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I've read your suggestions and while i like many of them, i don't agree with everything.
Also, many of the things suggested would require some major work/rework on Evie and i'm not sure the devs are willing to invest so much on our beloved.
I'll start with Evie core-identity because i while i feel Evie has less tools than other characters when solo, i don't want her to become a clone.
Rather than giving her a counter mechanic, like the amber counter you suggested, i'd empathize what already works for her and keep her unique.
So, to me Evie is a caster mage who sacrifices mobility and speed for great burst.
Ideally, if you want to master Evie you should learn to position yourself properly, understand how much time you have and plan your actions accordingly.
The problems:
I) it's hard to stick in the face of enemies due to long focus+animations times.
II) if the boss is relentlessly in your face you have small damage uptime compared to other characters.
III) you play vs the boss and vs the camera/auto-aim.
IV) bugs makes staff in general feel very clunky and unresponsive.
V) normal attacks feel irrelevant [minor].
Where to go from there?
I'd start giving Evie the tools for Evie to handle fast attacking bosses.
One i would really like is the possibility to use amber before and after casting spells.
For example what you do now is:
CF -> F1 -> F2 -> Save-cast T2 -> Amber -> Cast saved T2 -> Save cast an other T2 spell
What i would like to have is:
CF -> F1 -> F2 -> Amber -> T2 spell -> Amber -> Save cast T2 spell.
On certain spells you can already amber after casting and use CF later, most notably Fire Shock (T3 fire), adding amber before the cast would mean i can cast stronger spells even when being chased without relying on save-cast.
An other thing that would greatly help is the ability to animation cancel actions based on enemy attacks.
The usual scenario is when you solo enemies which super fast windup attacks.
There you either wait for the enemy to commit to an attack and react to it (booring and RNG dependent) or you start attacking and if you see the enemy going for a fast attack you must cancel your attack. Having ways to reliable cancel animations into defensive or aggressive stances would really help.
For instance, if you release RMB during half charged focus, i'd like to restore the previous focus level instead of cancelling it entirely.
About restless bosses (II), better animation cancelling (it shouldn't cancel spells already fired) and what suggested before should go a long way.
But i've thought of an other thing that may help while fitting in the caster theme:
If using sparrow from a mana-mine, make the mine explode but sparrow for a longer distance, like using the mine to propell yourself.
I'm strongly against giving iframes on Evie hop or sparrow, i think it would become too good and remove part of the challenge on the character.
III) Camera and auto-aim are a HUGE pain, I would love to have the option to remove it entirely.
When fighting huge humanoid bosses you stand between their legs, all the attacks are aimed at the center of mass of the enemy, making you miss both feet T_T +cry +pain
If we remove auto-aim (please do) ice spear and non guided lightning spells vertical angle should be adjusted with the camera angle though.
IV) Is self-explanatory, bugs like raze conductor not dealing damage is not fun. Tony always n°1 bug-finder.
V) Normal attacks don't feel very rewarding. I would love them to have have more purpose without becoming unbalanced.
Normal attacks are actually the fastest "spell" evie can throw, and could really benefit the playstyle of people who want to stick in the enemy's face and fast adapt to the boss attack patterns.
I thought it would be cool for spell masteries to enhance normal attacks, like increase the duration of already applied fire mastery, or additional stamina regeneration on lightning mastery.
I want normal attacks to feed "good" when you have too little time to cast spells, but not to feel mandatory in combos.
Or maybe normal attacks reduce the cooldown of other abilities like clipping wing? Must be carefull to not overbuff those things.
Imho this can all be adressed with "little" effort from the dev team. If they are willing to have some major rework like we had in the past, then we can talk about new abilities, different animations, new element etc etc, but i wouldn't get my hopes too high.
Side note: I think golem, mana pistol and object transmutation can be removed entirelly. It was cool in seaons 1, now it's a source of buggs more than a usefull feature.
from a game design point of view, it's good to have weapons that are controlled in unique ways, but there is something a little bit off there.
From a whip i would have expected to have different idle positions, like the tip of the wip laying on the floor or activelly keeping the whip spinning on top of your head. The fact that the whip returns in her hand at the end of every attacks is a bit far from what i have expected. This attack pattern reminds me more of a flail.
