Anyone else getting slightly annoyed by how many mages have a ready made counter to literally hundreds of projectiles? We were told and shown that basically nobody can cast spells that have hundreds of projectiles without lengthy incantations. And the few we do see are all line or cone attacks. So why does a random earth mage have a counter to literally hundreds of abrasive jets... The strongest spell currently in our MCs arsenal. The same one that cut up an Akuma. It's just baffling that every solo enemy he's used the spell on since has had some method to counter it.
On top of that the golem thing was dumb because they explicitly showed that a single ice Lance disabled it's barrier for a second. Meaning mister 1000 spells should be able to easily destroy the golems with a combo of lances from above to get it's arms up, then from the front to disable the shield, then a abrasive jet to kill it...
Ryo doesn't want to auto win every fight, or kill people in general, so I get why he doesn't just open with it a half centimeter behind their skulls in every fight, but it's getting real old that all these mages have a recourse to a spell that they shouldn't even be able to fathom. Abel, one of the strongest fighters in the series, couldn't tell how the spell worked till he had seen it be cast multiple times. And the sheer number of simultaneous and instantaneous attacks should absolutely overwhelm any non Oscar-tier mage he fights.