elemental attack disparity

[BrainJuggler]

Greetings all! I just started playing this game, my favorite mage is the Wizard, but when I started making spellbooks and choosing an element I noticed something. Fire, air, and earth all have similar attack spells, in fact their level 2s are the same except:

Earth: hurl boulder, 7 dmg, 8+ slam
Fire: fireball, 6 dmg, 4+ burn
Air: lightning bolt, 5 dmg, 6+ daze/stun, ethereal

Fire gives up 1 damage for burns and air gives up 2 damage for ethereal and daze/stun. This pattern repeats itself with hurl rock/flameblast/arc lightning, and most of their other attack spells, in general.

Fire giving up 1 damage for a burn is fine, but it looks like air comes out way behind in this deal. 50% daze/stun is nice, but they only last one turn. Earth's slam has a lower chance to hit, but the effects last 2 turns (slam -> daze). So air's only advantage is ethereal. Is that really worth -1 damage? There aren't *that* many incorporeal targets and wizard comes with arcane zap already.

Am I missing something or is air just a bad choice for wizards?

[Coshade]

First off welcome to the forums!

You have a really interesting analysis of how the attack spells work. I will let you know that right now air seems to be the least used of all the elements in my personal meta. The big advantage of air is the ability to get the daze/stun off while not having a super weak attack (unlike holy attack spells that have low dice but very high chance to get a daze/stun off).

I would not consider air out of the running yet though. The big advantage of using air (lightning mainly) is the ability to remove another creatures action. If a creature misses because of daze, or cannot even act because they are stunned it can lead to some good value. How much would you value your grizzly bear (or insert other high level creature) attacking in one round mana wise? So when I take lightning spells (jet stream is very different) I tend to see it as a delay attack spell, rather then a kill the creature (usually i'll have my own big baddie out to deal the damage). My first tournament ever I had a game where I was almost dead, used a lightning bolt to stun the enemy mage, and because of that I won during initative quick cast next round.

[iNano78]

So far, Earth attack spells have little to buff them aside from [mwcard=MW1E21] Hawkeye[/mwcard], which of course helps any non-zone attack spell regardless of damage type, so that's a wash. 

Flame attacks get a big bonus from [mwcard=MW1Q10] Fireshaper Ring[/mwcard], Lightning attacks get [mwcard=MW1Q17]Lightning Ring[/mwcard], and I hope we'll see something similar for Hydro attacks when the Siren arrives.

As for Air, have you tried [mwcard=MWBG1Q01]Gale Force Ring[/mwcard] from Domination? It only affects "wind" spells so it won't help you with lightning attacks, and it doesn't increase the damage potential, but it certainly makes the push effects a lot more reliable (especially if used in combination with [mwcard=MWSTX2FFE02] Akiro's Favor[/mwcard]).

I'm looking forward to Staff of Storms getting printed in something official.  It's a promo from OP Kit #4, "Converging Fronts."  It's a little pricey in both spell points and mana, but it makes Air spells a lot more interesting.

[BrainJuggler]

I have indeed seen the Staff of Storms, I'm also looking at [mwcard=MW1C40]Whirling Spirit[/mwcard], which is especially interesting because arcane creatures are kinda weak. Maybe air could be on par with enough of these extra perks.
I don't see how [mwcard=MWBG1Q01]Gale Force Ring[/mwcard] helps; it doesn't increase damage, none of the lightning spells push, and wizards already have easy access to teleport and force push with wands and Huginn. It looks a lot like future considerations on AW's part ("We'll add more wind spells soon!").

[Schwenkgott]

Air Attacks in general can be deadly against flying creatures, not just because you often roll 2 more dice, but also because you can push them against the outside wall of the arena, dealing even more damage.

The Ring is also helpful, if you try a Jet Stream + Wall of Thorns combination to increase your push chance from 3/4 to 11/12 (saving mana and dealing even more damage compared to a 100% chance with Force Push Incantation)

[jacksmack]

Earth's slam has a lower chance to hit, but the effects last 2 turns (slam -> daze). So air's only advantage is ethereal.

Slam turns into a daze when the creature flips its action marker (when it activates). At the end of the same activation the daze is gone.
I would not count the effect to last 2 turns.

[wtcannonjr]

Air Attacks in general can be deadly against flying creatures, not just because you often roll 2 more dice, but also because you can push them against the outside wall of the arena, dealing even more damage.

The Ring is also helpful, if you try a Jet Stream + Wall of Thorns combination to increase your push chance from 3/4 to 11/12 (saving mana and dealing even more damage compared to a 100% chance with Force Push Incantation)

And pushing non-flyers against or through any wall adds damage dice for no cost. This is similar to force push but avoids nullify. From a spellbook cost standpoint the lower level air spells can provide similar effects as Force Push for less spell points for an air wizard.

[BrainJuggler]

Earth's slam has a lower chance to hit, but the effects last 2 turns (slam -> daze). So air's only advantage is ethereal.

Slam turns into a daze when the creature flips its action marker (when it activates). At the end of the same activation the daze is gone.
I would not count the effect to last 2 turns.

Ah! That's huge! It means stun is better which kinda balances out this whole argument. Thank you!