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Your thoughts on biorhythm?


CatManThree
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I am just curious, what are everyone's thoughts on the biorhythm mechanic? Most of the time either noone talks about it or really just snickers over the damn thing. Honestly I don't know what to think of it. I don't really pay much of any attention to it in Path of Radiance and in Radiant Dawn, while it is quite helpful to pay attention to in part 1, it kinda become irrelevant after that. Especially so in part 3 onward. I like the idea, but it is still a bit eh to me.

For those who have no fucking idea what I am talking about, the biorhythm mechanic was this mechanic that was added into the Telius games (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn) that emulates the biorhythm of a character. In short, among a units stats is included a graph sine wave graph which moves along every turn, and depending on what point the graph is on, the unit will preform better or worse in combat. Here's a link to the main site pages covering the topic for each Telius games if you want to learn more:

 Path of Radiance Biorhythm Info Radiant Dawn Biorythm Info

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It was novel little something.

In PoR, the bonus/loss is so small that it really doesn't effect much, unless your name is Boyd and come early with low Skl and Tempest, then it could hurt.

In RD, they put more effort into Biorhythm with those different waves for different characters (the slightest hint of character personalization and world building). But they also made it matter more in gameplay with hidden item chances being affected in a game loaded with them, and more importantly everyone being able to gain or lose 10 Hit, and for 3rd tier unit, the same for their chance to OHKO with a mastery. Those Heron Galdrars that affected Biorhythm were useless as a side note when the cost was forsaking the almighty Vigor.

Fortunately RD is not so demanding in difficulty that the biorhythm effects severely hinder anything, in Hard/Lunatic Conquest I would scream if Xander or Camilla happened to be at Worst when I least needed it. 

More little elements of randomness to take into consideration- do they hurt or help SRPGs? I'm not quite sure. Biorhythm in PoR did nothing, but did RD's do too much? 

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It didn't do too much in Path of Radiance, other than occasionally making Tempest users (or at least Boyd) struggle. But in Radiant Dawn, I found it to make things harder at times (it ain't enough that 1-E has me fighting an uphill battle thanks to Jarod's authority, but the chance that some random mook can have an extra 10 avoid on top of that? Ugh).

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Nothing like watching your low-rhythm myrmidon take an axe to the face and die from a high-rhythm fighter~
-
Biorhythm is an unnecessary complication that can 'break' the rules of the game in a way that's not in your favor, the solution being to use units that can ignore the rules in the first place.

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From my own experience, while it's an interesting idea in theory i guess, in practice. In POR, I never really felt Biorhythm was a thing.

In RD? Holy crap. If I have my math right, biorhythm is the difference between you having 90 hit rate to enemy 50 hit rate, and the reverse.

Which is just ridiculous. Either the fluctations have to be decreased, or just removed entirely.

Bliss in RD is generally a waste of time since Herons have better things to do (usually Vigor).

The other issue is that the game, while it shows you the waveform, it doesn't exactly tell you what the next step is, and so it fluctuates wildly.

I think it's mainly only an issue when your units have trouble hitting/dodging in the first place, but in this case it's just exacerbating the inconsistency of the DB units and a few others.

Edited by CocoaGalaxy
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Like everyone else here, I don't think it really adds anything to the games. Because player controlled characters are expected to have good hitrates, biorhythm's effects only become noticeable when they hurt the player, which is pretty annoying most of the time. It's one of the few tellius mechanics I'm glad they got rid of.

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It was just bad. As so many others have said, it was virtually nonexistent or annoying. I did like that it gave some characterization to the cast in RD, but holy crap on a cracker was it a waste of a mechanic in practice. Tellius is my favorite set of games and had some really cool mechanics (ledges back when?), but that's something that should either be completely revamped or never brought back again.

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Worst mechanic ever in the series. Nothing but adding a variable for the sake of adding a variable.

I mean, you already have to take into account several things when playing an FE game, why add something that's unique for each character and changes every turn? Geez.

