Archmage Elements Rework

[Planetus]

For a while I've thought that the elemental trees for Archmage were massively unbalanced (internally) leading me always to the same elemental combination. I think:

Fire has massive damage and AoE, can stun enemies, and can remove status effects (positive for enemies, negative for allies). This is the single most powerful element.

Air has huge spike damage, can daze with a lot of hit, but also huge damage range which makes it somewhat less reliable.

Water is crap. It's only good spell is freeze, which also blocks the damage you deal in the future (mitigated by Shivgoroth form) and suffers the rare effect of increasing it's cooldown time as you level it up.

Earth is mediocre, with some decent damage/range at higher levels, but close range and small AoE.

Arcane is awesome, with good damage, huge range, decent AoE, some odd features, and of course Disruption Shield.

This leads me almost always to Tri-beam early on and later Fire/Arcane. It's massively OP. And it doesn't really embody any of the elements how I see them.


I'd like to see it rebalanced to something like this:

Fire has decent range (usually around 7), massive AoE effects, lots of DoTs, but can only cause burning status effect, with a passive/sustain skill that allows that burning status to be spread from enemy to enemy within a certain range. Overall, though, the lowest damage of all the elements. This becomes the first element to go to for dealing with large groups or for stacking a lot of damage on top of itself.


Air becomes Lightning and is the longest range (possibly even beyond 10) element, with almost everything it has being single-target, beam, or chain, not usually hitting lots of enemies. It can daze/stun/confuse any enemy it hits, though these are low chance and given via a passive/sustain skill. It has the highest damage of all elements, including a massively powerful single-target spell, the most powerful of all Archmage straight-damage spells, and possibly of all skills in the game. It's the go-to element for single-target damage. I also like the idea of summoning a specific thunderstorm cell to act as a kind of attack tower (not sure if it'd have HP and could be killed, or be a trap and could be disarmed, or is just a tile effect).

Water is a mid-range (probably 5-ish) moderate AoE element with a LOT of debuff effects, possibly all lumped into a 'hypothermia' status effect (things like reduces global speed, defense, all damage resistances, gives a chance for skills to fail, etc). The advanced tree of Ice contains a variety of effects that can freeze/pin enemies. This element becomes the best crowd control element, though damage is only somewhat higher than fire. A signature spell (though exception to it's manifestation) would be Water Serpent, which does immediate damage, and then pins, grapples, and chokes the enemy, dropping air to 0 (or maybe just rapidly reducing it).

Earth is a close-ranged (3-ish) small/self-centered AoE element with a lot of pin/knockback/confuse effects to limit movement and bleeding as a secondary damage effect over time. It also has the second highest damage. It has a defensive sustain that grants a little Damage Reduction All (instead of the armor we see on Stone Skin) The advanced Stone tree has a Stone Storm sustained spell that does tight AoE damage and blocks melee attacks, also having a chance to block ranged attacks, up to a certain damage total (a sustained shield that only blocks physical attacks). Add in things like a self-centered Earthquake and Chasm (drops an AoE down, pinning all targets in range), it becomes almost a melee-mage type element.

Arcane/Aether ... I'm not really sure. I actually kind of like the odd mixture of talents in it right now, though I'd maybe like to see it themed off of your mind tapping into an aspect of the aether in a pseudo-trance. That, I'm thinking, would lead to a string of sustained trances, that either boost your own power or do effects in a range around the caster (arcane damage, status effects, reduced capabilities) and Disruption Shield could become Disruption Trance (basically the same thing). Aether would culminate in Aether Avatar which let's you have two trances active at the same time. That idea isn't 100%, though.

What do you all think about this? Can we theme each element around a singular elemental characterization (fire spreads, lightning strikes out, water rushes in waves, earth doesn't go very far but is really powerful)?

[HousePet]

Nobody likes Wind magic.

[Razakai]

It's highly unlikely DG would want to change Archmage, but it could be an interesting addon. I'd recommend trying to structure some of those ideas you have into trees. I've had some similar thoughts in the past so I might post those concepts when I have time.

[Planetus]

I'd love to see some wind magic, but I imagine the damage type would only be physical, unless we add a new 'air' element.

[HousePet]

*uses Brainstorm*

Fire Element:
The layout of the talents bothers me. Its all active for Fire and then only 1 active for Wildfire. I'd like to see Burning Wake moved to Fire 4. Some sort of defensive talent in Fire. This would require reducing the number of offensive talents, but Flameshock currently has issues, and Blastwave with Burning Wake overlaps a bit with Inferno.
Defensive talent thoughts: Some sort of fire shield? Fire/Cold damage reduction? Increased light radius? Something of use for Arcane Blade?

