Witch Class Feedback

https://discord.gg/jM35x26rD4 

Explanation

The feedback summary is based on the most common feedback provided in the BDO Class Hub Discord for Witch. Each topic is presented according to the number of upvotes and frequency of mentions. Feedback is organised by general issues, skill-specific points and any additional topics, followed by screenshots of all reactions.

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Movement

Ultimate: Teleport (Spacebar, main skill, after Teleport III)

- Remove the cooldown or lower it to 7 seconds to align with Teleport III.

- Increase the distance travelled by 30% (if Ultimate: Teleport only) or by 15% for each of Teleport III and Ultimate: Teleport.

Votes: +8 (9 in favour, 1 against)

Chain: Magical Evasion (Shift+Direction, awakening skill)

- Add a new ability to the Awakening kit with Super Armour.

- Usable after Flow: Magical Evasion.

- Travels much further than Flow, with moderate/high cooldown.

Votes: +6 (8 in favour, 2 against)

Flow: Magical Evasion (Shift+Direction, awakening skill)

- Remove animation lock when using forward direction (Shift+W).

Votes: +7 (8 in favour, 1 against)

Magical Evasion (Shift+Direction, main skill)

- Usable in awakening with Super Armour and chainable into Flow.

Votes: +6 (7 in favour, 1 against)

Elementalization (S+E, awakening skill)

- Add W+E input for forward direction.

- To avoid input trouble with Toxic Flood (E, awakening skill), remove the animation lock from Toxic Flood which only occurs when using it while standing or when using from Quick Slot. To fast cast Toxic Flood, we usually cast it by walking, for example: W+E.

Votes: +4 (6 in favour, 2 against)

- Add a short-duration buff to allow second Elementalization cast.

Votes: +6 (7 in favour, 1 against)

Barrage of Lightning (W+RMB, awakening skill)

- Increase movement distance during cast.

Votes: +4 (5 in favour, 1 against)

Earth's Response (Direction+LMB, main skill)

- Add Super Armour to make it viable in awakening.

Votes: +3 (4 in favour, 1 against)

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Quality of Life

Protected Area (Shift+Q, main skill)

- Add option to cast from Quick Slot while in Aad/Godr-Sphera.

Votes: +8 (9 in favour, 1 against)

Tectonic Block (Q, awakening skill)

- Increase DR buff duration from 10s to 20s.

- Greatly improve casting speed or allow animation cancel.

Votes: +7 (8 in favour, 1 against)

Flow: Magical Evasion, Teleport, Elementalization

- Allow these to cancel out of every awakening ability.

Votes: +6 (7 in favour, 1 against)

Elementalization Use from Main

- Allow casting from main if Absolute: Freeze (S+E, main) is locked.

Votes: +5 (6 in favour, 1 against)

Magical Shield (Q, main skill)

- Reduce duration from 60s to 30s.

- Reduce cooldown from 120s to 60s.

Votes: +3 (4 in favour, 1 against)

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Awakening Skills

Fissure Wave (S+LMB+RMB, awakening skill)

- Reduce cooldown back to 3s for combo utility.

Implication: With the recently appreciated damage increment of Fissure Wave the cooldown was increased from 3 seconds to 6 seconds. This is fine if you think about damage alone, however Fissure Wave was the Witch’s main combo skill with a knockdown debuff effect (CC). The developers have tried to compensate this by adding a knockdown debuff effect to Yoke of Ordeal (Shift+RMB, awakening skill) but it rarely works because the timing of the knockdown debuff effect does not align correctly.

Votes: +8 (9 in favour, 1 against)

Yoke of Ordeal (Shift+RMB, awakening skill)

- Add manual LMB input for knockdown (like Wizard’s Hellfire).

- Keep knockback effect on all hits.

- Restore FG-penetrating knockback effect.

Votes: +6 (7 in favour, 1 against)

Lightning Blast (S+RMB, awakening skill)

- Enable cancel from Detonative Flow via LMB.

- Add Air Smash debuff.

Votes: +2 (3 in favour, 1 against)

- Remove animation lock at end and speed up startup.

Votes: +5 (6 in favour, 1 against)

New Unprotected Combo Skill

- Add new high-damage, unprotected skill.

- 20s+ cooldown, small AoE, usable in combos.

- Main inputs: RMB, W+Q, W+LMB

Votes: +4 (5 in favour, 1 against)

Black Spirit’s Rage (BSR) Skills

- Improve damage, AoE, and casting speed of all BSR versions (10%, 25%, 50%, 100%).

- 100% BSR Fissure Wave should apply knockdown on all hits (instead of mixed CC).

