Warlocks must take Fire?

I agree, there arn't enough dmg spells in other schools. Most schools have only 1 medicore dmg spell. Only wind and fire have mutiple accessible dmg spells.

Earth: Shockwave

Death: Drain Life

Water: Blizzard

Also ive been saying forever that the current system of staffs dealing melee is rediculous. For example the staff of banishing, perfect for when your mage hero needs to bash an elemental to death, otherwise useless. All staffs should either be ranged and boost stats or unlock a spell or really increase stats.

I think Staves should either do alot of magical damage to one unit, or a little magical damage to units in a radius. The current iteration seems lacking.

The staffs that do ranged damage is fine, its the magic staffs that do melee damage thats worthless to me.

Well AirIII actually gives you two damage spells, Thunderstrike and Storm. Also don't forget the mixes like Soulburning, and Contagion. Also Chain Lightning as a champion specific spell has been confirmed.

Except that their just elemental dmg bows, none of them help with spellcasting or powerup in the hands of a mage. They would be just as useful in the hands of an assasin or warrior stack/champion.

We don't need more damage spells. Damage isn't all that interesting, and it's good that different elements do different things. If all four had the same options, then why would we even have four in the first place?

They can still have different options :

Some spells could use Magic resistance instead of armor to protect against them, some could be armor piercing, and one could be a good direct damage spell, and some could blast ennemies and allies alike.

But I somewhat agree that currently, the spells that do not deal damage are more of an issue (most of them are worthless, the summons lack variety, and being limited to 1 is not good at all. There is a lack of army buffing spells too). 

There are still quite a few new interesting ways damage spells could be implemented without being repetitive. I would like to see a drown spell that does increasing damage to a unit over time. You could also have a single target overpower spell or short range breath spells.

I think staffs should act like spells in that they use spell mastery and spell resist to hit instead of accuracy and dodge.

first of all we NEED more dmg spells

the reason to have 4 (6) schools of magic is that dmg spells should act in different ways: aoe vs single target, high dmg high cost vs low dmg low cost

then there are effects, slow or root for some spell, dots for others, there could also be static dmg spells (wall of fire, poison cloud) or aoe applying in different shapes (boulder dealing dmg in a line, a bomb exploding on the target etc)

also dont forget there arent ofc only dmg spells, there are already many different support spells and i think we will see more and those will hellp to differentiate the schools even more

Vetrar's Howl is better than Fireball. So is Blizzard. Water is essentially the best option.

But you can't do any damage starting as a water mage. Casters who start without fire have to leech exp or go melee.

well its totally viable

i dont like it at all but against first bandits, wolves etc any weapon and 2 pieces of leather are enough

id rather all school having some summon or dmg spell anyway

but useless to think abot spell balance until we have 90% of the spells in game to evaluate

Chaos and Pandemonium can do damage, and they are actually pretty decent spells.

Pandemonium is a good spell because it ignores resistance like all mass spells. Chaos isn't really worth casting however as its one of the very few spells you actually need to pass resistsance to hit and only has meh dmg and curses anyway.

Having both chaos and pandemonium feels like uninspired filler to me, especially since water lacks any really interesting spells. Replacing chaos with a drowning or icebolt spell (or almost anything) would be much better.

pand is good but only in mid late game

its dmg is low on average but its quite effective in late fights where slow and other debuffs are useful

but you need to cast it 5 6 times so its pretty mana intensive

its not worth early

We DO need more damage spells.  Each school should have, at least, one, single target ranged damage spell.  All the buffs and deBuffs in the world are great, but it doesn't mean anything if you can't do the one thing in a fight that matters, doing damage.  And I don't like the idea that all but fire mages have to rely on swordplay to kill enemies.  

Idea: some spells, including champion specific spells, level up, or even improve in effect,  as your level in the appropiate school improves.

So a Lvl 1 Chain lightning isn't that impressive, but Lvl 5 is nasty.

I do think "pew pew" is usually the best idea for magic, unless you have archer champions , then  growth is best.

Haste is always important as well. 

We really need some countercheese, to put in "yomi" on the magic side of things.  (Derek/Jon would understand that one).  Right now it feels like when it comes to magic, a degenerate strategy is pretty easy to find.

well its mostly for early game

and they dont really need to be ranged

1 school could have an early summon for example

anotehr could have maybe a melee spell

also a shield at lvl 1 would be enough to fight so maybe air or earth could have a decent hp shield or something like thorns reflecting dmg every time unit is hit

Yeah mostly just a few Lv1-2 damage spells need to be added. Every school but life gets access to some damage spells, they are just late game. The problem is that only fire gets access to any early game damage spells.

Lol, I made all spells resistible. But yeah, there are plenty of good things you can do with a water mage while you are getting to level 5 water. I think staves are the answer to giving mages some options besides melee.

With the change in how Champions gain experience, I have yet to get anyone to be a level 5 caster in anything.  

Yea, i started to load/save before my sov has level to get high in casting levels ... if you wait FOREVER to get from, let's say, level 12 to 13 and all you got are crappy choice i either get mad and swear a lot, or, solution load and level again!

What I would like to see is a tooltip that explains how much damage can given spell do including all bonuses a hero has. 

IMHO ... I think Warlock or whatever should increase both Spell EFFECT and Spell DAMAGE ...

so that a warlock casting wither would reduce stats by 6 instead of 4.

I also think that Buffs and Debuffs that are activated in the tactical battle should last for THAT ENTIRE SEASON ... so that if you have enough casters, you can split them up into armies of weaklings and get off some debuffs before your big army and main caster squashes those Tarthies flat

Alternatively give an additional trait option that increases only Spell effect ...

I like how you can wither armies on the tactical map (perhaps in your own borders only ... but I wonder if we will still be allowed to stack multiple withers in the future).

I think a safe bet to avoid 'super exploits' or just bugs that crash the game, will be to allow Wither to only be 3x stackable.

Perhaps the spell is renamed to "wither 2" and "wither 3" when the other effect is already applied.

A successful wither 2 would give wither 2 to those with wither, and wither to those without.