Mages are supposed to be hard to play in my opinion. Mysticism is a dumbed down mage. The necro mage was powerful and people complained about it, but it was a lot harder then mysticism to master and required better timing. Also mystic mages are friendly for protection players further dumbing down the mage. If i run into a disarm bleeder temp I go protection..why.?.. because it's easier in protection and the other guy will die.
Mysticism really pissed me off because almost anyone can be amazing on a mystic mage, where being an amazing necro mage was hard. Also pure mage and necro mage are completely nerfed against mystic. I used to play a pure mage when necro's were popular and it was possible to beat necros as a pure. It was hard but it offered a challenge that was possible. Mystic vs necro mystic wins EVERYTIME no matter what. Pure vs mystic is a joke and mystic once again wins EVERYTIME. This is of course assuming you have a semi capable person playing the template. I've lost a lot of interest in playing uo as of late, the style of pvp has become boring, it's the same couple of temps running around, and it's pretty much all a numbers game. Mages used to be fun for me because it was a way to challenge people and challenge yourself but now it's just too easy and therefor boring.
I am very bitter about mysticism because to me it changed what a mage was and what a mage required, which was intelligence. Now a guy can run around in protection cast 3 spells and beat you.
Also think of the lack of diversity in pvp right now, almost everyone is a mystic or a disarm bleeder. If not then he's a bush dexxer/archer/thrower or a tamer. What other temp is really being run right now? Can a wrestle scribe mage compete now? Can a nox mage compete now? Can a necro mage even compete now? Can a warfork mage even get a kill? Mayb but assuming equal skill levels in a fair fight I don't see the mystic loosing. So mysticsm or dexxer?
As for dexxers I think now they are stronger then ever before. There is one type of mage to beat and while it can be difficult especially in large groups, dexxers have better equipment now then they could ever dream of pre imbue. Weapons are perfect, archers/throwers are shooting as fast as the game allows, and everyone has insane mana pools. So I understand why mysticism is so strong, to make it weak would in effect kill the mage character completely, but something must be done to keep older skills fresh and viable today.
spell plauge=win needs to be adressed, it's making pvp very very boring.