[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Daynarr:

I think RM is worse choice since you get so many special holy troops waiting for right blessing. Not to mention that your Celestial Masters (and Masters of Five Elements if you use S&A) can find most of sites by themselves.

You have been more fortunate than I. I have found site searching with Tien Ch'i to be rather poor. Luck is obviously a big factor but I suspect all those 1's arn't that great at getting a good search coverage.

Fire or water 9 pretenders are good, and nature 9 is not bad either for Celestial Soldiers. Earth would do more good to Celestial Masters but big question is do you want to invest in them if you face Arco/Pythum, which can kill them in duels.

Its unlikely I would pick Tien Ch'i in a game with Mind Duel included. As I know a few players who feel similar, and when I have the time am happy to host games, there should be opportunities for fun in a Mind Duel free environment.

I suspect its not worth going over the top in combat based bless effects as the Celestial Soldiers are hard to get big numbers of - though the Angels are a consideration. What would they most benifit from?

I suspect only Earth and Death are worth looking at and Death only because the PoD is so good and affordable - I doubt the gold saving on relatively cheap sacred mages will really make a huge difference. I suspect the move and the ability of the mages to survive cataclysimic death spells will be the biggest boon from going soulless. Earth9 will turn the Celestial Soldiers into serious comabatents and provide some real staunch considering their high hit points. Reinvigoration 4 would also be great. The Cyclops is the cheapest option and I have tried Cyclops9 in one of my first Tien Ch'i experiments - its just not very thematically satisfying.

The dearth of pretenders with Earth greater than 1 is one of the biggest restrictions on using earth bless effects as even starting at 2 makes a big difference while starting at 3 makes 9 rather affordable.

I am very cautious of playing nature on a race with Sacred Mages with the Van being the only exception I can think of off the top of my head - Van commanders going berserk is not all bad but Celestial mages? As for Fire its not as important for combat as earth (though more affordable in the shape of the Moloch) and lacks the reinvogoration for the mages. Water, as Zen said, is already covered to some degree and while still very useful is another expensive one to get to 9 with no starting 3's for land races. I suspect Earth has an edge over Water considering how sleepy Tien Ch'i mages are.

Cheers

Keir