Edited by Jave
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I found it to be completely inconsequential, I guess even when it was screwing me, I just took the hit rates on the chin so to speak. But my opinion is actually the opposite to most people here, I felt it was useless and never paid any attention to it, but I still love it. I like games that are simple and direct  in design, but I also enjoy a rise  in complexity, that's why I like con and durability even though they outright make things more difficult for the player. I reckon biorhythm just needs some refinement to fit in. Like maybe character supports affecting it (can't go into the negative if adjacent to a supported unit) or certain skills to work into the system (battling with this unit pits the enemy at their lowest biorhythm setting). The heron commands affecting it were obviously useless, but they would work well if they were automatic, either during combat or at the start of every turn.

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On the contrary, I believe that there are some positive aspects of Biorhythm that people overlook that the developers likely had in mind:

1) It allows lower accuracy weapons (or units?) to exist and become situationally useful based on your own or the enemy's biorhythm. If for example, Brave or Killer weapons have lower/bad accuracy, then biorhythm can be a means of keeping them powerful but not universally so (rather than lower accuracy making them bad/unreliable all the time). In reverse, can allow you to include really high accuracy weapons (100+ HIT) which have the sole purpose of counteracting bad biorhythm. If you provide the right tools to the player, then this can provide some interesting options and diversity in weaponry. Personally, I don't think PoR/RD really pushed this enough to give the mechanic some additional depth. HIT on weapons are never that extreme either way, so the player has minimal capability to take advantage of biorhythm or play around it. 

2) Makes SKL/LCK more valuable in excess. As in, beyond just having a sufficient amount in the stat in order to perform 100% reliably. In most games, the difference in having decent SKL and great/amazing SKL barely mattered (only if you had notably low SKL would it really matter). This does help, to a degree. 

3) Situationally nerfs dodge tanking. However, it could be argued that it occasionally makes it even stronger at the same time. As such, it could be argued that biorhythm should affect avoid rates more than hit. As in, a lesser boost in avoid/hit when having good biorhythm, but a more severe affect when in bad biorhythm (with the player being able to manipulate it somewhat). That said, with how borderline broken earth supports are in RD, this could be negated completely.

4) Gives emphasis on swapping out units or using certain units based on the overall state of biorhythm within your army. Does Jill currently have low biorhythm? Is Nolan the opposite? Then let's secure this kill with Nolan instead, as that 20% difference can matter. Again, I really don't think RD's design in other areas (or unit balance) could accommodate this nearly as well as it could have. RD has a big emphasis on low-manning as being the best way to play (generally) so this aspect of biorhythm couldn't come into play too much.

I've personally played around with the mechanic and if you can structure the game to accommodate it (failsafe weaponry, unit design, buffs to SKL/LCK stats, more powerful/inaccurate weaponry, commands/items that can boost biorhythm, tweaks to the mechanic itself etc...) it can actually be a surprisingly good mechanic. Problem in PoR/RD is that it was included without many ways for the player to utilize or play around it. Herons are the best thing you have and they would much rather use 'Vigor'.

In other words, I really wouldn't write it off as a bad mechanic. It just didn't get enough support within each game to either matter or that much, or occasionally annoying since you'd have limited ways to play around it other than putting focus on different units on any given turn (which is a problem in RD since outside of Part 3, your roster of 'good' units is very limited, so you usually just have to make do with the few units you have that can be used regularly... which is an inherit problem with the game itself and how biorhythm interacts with that).

 

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Guest Dreamyboi

In what little I've played of Path of Radiance it's completely useless and never made things better or worse, might as well not exist.

In what little I've played of Radiant Dawn way back it was intrusive and needless, might as well not exist.

Conclusion: I don't and will not like this mechanic.