Air Element:
Kinda suffers from relying on the Hurricane trigger to do good damage. Unreliable damage is a bit meh. Shock and partly Tempest seem to be there just to try and make the one trick pony dance.
Lightning Talent: Do we need this? A lightning beam is almost cliché as a mage spell, and this is supposed to be Archmage. More importantly the next talent is Chain Lightning, which while expensive is more fun.
Could replace it with a Wind Gust talent? A beam of physical damage with knockback. Knockback would be good synergy with a long ranged talents theme. If the physical damage is an issue, it could be made to apply lightning damage increases instead of physical ones.
Not sure what to do about Storm. Would love to have something that gives your lightning hits a chance to arc to a second target. Then we could reduce Thunderstorm strikes to radius 0 and not hit yourself with it ever again.

Water Element:
It was kinda like Air in that it only had one trick, the Freeze and then Shatter combo. It now has the Wet debuff, but in a way that is a bit like Shock, failing to fix a major problem. It also only has one source of Shatter and only a few sources of Frozen. I do like the idea of making it about applying and exploiting debuffs. Talents need a rearrange/rewrite however. Would be nice if Water became usable by Arcane Blade.
Why is Shivgoroth Form in Water?
Instead of granting Ice Storm with Shivgoroth Form, Shivgoroth Form could alter the Watery spells to make them Icy.

Earth Element:
Its apparently not to shabby, but that might be because enemies can't counter Stone Wall. Stone Skin is terribad and should not be in slot 1. We need a damage talent. Armour is also useless by itself and adding Hardiness to the spell makes Arcane Blades have no trouble maxing Hardiness. Replacing it with damage reduction is a good idea, but maybe only to physical damage? Could give it a physical save bonus too.
Damage on Earthquake is too small.
If we did go with Earth spells being shorter range, we would want some sort of long range pull, otherwise Body of Stone would be annoying.

Arcane Element:
This one could do with some more theming. Unless the theme is supposed to be killing yourself with weird spells? I like the weirdness aspect, not the killing yourself though.
Manathrust should be the first talent in Arcane.
The damage in this element is mostly done over time, moreso than Fire. It also has no debuff application or crowd control at all. Not sure if that was a deliberate design choice.

Bonus - Phantasm:
Sure you don't have to unlock it, but it is a bit weak.
Illuminate is fine.
Blur Sight could benefit from a chance to redirect incoming projectiles to an adjacent tile.
Phantasmal Shield: Could add some armour and hardiness to it. Rename it Phantasmal Armour and avoid people wondering why it doesn't interact with Aegis?
Invisibility: I haven't got any experience with this, so I have no idea if it should have a bigger effect or a smaller penalty/cost. It doesn't seem overly useful when I can just teleport to escape.

[Planetus]

Some more detailed thoughts, and FYI I'm thinking mostly scrapping what exists, more than just a few tweaks:

Fire - A beam spell here doesn't make any sense to me. Fire doesn't travel in straight lines unless it's forced to. I'd like the first spell to be a cone, maxing out at a huge range (7 or so), but putting Flameshock first is probably a bad idea, plus it doesn't do any immediate damage. Instead, I say get rid of Flameshock altogether. Talent 1 is a flame cone AoE, whatever we call it. Talent 2 can be Fireflash, the fireball spell. Talent 3 can be a passive or sustain, maybe put burning wake here? Something else? I really think Fire should be all about damage over a big area, with Burning (a DoT) being the only status effect. Maybe a sustained talent that lets burning creatures pass the effect to others? Talent 4 should be a huge raging inferno type, maybe generating strong enough winds to pull creatures into the center. I don't really like fire being defensive.

Wildfire - This should have a more 'wild, uncontrolled' feel to it. I'm thinking Burning Wake really belongs here for that. Then two activated spells that involve fire spreading somehow, maybe something like Cold Flames, only just flames. It'd have to be pretty powerful, though, to be justified so late. Not sure what else.

Air - it does fit better with physical damage, but Earth and Stone already do that, and this is all about elemental variety and theming, so I say just rename it Lightning and be done with it. Lightning having a beam spell makes sense, especially if we theme it as the ranged element. It may be cliche, but it's cliche for a reason. Other options would include Chain Lightning (I like that), a ball lightning spell which I don't actually think should be a lightning explosion (maybe it wanders slowly around the field and damages anything it hits, but that makes it unpredictable, wild, and that's fire), and a single-target lightning strike (I'd call it Bolt from the Blue) which ideally should be the most powerful, but also most restrictive in range. I'd also like to keep one sustain/passive in the first tree, but I'm not sure what. Feather Wind seems really weak to me. Traps aren't that powerful, carry weight isn't a huge issue, and movement speed only comes at the end. Maybe a sustained lightning movement spell, with only a small but growing boost to movement speed?

