Arcane Bolt

[Lingchih]

Thanks, QM. I was wondering about that.

[Quitti]

Except that AN missiles/bolts should go through shields. But a brief discussion with qm on IRC revealed that it's probably not the case even though it should be.

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by Quitti

Except that AN missiles/bolts should go through shields. But a brief discussion with qm on IRC revealed that it's probably not the case even though it should be.

Well, it's a question. Actually, even if your missile can go straight through shield, you still don't see wher the guy is behind it.
And in game, parry value of shield is just checked against missiles as hit-or-miss. Maybe even for the reason above. Or maybe just to simplify engine somewhat. But it's WAD.
Generally, bolts may work against thugs/SCs. But I personally had never seen it.

[Squirrelloid]

Shields weren't the problems with my hitting with it. Even against vast seas of Kailasa sacreds (2h weapon, no shield) with precision 20 + spell precision, i was failing to hit ~80% of the time. That's just useless.

[Micah]

Eh, other blesses (except for astral) have minor effects that stack with everything, whereas the A bless is always simply *worse* than casting arrow fend, unless you're truly crazy and go for A10. Thugs can also use shields (Gleaming gold is an excellent choice for awe and huge parry value, as well as near-immunity to bolts) or an amulet of missile protection if you're truly concerned about ranged weapons.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Micah

Eh, other blesses (except for astral) have minor effects that stack with everything, whereas the A bless is always simply *worse* than casting arrow fend, unless you're truly crazy and go for A10. Thugs can also use shields (Gleaming gold is an excellent choice for awe and huge parry value, as well as near-immunity to bolts) or an amulet of missile protection if you're truly concerned about ranged weapons.

Divine blessing is a spell that is much more available than the air paths necessery to cast arrow fend.

Air blessing activates at the same time as any other blessing, so you are 'stacking'. So it prevents the need for an additional mage. For example if you are mictlan, with an a9S9W9 blessing you activate all of them with a single divine blessing.

This can be *really* important due to timing.

IF you are on offense - and you are an SC - facing storm demons, not having to cast that initial resist lightning is a huge plus.

Having it available as a bless, saves a fair amount of mage actions and gems on forging items. For example, if you were mictlan, facing caelum (ea).. are you really saying you wouldn't at least consider a a9 blessing?

Similarly, if you were facing an archer nation - such as marignon.

There are also a number of globals which I don't think get the respect they deserve, and become worthwhile with even a partial air blessing.

For example the air global that decreases an opponents moral, by the number of candles.

Most people don't think of this, but this makes repel MUCH more effective.

With a blood nation,
Combine that with blood rain, and you can repel virtually any opponent.

Combine with an earth nation, and cast melancholia.

Finally, the ability to leverage a lot of abilities into one single script entry, is huge. I'm still waiting for some of these things to show up in a Baalz guide.

[Baalz]

I don't know, 75% SR is fairly useful in enough situations that I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand even if you're not sure who you're gonna be fighting with. Lightning is often the goto way to fight off tougher units in the early-ish game, so if you're getting a benefit from the air shield and the SR it can be a better choice than other blesses, like when you're fielding toughish units with no shields and don't otherwise have access to arrow fend. Jotun woodsmen are a good example, as are EA Aby burning ones and Yomi Oni Generals (cheap enough to use in squads if you spam castles). Plus, of course, there's a decent number of spells air shield will help you out against in addition to lightning...

[Micah]

No, of course I'd consider/take an A blessing if I knew I had a good matchup with it, and of course some nations work better with it than others. My point was that the minor effect becomes largely useless late game when you have arrow fend, whereas all the other non-s blesses continue to be helpful since they stack with other effects. The A bless does not.

The A bless is situational, and yes, it can be very good, but the combination of being redundant late game due to arrow fend and only of possible use early game based on your neighbors makes for a pretty questionable choice. It's an entirely situational pick, and most guides and the like are written for the general case.

I was choosing to restrict my comments to the air shield component, obviously 75% SR can be helpful, but again, highly situational.

[Baalz]

Ah, not refuting anything that's been said just pointing out another thing I forgot to mention - A8 blessing makes it possible to give your sacreds 100% lightning immunity stacked with storm warriors. Being able to comfortably fight under wrathful skies (that your pretender can cast) is pretty potent, and also lets you do fun stuff with shockwave.

[chrispedersen]

ma mictlan, for example has pretty significant air casters.
since the jag warriers have a second form, the 75% sr is more than sufficient to let them play in a thunderstorm.....