Which is more powerful?
 

Warrior class having all archer type units in the army and focusing on Quick Draw, Frenzy and Power of the Spirit

or

Mage class focusing on Chaos, Higher Magic and Destruction?

I only started playing but it seems to me that the Warrior class with that setup would be the most powerful setup of all, what do you think?

Mage if u have the spells, if not warrior.

Hm, I'm not so sure, in the original it was obvious that the mage was most powerful, but now it's hard to tell when all classes have very useful skills and there is a lot of synergy going on between skills and classes.....

My mage did exacly just that in KBTL, and pwns pretty much everything until later in the game which you have to deal with large stack of enemies.

Distortion magic seems by far the best for long time investment.

Did u know that Higher Magic lets u double cast 6 times?
That is not power , but flexibility, again if u have the spells.

I imagine that Warrior class with all archers, Quick Draw and coupled with some spells from Distortion magic(like precision) would be quite powerful..

Its brute force vs subtlety.
I like to have extra options so for me the mage is the best.

Actually, it is the warrior who is more powerful in my opinion. This power is based on these simple facts:

1. The dragon can kill 40% of a wondrously big stack (say, 5000+ units) with Ball of Lightning.
2. The dragon can turn your rage pool into mana pool, which is inexaustible in the first 10-15 levels, provided there are still enemy troops left standing. Mana accelerator skill is the way to go.
3. The dragon can both kill and hinder the advancing enemy troops.
4. Your strength in nubers compensates for pretty much everything.
5. As a warrior, all you need is lvl 3 order and lvl 3 distortion + summoning skill lvl 3. This way you'll maximize your paladin phantoms. It is much better to spawn a phantom from 100 paladins (warrior) than from 60 (mage), isn't it? The leadership difference is a big problem for the mage.
6. As a warrior, you generally strive for higher damage and higher crit chance. As a mage, you have limited options to do this, and this hinders your ability in the boss battles.

There are more pointers, but these 6 alone are enough :)

a hero with only archers? bigest mistake. in round 2 they already got to you and it's not good. not to mention dragons who can get to you in the first round.

Btw, does Battle Alchemy award only affect fire and poison used by specific units, not your spells?

+10% fire and poison damage
You would have to assume it affects all spells and effects coming from your hero/army. It doesn't specify creatures or spells.

But you can't see any increase in spell damages...

The Battle alchemy medal provides an increase of the post-effects. For examlpe, the flaming arrow burning damage (if you get the post-effect) will increase. Poison Skull's poisoning damage (once again, provided you get it) will also increase.

What he said, it seems as though the translation or wording is a bit misleading =)
- Battle Alchemy
Requirements: successfully ignite or poison an enemy troop
Level 1 - +10% to burning/poisoning post-effect damage / 50 successfully poisoned/burned enemy troops
Level 2 - +20% to burning/poisoning post-effect damage / 150 successfully poisoned/burned enemy troops
Level 3 - +30% to burning/poisoning post-effect damage / 400 successfully poisoned/burned enemy troops
From DGDobrev's info page.

After playing for a while, I've come to the conclusion that playing as a mage is very frustrating because you are always drained and never have enough mana to fulfill your spell capacity.

Which dragon have you started with? Starting with mana accelerator may help as you can place the orb wherever you want instead of it being random like in KBTL. Also, are you working towards transmute as soon as possible? Inquisitors can easily supply you with the rage you need to fund mana accelerator until you can pick up transmute, and then possibly work towards the rage income in the warrior skills. Picking up some tanky units can help too, such as paladins if they are available early albeit rare. If you can manage to pick up the Bolo chart you can sneak by everything starting from the Drakkar ship into the drone guard caverns as well as kite away the hero to pick up the amulet (make sure nothing follows you within aggro range of entering the cave or getting out is impossible), handing that in to the temple on Debir (near the stonehenges, use the amulet for +50 leadership before handing it in) will give you paladin's at the temple near the castle. Also I believe there are cyclops in the viking camp, just up the hill from the guy with the quest for his wife.
It seems like the mage has to play more like a rogue and sneak around kiting guards away and stealing everything you can from at least the first few islands before you can really start fighting much of the bigger armies. Pick up as much + intellect as you can so you're getting more bang for your buck as well, there is a lot available early in the paladin and mage skills.

Using just archers only works on lower difficulties I find. Otherwise you end up just not being able to do enough damage against large foes. My current Hard warrior uses Black and Red Dragons, Inquisitors and Paladins, and Demonologists. Dragons tank very well, and do large amounts of area damage. Paladins and Demonologists are your tank units that you pit against 'omg' stacks, (Demonologists by summoning, paladins by being paladins) and inquisitors are my only real archer.

I have both max blood lust, and max voice of the dragon, so yes it is fairly far into the game. This combination of items/skills/troops has a lot of tactical options available to it.

Are there any items that in some way enhance mechanical units?

I recall an item that -20% leadership cost for drones

I think the best damage are actually from bowman with telescope (+100% atk) item, and +damage items (the poisoned dagger). But i was playing mage as main (for the double cast), it was sux0r even with the poisoned dagger and telescope.

Something's serially wrong when dragon dive is outputting more damage than all my doublecast + creature damage combined.

Yep dragon out classes mage pretty much .. maybe in the late game with 60 int prismatic helmet and draogn cape it will go equal ... but you have to fget such powerful items and i bet they are not guaranteed

My mage in KBL has these items also flame necklace and aroundd 40 int so it was kick ass fire rain for 6-7k if i remember well

I'm in love with Repair and Guard Droids, never have I seen such superb animation of a unit in RPG before...to bad you can only fill 2 slots with them.

Btw, I got lucky with some artifacts so now even the droids have over 20% critical, and I just discovered that Paladin has Prayer skill which is all about critical, I'm wondering if Paladin is better than Warrior?
If you have no losses you quickly gain leadership anyway....

P.S.

I hope items are not totally random again...

Well, the way I see it, the Paladin can be much easier to play than the warrior. Yes, there is a certain handicap when it comes to rage and mana, but you can always be certain that you can waste an entire stack and still be fine with that, as the Paladin hero will resurrect it fully, provided she has lvl 3 Resurrection skill. That's like doing a no-loss victory with losses. Big deal :)

This also tranforms into extra cash. Not having to replenish lost troops is a boon. I remember buying a ton of runes with the spare cash I had from my paladin game on impossible. At one point I had about 2.6 mil and nowhere to spend them but runes. So with proper tactics and a bit dodgy start in the beginning (until you manage to get lvl 3 resurrection skill), the paladin will easily rule the game.

I don't like the paladin much because he pigeon-holes you into using those specific units he has bonuses for.

Not exactly. You can always skip getting this medal and play an undead army with him. Use target on the cursed ghosts, and as long as you keep everything in shape, and only units from troop die, you will practically suffer mo-loss victories with losses :)

As such, the paladin can be both good or bad - and doing it equally well :)

Yea, you can, but the bonus is just too good to ignore, at least imo.

It indeed is, I can confirm that.

But still, not every playthrough must be conforming to the general expectations from a certain char - like warrior who must cast battle cry all the time to get that +rage medal, a paladin who must use paladins, inquisitors and priests throughout the game and use healing at least twice in battle, or a mage who must use flaming arrow at least three times per battle to get that wicked + mana medal :)