[TheDemon]

Not only does the fire bless scale itself up, but the death bless does not scale itself in terms of both atk and MR. MR checks are always vs 10. So if you're fighting chaff with MR 10 and you're comparing the death bless, it looks better than if you're fighting with and against sacreds with stats of 14 across the board. If your 14-stat sacred goes up against an enemy 14-stat sacred, the ammount you hit for either bless will be the same as the 10-stat chaff battle, but the ammount the death bless AN damage hits will be far less.

There's one massive advantage to the death bless however, and that is that AN damage ignores the effect of shields. This can have the effect of, for practical purposes, reducing the enemy def+parry by more than the fire bless's atk bonus. However, it is only for the AN part of the damage, and only if the MR check is passed. So a death bless might be better for low-damage sacreds like Jaguar Warriors against low-MR enemies like humans, but once either the MR scales up (nonhumans typically) or the damage you're doing with the regular weapon exceeds the bless effect extra damage, the fire bless becomes better again.

While you guys are right that affliction chance on ranged and spells is nice, I find that it doesn't matter in the long run. To get into another battle with the same units, you typically have to lose. And if you're fielding mages and you lose, you've usually lost far more than the extra afflictions gain you. Its useful for hit-and-run battlefield-wide spells like Rain of Stones or Earthquake, but I wouldn't base a pretender design choice around those. Not to mention that even the most elite troops are killed in one to two hits by spells they aren't immune from. So typically you don't just damage your enemy with spellcasters.