Update Discussion: March 2, 2023

[Tandiril]

Personally I am still on the fence on the max-enchant change. I think it is a complex problem, considering mod slot distribution, different skills needing different amount of mods to be effective (e.g. UA vs FM), its place in the grand scheme of balance, etc. Right now this seems more like a PR problem of a maybe necessary change, but since this would require a whole wall of text on its own, I will skip it for now.

Combat XP change, agreed on the Kur Tower example of Celerity, I experienced that myself today. My suggestion: Treat a too high level enemy as if it was lower level in terms of xp gain. Not sure if this is the best approach, but I am absolutely sure that you shouldn't feel getting punished for actually managing to best the more difficult enemy. But overall a good change, mass murdering enemies 40 levels below your main skill shouldn't be more effective than actually fighting enemies on par with you.

Weather Witching being resurrected came as a total surprise, but as a good one!

3. I propose leaning into the ice magic synergy a bit more

So far I have experimented a bit with Ice Magic and WW, and I wanted to chime in on this point to name a couple of additional synergies.
- 2 mods for Tsunami that debuff targets to receive more damage from "sentient weather phenomena" -> this works for the cold sphere (tested).
- A mod for dampen that makes it deal cold damage and debuff targets further for cold damage, can even be made into a cluster aoe. Bugged right now, because all debuff stacks are lost if you get hit, which turns it into a silly/funny game of tag. Whether this is a really interesting bug or an experimental feature that slipped into production remains to be seen.
- Blizzard snare (and fear if you play the full chaos experience), Tundra Spike root/stun and Freeze solid mezz gives you the break you need to pull off channels mid combat, even solo. Ranged enemies are a bit of a problem, but that needs to be tested and overall would be ok. EDIT: Ranged enemies turned out to be a real pain, especially if there are multiple. I therefore second Melkhiresa's proposal of baking in some channel protection into e.g. Wind Ward. EDIT EDIT: I played around with ranged evasion. It does kinda do the trick, but needs a lot of gear/mod investment for only an okish result.
- Silly side note: popping Wind Ward with mod that reduces the cd of Tornado on getting hit, following up with Cryogenic Freeze enables you to get hit for 0 damage, therefore still triggering the effect without consuming the ward (roughly tested).

Overall the skill is very pretty to look at and fills my personal itch for an ice based offensive mage combo (and I can finally fly now!), even though right now it feels I am playing the "Gazluk Anarchist". That is also the issue this skill has imo: Its signature as chaos magic skill is well deserved, and can be quite a bit of fun, but is not well suited for grouping, where control is paramount. It doesn't have the tools for tanking, nor for proper supporting (calm skies doesn't cut it), instead it has solo tools and knockback pets. The former is of limited value for a primary damage dealer in a group if you have a dedicated supporter, and the latter can very well be a real problem in a dungeon. And if you remove it, you are left with your generic fairy spring dps that is probably outclassed by other skills in this regard.
So to me, at least in combination with Ice Magic, this is really more of a solo combination. And summoning tornados, and ice spheres, and rooting and fearing your opponents was very fun so far! But having your tornados knocking around enemies is not a very efficient way of defeating them. Now, imo fun beats efficiency, but it really depends on what you want from a skill.

To sum up, Weather Witching seems to be an outdoor skill ... which makes sense, given the name. And it overall looks promising. Thing is, there are lots of indoor activities in this game.

(On a different note, when I first heard of weather witching years ago, that they would be at odds with the druids, and that you were working on a weather system, I kind of expected something...mightier. Like making it actually rain in a region, screwing with the fire mages. Fingers crossed we will see something like this one day, assuming the full fledged weather system is still something worked on. Keep up the good work!)