Ice Spear

I bought the swordfish mtx after watching a recently released video from Mathil.
I loved the blue "laser turrets" a lot. Now you´ve changed the skill effect with the 3.53 patch. I don´t like that look at all. After some research it seems we had the "original" ice spear effect using the swordfish mtx and now you "fixed" that bug.
Please let us chose to use the old vanilla effect instead. It looked and sounded absolutely awesome.

Honestly, this skill, without CwC/totem setups (and even with), feels pretty bad to use.

The arming time/distance is way too long/far making it feel bad even for its intended use (bossing) when bosses move.

The spread of the projectiles was also very difficult/impossible to control, requiring you to position yourself in such a way as to be standing as close as possible to one edge of the screen (2560x1440 here) and have your target ALWAYS be on the very edge of the other side or slightly off the edge. This is required both for the awful arming time/distance, but also for the spread as you have to target that far away to maintain a semi-reasonable concentration.

I realize this skill has been reworked so many times but, I'm sad to say, it still doesn't feel right.

The damage and pierce from Second Phase is amazing, however, the usability/arming time of the first phase combined with the wonky spread mechanics of the second phase largely negates these benefits in many scenarios.

If I had to suggest a fix I would opt for the first phase to be removed entirely and the second phase to be brought down (power level) some.
Perhaps by slightly reducing the critical strike bonus and limiting number of pierces (+3?). This would, in turn, negate much of the spread problems because you would be able to use it closer to your target.

Either this or make it a channeling skill without the wonky first phase, perhaps even nerfing the damage/pierce SLIGHTLY. The power benefits would be balanced by the necessity of channeling/standing still.

Without changes such as these, or another tiresome rework, I feel as if this skill (outside of a few niche CwC or totem setups) is doomed for obscurity.....again.

Overall, I was really hyped for this skill at the start of Betrayal, spending days working on a viable build to support it. However, the only factor I did not anticipate was its horrible usability, rendering my first build of the league (almost) completely useless (i was using another skill for clearing, obviously, I'm referring to its ST usage through self-casting).

Anyways, I hope someone at GGG finds this feedback useful. I waited until late in the league to post my feelings (after theorycrafts and any patches/fixes would be deployed).

Ice Spear in 3.17 has the same spread as Ice Spear in previous patches, even though the 3.17 Patch Notes specifically mentioned the spread has been reduced