Well now I know, thanks. I cannot argue with that. Side question, at what difficulty do you feel like you're restricted the most or is it the same with all difficulties except for anything under Beginner?

Oh I also meant firestorm, but having your wizard being underleveled and seeing how the discussion isn't about level 20 wizards that's case closed.

Thanks, Gremlion. That was very useful information...

One thing that I probably fail to understand - if Wizard kills only using spells, shouldn't he get all the experience?

I believe that experience is split three ways -
1. For Hero (for being present)
2. For ALL units (including Hero, for being present)
3. For units based on activity

If no other unit takes any action, ideally the Wizard should get full from 1 & 3 above. Plus given low number of units, also expected to get a lot from 2.

I am comparing this with Scout which often ends up in a similar situation especially post level 10 with double shot. Please correct me if I am wrong...

UnitActRating = 20*MeleeKills + 10*RangedKills + 2*MeleeDamage + RangedDamage + DamageReceived + 3*SpellsStamina + 2*UsedHealing + UsedStamina + 1

I suspect that main idea behind ditching out spell damage along with poison from exp distribution formula is potential issues with tracking source and amount of damage. Like mage would cast mass disease then ghoul would hit diseased target and apply disease again. Or problem with 20 poison damage on target with 5 hp left.

So, for activity you will get only spellstamina and stamina.
If you won by using fireball on first turn, you would have activity rating as :3*4(spellstamina)+4(total stamina)+1=17.

Compare it with scout which won against, say 2 minotaurs with 2 doubleshots:
10*2(ranged kills)+104(damage)+ 10(stamina) +1 =135

If they both have 5 units then mage would get 17/22=77% of activity exp, scout 135/140=96%.

Thing is, on the way to these battles you pretty often will have situations where swordsman would do 2-3 melee kills and receive more activity rating than wizard which spent all his spellbook on damage spells.

Buffer/debuffer wizard, on the other hand, can disable enemy by web/fatigue/blind, buff himself and score meleekills.

Thanks! BTW, in the above action summary does wand count as ranged damage?

Unfortunately I haven't really seen any high damage (as compared to Scout bows or even Warrior heavy weapons) wands drop! So even if wand attack is counted, it would be hard to do enough damage using only a wand!

Yes, wand is counted. You can easily buff damage on mage, though - his spells have longer duration.
I remember that in New Horizons mod for Genesis Mage/Ranger multiclass was transformed into Wand user, with +4 to damage on 10th level and another +4 on 20th. Wiz/com became necromancer instead(which makes more sense).

I prefer to have melee weapon, staff of healer, probably, most useful one. With good staff on hill under magic weapon, magic armor/stone skin, and healer behind, you can play Gandalf and scream "you shall not pass"*.

*Remember, how it's ended for Gandalf, though.

:p