Best Multiclass Option (or Single Class Build) for Blood Mage with Balance Polishing Mod in PotD

[xxxxd]

Note with Balance Polishing Mod on, the mage will suffer a -100% Healing received debuff from blood sacrifice for a fixed period of 6 secs, and furthermore, brilliant inspiration will also only restore lvl 1-3 spells, making it much less broken than in vanilla.

[Not So Clever Hound]

I don't think this fundamentally alters the strongest, well-documented builds and playstyles with Blood Mage. If anything the nerf to Brilliant would make Blood Sacrifice standout even more as an incredibly powerful ability.

As far as I understand you can still spam Blood Sacrifice in very hard fights with a permanent Cannot Die effect (BDD/PotFS + WoD) to replenish all your spells at will. The only thing I guess is that you couldn't use Blood Sacrifice anymore when relying on Unbending Trunk + WoD to stay alive. But that's hardly a problem (see my previous point ).

So I'm assuming best Pure Casters will still be Thaumaturge (BM + Wael/Skaen) and SC Blood Mage (my personal favorite).

Best Tanky Caster will remain Arcane Knight (BM + Whatever).

Best Sneaky Caster will remain Spellblade (BM + Assassin).

Best Martial Casters shall still be Battlemage (BM + maybe Devoted in this case, not Tactician?) or Sage (BM + Helwalker) with Spirit Lance + respectively Clear Out and Stunning Surge, and CC spells like the Ryngrim series. Warlock (BM + Zerker or Fury Shaper) will also remain real nice but IMHO not quite on the same end-game level as others.

Every other combination would still be great . Yawn.
 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Raven Darkholme]

I don't have balancing patch but wouldn't brilliant still restore fighter abilities normally?

So all you need is bloodmage into any kind of fighter (depending on whether u wanna use SOF it doesn't to be tactician, but ofc without SOF it'd have to be tactician ... kinda ... not really, there still is brilliant from the gods + WoD)

[Not So Clever Hound]

11 minutes ago, Raven Darkholme said:

I don't have balancing patch but wouldn't brilliant still restore fighter abilities normally?

So all you need is bloodmage into any kind of fighter (depending on whether u wanna use SOF it doesn't to be tactician, but ofc without SOF it'd have to be tactician ... kinda ... not really, there still is brilliant from the gods + WoD)

Yeah Brilliant from Wit of Death's Herald, Brilliant from Shroud of the Phantasm... but AFIK it would only restore your Discipline as it would in vanilla, you would still have the nerf on restoring Blood Mage spells.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Raven Darkholme]

8 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Yeah Brilliant from Wit of Death's Herald, Brilliant from Shroud of the Phantasm... but AFIK it would only restore your Discipline as it would in vanilla, you would still have the nerf on restoring Blood Mage spells.

Doesn't really matter if your Unbending heals you for several thousand hp does it?

Can even reduce raw dmg with that ring from dunnage.

Edit: Healing received buffs do not scale unbending healing, so neither should debuff from community patch?)

Edited April 14, 2021 by Raven Darkholme

[Not So Clever Hound]

7 minutes ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Doesn't really matter if your Unbending heals you for several thousand hp does it?

OP mentioned that Blood Sacrifice will now come with a -100% healing effect for 6s. I'm not sure whether this effect would be somewaht prolonged by WoD or reduced by high RES etc. But it would severely get in the way of Unbending heals if you spam Blood Sacrifice I suspect. Much better to have a Cannot Die effect then.

EDIT... didn't see your edit  I have no idea. I can't remember if the CON afflictions for example reduce Unbending healing?

Edited April 14, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Raven Darkholme]

 

9 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

OP mentioned that Blood Sacrifice will now come with a -100% healing effect for 6s. I'm not sure whether this effect would be somewaht prolonged by WoD or reduced by high RES etc. But it would severely get in the way of Unbending heals if you spam Blood Sacrifice I suspect. Much better to have a Cannot Die effect then.

EDIT... didn't see your edit  I have no idea. I can't remember if the CON afflictions for example reduce Unbending healing?

The only one I've ever seen effective vs Unbending is Enfeeble but the wording is different there:

Enfeebled -5 Constitution, +50% Hostile Effect duration, -100% Healing done

Either way you could just have smth like Dawnstars blessing with +50% healing received to counter it, but I doubt it even works that way.

[xxxxd]

Quote

As far as I understand you can still spam Blood Sacrifice in very hard fights with a permanent Cannot Die effect (BDD/PotFS + WoD) to replenish all your spells at will. The only thing I guess is that you couldn't use Blood Sacrifice anymore when relying on Unbending Trunk + WoD to stay alive. But that's hardly a problem (see my previous point ).

Balance Polishing Mod has also nerfed WoD, which will no longer provide unlimited buff extension unless hitting >4 foes simultaneously.

It has also increased blood sacrifice's recovery time from 0s to 3s, making it impossible to spam.

The 6s of -100% healing received is a fixed period, unaffected by anything.

