MA Ermor advice please

[IndyPendant]

I'm going to be starting an MP game soon, playing MA Ermor, and I'm playing around with Pretender builds. I'm resurrecting a slightly aged thread here to ask a question:

Is +1 defense, +50% movement, and +50% attacks to your vestals really worth 7 Dominion Scales?

Azeal and DrP both present Imprisoned Oracle pretenders with W9S9. When I was examining this build, I noticed that to go from W4 to W9 costs 280 points, for which all you get is +1 defense and the water bless on your sacreds. Or for that 280 points you could go from Sloth-3 and Growth 0, to Prod-3 and Growth-1 (or Growth 3/Prod 0/Luck -1, and so on). Going from Water-4 to Water-9 on your Pretender nets you almost *nothing* in greater magical power, so it's not even factored as a consideration here. (You could also, for those 280 points, take any two of Fire-4, Blood-4, and Earth-4, for +2 attack, strength, and/or reinvigoration respectively--and then still have room for N2 as well, which all allows for greater crafting/summoning diversity...)

I'm having problems picking the final stats on my pretender. So convince me you're right! ; ) What would you recommend? Do you think it's better to enhance the vestals, improve the scales, or take multiple magic paths? Or even to use an entirely different pretender build? And why?

Thanks,

IndyPendant.

[archaeolept]

it gives you +3 defense not +1, and 50% more attacks makes them (slightly more than) 50% more valuable units, not counting the defense bonus...