I think there's a lot of underestimation of the value of having a decoy, on and off the battle field.
Addressing the one major downside; miscasts of this spell at the point of manifestation should be rare. Battle magic miscasts already have to be pretty rare, otherwise battle mages wouodn't survive long enough for it to be a career, and many of the miscasts for Apparitions will happen where no soldiers can see it, at the point of capturing and binding.
This makes me think that this issue is overblown. It's possible; but the Grey College can deny it ever happens and there's very unlikely to have been anyone present with the familiarity with Mathilde to contradict them.
That's the opposite of if things go well, where the College can endorse and publicise her presence on the field.
The Gold College presumably has to deal with it looking like their wizards set a pack of magical hounds on their allies; the Jades called up the dwellers to pull their allies into the depths, etc.
This is a same problem whatever the apparition looks like.
@Boney, yet another question. A long time ago
I asked about whether we could invent a spell that summoned a fog bank that an Apparition could selectively manifest in, condensing out of the most in one place, dematerialising, and appearing somewhere else within it. I also asked if it would count for the Staff of Mistery and Warrior of Fog.
I think you answered yes to all three. Would that spell would with the Red Roder skins here, either as a Monster/Knight/Mathilde in the Most spell?
Nay, the actual form it takes does have tangible benefits and downsides.
The vote says the major difference is in how people perceive it, not overall combat effectiveness. There may be trade offs like a horse being better against some types of foe and a demigryh others, but I think it should be net flat.
