Below is my personal opinion of the spells we have.
I have listed both pros and cons to each spell.
If you feel "hey, you really have the wrong idea about this spell",
drop me a line about it at [email protected] and I'll
take a look at it.

Shocking Grasp: Pros:
Cons: Even at lvl 2 it doesn't do enough damage
for the amount of mental it costs.

Charm: Pros: If you are in a fight with multiple opponents,
charming a few makes it a lot easier.
Cons: Autoattack monsters will immediately resume attacking
you, so its use is severely limited.

Glow Orb: Pros: Very nice light, stronger than a torch, at a
low mental price.
Cons:

Relocate: Pros: Get some extra stats to wield weapons, up to 4
in one stat. Only useful for SMs and Sorcs.
Cons: AM relocate is totally useless, with only int and wis
to relocate.

Displacement: Pros: The ultimate defensive spell. Don't leave
your room without it!
Cons: Higher level monsters aren't fooled that much
by displace and you'll need other defense spells
to help out.

Acid Arrow: Pros: Much better than shocking grasp. I still use it
to finish off opponents because it's cheap.
Cons:

Flaming Fists: Pros: You get nice hitting power with these.
Cons: Doesn't last very long. At higher int levels,
it's better to just spellkill after boot.

Fist of Air: Pros: Looks nice to hit something with a fist of air.
Cons: More expensive than arrow and in general less damage.

Clairvoyance: Pros: Nifty spell to checkout rooms in dangerous areas.
Cons: Cannot see past guarded rooms.

Fireball: Pros: First spell that is consistently powerful.
Cons: At later levels, it costs about as much as vortex and
doesn't come close in damage.

Typhoon: Pros: Cheap.
Cons: I like arrow better still.

Create chest: Pros: The ultimate portable bag, don't leave home without it.
Cons: Still cannot "put all from room in chest"

Weaken: Pros: Makes your enemy hit less hard.
Cons: It also makes your enemy easier to hit, but as an AM,
your capacity to do physical damage is just too low
for it to be useful.

Stoneskin: Pros: Strong defensive spell to help you out when displace doesn't.
Should always have this up, like displace.
Cons:

Tsunami: Pros: Cheap spell that does nice damage..I like it.
Cons:

Slow: Pros: Works nicely on certain enemies only.
Cons: Better to use your mental on mirror images, brave lights, freeze etc
if you got em.

Mental Shock: Pros: Decent damage, gives you yet another damage type for those
nasty immunity monsters.
Cons: Costs as much if not more than vortex.

Lightning Bolt: Pros: Nice when you first get it..more powerful than anything else then.
Cons: As soon as vortex is available, you'll never need it again,
as it costs too much.

Cone of Ice: Pros: Very nice damage, it costs more than vortex for me, and does
almost as much damage..there are quite a bit of opponents
who are resistant to vortex and cone will dust em.
Cons: The cost of the spell.

Swallow: Pros: Nice damage, like cone, but it is more expensive.
Cons: Go with cone instead.

Freeze: Pros: Works great on medium level monsters and is cheap.
Cons: Higher level monsters will laugh at you.

Vortex: Pros: The ultimate spell.
Cons: More and more monsters are immune to energy damage(nasty coders)

Meteor Swarm: Pros: Great effect when you're in a room with more than 10
monsters.
Cons: Useless in all other situations.

Confuse: Pros: Whenever you're fighting more than 1 monster, cast it on at least
1 of them. It helps a lot.
Cons: Not cheap.

Mirror Images: Pros: Great defensive spell.
Cons: I prefer brave lights over images. They work better for me.
Also, casting 25 images of yourself is totally useless..6 or
so will be used up and the other 19 will suddenly disappear,
due to time constraints.

Storm: Pros: This should be the lvl 19 spell imo. It does nice continues damage,
finally allowing archmages to do runs.
Cons: Watch out where you idle. Its autoattack feature will kill you.

Tune: Pros: Eh, it looks cool.
Cons: It's the lvl 19 spell!! It doesn't work on most higher lvl mobs
and when it finally does, the monsters who are now swinging their
arms at random actually hit you more than before. Avoid.

Sorcerer and SM spells:

Haste: Pros: 3 or more attacks per round, depending on your weapon..it's great
Cons: Not a cheap spell by all acounts, but you'll live with it.

Brave Lights: Pros: Great defensive spell. The lights attract attacks better
than mirror images imo.
Cons:

Web: Pros: Works great against medium level monsters and is very cheap.
Cons: Bigger monsters will laugh at it.

Prescience: Pros: Doesn't make you hit a lot harder necessary, but rather
makes you hit just hard consistently.
Cons: Like any other spell, its quality can vary greatly.
It sucks having to spend 15+ mins killing with a lousy prescience.

Inscribe runes: Pros: Cast it on a ring or amulet and it will do wonders
for your spellprotection.
Cons: Doesn't work well for physical protection, but hey..who cares.

Assemble Armour: Pros: Nice at boot.
Cons: Armour that you can make sucks.

Attune: Pros: You couldn't wear a plate without it.
Cons: Too bad you cannot cast it on unique items. Sucks imo.

Enchant Weapon: Pros: Great offensive spell. Imo it's more important to a swordmage
than prescience.
Cons: Expensive when cast on a unique weapon.

Animate Shield: Pros: Cool effect.
Cons: I don't bother with it anymore now that I have brave lights.

Animate Weapon: Pros:
Cons: Not going to waste mental on a weapon that breaks too easily
and doesn't do any kind of nice damage.

Conjure Weapon: Pros: Great boot spell, conjured weapons are slow but do ok damage.
Cons:

Immobilize: Pros: Tape them feet!! Laugh at dragonne as she tries to flee.
Cons: Not enough monsters on the mud that run away.

Steelskin: Pros: The best armour class spell, it will really make a difference.
Cons: It can't compete with displace that sorcs and AM have. Swordmages
still have less potential for runs because they have no displace..
even with a great spell like this.

Free movement: Pros: It definitely helps against opponents that try to stun you.
Cons: You just don't have enough monsters on the mud that stun.