Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by Nightfall

To be fair my original statement was that MA Man is, at present, easily the best nation to play a bless strategy with in CBM 1.92 MA.

That has kind of gotten lost by the fact that it hasn't been addressed in that context; being that none of the bless nations in MA are considered top tier.

MA Mictlan is still very much a top tier bless nation, vastly better than Man in every way. Honestly, Jags in the cap and eagles out is better than the other way around, since eagles are best mid and late game, and you still have all the jags you want early. It takes a bit more work for MA Mictlan to get to all those lovely sacred blood summons, but the nature jaguar summons are still quite a bit more decent than Cu Sidhe.

Vanheim and CBM Bandar Log are easily better bless nations than CBM Man. Sure, Ashdod no longer has good sacred troops, but their sacred commanders are still worth a high bless, same for Eriu.

[Nightfall]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

MA Mictlan is still very much a top tier bless nation, vastly better than Man in every way.

You are just plain wrong; CBM 1.92 wardens are better than jags and eagles in EVERY way.

They are harder to counter, have better attack and defence, better morale, better magic resistance, suffer less attrition and do more damage.

Mictlan may have wider path access, but it's even harder to get them up to usefull levels and blood with MA Mictlan without rods only works if your opponents are asleep or if you build a pretender to get you into blood; which means no bless.

Vans and Tiger Riders may seem to be comparable bless chassis to wardens, until you realise that your going to have at least twice as many wardens to work with.

[Shangrila00]

Oh for God's sake, again, bless nations need a good sacred, but that's not all they need. Mictlan has low resource needs, free points from temp preference, wide magical diversity allowing for an imprisoned pretender at little cost, and recruitable flying H3s. In addition, it has tons of sacred summons that benefit from exactly the same blesses as its recruitables, and which can take over in the late game.

Bandar Log has as many problems as Man blessing its sacreds, but again, low resource requirements, and free points from temp. Its magical diversity isn't the greatest, but what it has is far more useful, with communions and mind hunt. And like Mictlan, it too has tons of sacred summons for the end game should it manage to bootstrap into blood.

Vanheim has sacred thuggable commanders for when its sacred troops stop being the greatest. Ashdod and Eriu don't actually have good sacred troops, but their commanders are thuggable very early with a good bless.

And wardens are harder to counter? How do you think sacreds are countered? Evocations murder wardens as well as it does anything else. Jags and Eagles on the other hand, are harder to deal with using evocations since the former has 2 lives and the latter has flight. The other nations listed all have thugs/SCs/high hp summons to lean on once evocations make human hp sacreds obsolescent. What does Man have?

[Nightfall]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

Mictlan has low resource needs, free points from temp preference, wide magical diversity allowing for an imprisoned pretender at little cost, and recruitable flying H3s.

The slight points advantage doesn't even make up for the inferior choice of pretender chassis.

And you don't need flying H3's to run bless strategies, it just makes things a little easier if your lazy.

Those Couatl's that your relying on to bless by the way can and will be taken out by a decent player. Possibly before they get divine blessing off; you should be using priest kings.

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

The other nations listed all have thugs/SCs/high hp summons to lean on once evocations make human hp sacreds obsolescent.

Getting much mileage out of the Mictlan, Ashdod or Bandar Log summons without an awake blood pretender or clams in CBM is a pipe dream; your not going to get them in numbers or early enough.

Vanheim and Eriu thugs scale into mid game a bit better, at the cost of gems, but the wardens catch back up when battlefield enchantments come in.

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

Originally Posted by Nightfall

Those Couatl's that your relying on to bless by the way can and will be taken out by a decent player. Possibly before they get divine blessing off; you should be using priest kings.

Why do you say that coutal's are easier to take out than priest kings? Large size? But you can summon jade serpents (good hitpoints, so well suited to this purpose) or monster toads as decoys. Magic being? Opposition and Control are only range 20, and the coutals are hanging out in the back dropping buffs and evocations. Other than that, I don't see why they would be more vulnerable than priest kings.

[rdonj]

You would need a LOT of indy slingers to get anywhere against mictlan, especially assuming there's remotely competent archer decoying going on.

Originally Posted by BewareTheBarnacleGoose

Why do you say that coutal's are easier to take out than priest kings? Large size? But you can summon jade serpents (good hitpoints, so well suited to this purpose) or monster toads as decoys. Magic being? Opposition and Control are only range 20, and the coutals are hanging out in the back dropping buffs and evocations. Other than that, I don't see why they would be more vulnerable than priest kings.

Magic duel.

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

That's true, I hadn't thought of that. But they aren't SO vulnerable that Mictlan shouldn't use them; they are its best mages, after all.

