Can we talk about Holy 2 Priests?

[Legowarrior]

They all cost at least 2 Command Points as if they were mages, but unless your priest has some other crazy good trait, or high magic paths, it's almost never worthwhile to build them.

Level 1 priests can bless units, and preach for a single CP. Level 3 priests can claim thrones and do divine blessings (are you rarely get many).

Level 2 priests seem to exist just to cost you 2 Command Points. They aren't twice as good as indie priests at Preaching, and they aren't twice as good at bless units (because they are likely not the bless an entire area.

Is there a way to rework Holy 2 that doesn't include reworking every Priest in the game? Perhaps a spell that reduces fatigue, to go along the Sermon of Courage. Maybe a divine spell that buffs the caster? Something to give them purpose.

[Zonk]

Improve Holy Word, the H2 spell that stuns 1 sacred unit if it fails a MR check?
Range 25->30 and (more importantly) AoE 1 unit -> 1 square? That might even be too good, since it potentially makes the spell x3 as effective vs human-size sacred.

Maybe remove the "sacred targets only" limitation instead, so H2 priests can potentially stun ANY unit?
EDIT But then there could be an extra sacred-only effect, such as fatigue.

[Legowarrior]

That would be a great start.
But I think they need a spell that will be beneficial throughout the game, like Sermon of Courage and Bless. These are spells you will likely cast, regardless of what stage of the game you are in. It's just sermon of Courage isn't enough by itself.

A spell that reduces Fatigue would be great. Give it area 2 + 1 per level. It would be useful on Units and Mages.

Buffing holy word to be useful in other situations would likewise be great.

But I would love a buff spell. Maybe something that gives them a bit of magic resistance or heals units a little bit.

[Eldritch Gentleman]

H2 priests are significantly better at banishing undead, and usually have decent leadership. Some examples like the Bishop and the Exarch are quite underwhelming, but most of them are suitable for leading raiding parties of sacreds and supporting units.

[konon.ymir]

H2 priests are actually twice as good at preaching as indie priests. 60% for a candle instead of 30%.

[Big Dog]

I forgot the exact rules for preaching but if you only have H1's on an enemy province you are sieging like a cap they can only flip candles if the enemy dom is less than 4, if it's more than 4 and you don't own the province you need higher level preachers or the special trait you find on marignon guys.

[terve886]

From manual

Preaching the Word of God This is an order available to priests which enables them to raise the
dominion level in their province only. The base chance of this occurring is 30% multiplied by the
priest level. If the priest is preaching in a province with an enemy dominion already present, this base
chance is reduced by 5% multiplied by the enemy dominion level. If the dominion in the province is
friendly (positive) or neutral (zero), the chance is equal to the base chance, with no subtraction.
If there is a temple in that province, the priest is treated as though he were one-half level higher than his
current priest level. Thus, a level 2 priest be treated as a level 2.5 priest. This is for purposes of
preaching and maximum dominion increase (see below).
101

Example: A level 1 priest is preaching in a province that has -4 dominion (that is, an enemy has 4
dominion there). His chance of successfully increasing his dominion (and thus reducing the enemy
dominion from -4 to -3) is 10%. If he were preaching in a province with neutral or friendly dominion,
he would have a 30% chance of increasing dominion. If there were a friendly temple in the province,
his chance would be 15% (in the -4 dominion) and 45% (in neutral or friendly dominion).

Preaching is thus independent of pretender dominion strength, and completely dependent on priest level
and enemy dominion in the province being preached in. Furthermore, preaching in a province can only
raise dominion as high as twice the level of the priest doing the preaching. Thus, a level 2 priest can
preach in a province, but cannot raise the dominion in that province above 4. If there is a temple in that
province, the priest is treated as though he were one-half level higher than his current priest level – so a
level 2 priest preaching in a province with a temple could raise the dominion in that province to 5. This
increase is in addition to (and independent of) the spread check for the temple, but only affects that
province (it cannot spread to an adjacent one).

This makes H2 priest much better at preaching than two H1 priests. The basnishment spells also scale extremely well with priests levels, making H2s much stronger than H1s due to bigger range, AoE and damage scaling.

However, H2s still are usually worse than H1s, as both preaching and banishing undead is somewhat a niche job and especially early game you will most likely only want priests to build temples to get access to your sacred recruitment, which any sacred commander is able to do whether they are sacred or not.

Priest levels are most of the time useless for the player, as you generally only need little access to priest abilities like blessing sacreds or building temples. The worst thing for a nation is pretty much having their main combat mage come with H2 because he H2 is most of the time not utilised and it just increases the mage cost further compared to H1 or not having preach skill at all.