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Personally I dont mind it, I feel its more realistic and encourages players to use more than one character. Like during a fight between 2 armies your bound to get tired, thus your performance will drop which is how i kinda saw it. Granted the game could have done a better job of implementing it in terms of what stats it effected and how much it did. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/22/2018 at 3:24 PM, Dunal said:

On the contrary, I believe that there are some positive aspects of Biorhythm that people overlook that the developers likely had in mind:

1) It allows lower accuracy weapons (or units?) to exist and become situationally useful based on your own or the enemy's biorhythm. If for example, Brave or Killer weapons have lower/bad accuracy, then biorhythm can be a means of keeping them powerful but not universally so (rather than lower accuracy making them bad/unreliable all the time). In reverse, can allow you to include really high accuracy weapons (100+ HIT) which have the sole purpose of counteracting bad biorhythm. If you provide the right tools to the player, then this can provide some interesting options and diversity in weaponry. Personally, I don't think PoR/RD really pushed this enough to give the mechanic some additional depth. HIT on weapons are never that extreme either way, so the player has minimal capability to take advantage of biorhythm or play around it. 

2) Makes SKL/LCK more valuable in excess. As in, beyond just having a sufficient amount in the stat in order to perform 100% reliably. In most games, the difference in having decent SKL and great/amazing SKL barely mattered (only if you had notably low SKL would it really matter). This does help, to a degree. 

3) Situationally nerfs dodge tanking. However, it could be argued that it occasionally makes it even stronger at the same time. As such, it could be argued that biorhythm should affect avoid rates more than hit. As in, a lesser boost in avoid/hit when having good biorhythm, but a more severe affect when in bad biorhythm (with the player being able to manipulate it somewhat). That said, with how borderline broken earth supports are in RD, this could be negated completely.

4) Gives emphasis on swapping out units or using certain units based on the overall state of biorhythm within your army. Does Jill currently have low biorhythm? Is Nolan the opposite? Then let's secure this kill with Nolan instead, as that 20% difference can matter. Again, I really don't think RD's design in other areas (or unit balance) could accommodate this nearly as well as it could have. RD has a big emphasis on low-manning as being the best way to play (generally) so this aspect of biorhythm couldn't come into play too much.

I've personally played around with the mechanic and if you can structure the game to accommodate it (failsafe weaponry, unit design, buffs to SKL/LCK stats, more powerful/inaccurate weaponry, commands/items that can boost biorhythm, tweaks to the mechanic itself etc...) it can actually be a surprisingly good mechanic. Problem in PoR/RD is that it was included without many ways for the player to utilize or play around it. Herons are the best thing you have and they would much rather use 'Vigor'.

In other words, I really wouldn't write it off as a bad mechanic. It just didn't get enough support within each game to either matter or that much, or occasionally annoying since you'd have limited ways to play around it other than putting focus on different units on any given turn (which is a problem in RD since outside of Part 3, your roster of 'good' units is very limited, so you usually just have to make do with the few units you have that can be used regularly... which is an inherit problem with the game itself and how biorhythm interacts with that).

 

This is really a thorough and detailed statement, and one I agree with.  The fault isn't with the mechanic but how it is executed.  There should be more ways for the player to manipulate it, this would add a further layer of strategy.  I am all for adding more layers if it is done right.  

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The problem in the Tellius Games is that there isn't any Map System. Which means you suffer from it. You have no control over it, and its an unnecessary limitation most of the time.

With a  way to control it, it would actually be really interresting.

And maps system means you could control the way it works to accomodate your playstyle, instead of trying to adapt your playstyle to it.

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On 3/22/2018 at 2:24 PM, Dunal said:

On the contrary, I believe that there are some positive aspects of Biorhythm that people overlook that the developers likely had in mind:

1) It allows lower accuracy weapons (or units?) to exist and become situationally useful based on your own or the enemy's biorhythm. If for example, Brave or Killer weapons have lower/bad accuracy, then biorhythm can be a means of keeping them powerful but not universally so (rather than lower accuracy making them bad/unreliable all the time). In reverse, can allow you to include really high accuracy weapons (100+ HIT) which have the sole purpose of counteracting bad biorhythm. If you provide the right tools to the player, then this can provide some interesting options and diversity in weaponry. Personally, I don't think PoR/RD really pushed this enough to give the mechanic some additional depth. HIT on weapons are never that extreme either way, so the player has minimal capability to take advantage of biorhythm or play around it. 

