I don't know if anyone from PA even reads this part of the forums, but I figure that I may as well make a post and hope they see it.

I recently finished my tournament run (losing in the Ro8) as an awakened witch and I wanted to make some comments about how I felt about the matchup and the class. Before I jump right into it, here's the bracket with awakened witches marked (A) and succession witches marked (S). Full disclosure, I have only the utmost respect for all contestants and I'm not making this post because I'm sour about the loss. Throughout the tournament I've had many people message me expressing their support for awakened witch and their hope that people realize that not all "mages" are equal. I will also say that after talking with some of these contestants, it's apparent that many want to play awakening, but just feel that they're locked into playing succession by nature of the power discrepancy. 

I've left out everything before Ro8 because the prelims are Bo1 and Qualifiers can be chalked up to gearscore weeding. However I think the Ro8 speaks for itself. Losses across the board for awakened witch with 66% of the AvS matches being 2-0s. It's clearly not a gear issue either because match 12 both contestants are 685-695 GS, match 14 im fairly sure LunaFreiya outgears Bloo (700 vs 670?), and match 15 Somra has as much gear or more than his opponent (probably both in the 660-680 range). Of course, the results still don't mean much until you watch the matches on stream. The succession witches literally danced circles around awakened ones. The nerf to voltaic won't change this in the slightest and the reduced CD of succession evasion will excacerbate this issue. 

The main problem is that awk witch relies too heavily on static SA trading and in 2021 the game has progressed to a state where a full SA rotation means literally nothing. It doesn't matter if your class can stay protected if your opponent(s) can teleport around and dump damage on you with impunity. Without mobility, awakened witch can only either dive-bomb or play reactively. We have probably the worst awakening CC kit in the entire game (no KDs, only stun with Bon spec, no downsmashes) which is only offset by the good CC kit in pre-awk that is superior in succession.

I think my fellow guildie and good friend put it best. He used to play awakened witch about 1.5-2 years ago and he recently tried tagging it. His comment was "This class does way less damage than I remember and takes way more damage". He promptly re-rolled to a Sage with his 700+gs and has gone 151-3 in our last 3 NWs against some of the best guilds on NA.

awakened casters are too rooted in one place tbh. they take too much damage due to not having mobility to soak enemy key damage skills and definately not enough to soak enough incoming damage in largescale after pa nerfs once they burn their one Iframe teleport.

they need to be either way more tankier or people really have to seriously respect their damage/zone. as it is now its protected mobility into them once they are anilocked in their awk skills and if class has grabs its basically over unless rng saves them. if class doesnt have grab, its dance around their kit until skills that basically impotent to cc or damage and abuse FGs or simply backattack till melt down.

not to mention there are classes that simply shrug off damage (take very little if any) and lol at awk casters.

i dont think ive met many people that are actually scared to go into us and do their thing but they are sure quick enough to comment - yea but if u catch me u can most likely one combo me (or not if wrong class) - as if it isnt the same case if they catch us (way easier, btw).

and we also getting nerfed, meteor nerf is big for slow absolute version and will remove important tool for us vs some classes as well as nerf our already slow and clunky ranged kit. slow stacking was also only way to try to attempt to win some very unfavorable matchups. and our melee kit is only strong if theres like few teammates round us to body block enemy grabs or prevent few enemies focusing us at the same time without us having options to escape if tp is burned. 

i dont know how Pearl Abyss will handle this. id love some mobility, but they seem to not wanna go down that route.

but then we should legit have sage+ level damage on majority of our skills and we for hell sure now they most likely wont do that either. id also not count on them making preawakened kit more fluid and usable either (buffing lightning storm, making it so that we can cast residual, fireball explosion, lightning storm without prerequisite spells, maybe rework concentrated magic arrow also?).

mana poool is also low considering how much hp pools have increased lately. but here we are also victims of succession specs potentially becoming too strong again because they have access to mana shield as well while having to soak way less daamge themselves due to their superb ranged/protected kit

both aw wiz and witch need some love. its no accident awk wizards are almost extinct and that tehres fewer and fewer awk witches around.

As i am saying in alot of these forums and my posts just give awa casters 1 solid movement spell and we gud.
It would solve the insta loss to grab classes and lets us actually kite matchups.

The movent point is also the biggest difference between awakening and succession casters.
We have ok enough dmg
We have good protection

What we dont have is mobility wich is in this state of the game nessecary to even stay alive

One big problem with the Awakening Mages is that the other half of their kit, the old school preawakening staff is simply not good. No wonder that the contextual text explaining the reasoning behind the new Lightning Burst skill for Witch was designed to alleviate the staff requirements.

If we compare the Mage succession spec/ preawakening mainhands with a few other classes, the number of Prime: Skills are very high, and about all the spells are improved in a succession version (except dagger stab and chain lightning) and have been given extra damage, extra cast speed, extra effects/utilities, and very importantly, bug and desync fixes. Just to say, every single spells were improved from a puny version, to a top-tier version.

Just look at the preawakening Lightning vs the Prime : Lightning. Those two are nights and day apart. Absolute Lightning does not hit targets moving on the side due to poor AoE and Hit scan, is slow asf to cast, deals zero damage and won't ever catch anyone. But, look at the Prime : Lightning that is free of bugs, Hit scans marvelously and is way superior to even Rabam Lightning. When it comes to other classes, it's very rare to see all the damaging skills getting a damage + utility + bug/desync fix on the Prime Versions, usually, the Absolute version begin from a usable place.

What would I like to see?

There are benefits that the Prime staff received that need to be shared bilaterally. There are excellent designs in the Prime Staff that needs to be given to the Absolute Staff such as:

1. The 4 seconds cooldown double magical evasion given to Absolute Staff.

2. The projectile speed of Prime: Fireball given to Absolute: Fireball.

3. The AoE, and in parts, the cast speed of Prime: Lightning to be imported onto Absolute : Lightning and Rabam Lightning
4. The camera turn bug causing the damage and hits to be completely voided still affecting Absolute : Lightning Storm, Absolute: Lightning , Rabam Lightning.
5. There is clear combo problems that come with the prerequisite spells on Fireball Explosion, Risidual Lightning and Lightning Storm. As such, it'd be beneficial to remove the Lightning Storm Sustaining Buff and allow Lightning Storm to be quickslotted from Sphera (should Wizard get the same OR the same but for Fireball explosion?). The 7 seconds Sustaining Buff is way too short and the duration should at least be doubled to 15 seconds (I gave that sustain buff duration in the Global Lab feedback a couple of months ago).  (Also, don't try to TAB Cancel Lightning Storm or Fireball Explosion, it's extremely glitchy and does not seem to CC properly and will get you locked in place unless you W+F cancel: I suspect that the ignore resist % are not working in that TAB Cancelled State)
6. On the matter of Concentrated Magic Arrow, it's a failed skill. One redeeming factor is has going for it is the Knockdown on PvE. I'd be all for taking out the stiffness component from it, which is a pretty poorly designed artefact of the old CC system (Stiffness and Stuns could be chained for standing combo), and implement the PvP knockdown into the skill. About flavour, how cool it'd be if Concentrated Magic Arrow could be reworked to have an additional cast time after the first cast time to make the bolt of magic bigger (for more damage!)

u need to write ticket, i really doubt they read these forums and take suggestions this way.

I am the only one who doesnt wanna switch to pre awe? just make awe good pre awe is such stuff and whenever I have to use "their" kit its not awe anymore, just proves the point that awe is shit and has to use succ skills