[Valerius]

I think more than any of the paths represented in the Diversity mod, air nations experience a "get something, lose something" reaction. You get thugs and SCs, you lose in the fact that a path that was among the more difficult to branch into is now easy to enter.

Whether that is good or bad is a matter of opinion but the difficulty of entering air magic was a relative advantage for A nations and if easier access to air is given to everyone I think the same should be done for other paths. As Squirrelloid mentioned, fire is one of them. Something along the lines of a Conj. 6, F2/3 unit that only requires a single path to summon would be good.

I think astral is another candidate for this. The current options all involve some combination of getting lucky with randoms, having dual paths for summoning or spending a huge amount of gems. I'm talking about something simple: a single path summon where you spend x number of gems and get a guaranteed S mage. Doesn't have to be thug or SC, just a mage. But I realize astral is not a focus of the Diversity mod so this may not be the place to add such a unit.

Regarding the Roc, the value of gems is effected by the nation you're playing. For a non-air nation A gems don't have a high value; for an A nation they are very important to fuel cloud trapezing. N gems on the other hand would be valuable to the non-air nation, especially under the Diversity mod where you'll have more thugs/SCs to equip. Keeping this in mind when comparing the Faery Queen at Conj. 8 with the Roc at Conj. 6 I'd say for a non-air nation (the ones who will be summoning Rocs) I'd usually go for the Roc, even with both available (there's plenty of other ways to get N magic) since both the absolute, and even more so the relative, cost to me of the A gems would be less than the N gems. The Asynja is another matter; for only 10 gems more I get a reasonable chance of A3, full slots, possibly other magic paths and glamour (the last of which I think will prove to be a problem). So she does overshadow the Roc. OTOH the Granite Cyclops overshadows the Troll King (though not by as much).

Having said all that, I think reducing the Roc's A magic to level 2 would hurt them too much. What about leaving them at A3 but moving them to Conj. 7? In order to try to keep them as an option even after the Asynja becomes available they could get a further boost to siege bonus or map move.