[.86][Suggestion] No tactical spell should take more than 1 turn to cast.

It becomes much more useful if your sovereign or champion has the impulsive attribute, since that gives a double move at the start of combat.

Actually, it is totally worthless unless you have the Impulsive trait.  But if you have the Impulsive trait, Fireball is devastating against trained units.

3 turn is really just unusable. The idea of a spell that just kills everything in an area after 3 turns is horrible. Even the spells that make you wait 2 turns feel clunky and unfun (not to mention glitchy).

Do not justify a spell with the horrible impulsive trait that really needs to be nerfed/removed. It should be an assasin trait only.

Keep your conclusions to yourself.  I'm just stating the fact of how it works in .86.

The idea of Multi turn casting is very sound. Counter spells goes well with that. The problem is that the battlefields are tiny and units have huge movement. This means that there is no time for maneuver and spell battles. 

The multi-turn mechanic is required to allow for the counter spell mechanic, and i suppose to allow high movement/initiative units to whack the spell caster prior to finishing their spell as some sort of anti magic balancer.

I prefer the MoM method of a being able to immediately cast a counter spell that creates a "mana shield" pool that must be depleted by the opposing side before their non direct damage spells will hit.  But the current method should work if balanced well, I would think.

I agree that there should be a casting time for more powerful spells, but 3 turns is way to long as most combat barely lasts that long.

They needed to do SOMETHING to stop whichever caster moved first from nuking the other side in one shot (and allow counterspell), but I'm not in love with the current approach.

How about...

1: Make all spells 1 turn.

2: Make "counter spell" block the NEXT opposition spell or spells, like MoM's "counter magic", as Rhadagast suggests in reply #6.

3: Nerf whatever spells need it by some combination of (A) reduce the damage radius, (B) make the damage not increase quite so much as you gain shards and abilities, or (C) make the damage for each square within the radius vary randomly between zero and the current amount.

Not true.  All they would need to do is make all non-instant spells cast the next turn with an initiative modifier if necessary.  this would allow the opponent to cast a counter if needed.

Fireball is a special tactic spell. You have to defend the corner of the battlefield and wait 3 caster turns. Cast Haste first and then hold off the enemy until you can fire one off. Three turns to wipe all archers or melee units is a very cool addition to tactical battles. Ring of Fire and Dragonskin Cloak are the counter.

But there does need to be a turn one AoE spell for less damage. I would like Mage Staves to do AoE for much less damage. That would make them more desirable. I would rather they be different so that I need bother archers and mages, not one or the other. 

You could have counterspell be more of a "set this caster to counter the next spell attempted by the target unit"

I have said it before and I will say it again, spells should have a cast time measured in absolute time units, modified by initiative, not in full turns.  Turns is just not granular enough and can be spoofed by impulsive's double turn and haste's current "insta-turn" effect.  When you go to cast a non-instant spell, it should place a marker in the timeline with and icon for the unit casting and another icon to indicate the spell being cast.  I think they are working on some means of being able to tell when a spell is being cast so counterspell can work.

I agree that currently anything that takes multiple turns to cast has to be augmented by haste or impusive in order to even finish before the battle ends, which greatly reduces their usefulness.  I think I have tried one such spell without impulsive in a major battle, just to see how it worked.  It did middling damage to about two units that were left by that point.  You would have been much better off casting Storm or even Flame Bolt with those kinds of results.

  This idea to me is perfect.  I think the more powerful spells should have a time limit such as what has been written above.

I would prefer reduced damage and shard bonus instead of multi-turn spell casting.

Same there, especially since if the computer opponents were not brain dead, they would never let more than 2 of their units be targeted by a fireball.

When someone says a 3-turn spell is useless because most combats don't last that long, I don't think "well we should make all spells cast faster," I think ... maybe combats should last longer, at least 3 turns? The problem isn't cast times, it's tiny maps + too much damage vs. hit points, such that your melee can charge up to an enemy and kill him before your caster can finish that spell.

