Best blood mage build possible

[somaz]

Hi everyone im planning to do a new pillars run with all dlc and with blood mage as main character, but dont know what build exactly would be best. Is i worth to multiclass to pally or keep it solo. Dump might to minimum for lowest blood sacrifice dmg or go with max for more dmg and lower bs self dmg with ring for examp. How much const do we need? Im curious about the end game 20 lvl character full build result, early game doesnt matter coz i kinda want to start with 20 lvl character and see what challenge upscaled potd can provide. Kinda like new run but with end game build and items. What do u guys think is best for this subclass we can get?

[Marigoldran]

Solo or not? 

[Boeroer]

Hm... I tend to recommend Sage (Bloodmage/Nalpasca). Because the self damage from Blood Sacrifice and Alacrity will give you lots of wounds and Citzal's Spirit Lance + Stunning Surge and Swift Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming + Enduring Dance is bonkers. Citzal's with Force of Anguish, too. Bonus fun with Instruments of Pain.

I'm not sure it's the optimal combo, but it's fun as heck if you have a good healer in the party.

Solo it's just suicide.

[Brom105]

The real problem with the blood mage is the dmg to himself, the higer the STR is the higer the dmg that you will recive..

 

What if we lower the STR to the minimum (3/4) ? then we can use blood sacrifice without worrying to our health  but we will not do dmg at all.. but maybe we dont need do to dmg .. 

 

What if we summon other mobs to do the job while we tanking and debuff all the area .. ? 

 

I talking about multiclass with chanter, stack alot of defence and +hp items (chanter have buff +1 hp every sec?) 

 

PotD Solo build with unlimited resources ?

[somaz]

I think ill roll in with eder  xoti/pallagine at least, so ill have some healing, but i kinda want this character to be as independend as it can get. High const and mix with paladin should be ok i think, if we max might we would get better healing from abilities (LoH) too, so it kinda countaracts the bigger raw dmg we receive, im just curious if anyone of our fellow PoE 2 nerds tried bloodmage "powerbuild" already, and what are ur results :d 

On the other hand solo wizard will get higher power levels and possibly infinite 8-9 level spells which sounds gr8, the problem is i dont think there is enough healing in wizard solo kit to be self sustained, id need some serious healers to help him.

[FleetFeet]

The real problem with the blood mage is the dmg to himself, the higer the STR is the higer the dmg that you will recive..

 

What if we lower the STR to the minimum (3/4) ? then we can use blood sacrifice without worrying to our health  but we will not do dmg at all.. but maybe we dont need do to dmg .. 

 

What if we summon other mobs to do the job while we tanking and debuff all the area .. ? 

 

I talking about multiclass with chanter, stack alot of defence and +hp items (chanter have buff +1 hp every sec?) 

 

PotD Solo build with unlimited resources ?

I am currently playing a Paladin(Shieldbearer)/Bloodmage with might at 6 (this was the min being human and with BB). I am currently level 13 and with the passive aura, the voidward ring (25% less raw damage taken), Lethandria's Devotion sheild, regen ring, an occasional lay on hands and I am able to throw spells practically non-stop(all while using Deleterious Alacrity). Debuffing is priority #1 but despite that and the low might he is still my highest dmg dealer by fair margin. From the start I don't think there's been a single fight where I ran out of casting ability. Obv need to draw aggro with your party.

[Marigoldran]

If you're not soloing, multiclass with Paladin is probably best so you don't just die from a one-shot after using the blood ability.  

 

The other option is Monk/Blood Mage because of Iron Wheel (+10 Con, +3.3 armor with 10 wounds, which should be pretty easy to get even in the  back lines as blood mage).  

Edited December 28, 2018 by Marigoldran

[guildwriter]

The real problem with the blood mage is the dmg to himself, the higer the STR is the higer the dmg that you will recive..

 

What if we lower the STR to the minimum (3/4) ? then we can use blood sacrifice without worrying to our health  but we will not do dmg at all.. but maybe we dont need do to dmg .. 

 

You're giving too much credence to Might.  At Might 3 that's a -21% bonus to damage and healing.  Not great obviously but not the end of the world either.  There are plenty of ways to mitigate that loss.  

[Marigoldran]

Blood Mage definitely synergizes with monk.  

 

Max Con, dump might.  Get Iron Wheel for a total of 30+ Con and +3 armor bonus.  Be a Heath Orlan for the crit bonus for heartbeat drumming.  or maybe be a dwarf and get even more Con.  Have a team of heralds to regen health for you, wear heavy armor, and spam Llengrath's safeguard, Writhing Tentacles, Essentail Soul, Blackened Sight, Raised Torment, and Dichotomos Phantom.  

 

Use an AOE melee weapon.  Etc. etc.  

 

You know with Turning Wheel and being able to spam Llengrath's Safeguard, you're talking about a permanent +8 armor bonus.  At that point, you may not even need heavy armor.  

 

Also, Minoletta's piercing burst does damage to any enemy nearby.  The Piercing Burst also bypasses enemy armor rating.  Hrrrmmm. Except it's a level 6 spell so to regenerate it you'll need a lot of Con.  

 

EDIT: At level 20, with 30 Con, that's 600 health and +8 armor on top of whatever it is that you're wearing.  Citzals' Spirit Lance works with Heartbeat Drumming.  

Edited December 28, 2018 by Marigoldran

[Boeroer]

Another way how you can do good single target damage with a dumped MIG/CC focused Bloodmage is to use Concelhaut's Draining Touch and to summon Essential Phantom. It will also get the Draining Touch weapon and can attack repeatedly with it (won't go away after hit). It targets Will, it drains health for the Phantom, it does very high base damage (corrode). While the phantom hits enemies with respectable damage (for a summon) you can place your CC spells. Like Miasma (lowers Will for the Phantom like crazy).

