[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by apoger:
in my opinion there are few sacred troops worth going out of your way for. They are expensive and slow to build. In order to justify their value I demand serious firepower or resiliency. So far the only sacred troops that I like are Hydra and Niefel Giants (and I'm not a fan of the themes with which they are attached).

I do think you have overlooked the obvious here in leaving out Serpent Dancers. Maybe I haven't played far enough into the game to have a clear view but from my testing C'tis is the best bless effects race I have used. Actually the tuned C'tis "Dancers of Death" is the best race I've used in Dom2 - but then I avoid the traditional power races.

Other decent sacred creatures for bless effects are Machakan HunterSpiders, Van, Tuatha, Celestial Soldiers plus awhole range of sacred mages who profit from reinvigoration, quickness or maybe a bit of unlife after death. I'm sure I've missed a few I've forgotten or haven't tested yet.

I know you are mourning the old Lava Warriors Alex but the new ones can be spectacular with earth9 and Abyssian mages love it to.

If I can get some "bless effect" while designing my pretenders I certainly do it. However I do not design my pretenders to do blessing effects as their primary purpose (so far...).

C'mon step outside you comfort zone Alex.

Bottom line for me is bless effects are new and we simply can't know, at this point, all the opportunities they can open up so I'm certainly going to keep trying and see what I come up with. I also have a bad feeling that Illwinter might adjust the turmoil/order/luck/misfortune in a way that wipes out dual bless effects races and many single ones so its a matter of making hay while the sun shines. I'm still bemused that so many people think you can take away 120 design points and imagine that borderline races will survive the experiance.

There is part of me that looks at a race like Pythium and says "If you are happy to give them everything why not just give more to the weak races strategies." Then again when you compare most races to Pythium its a matter of "race balence? Didn't realise there was any."

I haven't played Man main theme since I first got Dom1 so I don't have alot of useful to add other than agreeing with Nagot that the Earth Mother is a good earth bless effects god. The Cyclops is acutally the cheapest if you only want Earth9 and for all the criticism he gets is rather effective with prot 29.

Cheers

Keir