Air bless: useless?

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

For the info on what spells are blockable, check out Kristoffer O's 9/22/2007 post on the last page of
FAQ Discussion & Submission Thread and 10/03/2007 post in Arrow Fend Thread

Similar effects? One works only once, while the other has a permanent effect. Twist Fate isn't of much use on a unit with only 10 defense, though goes up in value with ethereal or harder to hit units.

I admit, that the value of the air bless for an air nation has its flaws. But it can be powerful for a non-air nation. And for an air nation, it'll allow you to save gems and can be used before arrow fend is researched, allowing you to bypass some research, if you have a reason. For nations like MA Agartha, however, you have these limits.
1). No archers = no counterfire
2). Earth magic is pretty short ranged. You'll often have mages in forward positions if you actually want to hit something important first turn with Blade Wind (i've ocassionally carved up poorly protected Star Children casting communion slave, and that was important with forty of them). The air bless will help keep them alive while you're skipping Stoneskin in favor of a first strike.
3). You do get ironskin for protection, but lucky strikes still happen with frequency. Especially with fatigue kicking in. I've done quite well without an air bless, but I've seen plenty of situations where a 40% miss rate would have made a difference. Of course, I would be giving up something to get that air bless with Agartha's choices... but I would be giving up something with most blesses.
4). Regeneration requires another bless - or items and is hardly effective on 10 hitpoint mages. Though it's certainly useful on a lot of front-line troops.

There are situations where I would pick astral, and situations where Twist Fate is near useless.
Twist fate good? Ermor's Shadow Vestals, or T'ien Chi's (3.08?) Red Guard or Ancestor Vessel, to name a few. Where it benefits from neither air nor astral? Abysia EA's Burning Ones, with a glorious 5 or 2 defense, and 17 protection 23 hitpoints. I've outlined a situation where I prefer the air blessing- there are probably others where its handy, but I've stuck to Atlantis, Agartha, Ctis, Yomi in competitive situations, and am not very versatile.

[Sandman]

With your Late Atlantis build, an earth-9 cyclops with the same scales and dominion is 160 points cheaper. That's a heckuva lot to pay for a 40% air shield. With better scales, you can throw in more back-up troops and chaff. The Titan is an incomparably better fighting pretender, but even so.

Twist fate isn't just good on high-def pretenders, it's great on inexpensive massable sacreds, and it's also better if you want to try 'first strike' spell casting with sacred mages.

[Jazzepi]

Air bless = garbage.

Jazzepi

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Imprisoned - points remaining - no scales, dom8
Cyclops E9: +160
Titan E9 A2: +82
Cyclops E9A6: -50
Titan E9A6: +2

What can I get with your better scales? I've already got order 2 and productivity 3. Certainly, 160 points could go into luck and magic or growth but... Having death is part of my defensive strategy. Any normal nation coming into my territory is going to have a 60% supply hit. Going above magic one gives me that horrid MR penalty. It wouldn't be so horrid except R'lyeh is in the same game. As well, most of my mages are NOT good enough to make any tactical advantage of this. I'd seriously considered taking drain because of R'lyeh, but decided it would make me completely dependent on Skull Mentors and I couldn't depend on the necessary gem income.

As an experiment- I'm going to try my same expansion with earth nine cyclops, dom.8, order 3, prod 3, cold 2, growth 0, luck 0, and Magic 1.

That said, has anybody tried my example?

Even placed all the way at the back, crossbowmen can hit my Tungalik. Without the leader surviving, my strategy falls apart.

As well, with task forces of size 16, attrition is fairly high taking on a forty infantry and crossbowmen. Two deaths are 12% of my force, and each death increases my loss rate. I just can't maintain the momentum of my rapid expansion. With the air bless, I can attack province after province without pausing for reinforcements.

Repeating myself, I'm not buying the air magic just for the bless...
To share some rationale- not all - you have to keep in mind Atlantis' poor precision, and lack of archers.

About a quarter of my Angakok have 1 air, or 1 earth. Wind Guide, Arrow Fend, and Mist are A2/A3/A3, but all one hundred fatigue. With one Winged Helmet I can cast any of those spells. 1 gem to to boost my path to 3, and 1 to cover the cost.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Test Cyclops E9: Task force breaks down at about third province, either retreating or taking 50% casulties.

Titan: first province 16 vs 50. One casualty, 3 afflictions versus 37 units consisting of LI, HI, Crossbowmen
Second, 15 vs 24. Archers, LI. 0 Casualties. Gained only 1 affliction.
Third: 15 vs 36. HI, LI (javelins). Casualties 2
Fourth 13 vs 18. Casulties 0.

So... here's my evidence that an air bless is far from garbage. As part of a bless strategy as you might use with Mictlan or Jotunheim, it may not be worthwhile, but as part of another strategy (just like you take death pretender for the globals), it can be very powerful.

I'll do one more test, hoping to find more archers on the next map, and less Heavy Cavalry. This test, as an example, is a little lacking.

[konming]

20% airshield is not going to save you from attrition though. Xbow still has 80% chance of penertrating your airshield. Ditto for the commander. If commander surviving is so important, you would have to require more than 20% airshield to deflect arrows.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Test continued.
That task force had a Pyrrhic victory in the fifth province. Leaving only 5 units left alive (including commander).
Another task force has made it through five provinces with 13 survivors. I'll see how far they continue.

Anyways, I have six air, or 40% airshield. It's not really fifty percent, but I'll say so anyways for simplicity's sake.
One Tungalik has 12 hitpoints, the Arssartut 16. As my formation puts the Tungalik a few squares behind, but still close enough to make the third bless without moving, he's not a prime target for the enemy, more like for stray fire. Meaty enough to take one arrow without problems. But unlike other mages, there's no way to cast stoneskin or mirror image or body ethereal, or other protective spells. Best I get is Quicken Self- useless for ranged.

