant to reward a slightly more risky type of play and to invites players to try Core: Equilibrium Break.

Barrage of Lightning

Add invincibility while moving. (0.3 second while the Witch moves in the air before striking)
Reduce cast delay after the skill.

Invincibility added while moving to give the Witch a slightly more confident defense against Grabs. Since Barrage of Lightning can be used at any point via RMB while Lightning Blast is being casted, Barrage of Lightning would be the prime candidate as a follow up.

The invincibility portion applies in the movement between the previous lightning skill, and the attack landing. Somewhat close to Awakening Ninja's Flashing Light.

Yoke of Ordeal

Knockback on hits changed to PvE only.

Improve the skill to activate quickly (cut 0,7 seconds from the pre-cast animation)

Change to turn with the camera.

Yoke of Ordeal loses its knockback, but keeps the frontal guard. A improved Core: Yoke of Ordeal is added with a knockdown on the 2nd set of hits so that the Skill may be used agressively in a combo following up Fissure Wave. The quicker activation would give Yoke of Ordeal an immediate knockback attempt to make the skill valuable as a protected CC part of the Core skill arsenal.

Thunderstorm

Tett pet flow sped up

Movement speed slow increased to 25% for 10 sec (to take priority over tett blessing 25% movement slow for 3 sec)

Magical Evasion, Elementalization, Teleport available during cast animation

Give 50% BSR Thunderstorm the same cast pattern as Thunderstorm.

The 25% attack, cast, movement speed for 3 seconds from the Tett Blessing special effect overlaps with the more valuable 20% movement speed slow for 10 seconds of Thunderstorm.  Given that the 10% slow is removed from Fissure Wave, it should compensate for this mild improvement on Thunderstorm movement speed slow for 10 seconds. 

Detonative Flow

Change to combo smoothly into other skills after activation. (reduce the cast delay after the skill)

Tectonic Block
All DP increases 20 improved to last 10 seconds up from 5 seconds.

Increased animation speed on activation and deactivation

Psyche of Aad

All Evasion Rate +12% for 30 sec (Applied to Self and Allies) removed.

Changed to Special Attack Evasion Rate +10% for 30 sec (Applied to Self and Allies)
All DP +15 for 30 sec -> All DP +20 (Applied to Self and Allies)

Psyche of Aad is the defensive counterpart of the Awakening Wizard E buff. The defensive stats shared to allies by the Witch (15 DP for 30 seconds and 12% evasion) are much less universally desirable compared to the 20 AP and 12% Accuracy for 30 sec). As such, the DP amount is raised and Special Attack Evasion 10% buff is applied instead of a 12% Evasion, which is a stat desired by both a DR or Evasion player.

Elementalization
Changed to Invincible during the skill.

Super Armor after arrival
Can cast Teleport with SPACE bar after the skill (fixing the keybind bug)

Available from Staff with S + E (Just quickslot Freeze)

Iframe to Elementalization. A classic suggestion.

Add Flow: Ultimate Teleport

Improvement to Ultimate Teleport to reduce its cooldown to 7 seconds. (Double teleport available each the time)

This is quite subjective. I believe in not giving Awakening Caster a "Split Teleport". I am of the creed that Awakening Casters should get something different, and significantly less powerful given that they have Elementalization.

Flow: Magical Evasion.

Unlock skill to use Flow: Magical Evasion from Staff, swaps to Spheras
Usable from Staff via SHIFT + A,S or D or  WW, AA, DD, SS

Give Magical Evasion two charges of SA on 4 seconds cooldown. Each with a different element particle, when both are on cooldown, use the default white arcane particles.

Flow: Tett Magical Evasion

(Blue Lightning Magical Evasion)
Super Armor, 4 sec cooldown

Flow: Gorr Magical Evasion
(Green earth Magical Evasion)

Super Armor, 4 sec cooldown

Flow: Magical Evasion

(White / Arcane glow Magical Evasion and defaults to it when both Gorr and Tett Evasion are on cooldown)

Unprotected, defaults to it while Flow Magical Evasion on cooldown

The Awakening Witch direly needs to get back to her Sphera as soon as possible when she uses her staff skills. The Staff skills are valid to use for a ranged damage and CC pressure. However, in the state of the game, she cannot realistically wait for her skills to end to summon / unsummon Gorr or Tett for a slow SA swap, risk herself with a Detonative Flow while opponents are likely in melee, or spend her teleport when she didn't really need to. 

Being able to use Flow Magical Evasion from staff would allow the Awakening Witch to enjoy a farther dash from her staff, get back to business quicker with her Sphera and even allow her to make the backdward magical evasion cancels a lot more valuable. 

The proposed changes also adds a utilitarian flavor to the three different particle effects of Flow: Magical Evasion and puts all of them into action.

