What is unholy blessing for ?

[Zymeth]

Its MA Scel / MA Eremor spell, that can bless undead and demon troops.
H1 unholy blessing works on 1 tile and has range of 20
H2 unholy blessing works on 1 tile and has range of 10

The only advantage over default blesses is only partially a range (15+ 10/lvl). But I don't understand why unholy blessings exits - they are basicly flat-out worse.

[DasaKamov]

Firstly, it looks like you've mis-read the effects of the Level 2 Unholy Blessing; it's AoE 10, not AoE 1.

Unholy Blessing is slightly worse because, taken as a whole, the Priestly Spells of Sceleria and Ermor provide more tangible benefits for Undead units than the equivalent-level priests of Living nations. Aside from Blessings, Level 1 Undead priests can:

*Steal control of an opponent''s Undead units with "Unholy Command"
*Increase the Magic Resistance to ANY Undead beings, not just Sacreds, with "Unholy Protection"
* Increase the movement and Attack skill of ANY Undead being, not just Sacreds, with "Unholy Power".

There are no equivalents to these spells with most other nation's priests -- the only Level 1 spell remotely comperable is "Sermon of Courage", which gives a small boost to Morale to a small number of mortal soldiers (and most Undead have very high Morale or ignore Morale completely).

[Zymeth]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Firstly, it looks like you've mis-read the effects of the Level 2 Unholy Blessing; it's AoE 10, not AoE 1.

Unholy Blessing is slightly worse because, taken as a whole, the Priestly Spells of Sceleria and Ermor provide more tangible benefits for Undead units than the equivalent-level priests of Living nations. Aside from Blessings, Level 1 Undead priests can:

*Steal control of an opponent''s Undead units with "Unholy Command"
*Increase the Magic Resistance to ANY Undead beings, not just Sacreds, with "Unholy Protection"
* Increase the movement and Attack skill of ANY Undead being, not just Sacreds, with "Unholy Power".

There are no equivalents to these spells with most other nation's priests -- the only Level 1 spell remotely comperable is "Sermon of Courage", which gives a small boost to Morale to a small number of mortal soldiers (and most Undead have very high Morale or ignore Morale completely).

Firstly - y, my bad

I did not ask about their other spells. They (at least MA scel) still can cast generic bless.

[DasaKamov]

Except, Unholy Blessing is (slightly) worse than normal Blessing because MA Ermorian and Scelerian preists can cast other powerful Unholy spells.

[Zymeth]

Okay - I think it may be a bug, maybe I'll report it

I understand your reasoning, but keep in mind that there is very little point to add unholy blessing when a unit still can cast generic blessing.

And here is that weird inconsistency :
MA Eremor can not cast generic H battle spells - I thougt its maybe cusa their priests are undead.
but MA Sceleria can cast generic H battle spells - even with an undead priest

Edit : I also did not know before that Eremor can not acces these spells, while I knew Sceleria can

[of Anwyl]

Sceleria is a living nation while ermor is an unholy undead one

[Zymeth]

So why sceleria has unholy blessing at all, if thats just flat-out worse version of this spell ?

[ÆtherNomad]

Unholy Blessing is just a remnant of dom 3, when regular Blessing couldn't affect the undead. So basically it's the same as Blessing but for the undead. It wasn't deleted in dom 4 when Blessing was made to affect the undead, and so it is now there only for flavor.

Lore-wise, Unholy Blessing is only "unholy" because it is used by nations that worship the undead, which is considered "unholy" by most living nations, but obviously not by everyone. For Sceleria for example, Shadow Vestals are just as holy as Lictors, and Unholy Blessing isn't particularly unholy. But the words used in that blessing are considered unholy by other nations, for the same reason that it only affects the undead. In other words, that blessing is only unholy because living sacred beings are unaffected by it.

[Zymeth]

Thanks for clarrification - I already reported it as a bug ;
thought to be exackt - its not worse "ONLY [...] becausa it cannot affect the living" ;
its worse in terms of AoE for H1 too (but better in range by 5)
and worse in terms of range for H2 aswell - and always in terms of not affecting living units as you said

[ÆtherNomad]

Ah, you are right, my memory failed me! Deleted my post.