I'm not sure I understand what the design for Elemental Lores actually is. The rest of the Lore categories make much more sense to me. Everything has some utility effects, but the primary effects as they make sense to me, are:
| Mental Lores: |
| Manipulation: Primarily offensive boosts |
| Telepathy: Support/spell enhancement |
| Transformation: Primarily healing/defensive boosts. |
| Transference: Some thematic monk stuff. Empath newb trap: completely useless to them despite TRANSFER being their signature verb. |
| Divination: Newb trap that does absolutely nothing. Will be useful once Sava-bwahahaha sorry bout that. (Why is this even trainable?) |
| Spiritual Lores: |
| Religion: Offensive boost for Cleric and Paladin spells |
| Summoning: Offensive boost for 100s/200s/600s, support for Paladin spells |
| Blessing: Defense/support |
| Sorcerous Lores: I think these are both poorly named, but regardless |
| Demonology: Boost spells of all kinds that involve demons/shadows/planar travel |
| Necromancy: Boost spells of all kinds that affect the body, both living and dead |
Unlike the others, Sorcerous Lore doesn't have as strongly-defined categories for what kinds of spells they affect, but there's only 2 sorcerous lores, so that's not much of an issue. You either go pure Demon or pure Necro for mutant/RP reasons, or you balance them appropriately. Then there's Elemental Lore.
| We tried to stick with general themes for each lore: |
| Fire: offensive |
| Earth: defensive |
| Water: Restoration and utility |
| Air: Time alteration and utility |
| It's only a general guideline, as sometimes a specific spell is strongly associated with an element that it doesn't make much sense to use any other element. You'll see why water lore makes more sense in the next couple of days. |
| GameMaster Estild |
The problem, as I see it, is elemental attunement. Or, rather, it has to do with the fact that there's 5 major elements, and players want to play an elemental archetype for their character: Fire Wizard or a Water Mage. There's titles and whatnot even built around these.
All 4 lores provide offensive bonuses to certain bolt spells, but not enough to stress out about.
But Fire Lore is designated the offensive lore. If you want to primarily be a water mage - which I think is a decision that GS should support - then you're sacrificing offensive ability for "Restoration and Utility". Every lore provides utility by definition. What restoration? Uh, your lockpicks won't break, mana leech will get a little better, and casting a mana node will give you bonus to mana regen. And a slim chance at not having a Rapid Fire cooldown.
Air lore is entirely thematic, a la Sorcerous Lores. Haste (535) is sold as an important defensive spell, but if you want to be able to cut your RT in half, you're in for 50 Air Lore at cap. Celerity is an important offensive spell for Warmages and utility for everyone else. You can't be a warmage without Air Lore, which pushes it way past Fire Lore as an important offensive lore for them. And almost every bolter will want 20 air lore for Tonis Bolt, because it's the only AS-based disabler wizards have.
So Air Lore is an important defensive lore, at least. But then what about Earth Lore? It boosts 905 DS, and helps other spells if you get lucky. And it lets you open-cast that -AS warding spell whose name I forgot, if you ever think that would be the best use of your mana and 3 cast RT. But it's mostly offensive, increasing warmage AS with Strength and Edging, and boosts a bunch of non-bolt offensive/disabler spells. It plays a nice offensive role in the new Boil Earth, from what I've read.
And Fire Lore is definitely a main offensive lore, even though it appears to affect the least number of spells.
But most wizards see themselves as a Mage of the Deep or Zephyr Mage and still be able to hunt as well as a Pyromancer. The more spells are tweaked to enable this, the more disparate lore training becomes.
Clerics don't have to choose between Spirit Summoning clerics and Religion clerics. (Paladins do until way post-cap, but they're semis, so whatever.)
Unless an Empath really wants to heal to the exclusion of everything else, they don't have to choose between being Transference, Manipulation, or Telepathy Empaths. Their best attack spell, 1115, requires two Lores to boost it, but one is a Spiritual Lore and one is a Mental Lore; there's no push and pull there. Mutant empaths don't require a specific lore training at all (although Blessings helps, especially for GoS warpaths).
Again, Sorcerers have this distinction, but only have 2 thematic lores to choose between. Further, their major offensive spells are either not affected by Sorcerous lore (702, 717, 719, 720) or are barely affected by those lores (CS 705/713/720). Only 711 (and unlocking bolt 705) is affected heavily by lore, and even those allow for Demon-style Sorcerers to get the some of the effects without much sacrifice.
I was going to ask where to go from here, but as I was typing all of this, I got to thinking.
1. Add another set of lores, Wizardly Lores.
2. Nerf the remaining powerful and less thematic uses of the elemental lores, especially in the 500s and 900s. Make them cheaper in the process. Let them define your character, not your build.
3. Do not reverse the order steps 1 and 2. This is important!
Wizardly Lores could be something like:
Essence (Non-bolt offensive boosts)
Evocation (Bolt offensive boosts)
Time (Support)