2) Makes SKL/LCK more valuable in excess. As in, beyond just having a sufficient amount in the stat in order to perform 100% reliably. In most games, the difference in having decent SKL and great/amazing SKL barely mattered (only if you had notably low SKL would it really matter). This does help, to a degree. 

3) Situationally nerfs dodge tanking. However, it could be argued that it occasionally makes it even stronger at the same time. As such, it could be argued that biorhythm should affect avoid rates more than hit. As in, a lesser boost in avoid/hit when having good biorhythm, but a more severe affect when in bad biorhythm (with the player being able to manipulate it somewhat). That said, with how borderline broken earth supports are in RD, this could be negated completely.

4) Gives emphasis on swapping out units or using certain units based on the overall state of biorhythm within your army. Does Jill currently have low biorhythm? Is Nolan the opposite? Then let's secure this kill with Nolan instead, as that 20% difference can matter. Again, I really don't think RD's design in other areas (or unit balance) could accommodate this nearly as well as it could have. RD has a big emphasis on low-manning as being the best way to play (generally) so this aspect of biorhythm couldn't come into play too much.

I've personally played around with the mechanic and if you can structure the game to accommodate it (failsafe weaponry, unit design, buffs to SKL/LCK stats, more powerful/inaccurate weaponry, commands/items that can boost biorhythm, tweaks to the mechanic itself etc...) it can actually be a surprisingly good mechanic. Problem in PoR/RD is that it was included without many ways for the player to utilize or play around it. Herons are the best thing you have and they would much rather use 'Vigor'.

In other words, I really wouldn't write it off as a bad mechanic. It just didn't get enough support within each game to either matter or that much, or occasionally annoying since you'd have limited ways to play around it other than putting focus on different units on any given turn (which is a problem in RD since outside of Part 3, your roster of 'good' units is very limited, so you usually just have to make do with the few units you have that can be used regularly... which is an inherit problem with the game itself and how biorhythm interacts with that).

 

For how well thought out this post is, I just cannot agree with this. For every one situation it could legitimately be a help in, there's like ten others where it just gets in the way and/or is actively harmful - and needless to say, situations where it hurts are far and away more common than those where biorhythm helps, and even in the situations where it does help, it's not nearly enough to make up for all the times where it's intrusive and/or harmful. Being able to use the likes of Silver Greatlances with added accuracy just isn't enough to make up for making the already hellish part 1 chapters even worse than they need to be.

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7 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

For how well thought out this post is, I just cannot agree with this. For every one situation it could legitimately be a help in, there's like ten others where it just gets in the way and/or is actively harmful - and needless to say, situations where it hurts are far and away more common than those where biorhythm helps, and even in the situations where it does help, it's not nearly enough to make up for all the times where it's intrusive and/or harmful. Being able to use the likes of Silver Greatlances with added accuracy just isn't enough to make up for making the already hellish part 1 chapters even worse than they need to be.

I did point why exactly the mechanic is often intrusive though (lack of direct player control, even if you can plan ahead for it, as well as lack of weaponry types to be used as a failsafe and/or properly take advantage of the mechanic, or lack of viable/strong units at certain parts of the game. For example,  if Nolan falls into bad Biorhythm early on, the game punishes you more than it should since it's not like you can afford to contribute less for a few turns; since your other units aren't that good, same with Geoffrey/Kieran in 2-3 etc etc...).

Something worth pointing out as well is how FE often accounts for dodge tanking being necessary for a lot of units to survive, in which a mechanic like biorhythm can contest. This doesn't matter for those with Earth affinity but does for others. Solution to this is to adjust balance where dodging is a luxury as opposed to a unit's primary way to survive (higher HP values across the board combined with higher base accuracy on enemies). This leaves only HIT rates being penalized (on your own units) being the remaining aspect that is "actively harmful"... which can be resolved with both items/skills to boost Biorhythm and/or weapons (including high tier ones) that offer really high HIT.