Storm - I'd like to theme this on actually summoning the storm itself. I love the idea of summoning a local thunderhead that strikes out at your enemies. Also maybe a large area thunderstorm that strikes random enemies in it every turn, with more strikes at higher levels? Could a single target be struck multiple times? I'd like a sustain, probably here, called Thunderstruck, which gives all lightning spells a chance to daze, stun, and confuse, just as an effect of being suddenly shocked so powerfully.

Water - Water moves as waves, so I'm thinking the first spell should be a wave spell, either a cone or a column (haven't seen those in this game yet). While knockback makes sense for this, I wouldn't do it simply because it makes Arcane Blades not want to use it (you don't want to knock your enemies back as a meleer). I could also see a bolt or explosion effect, though I'd limit the range and possibly travel speed a bit. I REALLY want to see Water Snake as Talent 4, just because I think it's really cool. All moves could cause Wet, and I'm thinking either here or in Ice we get a sustain that causes Hypothermia, which causes most of your debuffs. I could see a defensive move here, maybe.

Ice - Every move here should be able to freeze. The fourth would probably still be Uttercold. Shivgoroth Form could fit in here, though that only leaves two talents left to be activated spells. Maybe Shivgoroth Form allows all your Water spells a chance to freeze?

Earth - Agreed that Stone Skin shouldn't be first here. In fact, I don't think Stone Skin should be an Earth spell at all. It's Stone. It says it in the name. I say replace it with an Earthen Armor sustain, which doesn't really STOP damage so much as reduce the impact of ... well, everything. Blades, arrows, hammers, bullets all get slowed, fire still gets you hot, but not nearly as much, water gets dissipated, lightning starts to ground, poisons and venoms splash against it first and you second, etc. I could see Arcane, and maybe Nature and Darkness could be explained as penetrating, but even there I could explain them not penetrating. That's why I said 'resist all'. That and mages need protection from other elements, too. For other talents, Earth should focus on literally moving the earth. Earthquakes, rifts, chasms opening up and swallowing people (but probably staying open), maybe even a sudden uplifting, though that could work in stone just as well. I also see it and Stone being the center of knockback, pin, and other movement-restricting status effects.

For Stone, I like Uplift, which could also cause a tile to become wall (permanent or temporary). I like Entomb, too, though I'd like to see it cause suffocation as well. Body of Stone is a maybe, but I'm really not in love with anything that keeps you from moving. I'd

Arcane and Aether, yeah, not really sure what to do here. I could see this focusing on 'it's wild and wacky and turns people into mushrooms and bunnies', or I could see it focus on drawing forth something that's always there but never seen. I could even see it focus on the Aether influencing you, which is kind of where the Trances idea came from.

Overall, I'm thinking each element would be pretty singularly focused, so while it could be powerful on it's own, real synergy would be between trees. Fire does DoT, especially terrain focused, so it would work well with Earth which could pin people, or possibly Lightning which could Daze or Confuse them. Water focuses on freeze and generally disabling enemies, so while it would somewhat counter Fire (burning and wet should cancel each other, and maybe fire should do more damage to iceblocks), it would work well with lightning. It weakening foes could work well with the powerful but close-ranged Stone. Stone and Lightning wouldn't really counter each other, so much as cover each other's weaknesses. Stone would take care of close-in enemies and defend you while Lightning has the range Stone lacks, but that would be it.

I'm also thinking, for Arcane Blades, currently all the spells they can channel are either beams, bolts that become beams, or multiple bolts. This would give them more variety, with Lightning being a beam, Fire being a cone, and not sure what for Water, Earth or Arcane.

And yes, ABs NEED to get useful Water spells. It's just a glaring hole.

[HousePet]

Archmage don't care about how an element naturally works.

Featherwind is more useful for Arcane Blade, which isn't really a bad thing.

[Razakai]

Some of my own ideas I sketched out a while ago:

Arcane - Mana manipulation. Manathrust converts a % of current mana into bonus damage, Arcane Power gives stronger effects and does different stuff based on high/low mana. Merge Arcane Vortex and Aether Beam's concepts maybe - a trap tile that fires arcane beams and explodes for a % of the damage left if stepped on.