Taking half as many arrows for someone who needs only get hit twice is a big deal- especially when there is no 'fire rear' command and they're not big enough to be a target. As an aside, the protection bless helps here as well, but not well enough on its own. Bringing me from 5/8 to 9/12. With the protection bonus, that many other mage-priests cannot get, I can last even longer, being able to take two hits and keep on going, albeit damaged.

In the meanwhile, my Arssartuts still suffer from attrition, but at a significantly lower rate. There's a big difference between stopping at the third province and making it through five or more, non-stop. My bless isn't awesome enough to prevent casualties. That's one reason I'm sending out forces every other turn, despite some tests where 8 took out five times their number. I plan for loss in exchange for momentum and research. At half the ranged casualties, I can fight twice as many battles before my capabilities are compromised.

I'm not saying that Air is an awesome bless, worth taking only for its own sake. But it can make a big difference as part of your strategy.

Update: My second task force has made it through NINE provinces- and still has seven members, one commander left. The last fight involved 1 commander, 8 troops taking on 43 woodsmen (blowpipe, archers). And I suffered only one casulty.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Sandman said:

For sacred units which have low protection and no shield, the astral bless is better.

Really, how? Twist fate works once. Get hit by a slinger, and its gone.
As Atlantis' fastest unit has 9 AP, Twist Fate will never survive to close combat.

and magic resistance is always handy. Even better, astral nations can use spells like Body Ethereal, Luck and Anti-magic to further enhance the astral bless,

Very true

whilst the air shield becomes obsolete with Arrow Fend.

Partially true. If your sacreds are very expensive, like a 150 gold Niefelheim giant, you're going to give them proper support. If however, your sacreds are a cheap 25 gold, its nice to have taskforces you can support with only one commander and yet tear through independents or province defense while your real army engages the bulk of the enemy force.

If you take a peek at man, you need one Magister Arcane to provide the arrow fend (250 vs 130 of Tungalik), a Magister of Theology (40 gold) to bless and carry the spare gems. The compact taskforce obviously isn't a great idea here. You'd be investing 930 gold for an equivalent force of sixteen. Whereas I'm spending 530.

So, if you have an inexpensive commander who can bless and lead a relatively inexpensive squad of sacreds who aren't that powerful compared to other Elites, but like a Chainsaw compared to the boring old day to day troops... An air bless can give you a lot more mileage to your troops- though they're not great for the epic battles.

The air bless needs help. Ideally, it'd be a good bless for air nations like Vanheim and Caelum.

Actually, I agree. It would be nice if it wasn't as redundant. However, it is worth noting that unlike both fire and water, there are no shock-resist spells, and lightning always hits if there's something in the square where it falls.

If you look at Caelum- I could think of all sorts of wonderful uses for the Shock Resist bless if only they had flying sacreds. Unfortunately, the earthbound are at a measly 5 AP. I suppose you could use them as bodyguards to prevent melee messing up your script while like the last spell your mage casts is Shockwave. But with their current options and those Storm Guards there isn't anything that shock resist can do that you can't do sooner with non-sacreds.

On top of that, your sacred Earthbounds have Kite Shields and 19 protection, rendering missile warding rather useless. Most of your mages can also cast air shield or arrow fend as well. You'd only find a use for the missile protection if you were spamming LE Caretakers in some kind of bizarre strategy. (Earth Boots+Summon Earthpower -> Attack -> Point-blank Bladewind -> Retreat?). Anyways, air bless is a waste...

On Vanheim (EA), you've got rare air focused chassis like Asynja. And then you have Vanhere sacred infantry and sacred mounted commanders with air magic. Other than research, there's zero barrier to getting up Arrow Fend. Use two gems instead of one, and you're not even taken out by the fatigue. However, Arrow Fend does require Enchantment six, though Air Shield is available immediately.
If you take the air bless, you can support with a simple Vanherse of 160 gold and 8 fatigue per cast. If you rely on magic, then a Vanjarl will cast the spell for you, but falling unconscious in the process, and costing two gems and 280 gold. Alternatively, you could get the Vanadrott out for 380 gold, spend two gems, and take about 58 fatigue instead.

I really didn't find any valid rush strat using the air bless, though I'm not familiar with the race. I'd say it's also a bit crummy, though considering the high defense, it might be combinable with Shock Wave - barely.

[Jazzepi]

>Actually, I agree. It would be nice if it wasn't as redundant. However, it is worth noting that unlike both fire and water, there are no shock-resist spells, and lightning always hits if there's something in the square where it falls.<

Untrue, there is a battlefield wide AoE spell that increases elec resistance, and another one that does a large AoE for the same effect.

I still maintain that air bless is garbage. I would always, always, pick twist fate over it (which is universally cheaper to get anyways with the way pretenders are laid out). Especially against crossbow men, who will only shoot once-twice against a quickness blessed group of sacreds set towards the front of the battle map.

Air bless is easy to get around too, you just don't build archers, you mass meele, whereas twist fate works against both and is much harder to counter.

Jazzepi

[Micah]

It should be noted that the MR portion of the S bless doesn't apply past MR 17...not sure if that can be gotten around by making sure the bless goes off before the antimagic spell or not, but it might not combo that well with astral magic (partly dependent on sacred MR, but most that are worth blessing are 11 or higher, so at least half of it would be wasted, Jags being the notable low-MR exception...hunter spiders too, I guess), much like arrow fend and the air bless don't get along.