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Oh, stuff and doublestuff! You're talking about DS1 and I'm talking about DS2 (2.3, with the BW expansion). I should have paid attention to what forum you posted in. Sorry about that.

Yes, in unmodded vanilla DS1, Mages got the short end of the stick, in more ways than one, but unless I'm very much mistaken, the Combat Mage spell "Cyclone of Fire" provides the most damage in unmodded DS1 (and I could be mistaken here, because it has been a while since I played DS1 or DS1LoA, but I don't recall a Wing Staff or Dragon Wing Sword, the two most devastating unmodified Melée weapons I remember, dealing out that kind of damage).

This is one of the reasons why most of us prefer modding the game, or using mods for the game which others have created -- a bit like "house rules" in a D&D campaign.

In a modded DS1 game, the Solar Beam spell (for Nature Mages) from the DS1 Succubus mod may have given the most damage (and my so far unreleased mod, "Giovanna's Ultimate Destroyer," provides a Destroyer Staff that can kill almost anything in one or two hits when the character is level 150, even when the game/map is set to Hard Elite).

I'll have to look into a similar comparison for DS1 when I finish up my current DS2BW game (although I seldom if ever play DS1 without at least a couple of mods; Zhixalom's Inventory is an absolute necessity). However, with judicious use of buff spells and spells that do automatic damage (like "Shock Armor" and "Shared Pain"), a Mage can hold his/her own, and with the LoA expansion, if you ever get it, there are some additional spells that come in handy in that way, like "Orb of Energy" (which may be a vanilla DS1 spell, but I think it's LoA), as well as some interesting modifiers that allow boots, helm, gloves, and body armor to deal damage back to enemies (so you either edit your MP character's gear or find/buy the appropriate items to maximize your AR and your ability to deal out death and destruction without even raising a finger.

In your second post, you were asking about stat deficiencies for multiclass characters. Even in DS1, there are ways to avoid too much of that interfering with your character's development, but in the case in point, Lothar was originally a Primary Class = Melée Fighter and Secondary Class = Combat Mage, so his STR is far better than you would expect for a character whose Primary Class is Combat Mage. The secret to having a viable multiclass character in DS1 is to not let any one class get too far above the others before switching active weapon/spell. For example, start out using either Nature Magic ("Zap") or Ranged, then when you reach level 2 in that, switch to the other one, then when you reach level 2 in that, switch to Combat Magic, then when you reach level 2 in ComMag, switch to Melée, then switch every level like that, varying the order. I have made several characters into Level 150/150/150/150 "Grand High Siegemistress," with maxed out stats (STR, DEX, and INT all at 160, if I remember the max score correctly). I actually prefer to play a Nature Mage, even in DS1, but I usually wind up with a Grand High Siegemistress in the end.