Casting first in defence + endgame spells

[Twan]

It's a straw man because I critic an (insanely big in my opinion) advantage given to the defender and you answer like if it was a critic of the power of magic in endgame in general.

With an initiative system making round one casting not so absolutely reliable for the defender I would have nothing against extremely powerful battlefield offensive instant effect. I just think these spells are not good for the game due to the actual initiative system.

I also know there are some champions of theoryminion here, who have counters for anything in thought, I even seen theories countering the Mist of Deception + BE combo, so I tend to prefer to consider real games experiences to things supposed to work (or even "working" if you forget to compare the costs, like forging armors for 60 mages to counter a 1 gem rain of stones) .

I'm totally fine with about 90% of the (endgame or not) spells and game mechanics, except they are not actually balanced against offensive battlewide instant (cast by a defender in round one). Why bothering to cast niefel flames, shimmering fields etc... or use mass elemental resist spells if the ultimate defensive tactic is to kill attackers in round one with chained mundane dammages or to enslave them ? What's the point of all expensive continuous dammage BE like fire storm, wrathfull skies, etc, and all mass +/- fatigue spells, if instants should decide the outcome of big battles in round one and allow to destroy/enslave everything but a bunch of SCs ? Why the placement and script system if no matter how the attacker position his troops/mages all is decided by spells touching them everywhere before they have done anything ; and no matter how the defender use this tool too, the only way to destroy him is with rituals ? What's the point of havink 1K+ different units in this game, if all become useless except a dozen of SC chassis and mages-in-defense-only ?

Now I must admit I'm a little biased because I like to watch the replays before looking at the result, and see interesting battles with some suspense and brillant tactics involving thought for the two sides, in both army position and 5 full rounds of scripting, rather than being sure that I've won when I see that my ennemy attacked a defended province, or seing wars decided in a text saying a lucky spell has gone through a dome, without even something to watch.

And in my opinion, allowing one round of buffing, if not the perfect solution (= a good individual initiative system with only small defensive advantage, and/or the most powerful spells needing several rounds to be cast), would allow to see as interesting battles in endgame as they already are in midgame, with more varied combos involving all kinds of elemental dammages / resists, fatigue management, importance of troops, mages and SCs placement, eventual ping pong control of low MR units via astral spells, etc... Nothing reducing the power of magic, but making massive endgame battles the pinnacle of the game they should IMO be.