Recently, I wondered if balance school spells that caused non-balance damage such as spectral blast, hydra, and chimera were affected by damage boosts from gear that says it increases balance damage. I saw that others had wondered the same thing, and found that the answer was that gear that increases balance damage does indeed affect such spells.
I assumed then, that the balance of power spell worked the same way, increasing the damage dealt by all balance spells by 25%, regardless of if the damage caused by those spells was balance damage or not. But as I played the game with this assumption, I noticed that my balance spells that caused non-balance damage were not quite doing as much damage as I expected them to when balance of power was active. I decided to test it, and came to the conclusion that balance of power does not boost the damage of these spells, despite the fact that balance of power's description uses exactly the same symbols as pieces of gear do to indicate a percent amount increase in balance damage.
Why this inconsistency? Is this the spell's intended effect? This seems somewhat unfair to balance wizards, as no other school's global spell suffers in the same manner as this one does. I use spectral blast and hydra quite often, and this is making me consider pulling balance of power from my deck.