On a related note, does Magic Duel always target the strongest astral mage?

[Shardphoenix]

Originally Posted by Nightfall

Vanheim and Eriu thugs scale into mid game a bit better, at the cost of gems

Since when did glamour, mistform and air shield start costing gems? BTW, Sidhe Lord with barkskin tops Lord Warden in protection.

but the wardens catch back up when battlefield enchantments come in.

What enchantments? Arrow Fend, Fog Warriors and Growing Fury? Of all those only Fog Warriors is universally useful. You can`t have Army of Lead without either empowering+forging+summoning with E1 crone for 90 E gems total, or being lucky with super-rare E2 Crone AND still spending 60 E gems for forging+summoning. Add 50 E for every Weapons of Sharpness caster.

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by Nightfall

The slight points advantage doesn't even make up for the inferior choice of pretender chassis.

And you don't need flying H3's to run bless strategies, it just makes things a little easier if your lazy.

Those Couatl's that your relying on to bless by the way can and will be taken out by a decent player. Possibly before they get divine blessing off; you should be using priest kings.

Couatls are H2. It's the High Priest of the Sky that's flying H3. And having access to H3s is hardly just something for lazy players. Look at Man, only priest is H1 nonmage. It needs to recruit indy priests just to start up a second expansion party if it's leaning heavily on Wardens. Admittedly, Bandar Log has the same problem.

And what inferior bless chasis? The only thing Man has that Mictlan might want is a good Water bless chasis.

Getting much mileage out of the Mictlan, Ashdod or Bandar Log summons without an awake blood pretender or clams in CBM is a pipe dream; your not going to get them in numbers or early enough.

Ashdod has recruitable SCs and thugs. It doesn't begin to need its summons to leverage its bless.

Mictlan can get into blood pretty easily without a blood pretender. Those cheap recruit anywhere turkey mages have a 2.5% chance of blood, and 2 out of 4 heros have blood. The big advantage though, is a B2 summon that can summon itself. CBM has significantly nerfed it, but still, all it takes is a single B2 caster and 35 slaves to get the ball rolling. Even without luck in randoms or heros, that's achieveable with scouts reasonably early.

Bandar Log admittedly is much harder to get into blood with the massive nerf of Dakini, but they're still good enough to invest in. You do have to make a solid commitment with pretender design to summon one, but once you do, they can summon themselves and blood hunt. That's a late game thing, but it's a late game option that Man doesn't have.

It's worth noting that of those only Vanheim has definitively better access to magic; with both wider and higher paths than Man.

That's a pretty nutty claim right there. Barring rare randoms or empowerment, Man has up to A3/W1/E1/N4 in cap, and A2/N3 everywhere. Notice how hard it is to get battlemagic out of its recruit anywheres. It can naturally only forge 2 boosters, W+1/N+1 out of the 9 total in its 4 paths.

Bandar Log is pretty bad diversity wise, but compare it to Man. Also only 4 paths, up to W1/E1/S4/N3 in cap, S2/N1 everywhere. Its natural booster access gives W+1/S+2/N+2, and all that S means communions. So better than Man.

Ashdod has F3/S3 in cap, and F2/E3/S2/D4 everywhere, and it can boost F+2/E+2/S+2/D+2. How is that not better in both breadth and depth than Man?

Eriu is the easiest, since it has exactly the same paths as Man. With the exception that it naturally gets A4, W2, and E2.

[Nightfall]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

That's a pretty nutty claim right there. Barring rare randoms or empowerment, Man has up to A3/W1/E1/N4 in cap, and A2/N3 everywhere. Notice how hard it is to get battlemagic out of its recruit anywheres. It can naturally only forge 2 boosters, W+1/N+1 out of the 9 total in its 4 paths.

Bandar Log is pretty bad diversity wise, but compare it to Man. Also only 4 paths, up to W1/E1/S4/N3 in cap, S2/N1 everywhere. Its natural booster access gives W+1/S+2/N+2, and all that S means communions. So better than Man.

Ashdod has F3/S3 in cap, and F2/E3/S2/D4 everywhere, and it can boost F+2/E+2/S+2/D+2. How is that not better in both breadth and depth than Man?

Eriu is the easiest, since it has exactly the same paths as Man. With the exception that it naturally gets A4, W2, and E2.

It's nice that you took the time to confirm the original point I was making, that all of those are limited to 4 paths.

As for battlemagic from recruit everywheres, they have the some of the best early-mid game evos, the lightning spells, and one of the best late game evos, storm of thorns. They can also self buff precision. Exactly how much more do you want them to be able to do.