1. BloodCurse --- It's currently broken (other than that it might be a useful spell. See https://forums.elementalgame.com/443955/page/1/ for more detail.

I'll come up with more when I've got more time.

First off: Low level spells are the most useful spells at the moment. City enchantments (the lvl 1 spells) are my most used spells, followed by unit enchantments (lvl 2).

The Mother Of All Spells is level zero, completely free and available to everyone: Meditation!

I mostly use Death spells (for flavor), so I'll let others talk about other schools. From Death, I rarely use:

- Wither. Too expensive. Effect is very marginal. Cost could be lower.

- Curse. The casting time is too long, and not really necessary, imo.

- Blind. Buffs and debuffs are all less useful, since you start very close to the opponent. 25% is not enough to make me feel any safer after casting it.

- All spells lvl 3 and higher. Since LH, there's not really any point in investing points in the Death School. I just go for Summoning and/or Horrific Wail and Evoker traits.

Since the change to Shadowbolt, Death really lacks a direct damage spell.

Counterspell.  With a lot of spells losing their casting time, counterspell basically becomes pointless.  Perhaps a new mechanic for Counterspell is in order, like automatically firing anytime an enemy casts a spell.

The spells I use the most are usually the level 1-3 ones.

Spells that aren't useful or that are underpowered.

- Shrink ... I don't want to give my opponents 50% dodge.  Ever.
- Burning Hands ... not  useful in the early game let alone late game, unless you are SUPER tweaked out.
- Chaos ... random effects are just 'meh.'  Slow, a 1st level spell is better 90% of thime.
- Pandemonium ... casting time is too long.  Should have a cooldown time instead.
- Blizzard ... casting time is too long.  Personally I would like to see this with -1 to current casting time and +1 cooldown.
- Thunderstrike ... needs slighly more base damage.  Not too much more though.
- Guardian Wind ... game has very few ranged attacks so this never gets used.
- Curse ... game has few high defense opponents.  Gets useful in the late game, but by then you have better options anyway.
- Nature's Cloak ... might be better as a tactical spell that affects entire party.
- Storm ... needs to be a targeted spell rather than hitting a random target.

1. Flamewave - Low damage and very hard to get.

2. Tidal Wave - Does next to no damage. Heals in a turn or 2.

3. Chaos - Doesn't scale. Every random option is much worse then a dedicated spell like slow.

4. Shockwave - Low damage and hard to get.

Honestly though the low level of champions and the fact you have to invest so many points in not only the normal spell books but the weird mancy traits means I don't get a lot of spells. An elite melee unit can easily kill all enemies in 1-3 shots so I don't use a lot of magic. Yes I could reduce their initiative or attack by half, or I could just murder half of them in one shot with a melee squad.

I too use low level spells mostly. Upper tiers are not worth the level upgrades. Fireball might make level 3 fire useful, but it costs less to take it from the mage tree or "anointed by fire" instead.

Disagree about wither. It kicks serious ass in strategic.

One specific spell I don't care about is Guardin Wind. You'd have to spend a ton in upkeep to cover entire army and it's very situational. I would prefer either an effect on the whole army of a champion or a tactical spell affecting whole army. Burning hands isn't high on my list either. If you're going to be that close, might as well just hit the enemy in melee and get swarm bonuses.

Agree on guardian wind. Since it is so situational, then it should make ranged attacks almost un-usable. IE, make it even better at what it does.

Otherwise, there needs to be an additional benefit. +1 init also? That way it can be a weaker haste that works on the whole army. 

Birth of Summer.

Comes too late in the game, and costs too much mana for its unpredictable results. I love, love, love the idea of this spell, but early to mid game is when it makes a difference. By late game, there is almost zero chance this could swing you to victory.

It's a great spell to play around with, of course, but it has little strategic value. If you lack land to settle, you'll never get to this spell in time to avoid losing to the real-estate rich players.

If you could raise oceans and make them fertile earlier on, that would be an AMAZING alternate strategy for magic-focused empires. You have all the territory, Magnar? Good for you. I just added five cities by raising the ocean floor and terraforming it. 

This spell, combined with Curgen's volcano and raise/lower land, need just a bit of tweaking to make terraforming even more fun than it is now. Namely, by giving it more strategic value. 

The biggest problem with anything that does damage is trying to balance it against 3 different types of enemies.  Single champions, who tend to have hit points of about 20-50, grouped beings like little monsters or soldiers who could have anywhere from 10 to 100s of hit points and big monsters which could have 50 to 1000 hit points.  A spell that does 20 points of damage to a soldier group may be nothing at all, while to a champion is life threatening, and to a big monster isn't even a scratch.   

Finally back in front of my computer so here's my list of spells I've never used and why:

Alchemy:  Costs too much mana.  I might use this spell if it were 50 mana = 100g

Bless City:  Costs too much mana.  I might use this spell if it were 100 mana cost.

Blind:  Effect not good enough.  This should be changed back to -50% accuracy.

Blood Rage:  Underpowered for being a Level 5 spell.  Give it a lower cost, better effect, or move it down to a different level.

Celerity:  Nobody is going to pay that mana cost for +1 initiative.

Curgen's Volcano:  Nobody is going to pay that mana cost except one time just to see what the volcano looks like. 

Curse City:  Nobody is going to pay that mana cost.

Destiny's Insight:  Drop this mana cost to 100.

Dirge of Ceresa:  Mana cost should be 48 not 64.  

Dispel Enchantment:  Mana cost should be 50 not 100.

Graveseal:  Mana cost should be 24 not 40.

Mantle of Fire:  Should be 6 dmg + 1 per Fire shard

Nature's Call:  Mana cost should be 12 not 30 or summon all three choices.

Pandemonium:  Should take 0 turns to cast.

Tidal Wave:  Need to know what the actual damage will be... not just some random number.  Please update the description to say 8 dmg/+1 water shard or whatever it is.

I have almost never casted Nature's Cloak ... however, with cooldown times zeroed for Shrills, I should probably learn to use it again.  Its insane fighting a moderate to large group of Shrills now.

Seems like Blind should also cause a penalty to Dodge. -25% is not severe enough of a penalty right now.

Stoneskin's bonus doesn't scale well and really doesn't help that much in early game, either. Having a slightly higher base value and bonus per Earth shard seems better.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/444346/page/2/#3357903

Thanks for the feedback, you can see what I've changed so far in the changelog.  Keep it coming.