[Lewdcifer]

Here to make another suggestion concerning balance.

It'd be cool if the Aquae Crest passive were a toggle skill so you could choose whether to use them up for the Aquamancer bonus effects or not.

Currently, given how you have no control over it, you're forced to use Aquae Crests if you fancy using a spell... which is sad when you work hard for that crest LV.

[Snake]

It's debatable at most. Aquae Crest at its maximum LV tends to give a notable power spike to -all- your spells, so it's fine with it fluctuating here and there. It's not like you don't have a whole invocation that sets it immediately to 9 anyway.

[Lewdcifer]

Bear in mind Aquamancer has to put in some work for those crest LVs. As it stands right now, the only skills that seem to consume crests are the following: Cold Splash, Brine Blade, Purifying Aquae, Water to Wine, Drowning Chant, and Call Storm.
I don't think it'd hurt that much to give us the option to better control our crests if we don't want to use them up on these skills.

Also, note that you're talking about an invocation for 9 momentum, and if we want to be real here, in the momentum race you're more prone to getting your ass handed back to you if you dare try that... not to mention it still runs into the same exact issue I'm trying to tackle here.

The power spike you speak of is at LV9, which is fine. You're working for that damage boost and it's not immediate. It's made easier by maining the class, or going monoclass, but those are aspects you should be rewarded for and that we shouldn't really punish here. If you want a point of reference, though, Boxer already has a similar mechanic with Schwarz Sturm giving +5% damage to all Boxer skills per LV, for a maximum of +40% at LV8 after enough skills are used, and I don't really see it getting out of hand if at all. I'd argue the same principle applies here.

[InsainArcaneBirdbrain]

Bear in mind Aquamancer has to put in some work for those crest LVs. As it stands right now, the only skills that seem to consume crests are the following: Cold Splash, Brine Blade, Purifying Aquae, Water to Wine, Drowning Chant, and Call Storm.
I don't think it'd hurt that much to give us the option to better control our crests if we don't want to use them up on these skills.

Also, note that you're talking about an invocation for 9 momentum, and if we want to be real here, in the momentum race you're more prone to getting your ass handed back to you if you dare try that... not to mention it still runs into the same exact issue I'm trying to tackle here.

The power spike you speak of is at LV9, which is fine. You're working for that damage boost and it's not immediate. It's made easier by maining the class, or going monoclass, but those are aspects you should be rewarded for and that we shouldn't really punish here. If you want a point of reference, though, Boxer already has a similar mechanic with Schwarz Sturm giving +5% damage to all Boxer skills per LV, for a maximum of +40% at LV8 after enough skills are used, and I don't really see it getting out of hand if at all. I'd argue the same principle applies here.

I've played Aqua a good amount before GR2 dropped, and I don't think it needs a toggle at all, at least right now. Out of the crest consuming skills, some of them are just awful (Cold Splash/Drowning Chant), situational at best (Brine Blade/Water to Wine/Purifying Aquae), or just not cast with the crests at all in the case of Call Storm (Unless you're mono Aqua, since the only time you're gonna reasonably cast this is in a teamfight and on turn 1. Empowering the storm is pretty much never worth it).

I've never really had trouble hitting lv9 crest and maintaining it. The only skill I've really burned crests at lv9 for is Purifying Aquae, but in those situations, I was fine with burning crests as the skill is pretty awful without them.

[Miller]

I don't really see how not needing it is something against it being a thing.

Aquae Crests are easy to manage, sure. But that generally requires you to avoid dumping your crests into certain spells that are less than optimal for an Aquamancer to use due to said crest costs and/or being mediocre spells overall. As for the argument of 'Why not just use Crest Surge to get back to 9 immediately'. In most circumstances, this simply takes a ton of momentum investment to do and puts you at the usual risk that invocations tend to carry, 9 momentum is a very hefty cost for something that doesn't immediately benefit you damage wise.

A toggle would be a fairly healthy quality life to allow for more management of your crests rather than avoiding the majority of spells that use it because you'd lose your big damage boost from lv9. So really, I think this would add a lot more depth to the class even if it enables the crest break/idol to be able to actually use more of the spells available to Aquamancer.

TLDR; I think the suggestion is fine and I feel all worries about this somehow enabling crest break shenanigans are misplaced as the people who usually go for that kind of build generally avoid the spells that have a hefty crest cost.

[Dre]

if anything, an Aquamancer AOE that isn't an invocation would be nice

[Snake]

Well, then an idea on itself is making Aquae Crest itself be the toggleable passive here, da? It'd make things more simple, and me not needing to make another class tree icon-