Aether - Base the tree around Aether Avatar - think D3 Archon. Make it the first talent, have it supercharge you. Aether Breach can be a passive while in avatar form, have it blast tiles around you. Replace beam with a powerful spell only usable while in avatar form.

Fire - Make this all damage over time. Flame can just be a high-power dot in a small ball, like attenuate. Or make it single target and jump. Make the rest of the tree do fireburn damage, perhaps put in a spell like WoW's Combustion (apply a powerful DoT based on a % of all fireburn damage active). Put Cleansing Flames here maybe, and have it reduce self-inflicted fire damage.

Wildfire - Make burning wake the key part of the tree. Have it be high damage, spread over time, give spells that interact with it like consuming burning tiles to buff yourself, targeted damage against all enemies inside a burning tile etc.

Water - Control effects. Maybe give a water geyser beam as a T1 spell that does medium damage+slow. Freeze is fine, but maybe let you use it on friendlies for a damage shield, or empty tiles to create ice walls. Buff Tidal Wave's damage, convert to pure cold, let you target it as either a spreading ranged ball or a slow moving column. Shiv form is good, but might be better in Ice. I like the water serpent concept - have it be a chain lightning style spell that hits a small number of targets and inflicts pin/grapple/silence and cold damage over time.

Ice - Make this about freeze. T1 can be Glacial Vapour, a sustain which causes frozen targets to take cold damage over time as well as 'healing' the iceblock. Shatter is good, maybe alter frozen ground to make it something that interacts with frozen targets too.

Air - Mobility. Chain Lightning can be the basic nuke as beams are dull, give them a teleport-lightning beam like old temporal wake that does a blind/daze flash, buff feather wind a bit. Replace Thunderstorm with a wind themed spell - was thinking a tornado style thing that destroys projectiles and knocks enemies around while buffing your speed.

Storm - Put in Thunderstorm, add in stuff like lightning damage inflicting debuffs/hurricane, randomly targeted storms. Uncontrollable but powerful.

Earth - Terrain manipulation. Auger can be the main nuke, have it explode terrain tiles for bonus damage. Earthquake could create stone walls etc.

Stone - The 'turret' tree. Rather than a sustain, have Body of Stone stack up over time if you don't move, granting defensive boosts and increased range of Auger. Other talents interact with it, like Earthern Missiles being a passive that fires stone bolts at targets while in BoS form.

[Planetus]

Razakai, I like your ideas!

Arcane - Maybe Manathrust does damage based on portion of mana you have left, with most damage when your mana is full, least when it's low? Fixed cost, but think of it like electrical potential. Even if only a certain amount crosses a gap, how powerful it is depends on how much push there is behind it. Arcane Power could boost your spellpower when mana is high and maybe reduce spell cost or increase mana regen when it's low? Or maybe it increases crit power when mana is high, but gives you mana on crit when it's low? I love the Arcane Vortex/Aether Beam concept.

Aether - this kind of makes it a one-trick pony, but at least the 'one trick' is more-or-less constantly available from the beginning.

Fire - I like having fire focus on the Burning status, but at least most of the spells need some kind of direct, immediate damage. Otherwise this will likely get ignored unless it's REALLY powerful, and then it'll be OP. Maybe low immediate damage, but then a good bit of damage over time? Having a Firestorm spell that hits a massive AoE and does damage each turn based on Burning damage left on the target, or maybe extends/enhances Burning effects, while trying to apply it to non-burning targets, would be cool. Alternatively this could be in the Wildfire tree and be a powerful AoE that needs a certain number of burning tiles. That would kind of make it a gimmick spell, though.

Wildfire - I like the idea of Burning Wake spreading, and that being central to the tree. Between Fire and Wildfire, a battle of more than 10 turns should leave the entire screen wreathed in flames. I'd also like to see spreading flames reset the duration on that tile, so it doesn't all go away at the same time, but just kind of peters out as the spread rate is less than the duration. That'd take careful balancing, though. I also like the idea of buffs when standing on burning tiles or spells that consume burning tiles to be more powerful.

Water/Ice - As long as there's any Wet - Freeze - Shatter sequence, we need more options to do the first two. At the very least, low-cooldown options. Maybe something like all water spells can inflict wet (but put Freeze in Ice), and then there are two Ice spells that can inflict freeze, with either lower cooldowns or AoEs, and then a sustained/passive that gives a chance for any cold damage you deal to shatter frozen targets?

Air/Storm - I still feel like mixing wind and lightning in one tree doesn't work for Air. Storm could be more than just electrical storms, so the Tornado spell could go there. I think Hurricane just doesn't really manifest as all that much, though. I'd rather replace it with something else.

