[InsainArcaneBirdbrain]

Considering i've seen a DH/VA lose all of 2 fights out of like. . fifty, i'd say it certainly warrents checking into.

But I have said this at least one hundred times, and I feel i'll have to say it at last a hundred times more.

Impure element is broken, breaks all the game's balance, and needs to go!

And yes, the reasons for the nerf would be: Its fairly easy to stack up enough crit to always crit even a heavy faith/luck build. So now you're just getting free 100% Lightning attack added to all of your hits.

Roundtrip is the worst offender, barring void refract nonsense, because despite each hit being half damage, it still gains the full lightning attack to each hit. So it can end up doing the full damage +200% lightning attack if both crit.

But I also don't feel like every strong thing should get gutted just for being strong.
And there's other similar issues in the game, like Ymir fists and verglass getting massive ice attack.
Summoner Evokes, Dancer skills, Lightning criticals, Verglasses, Devil Tome spam. . . Anything that really seems to just do absurd damage is either an excel weapon, or abusing impure element.

Impure element needs to go.

But since that doesn't seem to ever be happening, I feel it should at least be consistent.

And for it to be consistent, it needs to hurt lightning critical skills users, who gain the bonus damage to their attacks.

Impure element costs you an accessory slot that you could be using for an ele res item or knight ring tbf, and is easily circumventable with cinders or other forms of delayed/roundstart/outsped actions. I think it's honestly fine after the changes made to it, though yes, lightning crits *should* apply the self damage. 

The actual issue you brought up here was one I was already somewhat weary of from before the DH rework, and that's how lightning crits interact with soldier/DH skills. Roundtrip lightning critting twice for its full value is likely an oversight, as that just causes it to drastically fly way past reasonable potency for a skill of its cost, ease of use, and range. DH worsens the issue here with martial lawbreaker, allowing you to use all the lightning crittable soldier skills with any weapon, on top of combination fighter which allows you to get more of these flat mods per turn. I'd normally just say "build crit evade", but most non-basic/priest/summoner/BK builds can't afford that now that Luck is nearly useless for non-basic or non-lightning users. 

I believe the correct fix here is not to bonk impure ele again, but to simply halve the bonus on roundtrip to account for the double hit, and to have combination fighter scale down the flat mod lightning crits give as well.