This change alone would modernize and make the class so much more enjoyable and approachable.

Gorr and Tett

Increase maximum HP and DP of the summon

<Pet special flow attacks>

Changed to immediately attack after the stiffness

The summons die very quickly in a war situation. A single player can easily take down 50% of their hp accidentally from their AoE under 5 seconds or so. A unsummoned pet means no more Pet Blessing effects which means less damage for the player.

Additionally, a special Pet Flow Attack was added to the RMB (Special pet attack) Pet Stiffness. It is very clunky however and present a number of unecessary delays on their attacks. Once the stiffness has been casted by Gorr or Tett, they should immediately blink / attack onto the target. 

Core skill changes

Core: Fissure Wave

Core: Fissure Wave removed.

Core: Yoke of Ordeal 

Core: Yoke of Ordeal added.
Adds Knockback on attack 1
Adds Knockdown on attack 2

Core: Equilibrium Break

Now adds Frontal Guard during skill.

Main Hand Staff Changes

Mana absorption

No longer prioritizes casting from SPACE Bar over Ultimate: Teleport during S+C Teleport from Sphera.

Area of effect increased. (Thunderstorm range).

Number of hits increased to 865x1, max 6 hits  from 3 hits.

Mana Absoption was subjected to an impressive amount of back and forth changes during reboot. The new variations with the frontal guard and the SPACE bar cancel definitively are interesting. However, the means to apply the movement speed slow were drammatically reduced. One odd condition is to land one of the 3 hits done along the long channel cast of the skill. When actively trying to slow an opponent, the very little amount of hits can get awkward.  Improving the number of hits means giving more opportunities to land the slow and end the skill sooner.  This skill would affect Succession Balance.

Mana Shield

Add Super Armor during cast.

All resistance 30% for 30 seconds -> All resistance 0% for 30 seconds.
Recover 10 MP per hits for 30 seconds during the skill.

Getting rid of All resistance in favor of stronger Mana identity. Super Armor on cast would give the caster a little bit more freedom as to when they wish to cast the spell in battle, which generally means more effective durations.

Risidual Lightning

Allow mana absorption, earth response, magical evasion, teleport, detonative flow to be used during cast.

Staff skills generally can be cancelled via Teleport, Magical Evasion or Earth's Response. Risidual Lightning is an exception to this. The skill isn't as strong as it used to be to justify this exclusion.

Lightning

Changed to the prime skill animation (first hits only).

Many classes absolute skills have the same animation characteristics as their Succession counterparts. While it is very understandable that Casters are different in the matter, Absolute Lightning cast is needlessly clunky and old.

Earth’s Response

Change to the Prime: Earth Response : Flow cast method (No Magic DP debuff).

Many classes absolute skills have the same animation characteristics as their Succession counterparts. While it is very understandable that Casters are different in the matter, Absolute Earth's Response serves no purpose in the current Black Desert Online. 

Earthen eruption

S+C teleport available while casting.

Detonative flow and Flow: Magical Evasion available while casting.

RABAM SKILLS 

Sage's Thunder 

Add 9% Accuracy for 10 sec when using the skill.

While Staff poke Accuracy tends to be rather low, which includes Succession Caster arsenal as well. Sage's Thunder or Wizard's Sage Rage means that the Witch or Wizard will not have access to Sage's Lighthouse (RABAM HEAL). Perhaps that adding a Accuracy Buff to Both Sage Thunder and Sage Rage could balance out the power between the two choices. If there was to be a accuracy buff to the Staff skills for Succession and Awakening Staff, this would be my current take on the matter. With Freeze or Fireball being good contenders.

Trembling Thunder

Changed to Float on good hits.

Air Attack added.

Downsmash removed.

Float and Air Attack on Trembling Thunder would open a new float opportunity to both Awakening and Succession. It would also relate well with the F key Earthen Eruption Air Attack portion, opening up a good combo damage opportunity involving a float. Besides, why wouldn't a lightning / air earthquake shoot people in the air?

Lightning arrow

Accuracy Rate Increase to 10%.

Projectile and cast speed up.

Added stiffness on hits.

I agree with most of this. Some notes tho

The side dash cooldown charges would be more inline with other classes with a 2 second cd each instead of 4

The Q block buff should probably have an evasion buff on it, and 20 seconds instead of the current 5 would be reasonable

I am not sure if I misread manashield, but capping the actual drain on it and making the cooldown match the duration would make a lot of sense. As it is, mana shield tends to leave you with no mana after you get hit once, and that leaves you unable to use most abilities.

I'm also of the opinion trembling thunder should keep the down smash, and maybe gain an air smash. It is the only down smash in the entire kit and it is an unprotected rabam. 

also not crazy about removing the ebuff evasion. dr does not scale and the class requires durability to survive because it is nor an iframe spammer and it is not a long range caster.