Niefelheim Pretender Design Question

[Fantomen]

Sure a strong bless is a well working strategy with niefel, I just don't think it is the only good one. The skinshifters are actually better for the cost even with a bless I think.

And the werewolves can be amazing sc without a bless. Flesh eater, blood thorn, luck pendant and some armour.

[Squirrelloid]

Yeah, E9Nx is a waste of time on Niefl. They don't *need* it - the Jarls are perfectly good SCs without it, and the giants are a waste of money. And all those pretender design points you were going to spend on a bless (because lets face it, E9Nx is expensive for Niefl) can be rolled over into scales or a pretender who actually does something useful.

Also, you'll want to use your pearls on something other than shrouds. The era of clamming like mad in the endgame is over (at least in virtually any MP game organized via these forums). You don't have arbitrarily many pearls, its time to start rejecting strategies that overuse valuable and quite limited resources. You're going to want caps and coins and AMAs and pendants. Your pearls are already overworked. Where are these shrouds coming from exactly?

[Illuminated One]

The bless also lets you save gems. To get the effect of e8n6 you need a 7n and a 3n forge, which is more expensive than a shroud after alchemizing (and eats two forge and item slots).

[Huzurdaddi]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

The bless also lets you save gems. To get the effect of e8n6 you need a 7n and a 3n forge, which is more expensive than a shroud after alchemizing (and eats two forge and item slots).

Yes, that is why you go for the bless. You can make very cheap thugs, a minor astral bless can be worthwhile as well, although in most cases it will only yield +1 MR.

With Robe of the battle saint for 3S you get 13 armor, 4 reinvig, 10% regen, and +1 MR. That is a nice kit for 5S.

BTW: QM has done a great job nerfing Niefelheim. The cold aura is what made them great and he has really slashed it, they are still decent but not wtfomfgbbq.

[Trumanator]

Best chassis for E/N bless is the Master Druid. I'm going to agree that the sacred troops are too expensive to use, but that doesn't mean E9N? is useless either. Its just another viable strategy.

[Trumanator]

F9 is bad news if you're planning on blessing your thugs. The flaming weapons from the bless will overwrite whatever brand you gave them.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

F9 is bad news if you're planning on blessing your thugs. The flaming weapons from the bless will overwrite whatever brand you gave them.

Truman, optimum build using scrattis does not use a brand at all.
Rather, you are looking at two blood thorns.

Usually I would go with a water bless instead for the extra attack. Usually, I would prefer armor of souls rather than an s9blessing. But a lot of options are perfectly playable.

[chrispedersen]

However, imprisoned oracle or fountain is not one of them.
Niefle doesn't get either oracles or fob as a pretender choice.

[Squirrelloid]

I'm curious, so you dump all your design points into a blessing and you're going to buy exactly what to make use of that? Your Jarls are *600* gold, your giants are over 100. You need at least decent if not actively good scales. Sacking scales for a blessing is *not* an option.

Ok, I'll admit I'm assuming CBM 1.6 as the benchmark of any discussion. But as I've seen exactly 1 game made without CBM on these forums in the last 6 months, that's a fairly valid assumption.

[Trumanator]

Really Squirrel, you're getting rather more vehement than necessary. Yes, the bless is expensive. Yes its perfectly possible to play differently. Its also perfectly possible to play with the bless. Calm the frick down and let people do their thing.