and into wrote:To elaborate a bit: Sandblast's weird bimodal character based on what you are wielding would not bother me so much, except that it is a spell that a background starts the game with.
I think the fact that it is a starting spell is also what makes it tricky to balance without the bimodal aspect, though. Since earth elementalists start the game with no weapon and no other offensive spell before stone arrow, no-stone sandblast is their most reliable tool for killing popcorn. Remove the option to cast it with the stones (even if you buff it in the process), and it becomes boring. Remove the option to cast it without stones, and earth elementalists struggle with popcorn in the very early game. If the spell occurred later, then you could easily just remove the no-stone option and make it an offensive spell that gets good damage for its level at the cost of stones, because you'd already have a good popcorn killing option. The problem is, after the first few floors of the dungeon, stones are so plentiful that the cost would become completely trivial, and so it would be just as interesting as if it didn't cost stones.
Here are some ideas I can see:
1. Keep sandblast bimodal, but possibly try to make it less clunky.
2. Make sandblast require stones, possibly buffs, but no other changes to EE starting book. It's less clunky, but EE's now have to pickup a weapon extremely quickly. This would almost make EE's play more like hunters for the first few floors than most other book starts like they currently do.
3. Make sandblast require stones, but add a level 2 offensive spell to the EE starting book. EEs don't rely on sandblast as their only offensive spell for quite as long, since they get an alternative offensive option at level 2, but the background becomes more similar to FE or IE.
4. Increase sandblast's level. Possibly make it require stones. Give EE a new level 1 spell (or just swap sandblast and stone arrow). Sandblast maintains its unique identity as a spell that is fueled by a consumable, but EEs are no longer left with the issue from option 2, and we no longer have a clunky bimodal spell as a level 1 option. Might need to switch the fuel to something rarer than stones or make it require multiple stones, however, since a stone is a pretty trivial cost for any character who can cast level 3+ spells - it's only interesting right now because stones are often somewhat limited for the first few floors.
5. Remove the stone requirement. Sandblast is now boring, but at least it's not clunky and EEs still have an offense option that doesn't require stones.
Personally, I think 1, 2, and 4 are the most interesting options. 3 and 5 make EE a less interesting background, in my mind. 2 makes them a very interesting background, but possibly in a very annoying way.