[Burnsaber]

SlipperyJim, mind if I disagree a bit with your views? I have a slight beef with your assesments on blesses.

When deciding for a bless with Ulm Reborn, you need to take into account that you have 3 notably different sacred troop chassises - since you most likely will be using all of them, you need to find a bless that serves them all.

You have the Penitents, good attack power but the resilience of a air balloon. You'll have tons of these lying around in no time (since they are freespawns), why not give them a bless take actually benefit on?

You have the Anchorite, it's your only recruitable sacred outside capitol -> you'll also have lots of these lying around. They're tough as nails, but low hp.

Then you have the capitol only sacreds -> Black Templars and Neugeboren Guards. Tough elites with high encumberance and low mr with only weaknesess's.

Fire bless is cool, but your sacreds already have good weapons, good strenght and good attack values (expect for Anchorties, but you can't have everything), why try to fix something that's not broken?

Yeah, Air bless just sucks.

Water, 50% quickness is just plain awesome, believe me. The defense bonus is good for your Black Templars. 16 def is pretty nice. Makes your slow sacreds reach melee faster (good for Anchorites especially). This bless is useful for all of your sacreds.

Earth, it's obvious that this bless is good for your Black Templars and Neugeborens. They need that reinvogration. The thing is; it's not that hot on Anchorites and Penitents. Anchorites have enc 0 and already amazing prot. Besides, most your opponent will be bringing AP and AN weapons against you anyways, raising your prot doesn't really help then. Also, why take a pretender with high earth magic? You've got that path well covered by your national mages.

Astral, this doesn't seem like much of a bless, but you need to remember that it's DIRT CHEAP (just look at Oracle). The MR bonus is very good for all of your sacred, who'll be facing a lot of magic in the battlefield. Most players also make the mistake of underestimating the "Twist Fate" effect. It basically doubles the estimated lifetime of your Penitents. And ingoring that first rain of crossbow bolts on your Anchorites? Freaking priceless.

Death, nothing to see here, move along.

Nature, regeneration is only good for troops that have either 1) high hp (over 15+) 2) good survival time on the battlefield. your sacreds have neither. Sure, Neugeborens and Templars can survive, but ot for long before they die to fatique. What's the use of regenerating 2 hp per turn when your opponent can puch through your armor? It's also quite useless on Penitens and Archorites.

Blood, nothing to see here.

IMHO, when deciding for a bless with Ulm Reborn, I think that it's critical that you assess it's power for all of your sacred troops. You can't really focus on only one of them. Sure Neugeborens and Templars are really nice, but they're capital only and they can't be everywhere.

I'm currently playing W9S9 Oracle with Ulm Reborn on MP and it's working out great. Sure, my Black Templars tire out fast, but DAMN are they excellent shock troops.