Blood-1 in Vanheim

[Saber Cherry]

Some blood combat spells are very potent. Not bleed, but the area-effect ones... like Agony. I've never used Blood Burst, but it looks pretty good too... but really, if Reinvigoration worked correctly, that alone would make Blood worthwhile in combat.

Outside of combat, if you happen to get a Blood-Nature mage, Crossbreeding is very useful. If you have a luck scale of neutral or better, it is worthwhile to empower a Druid in blood or a blood user in Nature just for crossbreeding.

And Lastly, I'm working on a blood mod to make the blood summons more balanced (especially the big ones). There needs to be another blood-1 summon in addition to Serpent Fiend...

[tinkthank]

Hm thanks.

What is broken about Reinvigoration?
What changes do you envision in your blood mod besides adding blood-1 summons (yey!)?

As to sabbath master -- I dont know; I am almost more of a fan of matrixes than schlepping all those slaves around... And getting a +1 bonus in all my paths doesnt seem quite so appealing when all my paths are air and blood...

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
What is broken about Reinvigoration?
What changes do you envision in your blood mod besides adding blood-1 summons (yey!)?

1) It does approximately nothing - after casting, the mage has about the same fatigue.

2)
a. Increase the research level and slave cost of greater blood summons (AD / ID), and increase cost of the higher-level blood summons.
b. Increase the number of units summoned by lesser summons (2 Fiends of Darkness or Serpent Fiends, for slightly over double cost).
c. Inrease cost or decrease effectiveness of Soul Contract / Lifelong Protection. Lifelong might be better if it cost 10 slaves and summoned 1 imp per turn, or 40/2, or even 20/1. Right now it is too strong, IMO. Soul Contract... 40 slaves and 1 devil/season rather than 1/month, or 160 for its current effectiveness... or even 80 slaves + 10 fire gems would be better.
d. Possibly give imps higher morale, or else give the Moloch something other than imps, or special 30-morale imps, so he does not rout so easily. An inherent Lifelong Protection on the Moloch rather than an initial clump of imps would keep him from routing.
e. Probably weaken IDs... slightly lower MR, HP, and DEF. I don't think they should be so much stronger than ADs.

[archaeolept]

An inherent Lifelong Protection on the Moloch

I'd rather not have my pretender horror-marked, but thanks anyways for offering

otherwise the tweaks you suggest seem to me to be mostly about right. the moloch routing "bug" is damn irritating.

the real problem w/ soul contracts/ lifelong protection (IMO) is how abusable they become w/ forging bonuses...

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
a. Increase the research level and slave cost of greater blood summons (AD / ID), and increase cost of the higher-level blood summons.

Have you checked out the stats on the heliophagi and demon lords? They are certainly not worth the extra research and slave costs over ice devils as it currently stands.

Soul Contract... 40 slaves and 1 devil/season rather than 1/month, or 160 for its current effectiveness... or even 80 slaves + 10 fire gems would be better.

I really don't think that blood magic needs to be made any weaker than it already is, since your income is already extremely vulnerable to raiding parties.

e. Probably weaken IDs... slightly lower MR, HP, and DEF. I don't think they should be so much stronger than ADs.

I would think the better solution would be to make all the higher level blood summons tougher, rather than weaken the lower level ones.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I would think the better solution would be to make all the higher level blood summons tougher, rather than weaken the lower level ones.

The solution depends on what you think the problem is...

Ice Devils are super-powerful and you can get them super-early, plus they are super-cheap. Their stats and slots make them superior to virtually everything else as supercombattants... really, what is their weakness? A well-equipped Ice Devil doesn't have any. They have neat special abilities, too.

55 slaves / level 5 magic are just too easy for such might...

A well equipped Ice Devil has no weaknesses, though there are different ways in which people like to equip them.

With their initial paths in Water (= Quickness and Breath of Winter) they don't have to fill a slot with a quickness item (only Jade Armor or Boots of Quickness) with their double attacks, naturally high hp and good defense and MR they are a better overall chassis for SC's than any other summon (most lack slots).

There is no item that increases initial hp (which is very important) so that is a very important factor.

The AD's would be on par if they had more HP, simply because they are the opposite element they would have their place (especially since they have intrinsic flying and later in the game Phoenix Pyre).

The Heliophagi are just shafted each way.

[tinkthank]

Thanks for the replies.
I agree on the ice devil, and feel that the arch devil is somehow pointless against him, but would not want to make other higher-level summons (heliophage, etc.) even more expensive, because I dont find them that great. Anything more than 70 slaves is expensive enough for what you get, at least as far as I have experience.
However, being able to use a blood-1 path more: that would make for more variety for everyone, that would be most welcome.