Earth/Stone - Ooh, Auger does damage in a beam, but then does additional ball damage centered around every tile it destroys! I like it! Add in some spells to raise your own terrain tiles (Earthquake, Uplift, Entomb, Wall, whatever) and this could be cool. I also like Body of Stone being something that buffs the more you don't move, rather than something that keeps you from moving. Every turn you don't move, it stacks a buff that increases those effects/chances, while every turn you DO move it decreases that buff. Other stone spells could be more things to add/explode terrain.

[HousePet]

Was thinking this morning that Arcane could do some arcane resource stealing and have something for shutting down (or at least reducing spellpower) other mages.

I wouldn't worry about Fire damage being mostly over time. Currently Manathrust is the only arcane spell that doesn't have its damage evenly spread over time. Arcane Archmage doesn't suffer from it.

We should put a low priority on matching flavour from the category name. There are way too many other things of more importance to consider; like making the base category useful for Arcane Blade for example.

If Augur is going to explode wall tiles, I'm going to say it needs to be restricted to only 1 tile of digging. Otherwise its going to be crazy with potentially three hits if setup correctly. I'd prefer to not have to nerf to exploding wall damage to balance that possibility. Blasting the Augur through enemies as a beam is still acceptable, but only 1 wall tile.

[astralInferno]

One major concern I've had with Archmages is their lack of an Acid tree, though I agree with a lot of your other comments too. I really like Feather Wind thematically, and I agree that I'd like some /air/ spells rather than just lightning. (of which Feather Wind is an example.)

I also know that some people are actually fond of the way archmage has multiple beams, to the point that I was asked to please please include a beam if I did an acid addon. But that might have just been one weird person in the IRC.

(My writeup for Acid was AoE and debuffs focused.)

[Planetus]

HousePet: Yes, I agree that Arcane could do a resource stealing attack, and I have an idea below. I wouldn't worry too much about Auger exploding, we just have to keep the radius small. If you drill into a thick wall, what enemies would be hit by a 1-2 radius explosion? How often can you fire Auger along the end of a wall so that you're hitting enemies adjacent to each wall tile? Also, if Earth and Stone are about terrain manipulation, then hitting multiple isolated pillars of wall becomes part of the strategy.

I also agree that fitting it to Arcane Blade is important, and part of my desire was to give their Channelling attacks some more flavor than Fire Beam, Lightning Beam, Arcane Beam, or what is almost Stone Beam.

Astral: I also like acid, and think it's one of the more overlooked elements, but for Archmage, thematically, I can't imagine it without stepping on the toes of others, mostly fire or water. Acid would likely be AoE (acid clouds and pools and splashes and such) DOT (slowly eating away at enemies) and debuff (reduced armor, disarm, reduced power, blinding are currently ToME acid debuffs). Fire is AoE DOT and I'm looking at water as AoE debuff. I'm not saying it can't work, just that I think it needs to be more varied from what we already have than what I could do.

Some stuff I threw together:

Fire - AoE, DoT focus (Burning cancels Wet)
Fireflash - Cone radius 1+ETL (2/3/4/5/6/7) - damage spread over 3 turns
Fireball - projectile explosion radius 3+ETL (4/5/6/7/8/9) - damage spread over 3-6 turns?
Immolation - sustained, burning enemies can pass burning status on to adjacent enemies
Conflagration - instant huge AoE radius 3+ETL (4/5/6/7/8/9) - damage spread over 5-10 turns?

Wildfire - spreading fire, persistent effects, built around burning tiles
Scorched Earth - Sustained, Fire and Wildfire spells leave burning tiles behind, which have a duration of 3+ETL+/-20% (3-5/4-6/5-7/6-8/6-10/7-11) and a chance to spread to an adjacent non-burning tile of 0.02*ETL (2/4/6/8/10/12)%. Each tile duration is unique and new tiles get a new duration. **Need to balance duration and chance to make sure fire spreads, but peters out**
Fire Eater - Breathe in and consume all burning tiles in radius 1+ETL (2/3/4/5/6/7), healing yourself X HP per tile, increasing your global speed and Spell Crit Chance by 1+ETL/3 (1/2/2/2/3/3)% per tile for 1+ETL (2/3/4/5/6/7) turns. Each point in Fire Eater also passively reduces self-inflicted fire damage by ETL*19% (capped at 95%) **This needs to be balanced so that Conflagration - > Fire Eater isn't an instant super-power, but a tactical choice**
Dragon Twist (Fire Whirl? Flame Tornado?) - AoE DoT radius 2+ETL (3/4/5/6/7/8), needs at least 2+ETL (3/4/5/6/7/8) terrain tiles of burning in area, does high damage for a DoT and pulls targets into center
Wildfire - sustained, +fire damage, fire resistance penetration, fire affinity (small), increased spell crit chance, all scaling per burning tile in sight

