Protection from Earth Bless and Protection-Based Alteration-School Earth Buffs

[Immaculate]

Lets say you have a unit with fair but not great natural protection and it casts stoneskin or ironskin (forget the exact spell names but you know what i mean- alteration 2&3 earth-based alteration buffs). Then you bless them (or the other way around).

Are you loosing effiency on your bless? Should i choose a different type of bless (and use summon earthpower) for better efficiency?

Thanks,
i.

[SlipperyJim]

The +4 Protection from the E9 bless will only apply to units with armor. Natural Protection doesn't count.

[thejeff]

Stone/iron skin boost natural protection.
The Earth Bless boosts armor protection. It does nothing if you're not wearing armor.
Armor and natural protection combine in some complex way to get actual protection, so both the bless and the spells will add to your actual protection, but not linearly. So you are losing efficiency, but it's hard to get high protection without losing efficiency somewhere.
For thugs and mages, the reinvig may be more important than the protection anyway. And you should also Summon Earthpower. There is never too much reinvig.

[SlipperyJim]

Originally Posted by thejeff

There is never too much reinvig.

QFT.

[Immaculate]

So the basalt king, who is armed with only a quarterstaff and no armor but has protection of 16 does not benefit from the protection effect of the earth bless?

But he does benefit from the ironskin/stoneskin spells and from the reinvigoration from the earth bless?

BUT if i put armour on him, he would get the armour benefit and the earth bless (protection) effect?

Thanks for all your clarifications....

[Quitti]

Originally Posted by Immaculate

So the basalt king, who is armed with only a quarterstaff and no armor but has protection of 16 does not benefit from the protection effect of the earth bless?

But he does benefit from the ironskin/stoneskin spells and from the reinvigoration from the earth bless?

BUT if i put armour on him, he would get the armour benefit and the earth bless (protection) effect?

Thanks for all your clarifications....

True, true, yes.

[Micah]

More or less. Ironskin/stoneskin don't do much when your prot is already that high though and give you the resist penalties and casting fatigue.

[thejeff]

Right, I generally don't bother with the protection buffs for Basalt Kings. Just give them cheap (low encumbrance) armor and they're good to go.
The real trouble with BKs is they can't self-bless, so you need to send priests along with them to use the bless.

Kitted out, they're good enough without a bless.

[Trumanator]

You could also just give BK's a shroud. Plus, w/E3 they can summon e-power -> Invulnerability w/out gaining too much fatigue.

[thejeff]

Shroud certainly works, I'm not sure it's worth building a bless around though. As I said they're tough enough without it.

Invulnerability might be worth it. I've been using armor for resistances or other abilities. Rainbow Armor is probably best all around, but you'll need indies (1/10 Deer Tribe shaman) to forge it.