Suggested Changes to Bless Bonuses

[Chris_Byler]

Blesses were never *just* a 2 morale bonus. In Dom1 they gave +3 att +3 str, the equivalent of a F6B6 under the Dom 2/3 system. (Nearly everyone who cares about their sacreds has a stronger bless than that, often *much* stronger, which is one reason blesses dominate the game so much more than they did in Dom1.)

IMO, the main problem with blesses is the ability to rush with them: why not weaken blesses in enemy dominion? For every 2 candles you get -1 to each path of your bless, or something like that. Rushing people's capitols would be far less effective since the first thing you lose is the quickness and flaming weapons. If you take it slow and push their dominion back while keeping your sacreds in friendly, neutral or near neutral dominion, then they have time to research some counters.

[Sensori]

Oh, you're right. Jogged my memory a bit. But still, the thing is, the 3str/att/2 morale was something that EVERYONE got, so it wasn't ever an issue of any kind. And the fact that I happened to forget the exact bless effects of the good old days doesn't change my point, which is, making blesses even STRONGER from the crazy point they are NOW would be a baad baad idea. Sure, some of the blesses suck and probably could use a boost of some kind, but if some of them suck, why also upgrade the better ones?

Makes no sense, does it?

[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.

[jutetrea]

I like the reduced bless in enemy dominion idea.

There are 6 steps to a bless right (some effects stay per 2 lvls (fire, water, etc), some are per level (air, death).

Max of 10 dominion.

Personally I think losing the lvl 9 bonus first would suck, but it could be up for discussion. I'd say lose the incremental minor blesses for lower candles and only lose the lvl 9 bless for enemy dominion of 6 or higher.

Using Fire as an example
0: candles, no change to bless
1: -2 attack
2: -2 attack
3: -3 attack
4: -3 attack
5: -4 attack
6: -4 attack, loss of flaming effect
7-10: -4 attack, no flame, -2 morale

So a dominion push would always be able to slow down a bless rush.

Beyond that, upgrade air, death, blood major bless at least to something useful. Death and Blood to a lesser extent then air.

[Cheezeninja]

One of the things I truly love about Dominions is that it is wildly, flagrantly unbalanced. Balance is just a euphemism for boring sameness. In the end the only way to TRULY balance the game would be for everything to be identical.

In my opinion you should only be re-balancing for thematic reasons, or when something is so powerful it's practically a necessity (VQ's), or so weak it's never used at all.
With that said, I wouldn't mind seeing Blood/Air blesses changed to something more fun. Maybe if Blood 9 made your units mindless, or the aforementioned precision boost from air, which I especially like since it might make a ranged sacred focus viable. Death is fine as is, I think. Apart from being an awesome path, I still don't think we've seen the possible Affliction % benefits when stacked with global/overland casters fully mapped out.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Points to Cheezeninja.
In random idea field - (for fun, not balance)
Charge Body replaces SR (note - charge body hurts both the attacker and defender)
Harrying Winds (acts like Stone Bird, but weaker- gives every unit an extra, but weak, attack. Functions like Slave Warrior's bite- not powerful, but size two units can bring down the defense values quickly)
Phantom Weapon - causes cnfusion

Blood Hunger - unit gets small lifedrain, but loses health every turn - or a one use Leeching Touch

[coobe]

random ideas from me:

- a9 gives Flying
or
- a9 gives that charge thingie.. forgot the name

Precision buff would really be cool though

giving Blood 9 a drain life attack would be very thematic, but maybe too powerful?

Death should give Fear or Awe

and minor Astral blesses should give more Magic resistance imo (like +2/+4/+6 etc)

[Ming]

I think the lvl 9 blesses are meant to be unequal. W9 bless needs to be more powerful as W9 is not as useful in its own right while S9 needs to be weak because S9 is powerful in its own right. B9 is the only one that I think needs strengthened. Currently I cannot think of any situation where one would want to start with a B9 pretender.

[Sombre]

S9 bless isn't actually weak though. S bless isn't great, but S9 is usable, unlike blood or air. What is A9 on a pretender good for? Why would you really need air that high?

I don't really buy that balance argument. Air magic is very powerful, but air on your pretender isn't really.

[Edratman]

If the blesses were changed, someone would figure out how to use this to their advantage and start a new round of calls for modifications.