I did this with a Geomancer but it might also work well with any other low MIG Bloodmage variant.

[Yosharian]

I don't think you need to dump Might.  Just try to keep it around 10.  That's what I'm doing.

[Marigoldran]

Up to you but bloodmages benefit from extra Con.  They're one of the few classes where you want to Max Con.  

Edited December 28, 2018 by Marigoldran

[Boeroer]

Yeah I think using a Monk with high CON and Iron Wheel is a good way.

 

Also monks get good health bonuses per level while pure Wizards don't. So a Sage does better than a Wizard when it comes to health.

 

Just remember that 35 CON is the cap. So no need to max CON plus use a CON inspiration plus use items with CON bonus. You can skip one of those and still reach 35.

Edited December 28, 2018 by Boeroer

[Flucas]

I personally like to multi with druid. The classes do well together because the wiz part can provide buffs and the druid part rounds out the wizard's arsenal with hard cc and heals. The large amount of different spells make you very flexible, so that you're able to act on any situation. You can heal (druid side, shift if needed for large PL bonus) deal damage (wizard side, DoT's from druid) and cc.

 

It's nice if you like a backline, tactical role for your main character.

[Ensign]

Blood Mage outperforms a vanilla Wizard when you want to cast the same few spells over and over again, ideally 1 from each 'tier' of low/mid/high level spells.  If you are using a bunch of spells from a variety of power levels Blood Sacrifice ends up being really random in what it returns.  You would be better off just chain casting with a vanilla Wizard and using Empower to restore your spells, swapping to Vaporous Wizardry if necessary; that gives you 4 full barrages of spells in a fight, which is more than sufficient to let you blast without rationing in virtually every encounter in the game.

 

Where I have found Blood Mage most useful, outside of extreme soloing shenanigans, is with more tactical play.  If you just want to spam Missile Salvo and Capricious Hex over and over, for instance, you can play DAM / Missile Salvo / Hex, the hit restore and be guaranteed to get one of those 3 back.  If it's DAoM put up Infuse or another self buff; if it's one of the others cast it again and chain together your best spells.

 

If it's unclear I think it's best as a single class Blood Mage (again, outside of extreme endurance / soloing builds with Tactician); it works best when you take full advantage of its spell restore to cast your best spells over and over, and a secondary class only weakens that.

[Marigoldran]

Except restoring high level spells kinda kills you if you're a bloodmage. And if you don't restore them, what's the point?  No one's quite sure yet, but my vote is to multiclass it with paladin or monk.  

 

Especially with monk because of the synergies (iron wheel for more health, and wound mechanics)  

Edited December 29, 2018 by Marigoldran

[djinnxy]

Monk? Huh? I've never played a monk? Do they have any good skills? That's like those bald guys from the Himalayas right? Are they any good solo? I'm out of the loop.

[Marigoldran]

Check out Iron Wheel.  

 

Every time you use your blood ability you give your monk wounds.  The more wounds your monk gets, the stronger he becomes.  Monks gain strength by getting hurt, and Blood Mages gain strength by hurting themselves so it's a good synergy.  

 

With Monk/BloodMage, idea is to hurt yourself to become stronger.  

Edited December 29, 2018 by Marigoldran

[djinnxy]

I tried it and it didn't stick. I'm sure it works it just wasn't for me. I'm liking my mountain dwarf furyshaper/ blood mage. I think when they nerfed the alchemy and killed my nalpazca/wiz I lost interest in playing monk no matter what exploits were left. It felt kind of like there were still basketballs to shoot with, but they made it a point to kick mine over the fence.

[Marigoldran]

Well.  Since you've moved the topic onto a discussion of other classes, have you considered a herald? 

[djinnxy]

Well.  Since you've moved the topic onto a discussion of other classes, have you considered a herald? 

I'm not going to hijack the post, but I'll answer the question and leave it at that. Yes. I prefer crusader (at least before the new subs. The verdict isn't in yet with the new ones.) Herald is good though. I usually run at least one in a party situation for tank/heals with a few summons for tipping the balance on the worst fights. The long answer is I like running one of each with another healer of some kind and a mixed bag for the last spots of rogue, healer, dps, wiz. They are the staples while the last 3 spots are situational.

[Boeroer]

Warlock is a great combo, especially with Blood Mage/Furyshaper. You are pairing the fastest casting time with renewable spell resources. Savage Defiance can heal your Blood Sacrifice. A near perfect "spell spammer" in my opinion an certainly has a top position in my "fun to play" list.

[Brom105]

Someone know the formula of the blood sacrefice ? I mean calculate the hp that reduced from use..

[forbs]

Pretty sure @MaxQuest figured it out on Reddit,

 

(*) I have just rechecked the gamedatabundles. The values are still: 5, 10 and 15. But it's the scaling - is what I've got wrong. Self damage doesn't scale with power level at all. It scales with character's level in the following manner:

• tier1_dmg = [5 + 1 per CL] * dmg_bonuses

• tier2_dmg = [10 + 2 per CL] * dmg_bonuses

• tier3_dmg = [15 + 3 per CL] * dmg_bonuses

Also I have checked ingame a level 4 bloodmage with 10 and 5 MIG:

• MIG10, LVL4: 27, 27, 18, 9

• MIG5, LVL4: 23, 23, 17, 8

So the tier3 damage of 15, turned into 23: (15 + 3 *4) * (1 - 0.15) = 22.95

 

Don't know if this is still the case, but seems about right..I believe it randomly picks between the 3.

Edited December 29, 2018 by forbs

[Squilla]

Why is furyshaper superior to the other barbarian subclasses (or no subclass) - just due to the totems that increase action speed and lend to the spell spamming?