Alright, this is honestly an amazing game from a rpg perspective. A ton of unique and fun options to play with that mostly all are viable. Channels are my personal favorite, but it feels like the recent (78 days ago) patches have been trying to nerf them. I ain't a game designer, but I do enjoy thinking.
What if you limited the amount of active channels you could have, and then made Arcane Orb into a weapon made specifically for channeling? When I first saw orb, it looked like it would be great. But it's hard to justify using Orb when you could just run arcane crystal or mana blade.
Could be a good way to give the Orb an actual purpose and a unique identity, while fixing the whole issue of channeling being really good.
Glad you're enjoying! Yes, I definitely intend to revisit channels to try to balance them in a somewhat more fun way. I talked to the previous poster about them a little - maybe trying them as max mana reductions - could also try finite channel slots that can be boosted in certain ways. It's just hard af to balance.