Beginner's Guide to Abysia MA

[JimMorrison]

I'm under the impression that D bless will shine more in the late game, with many smaller sacreds, and to deter an enemy rush at the beginning.

The Affliction bonus can be a powerful tool against enemy thugs/SCs, especially as any nation that has Curse casters trainable anywhere.

[moderation]

How does the D bless shine in late game? It's still only 2 extra damage for the cap only sacred infantry.

I suppose having your sacred mages cause extra afflictions when casting Fire Storm is nice, but I'm not sure I would pay for D9. Wouldn't D4-D5 be more cost effective? I'm a little confused about how curse figures into the equation too...

[dirtywick]

In my opinion, there are few things they have problems killing and the things they have problems killing they can at least attempt to cripple with afflictions.

[JimMorrison]

Mod, it's potentially cost effective in MA Abysia's case because you get an SC pretender, you get magic weapons (not just on cap only sacreds, but any sacred summons or indies), you get Affliction bonus on ALL of your evocations, you get ready access to late game Death summons, and you get a little more damage.

You could save the points and do a lower level in the path, yes, but using the PoD for example, going from 3 to 9 is quite cheap for a major bless, and Abysia's troops expand fast enough you can go Dormant to make up for the cost. (obviously, I am not arguing that your theoretical strat is poor, just not necessarily better)

As far as the Affliction bonus, getting +350% chance nearly guarantees an affliction on any damage over 1, on nearly all targets. Reliable, frequent, and multiple affliction application can be an enormous boon, especially when fighting anyone who is using regenerating thugs/SCs. The +100% from D4 is okay, but it's obviously going to be far less reliable.

Obviously, the Cyclops can also be leveraged into a strong strat as well, as even going E6 will give you a very cost effective reinvig for your mages, and getting to E9 is again cheap enough to potentially be worth it.


(my apologies about the Curse comment, I feel that most people do overlook Death bless with most nations, and just thought I'd throw that in there as a general consideration )

[moderation]

I'm wondering specifically how much value the 2AN+MR damage from the death weapons has for your troops. If you just care about your mages giving afflictions, Death 8 could be a cheaper alternative. Also, I'm wonder about cases where a death bless could interfere with fire/frost brand effects on your demonbred thugs.

Is idea is that anything that can't be killed by your resource intensive capital-only sacreds will at least have afflictions? The downside is that your sacreds will also be dead and they are hard to mass. I'm a little skeptical, but I suppose it could have situational uses.

Which battlefield spells really benefit from an affliction bonus? Fire storm and a death bless on the other hand may be handy, but in most situations, I'd rather have the enemy dead rather than afflicted. It seems like the purpose of low and mid level evocations spells is either to kill the enemy or not. Maybe Heat from Hell is another candidate, but if you get to the point where fatigue is doing damage, they are probably all dead anyway... If you are struggling to kill the enemy this way, I think you may already be in trouble...

Maybe it depends on what you're fighting though. If you're dealing with giants, SC, or hydras afflictions could useful. When dealing with chaff, probably not as much.

Personally, I am not sure about the value taking blesses with Abysia. Good scales and a decent awake pretender for early expansion are probably more optimal, since their basic troops are powerful as is. My main concern of course is the question of what is most optimal.

[dirtywick]

I think a strength bonus from blood and that they dual wield has a good synergy with a high death bless. Plus they can cast Gateway later to get the sacreds around pretty easily.

I don't know, maybe not the best strategy. Just an option available.

[JimMorrison]

Well bear in mind, the damage from the Death bless is AN, and they get 2 attacks. So while beating on particularly tough thugs, even hits that don't do damage otherwise will still do magic damage, and therefor cause afflictions.

I'm not sure if it's fair to say that the mid level evocations are only useful for straight kills. It's quite common that Falling Fires or Fire Cloud can be used to soften an army (not fully intentionally, just the mages spamming them loosely around, as any kills reduce the efficiency of casting again in the same spot), so that when the lines clash, no one is likely to survive the first hit they take. However with the Afflictions, you get Cripples and Limps which will break their formations and pin troops inside the Fire Clouds, and many of the other afflictions reduce attack or defense capacity, thereby increasing the efficiency of your infantry once the lines do meet.

And then you have single target spells like Combustion and Incinerate that have 100 Precision, so if you are coming up against sacred giants, or top end summons, you can really be sure to weaken them as you get your first licks in.


Now, really, it all comes down to how you want to play, and what you want to push. Also, what you expect to face in the game. Obviously if you fear starting next to a rusher, a Death bless is going to be a valuable deterrent, as their key units are nowhere near as replaceable as they would be in the late game. As the game progresses, it becomes a matter of what you really want to stress in the game. And then also I guess what it really comes down to overall is whether you want your pretender to be awake or not. With an awake SC you of course will want to min/max as much as possible, especially in terms of what you can accomplish in the early game. Like I said, my philosophy with Abysia is that their troops are solid and dependable, so you don't -need- an awake SC, so personally I would prefer to have him Dormant, and roll those extra points into perhaps D9 or E9, because I would feel that the direct boost to the pretender's abilities are the final key to it being "cost effective".


And yeah Dirty, I've played around with a Fountain of Blood with Abysia, I like the dousing bonus, and a few extra strength is nice.

With a Dormant VQ you can get 6D/6B with decent scales, but with a Dormant Fountain of Blood you can do 6D/6B with Dom7 O3/P2/H3/G1/L1/M1 which I don't know, looks really solid to me. Gets you +200% Affliction rate, so 3x as many isn't too bad, and 3 Str. And 6 in both leaves you in a good spot for most spells, as well as giving you basically full access to all Blood summons AND Death summons..... not sure if that's just too much to worry about, but with the research bonus, why not, eh?

I'm curious though Moderation, what sort of pretender would you actually lean towards?