Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !

[Wick]

I think one of the things that makes the f9 blessing so good is that the Moloch saves 50 points compared with the Titan or Cyclops. Of general purpose pretenders (GPP)*, only the PoD can have a bless9 cheaper.

*Obviously, I'm using GPP to arbitrarily exclude the Divine Serpent, Nerid, and immobiles.

[Endoperez]

AND in addition to that, Fire 9 gives access to few easy, deadly spells. Turn-two Fire Darts can be enough!
And later, Falling Fires, and any of the big, bad Flame spells... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

[Saber Cherry]

Even if all damage rolls are low one turn and the target is not killed, it still gets -6(!) DEF for the rest of the turn.

-Arralen

Three attacks for -3 DEF. The fire is a weapon effect, no more an attack then a Wraithsword's lifedrain or a Star of Thralldom's false fetters.

-Wick

As I understand it, Wick is correct; weapon-linked effects are additional attacks, but since they do not roll versus defense, they do not reduce defense. That's how I programmed my combat sim, but it could be wrong.

Fire-9 is the big equalizer. There are 6 primary ways in Dominions II for a non-commander unit to avoid death when attacked in battle:

1) Defense
2) Protection
3) HP
4) Ethereality
5) Elemental Resistances
6) Magic Resistance

Fire-9 greatly reduces 1 and 2, substantially reduces 3 (due to extra damage), and often eliminates 4. 5 is marginally effective (high defense, low armor fireproof units will still be cut down by high-attack F9 flags) and 6 is irrelevant. Thus F9 turns weak units into killing machines.

...and yet... weak units are just not very effective in Dominions II, and inexpensive, weak sacreds are very rare (mainly Marignon and Mictlan, though Pythium and LotT Man have expensive weak sacreds). Strong sacred units of Man, Abysia, Rlyeh, Vanheim, Machaka, Neifelheim, IF Ulm, SC Pythium, and so forth would benefit from an F4 or F9, killing more units faster at first... but much more important to them is staying power. If you flood Black Templars with militia, for example, they will generally kill 1 per attack regardless of blessings, until they fall asleep from fatigue after 20 rounds or die from multiple high incoming attack and damage rolls. In this case, reinvigoration and protection from E9, quickness (to kill more militia before they get their turns) and defense from W9, berserk (protection bonus outweighs the defense penalty) and regen from N9, and even Fear from D8 would be more effective.

I generally use strong sacreds, or none at all. But the different blessings are situational. Blood is just plain weak, and Death is awesome against mundane units except for D9 which is worthless. Air and Astral give inflexibly specific defensive boosts, and thus strictly second-tier IMO. But when they protect against the enemy's specific strength (e.g. A10 Mictlan versus "blade wind and lightning" Vanheim) they can be stunning. But Fire, Earth, Water, and Nature give potent and generic boosts with their low and high blessing, useful in almost any (combat) situation, and are almost equally useful; and of them, only Earth and Water are good for mages! Fire and Nature can grant the greatest difference in combat effectiveness versus unblessed troops (consider Flags and Black Spiders, respectively) - but the better choice for Marignon is E9W9, or just E9, due to Witch Hunters. Vanheim is tougher, but I'd rather give my Vans W9 (increasing survivability and decreasing time-to-target) and quicken the mages than merely boost Vans' kills-per-hit ratio.

How many nations would benefit more from F9 than anything else? I have always wished my troops had it, yet never been compelled to take it except to use an actual combat pretender - a F9A4 Phoenix can wreak havoc with Fire Darts from turn 2.

P.S.

I should note that strong sacreds do benefit greatly from F9 in the mid-late game when they have to compete with thugs, SCs, living statues, and so forth. But even then, they benefit from Water or Nature (not really Earth) just as often, and the mid-late game is when Astral and Air blessings start to become crucial (if they ever will). A SC with 6 attacks can kill 6 flagellants with any blessing except S9, of which it can only kill 3; and while F9 flagellants may get a +4 attack bonus versus a SC, every other turn W9 flagellants get twice as many attacks, reducing the SC's defense (if totally surrounded) by up to -96.

I honestly don't think that any of Water, Earth, Fire, and Nature can be said to be usually the best, though Earth is probably the worst unless you have sacred mages.

[archaeolept]

and even Fear from D8 would be more effective

heh. don't get carried away now

[Saber Cherry]

archaeolept said:

heh. don't get carried away now

I'm not kidding. In some MP game a while back, my large(Abysian?) army - that would have won - was routed by Onyx Amazon undead mounts (that come with fear). They had a Death blessing, raising them to Fear +4 or Fear +5. I would have won against any other blessing...

Black Templars with Fear -1 or Fear +0 would be very effective against low-morale militia. Only Earth could be as good, as their only enemy is fatigue. But hopelessly outnumbered by militia, fear is the only hope. Ever seen a D10 Prince of Death with a Horror Helmet take on indies? Often they kill one enemy, and the rest rout...

Granted, Death blessings are situational (and generally bad). But they can be awesome versus low-morale troops.

[archaeolept]

yah. i really need the extra help against militia.

sure, nightmares are one thing, but that's the exception. F9 is very good in very many ways. It will dispense w/ ethereality or mistform. And, against conventional troops, it will cause more fear than death due to the increased slaughter on the ranks.

[Wick]

Hmmm, does Twist Fate work against Mind Duel? Astral-9 could be very good for Marignon and R'lyeh. It's also good (using the Shroud) for assassins.

[Saber Cherry]

Wick said:
Hmmm, does Twist Fate work against Mind Duel? Astral-9 could be very good for Marignon and R'lyeh. It's also good (using the Shroud) for assassins.

I highly doubt it. I had originally assumed it only worked against things that must roll versus defense (including projectiles) and thus had some possibility of missing, since conceptually, a twist of fate would not protect you against standing in the middle of a Thunderstrike, or having a lake of boiling sulfur poured on you. But then, I read that mirror images protect against area effect spells, and some "instakill" spells actually do 999 damage and can be survived by a sphinx in +10 dominion.

So I'm not really sure what the limits of "Twist of Fate" are, but I think that anything that does not declare a specific amount of damage is beyond them. For example, cold and heat auras, Charm, Blind, Curse, Paralyze, Foul Vapors... and Mind Duel. But it should protect against things like Earthquake, Bone Grinding, and Falling Fires.