Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Does a blessed unit (prophet or shroud) with a death bless cause more affliction with ritual army killing spells and assassination spells like seeking arrow?

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Some guy said that they did in the past.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

IIRC Kristoffer himself said initially was like a bug, or an unwanted feature, but then it was left in the game. So yes. :)

About Seeking Arrows I have my doubts though. Maybe the only affliction it can cause is its natural Chest Wound, maybe not. :confused:

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I believe so.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I'm pretty sure that seeking arrows can cause any kind of affliction, in a recent game I had my units hit by seeking arrows receive disease afflictions and never-healing wounds.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Yep it does!

I tested it a long time ago and you do a lot more afflictions with for example flames from the sky cast by a shrouded mage.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Still not a reason to take a death bless I'd say before everyone gets to enthousiastic about it.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Depends. Taking a mid level death bless with a nation that wants access to death and has combat mages who can use spells like bladewind to maximise that affliction bonus makes sense. It's just something to be factored in.

I think the death bless is a bit over-maligned. It is downright evil with Tomb Kings sacred archers.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I think it is something you want for your mages, if you've strong sacred battle ones or access to shroud of battle saints. For the troops seems a bit a waste the most of the times, when a melee unit attacks another you want the enemy dead, not afflicted, Death seems a poor and unuseful synergy with everything you want for making your melee sacreds fight better (water, fire, whatever).

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Well, yes and no.

If you have plentiful melee sacreds, then it can be worth going for the D9 bless (especially with sacred mages to take advantage as well). Not only do you get nifty magic weapons with some AN damage, but now your sacreds can completely ruin thugs/SCs in the first couple of hits. If you can't make those guys hit for 100 damage through 30 Prot, then you can neutralize the threat with afflictions.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

True, Jim. In fact, I'm not saying that Death bless is unuseful. ;)

I just think Fire's and Water's high blesses' first (+att, +def) and second effect (flaming weapons, quickness) seem to stack better than Death's ones the most of the times. Of course SCs are a notable exception - while you don't see usually lots of SCs in the first turns, where the high blessed sacreds mostly shine, as you know :)

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I don't think D9 bless on sacred troops is actually much use at all against SCs. The AN damage is stopped by mr and a standard SC will be largely immune to attacks from lowly sacreds.

Thugs, perhaps.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I seen two games where Mictlan wins with D9W9 bless (imprisoned PoD).
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...=37587&page=26 - one of this games. With this bless ozelots and jags eats even good SC for breakfast. Too many attacks.

And D9 has one more undokumented effect - disis.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I think Sombre has the right of it -->

Depends. Taking a mid level death bless with a nation that wants access to death and has combat mages who can use spells like bladewind to maximise that affliction bonus makes sense. It's just something to be factored in.

I also think it means that paying the loads of points for the 9 bless isn't worth it. I don't say it won't do anything but I'm pretty sure, even for mictlan, other blesses would be better for melee troops (I'm thinking fire for example) I think that combining death with either fire or water would be overkill and that usually another bless to provide more durability would benefit sacreds better (or mages me being a believer in the earthbless)

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Natpy:

I won with MA Mictlan with single S9 bless too, strange things happen :)

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Here's an additional complication. What about spells like The Wrath of God and Purgatory? Would a death bless apply to them too?

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Death bless has some non-evident benefits. The first and the main one is that you will hardly be pushed by any sc in the early-mid game (maybe, in the late game as well). If anyone still wishes to use sc's against death-blessed nation, this sc will gather afflictions really fast if your troops have decent attack skill. And that's the point! for the best effect you should combine death bless with minor fire bless and the little jags will be able to hit even well-equipped sc's and nearly each hit will mean affliction.
Second benefit, is, of course battle magic.
Third one is the fact that it is really easy to protect an sc from fire but it is impossible to protect him from increased affliction chance.
Fourth one is what Natpy mentioned - death blessed units are more likely to cause disease than any other affliction. Not very pleasant indeed).

