This topic originated with a question about Magma Starter in Flame Rush and how the Volcanic Orb still exists after Flame Rush ends prematurely and the Volcanic Orb VFX still exists for the rest of its cast duration. I think technically, from what I can tell without looking at the code, this is just a visual bug (the orb still spinning after ending Magma Starter early). When you hold the dash the Volcanic Orb behaves as expected. You basically become a flying Volcanic Orb and it will remain cast until Flame Rush ends (still need to test interactivity with Volcanic Orb’s duration limiter to see if it breaks Flame Rush as well).
However, if this is indeed the intended use case, I think that is a major flaw with the design of Magma Starter. Very rarely will you be able line up a perfect shot through a large pack of enemies that are dense to hit them dead on, end it close enough for them to start waddling to surround you (especially if you are Frozen Org) and then do the finale of the explosion with all of them in it. The biggest issue with this node in its current state is that you cannot change direction with Flame Rush, much like Werebear’s Rampage, which means that Magma Starter’s maximum value pertains to you roughly memorizing the end state of travel for Flame Rush and align the path of travel to the most density of a mob and yeet it.
I don’t know if the inability to change directions while channeling is a technical limitation or not, but that would probably be the easiest way to address the biggest pain point for Magma Starter. The other way would be to lean into the VFX bug and have the Volcanic Orb still be cast/exist when Flame Rush ends early. This would allow players to still get full value of the Volcanic Orb (and we should get full value at essentially a 10% mana tax) while also enabling short distance gameplay. Heck, I would even take a linear control on the dash (dash stops/continues where the user cursor is at) or lesser mana value of the Volcanic Orb cast on Magma Starter.