Seeking MP Serpent Cult Advice

[Zen]

Probably the biggest reason to not use a bless with Serpent Cult is the fact that due to the way Hydra's now work, after 1 head is killed it reverts to non-sacred status.

So even if you wanted to use a bless it is only a temporary blessing. You have to build your blessing around your cataphracts and possibly Sirrush.

[Sir_Dr_D]

I wonder if an affliction bless affects the hyra's poison cloud. I don't know how effective it would be, but it would certainly be amusing if combatants start getting chest wounds and losing limbs from just walking close to the hydra.

[Ironhawk]

Whoa, Zen! Good to see you again man The hydra sacred bug is fixed by the special hydra quickfix mod. As for the cataphracts: they just arent special enough of a unit to bless, not to mention thier excessive resource cost.

Yeah, I toyed around with an S9 or even S6 blessing but its just not worth it for the amount of points you have to put in. Hydras have good MR anyway. In the end I think I'm just going to go for a combination of low level blessings to give the hydras a little more oomph and concentrate on scales and magic instead.

[Ironhawk]

In other news:

I've just found in my test game that Heretic units only reduce beneficial friendly dominion!! So, for example, they will kill all your Order scale, but not your Drain. ....... There goes my Drain-3 plan

Could there be a more useless unit trait than Heretic?

[Edi]

Ironhawk said:
In other news:

I've just found in my test game that Heretic units only reduce beneficial friendly dominion!! So, for example, they will kill all your Order scale, but not your Drain. ....... There goes my Drain-3 plan

Could there be a more useless unit trait than Heretic?

Umm, Plague Carrier and Reaper? Because their effect is even worse, which I suppose would be damning with faint praise...

[Edratman]

This thread has the best information on hydras I've ever encountered. I don't like to play any of the nations with them for my own whimsical reasons. I always thought the Hydras were great but expensive units until this thread.

[thejeff]

I'm not sure what you mean by "only reduce beneficial friendly dominion"?

I thought they reduced dominion: number of candles. Are you saying they reduce the effect of good scales? Or lower the good scales?

Or just that when you have no candles you get the bad scale effects, but not the good ones.

[Edi]

He probably means that if you haev a dominion with a mix of positive ane negative scales (e.g. order 3, misfortune 3), the heretics will lower your dominion to 0 and neutralize your order 3 scale, but they will NOT neutralize misfortune 3 to luck/misfortune 0 so you get the worst of both worlds.

[thejeff]

But with no dominion, the scales will fade away over time, right?

Or on the borders, never get established.

[mathusalem]

is the "blood curse" effect is applied for every Hydra's shape ?