[Chris_Byler]

Exactly. Right now, anyone who wants a strong bless for sacreds with low HP takes W9 and probably F9. If they're high HP they take N6-9 and possibly E9. The rest are basically not worth consideration as blesses. MR protects against too few things, strength only helps you if you hit (and then not very much) and air shield has low percentages and limited usefulness once arrow fend and storms start flying. Death is OK for sacred battlemages but that's more a novelty than a strategy that will win games.

There are other reasons to take some of those paths on your pretender, but not high enough for a strong bless. Why can't we have 8 strong blesses that are actively desired in addition to the other uses of those paths? (Some people say that water is a weak path outside of its bless - I don't believe this is true anymore, but even if you think it is, do you want to make the same claim about nature?)

Let Death Weapons live up to the name - every hit works like Heart Finder Sword, MR or die (unless lifeless). Let S9 give luck instead of merely twist fate. Let B9 horror mark or curse any target hit (including hit by spells, like Death's afflictions bonus). And let A9 give charge body in addition to 75% SR (and maybe increase the air shield percentages, they're so low as to be almost ignorable now). Those would be some blesses that would make people think twice before reaching for W9 game after game after game.