At a very early landmark, the end of Wizard City, Storm students are given the spell Disarm. For those of you who don't know, Disarm removes one blade from an enemy at the cost of a pip. The spell makes sense. As Storm wizards, we have lower health/resist and the ability to lessen the potency of a spell is reasonable and helpful. But the pip kills it.
First, what if your opponent uses the blade? It's absolutely useless now. There is no blade to remove, and you lost a pip. Secondly, Disarm's counterpart, Steal Charm, (1 pip, take one blade from the enemy and give to self) has the same pip cost, for a better reward. You could say "But it's only useful on Fireblades, Elemental Blades, and Global Blades!" but that's the thing. It IS helpful on Fire, Elemental, and Global Blades.
Pierce, Disarm's cousin, removes one ward for 0 pips. Pierce's counterpart, Steal Ward, takes one shield from an enemy and gives it to caster for two pips. So why should Disarm and Steal Charm be different? A Storm student can not build up for a hit if he's using his pips to lessen the damage of an opponent. Please make Disarm 0 pips, and allow Storm students to use this spell!
Your annoyance is quite justified. But after you play W101 for a while, you learn something basic: a good third of the spells in the game are useless for anything. And of the rest, three-quarters are very situational, only useful in a few specific situations or for a few levels before something equivalent but stronger replaces them. Actually, storm has fewer completely useless spells than most lineups. Try playing balance, I swear nearly half the spells my level 74 balance wizard has learned have literally never been put in a deck. Astral spells are much worse, only the sun damage spells are really commonly used, and of those you only use the highest level one learned, the weaker ones are completely superseded and useless.
I really wish KingsIsle would make a commitment to rework the whole spell system, take a hard look at every spell in the game, and modify most of them. It is my view that every spell in the game should serve a purpose, and not just against one or two cheating bosses in the entire game, either.
The realities of astral spells, cheating bosses, and a variety of other features introduced in the second arc have dramatically changed how the spells learned early on behave. If they continue this distortion into a third arc with no reworking, I expect the system will pretty much come unglued, with not only single spells but pretty much whole colleges becoming useless, as everybody winds up using a small set of highly optimized spell combinations.
I can honestly say I have never used Disarm on my Storm. I guess it might have it's limited uses, but not really. The only instance I would even consider using it is Loremaster, and as you stated, I can carry Steal Charm for same cost AND I get the +50% blade.
@Dan The big problem is players all scream for new spells, KI comes up with them and we don't use them, so we scream for more spells. Most wizards just end up carrying a couple blades, traps, heals, colossal, shrike and whatever AOE of their school of choice in PvE. With the glaring exception of Shrike, new spells really only tend to affect PvP.
At a very early landmark, the end of Wizard City, Storm students are given the spell Disarm. For those of you who don't know, Disarm removes one blade from an enemy at the cost of a pip. The spell makes sense. As Storm wizards, we have lower health/resist and the ability to lessen the potency of a spell is reasonable and helpful. But the pip kills it.
First, what if your opponent uses the blade? It's absolutely useless now. There is no blade to remove, and you lost a pip. Secondly, Disarm's counterpart, Steal Charm, (1 pip, take one blade from the enemy and give to self) has the same pip cost, for a better reward. You could say "But it's only useful on Fireblades, Elemental Blades, and Global Blades!" but that's the thing. It IS helpful on Fire, Elemental, and Global Blades.
Pierce, Disarm's cousin, removes one ward for 0 pips. Pierce's counterpart, Steal Ward, takes one shield from an enemy and gives it to caster for two pips. So why should Disarm and Steal Charm be different? A Storm student can not build up for a hit if he's using his pips to lessen the damage of an opponent. Please make Disarm 0 pips, and allow Storm students to use this spell!
Well, on the bright side, very few fire wizards actually use the spell because we need to stock up our decks with many many many many many many many many many (hope this isn't considered spam =3 ) many many many many many many many many many ... blades, traps, and sun spells as we can for survival, so we don't really need that spell, to be honest. Many (many many) people think fire and storm wizard survival is the same because we both get low health and high attack, but it's not true. Myth, the school with 3rd highest attacks and 3rd lowest health. Myth has a much higher health cap than Fire, but has a much lower attack rate; storm is the opposite. Storm has a much lower health cap then Fire, but has a much higher attack rate. That's why the three of them are completely different. Besides, it can't be that big of a deal now can it? Just live life as you normally would; don't let little things like that bother you unless you have a good reason
-Nathaniel Redflame, level 54 in Celestia
P.S. Might not be able to reply, my membership expires tomorrow... =\
