Let's remove Bleeding Edge entirely from the equation here, and consider everything else.

Melee and Ranged both have the amazing passive node "Frenzied Blows", which doubles the rage cost and damage when over 750 rage.

I'm proposing giving willpower based skills the same type of skill for their damage.

There is a node in Warlock called "Reigning in the Darkness" that gives a situational +100% critical score boost depending on willpower(in reality it's junk, and gives less than 2% to total crit chance on a high crit build). I'm proposing this node be replaced with something that mirrors frenzied blows for willpower skills.

I'm also proposing that the staff's base physical damage be converted into damage of the base element of the spell you're casting and applied to its total damage. Melee skills all get the full benefit from all the damage types on their weapons, and likewise for pistols and bows.

Do these 2 things, and mages will be at parity with melee and ranged builds. They're currently not, and that's not my opinion, it's a fact.

"But you can use ailments to buff the damage" - isn't good enough, because melee and ranged can use the same ailment damage buffs like Immortal Offering to buff their damage. This is on top of them having access to frenzied blows, which casters don't have.

"Time which cannot heal" in Time Weaver isn't exclusive to spell users, either, and melee can also use that, and all the strongest builds do.

And then there is even Virtuoso Stance with Arms Maester => Probing weakness which can give 15% chance to do double damage, but oh, it's "attack damage", totally doesn't work on spells, but it works for every melee or ranged attack, which is effectively another multiplicative damage buff that melee and ranged can get that spell users can't use.....

I can make a 1h + catalyst build that's either Pistol + catalyst, or 1h melee + catalyst and either one of them straight up out damages spell casters with a staff, without using bleeding edge. Because Frenzied Blows exists. They do basically the same damage with spells, too.... and this is why staff base physical damage should be added to the spells damage, so casting with a staff is more damage than casting with a catalyst.....

The only other ARPG I've ever played, where spell casters were weaker, was Titan Quest (original). Ironically, due to similar problems that Wolcen has, bad scaling.