make the lvl 1 base nuke conj... "shock of spikes" comes to mind. that way mage would have a quicker way to work the skill up. stopping every lvl to chain cast 6 second pet untill the skill's maxed gets annoying. While i'm on the subject the random pet lvl was annoying in EQ, and removed to the joy of many mages / necros. I've cast the spell 6 or 7 times before getting a good one before.

and something not so mage related i think would be nice is the ability to change targets / add a mob mid cast

hm. Could you change targets while casting back in the day? Well, anyway. I guess it could be allowable. I don't see why not. For some reason I locked the target, but I'm not sure there's actually a good reason for that. Adding a mob mid-cast is good too. I'll add that all in. Great suggestions.