The tactical damage spells problem - it has been too long, time to address it.

Everyone who?

I personally think the spells are more balanced and interesting than ever.

And Warlock being nerfed down to 25% extra damage instead of 50%. Once the initial patching craze dies down and I buy the game, I'll definitely mod spell damage back to its FE levels.

Well, flaming hands is much better now provided your opponents line up for a roastin'.

That puts the caster dangerously close to being smacked upside the head in melee. That's something that every self-respecting mage should avoid.

Shadowbolt is there to lower resist so you can land your curses and blinds and graveseals and whatnot. Flame dart is fine with the cooldown, diversify your spell list. I think you're not giving the changes a fair shake.

you have flame dart, lightning bolt, shadow bolt and storm for single targets (also sunder for elementals). if your caster has access to mantle of oceans and maybe one of the robes with mana cost discount, it's also affordable to use fireball while flame dart is on cooldown. or use buff/debuff spells to slow/shrink/haste/blind/wither/curse while your main nuke is on cooldown.

I believe you mistakenly used the word 'problem' when you meant to say 'fix'.

You can use the search forums for the half dozen or more threads regarding spells and people's comments.

There is one single target damage spell that is efficient if you go mage, that is flame-dart. It is now 3 round cooldown? Every other single target damage spell is near worthless.

I dont know why Development has a significant gap/disconnect between common conceptions of "mage" - and how it is implemented in most other games. You have to have options, that are your go-to nukes. Like a shadowbolt, a flame bolt, an ice bolt, a fireball, a poison gas cloud, and so on.

Right now, we have options, of which there are clear winners - and those clear winners are apparently balanced by new ridiculous cooldowns. Even soul-burning and drain life do terrible damage compared to flame dart. Flame dart is the only thing doing comparable damage to melee.

In FE, once my mage got to a certain level, flame dart was the only spell worth casting. It would 1-shot anything. So, if the changes actually let/force me to use the rest of my spell book, I don't see that as a bad thing.

I personally don't understand why flame dart needs a cooldown if fireball doesn't. It seems like it should be the other way around. Fireball is the go to spell once you have mana and turn reduction. Same damage, hits 9 squares, acceptable cost. That makes mincemeat of any AI army. You need a bit more mana, but even using it all out in a few battles will take cities or crush huge stacks. I haven't seen the AI use it, but sometimes you have to play a few games, and I have only played one game in 1.0.

It's fun to have, except with the itchy feeling that once you are level 8-10 you can just kill any AI you wanted. 

Yes, I agree that more spells need cooldowns (possibly all spells). I am also fine with some balancing being done with cooldowns, as long as consideration is given to the idea that many similar spells will negate this balance (a problem also solved by the ability to specialize).

I think early to mid/game mages are a little too powerful if they have a cheap and powerful damage source. If someone has the mana to spam fireball though, then I think they deserve to be able to do so (but it still should have a cooldown)!

This is in no way a balance complaint, just a strategic observation. I think the cooldown is probably necessary though, because Magnar is the pre-designed sovereign in the best position to use this, and that faction is built for quick mana reserves. Basically cull the weak is used on the 1 turn no upkeep slaves to build a mana pool. Slaves are so awesome, they even make great fodder as they are nearly as useful as regular club troops (they can do a respectable bash). In addition if destroying a shard gets you enough mana to conquer an AI empire, it is definitely worth it. It may just be worth it anyway if mana is ever low, as long as they aren't fire shards, because it takes quite a while to earn 200 mana from a shard. So for one faction designed to use fireball, mana doesn't ever have to be an issue. Oh and I almost forgot, all Quendar have a fire-breath which is like firedart close up with no mana cost. How did the Amarians get so screwed over with their weaker power that has a huge mana cost?

Basically, this is a blast of a way to play, but possibly fireball is a little too much murder. 

I actually just finished a game as Pariden where I was mana flooded, and I used their special almost every battle... having that range is huge, especially for high leveled troops that can't necessarily reach the front lines right away.

Because they still have the shard-scaled stat bonuses on top of that ability. So they're not so screwed over, especially if you play with Normal+ magic strength world settings.

But the original argument on this thread was that there were, in FE, only a few good ways to deal damage, and these spells were used nearly to the exclusion of all others. Now they have been nerfed (except fireball, apparently) in various ways, encouraging players to make greater use of the buff and debuff spells. And the OP's complaint, as I read it, is that the damage spells are now no longer so overpowered.

But a nerf is not such a bad thing. Can anyone imagine a real, informed debate with multiple legitimate viewpoints (like the one on this thread) discussing which tactical spells are worthwhile happening when FE was released? I can't.

What is really needed is better damage spells that you earn at higher magic levels- such as lvl 4 or 5.

Imagine if you have a superior flame dart at Fire Master that did slightly more damage and didn't have the cooldown.

Two things I don't like about damage tactical spells in LH:

- If you are a Warlock, you are not guaranteed to have any damaging spells.

- The spells are all over the place. Everyone can get access to Fireball, which is one of the most damaging spells. The other top damage spell, Horrific Wail, is only available to Empire casters. There is no way of knowing this beforehand.

Having options in all the different spell schools is a good thing. One thing to keep in mind is that the schools are designed for all the champions classes, not just mages, so you get some spells that are great for more martial champions getting up close and perosnal but that a back line mage wouldn't use. Regardless, each school has lots going for it:

Water is great. Slow is a great debuff, blizzard one-shot murders entire armies, mantle of oceans makes worrying about mana a thing of the past, and freeze gives you time to maneuver your armies into position on the strategic map.

Earth is light on damage spells, but has by far the best buffs in the game, especially if you take the geomancy and abjuration traits as well. Diamond skin and giant form makes ordinary troops unstoppable.

Air excels at mobility and control. Haste alone wins battles. Cloud walk is the ultimate strategic mobility spell and thunderstike is great for tactical mobility. Titan's Breath is the best crowd control spell in the game. Tornado breaks up big stacks into more manageable sizes. One of my favourite schools.

Life is the ultimate support line between your heals, growth and shrink. That dragon bugging you? Shrink it down to size and breath easy. It makes surviving battles easy.

Death is the ultimate debuff school and makes it easy for your troops to murder their foes with a few nice damage spells mixed in like horrific wail or kill.

Fire is probably my least favourite school. although it's pretty nice if you're going to bother going up the evoker tree (I rarely do unless I'm playing Magnar). Fire is probably the weakest school early game but puts out outrageous numbers late game if specced for full damage.