- If Lightning Blast gets a cancel from Detonative Flow, BSR version should get it too.

Votes: +3 (4 in favour, 1 against)

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Main Skills

In the past Witch and Wizard have had a great utility role within group fights, large or small. Since the removal of Super Armour on the healing skills E (Healing Aura V), Shift + E (Healing Lighthouse IV) and the Rabam Sage's Light, Witch and Wizard have not been able to actively use the heals to support their allies during battles since the healing would be interrupted by CCs (debuff effects) immediately. Currently to heal you have to be outside of a battle, so before or after, to not get interrupted, or you survive a CC (debuff effect) combo and stand up with CC (debuff effect) immunity which sometimes lets you cast a full heal and sometimes it will not. So the suggestion would be to bring back some sort of protection on the healing skills like Forward Guard or Super Armour

Healing Aura V (E, main), Healing Lighthouse IV (Shift+E, main), Sage's Light (Shift+X, Rabam)

- Return protection of at least Forward Guard (preferably Super Armour) on these skills.

Votes: +4 (7 in favour, 3 against)

*Again awakening Wizard has just as much trouble healing during fights as awakening Witch has

Projectile Speed & Damage

- Update projectile speed to match modern class movement.

- Reduce PvP damage reduction modifier.

- Increase casting speed of main skills.

Votes: +3 (4 in favour, 1 against)

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Bug Reports

BSR: Detonative Flow (25%)

- Cannot hit PvP targets.

Summon Stat Sync Issues

- Summons do not inherit bonus stats like +Crit DMG, +Back Attack, +Down Attack.

- Harmony Draught, Deep Sea Elixirs, Nouver sub-weapon bonuses not applying properly.

Ignore Resistance Not Applied to Summons

- Makes pet-triggered CC unreliable (1–2/10 success rate).

Special Buffs Don't Carry Over

- Example: Gyfin Statue Buffs do not affect summons.

% Monster Damage Reduction

- Affects summon PvP damage; results in ~10% nerf with harmony draughts.

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Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/1pssSYu

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Edit:

- Added awakening to the title

- Added one missing feedback about main healing skills

- added a % in front of the Monster Damage Reduction part

Ultimate Teleport cooldown to 7 seconds for sure. I was of the opinion that it should be an awakening trait only. But, Succession isn't so great either nowadays. So it should probably be taken over to Succession as well.

Chain: Magical Evasion.  I don't understand the concept. I doubt devs will either. I think its about a SA movement. Personally, I'd be okay with a low stam unprotected movement if it means saving my cooldown of Flow: Magical Evasion

Elementalization forward input seems cool. Double elementalization seem cool too. Stamina costs are real on the casters these days btw. Elementalization from staff, always a suggestion I go for.

Cancels in spheras with Teleport, Magical Evasion, Elementalization . It seems that the developpers introduce skills able to be cancelled in such a way like SHIFT + Q Thorns of Denial and Yoke of Ordeal.  I understand that some skills can have uncancellable aspects, but, I fail to understand why Equilibrium Break needs a cancel restriction in the like of "Not too soon ; nor too late" whereas too soon means no damage and too late means being stuck in the animation. The changes given to Equilibrium break also accomplished nothing to be quite frank. In my mental list of skills that could be cancelled in such a way are: Lightning Blast + Equilibrium Break at any point. Voltaic + Thunderstorm + Barrage imo is just the delay at which it can be cancelled away. I'll talk later about Fissure Wave because that one has other issues.

For Magical Shield, I don't really understand why the playerbase wants a reversal back to the previous form for the cooldown. I understand the cooldown feels very long and it has moments where it's straight up in cooldown still at the start of a AoS round; which probably is against the whole idea the changes they did in March. 

-- FISSURE WAVE -- 
I would totally add a vote against that. 3 seconds cooldown was short, sweet and was spammable for sure. However, that comes at a cost in the whole power budget. You've probably heard about how Core: Fissure Wave is picked 99.5% of the time? The cast speed change they did to the skill was awesome, clearly. But, I think it also happened because the cooldown was increased. And moreover, there's a much better change that should be advocated over and justified with a 6 sec cooldown in mind :::> Cancels with Elementalization, Teleport, Magical Evasion.
If that's not a deal....  Then. Instead, I'd like to put the attention toward the Fissure Wave's second portion, the 'Perfect Sign' (the finger snap that lost its name!). Fissure Wave's cast can forgo this portion, but however... The cast frame is exactly the same with or without it. It is literally useless to not cast Perfect Sign. If cancels with Elementalization, Teleport or Magical Evasion is too much to ask, at least make that Perfect Sign skip an option that makes a difference.

Also, I am a Core Thunderstorm user in PvP.


