[1.0 Bug?] Blizzard

seems fine to me for a spell that has a casting time of 2. most battles are halfway done or completely done by the time it is ready

With a dagger you get a high initiative and with the savant ability you reduce the casting time to 1 turn. Blizzard has twice the radius of a Fireball and inflicts roughly the same damage against a single target (16 + 2 vs. 18 + 4), but against a group the damage is so high that it kills every group with a single spell (16 base + 4 shard + 60 % evoker III = 32 points of damage per unit = 160 points of damage against a group with 5 units).

Blizzard rocks. But it can be counter-spelled, and resistance to cold completely nerfs it. 

Also, single target, high-hp units laugh at blizzard.

Also, most characters won't level up enough to have both savant and multiple evoker traits. 

But these points are true for Fireball, too, and Blizzard has the additional advantage that it has a low mana cost, because you get Mantel of Oceans (- 40 % cost of tactical spells) before you get Blizzard.

This is not a bug.  This is not even questionably a bug.  This is a balance disagreement.  You should change your subject line so as not to clutter up the actual bugs being reported.

I do not think so, because the base damage has been increased from 8 to 16 and it was not mentioned in the changelog. Perhaps a developer did not recognize that the damage is multiplied by the number of units.

Darxim is correct IMO, this is not a bug and I'm pretty sure it was listed in one of the changelogs. Blizzard is fine as is currently, IMO, few enough decent damage spells available.

The sword you get from Vetrar allows the casting of Blizzard without a casting time or a mana cost (from Skills tab). This is pretty nasty with a high level high init wizard. Every battle can be started off with a Blizzard to kill most of the opposing army, there is pretty much no challenge left once you get that sword. At least this was my experience from the LH scenario back in beta, I haven't seen any changes to the sword.

You can also buy scrolls from an improved Conclave that casts Blizzard with no wait time.

It does fail against monsters with magic immunity.

it is intended.  It's wroth noticing that Blizzard is a higher level spell than Fireball.

Thank you very much for your reply. I think that a base damage of 16 is too high, because a single trained unit has 6 (+ 2 per level) hit points and that means that the unit must be level 7 to survive the base damage of the spell.

that trained unit can also have a cheap 25% frost resistance cloak, up to 5 extra HP from rations and med kits and some more from traits & magical equipment. baseline militias and other fodder units will get wiped out with one cast, but proper mid/late game units can survive with some losses.

Good thing counterspell still exists.

Nope, because Blizzard inflicts 32 points of damage against a single trained unit if the caster has access to two Water shards and Evoker III. This damage will be reduced to 24 with the resistance cloak. The unit must be level 8 to survive this damage IF it has rations and med kits.

I think it is dangerous to balance a spell around the idea that it has to be countered.

Then of course on could not have nature cloak cast with 2 earth shards (+40% cold resistance then), that nice cloak, or even the

spell protection from cold at +50% cold resistance. There are ways to counter such things

Or maybe the Obsidian Guard ability and be completely immune to cold.

Natures Cloak will have a high upkeep if you cast it on every unit and the AI never casts Protection from Cold to reduce the damage of a Blizzard. Obsidian Guard is not very helpful, because the caster must select Prodigy I and II before he can select Evoker.

Nature's cloak is one of the cheapest unit enchantments in the game. The upkeep is not necessarily high, because you can cast it the turn you attack, then turn it off the same turn. 

Wizard, you have to let this go. Your balance crusade is pointless, because this game's concept isn't about perfectly balanced strategy. The only real issue is that the AI can't deal with blizzard when you use it. Turn up the difficulty, or don't use blizzard.

But what if Wizard wants to play as a spell-casting wizard and still get a challenge from the AI? There aren't very many other high level damage spells available, so if one chooses not to use Blizzard there's not much else to get. There is Flame wave of course, a 5th level fire spell, but that is not very useful. Balancing Blizzard back to around its original level would make for more fun, because there will be more fair strategies to use and the AI will be able to provide a challenge even for spellcasters.

Haven't spells been balanced before because the AI had a difficult time countering them? E.g. Tornado?

Why not select a lower Magic Strength when choosing the map/world settings? I find spellcasters' power is constrained by the amount of mana/shards at your disposal. Less shards tips the balance to non-magic oriented champions/factions.

I also think Blizzard is a bit strong at the moment.

Two reasons:

1. Mage Trait lets you cast it in 1 turn (instant), also the Heart of Glacier lets you cast instant.

2. AI is stupid and won't use counterspell (at least I never witnessed so far)

AI has counter-spelled me plenty of times, for the record. They aren't necessarily smart about using it, but it does use counter-spell.

I can attest to this as well, the AI definitely uses counterspells, but as Davroana notes, they aren't necessarily using it optimally.

I agree that blizzard is too powerfull, especialy considering it's low mana cost.

It's really too easy to conquere entire cities with only 1 spell that cost 8 manas (with the mantle of ocean and various mana reduction spells / objects) : It's zone of effect is perfect for that.

And I've never understood why the more ennemies are on the maps, the deadliest it is. What is this logic ?

I understand that the more water shards you own, the deadliest it is, but why the more ennemies ?

Having said that, it's clearly my favourite weapon... so deadly !... but I'd say, too deadly to be fair.

It's basically the spell equivalent to the Overpower trait of some high tier melee monsters or the Decimate trait of the warrior specialization. It's not really working the way you describe it, rather the damage to a unit is multiplied by the amount of figures this unit has (Party, Group, Squad, Company), so you can actively counter big troops. Fireball is working the same way, it does not take into account how many units there are on the map.