[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Caelum, Abyssia, and Machaka all have powerful holy troops and can take +3 temp. Abyssia is even semi-immune to Death. Water/Nature for Caelum, Fire/Earth for Abyssia, and Fire/Earth or Death/Nature for Machaka are doable without crippling scales. Astral/Fire is cheaper but less useful IMO. Caelum can take drain easily (cheap high-level mages and owl quills) and Machaka can too (Randoms for owl quills, and eventually skull mentors with 2 death).

Go for it Saber - I think you are mostly wrong but I'm certainly keen to see other peoples experiance. I have tried all the things you mention except Ermor, which I don't really play, and my opinion is based on having tried these options and many, many, more. Sure you can come up with a race - but is it a decent one?

I would warn you that there are major problems involved in treating nations such as Abysia as Bless Effects nations. 1 strat move troops who can only be built in their capital make a really frustrating basis for a race as the game progresses. With Abysia its the mages you have to work on and they are so sap with their fire magic that it doesn't really seem worth it in my tests with dual bless effects but one earth9 is a goer.

In the end there is only one way to get an answer to the impact of the patch on dual bless effects races and thats to play them. I have played them extensively pre patch and IMO this catagory of races has been butchered to such a degree that we only speak of it because it was once viable. Sure you will get 1or2 two 9 races but I don't think it will be enough to talk of a Category of race designs. In truth dual bless effects races were borderline pre the patch with only the best looking like they have what it takes for MP.

I'm not really annoyed about what I've lost. Johan O. made it fairly clear awhile back that he didn't see any problem with returning to the old scales and its impact on dual bless effect designs would be minimal. While I think he was wrong in his assessment at least I knew what was coming. I didn't enjoy giving up on my main area of race design but I can cope.

Ciao

Keir
[I edited the post as it was too grumpy, I guess I'm missing my toys - Keir]

[ January 15, 2004, 00:50: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]