Meteor swarm has been implemented in lots of games, it doesn't level cities if its the same range as ice storm, just bludgeon & fire with higher damage dice instead of bludgeon and ice.
Level 9 and epic spells have been done in lots of games, they arent difficult to balance.
Maybe they shouldn't be balanced. Maybe the most powerful spells shouldn't be reduced to satisfy the needs of some generic video game progression that never ends. You're level 20, then what? You start nagging devs for level 30 and 10th level spells that do 2d6 more damage.
Higher levels start with higher level content. If the content doesn't exist, neither should the levels. It's as simple as that.
Well the new spells came with new content, you cant do level 30 stormhorns raid without a group of at least level 26+ players. You can't do reaper difficulties without strongly build min maxed and perfect geared characters and a fully balanced party. Theres 2 raids in DDO which I have never been able to beat even with a full level 30 epic group, and the raids in question drop materials to make the strongest items in the game, so my wizard never got his extra +2 Necromancy DC level 30 weapon.
The whole point of an expansion would be to add higher level content as well.
Personally I have a fun build in DDO - 16 Sorc / 4 FVS / 10 epic. He doesn't even get meteor swarm and doesn't need it because his Scorching Ray is the best Scorching Ray in the game and melts and CCs mobs together with magic missile and chain missile cos one of the epic levels domains is Shiradi and Shiradi triggers with each individual missile and ray. Everything that does ranged or spell damage gets a 7% paralyze chance, 7% of multiple types of damage chance, 7% chance of ability drain and whatnot. If you make a pure or 18 levels of sorcerer and use meteor swarm, you add Draconic Destiny with Fire Dragon spec as usual and do similar. They also added in homebrew level 9 spells for each element so all Draconic dragons could shine.
For Wizards they even added in a Necrotic Dragon, which I don't think anyone even uses on a Wizard because Magister destiny is unbeatable for a wizard, and if you dont have the spell DC for it yet then likewise you just magic misile spam in Shiradi instead - evocation archmage also gets a second copy of chain missile SLA, so missiles go brrrrr.
My favourite fight in BG2 was the Demogorgon and the whole dungeon it was in. You weren't going to beat that dungeon or the demogorgon at level 12.
'Lol this is easy, I have time stop' ... Demogorgon is immune to timestop but my party isnt :x
