PSA: It's possible to have Heat and Cold auras (both together) as part of your bless... and it's hilarious

[Gopblin]

Gives both fire and cold resist-10, anything fighting you will get set on fire / frozen / fatigued to hell unless it has both resists. Also works in any temperature scale, and cold works underwater. Auras only need 5 points of magic so it's fairly cheap to do as well. Pretty great, obviously need to keep your sacreds away from non-blessed units

https://imgur.com/vSjY20j

[Gopblin]

Test game: playing Ind, Demilich, 5F5W6D, 7 Dom T3 P1 H3 G3 L0 D1
Blessings: Heat Aura, Cold Aura, 1 Undying, Stygian Skin.

20 Soldier priest (basically standard human heavy inf, but sacred) and one H3 priest wiped out 16 Heavy Cav + 12 light cav + 16 militia with 4 losses. 16 heavy cav fought 11 soldier priests, but fell asleep in auras pretty quickly.
I guess auras kinda work as an offensive bless too because they allow crits, lower defense with freezing and ignite things, thus mitigating the problems standard sword infantry has against high prot / defense.

[Alias]

While they work, the temp scales modify their strength in opposite ways. Heat Aura from the bless in Heat 3 will have as many procs as Heat and Cold Auras from bless in
any temp scales.

[lord_khaine]

I think thats missing the point that this works in any temperature scale?
And both sets people in fire and freeze them?
As well as is harder to protect against.

But yes dual aura's are a known thing.
I think the general view is that its funny but not broken or overpowered.

[Eldritch Gentleman]

It's fun to use with something like Living Pillars. High survivability and auras mean that they're just a walking wall of environmental destruction.

[Zymeth]

It can be even quite logical. Just imagine / assume, that there are two winds around you - they do not mix their temperatures, but keep flying and striking enemy. Both will burn, and will exhaust more than one hot / cold aura, as they are more dense or/and cause a series of shocks as cold and hot strikes all around the body, switching its places.

[Alias]

Originally posted by lord_khaine:

I think thats missing the point that this works in any temperature scale?

One of them won't work. The bless is Aura strength 3, which gets no procs at the opposite temperature extreme.

[CHI LONG QUA]

I wish they weren't underpowered.

[Gopblin]

Originally posted by Adrenachrome Vampires:

I wish they weren't underpowered.

Depends on the sacred, really. With tough numerous sacreds (like heavy infantry sacreds above), auras are pretty great. If your sacreds aren't numerous or aren't tough, yeah auras are probably not great.

From what I've seen, auras from a line of size-2 sacreds lead to serious fatigue buildup after a couple rounds of combat, and put enemies to sleep after 3-4 rounds. It's not great against enemies that die quickly (e.g. freespawn wolves), but good for protracted engagements against the same enemy (auras do a number on blessed elves, for instance, even though Ind's sacreds struggle against them otherwise).

Obviously the resists are nice to have, negates both Fire and Frost brands too.

[CHI LONG QUA]

They have potential, but it's only worth fatiguing an enemy if you can't just kill them, but most high value enemies are really likely to have that basic 5 fire/cold resist that shuts it down. Like surely people take both resists on elf sacreds, right? Fire res at least is really common, maybe cold aura can catch people out - but then, Heat scales are quite common.

With Living pillars I would far rather take +2/+4 atk skill and just hit things rather than try to aura them. But maybe Ind's sacreds can be good candidates for the temperature auras, since astral can fluff them to survive a little while against anything. Thanks for that suggestion. I want the auras to work, I am just losing faith in them. Also I have PTSD from taking heat aura on Lanka.

[criddlerattack]

Okay, but does Blood Bond trigger Charged Bodies?

[Eldritch Gentleman]

Originally posted by criddlerattack:

Okay, but does Blood Bond trigger Charged Bodies?

Charged bodies works based on melee hits, not on damage.