We may never have tactical combat with the complexity of, say, AoW in this game and I'm okay with that - but even in a game with a heavy strategic emphasis, running up and killing enemies before a spell with a cast time can finish is a little ridiculous. It's just not possible to have any tactics in that kind of "tactical" combat.

I disagree with Opening Post. Multi-turn spells are brilliant - tactical considerations are strengthened immensely by it. Once the AI uses these spells, there'll be even more consideration.

Just to be clear, Fireball and Blizzard have a cast time of 3. That means it takes four turns total, not three.

I feel that without the impulsive trait that lets you cast fireball immediately I rarely if ever use fireball. By the time the 3 turns are up there are either very few units left to cast it on or friendly units are intermixed with enemy units and I usually end up just targeting one enemy unit if any.

I think something needs to change, not sure what but this spell is either too powerful (when you cast it first turn) or too useless (when you ahve to wait three turns to fire it off). I think there can be a happy medium.

Fireball instantly kills trained units. Even hitting one is worth the cost. You need to plan a well designed Fire Mage before it becomes useful. I can get 4 caster turns before the enemy reaches my units. 

Tactical spells should include multi-turn spells. Fireball may be of limited tactical utility, but many other spells benefit from this well. Also if your battle doesn't last more than a few turns it wasn't worth spending mana on in the first place.

Fireball isn't meant to be useful in every battle. Use it in bigger battles with a lot of 2-move-per-turn enemy units, and preferrably with units of your own that can surround your casters while they cast. Obviously it isn't meant to be useful against panthers.

I think that the 3-turn wait after casting is fine. It's a damn powerful spell. And there is, as already noted, more than one way to counter it:

Fast-moving units, especially fast, high initiative units

Fire resistance

Archers taking out the caster before cast

Counterspell

Spreading units out to avoid multi-unit kills

And there are ways to make it more effective:

High-defense units to protect caster

Casting haste on caster

Slowing enemy units with various spells

If there are enough units, creating choke-points on the battlefield so the enemy can't spread out

Giving the caster movement bonus so they can retreat father before casting

Okay, you have identified an issue: Combat is usually over before the spell has been cast.

You jump to the conclusion that to remedy this, spells should have shorter or immediate casting times. Consider the possibility that you are solving the wrong problem: Is the underlying problem that spells taking multiple rounds to cast don't work in tactical combat or that tactical combat is frequently too short?

I would venture to say the latter. Damage is high compared to hitpoints and many fights ends with one side wiped out quickly, often without having time to get in blows of its own due to the game's first-strike mechanics. Except when playing on a high difficulty setting, magnifying enemy hitpoints enough to let the enemy survive a few whacks.

Combat would benefit significantly in a tactical sense from being slowed down.

I personally agree with your suggestions.  However the developers (I think Derek in particular) have expressed as a design principle that they want quick battles, no more than three minutes (and this presumably includes late game 9 vs. 9 unit match-ups).

(As an anecdote my most epic battle thus far with FE was the second battle that Procipinee fought in a 0.77 game.  She found no champions or useful gear.  After dealing with a Rock Spider which was nesting in a leather vest (phew!) she was forced to take on a Butcherman.  Before the battle she cast Regeneration/Evade/Courage.  She caste Haste on the first turn and then went toe to toe with the Butcher using her default Queen's Staff.  Combat lasted about 20 rounds (she did max 1 damage during entire combat) and was only won by two lucky dodges in the last 3 rounds.  She finished with 2hp's.  I was on the edge of my seat and actually cheered for the victory.  I also breathed a huge sigh of relief when we liberated the sacrificial dagger from the venomous villian.)

Tactical combat is too short in this game

How about making the combat map larger, put in terrain features that affect combat. This would not only slow down combat a little so that spells with multi-turns will make sense but it would provide a more meaningful and enjoyable TC expereance.