Does Law Mana need a boost?

[[to_xp]Gekko]

culture defense should not be bombardable anyway, it makes no sense

 

[JonathanStrange]

Nature is very powerful :
forest defense : not always useful, but manytime, having a defender in your stack that has +25% defense just for a measly adept spell is poweful.
poison blade :
-is a given for ranger-beastmaster, assasins, shadows (+1, it's powerful)
-is also mandatory if you play FOL : fawns and satyr are quite cheap units, for their power.
-beastmasters are one of the more powerful units ingame, no weapon promo so not liable to rust nor weak to lignthing damage, no promotion against recon units...(especially for rasing stacks out of cities) so poison blade is very interesting to have, as much as enchantement.

vitalise : very powerful, but less useful as demanding a lot of micro. genesis works once, vitalise can bring tundras/floodplains into grasslands, not just into plains !!

I agree that vitalize can be done (almost) with genesis, but poison blade is soooo..

I agree: Nature mana is very useful for we Ljosalfars and I wouldn't trade it - but FFH2's a game that favors aggression and capturing cities, and in that sense Nature mana (and Law mana, trying to stay on-topic) is not as aggressively powerful and versatile as other manas. Some manas help send spectres, wraiths and fireballs smashing into cities and armies, our Nature mana is a landscaper's dream.

(btw, I'm less enthusiastic about fauns and satyrs; they're actually expensive for their power: fauns cost 50% more for the same strength as a warrior, satyrs cost plenty of and a level 4 faun as well as Animal Handling. I'd say that all adds up for a costly (although cool-looking) troop. Beastmasters are awesome - and they should be considering their cost and tier. The Nature II spell Poison Blades is handy since the Ljos' start with one Nature mana source to give them a headstart to the spell; I have to admit though I use it for Ljos assassins more than buffing up the Ljos meager recon line) Peace

 

[travathian]

Poison blade + Sinister = awesome smurfnibbler recon units.

My recon units will already be pretty kick ass with just the sinister promotion, but it allows them better than even odds at beating most other units of comparable time frame, especially given that none of their opponents will have bonuses specifically against them. Poison blade is just the icing on the cake. Roving bands of fawns always guard my borders and troll for easy xp against raging barbarians. Thanks to the Arcane trait and potency, I can put off making adepts and they'll still get fast xp to become mages really quick, giving me access to poison blade as soon as I hit Sorcery.

In my most recent game I popped a dungeon pretty early and got the Dwarves vs Lizardmen event. Duh, Lizardmen please. One survived. Hmmm 5/4 Lizardman when all my nearest opponents have warriors. Nice knowing you Amelanchier. Lizardman ended up making it to Ranger, getting to lvl 17, freed Brigit, and was a key unit in every military engagement the entire game.

But yeah, as the Ljos, I found myself very rarely ever choosing Nature spells for my mages. Fire, body, enchantment, and air all had a higher priority.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Nature needs Summon Guardian Vines.

 

[JonathanStrange]

Nature needs Summon Guardian Vines.

Is that aka "Entanglement" which we do have - at the moment, I can't recall who casts it and under which mana type - but I've frequently cast it as the Ljosalfars. The Druids have the spell promotion, iirc, maybe that's it. Either way, it's a very useful spell: I've held AI Doom stacks for many turns while clobbering 'em with lightnings and fireballs.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Entanglement is currently a Druid unit-specific spell, not dependent on any promotion. I think it would make more sense to be a unit specific spell of the Guardian Vines unit though.

Guardian Vines was once one of the most unique summons with a special niche, but unfortunately were removed by the merging of the summoning and sorcery lines while more boring summons survived. Most summons are just plain combat units used for attacking and only differentiated by their affinity and typed damage, but this permanent summon was immobile and good defender. I don't think the guardsman promotion was in the game when it was removed, but they probably would have had it if it it were. I believe there was a block to stop it from being cast in cities because it was deemed too good a city defender.

The unit itself made a comeback for some of the scenarios and for results for exploring lairs, but not the spell.

 

[JonathanStrange]

Thanks for the info. I didn't know those details (although Guardian Vines sounded familiar somehow): Guardian Vines sounds exactly like the sort of summons a defensive player would use, and being associated with Nature mana/sphere sounds right.

That's the sort of more dynamic boost manas like Law could use; passive effects are fine but appropriate specific boosts are fun to employ.