Sadly it is starting to look like this game wants mages only as part of a group, which really sucks for solo-interested players like myself.
Necro will be cool addition, but likely gatekeeped like Spiritism and the range of spells will still be awful compared to a bow. Plus expensive reagents.
While magery needs buffs for sure, a large issues is that MA is just too overpowered and easy to play, and we have been waiting for the wobble change
for ages now, which we don't even know if it will make an impact. The best counter to a bow is currently another bow, which means every melee char also needs a bow to defend themselves 1v1 in the wilds. It does not make sense that mages would also need to build a bow into their arsenal, as they do nothing with strength otherwise, and their points are already tight as you basically need taming skills to do anything alone. Additionally, why would the game require two ranged combat styles for one character type? It just doesn't make sense.
Of course people here say MA does no damage as long as you have the heaviest armor in the game on, but as a mage it just isn't really viable to do so thanks to mana regen modifier + low armor weight in general and no points for additional weight skills (I guess oghmirs could have some armor).
If a mage does not initiate combat they will die for certain, as they will get random interrupted as well after spending ages standing still casting stuff, or riding in a straight line being easy targets.
I've talked this topic to death here by now, but yeah as said, looks like this game wants mages to move in a group if they want to a fighting chance.
