I don`t get how direct dmg is nerfed in AP/CW comparing to tL ? In Legend highest intellect i got was around 45 and only 30 lvl hero, in AP/CW was 80+ int and 60+ lvl hero so spell dmg was triple at least (pure int bonus and for every 7 int even more).
As i said here : How is that amount of spell dmg crap ???
Mage is easy to finish no loss/impos game but hardest on early/mid game if you don`t kite islands. Without spells, and high int mage is useless, and you cant find most spells before Verona or even there. High int come even later in game with no kiting.
And for warrior i cant agree, no loss isn`t long and high rounder as you said. My most fun game for warrior was orc archer army+Trigger 100% crit (paladin, blood shaman, goblin shaman, catapult, goblin). Every battle finished in 3 turn most i only take more turns to dig up chests. Killed Baal in 3 turns, Ktahu in 4 (goblins making 30k+ crit, and playing again or even 3 times per turn with blood shaman rage of horde). So warrior can finish game much faster then mage, only depends what build you want and do you want to just kill enemy or want to dig chests/rise more troops with sacrifice/time back combo, do you use pet dragon or not, do you have 1 black/red dragon or use full army . . . Warrior/Mage is tie fight about who is best for no loss/impos game, while paladin comes on 3rd place for sure, poor paladin Amelie :-(
And finally warrior vs mage in pure dmg warrior will win every time, but only exploit mage can use is invisibility + spell dmg (only way for mage to win i think), every other scenario warrior own big time. Maybe just maybe mage with high lvl imba Asmodean can beat warrior ( i havent played solo Asmo so not sure how sick he can get, but maybe that is also 1 way for mage to beat warrior).

I'm on a Mage play through now, and initally it was quite tough, now my Int is higher though, (around 70 atm) it's a lot easier to blast everything with magic.

I'm currently working on a Fairy army for use vs The Driller. :)

Daniel.