Balancing the blesses
 

It would be nice to see all the blesses give equally powerful effects to sacred units.

As it stands now, I do not think many people would argue the e9 bless of 4 prot is equal to the f9 bless of magic weapon and fire damage.

I would guess a 9e bless of ironskin would be roughly comparable to the fire bless, except you have the vulnerability to lightning, which would make the bless less desirable against caleum, man, and vanaheim.

9 air, same as it is now, but with a 10 percent chance to shock attackers.

Maybe the astral 9 effect should be awe, rather than twist fate.

Just some ideas for balancing the bless effects.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

I think it also needs to be kept in mind that some schools of magic are not as useful as others... for instance, most people would argue that the Water 9 bless is pretty amazing, but water magic itself is kind of meh. I hink there's a reason for that. The air bless isnt great, but then air magic is quite good.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

I agree with john. the schools that have subpar blesses are also the schools with some of the best magic spells. I think the bless system is fine as is. Its just a tad overpowering when used with certain units in the game.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Yep, John raises a good point. I do sort of wish that the death and blood blesses were a tad more useful though. I like to play Mictlan with a Lord of the Night and the bless just ain't great.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Blesses are indeed unbalanced, but you pick a poor example. Water, Fire, and Earth are all pretty much the top level 9 picks. Astral level 9 is also decent on some chassis. It's Nature (the lower level bless makes up for it though), Death, Air, and especially Blood 9s that have problems.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

If you isolate the blesses and compare them against one another with no regard to other aspects of magic including available spells, I agree with quantum as far as how he ranks them.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

It's usually the synergies that cause the balancing issues, anyway -- like MOO2's Stargate + Warp Dissipator.

You can't really just balance bits by bit -- because the units and nations they're applied to aren't mirror images. Mictlan and the Ashen Empire respond very differently to blesses, to take extreme examples.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

There's a certain amount you can do just balancing bit by bit. For instance some units are clearly underpowered, to the extent that they are never built by anyone looking to win. These units can be improved and all it will increase is variety - it won't make a certain nation overpowered.

Not sure that theory can be applied to blesses though.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Playing around with fire, i do not see many weaknesses, very good bless, an enchantment that can turn archery fire into fire arrows, one that makes you immortal in combat, very powerful evocation magic(Falling Fire). Is all kinda useful. Water....well cleansing water was good vs undead. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I do not know many impressive spells for water yet... I rather go with fire. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Maybe a weakness of fire is, you can't forge any good armor with it.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Fire is clearly the best bless. E9 is not one of the best. 4 prot? That means zip really. Especially when you are being hit by f9 blessed troops with 2 attacks.

N9 is also very good, mostly because regen plus berserk is very powerful.

Water is good on some units that need the quickness.

Air needs help, earth needs help, Astral 9 needs help. never play blood , so no input there.

D9 is "ok" but d9<f9 imho.