It was me who won a big game with W9D9 blessed EA mictlan a year ago or so. And as I wasn't satisfied with jags' and eagles' hitting capability, after that I added F4 and result was excellent. Mictlan sacreds do wonders and hit really hard with this +2 attack bonus.
So, I strongly think that most of you underestimate death bless. It is very good for good-stat sacreds you can amass.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I tend to prefer death bless over fire. It is clearly better for sacred (or shrouded) mages. It is nowhere near as effective for melee sacred against regular recrutiable troops (you want them dead, not afflicted), but is a useful weapon against thugs and SCs.

Further, in terms of rituals, summons and global enchantments, I'd much rather have a D9 than F9 pretender.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I still don't see how it works against SCs. The AN attack is mr negates so where is the damage coming from? Lucky rolls on crits? That doesn't work so well if you're facing the usual SC combo of luck and ethereal on top of off the scale protection and no fatigue.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

How do you reliably kill extremely well-equipped SCs on the battlefield? Is a comparable SC or a group of thugs the only counter?

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

No, thugs can reliably be killed by magic. Many flavors, or even troops, if they are designed to exploit the thugs weaknesses.

SC's are a whole different ball of wax. Spell spamming again depending on the weakness of the sc.

could be as simple as skellys (amazing how often that works) charm, Opposition, Magic Duel....Gift of Heaven...

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

For SC's... Gifts from Heaven, Banefire, Drain Life all work well if heavily spammed. For a couple of SCs with no backup, try Stellar Cascades from dozens of mages. Banish to Inferno/Claws of Cocytos must be favourites.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

How does poison damage work with a death bless?
Say you've got a death blessed mage casting breath of the dragon.
Would the affliction chance be calculated when the poison is applied or whenever the poisoned units looses hps in the rounds after?

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I believe that afflictions are only rolled on loss of HP. As I don't think you cause loss of HP when the poison is applied, there wouldn't be any chance of affliction at that point. I'm not sure if poison damage traces the unit who inflicted the poison, so I wouldn't like to say there was any increased chance of affliction from that particular spell.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Every time the unit takes damage, it can gain an affliction - so yes, the chance is small but comes every time the poison ticks. However, as Gregstrom said, I don't think it is known whether or not the origin of the poison is checked.

I'm not going to be surprised if it is though. For example, I've been doing a lot of reanimation of soulless, and over multiple turns, it remembers whether each corpse is well geared or not.


And anyway Sombre, that's the point. Against late game SCs, you aren't worrying about the 2 damage so much. Just as with an F9 bless - you are NOT doing fire damage to most SCs, as if they don't have FR, they have way too much armor. However, the Death affliction bonus is NOT negated by MR. They only have to hit.....

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

And do damage. I think this is possible because critical hits are broken somehow, but in terms of pure theory hitting and doing damage is not going to be easy and will require many sacreds, which is quite an investment.


Poison definitely works with death bless. I have tested and confirmed this. Poison spells and poison arrows. Both are extremely nasty with death bless.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Well, they have to damage - and that can be pretty tough against an SC. The 2AN+MR helps a little, because even a shield hit will force a MR save - and with enough attacks coming in, that might be 1 or 2 wounds per fight from the AN damage.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Yes, death definitely affects poison. Sauromatia's hydras nasty in them selves deal death and afflictions like mad with even so little as a D4 bless.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

That's very interesting to know.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

That's why the point is, that the D9 is best with a nation that has low cast recruitable anywhere sacreds, or cheaply summoned ones, AND has sacred mages.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Like Calem did in kickabout. Yesh he spammed my Hinnon leaders with the seeking arrow spell. About 12 in one turn, Wiped all my leaders out except for one Indie commander. 5 giants lost in one turn. The army immoblized, Was a near thing. But thats over with... Who would of thought of Calem with a 9D blessing? :D

