Don't play the game as a mage - you will get bored quickly!

[Handel]

This is major flaw of MANY games Kings Bounty included. In the beginign every hut was giving ayt least 1 quest, some were giving even 2 or more. Once you go to the dwarves the quests are reduced significantly; and once you go past dwarves the quests are just 2-3 and the huts are giving only stuff. As I said it is common flaw of many games - in the beginning the devs put much efforts in the variety of the game, but once they "smell" the end they are quick to rush the game to the shelves.
As for the fire resistance... did I wrote "fire blast"? No. I wrote just "blast". Does it really matters if the blast is fire or water? That's why I wrote 2-3 spells. And why the hell you need buffs and debuffs? Why casting buffs or debufs when you can simply kill half the army instead? As I wrote sometimes I was casting useless spells like buffs/debuffs just for the sake of doing something different... only to find out I am doing stupid things instead of just blasting out the enemy army for 3-4 turns.
And don't explain me about the dragons. All the dragons besides black dragons are easily blasted with poison skull spell. Only the black dragons must be hacked to death which is easily done by stacks of the lowests creatures like swordmen. Just buy 2-3k swordmen and keep then in your reserve to replenish the dead.