Universal costs for spells

[Jumpy]

if the cost of a spell would never be taken into account in balance you wouldn't be talking about intermediates/masters which have a higher cost effectively
some spells cost 15 literally to make it easier for the tree to function and making them cost 10 would make the tree worse because you'd have to buy an extra spell and waste more points just to compensate (ie: phantom strikes being 15 because stances are 5 to make the number round)
not only that, but 15 cost spells usually boil down to answering the question: would this be amazing on literally any build

phantom strikes, sanctuary, energy shield, smog, wound reversal, eviscerate, illusion flurry, pyroclasm

all of those are 15 cost, and all of those are either insanely good or a better version of an existing spell (like smog)
and yes, i believe phantom is both worth to pay more for (to keep mages from dipping for it) and makes it easier for armed users to be armed, it's an ideal scenario

and if this is all because you're playing metal and think 15 RPP costs is a lot for its big spells it's good to remember that they deal a ton of damage, CC, and naturally combo into eachother so you can dump half or more of your bar on someone who's defenseless in some scenarios off of landing 1 homing

the point i'll concede is that 3 spells being 15 RPP is a lot for 1 tree but, like, they're all extremely good spells and them being in the same tree shouldn't take away from the prior logic of "would this spell be good slapped on any build"