Water 9 Blessing

[Mardagg]

Hi all.
What exactly does quickness do?
I just started playing dominions again after a several years break and i seem to renember from Dominions 2 those quickened Priests,that were able to cast smite 2 times per turn.But in my current SP game,my atlantian level 3 priest only cast it once per turn,every turn?!?
Did it change somehow?
What about sacred melee units?

Thanks in advance.

Btw, i love most of the changes from dom 2 to dom 3.
A great game became even greater!

[Gregstrom]

Quickness from W9 bless is +50% to a blessed unit's AP, meaning they can move further and (on average) get another set of attacks ev ery second round. It isn't the same effect as the Quickness spell, which gives +100% AP (which does not stack with the W9 bless) and +3 Att/Def.

Spellcasters don't get additional casts from either form of quickness in Dom3.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

Quickness from W9 bless is +50% to a blessed unit's AP, meaning they can move further and (on average) get another set of attacks ev ery second round. It isn't the same effect as the Quickness spell, which gives +100% AP (which does not stack with the W9 bless) and +3 Att/Def.

Spellcasters don't get additional casts from either form of quickness in Dom3.

This is not correct. Water bless does confer the +1/2W defense bonus.

[Tolkien]

Item-based spells however are affected by quickness.

So if you use a Flamebeau and slap on a boots of quickness, that commander will cast Holy Pyre twice a turn, compared to regular spellcasting which, even with quickness, will only cast it once.

[Gregstrom]

...although (IIRC) spells from Carcator and Nethgul shouldn't be considered item-based spells for these purposes.

[Mardagg]

thx guys.
Pretty interesting...so the water 9 blessing got nerved quite a bit.
Sacred high level Mage casting some mighty spell twice per turn has been pretty nice strat in Dom2 iirc.
I really think that the manual is missing accurate description of the bless effects here.

thx also for pointing out,that some item based spells are different here regarding boots of quickness.
Gotta do some tests with this soon.

[Tolkien]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

...although (IIRC) spells from Carcator and Nethgul shouldn't be considered item-based spells for these purposes.

Forgot to mention that. Thanks for the save.

The item spell+boots of quickness strat is pretty popular (at least with my limited experience), especially with Standard of the Damned and it's Life Drain (for anti-thug/SC action).

[thejeff]

Technically correct. The W9 bless only gives the +50% AP bonus. It is distinguished from the Quickness spell by being only 50% not 100% and not adding +3 Att/Def
The lesser water bless does add to defense.
I've forgotten, the defense bonuses from the lesser W bless and from Quickness do stack, right?

[Gregstrom]

They do AFAIK.

[MaxWilson]

IMHO it's misleading to talk about the water bonus in terms of AP bonus, because it's actually an *action* bonus. Getting two actions per turn means your AP is *effectively* doubled in the sense that yes, you can move twice as far in one turn, but it's not true that having twice as much AP (e.g. by wearing lighter armor) will increase your number of actions. AP is strictly about movement.

BTW, note that if you have two actions or more per turn, it is possible to participate in melee combat AND spellcast (although you can never cast more than one spell in a turn). This means that a W9-blessed priest will have an improved chance of casting spells in melee combat. That could be important if you were doing a Caelum-style [Attack, Shockwave, Attack, Shockwave] combo.

-Max