[HJ]

IMHO:
Death is pretty specific in its combat usefulness. Unless you have undead army, its combat usage is fairly limited. Even its early combat summons are not too great unless cast by a powerful mage - a DD mage can only summon a few skeletons before colapsing; useful, but not too great. Blood is even more specific in combat, as it's very exhausting and require the presence of frail blood slaves (ever had any blood slaves left on Abyssian mage after combat?).

As for the summons, I find most of the early ones to be rather cost-ineffective in mage time, all the way until you get to higher levels of research, when other paths get good summons as well (well, maybe not water apart from sea trolls). I mean, 5 death gems and a DD mage's turn for a single wight is not all that great. I would rather put him to research so I can access the more useful summons sooner (which is a shame, because I almost never get to use the early ones that don't have high-end counterparts, such as the drakes).

The rest of it is fine and balanced IMO. You cannot really cast powerful globals with death unless you're Ermor, so you have to have something that is in favor - and this is where remote summons come into action. High blood rituals are also either risky, or summons. Yes, the late summons are very powerful, but that's the essence of blood anyway. You have flame storms and shimmering fields on one side, and heliophagi on the other.

[ June 02, 2004, 20:58: Message edited by: HJ ]