Searing Bond

I've tried to play searing bond as a league starter. That was great mistake :D Here is my feedback about its place in current meta:

Damage in theory is more than satisfying, I think numbers are even too big. It's also really good to play in static fights versus not many enemies (like boss boss fights and some map encounters - this positioning play style was really funny part of this build).

The rest of this skill is rather bad in current meta.

It takes about one second after you start casting for totem to connect to others and some time more to kill because it's damage over time. Going over white monsters was never so frustrating for me.

Its area of effect can't kill efficiently amounts of monster that player sees on the screen these days - it's just pain in neck clearing these with searing bond. Skill has no AoE tag so you can't make beam wider. Additionally totems are stationary so monsters that are not planning to move towards you are just hell(these running away are even worse). The most efficient way is to walk over them yourself. It's actually quiet funny idea to play. I've tried to play this way but walking too quickly(or dashing) was leaving too many monsters unfinished and I doubt moving like a turtle would make it more interesting.

Conclusion:
Damage is far more than enough but mechanics are poor.
Searing Bond needs some mechanic that would improve its clear speed and efficiency. Something like:
-Faster connecting after being summoned
-Making width of beams work with area of effect
-Replacing its direct damage with small duration damaging debuff like it was with scorching ray(but not stacking, it's just to make sure mobs will die after being touched). It's my personal idea. Walking around monster had been really great fun but too many monsters were surviving.
-Eventually you may dump the idea of dealing damage with this skill, make it support one. Walking with beams was actually more fun when i didn't need to clear map with it. Maybe this skill was born to do different things? :)

I will humbly throw in an idea for a revamp of this extremely outdated skill.

A more interesting version of this skill is found in Heist. With chains. And so that the skill at least somehow could compete with any others, it is necessary to simplify the possibility of inflicting damage.
Let the bonds prevent monsters from using the movement skill and slow them down. Then the monsters caught in them (for example, with the help of the Void Sphere) will finally take damage, and player will be safe.

The fact that for the sake of +1 to the maximum totems you will have to give up selfcast damage means that the totems should eventually have enough damage, which in this case is impossible, because due to ignite builds with 40kk DPS, all sources of damage over time were cut by about 2 times.

tl;dr Searing Bond mana cost is too high (nevermind its other limitations)

I was thinking about starting a burning Chieftain in 3.17, using Searing Bond, Fire Trap and Righteous Fire, but as I was checking which burning skills I could be using I realized Searing Bond mana cost is ridiculously high compared to other skills.
In a 6-link setup, it costs me 231 mana to put down a totem, versus 71 mana for a Flame Wall or 87 for a Fire Trap.

Totem skills seem to cost more mana in general. Holy Flame Totem is 175 mana and Shockwave Totem is 167 in the same setup. Fireball in a similar spell totem setup is 158 mana.
Even just compared to other totems, Searing Bond seems way more costly on mana. If totem builds are an archetype that just cost more mana, then that's alright. However, Searing Bond doesn't really fit in modern totem builds.

In my situation, I can either use Searing Bond, OR fit in an extra Herald of Ash and use a lower damage skill (Flame Wall), which actually ends up dealing a bit more damage AND it's a lot easier to manage my mana. This, combined with Searing Bond's clunky gameplay makes it a really bad option for burning builds, at least if you use multiple burning skills.

I think searing bond needs more love. Here are my thoughts on it.

-Damage is high but clunky and DoT so that's fine imo.
-Melee attacks from more than half of the monsters in the game out-range it's "either end of a beam also take damage" so that part of the skill is redundant.
-The more I play it the more I wish the burn damage persisted for 1-2 seconds after touching the beam. Fast monsters don't get punished enough by the beams.
-It's mana cost is bonkers insane, idk why that is but it's so much that it feels like not using Indigon is wrong.
-It's phantasmal gem variant should be what it does normally. It's a skill that works better the more totems there are so why not let it do what it's intended?