what where the designers thinking?

[Jarod the dark mage]

This isn't about how hard the game is... it's about magic.
they pretty much screwed it up, in my opinion.
First let's talk about the lack of magic... now i do know they ripped them straight of the fourth game but still...couldn't they at least add more magic to fit the new weapon level system a bit more?
for normal mage units there are only nine spells they can use.... and they will have some problem getting on the weapon rank needed.
Which is my second complaint the ranks are ridiculous... look at thunder magic for example...
Thunder, rank: E
Thoron, rank: A
Thunderstorm, rank: A

If you want a magic unit to be able to use thoron... it is going to take a while with only that weak thunder spell. And only Olwen can use daimthunder... why did they do that.. wouldn't be more helpful if daimthunder was a C rank spell?

Fire magic luckily does not have this problem it has elfire which is a C rank, but they dummied our bolganon / volganon ... making leveling up fire magic pretty much useless because meteor isn't such a great spell to use.

but it's all the same deal with light magic, there are only two light spells.. because they also dummied aura for no apparent reason. leaving us only with light and resire....

Which brings me to my other complaint the illogical starting ranks.
A sage pretty much owns all other magic users.... they use all magic except dark and even their light magic level starts at C, so it's very easy for them to use Resire. But the high priests who is supposed to be specialised in staves and light magic start at level E.... does that make sense at all? So if i want my promoted priest to use resire I’m going to have myself a hard time.

And we have only one dark magician and he sucks... his ability to use dark magic just isn't worth it, and there are only two dark spells he can use.....

Please can someone explain me why they did all of this?

[Sir GTF]

If you want a magic unit to be able to use thoron... it is going to take a while with only that weak thunder spell. And only Olwen can use daimthunder... why did they do that.. wouldn't be more helpful if daimthunder was a C rank spell?

Forgot about Elthunder?  Elthunder's absence is more jarring than Daim Thunder being a personal weapon.  Daim Thunder itself is practically broken in a good way anyway, it would be even worse as a normal weapon.

Which brings me to my other complaint the illogical starting ranks.
A sage pretty much owns all other magic users.... they use all magic except dark and even their light magic level starts at C, so it's very easy for them to use Resire. But the high priests who is supposed to be specialised in staves and light magic start at level E.... does that make sense at all? So if i want my promoted priest to use resire I’m going to have myself a hard time.

If you're seriously trying to turn a High Priest into a high level magic user, you're kinda using them wrong.  Light tomes aren't the most abundant thing in the game and weapon ranks rise ridiculously slow- it's not worth the effort.  The more important thing about High Priests gaining light magic that they now can't be instantly captured by enemies for having no weapon- that's really the bigger deal about them gaining any magic at all.

And we have only one dark magician and he sucks... his ability to use dark magic just isn't worth it, and there are only two dark spells he can use.....

Everyone seems to forget that Salem can use normal magic too and comes with a rather handy C rank in staves.  That and his present Magic stat instantly makes him more effective than Nanna in both healing and fighting- all she's got is Mov.  He's a pretty versatile unit if you use him right- only considering his dark magic is a waste of his capabilities because of how heavy Yotsmung is.  However, as a basic spell, it's the strongest out of all the magic types; it's only beaten in raw Might by Daim Thunder, Torron, Fenrir, and Holsety- and two of those are personal weapons.  It's also a rather abundant spell early on, you can get a decent stock of ammo for it quickly.  You use Yotsmung when you need that raw damage or are crazy enough to try capturing with him.  Statistically, he's not so bad, just needs a scroll to boost his Luk- any other boosts (like in Def, Hp, etc) are always appreciated.

[VincentASM is too important to have a messed up name]

Not sure if it was mentioned, but I wonder why they made Wind D rank when some magic classes have a Wind base of E... Well, presumedly since Wind is one of the best magic types, but still...

I do agree that magic in FE5 was kind of WTF.

[Jarod the dark mage]

If you're seriously trying to turn a High Priest into a high level magic user, you're kinda using them wrong.  Light tomes aren't the most abundant thing in the game and weapon ranks rise ridiculously slow- it's not worth the effort.  The more important thing about High Priests gaining light magic that they now can't be instantly captured by enemies for having no weapon- that's really the bigger deal about them gaining any magic at all.

If that is the only reason why they gave high priests a weapon level in light magic, why not give them weapon levels in the anima magics instead they aren’t as sparse as light magic. And we might have seen Cyas as a master of fire magic because of his 'major' Fala blood.

Forgot about Elthunder?  Elthunder's absence is more jarring than Daim Thunder being a personal weapon.  Daim Thunder itself is practically broken in a good way anyway, it would be even worse as a normal weapon.

