[rdonj]

Actually I looked back at the slann while posting and saw that they do have the domsummon in there when the slann is dormant. So I edited my post in the hopes no one would see that :P If you're worried about having them summon units with a gold cost you could maybe make an alternate version of the temple guard that doesn't cost anything. But I'm not sure that's really necessary especially if they are only creating them when they're dormant, since they are your best option for breaking into high level ritual spells.

Yeah, I don't see how you could really put much effort into even researching blood in the first few years. By the time you actually have the research and slaves to spare to cast it the benefit of their having blood vengeance is likely significantly lessened. I haven't actually used them yet so if you think it's not a big deal it probably isn't. But blood vengeance is something that's pretty rare in the game, confined to expensive late items and very high end blood magic so having it available on a cheap low end summon seems overpowered even if it isn't.

The heat power 3 does make him pretty strong in heat 3 dominion. But you're right, any sensible player in mp with water magic available to them will spam wolven winter at any province they expect to have a major battle in. Might be a bit harder to do though if you use the sunscales as in-dominion thugs.

If you pop the bubble with fire magic, does that 500% extra damage carry over to the second form? I've had times with second shapes where it seems they take spillover damage from the primary form and if that carries over, you could just cast combustion and watch them all go poof. The Xhotl summons are very fun though, they definitely offer you a lot of battlefield flexibility.