That being said, H2 priests are bad, but putting them to 1 commander point might break the balance a bit as it might risk making them the new standard of baseline 1 rec point commanders. On the other hand only few nations have recruitable H2 priests with no magic access and such, so maybe it could be their national advantage.

[Legowarrior]

Jomon and Machaka come to mind. Machaka at least can lead troops well, but Jomon has an H2 priest that no one builds.

[Legowarrior]

It's all great if the H2 priest has some other niche, but even if they do, what exactly are you paying the H2 for?

For Ctis, they actually had to give their priests the ability to summon snakes to make them worth while.

Heck, even for nations that can summon undead, there arent too many instances where you would take a level 2 priest over Level 1.

We need a universal way of making H2 priests worth while. Not just for pure HE priests but for anyone that pays the extra cost of H2.

[Big Dog]

Again remember they have an anti-sacred spell that can be very useful against units like those Ys sacred knights.

[TheMeInTeam]

Preaching also caps out based on H level, with a bonus for temples. H2 can preach up to 5 candles with a temple rather than 2-3, which is useful.

Also while somewhat rare H2 does unlock holy avenger, and thug/SC tanking might use that to return some damage against stuff that DRN chips through.

But all in all H2 is not amazing compared to H1, and mostly just comes into play if you happen to have it on an otherwise good mage (or the odd ones with inquisitor for shenanigans).

[onomastikon]

Isn't it the case that H1 priests are fairly rare? They seem more niche to me, I can't really see a reason for getting them at all, since their leadership is usually horrid, and they are less good at everything, while still requiring gold and 1 rec point, leaving you only the ability to get another or a scout or a vanilla commander. Sometimes that might be OK, such as for those rare nations without real priests, or if I only have a palisades, but otherwise...? If you just want to build a temple, you can use a sacred commander without any priestly abilities as well.

[Legowarrior]

Rare? They are basically an indie priest in almost every human province you control. You just need a temple, not even a castle. Great to build if you haven't completed your fort yet.

It's great for some quick preaching, just to get your domain in the door, or just a bit of anti undead magic, but most importantly, to attack to an army with a few sacreds but no other priests.

[HexNibbler]

one thing that may be overlooked is that the max candle when preaching is not limited by dominion strength.
I.E. a H2 priest can raise 5 candle even with a dom1 pretender.

Also, H2 preaching is always superior to adversial temple check : In enemy dominion it has more chance to remove a candle than the temple check has chance to raise a candle locally instead of bouncing away.
In friendly dominion, 2H2 preaching will always beat one temple check of max dominion strength (10) and raise or keep the candle to 4 (or 5 with a temple). No matter the dom strength of their pretender.

H2 bless is AoE10 vs AoE 5 for H1 bless I think. I don't see why H2 is considered a weak spot between H1 and H3.

[terve886]

Originally posted by HexNibbler:

one thing that may be overlooked is that the max candle when preaching is not limited by dominion strength.
I.E. a H2 priest can raise 5 candle even with a dom1 pretender.

Also, H2 preaching is always superior to adversial temple check : In enemy dominion it has more chance to remove a candle than the temple check has chance to raise a candle locally instead of bouncing away.
In friendly dominion, 2H2 preaching will always beat one temple check of max dominion strength (10) and raise or keep the candle to 4 (or 5 with a temple). No matter the dom strength of their pretender.

H2 bless is AoE10 vs AoE 5 for H1 bless I think. I don't see why H2 is considered a weak spot between H1 and H3.

The preaching and slightly higher and better priest spell access are the only advantages. a H2 has easily the same cost as recruitting two H1 priests gold and commander point wise while two priests are much more flexible. You often don't need H2 priest to bless sacreds as H1 will do it just fine as priests seldom have anything else to do and blessing wise two H1s still do just as well as a H2.

Being H2 costs gold, especially if it is on your main mage which you need for spell casting and not blessing units.

This doesn't really apply to H2 only. In general, having excess magic paths you are not using is costing you gold as mages can at most utilize two different magic paths at once due to crosspath spells and even then the main path is the most important. An A3 mage will be cheaper than A3H2 mage priest simly because the A3H2 has more paths and needs to pay for every single one of them.

[onomastikon]

Originally posted by Legowarrior:

Rare? They are basically an indie priest in almost every human province you control. You just need a temple, not even a castle. Great to build if you haven't completed your fort yet.

It's great for some quick preaching, just to get your domain in the door, or just a bit of anti undead magic, but most importantly, to attack to an army with a few sacreds but no other priests.

I meant in the national roster. Yes, they are ubiquitous as militia. I consider them just as chaffy and don't have the gold for them. I almost never recruit indies unless the situation is niche (e.g. no access to something important in my national roster, like a scout or certain mage type) as they always seem more expensive for less.