[licker]

Originally posted by geo981010:
Licker-
Water 9 is great on most holy mages, but that blessing and Pythium mages doesn't add up to the sum of the parts. Water 9 gives 50% quickness like you mentioned (2 spells/attacks 1 round, only one the next), but the quickness spell gives quickness 100% (2 attacks every round). Since you have to be blessed to get the Holy bonus, any non-prophet mage should be quickened anyway on the same round as the Divine Blessing is cast on the battlefield. Very little gain for their mages...

For holy mages that don't get Water magic like Marignon and Vanheim (especially Vanheim - no feet and no random magic on the Vanir, so that's the only real way to get them quickened), the bonus is really powerful

True, and as the blessing doesn't stack with the spell (otherwise I don't see why it wouldn't be good, 3 casts/round)... I'm not much of a Pythium player, never taken past turn 10 so I'm not overly familiar with their units. However, for the Vestals, if you want to employ a blessing strat for them, water9 would still seem to be ideal. Earth and Nature don't really augment them (and nature is bad bad bad for sacred mages usually). Air isn't that useful, though maybe Pythium can benefit from the high level lightning protection with orb lightning? Fire and Blood... well fire is always decent, blood is ok (but not the death curse). I dunno, as someone said, Pythium may not be a great nation to bother with blessings, but if you insist on doing it anyway... I'd stick with water9 and not worry about the mages