The spell damage IS already affected by spell mastery, because if the target resists your spells you inflict only half damage, but the defensive stats of many heroes, units and monsters are too low (air elemental without dodge?!?). But you are right that linking the magic system only to the character level and the shards is not enough:

- Evoker should be removed

- Aeromancy, Geomancy, ... should increase the number of shards of the element by 2 without increasing the mana income

- Compassion and Necromancy should work like Aeromancy, Geomancy, ...

- Items should increase the number of shards of an element by 1 or 2 without increasing the mana income

- Mantel of the Oceans should reduce the mana cost of tactical spells by 25 %

- Warlock should reduce the mana cost of tactical spells by 25 %

- Affinity should be removed

- Attunement should be a mage ability

- Knowledge should be removed

THIS would reduce the scaling of spells and the spells could be changed to be always useful at the corresponding spell level:

- level 1 - 2 spells would be in most cases single target spells with a lower effect and mana cost

- level 3 - 5 spells would be in most cases area of effect spells with a higher effecr and mana cost

I think Stardock should decide how the scaling in the game works: Either use + x or + x %, because using both results in overpowered effects like spells or physical attacks that one shot everything.

An example of useful spells at the corresponding spell level would be this:

Lightningbolt (air 2):

Inflicts 10 + 3 per air shard lightning damage in a line of 5 tiles, 15 mana

Thunderstrike (air 3):

Inflicts 6 + 2 per air shard lightning damage against all adjacent targets, the damage is multiplied by the number of units, dazes all adjacent targets for 1 turn, 35 mana 

Storm (air 4):

Inflicts 15 + 5 per air shard lightning damage against all enemy targets, blinds all targets for 1 turn, 1 turn casting time, 50 mana

Aren't those traits redundant? I ask, because both do exactly the same, but one of them is stronger. I would remove the first aid kit.

Do not forget Scholar which gives +20% research now.

I am worried because the main problems are not adressed. 

1. the heroes are useless

2. heores traits tree is too wide, cant reach the fancy traits

3. high init pike units ar OP

4. armor is useless

All those skills CAN be and most likely will be taken if you want that kind of mage and evoker wont afect them as independant skills.

Now after changes evoker will be 25 perc. so why you still calculating with old value ?

My blizzard with your given setup even without evoker will still do 18 damage per unit. Now that base unit health is 7 and it get 2 hp per lvl, he must be lvl 6 to survive at all. So i dont need evoker really because i am good enough just with out it, Other traits could be much more useful in bigger pool of options, while evoker is only for damage mage and nothing else: extra exp useful always for anyone, extra armor also, extra research you geting advantage for all game duration.

Same goes for summoner trait: it makes your sumons stronger, but you dont need it, they are good enough with what you get from traits tree itself. So id rather prefer to get extra exp in order to get even more skill tree traits, or extra armor for my sumons.

To my opinion specialization choices are not balanced as long some looks much better and stronger than others.

Here some modeling for you:

iner fire on 2 esence fortress: 2 fire damage, aura of grace +2 init.

elemental amulets: +3 fire damage, +3 frost damage.

Your pikeman now can have what ? 8 elemental damage which dont care about armor and thats with ease.

Now real might damage of pike is 15 while you can boost it with blood thirsty (25 perc), +3 damage versus lower initiative (and trust me plate will be much much lower). Third trait can be fast or whatever you like (maybe charge for extra speed and damage still).

Mount warg for initiative (but dodge wont hurt either).

So my pikemen can kill whatever normal (non epic) plate unit with just elemental damage itself. All might damage is an overkill or an extra help if oponent will be like lvl 6 or so (with extra HP per unit then). You can use dirge of ceresa for blood thirsty to get effect imediately at the begining of battle.

Over all: 15 + 3 + 25 perc. + faction bonus might be (umbral, tarth) versus 20 armor (40 mitigated with pike spec) is about 9 average physical damage unit versus unit. Then add 8 elemental damage and you have 17 damage unit versus unit. So your plated oponent must be above lvl 5 to outlive first strike.

With HP traits your defence units might survive first charge, but they wont outlive second atack. I wasnt evaluating swarm and racial strengths either. I also was using only 2 jewelry slots out of 4. Wasnt comparing intiative either. So judge yourselves. I think there has to be more changes to damage-armor interaction or else we are still at the same no brainer battles.

your example really just shows that elemental damage on trained units can be unbalancing (if you have enough crystals to outfit your stacks with fancy amulets, that is). we don't know if the armor penetration on spear weapons is set in stone- this might still be changed (lowered or removed entirely). the problem is not armor vs. damage ratio but the armor ignoring elemental damage you can add on top of the mundane weapons.

the price of elemental jewelry can be adjusted if it's too cheap to outfit whole stacks with that kind of stuff. this might actually be the way to go here. removing the option entirely is probably too much, but making the crystal cost more prohibitive could work. currently, the amulets cost 4 crystal each (48 crystal per company of trained units with both items), which is already somewhat expensive for an average late game empire that produces maybe 10 crystal/turn. if the devs see this as a problem, they could probably just tweak the cost for those items and be done with it. 

essence fortresses are also unbalancing; might be a good idea to make heart of fire and aura of grace cheaper, but limit them to a flat 1 damage / 1 init; that's still a decent bonus. getting free +4 fire damage and +4 init from a cheesy 3 essence+scrying pool fortress is over the top, IMO.

+ 1 damage or initiative is perhaps harsh, but i guess + 2 damage or initiative would be very good.

The overpowered spell damage is the reason why the warlock profession will be nerfed and why units will get + 25 % resistance cloaks.

This made me laught: you already have 4 traits with 20 perc. damage boost and then some staves. When it will be enough for you mh ? >

You know you can use "focus" on top of it, if so desparate

Well if to be honest i never using focus. You waste 1 turn to start casting. Second turn to finish it of and only on third turn you can actually start doing SOMETHING. On third turn my army already won a battle and then my mage has to hide behind trees with such a crapy performance

Greetings, Nice update can't wait for it to come out.

Also, could you please make sure that the first aid bug is really fixed this patch? I heard a dev say they fixed it for this patch but it's not under the Fixed section. Right now the first aid skill from the defensive tree is not healing at all when used on damaged units.