Well you are very right, but could have easily equalized it with Elfire, it's the same deal with Graphcalibur in my opinion.

Not sure if it was mentioned, but I wonder why they made Wind D rank when some magic classes have a Wind base of E... Well, presumedly since Wind is one of the best magic types, but still...

I do agree that magic in FE5 was kind of WTF.

Owh i forgot about that.. It really shows they took no time to think about the magic in this game, it just makes me wonder why.

 

[Sir GTF]

If that is the only reason why they gave high priests a weapon level in light magic, why not give them weapon levels in the anima magics instead they aren’t as sparse as light magic. And we might have seen Cyas as a master of fire magic because of his 'major' Fala blood.

Except the story explicitly states that Cyas is HIDING his lineage, so him running around as a prodigy fire user doesn't exactly help toward that effort.  The fact that he's got a the marks of a Major Fala on his body doesn't make hiding that easy- illustrated by how even faceless mooks know Galzus is of Odo blood.

Asking why the High Priests only have light magic and not regular is essentially demanding to know why they didn't want you using utility units outside of utility.  If every unit was capable of performing every role imaginable, then a decent aspect of strategy is sucked out of the gameplay.  The very point of giving them only light magic when it's a scare commodity would be to limit their practical use in combat but still providing a means of defending themselves.  Notice how no offensive class has only light magic as its offensive options?  Furthermore, none of your High Priests are exactly combat worthy characters without massive scroll abuse: with their average HP and Def being under 30 and 5 respectively by max level in a game where you get hit, a lot. 

The rest of the design of the magic type in this game is indeed fubar'ed with how there's no middle ground in spell rankings, weapon levels rise too slowly, some classes never can use particular elements if they didn't start with a higher than default rank, etc.  But as far as I see it, High Priests only using light magic definitely not a part of that craziness.

[SlippyToasterTrooper_UK]

I think with magic they were trying to stop it being like the GBA Fes where ot an extent magic works great against everything (even other mages :S). Enemies lack res so try to stop magic being heavily overpowered.

I thought the weight issue was enough (bulid doesn't help mages*) but the designers clearly felt not making the middle ground into personal spells (or in the case of Fire removing the high ground) and then the high ground practicarly novelties given their low uses.

Also, it may have been an attempt to keep individual units using certain types of magic. Say, Azvel stickking to Wind and Olwen sticking to Thunder though they do have other options.

*-It sounds like a fanart from hell with Azvel with muscular abs holding a heavy book...

[camus the dark knight]

I personally think that magic was done rather well in this game, even if it's system and tomes are kind of WTF.

As mentioned, it really stops you from destroying all your enemies with it which is rather good in my opinion.

[Neofox]

(bulid doesn't help mages*)

To be fair, mages with good speed and build would make for good capturing units, though I'm pretty sure you'd need to scroll (and probably RNG) abuse pretty majorly for any of the playable ones to be capable of anything like that (which frankly isn't worth it...).

[hyde]

Personally, I don't mind the magic system. I prefer the later one, but I can live with it. I do think it's a shame there aren't more spells. Especially compared to the enormous amount of other weapons.

[Saaji]

The tomes options seems poor compared to the massive amount of weapons options but on it own i didnt mind it to be honest... I tended to focus on using  physical unit though so this was a never too much of a problem for me...

[Brighton]

I thought the magic system was good in this game. It wasn't blatantly progressive in strength like FE4 (which is fine, thanks to FE4's personal-belonging system), and it keeps the magic types somewhat different. There's really no need for 3 levels of the exact same thing, but slightly stronger.

It would have been nice, though, if they had added some interesting effect middle-road tomes. Like the no-power, high critical Luna spell in FE7+. Or a status-effect spell like Blizzard, but with the usual range. Or something that is weak on it's own, but adds +5 Def while equipped.

The possibilities were endless.

Dammit, now I'm dissatisfied with the magic system too.

[Neofox]

There's really no need for 3 levels of the exact same thing, but slightly stronger.

Why not? Much like with weapons, you can go with a more expensive tome for more power, or a cheap one at the cost of it being weaker.

Or do you mean in FE4?

[Brighton]

No, in FE4, the middle tome is a good idea since in that game, things progress like any other RPG.

In FE5, you generally want one of two things when you want to attack. High speed to double/dodge, or high power to OHKO. Having a middle ground would be used, no doubt, but it's somewhat unnecessary when one or the other is fine.

With weapons, Iron and Steel handle the speed/power situations, while Silver is more 'perfect', allowing a unit to brutally slaughter a small army by him/herself.
Then there's all the interesting weapons that have their own special uses. That's what magic needed. Stuff along the way from E to A that did things other than +2 power and +10 Hit.

[Yarias]

I wish rewarp staves were in more FEs   I loved them in this game.