Fire vs. Death heavy bless

[Squirrelloid]

Armor piercing (AP) damage reduces armor but does not eliminate it entirely. Armor negating (AN) damage totally ignores all armor.

LDiCesare
To say the only drawback of fire is fire resistant units is naive. You invested an obscene number of points into *F9*, which isn't any more useful than F6, or really, F4. And you could have generally had D9 instead, which is much more useful.

Also, let me know how F9 works against E9N6 blessed giants with multiple bracers sometime. I imagine it does nothing or close to nothing, because even with the AP it probably can't get through the protection, and whatever little bit that does get through just gets regenerated immediately.

I'll grant mathematically F9 does more damage vs chaff. You don't usually need more damage against chaff. Its chaff because it dies in droves. So I'm looking for a situation you'd actually care that you had F9. And no, assuming Att 10 vs. Def 10 is stupid - most sacreds are better than average on attack, and the Att N vs. Def N comparison is where the fire attack bonus matters the most, so you're just stacking the floor in favor of fire.

Knights - counter example when i have time.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Also, let me know how F9 works against E9N6 blessed giants with multiple bracers sometime. I imagine it does nothing or close to nothing, because even with the AP it probably can't get through the protection, and whatever little bit that does get through just gets regenerated immediately.

It has worked quite well for me vs. Ashdod despite their partial fire resist. So no, it's not close to nothing. However, 2AN magic that hits less often and that can be resisted is nothing.

As for the fact that D9 is more interesting than F9, yes indeed, but then don't give your thread a title comparing blesses but comparing paths. To me a Death bless is mostly worthless whereas a Fire bless is very good. If I pick high Death magic on a pretender, it's to open Death magic, not for the bless, whereas I'll only pick high Fire for the bless.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Armor piercing (AP) damage reduces armor but does not eliminate it entirely. Armor negating (AN) damage totally ignores all armor.

LDiCesare
To say the only drawback of fire is fire resistant units is naive. You invested an obscene number of points into *F9*, which isn't any more useful than F6, or really, F4. And you could have generally had D9 instead, which is much more useful.

Also, let me know how F9 works against E9N6 blessed giants with multiple bracers sometime. I imagine it does nothing or close to nothing, because even with the AP it probably can't get through the protection, and whatever little bit that does get through just gets regenerated immediately.

I'll grant mathematically F9 does more damage vs chaff. You don't usually need more damage against chaff. Its chaff because it dies in droves. So I'm looking for a situation you'd actually care that you had F9. And no, assuming Att 10 vs. Def 10 is stupid - most sacreds are better than average on attack, and the Att N vs. Def N comparison is where the fire attack bonus matters the most, so you're just stacking the floor in favor of fire.

Knights - counter example when i have time.

Squirrel, try literally *hundreds* of comparisons of blesses as I have - and a D9X9 bless is nowhere near as effective as a F9W9 - for a ton of reasons.

1. To purchase an X9Y9 blessing you are almost certainly going with the 3year plan on the pretender. So any advantages of the D9 path vs the f9 path is deprecated by the long delay before it arrives.

2. Death is an easily boostrappable path; and the bootstrap mechanism is well known. So sure, having a D9 mage year three is good.

But if you really want it, the odds are you can have it by year 3 without a pretender.

3. F9 makes your units able to hit ethereal (etc) units.

4. F9 scales. Sure, its only +6ap. But its for *each* attack.

So when you compare, an F9 hitting 76% of the time vs 46% for a death bless.. you hve to realized it gets exacerbated with multiple attacks. Jag warriors have 3 attacks iirc. Eagle warriors 2...

Whereas the death bless hits.. 46%... much slower ramp up.

Now combine that with a 50% quickness bonus.. its just scaling that fire bless much faster.

5. You asked when does the ability to kill more chaff faster matter.... it matters very very much.

My typical mictlan build builds an expansion group every turn. It costs 235 gp. 7 jags and a mictlan priest. You trample the average 30-60 strength indy.

You simply cannot do that with a death bless.


6. Plus - you have good synnergy with thugs/scs. A simple cheap armor - and you have now thug enabled many SCS - many chassis *need* those pluses to hit - from the golems, to the colossal fetishes to Agartha Oracles...