a glowy magic looking bit that really screams "spells and magic and stuff"?
like a gem in the staff head, or an aura, or glowy eyes or markings...

glyphs?

basically anything magic/glowing

right now you could remove the staff and no one could question it, the character itself doesnt entirely have that magical feel to it
but as we mostly just see the cape, that'll be difficult, s'why you need the magic glowing awesomeness, yo

Is this any better?

Is he flying or lying on the floor?

Supposed to be flying 

yeah the pose and the picture in general could definitely tell a different story,
perhaps something like "Then I took an arrow in the knee"

edit:
 

Well what I really have in mind when I see this picture..
I'd like to see the warrior who just survived a war, wounded, holding his sword up high as sun lights up the sword and makes it shine.. It would make the warrior look much more triumphant.

Loving the colors on the latest version, but I don't understand the shadow on the right arm(our view) and it seems like the left arm(our view) is smaller than the right one
also now the head bothers me it looks kind of misplaced
did some cleaning and edited the errors I mentioned also edited wing..



sorry if I'm bothering you too much about these things.. 

Newest sprite uses 256 colors according to this site. Definitely need to cut back on the color count. You could accomplish a similar sprite using a lot less colors. Other than that, it needs more contrast. Shirt needs less saturation, as it is it's too bright.

Will be back with an edit soon, hopefully that will make things a bit easier to understand.

I agree, and I made a edit got it down to 35 colors lol

Hi Pistachio
Your version is looking really good, but there's an issue with the leg, it looks off balance like he would fall on his back

I did a fix on it and I'm not sure if I did it right, but here's my idea lol