[Autumn]

Sorry to say but thats sort of how shifts to balance work, when one thing becomes weaker, other things rise up and become stronger, silence controlling mages was because if you didn't control them then they'd wreak havoc on an entire field.

I don't want to see mages become nearly worthless but I do think that currently certain invocations and certain mage base spells are too strong without proper wide ranged checks to them, those being:

-Enma's summons
-Exgalfa w/high luck rolls
-Isenshi
-Overload
-Earthbound Vengeance

-Explosion
-Stone Dragon + Air Pressure specifically together.
-Rye
-Ryemei

Most of the reasons these spells are particularly strong is due to their sheer versatility while also being able to pump out very reliable damage numbers, Explosion specifically is an issue because of just how big its range can get, you can't get it out of the way either without tile destruction mechanics specifically.

Because of its sheer range and AoE, Explosion is probably the most reliable spell in the game currently and I do want to talk about it, it has the same fire ATK scaling as higher end single target fire spells like Flame Whip but has SO much AoE on it, and burns things on top of that. The only way to really beat this spell in a team fight is hope you're slower than the person spamming explosion, which is very unlikely as tank is the favored mage build usually.

The FP Cost is negligible as well, given mages usually have access to an incredible accessory for FP Regen and boast at the very least 350+ FP, if not 400 or more. On top of this the Evoker's Arcane Tattoo can reduce this FP cost by just under half which applies after all modifiers I believe.

I do actually want to note out that most times invocations end up dominating low participant fights rather than higher participant fights, a charge minded exgalfa or isenshi is more and more unlikely to happen the more people can respond to it. However in a 1v1 its currently just 'check this or die.'