V's aside
I didn't say every spell would be just as useful as any other. After all, around half of M1's spells was practically useless.
I'm going to be equal and call both wizard friends and monsters "subjects".
Well, the difference might be determined by certain element's specifics. Going through your example...
Let's quickly go through what we know about current Earth and Arcane/Death (in force cast)
Earth is a physical projectile, that deals damage upon impact and the longer it's charged, the harder it hits and greater it's range. As AoE it causes an earthquake.
Arcane/death is a magick beam, that acts instantly, and so long as it stays on target it deals flat or exponentially increasing damage, depending on the game. As AoE it's usually simplified to a singular nova.
The casting type still matters, of course.
In such system, there would be additional priority of "components" currently in the queue, where the component (element) gains priority based on the order they've been queued in. So in case of DS, the D has a priority of 5, and S priority of 4.
The priority of each component defines it's behavior, and ideally would be unique to every element, but might be simplified...a bit. Each element in queue regardless of position will add flat damage that's caused on hit.
D (With each charge increases width of the spell and/or weigh of projectiles regardless of position, also (thanks for the suggestion up there) abrades the subject as sand when hit with something non-projectile-ish):
5 - Creates the charge-able projectile, charging it increases overall damage of everything included in it. Increase in damage multiplies with more D in spell
4 - Upon release generates a shockwave from the avatar up to the enemy, causes knockback effect to anything within the shockwave range (cone). It's force multiplies with D and time of conjuring. Increases the speed of projectiles.
3 - Increases the range of the spell, multiplies with more D
2 - Creates an earthquake on hit, size and knockdown force depends on amounts of D
1 - Increases overall damage of the spell based on amount of D
(Because BFBoulder is big as f...ffff...feldspars?)
S (The flat amount of Arcane damage is added to the overall spell with each charge regardless of the position):
5 - Creates the beam, dealing flat Arcane damage every 0.5 second (every tick counts as hit), it's range and duration multiplies with more S
4 - Creates an AoE on hit. Range scales with S
3 - When hits, inflicts the subject with status of Decay, causing him to receive additional damage from every source. Adds 1% of damage increase per hit and is instantly nullified by dealing Life "damage" to decaying subject.
2 - Passes through physical objects, but is blocked by shields regardless of initial properties (if passes through a subject, it counts as a collision/hit)
1 - Multiplies Arcane damage of the spell based on amount of S
(Because if you hit 5xArcane you want to feel that power of the laser of doom)
F (Regardless of the position ignites (or refreshes ignition on) subjects on hit, which decreases over time and eventually goes out unless refreshed):
5 - Creates a fire spray dealing damage in cone per 0.5 seconds, it's size multiplies with F
4 - Creates fiery AoE on-hit, it's size is determined by amounts of F (never wider than the "end" of the cone's range)
3 - When refreshing the target's burning status, increases it's damage exponentially
2 - Ensures ignition regardless of subject's statuses.
1 - When hitting already ignited subject, causes combustion, doubling the burning damage
(Because some people just want to watch the world burn.)
So yeah, if you queue up DS, D gets number of 5, S gets number of 4 so you get good old rock projectile with an arcane AoE (that also deals arcane damage to the subject itself)
If you queue up SD, however, S gets priority of 5 and D gets priorit of 4, so you get an Arcane/Death beam that creates a shockwave when you stop conjuring, handy for when you suspect your subject to close in while you're conjuring but want to have a window.
So let's quickly run over the rest of spells you've typed in, shall we?
SDF - wider than normal beam with shockwave that boosts burning
SFD - wide beam that creates fiery AoE each tick and is slightly longer
DSF - rock projectile with Arcane AoE that boosts burning
DFS - rock projectile with fiery AoE that applies Decay on hit
FDS - wide fire spray that applies Decay and creates shockwave afterwards
FSD - wide fire spray with arcane AoEs going around and highly increased range
SDSFF - wide arcane beam that applies Decay, ignites no matter what, combusts violently with each tick and creates a shockwave afterward
SDFSF - wide arcane beam that burns more over time, passes through all objects and combusts violently, creating a shockwave afterward
SDFFS - powerful wide arcane beam that ignites no matter what and boosts burning (also creating shockwave)
And the surface has been scratched. Hooray...
[edit]
(Seriously though, ideally every spell would be unique, but first you have to find a guy who'd agree on spending weeks on designing each spell separately, that's as much as I could come up with in this time)
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