[gameplay] water magic

Chaos and Pandemonium should just be a Confuse effect that causes them to attack the nearest target.

I think blizzard is as overpowered as fireball.

Agreed. Water is a funky class of spells. It is great to get Water Mantle and Blizzard, but the rest are so so at best. I see the need to round out this class with tactical buffs and units immobilizing spells. Water should be great at minor freezing and buffing my units. Breaking armor is also a great low level spell one might expect. 

Curses like pandemonium do not really benefit me enough to waste a turn casting it. It would be better if it had negative effects to all units on the field and they were drastic. You would basically use it to gamble that casting it will give you more benefits than harm. The result should be a Carnival (reversal of fortunes). 

Yeah, an ice shard attack would be nice. 

I used Chaos 5-6 times and ALWAYS buffed the opponent (0.75)

Water & Earth both seem to suck as far as I can see. In terms of power id rate them as:

1. Death with Death Worship
2. Fire
3. Death without Death Worship
4. Life
5. Air
6. Water
7. Earth

only against weak multi targets, also it consumes 2 turns and can be interrupted once enemies and some powerful monster get the necessary ai to do so

I agree that chaos and pandemonium suck and should be swapped for something better.  But I'm not in favor of adding in a water low-level direct strike spell.  One of the problems with the original Elemental design was that the magic all ended up being the same.  IIRC each type of magic had a direct attack spell, these were essentially the same with a different color animation.  This lead to a boring magic system where the magic types were poorly differentiated.

I think the fact that Water magic is different is a good thing, and I don't think each type of magic needs a level 1 or level 2 direct attack spell.  If you want a low-level direct attack spell roll up a fire mage.

As far as Blizzard vs. Fireball goes, Fireball also takes two rounds to cast and can be interrupted just like Blizzard.  According to the Hiergamenon they both do the exact same amount of damage (6 +3/shard) and have the same casting cost (30 mana) but Blizzard has a much bigger radius.  Blizzard is a level IV spell though, whereas Fireball is level III.

well something to deal dmg is ultimately necessary so the role of "pure XXX magic caster " can work

also there are many ways to make different casts

like the range, a school could have only a melee range magic

or the effects, for exemple one cast could deal very low dmg but apply some slow/root effect to support it

i like death based on curses/debuffs but 1 school liek that can work, others need some dmg

otherwise it would be cool to have a school specialized on summons, with the ability to summon 3 4 different creatures

Ditch chaos and pandemonium for something more interesting and water would be ok. Most schools have a low level utility spell, either damage, buff, or debuff that's worth using - water does not.

I would like to see 3 more water spells:

1. Flood (tactical) - 25% of unoccupied non-hill battlefield tiles are covered by water that is impassible to units in chain or platemail.

2. Greater Flood (tactical) - 50% of unoccupied non-hill battlefield tiles are covered by water.

3. Downpour (tactical) - Visibility and attack range for all units is reduced to 2 tiles.

Oooh, I really like your Downpour idea Edwin!  I wonder if the game engine can handle it though.  AFAICT there is nothing in tactical combat that has a notion of a limited range.

That's a really nifty idea though if they can pull it off.

Slow is a  level 1 water spell.  I think it's pretty handy.

I still say all magic schools should have 1 damaging spell for early game survival of a pure caster sovereign.  An ice shard (hell, even a hard-packed snowball!) or earthen rock/stone would help diversify what people are using in the game.

Have to agree with this, Procipinee is incredibly weak if she doesn't happen across a melee champ.

LOL Procipinee is the second most powerful Sov once you get her some enchantments. She is fine with just a few spearmen. I guess not everyone plays the same though. 

Water should have good low level buffs. It should also be able to wreck armor by freezing it. Flood is a very cool idea. I think it is actually possible with the current xml too. As are ranged spells. Bows have a limited range, you just need to go really far back. 

Tried the spearman, she they still can get owned easily by low level encounters.

Give her a melee champion to buff and they become an insanely powerful duo however.

So far games with her have been a random map gamble. If she gets a decent champion she gets incredibly powerful and can focus on development techs early on. If not you have to get military units and focus on military units and even then have a bad chance of getting wiped out by random monsters.

Procipinee (and all other water/air mages) need to start with a good damaging spell to use their mana on and not just buff up other units so long as starting champions are based on random luck.

I suggest a Drown spell, where dmg is is done to the opponent over several turns. It could also reduce initiative. It would be a nice break away from Ice this and Freeze that...

I don't want to get crazy here, but how about a level one summons? That would be pretty nice. So hard to get a reliable tank in the early game. 

It's worth mentioning that the Earth Elemental is the toughest of the three summons, an earth mage can create fertile land, there's Giant Form.. and there's earthquake. You can even paralyze an army with uh.. Tremor. You know what, if Fracture couldn't be resisted.. or an apprentice couldnt flatten your mountains, I might put earth in the top 3.

Water doesn't have much going for it apart from the mantle. A lot of it's most useful spells are cross-path, like Stinking Mud, Gentle Rain, Calm... There's still a lot of potential in Chaos and Pandemonium, chaos is usually awesome. I'd hope for a chance of random summons, ally or enemy, or random buffs/debuffs for the entire battlefield, or something chaotic. Something you lean on when you're about to lose. A monkey wrench. That would help.

Yes.  I tried out chaos, cast it 5 times in a row, positive effect every time for the enemy unit, maybe just bad luck but will never cast it again unless changed.