Fire vs. Death heavy bless

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Finally, I have this suspicion that, if the unit with the D9 bless has penetration gear, that'll apply to the AN+disease resistance check, so could work for sacred thugs/SCs of your own. But I don't know that.

This is almost certainly not the case. Death bless is simply another weapon effect (even modable as such), and it has been well documented those are not aided by penetration gear.

[Edi]

As far as both blesses go, remember that the bless weapon (whether fire or death) replaces any secondaryeffects from equipped (or intrinsic) weapons when the bless comes into effect, which means you won't get area damage from brands with a blessed SC if you have sacred SCs (such as Hinnom, Ashdod, Fomoria) etc) or thugs (the glamour nations, Lanka etc).

So if your strategy is based on thugging with national troops in the mid/late game, your best bet would be F8 for the +4 attack. D8 is more useful in what possibilities it opens up for you and sacred mages will benefit from the affliction bonus, slight as it is.

[LDiCesare]

+4 attack vs. magic resistable attack is almost a no brainer for me.
AP/AN are nice but destruction and the like can make the difference insignificant.
I never saw a disease effect of D9 bless, only the affliction bonus.
The only drawback of fire is fire-resistant beings like Ashdod giants or abysians. On the other hand it's great vs. Niefelheim. Even then, +4 AP helps a lot.
I doubt the additional 2AP attack by mages has much effect except on lowish damage aera of effect or battlefield-wide spells, but I'd rather have the fire boost early on than rely on that small bonus late game.
In my experience, good F9 sacred troops cut through indy knights like butter, D9 don't.

[Sombre]

You don't get an additional 2AN damage on spells with mages from D9 - that's only for weapons. You just get a huge increase in the affliction chances.

[Zentar]

It seems like 2AP and 2AN are acronyms that are used interchangeably. Is there a difference?

[Squirrelloid]

Armor piercing (AP) damage reduces armor but does not eliminate it entirely. Armor negating (AN) damage totally ignores all armor.

LDiCesare
To say the only drawback of fire is fire resistant units is naive. You invested an obscene number of points into *F9*, which isn't any more useful than F6, or really, F4. And you could have generally had D9 instead, which is much more useful.

Also, let me know how F9 works against E9N6 blessed giants with multiple bracers sometime. I imagine it does nothing or close to nothing, because even with the AP it probably can't get through the protection, and whatever little bit that does get through just gets regenerated immediately.

I'll grant mathematically F9 does more damage vs chaff. You don't usually need more damage against chaff. Its chaff because it dies in droves. So I'm looking for a situation you'd actually care that you had F9. And no, assuming Att 10 vs. Def 10 is stupid - most sacreds are better than average on attack, and the Att N vs. Def N comparison is where the fire attack bonus matters the most, so you're just stacking the floor in favor of fire.

Knights - counter example when i have time.

[Calahan]

AP = Armour Piercing, which means the protection value is halfed for the purposes of calculations.
AN = Armour Negating, which means the protection value is ignored for the purposes of calculations.

There is a big difference between AP and AN. With AN obviously being better than AP.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Also, let me know how F9 works against E9N6 blessed giants with multiple bracers sometime. I imagine it does nothing or close to nothing, because even with the AP it probably can't get through the protection, and whatever little bit that does get through just gets regenerated immediately.

It has worked quite well for me vs. Ashdod despite their partial fire resist. So no, it's not close to nothing. However, 2AN magic that hits less often and that can be resisted is nothing.

As for the fact that D9 is more interesting than F9, yes indeed, but then don't give your thread a title comparing blesses but comparing paths. To me a Death bless is mostly worthless whereas a Fire bless is very good. If I pick high Death magic on a pretender, it's to open Death magic, not for the bless, whereas I'll only pick high Fire for the bless.

[Endoperez]

Squirrelloid - how many sacred units are required to conquer a province? Could you believe that 6 is enough? I was never good at that part of the game, and it obviously depends a lot on the unit, but some unit/bless combinations can get by with really few units. Fire 9 and/or Water 9 are the most useful blesses here, because they force the enemy to rout faster.

That's also what makes F9 useful against chaff - you don't have to recruit as many sacred units to win the battle. On turn 5, you may have 5 armies conquering independent provinces every turn, without mercenaries, and the sacred troops will help you in your first war against almost any nation. High death isn't as useful at that point.

[K]

The benefits of D9 Bless are not just that it makes sacreds better damage dealers but not as good as F9, but when your Pretender finally does make the scene he can do crazy crap like cast Utterdark as his first action. In that sense, he is far superior to a F9 pretender in winning the game.

It all depends on whether winning the game or winning battles is your goal.