[Micah]

Sadly, despite the low initial cost dispel is pretty much always a loser play.

It takes pearls to cast it, which are (at least long-term) the best gem type, and forces the dispel caster to play a very nasty guessing game trying to figure out how many gems went into the global. Guessing high means you waste gems, guessing low means you waste gems and the global isn't dispelled. Plus, of course, the global in question works for at least one turn before it can be taken down.

So, for well of misery the casting nation spends 80-21 = 59 gems, the dispel caster spends 30, so there's a scant 29 gem margin to work with when you have to figure out where they cast the spell in a potential range of over 900. Poor odds.

IMO dispel should really be changed so that the global is permanently weakened by the dispel margin. Then a failed dispel isn't a complete catastrophe for the caster like it is now. Pretty sure that would have to be a dev change though, not a modded solution. Assuming an S9 caster as a reasonable maximum this would also provide a good parity with the spell base cost, since you end up with 30 "free" points on a 30 gem spell, which wouldn't be able to be abused by getting more dispel points than you're spending. (And if you have the time to empower to S10 or more and then have the mage sitting around chipping away at a global turn after turn your game setup has some problems anyhow.)