Re: Astral magic seems overpowered
 

Astral does have access to ridiculously powerful battlefield-wide spells. However, such spells require a massive amount of slaves/boosters/gems, and a good antimagic or SC makes the whole thing useless very ineffective. Soul slay, enslave mind, and paralyze are great counters, but blood and death have even more effective counters. Claws of Inferno/Cocytcos for example, while very high level (and hellbind heart), are awesome anti-SC/thug spells. Drain life also, as it isn't resistable (unless lifeless).
But in general though, astral took a really big hit when it lost clams, which very much evened the field. Astral has some really powerful nation-only summons, like Seraphs or Devatas, but those require ridiculously high amounts of astral pearls, and pearl income is limited. Golems are also vulnerable to a good ol' magic duel. Other magic paths have much more, and much more efficient, summons. Death: Tartarians (still ridiculously good). Blood: hell, everything (with slave income in the 100s, your not really all that limited) from demon lords to heliophagi to archdevils to armies of demons.

But in any event, communions are counterable. Earthquakes are the bane of all communions.

But anyway, astral is good, but not imbalanced or anything. I personally feel blood wins purely on the basis of powerful summons and massive income.

Re: Astral magic seems overpowered
 

So basically, water and fire are very underpowered compared to the others..

Re: Astral magic seems overpowered
 

I don't think 'underpowered' is the right comparison operator. Not 'keystone' or 'central' is better. S and D (and B for such nations) comprise keystone of a magic strategy; A, E, and N provide crucial utility AND power; F and W have some great offerings (especially in combination: acid spells, rune smasher, etc) but just don't have the sort do or die spells/items that the other schools offer.

Re: Astral magic seems overpowered
 

Water used to be a source of clams. :)

Now its a source of naiad soldiers. In other words, yes its crap.
))))))) Actually, it has got frozen heart, quicken self, breath of winter, sea troll kings, boots of quickness etc, lots of useful thingies.
Oh yes!!! Rune smasher. This item alone is worth empowering a mage in the late game.

Re: Astral magic seems overpowered
 

Yeah, Astral isn't really so bad, now that clams have been nerfed, other than the silly out of place healing spells. Water and Fire, on the other hand, need help, in the form of brand new spells, rather than improving on what we've already got, since atleast Fire is too monotonous.

Air isn't as bad, but not quite as strong as Earth. More illusion-based Summons would be nice, and possibly an improved version of the Corpse Man Construction spell? Or maybe just a stronger "Vine Ogre" version at a higher level?

I liked how another thread suggested the Ziz be given the Assassinate ability. Putting that on the Great Eagle, along with a little Stealth, would be nice.

Nature could stand to be brought up to the same level as Blood/Death/Astral, but that wouldn't take much.

Re: Astral magic seems overpowered
 

They aren't as useful, but they still have some uses. But they can't compare to the big three (Astral, Death, and Blood), and don't have the quintessential utility of Earth, Air, and Nature. Still useful. Boots of quickness and rune smashers, at the very least.

Re: Astral magic seems overpowered
 

I feel that the Elemental paths should have much more variety and usefulness in the early parts of the game than they currently do, while Astral and Death come into their own in the Late Game.

Blood and Nature could/should then ideally serve as a balance between the two, with Nature having the most, and most useful, but generally weakest spells, at every level, but steadily increasing in potency, and Blood having the least number of spells, but being powerful at every stage of the game.

I also feel that Holy magic should be a fully realized path of it's own, instead of a tiny group of mostly redundant spells, and that it should be combineable with the Elemental paths--and only the Elemental paths--to make up for their straightforwardness and Late Game deficiencies.

Ofcourse, this would probably require extensive reworking of the Magic System, but I feel this ideal form would create a much more balanced game.

Re: Astral magic seems overpowered
 

Fire gives you very nice early to midgame artillery (fireball, falling fires) items (fire brand, golden shield, charcoal shield) and flames from the sky is the spell that makes armies obsolete. Phoenix pyre and fire shield are nice on scs, and incinerate is a nice SC killer (also there is an item for it, so that you can cast it twice a turn with quickness). Also if you have archers, flaming arrow is very powerful.

Water gives you quickness (in spell or item), with falling frost and frozen heart some nice artillery and clams (is there an other use for water gems than clams and boots of quickness?).

Re: Astral magic seems overpowered
 

[quote=Hadrian_II;719829]frost brand and sometimes water bottle

Re: Astral magic seems overpowered
 

Frost brand is the worst brand of all, and water bottle is only useful when you enemy is spamming earth attack on you.