i'm quite liking the way it is, already had huge improvements really doesn't need any more increase or decrease leave it as it is. coming from someone who's always used MM i have to say the big change for MMB to giving it such a high mastery is more than enough.
Due to the way SE works you'd need a big damage buff to make it better than the current stafe. Crit with SE gives +132% damage on average per hit so to compensate for the damage loss from the lost hit you'd need to buff it from 125% to something like 210% just to be on par, if you want a real buff you'd need to buff it to something like 250%. It's more simple to just get a 5 shots strafe as even a 100% damage one will easily outclass the current strafe
i'd argue that the 3 line strafe change would be better due to the higher damage per single strafe line, which would allow MM to knockback bosses with higher KB. i can currently hit ~60k per single strafe line with gelt + echo + SE. this would be 60k * (4/3) ~80k per single strafe line with the 3 strafe line change, or 60k * (4/5) ~ 48k per strafe line with the 5 strafe line change, assuming the total max damage per all strafe lines combined stays unchanged. the 3 line change would allow me to KB additional bosses like auf haven (75K KB), while I would no longer be able to KB scarga with the 5 line change (50K KB).
Moving to closed, as there are considerations already in the most recent discussion on skill changes. https://royals.ms/forum/threads/feedback-request-skill-changes-and-balancing.205730/