[Evilhomer]

To Baalz:

When fighting underwater I do feel the battlewide effects are so much potent than the aoe1 offensive spells that you suggest. Since the 5th level is so very expensive I can almost have const 4 + conj 4 by the time you reach alt5, basically giving me friendly current (really needed if you want to use encumb10 myrms) and school of scharks and to top that off I do get alot of gems to play with from tiamat.

If you are engaging big battles on land early I really feel you are doing something wrong. A competent player will win against your armies since you are basically fighting without decent battle magic so getting swarm is not a top priority for me.

You are right that nature-5 pretender is needed if you for some reason need the mother oak, but then you need to go for ench5 aswell. personally I would get low nature on my pretender in order to get the moonvine bracelets (sp?) at some point (also various items/summons that need nature in combo with other paths). Sure then I would not get the mother oak as soon but its not so criticall anyway, since you usually get 20 nature or so per turn anyway after all your haruspex casts.

Personally I invested heavily into conjuration when I played them last, you get spells that is just awesome in the water like shark attack, various good summons and later water queens and maelstorm global, and I find this path more needed than alt to be honest.