Water - Moderate damage, knockback focus, moderate range/AoE (Wet cancels Burning)
Water Jet - Bolt range 2+ETL/2 (3/3/4/4/5/5)
Crashing Wave - Cone range 2+ETL/2 (3/3/4/4/5/5) + knockback
Water Shield - Sustained, raises a protective shield of water, reducing all fire, water, lightning, and physical damage by small % and dealing knockback water damage to any melee attacker **Maybe replace this with a sustain that causes water spells to do debuffs?**
Water Snake - Single target damage, constrict, choke, silence reduce air to 0? Chain?

Ice - Freeze mechanics
Freezing Blast - Blast radius 2+ETL/2 (3/3/4/4/5/5), moderate damage + freeze any wet targets
Hypothermia - sustained, enemies struck by cold damage when wet suffer Hypothermia, losing global speed, power, and cold resistance, undead and constructs are immune **If debuffs are in Water, something else here**
Shatter - unchanged larger radius? targeted?
Shivgoroth - Sustained, mostly Uttercold + increased spell crit damage, cold damage to Wet targets can freeze for 1-3 turn

Lightning - High damage, limited target focus
Lightning Bolt - as is
Chain Lightning - as is
Lightning Step - Jump to target location in range 3+ETL (4/5/6/7/8/9), dealing lightning damage to all enemies along the way.
Bolt from the Blue - Single target incredibly high damage, has additional chance to stun, daze, confuse, at TL 3, can stun/daze/confuse targets in a small radius, at TL5, does partial damage to enemies in small radius, can stun/daze/confuse enemies in wider radius, long cooldown

Storm - Persistant effects
Storm Call - AoE DoT wide range field that does lightning damage to a random 2+ETL (3/4/5/6/7/8) enemies in the field every turn
Thunderstruck - Passive, all lightning damage has a chance to stun, daze, and confuse (low for each), can also Shock enemies, reducing all status resistances
Thunderhead - Spawns a Thunderhead, terrain spot that shoots lightning at enemies for X turns **trap? killable? hit all enemies? random enemies?**
Thunderstorm - sustained, +lightning damage, lightning resistance penetration, lightning affinity (small), increases casting speed

Earth - High damage, wide area, short range, defensive
Auger - Largely unchanged, but deals additional AoE ball damage centered on destroyed walls, radius 1 + 1/6 ETL (1/1/1/2/2/2)
Chasm - AoE radius 2+1/3 ETL (2/3/3/3/4/4) + pin, can destroy walls in area
Earthen Armor - sustained, grants +% resist all
Earthquake - Self-centered AoE DoT range 3+1/3 ETL (3/4/4/4/5/5), can cause pin, knockback, confusion, and spawn walls each turn, walls do extra damage to enemies struck (spawned on top of)

Stone - Centers around pillars/terrain manipulation
Stonestorm - Sustained, radius 1, any enemies in range take damage and any melee strikes are blocked (shield up to certain HP, regenerates slowly over time), projectile physical attacks have 1/3 chance of being blocked **This is kind of like a cross between Bone Shield and a Damage Shield that only effects physical attacks, plus damage in a radius 1**
Earthwave - Send out a self-centered wave of raised earth radius 2+1/3 ETL (2/3/3/3/4/4) and raising walls randomly along the ending radius.
Petrification Matrix - Ball area radius 3+1/3 ETL (3/4/4/4/5/5) petrifies all targets in area for 1 turn per wall in radius, also explodes each wall in radius, dealing physical damage to all targets in a radius 1 + 1/6 ETL (1/1/1/2/2/2).
Body of Stone - Sustained, + physical damage, physical damage resistance penetration, small resist all (and cap), and increases spellpower. Also, does increased damage to petrified targets. Effects stack each turn you don't move, decrease as you move.

