[LordArioch]

I've noticed the unbalances between blesses myself. Considering that earth/water/nature are relatively expensive, I usually use them less than I might, especially considering water is IMO often the best bless possible for standard troops.
Blood and astral are only so cheap from the immobile pretenders, and blood's lvl 9 seems very weak, and astral's seems best mainly on flagellants or high defense light armor troops, and even then questionable compared to fire 9.
Eliminating earth/nature/water/astral and blood based on cost concerns and limited effects, this leaves death and fire. Unless your troops are undead, death 9 is weak, making soulless out of your elite sacred troops.

This leaves fire 9, my standard bless effect. Most sacred troops have low damage weapons relative to their def/prot levels, and the fire lets them walk right through the enemy forces, barely even slowing down in their path of destruction.

Note: This is only in some cases. Don't complain when you set up a Niefelheim theme set up around 9 fire and it doesnt work well. I'm talking about sacred troops like those of Pythium/Arco/Vanheim/C'tis/Ermor/Man...so forth. Most of these I believe usually benefit most cost efficiently from 9 fire, and you get a free moloch equivalent to ~20 crossbowmen with fire darts.