LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions

[Baalz]

Well, I'm sure some would disagree with me, but a water bless is a bit of a double edged sword. In this situation it's primary benefit is to let you attack 1.5 times per turn, which is not inconsiderable with that awesome bone glaive. The drawback, however, is that you'll be racking up fatigue faster than your earth blessing will erase. This is a huge against several things you'll face even without R'yleh. Ermor is the obvious one, with a net 0 encumbrance small amounts of assartuts will essentially take on an unlimited number of longdead. Even aside from Ermor you can expect skellispam from a couple other nations, and you'll even start to struggle against simple swarms of units from the likes of Bogarus. You don't have to get up to 100 fatigue for it to make a difference, mounting fatigue will see a steady increase in critical hits which rapidly cut the effectiveness of your nice armor and modest regen. So, basically you hit harder, but have a lot less staying power. The way I look at it is the water bless gives you an easier time getting an overwhelming advantage, but it puts you in a significantly weaker position when you don't have that overwhelming advantage.

Additionally, the advantages of an astral bless are still quite strong without taking R'yleh into account. Think about this - you're facing a large group of assartuts, how do you counter them? The best thing that comes to my mind is archers and mages (unless they have a water bless, at which point tiring them out gets added to the list). Twist fate gives a substantial boost to resisting everything from xbow bolts to banefire. The MR boost falls in to cover another angle.

My opinion is the water bless improves what you're already good enough at while including a big drawback, while the astral bless bolsters you in an area you very well may need the help. Plus, end game high astral mages are very nice. You've already got the combat muscle, your pretender will do more for you by diversifying than by squishing things.

Originally Posted by Otherling

Baalz, I'd like to thank you for this guide. I used it, and to great effect, in my first MP game, which has just wrapped up. I decided to go all-out on the bless, with a E9S9N4 imprisoned monolith. The assartuts proved every bit as effective as advertised, and indeed were my primary troops for most of the game. Tore through almost everything. I can't speak too much to how effective the new underwater recruitables are, as the patch showed up well into the game, and I didn't get as much of a chance to use them.

I think the earth bless is definitely a must. I'd like your opinion, though: in a game without R'lyeh, what do you think of dropping the astral bless and going with a water bless instead? I was thinking an imprisoned Dagon with an E9W9 bless, and perhaps even a minor nature or fire bless. That would make for some nasty assartuts, and still leave you with a pretty strong combatant when it eventually woke up. Any thoughts?