Arcane - Mana manipulation centered
Mana Thrust - Bolt/Beam that deals damage relative to the % of mana remaining (more mana does more damage)
Mana Trance - sustained, increases spellpower proportional to % of mana remaining, increases mana regen by inverse of % of mana remaining
Mana Drain - Chain spell, deals small Arcane damage and then applies magic-resource burn (ala Anti-Magic Thrust), restoring mana to the caster by damage dealt. Additionally, people 'downstream' of the returning mana take additional Arcane damage.
Disruption Shield - Unchanged

Aether - Aether Avatar centered
Aether Avatar - Increases spellpower, mana regen, max mana, Arcane damage, Arcane resistance penetration, and Arcane affinity, as well as allowing Disruption Shield to be used at any time.
Aetheric Disruption - Sustained, every turn, at a random location within radius 3+1/2 ETL (4/4/5/5/6/6) of Aether Avatar, a blast of radius 2+1/3 ETL (2/3/3/3/4) deals arcane damage. If the caster is hit, it restores mana instead of dealing damage.
Aether Breach - Creates a trap at target location, firing Mana Thrust at random enemies each turn, and explodes if stepped on. If hit by Aetheric Disruption, it deals an additional 15*ETL (15/30/45/60/75/90)% damage for 3 turns. **Alternately, if hit, it triggers Arcane blasts on enemies it hits with beams**
Aether Purge - Channels a massive thrust of mana, creating a beam of arcane power, draining all but 1 mana (to not deactivate any sustains) and auto-activates Disruption Shield if available. Does massive damage in a beam? cone?
Alternately - Aetheric Weave - Sustained, all enemies in a radius 3+1/2 ETL (4/4/5/5/6/6) of Aether Avatar have a chance to suffer from any one of a number of status effects.

[HousePet]

Have been meaning to comment on this but have been really busy.
I'm also still quite tired, so hopefully it makes sense.

Auger: We are giving the player the ability to make walls, albeit randomly, so with a radius 2 explosion from each wall we can expect up to 5 hits to happen.

Fire:
Fireball and Conflagration are basically the current Fireflash and Inferno. I don't see any reason to change the names.
Immolation: Probably not enough for a whole talent.
Overall: 3 offensive talents that are just the same thing, but different shapes? Boring. Looks to be mostly useless to an Arcane Blade as well.

Wildfire:
Scorched Earth: I see no reason not to call it Burning Wake.
Fire Eater: Interesting, but I'm not sure about it being a heal. Maybe if it restored some mana instead? Then it would be like gathering a huge amount of fire together to cast a bigger fire spell.
Dragon Twist: Was thinking of a identical talent called Fire Whirl.
Wildfire: Scaling that stuff with Burning Tiles reduces the tactical cost of using Fire Eater.
Overall: While Cleansing Flames is a bit OP, I strongly doubt anyone is going to be happy with losing it. Also, we have got 3 non offensive talents in this category still.

Water:
Water Shield: Not sure about the physical resistance and the retaliatory knockback could be OP. Could add water breathing to the talent though.
Water Snake: Constricting targets stops them moving, which seems a bit redundant with freezing.
Overall: Not bad. We have some offense, defense and utility. Potentially good for an Arcane Blade.

Ice:
Shivgoroth: Basically Shivgoroth Form is gone entirely, as is the tactical decision. Making cold damage to wet targets inflict freeze is going to be weird, as most of your sources of cold damage are from water damage.
Overall: This category feels wrong. It relies on Wet targets, but cannot create them.

Lightning:
Lightning Step and Bolt from the Blue are interesting (Urkis with BftB is going to be nasty).
Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are just the same pure damage with a different shape.
Overall: Similar to the Fire category, but at least we have some utility. Where did the wind go?

Storm:
Storm Call and Thunderhead are functionally identical.
Thunderstorm: See Shivgoroth. Using an existing talent name to rename another existing talent is just going to cause confusion and disappointment.
Overall: Not bad, other than the repeated use of 'Thunder' in talent names.

Earth:
Earthen Armor: Its a more useful stat than armor, but its still a dull talent.
Earthquake: Could get annoying when it drops a wall in front of you.
Overall: Reasonable spread of damage, defense and utility. Losing Stone Prison will not be popular though. Useful for an Arcane Blade.

Stone:
Petrification Matrix: This looks like it would actually be the biggest damage dealer. So its a bit weird it is also a disabler.
Body of Stone: This talent looks crowded with effects.
Overall: Its pretty good. Looks fun and is self reliant.

Arcane:
Overall: Barely changed; still about the same.

Aether:
Aetheric Disruption: Restoring mana when hit is what Disruption Shield does, and this will make it hard to maintain Disruption Shield. Also, Aether Avatar makes it less of a problem when taking arcane damage, so I can't see this talent getting much use.
Aether Purge: Nice idea, but it seems to overlap a lot with Mana Thrust.
Overall: You broke the talent 4 being the penetration talent! Not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe a bit too Aether Avatar centric.

tl;dr summary:
Some very interesting talents in this suggestion, however it doesn't address some of the existing issues and removes a lot of popular talents for no apparent reason.