Edited April 15, 2021 by xxxxd

[Not So Clever Hound]

If that is so, then indeed it significantly impacts the survivability of many builds, provided you don't use other exploits to replace the nerfed effects... that would probably bump up the Assassin Blood Mage (who relies on ambushing from stealth and escaping/resetting the fight to survive) and probably the Arcane Knight with his unlimited health regen and high defenses (probably then a Blood Mage /Steel Garrote to maximize that self healing).

[xxxxd]

4 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

If that is so, then indeed it significantly impacts the survivability of many builds, provided you don't use other exploits to replace the nerfed effects... that would probably bump up the Assassin Blood Mage (who relies on ambushing from stealth and escaping/resetting the fight to survive) and probably the Arcane Knight with his unlimited health regen and high defenses (probably then a Blood Mage /Steel Garrote to maximize that self healing).

What about SC? Is that still viable, with relatively high CON, tough passive, lower MIG and draining spells from Concelhaut and Ninagauth?

[Raven Darkholme]

11 hours ago, xxxxd said:

Balance Polishing Mod has also nerfed WoD, which will no longer provide unlimited buff extension unless hitting >4 foes simultaneously.

It has also increased blood sacrifice's recovery time from 0s to 3s, making it impossible to spam.

The 6s of -100% healing received is a fixed period, unaffected by anything.

Well its not that hard to get 4 foes even with fights like Dorudugan, belt of magrans chosen will provide you with potentially infinite enemies.

You don't need to "spam" Blood Sacrifice for unbending WoD combo, just refreshing WoD is enough and it's duration is far longer than 3 secs.

I'm still not convinced that healing received even affects Unbending, since similarly worded positive effects don't affect it either.

45 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

If that is so, then indeed it significantly impacts the survivability of many builds, provided you don't use other exploits to replace the nerfed effects... that would probably bump up the Assassin Blood Mage (who relies on ambushing from stealth and escaping/resetting the fight to survive) and probably the Arcane Knight with his unlimited health regen and high defenses (probably then a Blood Mage /Steel Garrote to maximize that self healing).

I mean there is still quite a few ways to cheese the game, if all else fails single class monks with brilliant will still demolish everything and all kinds of chanter combos with many lives can just kite forever, chanter/psion is especially busted.

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 hour ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Well its not that hard to get 4 foes even with fights like Dorudugan, belt of magrans chosen will provide you with potentially infinite enemies

Hard no... but tedious as hell  

1 hour ago, Raven Darkholme said:

if all else fails single class monks with brilliant will still demolish everything and all kinds of chanter combos with many lives can just kite forever, chanter/psion is especially busted

Sure, and SC Assassin perma-Vanishing Strike and so on, but I think the OP only wanted to discuss Blood Mage builds.

[Raven Darkholme]

10 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Hard no... but tedious as hell  

Sure, and SC Assassin perma-Vanishing Strike and so on, but I think the OP only wanted to discuss Blood Mage builds.

Chanter/Wizard is my fav combo in the game.

[Not So Clever Hound]

4 hours ago, xxxxd said:

What about SC? Is that still viable, with relatively high CON, tough passive, lower MIG and draining spells from Concelhaut and Ninagauth?

First, sorry for some reason your post only appeared now although it is timestamped as from a few hours ago. No one was ignoring you . The notion of "viable" brings the question of what you want to do in the game (vanilla, Megabosses, DLCs full completion) and your lactose tolerance   (how much cheese you want to use).

In a nutshell and according to the parameters you mentioned I'd say SC Bloodmage is fully viable if you're ready to consider all the cheesy tools available to you in the game to compensate, given the nerfs, first and foremost Strand of Favor. If you're looking to play without exploits at all, I am personally skeptical that you can prevail against all the challenges that the main game + DLCs lay out before you.

Sorry I'm rushing this, family duties.

[Raven Darkholme]

5 hours ago, xxxxd said:

What about SC? Is that still viable, with relatively high CON, tough passive, lower MIG and draining spells from Concelhaut and Ninagauth?

SC can also use Potion of final stand.

Keep in mind that if you used only a level 7 spell WoD will restore that spell guaranteed, so 3 sec CD is not a problem.

Against Dorudugan you'd have to swallow the bitter apple of having to presummon 3 hostile fire blights with a combo of wearing Magran's chosen belt and hitting yourself with Concelhauts Draining missiles (which is only a level 2 spell so brilliant from SOF has you covered.

It would potentially be possible even without SOF, but you are already limiting yourself by playing a mod that heavily nerfs the class you want to play.

[Not So Clever Hound]

So at some point the valid question becomes: do you want to play a mod that nerfs certain abilities and then potentially compels you to use more side-cheese to be able to Solo well, or rather play the vanilla game with all the class' well-documented cheese? I'm not partial to one or the other - just saying that a lot of Solo viability relies upon some form of cheese anyway. Which makes sense for a party-focused game without a "lone wolf" built-in feature, yet that allows and even promote Solo experience.

