I actually think this could be a good idea, perhaps limit iceshield and fireshield to be limited to 1 target at a time, in other words you couldnt fireshield an entire group. the mage would have to give up the ability to fireshield himself if he cast it on someone else perhaps. Or perhaps put in some new spells like "molten armor" and "Frost Armor", something targetable, but not quite as strong as ice/fireshield prep, but would still ad utility to casters and not take away the benefit of popping prep items.

Mages are in the midst of a revamp into the robed system, so there wont be any spells added for the current mages.

Druids are probably next on the revamp list (maybe warriors, but I doubt it). So I don't feel the need to spend too much time on them right now. If there was a major flaw with druids I might consider fixing or adding something, but I think they are doing fine right now.

A somewhat historical footnote:

Druids were supposed to be revamped before mages, in fact the Shaman class was initially supposed to be a druid revamp, but that got all switched around and we ended up with a new class instead of a rebuilt old one. If I had known when Adepali started the shaman class that it wasn't going to be a druid revamp I probably would have revamped druids before mages. But here we are.

I kind of have a feeling that if this happened that mages or druids had this ability that PK fights might end up being a lot different, or tanks would be a lot more careful to make sure they have high resist fire/cold.

Dave

Education replaces force with reason.

I think its an interesting idea, but instead of making fireshield/iceshield in its current form castable on others, it should be implemented as an entirely new spell (minor iceshield/fireshield maybe?)

Given the ease with which fireshield can be acquired, I think giving any mage with the ability to get himself fireshield the ability to cast it on others would allow people to really overspamming fireshield in zones, which would inevitably lead to a round of imm_heat flaggings. Iceshield is hard enough to get that giving druids the ability to cast that actual spell on targets wouldn't present any balance issues, but druids have few fun spells to zone for anyways, why not give them another shiny to strive for?

Also, unless there were a respelling delay on the target (like for certain other spells), having the mage/druid in group and refreshing repeatedly would still render prep useless (though it would make +shield slot gear pretty valuable).

Another concern is that this ability also decreases the relative worth of scribing/brewing, though I'm not sure how much this really matters, since brew only enhances the usefulness of casters as a utility alt, and not as zoning characters.