Suggested Changes to Bless Bonuses

[Autochthon]

Hmm, well...

For an alternate Wind bless, might I recommend an increase in Action Points?

There aren't too many sacred missile troops, and Air Mages get +Precision from Air magic anyhow. This give melee troops a decent buff that stays w/in the character of Air magic w/out intruding w/other Path blesses.

I did also think that Death bless w/out Fear kinda sucked, but then again, that may be a bit imba. Another idea would be to automatically raise the unit as Undead if killed in battle? Or perhaps give Sacred Units Life Drain attacks?

As for an alternate Blood bless, perhaps a minor life drain ability? Or give Blood the Berserk ability (aka Frenzy) and give Nature poison weapons?

As for Awe, i'd leave that for a Astral bless, since most creatures w/Awe tend to be Astrally summoned (i.e., use Astral Gems).

Some ideas for ya

[Humakty]

Sombre : I think you're right, my pretender usually sits in it's keep, waiting for powerfull equipment. By the time he goes to battle, he will be empowered. I don't think it would change the way I play to change the A bless, but I only play on big (400+) maps.
On a small map, if the A/D/B blesses were as interesting as the F and W bless, wouldn't everyone select A/B/D ?

[Agema]

No. If A/B/D were as interesting as the others, people would play A/B/D/E/F/W/N pretenders.

Increasing action points is an interesting idea, but mostly that just gets you into melee faster, to no real point if you've got an arrow ward up. Well, okay, it'll help you chase down routing troops I guess.

[Kuritza]

Death bless is very strong as is. Maybe its worse against national troops than Fire, but it makes SCs nearly obsolete. Ever tried using an SC against a W9D9 jaguars?
Anyway, I'd like to see strong blesses weakened atm... Sacred troops dominate the environment too much, just as SCs were in Dominions 2. At least SCs required some research and planning, while sacreds are a no-brainer in many cases.

[KissBlade]

Kuritza said:
Death bless is very strong as is. Maybe its worse against national troops than Fire, but it makes SCs nearly obsolete. Ever tried using an SC against a W9D9 jaguars?
Anyway, I'd like to see strong blesses weakened atm... Sacred troops dominate the environment too much, just as SCs were in Dominions 2. At least SCs required some research and planning, while sacreds are a no-brainer in many cases.

Umm... SC's I design don't get hit by D9. In THEORY D9 should be the SC destroyer but a magic /negatable/ attack is laughable. Also, the very idea of bless troops against SC rarely happens since the entire point of getting a SC is that he's maneveurable enough to avoid armies you don't want to fight and squash the ones you do.

[Kristoffer O]

MR doesn't negate the increased affliction chance.

[calmon]

Death Bless is fine in my oppinion.

Its not the ultimate bless for your sacreds but the bless bonus is ok for your troops.

In addition you power up all your mage to do 100-500% more afflictions and this can be very good in battle with the right strategy even against SC's.

I tested spells like Flames from the Sky. This also work. In middle/late game some of my caster wear shroud of the battle saint just to bring affliction pain to big/nasty armies.

Air 9 is really crap. Don't touch it in moment.

Well Blood 9 could be good if there were a race with for example weak sacreds + bless commander as PD. I did some test games with the insectoid mod and it works pretty good against attacking SC's and other things. Sadly the mod MP game wasn't started so i can't test it more. Mictlan has sacred PD but other blesses are better here. Maybe Kristoffer can make a race of a lot of really crappy & really cheap sacreds which are also in PD to make this bless more interesting.

[Kuritza]

KissBlade said:Umm... SC's I design don't get hit by D9.

If you arent talking about turn 60+ or a medusa pretender, its more of an oversight by your opponents. There are ways to counter such an 'uncratchable' SC, like giving some cheap commander an eye of the void.

[In THEORY D9 should be the SC destroyer but a magic /negatable/ attack is laughable.

Arm loss and chest wound arent.

Also, the very idea of bless troops against SC rarely happens since the entire point of getting a SC is that he's maneveurable enough to avoid armies you don't want to fight and squash the ones you do.

It happens every now and then, when your opponent relies on sacred troops heavily and your nationals cannot do jack against them so you are forced to rely on SC instead.

[mathusalem]

and why not a D9 bless giving Deceased ?