[Planetus]

HousePet, thanks for the feedback. I was trying to blend some of my ideas with some of the suggestions here. Also, I didn't have the game open at the time, so some may be re-named simply because I couldn't remember the original name.

Auger: I see optimum damage being P W W E W W (Player - Wall - Wall - Enemy - Wall - Wall). That's 4 hits (assuming the explosions all happen after the walls are removed and not either before or sequentially), requires a very specific setup, and assumes you know where the enemy is even though you can't see it. It also means you get hit by two explosions (unless there's a space between you and the first wall). It could be a lot of damage, true, but it would also be a very specific setup that should be rewarded for being taken advantage of.

Fire - Yeah, I mostly took away the pseudo-stun effect of Flameshock and moved talents around a little. Seeing fire as a mostly offensive element to me, I'm OK with a variety of shapes that basically all do damage and burning. I was thinking this would work well with Immolation (lot's of opportunities to get lots of enemies burning), but in retrospect that's only really useful against the mass-hoard situation, which isn't too common. Still, it would fit well with Fire being a crowd-damager. Any other suggestions to put in there?

Wildfire - Fire Eater restoring mana could work, though I think with Disruption Shield, it'd be less preferable. Maybe not. Dragon Twist is the Japanese name of a Fire Whirl (American name) and sounded cooler to me. Maybe blend the two and get Dragon Whirl? Maybe swap some Fire and Wildfire talents to give them both more damage/utility balance?

Water - Maybe make Water Shield activated with a fixed duration? That makes it more like Tidal Wave, but with added defensive effects. A sustain to breath underwater could be cool as well. The potential freeze with Water Snake and Shivgoroth (or Uttercold or whatever) would be more for Shatter, and more intended for the first two water spells. Ice is very much intended to work with Water as well, and not as a stand-alone tree. This is hardly unprecedented in ToME.

Lightning - I like same damage with different shape! What's wrong with same damage with different shape? Especially given cooldowns... Given the constant use of Lightning in it, we could change the first to Crackling Bolt.

Storm - I hadn't noticed that Thunderhead and Storm Call could be functionally identical, though different targeting mechanics could differentiate them (Thunderhead targets 1 with a powerful beam, Storm Call hits multiple random enemies alone).

Earth - I think Resist All would be a pretty potent talent, especially if the numbers are similar to but a little higher than Conditioning (since it takes mana to sustain and can be dispelled). Simple utility can make up for 'interesting mechanics', IMO. As for Earthquake... that's what you've got Auger for. Or just mining.

Stone - Again, Petrification Matrix depends a lot on the positioning of walls. Although, I wasn't thinking of hitting a line of enemies in a 1-wide corridor. Walls on both sides all the way down... yeah, that'd hurt.

Arcane - I like the changed mechanic of Mana Trance over Spell Focus (is that the current first spell?), and I think Mana Drain is pretty unique. Arcane chain lightning with resource burn that does additional damage to enemies closer to the caster as the mana returns?

Aether - Maybe the blasts of Aetheric Disruption could raise your spellpower for a few turns if it hits you? That would eliminate the downside of interaction with Disruption Shield, while still allowing the upside of random explosions around you. Also, maybe make it a passive instead of a sustained, so that you aren't activating it as soon as you pop Aether Avatar. For Aether Purge, that's why I was thinking a cone. It'd end up being a LOT more powerful than Mana Thrust and at a cost, and also probably with a long cooldown, but I could also see it using a different shape.

I'm hoping with damage re-balancing (with Lightning being the highest, Fire being the weakest, and Water and Earth being in between), and the greater options for things like Wet (through water), some of the biggest problems will be fixed. I definitely think Cleansing Flame is OP, and that and Burning Wake alone pretty much make Fire the go-to element for status protection. I tried to include Stone Prison, but with ANY mechanics to utilize walls on Earth or Stone, that becomes a truly killer move.

[HousePet]

Another issue with Fire is that you've got a talent for spreading burning effects between creatures and tiles, but under what circumstances is everything on the level not going to be on fire with that talent list?

The problem with Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning is that we have only 8 talent slots available per element. So if we are doing slight variations on a theme, we aren't doing interesting mechanics and cross category synergy.

Resist All is a useful stat, but this is a game not a business. It needs a balance between functionality and creativity.

I tend to find the best way to do a rework is to brainstorm entirely new talents, make them into categories and then test them conceptually. Then take the best parts from the original and the new stuff, and combine them to make a final product.