Astral magic seems overpowered

[chrispedersen]

Frost brand is better than shadow brand.
Bottle water is ok for assassins.

Water also has tidal wave (vastly underrated), wolven winter, and murderous winter.

Water also dovetails extremely well with water nations. So for example, your cold scales will not affect you (underwater) and can be devestating to heat loving nations. Your summons (winter wolves) are pretty reasonable.

Water has an excellent site searching spell (voice of tiamat). I was against the change that required it to be your province.

Frozen heart, encased in ice, prison of Sedna are all excellent spells. Water is a well rounded school having good construction items, good anti SC, good site searching.

Falling frost is devestating in the hands of someone that knows how to use it... and there are others.

Demon whip is only Con2 in CMB and then only 1.5 or later iirc.

[Redeyes]

One of Water's greatest strengths though is how effectively it lets you bootstrap into Death and Nature through Streams of Hades and Contact Naiad. With how crucial either of those paths are for winning strategies nations with water magic have a decent advantage right there.

What Water lacks is strong globals and rituals, but no single path can have everything (except Death, or Astral, I guess).