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

My first game was Eriu with a D10 blessing. Made a shroud of BS and tried plague and seeking arrows. Seemed to work "ok". Likely would have been better with lesser bless and better scales...
-SSJ

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

AKA Marig.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

dunno about mary... the flags are so poor, they need a lot to be viable, and have the flaming head to get them to f9s9 for relatively cheap. I don't think a death bless would get you anywhere for early expansion. Mind you, D9 smiters would have me keep anything valuable a long way away from them

Mictlan, or perhaps MA pyth or Shinu... they would be scary for a purely mage bless :)

also sacred hydras for LA pyth, as has been mentioned. anyone w/ sacred archers

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I'm playing (SP) as Ashdod right now, and I'm relying on heavily-blessed Adons to take provinces for me. It's worked really well so far. In fact, I've only built one actual army, and the Adons have done all of the rest of my expansion.

Until I ran into a D9-blessed Machaka. I didn't know he had a D9 bless, so I sent an uber-Adon charging into a nest of those sacred spider knights.... :(

My Adon limped out of the battle with a Limp (go figure), a Never-Healing Wound, and an injury to his vocal cords that left him Mute. Yuck. I have to agree that Death blesses can be a serious deterrent to a strategy that relies on thugs and/or SCs.

...

Just to finish the story, I pulled my injured Adon back to a province which was strong in my dominion and allowed Gift of Health to do its thing. A few turns later, he's just about back to 100% effectiveness. Meanwhile, I'm advancing with a new army, a few more uber-Adons, and a lot more respect for the evil spider knights.

Revenge shall be mine! Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

In all fairness a 'nest' of hunter spider sacreds is going to be pretty damn expensive. I mean they're over 100 gold each. I'd have to hope they manage to do something.

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

Wow, really? Never played as Machaka, only against them. So the AI spent over 1000 gold (I think there were ten of the bugs) to cripple a 400-gold Adon? That makes me feel a bit better.

They weren't totally undefeatable, either. The Adon managed to kill a few of the bugs before he had to limp away. A few turns later, I sent a horde of archers to finish the job.

---

But back to the original point, which is: A Death bless on some decent sacred units will cause some pain for a thug-based or SC-based strategy. It's not unbeatable, because your opponent can always change strategies. (As I did.) But you can sure buy yourself some time while the opponent changes gears....

More importantly, I'd have to agree that a lot of Death magic is more powerful in the late game than a lot of Fire magic. This principle is especially true because of how "bootstrappable" (is that a word?) Death magic is. One D9 mage (your Pretender) can summon other Death mages, who can summon other Death mages, etcetera. Revenants, Mound Fiends, and Liches ... oh my! Add the convenient Death booster items to the mix, and you've really got an undead party.

Meanwhile, your F9 Pretender is going to ... um ... summon Fire Kings. Those guys are great, but they're unique, so you can only get a few of them. What else can you do with a F9 mage in the late game? Fires from Afar and Flames from the Sky? Cool spells to be sure, but there's only so much you can do with them.

So yeah, a late-game SC may not have much to fear from most Death-blessed sacreds. However, by the late game, the same D9 Pretender that got you the Death bless will also have started the Death Machine rolling. Conquer the world with your undead hordes! BRA-A-A-AINZ..... http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/9...bierisexf9.gif http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/3...bleeyedzi6.gif

Re: Death Bless and Seeking Arrow
 

I don't know about that. Most afflictions don't actually hurt SCs. Limp, Never-healing Wound, Lost An Eye, etc., on a blessed, thugged-out Adon basically don't matter. You got unlucky in getting one of the few (Mute, Feebleminded, Chest Wound) that does hurt but I wouldn't be deterred from using SCs against most nations even with a D9 bless. Machaka and other poison nations are slightly different because poison is hard to defend against, but that would be mostly true even without a D9 bless. I'm probably either prepared for poison or prepared to ignore poison.

I guess this means I have to test it...

-Max