Quote:
Endoperez said:
I thought the rainbow mages were NEVER viable. I remember reading posts about their uselessness and fragility in either Dom:PPP or early DomII era, on the CSIPGS newsgroup or some IGN forum or something.
|
I think you're thinking about Dominions 2, because in 1 they were plenty viable and doubleplusgood based on my experiences with them in PBEMs. You could use them for site searching early on, they were great at research, they were great at making items... And with little help from the right items (Robe of the Magi, RIng of Sorcery and Wizardry, Staff of Elements, then for instance the astral cap and earth boots), they could potentially cast anything you needed. Now, thanks to the change in bless effects, a rainbow mage Pretender is far less usable, because, well, you usually want blesses to counter the other guy's blesses. Only situation I can think a rainbow mage is good now is when you play a nation that doesn't get anything out of a bless strategy. As for the fragility and "uselessness" of a rainbow mage... If you think it's supposed to be fighting on the front lines like a bigass Titan, you just made your first big mistake.
A bunch of other Pretender types became rather unusable, too, because the blesses are so powerful. Indeed, a lot of the Pretenders are completely unused now because they don't really fit well into a bless strategy.
Quote:
Also, IIRC, blesses added a whole new category of viable pretender types into the game: pretenders that are good for going high level in a path.
|
There's a massive difference between making a new type of Pretenders viable and making a certain type of Pretenders the only ones that are viable for quite a few nations. Hell, before blesses became a deciding factor on what a Pretender should be like, even a Manticore with no magic was a viable option due to the bonuses it gave you to scales, since it required no points - and those excellent scales actually ended up helping you throughout the game. Now it means far less.
Quote:
If you didn't want a bless, why would you take magic over level 5 on your pretender?
|
If you don't want a bless, you get screwed sideways by some other guy who wanted a bless if your nation happens to be one of those which "should" use a bless. It's not a choice between different pretty much as good choices anymore, but a choice between nerfing your capabilities wholesale and getting the best bang for your buck.
Quote:
In Dom:PPP it was even worse, because level 3 was enough for boosters. Cyclops might've taken Earth for protection, and perhaps some Air pretender to spam Orb Lightning, but that's about it.
|
You mean levels 2 and 3. But still, the change in levels of magic required to make boosters wasn't the thing that made rainbow mages (and most other types of Pretenders) far less usable, it was the blessings (and very distinct types of blessings, no less) being so much more potent as a whole.
---
I don't think there's anything anyone could say that would make me think that nerfing the bless effects or even turning it back to what it was in D1 isn't a good idea. And I'm sure I'm entitled to my opinion. ;ppp