Yoke of Ordeal
I am not sure how it can be compared to Hellfire. I am assuming that a knockdown on the button press would skip right to the knockdown portion? Either way, that skill got a lot of help recently. I will repeat that the crit buff being moved around to Lightning Blast away from Yoke of Ordeal is silly business. They should just have added the crit buff to both. Because both have their own types of setup and don't necessarily communicate well.  Some combo are better started with yoke, some with lightning blast.

Also, that knockback through FG was NEVER a thing. It's just a random thing Helegnes keep repeating because that thing occasionally hit accelled some protection. Lets not make it look like it was like Awakening Woosa FG piercing: it never was.

Lightning Blast
Frankly I am surprised nobody mentioned how boring that skill is now that it's just 1 beam. When they introduced that skill as a new awakening skill, it was to give the Awakening Witch a form of ranged poke damage that was substantial enough to keep her in her Sphera some more. Having 1 beam means less overall damage dealt from range. I am not necessarily against it, but I must note that Awakening Witch is not holding much ground in range against classes like Deadeye, Succession Maegu, Awakening Corsair, Awakening zerker, even perhaps Awakening Dosa. Overall, it's a strange problem that surfaced despite all the good changes sent over to the Witch.

--MAIN HAND - STAFF SKILL / ABSOLUTES--
The mainhand staff kit of the Awakening Caster in PvP has seen a lot of nerfs. Lets start by saying that prior to the Accuracy / Evasion / DR / Hit # changes, awakening players were using Pre-Absolute skills aka Rank IV or rank III's because it did not have PvP Damage Reduction; therefore, some of them such as Risidual Lightning had 46% more damage against player than its higher rank absolute version. This oversight was removed, cast away and never appropriately acknowledged and compensated. I've used this for almost two years and I've never had anyone complain specifically about this damage being too large: in fact, it looked balanced and it should have been the benchmark. 

Mainhand staff is also loaded of skills that feel very dated, unprotected offensive skills, no protected movements outside of teleport and these unprotected movements barely move. Some of them require quickslots we have no rooms or keybinds left to include them such as Multiple Magic Arrows. The main damage skill trio, Fireball Explosion, Risidual Lightning and Lightning Storm each require a pre-requisite skill, each of them "lock worthy"; a triumvirate of tickling, clunky and unprotected.

So here's the deal... Succession staff kit looked at every single one of those skills in the primary section of the mainhand staff kit and modified each and everyone of them. None of them are the same as the absolutes: different projectiles, behaviors, protection, damage. That probably speaks volume on the quality of the mainhand staff kit outside of its support aspect.

In my opinion, fixing the absolute kit starts with removing Sage Memory. With the instant cast methods gone, change the behaviors of some absolute staff skills into prime versions with reduced damage or functionalities. The SA on Earth Response goes straight into that direction. For the mainhand kit, you wouldn't have the spell chaining and obviously it wouldn't work well with it in mind, so just make them be considered as 'chaining' whenever it is used: instant is the default.
To be more direct, here's the list I'd go for where I pick the lesser options:
Lightning -> Same cast as Prime, no "extra hits". (no more silly twirling)
Fireball -> Same cast as Prime in terms of projectile speed.
Earth Response -> Same cast as Earth Response: Destruction.  No -15 magic dp
Earthquake -> Same as Prime Earthquake: Destruction  (the one that stays in place)
Frigid Fog -> Consider removing the protected CC to send help elsewhere
Blizzard -> Remains the same but the Succession Blizzard : Storm needs some help, so does the absolute
Risidual Lightning -> The only absolute worth staying similar but make it cancellable + down attacks
Lightning Storm -> Remove Chain Lightning prerequisite and bring back the old Prime Lightning Storm with the Stiffness that was awkward and that nobody used. Keep the damage, it's just unprotected junk afterall.
Concentrated Magic Arrow -> Same as Earth Arrow : more recent kits would have it as an absolute and without a prime version honestly.
Multiple Magic Arrow -> Add S + RMB keybinds please.
Fireball Explosion -> I am okay with its current iteration.
Absolute Meteor -> With Frigid Fog protected CC removed, just officialize that Absolute Meteor is protected. Aren't we all using Rank III anyways?

(Also, lets note au passage that an Awakening Caster with a staff has a pet summon hanging around doing silly stuff and perhaps it'd be nice if they'd combo 1 or 2 pet flows along us with the staff.  Gorr blasting ground slam at the same location and time as Risidual Lightning, Tett shooting a lightning bolt at the same time as Fireball Explosion.  Arne dropping water splashes during Risidual Lighting, Marg adding a lava blast to Fireball Explosion)