Although, in the context of RD, forging +HIT on weapons could be sufficient enough for the latter. 

Also, the part 1 chapters being "hellish" isn't inherent to Biorhythm at all -- that's just a problem with the game's difficulty curve. Also, hypothetically, you could buff Bronze/Slim weapons to have +10-15 HIT than they currently do which is enough to both make them more relevant, and also to give the player further options in planning around the mechanic.

There's also the Heaven affinity, which is capable of completely resolving any HIT issues even for lower accuracy weapons. The popular opinion is that it isn't useful but actually, you could argue that it's because Biorhythm isn't impactful enough for it to matter. Which is part of the problem: Biorhythm's impact is more annoying than meaningful because it isn't powerful enough to care about until it might actually screw you over. If it was stronger (with also the addition of extra tools for the player to work around it) it can genuinely be a good mechanic because players would actually monitor and prepare for it, and be hugely rewarded for doing so. As it stands, Biorhythm isn't meaningful 90% of the time, so the player has conditioned themselves to ignore it, so the rest of the time, it becomes intrusive because normally there isn't enough actual incentive to play around it in the first place.

Edited by Dunal
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I would disagree with the sentiment that Heaven affinity isn't useful; it wasn't in PoR, but in RD they buffed the hell out of it so it was solid IMO, especially for dealing with the most evasive targets.

Anyway I think biorhythm is mostly irrelevant, and while it could have created some good strategy, it doesn't, really. I think DLuna hits on some good theorycraft about how it could have been implemented in a more relevant way, for all that I feel that one of the main pros it could have had (punishing lowmanning because a super-unit will eventually go into Worst biorhythm) would be better implemented in another way, e.g. with a fatigue-like system which punishes low-manning directly.

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As people have said, biorhythm would be an interesting mechanic if you can manipulate it in more ways other than herons whose main ability is far more useful than buffing/debuffing biorhythm. Have more staves other than the Matrona staff that can restore biorhythm. Make it so that sacrifice can put you on max biorhythm because sacrifice is derived from heron abilities. As it stands now, sacrifice isn't very useful either because you can do everything better with a staff. 

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17 hours ago, Dunal said:

I did point why exactly the mechanic is often intrusive though (lack of direct player control, even if you can plan ahead for it, as well as lack of weaponry types to be used as a failsafe and/or properly take advantage of the mechanic, or lack of viable/strong units at certain parts of the game. For example,  if Nolan falls into bad Biorhythm early on, the game punishes you more than it should since it's not like you can afford to contribute less for a few turns; since your other units aren't that good, same with Geoffrey/Kieran in 2-3 etc etc...).

Something worth pointing out as well is how FE often accounts for dodge tanking being necessary for a lot of units to survive, in which a mechanic like biorhythm can contest. This doesn't matter for those with Earth affinity but does for others. Solution to this is to adjust balance where dodging is a luxury as opposed to a unit's primary way to survive (higher HP values across the board combined with higher base accuracy on enemies). This leaves only HIT rates being penalized (on your own units) being the remaining aspect that is "actively harmful"... which can be resolved with both items/skills to boost Biorhythm and/or weapons (including high tier ones) that offer really high HIT.

Although, in the context of RD, forging +HIT on weapons could be sufficient enough for the latter. 

Also, the part 1 chapters being "hellish" isn't inherent to Biorhythm at all -- that's just a problem with the game's difficulty curve. Also, hypothetically, you could buff Bronze/Slim weapons to have +10-15 HIT than they currently do which is enough to both make them more relevant, and also to give the player further options in planning around the mechanic.

