Manablast is underpowered as it not comparable to high end late game melee damage. It takes a considerable amount of mana to do damage that is roughly equivalent to high end regular hits (not criticals which can do mind boggling amounts). After a few uses, it becomes sub-par as your mana drops rather fast by using it.
Not to mention that is a quest spell that needs to be found...
We need a spell that is generally more powerful (like the previous arcane arrow or blast or what not) that does a fixed damage, based on your intelligence (or now, spell mastery for example).