Suggested Changes to Bless Bonuses

[KissBlade]

OmikronWarrior said:

Keep in mind that blesses aren't suppose to be perfectly balanced, so long as the magic path is balanced accross the board. I think it comes as no surprise that the two most powerful magics for endgame, blood and astral, are also considered the weakest blesses.

I already know this but it doesn't work that way even if it's intended for practice. Nature is tremendously good in both bless and magic form. So is Astral. Twist of Fate is nothing to laugh at, especially if you've ever played against s9 vestals. Meanwhile Air 9 completely SUCKS and taking 9 bolts of it is just going to get you one mean orb lightning thrower. HEck if it came down to it, I'd rather have a pretender that could cast flames from the sky or Maelstrom than Gale Gate.

[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.