Magic: a discussion

So, now that the magical spells have been unveiled, I'd like to go into the design process and thoughts behind the magical spells and the alterations made from the previous game.

Elementalism

I was always pretty happy with how this group of magical spells turned out in the campaign, and thus it has retained its' shape from the previous iteration. Additionally, I added a related skill tree,

Illusionism.

Illusionism is all about affecting people's minds directly. While it lacks any direct-damage spells, it has many things that enhance its' users ability in combat, be it rendering them invisible or making the enemy percieve many copies of them. So this skill tree, while heavily applicable in combat, isn't meant to destroy your enemies, but rather allow you to control them and using their senses against them. While this might seem tremendously strong, spells such as Fear and Charm are greatly weakened against opponents with high willpower, and additionally illusions are incapable of actually dealing damage and does not preserve their users from AoE effects.
When fighting a mesmer (illusionist), bring a fire or chaos mage.

Druidism

This tree is a interesting one, as it focuses more on the players' usage of its' spells than on the spells themselves. The core combo of the Druids are the two spells Rapid growth and warp wood.
These spells allow the user to create plants from seeds, that can then be turned into weapons against their enemies. Additionally, these spells have a huge amount of utility in their use. They can be used to do all sorts of things, such as building housing, bridges, shelter from weather and enemies, and really just about anything. You just have to have the imagination for it. Additionally, the entire theme of the magic tree is to use nature, and the powers of manipulating life energies, in order to deal with threats as well as other situations.

Death 

The complete opposite of Druidism, the Death tree is all about using the energies of enthropy and death in order to accomplish the goals of the character. The nature of the death-mages, the Seekers, is also mirrored in the magic. Since they have things such as Turn undead, that obliterates the unliving, their eternal hunt for the ones who attempt to cheat death and the gods is mirrored.
The death tree is also very unique, since it relies on its' user being up close and personal with his opponents.
While most of the spells have yet to be properly defined, I will describe a few of the functions here.
The tree will rely on its' plagues to deal with large numbers of enemies, especially when dealing with living ones. Using Plague strike in combination with a weapon, they deal decent damage and apply their DoTs, and then using pestilence and blood boil to spread their diseases to other nearby enemies and dealing massive damage to the crowds around them.
While the aura of enthropy slightly boosts their damage and reduces damage taken, they step into the fray to deal with multiple opponents at once. Using the spell It Will Not Die, they can wade into combat completely uncaring about their own safety, as long as they can rely on their allies to get them out safely as the effect wears off.
Otherwise, if you went the path of Mark Of Death, you have the ability to deal vast single-target damage, but you'll have to be careful since you lack the safety of your temporary immortality.
Additionally, Precognition allows you to deal with pesky dodgers or deadly glasscannons, simply  because you have the certainty that you'll be able to dodge that one strike, or land that final blow.

Light

The polar opposite of Darkness, Light is all about buffing up yourself or your allies, allowing you to heal up horrendous damage, make someone a unstoppable killing machine, or even revive the dead.
The Light tree has been altered somewhat since the last game, primarily to fit more into my image of what Light magic is really all about. Helping others help themselves.
The light magic users are supposed to be more combat-oriented themselves, since their magic isn't going to fight their battles for them. The standard light-user isn't too far from what in other systems would be called a Paladin or a martial artist, and as such their stats are strange for magic-users. Having litterally no reliance on intelect for their magic, Light users have the freedom to spend those stat points in other fields, such as dexterity, strength and endurance. And from a mechanics standpont, it is suggested they do.

Darkness

The polat opposite of light, Darkness is all about robbing enemies of their abilities, and dealing damage over time as well as burst damage. Darkness is a highly int-reliant spell tree, since a failed dice roll might have fatal consequences for the caster itself... But some could say that the tradeoff is worth it. Being able to deal great damage, and even increasing the damage a target takes, the dark mage is a formidable opponent.
Some are even capable of robbing their enemies of stats permanently.
Most of the dark mages' debuffs are easily counteracted by a simple cure, as performed by light mages, the dark mage has access to the dark and terrible curse magic. The curses cannot simply be cured away, and sometimes last forever. They transfer to the mages that perform cure on the afflicted, and may only be removed by the spell Cleanse, a more advanced light magic. 


So, dear reader, what do you think? Please let me know of your ideas and opinions through commenting here on the blog, or by sending me an E-mail