I would stick with the mages. The simple fact is, the more you do to change/nerf them, the more likely you are to alienate players who want to be a spellcaster.

As is, it feels like you have a very-strong flavor for what you want the mage to be, and the mechanics have been tweaked to reflect that.

If you were to use the Tier 3 variants, to me it feels like you just want to nerf casters, and the flavor came later.