Thanks for the quote. I had read it once, and I remember I found it as confusing back then as I found it today. I still think the idea of water as exclusive to cure (which I'm not sure is what the quote means) doesn't contribute to the internal logic of the game's mechanics. What about positive aspects in Earth, or Air?

The whole thing seems like an arbitrary, a-posteriori effort to force-streamline a system that wasn't working anymore within their new plan. To me, it smacks of a roughly handled scalpel. As a matter of fact, we know this to be the case. Nobody conceived this foreshortened, truncated structural scheme of the elements as the foundation for anything, or at the beginning of any designing process. It was an inelegant compromise done on-the-run; it sacrificed balance, and as I have said already many times, inner logic.

At the same time, I'll acknowledge it brought a certain equilibrium to the numbers of spells needed, but also a rather unnecessary symmetry to the classes' actions. Evidently the new development team thought this was desirable. Perhaps future announcements will reveal the sense of harmony that removal seemed to push out. I just hope it wasn't a rushed, 11th-hour decision. I never lamented the end of Shell, but I still do not get the camouflaging of Water as something else.

R