Warriors of the Five Elements.

[chrispedersen]

I believe EA Tien to be the best in the game.

I typically choose a double or triple bless. I like F9 - to allow them to hit things only hit by magic - and then it depends on mood.

N9 - gives a subtle benefit that it prevents your celestial masters from old aging.

W9 or A9 if I go fountain.

Dom 5 is all I bother with usually, even tho its capital only. Archers are excellent - sufficiently good that you can carry your early provinces.

River demons stacking off your bless mid to late - flexible magic, .. whats not to like.

[Endoperez]

chrispedersen said:
N9 - gives a subtle benefit that it prevents your celestial masters from old aging.

What do you mean by this? Keeping your diseased Celestial Masters going from battle to battle and regenerating the lost hitpoints, casting Gift of Health or what? Because I don't remember Nature magic of pretender affecting sacred units' old age in any way.

[Shovah32]

Endo, with a nature bless a shroud of the battle said(5 pearls) will give them regeneration and stop them from dying of disease quickly.
I wouldn't take N9, N4 would be plenty. N9 is just sort of begging the enemy to cast earthquake/rain of stones on you.

[Endoperez]

Shovah32 said:
Endo, with a nature bless a shroud of the battle said(5 pearls) will give them regeneration and stop them from dying of disease quickly.
I wouldn't take N9, N4 would be plenty. N9 is just sort of begging the enemy to cast earthquake/rain of stones on you.

Oh, right. I forgot that Shroud also gives the bless effect outside of battle.

[Jazzepi]

A9 bless is awful.

Give the warriors W9S9, which I believe is much easier to get than A9W9 anyways.

They'll tear through almost anything without losses. Lots, and lots of archers can be scary, though.

Jazzepi

[Shovah32]

I think he meant astral 9, because he mentioned doing it with a "fountain", which I'm assuming is the Oracle.

[chrispedersen]

Yeah, I meant astral - never get used to saying s9.
Dittos on the N9. I usually hire one celestial master with the rest the master of elements ntil year 3 or so, when water gem production kicks in.

I don't know if its a function of pretender or scales - but my first celestial master usually is not old - and if old.. never develops disease.

And yes, I equip with battle shrouds.

[moderation]

Jazzepi said:
A9 bless is awful.

Give the warriors W9S9, which I believe is much easier to get than A9W9 anyways.

They'll tear through almost anything without losses. Lots, and lots of archers can be scary, though.

Jazzepi

Hmm, giving up F9 for S9 seems nice since you get Twist Fate and Astral, which seems a lot more powerful than fire, but does trading away the magical fire damage and attack rating bonus slow you down?

[Renojustin]

With F9, they eat thugs, high defense troops, setting things on fire which is always nice... I see the loss of F9 as too much of a maulus to WotFE, who only have 16 damage base.

S9 would help against one arrow volley, help some against MR base resist spells, but you're already talking base 14 MR when blessed. I don't seeing it add as much to their survivability as F9, where they can mow through opposing troops, thus removing a potential source of damage.

So for the bless, W9F9 seems to be THE way to go for these guys.

While S9 can be used to better effect by your pretender on the strategic map, the reverse is true for battle magic in my opinion. So the relative utility there might come down to what you're going to use your pretender for, exactly. A Phoenix going up against an army that's not heat resistant can be hard to watch.