Holy Arms underpowered?

[MrBiscuits]

Holy Arms seems a bit underpowered for a very rare. 

It's just +1 to hit on normal units, but not those with chaos channels and I don't think undead units (not sure on that though).

It also replaces rather than combines with Holy Weapon that will almost certainly be available to wizards with Holy Arms, so it doesn't improve your best units.
Also it can be dispelled in battle I think. 

Compare to Survival instinct which although it doesn't work on normal units, it works on units with chaos channels and undead and the bonus is so much better +1 to hit, +2 resistance and +1 defence and stacks with everything else and cannot be dispelled.
It's also just a rare spell as well compared to a very rare for Holy Arms.

I would suggest changing Holy Arms to work on all units not just normal ones as a +1 to hit and be able to stack with Holy Weapon if you have it. Perhaps the name would need to be changed though.

[massone]

Also it can be dispelled in battle I think. 

It can't.

Compare to Survival instinct which although it doesn't work on normal units, it works on units with chaos channels and undead and the bonus is so much better +1 to hit, +2 resistance and +1 defence and stacks with everything else and cannot be dispelled.
It's also just a rare spell as well compared to a very rare for Holy Arms.

Survival Instinct is much better standalone, but there aren't as many sources of Fantastic creature buffs overall. It is very powerful combined with Chaos, but then Chaos can actually also combine their buffs with normal unit enchantments by doing those first before turning them into Chaos creatures.
Holy Arms also applies to more units in a typical army.

I would suggest changing Holy Arms to work on all units not just normal ones as a +1 to hit and be able to stack with Holy Weapon if you have it. Perhaps the name would need to be changed though.

Stacking is probably excessive, especially because it works on Heroes. And making it work on Fantastic creatures doesn't just buff the spell, it also indirectly buffs Fantastic creatures in general, which isn't good. That said, the possibility of altering it or replacing it has been brought up in discussions for COM II, though no definitive good answer has been found yet.

Perhaps changing it to a + Defend for all normal units would be better.

[Seravy]

The answer in CoM II was to make it a rare spell instead of very rare but we can't do that in CoM I.

[MrBiscuits]

The answer in CoM II was to make it a rare spell instead of very rare but we can't do that in CoM I.

Fair enough, although it still seems underpowered compared to Survival Instinct and Doom Mastery.

Can we make it work with any units that were originally normal? So ones with Chaos Channels and undead normal units.
That would make it a little more balanced I think.

[Seravy]

The answer in CoM II was to make it a rare spell instead of very rare but we can't do that in CoM I.

Fair enough, although it still seems underpowered compared to Survival Instinct and Doom Mastery.

Can we make it work with any units that were originally normal? So ones with Chaos Channels and undead normal units.
That would make it a little more balanced I think.

That's already on my todo list.