Mod, it's potentially cost effective in MA Abysia's case because you get an SC pretender, you get magic weapons (not just on cap only sacreds, but any sacred summons or indies), you get Affliction bonus on ALL of your evocations, you get ready access to late game Death summons, and you get a little more damage.
You could save the points and do a lower level in the path, yes, but using the PoD for example, going from 3 to 9 is quite cheap for a major bless, and Abysia's troops expand fast enough you can go Dormant to make up for the cost. (obviously, I am not arguing that your theoretical strat is poor, just not necessarily better)
As far as the Affliction bonus, getting +350% chance nearly guarantees an affliction on any damage over 1, on nearly all targets. Reliable, frequent, and multiple affliction application can be an enormous boon, especially when fighting anyone who is using regenerating thugs/SCs. The +100% from D4 is okay, but it's obviously going to be far less reliable.
Obviously, the Cyclops can also be leveraged into a strong strat as well, as even going E6 will give you a very cost effective reinvig for your mages, and getting to E9 is again cheap enough to potentially be worth it.
(my apologies about the Curse comment, I feel that most people do overlook Death bless with most nations, and just thought I'd throw that in there as a general consideration
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