Best Of

I'll give my two cents since I am one of the few Archivists who DO fight without a Torc and do so fairly well.

An Archivist gets one energy every 15 (12 w/ artie) seconds, and at most, 4 energy (although it is much more likely to be three as you'll want ameliorate up at all times in any 1v1 battle).

Stimulant/Adrenaline costs 1 energy. Flare costs 1 energy. Growth costs 1 energy. Many other interesting abilities (like ethereal or preserve) costs more than one energy, but again, we're working on a 3 energy limit.

Growth could be 'spammed' perhaps to a degree, but at some point the Archivist will run out of energy, meaning that they will have to wait for it to regenerate if they want to use flare or growth again. A good cure priority will clear the physical affs that could cause growth to work, so if you want it guaranteed, you need to spend two energy (one on growth, one on flare).

Further, flare is tricky as it flares the next 'tick' of mutagen, meaning if the next tick is an aff they already have (say you're at 1/3 or 2/3) you have to wait for the 9-second cycle to tick over to the next aff in the trio before you flare if you want to seal the 3/3 phys affs.

Archivist is, at its core, a class of timing. You're watching matrix timing, afterimages timing, growth timing, mutagen timing, energy recovery timing. Even some of our support skills are timing based - most noticeably syncopate, which is one of our big pushes to slow down curing since we do not have, by default, access to anything other than impairment so cannot lock or turn off any other cure methods.

On-demand paresis helps to basically 'fill the gap' when we're twiddling our thumbs waiting for timing to happen. The mentals can be devastating, sure, but again - we can't really apply anorexia, slickness, impatience, or anything to truly slow down curing, apart from impairment and tracking random cure methods for a syncopate push with high mentals. With good curing (and/or the right class) getting the required physicals are nearly impossible - looking at you Soul purge.

I definitely have looked at ways to make mutagens more interesting, though, and I think there is definitely room for the class to expand and not necessarily have a better 'aff' rate, but tighter in getting the affs we need, as right now Archivist is a lot of "dump mentals and then try to push for your 3 phys". Growth is intended as a finisher, but the lockout of physicals tend to mean at some point someone can just start spamming shield, especially with Growth's very obvious telegraph.

So I don't like that Archivist feels its best with Torc and I think we need to tweak things to not see Torc as basically necessary as the class. I'll echo what @Sheryni said and remind that without matrix/lemniscate rolling together, we're sitting at one hidden aff every 2-ish seconds apart from madness procs, and then trying to get patterns to stay onboard for the train to actually leave the station. Before then, a quick diagnosis undoes any momentum we had before, if aff prediction hasn't already.

TL;DR - Archivist is strong, but in a precarious spot in its strength above a certain spot. It needs some tweaks, but Torc's existence hinders those tweaks in many meaningful ways.