Mages in Parties: Gandalf, or a Glorified Archer?

[Raimun]

As long as they are not just glorified archers. Sure, it's sometimes practical to use "pew-pew!"-spells like Magic Missile but there's more to the wizardry than that... even if you can do automatically over 200 points of damage.

Whenever I want to play a wizard or a mage of some sort, I look forward to using certain kinds of spells. A spell has to fulfill at least one of the following two criteria (or both):

1) The spell has to be fantastical.
a) Either you just can't duplicate the effect with mundane means. Example: Mass mind control aggressive enemy soldiers to throw their guns to the bottom of the harbor during combat. Good luck duplicating that with a parley. (Mob Mind in Shadowrun)
b) Or duplicating the effect with mundane means would require you to jump through hoops. Example: You could either buy an expensive flamethrower, which gives you movement speed and defense penalties, requires you to buy fuel all the time for a tank that doesn't hold that much of it and which might explode if hit by a stray bullet and to top it all off, a flamethrower isn't a proper accessory for the grand ball. Or you could be a Fire Sorcerer who doesn't share even one of the above concerns but can act as a flamethrower just as well... or even better if he goes balls to the wall. (Fire Sorcerers in Iron Kingdoms)

2) The spell has to be proactive and promote new kinds of solutions. Not just do old things harder, faster, better.
a) Even if it is extremely useful (seriously, it is), healing wounds after a slugfest with goblins is not proactive. Using Colorspray to knock out those goblins is.
b) Casting a strength increasing or a protective buff spell to make someone hit things better with a stick is not terribly proactive, only a little bit. Casting a buff spell that let's you fly or turn invisible? Neither is proactive itself but both allow you to act proactive in completely new ways.
c) Blasting a monster with a spell of fire or lightning is proactive but couldn't a mundane warrior also do hit point damage? Yes... but could he summon a monster out of thin air to be used as a pawn for suicidal combat tactics? I think not.

Edit: And if the summoned monster doesn't die for some reason? Hey, bonus!