I find it kinda unfair that death's school doesn't have a good AoE hit until scarecrow (level 48). Other schools like fire get one at around 22 (fire gets meteor strike at level 22). But if death wanted a low pip AoE, they have 2 options that are not viable at all.
1. Ship of Fools (4 pips) - This is basically a pay to use spell from the celestian spellemental pack and even if you did let's say, pay for around $25 worth of crowns, there's a pretty big possibility to not even get enough spellements to craft the spell.
2. Deer Knight (5 pips) - Deer Knight is a spell with enough power for around the MooShu - Dragonspyre enemies. The reason why this spell is nearly impossible to get is because you can either craft it or be lucky with the Loremaster. At the current moment, I'm a level 89 death wizard STILL trying to get the reagents for Deer Knight just for the spell collection (not for any use at my level). Everything other than amber is somewhat obtainable. The best option to get amber, however, is to farm the LEVEL 90 dungeon in Aquila or garden (King Parsley). The Loremaster's spell drop rate is just so low that the time you can spend grinding the Loremaster, you could be at least 30 levels above Dragonspyre.
My suggestion is to make Ship of Fools craftable at an earlier state of the game (probably not gonna happen because it's more of a pay to have spell.
For membership only players, death really has to struggle through early game.
If they keep bleeding the same strengths of every school, there won't be any uniqueness. Look at Ice: it doesn't get a blade until nearly level 50. But that immensely crucial spell shows of Ice's lack of offensiive prowess (but is made up in defensive viability).
If you're just worried about questing, every other school is jealous of Death's ease at doing so solo. Draining makes longevity simple. So while you may not have an efficient AOE until late, you get a strength elsewhere.