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.

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

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.