Quote:
Originally Posted by Valerius
Well, I really like the synergy between being able to push your dominion with blood sacrifice and using immortal units. At 66 slaves each, vampire lords can use of a lot of that income. Then blood sacrificing from multiple forts using jade knives could easily use up another 15-20 slaves. If I've researched blood 9 I'll also make use of the various spells that summon a batch of demons. If I think there's some still available I'll also go for the unique blood summons. And of course if you're regularly using spells like life for a life that adds up as well.
Actually, earlier in the game a lot of my blood income went into preparing for a late game blood economy. Invariably I'd empower an N mage so I could forge jade knives. I'd probably continue empowering that mage so he could forge armor of twisting thorns and that would open up the other blood boosters (as well as B/N spells if you want to use some of those).
I didn't make much use of the low level blood summons since Van has a good troop lineup (more so MA than EA). If I do use low level summons I aim for something that summons several units at once. While the idea of an upkeep free lightning bolt caster for 4 slaves is appealing, I never made much use of storm demons when they had to be summoned one at a time. I think because blood hunting is already costly and then I have to have a B2 Vanadrott or a Vanjarl with a booster do the summoning. Especially given the demands on those units in CBM 1.8, summoning demons one at a time doesn't seem worth it.
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Agreed, but with jade knives now unique I don't know how worthwhile blood saccing is.
Actually I find the hearts of life to be quite useful and am now planning on spamming the hell outta them for thugging/casting purposes. Without them thugging options for Van, eh not so much.
And speaking of empowering. A fun trick might be to put W and E on the pretender to summon Grendelkin. Empower the Grendelkin in blood, give maybe a blood thorn and definately hydra armor and ring of regen then script blood vengence/reinvigorate/attack.
Will still need to test that one but on paper looks good...
All in all in terms of summons, there really is nothing there for Van until Blood 7 & 9, however with the scaling upward blood eco through forging boosters, forging hearts, empowering, and combat casting, I'm now of the opinion that there are definate uses of slaves in the early and especially the mid game of Van and can't really foresee too much stock piling going on.
All the more reason for the blood eco, inefficient as it is, to start sooner than later
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