There's also the Heaven affinity, which is capable of completely resolving any HIT issues even for lower accuracy weapons. The popular opinion is that it isn't useful but actually, you could argue that it's because Biorhythm isn't impactful enough for it to matter. Which is part of the problem: Biorhythm's impact is more annoying than meaningful because it isn't powerful enough to care about until it might actually screw you over. If it was stronger (with also the addition of extra tools for the player to work around it) it can genuinely be a good mechanic because players would actually monitor and prepare for it, and be hugely rewarded for doing so. As it stands, Biorhythm isn't meaningful 90% of the time, so the player has conditioned themselves to ignore it, so the rest of the time, it becomes intrusive because normally there isn't enough actual incentive to play around it in the first place.

That's kinda why I feel the way I do about biorhythm - it tends to get in the way when you cannot afford it.

At the same time, it can occasionally make it better. And while forging extra hit onto a weapon can be a way to play around biorhythm, Radiant Dawn doesn't exactly leave you swimming in cash for most of it...

Granted, biorhythm might not be the reason why part 1 is hard, but not unlike Arthur's personal, it just makes a bad situation even worse. What's more, unless you're powerful enough that it wouldn't matter, downgrading all the way to bronze (the only slim weapon there is is the slim sword) means my damage output suffers big time. So this sounds like the "solution" causes even more, worse problems than the original problem... this sounds not unlike why Baton Pass ultimately got banned.

Unfortunately, all the Heaven affinity characters have baggage - Meg and Lethe are both really bad, and the other four Heaven units have little play time (or none, in the case of Tibarn and Stefan) outside of part 4, and thus little time to build supports. So that sounds more like an extremely niche solution with little to no practical application than a legitimate one.

15 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I would disagree with the sentiment that Heaven affinity isn't useful; it wasn't in PoR, but in RD they buffed the hell out of it so it was solid IMO, especially for dealing with the most evasive targets.

Anyway I think biorhythm is mostly irrelevant, and while it could have created some good strategy, it doesn't, really. I think DLuna hits on some good theorycraft about how it could have been implemented in a more relevant way, for all that I feel that one of the main pros it could have had (punishing lowmanning because a super-unit will eventually go into Worst biorhythm) would be better implemented in another way, e.g. with a fatigue-like system which punishes low-manning directly.

The issue here is that Heaven affinity is dragged down by the aforementioned fact that all the units with it either lack quality or lack availability. Also, besides Ashera and her auras, just what is evasive enough to warrant a heaven support??? Because I am seriously drawing a blank here...

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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I still have no idea how Biorhythm worked in Path of Radiance. I absolutely never noticed it and it seemed to change randomly. It was a bit scary for me when I started the final chapter with Ike and Nasir at Worst, but then I remembered how even Boyd would still reach near 100% hit despite using axes and having worst Biorhythm. 

It got pretty obnoxious in Radiant Dawn, though. While some characters can power through still no matter the biorhythm, there are a lot of garbage units you have to work with who can't. This just creates a bigger divide between the good and bad units. Biorhythm would work fine if there were no outlier units, because everyone would be gimped and blessed equally. But since Radiant Dawn isn't balanced very well, units like Haar and Ike who are strong enough to ignore it are just that much better, while guys like Edward just have another reason to hit the bench. Tying it to finding treasure also hurts. It's not even harmful, it's just obnoxious when Sothe can't find something despite being a thief just because he's at a bad biorhythm. 

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55 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

The issue here is that Heaven affinity is dragged down by the aforementioned fact that all the units with it either lack quality or lack availability. Also, besides Ashera and her auras, just what is evasive enough to warrant a heaven support??? Because I am seriously drawing a blank here...

Well cats in chapter 4-5 can be pretty evasive and so Marcia and Elincia's support helped my under-leveled Marcia out. Same goes for Ravens and hawks. 

Edited by Icelerate
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Heaven affinity units lacking quality/availability is independent from statements on the quality of the affinity itself. As an affinity it's at worst middle-of-the-road... there's no way you can argue that heaven (+9 hit) is worse than wind (+2.5 hit and +2.5 avo), for instance.

(And yeah, Ashera and the auras are the main place it pays off in a big way. Meg can also buff someone's hit significantly, and she's a free deploy in several Part 1 maps and then all of Part 3 at worst.)

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