Fire vs. Death heavy bless

[TheDemon]

Not only does the fire bless scale itself up, but the death bless does not scale itself in terms of both atk and MR. MR checks are always vs 10. So if you're fighting chaff with MR 10 and you're comparing the death bless, it looks better than if you're fighting with and against sacreds with stats of 14 across the board. If your 14-stat sacred goes up against an enemy 14-stat sacred, the ammount you hit for either bless will be the same as the 10-stat chaff battle, but the ammount the death bless AN damage hits will be far less.

There's one massive advantage to the death bless however, and that is that AN damage ignores the effect of shields. This can have the effect of, for practical purposes, reducing the enemy def+parry by more than the fire bless's atk bonus. However, it is only for the AN part of the damage, and only if the MR check is passed. So a death bless might be better for low-damage sacreds like Jaguar Warriors against low-MR enemies like humans, but once either the MR scales up (nonhumans typically) or the damage you're doing with the regular weapon exceeds the bless effect extra damage, the fire bless becomes better again.

While you guys are right that affliction chance on ranged and spells is nice, I find that it doesn't matter in the long run. To get into another battle with the same units, you typically have to lose. And if you're fielding mages and you lose, you've usually lost far more than the extra afflictions gain you. Its useful for hit-and-run battlefield-wide spells like Rain of Stones or Earthquake, but I wouldn't base a pretender design choice around those. Not to mention that even the most elite troops are killed in one to two hits by spells they aren't immune from. So typically you don't just damage your enemy with spellcasters.

[chrispedersen]

jaguar warriors are low damage sacreds?
Besides, how does an AN negate the effect of shields? You still have to score a hit for the secondary effect to go off; you're still down +4 on the chances to hit in the first place, and I hardly see how 2 pts of damage MR can really be considered massive.

[TheDemon]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

jaguar warriors are low damage sacreds?
Besides, how does an AN negate the effect of shields? You still have to score a hit for the secondary effect to go off; you're still down +4 on the chances to hit in the first place, and I hardly see how 2 pts of damage MR can really be considered massive.

They're low damage in that each attack itself is low damage. Obviously jags do a ton of damage, but each individual attack isn't a big one like, say, a giant like the Unmarked sacred.

My point is that a "shield hit" still counts as a hit. For most purposes, it acts like a miss since the added protection is significant. But in the case of AN damage, the added protection is irrelavent. Stuff like Gate Cleavers, Death Blesses, Dusk Daggers, all hit and do damage through shields.

Squirrelord has it right, except "parried" is a different term used for arrows, which doesn't involve protection at all.
reference: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39853


I'm not saying a death bless is better in melee than a fire bless, but it has that single point in its favor. The MR resistable part really kills it.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by TheDemon

Not only does the fire bless scale itself up, but the death bless does not scale itself in terms of both atk and MR. MR checks are always vs 10.

Let's be fair--F9 bless doesn't really scale either. For an unit with attack 10, a +4 bonus is huge vs anyone with a shield (def 14). (+160% damage? Something like that.) For a hypothetical elite unit with attack 15 already, the bonus would be much more modest (+40% or so), and vs. chaff without shields like Ulmish infantry it would be negligible since you're hitting all the time anyway.

In theory, if you're dueling someone high-Prot but low-Def (like Ulm), a D9 bless would be better than a F9 bless. I've also found that a E9D9 bless works okay against knights and heavy inf in general, since the 2AN attack ignores shields[1]. (This was as Helheim, whose sacreds have great endurance and multiple weak attacks.)

-Max

Note: I'm not advocating a D9 bless--I take it because it's fun, and because I like having a D9 spellcaster, not because the bless is good.

[1] Or so I have always believed. If Micah has tested it otherwise, okay.

[LDiCesare]

I think a D9F4 bless could be superior to a F9 bless (or F9D4) because +2 attack is already quite good...
Of course it depends on the nations a lot, and also on the game size/number of opponents (e.g. D9 > F9 argument is moot for blitzes).
So:
Death > Fire for sacred mages and archers.
Fire is better for low attack or high damage sacreds where extra damage is less important than extra hits.
Fire is also probably better in EA than LA due to better armor in LA.