I would like to preface this by saying I understand that this game is 12 years old and some of the original design decisions might have made sense at the time of development, but I personally believe it's time for a change. A big issue I have with the first arc is low ranked enemies casting off-school spells. (I get there's not much spell variety at lower levels, and most of the classes don't have a shield until level 12, this only applies to rank 3 enemies and above.) Once you learn your first shield the game should teach you to use it properly, but instead you're hard punished for doing so. If a Fire enemy has 3 pips, you ideally want to cast some form of Fire shield to defend against a Sun Bird, but they end up using Cyclops instead, dealing 300 damage (about a third of your health lost for trying to play it smart). I'm also not a very big fan of non-Balance bosses casting Weakness. I get that they do this to add an extra layer of challenge to important fights, it's another factor you have to be aware about, but after a while it just becomes a nuisance you have to deal with. They're already equipped with opposite shields to defend themselves against the element they're weak to, they don't need any more defense, especially one that affects every school. I think it would greatly benefit the game to make enemies consistently cast spells from their primary school of magic, and removing Weakness from all non-Balance bosses will remove the sense of dread everyone gets when creating a new wizard.