[Elric Galad]

4 important changes for the upcoming next version of Balance Polishing Mod :

- Brilliant unerfed to some extant, will restore up to Tier 3/6/9 within 18s cycles. Each tick of Brilliant is basically worth 1 cast of Blood Sacrifice (except it's not random but cycled)

- Added Potion of Enlightenment new item (developped by Noqn) as a mean of making Brilliant less necessary. It is a very expensive consumable that restore 1 ressource every 30s for the duration of the fight. It is meant to make Megaboss battle more manageable without Brilliant. 1 ressource /30s isn't much, starts to matter more with a full party taking it (which is equivalent to a single party member under Brilliant effect).

- Removed Dorudugan nerf. (I will create an archive package for such discarded changes, in case some people still want to use them)

- Big rework on specialist wiz bar Evoker.

My opinion is that Bloodmage is still be very good, but is meant to rely on an insane versatility. Need to spam Thrust of Tattered Veil ? You can. Need to rely on a specific summoned weapon ? You will never run out. Etc...


I'm still hunting various cheese (Strand of Favor is on my list) which might have an impact on Solo play. BPM isn't mean to be balanced for Solo play. Its intention is to help making more or less every party viable. There are probably new combination because of the buffed abilities though. Just be warned that I hadn't Solo in mind.

Edited April 15, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

@Not So Clever Houndbecause of bot/spam/flood control new forum posters need to have their first posts approved by a mod to get them published. Those posts will appear as soon as they get approved with the original timestamp (when the poster hit the save button basically). That can be confusing because it indeed means that they get sorted before the actual end of the thread and forum users might winder how they could miss it before (they didn't, it wasn't there).

This ends after 5 (? I believe) approved posts.

[xxxxd]

4 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

So at some point the valid question becomes: do you want to play a mod that nerfs certain abilities and then potentially compels you to use more side-cheese to be able to Solo well, or rather play the vanilla game with all the class' well-documented cheese? I'm not partial to one or the other - just saying that a lot of Solo viability relies upon some form of cheese anyway. Which makes sense for a party-focused game without a "lone wolf" built-in feature, yet that allows and even promote Solo experience.

Nah, I am not into solo (purely for plot reason, you can't hear your companions' interesting comments in a solo run).

(Also no Triple Crown because I sometimes will regret my plot decisions.)

However, I want to be as little dependent on one particular party composition as possible, so that I can bring any party member I like, if that makes sense.

The 'viable' part means contribute meaningfully to the long-winding boss/megaboss fights and all these tough mob fights scattered acrosss the Deadfire Archipelago.

Edited April 16, 2021 by xxxxd

[Not So Clever Hound]

OK got it  then per @Elric Galad comment you should still have a lot of ways around those long and tough fights with Blood Mage and others with the polishing mod.

And to your last question, in a party I would recommend SC for versatility and power because you can fulfill other key roles with your coterie.  But of course all the aforementioned Multiclasses will still work well - not so much the Assassin Blood Mage though, his inherent deal is more Solo. 

And by the way to the great people behind the Community Patch, Polishing mod etc thanks for all the awesome work!

[xxxxd]

7 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

OK got it  then per @Elric Galad comment you should still have a lot of ways around those long and tough fights with Blood Mage and others with the polishing mod.

And to your last question, in a party I would recommend SC for versatility and power because you can fulfill other key roles with your coterie.  But of course all the aforementioned Multiclasses will still work well - not so much the Assassin Blood Mage though, his inherent deal is more Solo. 

And by the way to the great people behind the Community Patch, Polishing mod etc thanks for all the awesome work!

Thank you for your answer! And indeed kudos to @Elric Galad and CP team for their great work!

[xxxxd]

Come to think of it, maybe I could script most companion's AI (barring Aloth ofc), and let my companions do their own things while use the MC to kill most enemies. 

It might be an interesting sort of semi-solo experience.

[Haplok]

33 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

OK got it  then per @Elric Galad comment you should still have a lot of ways around those long and tough fights with Blood Mage and others with the polishing mod.

And to your last question, in a party I would recommend SC for versatility and power because you can fulfill other key roles with your coterie.  But of course all the aforementioned Multiclasses will still work well - not so much the Assassin Blood Mage though, his inherent deal is more Solo. 

And by the way to the great people behind the Community Patch, Polishing mod etc thanks for all the awesome work!

I think Multiclass characters work very well in a party as well - as long as you want to dabble in more complex character building/working on synergies. Depends on class, really. General rule of thumb: casters are great SC (not necessarily ciphers and chanters, although still work well as SC; anyway hybrids are still very possible for all casters), martials are usually better as MC (monk excels as either MC or SC).

Regarding Assassin/Bloodmage, in general that'd feel like a solo inclined character. However if one wants to play in Turn Based mode, it also works great in a party in that mode at least. A lot more squishy in real-time. The trick is to dissapear (and be virtually untargettable/uninterruptible) and bombard enemies with +25 Accuracy, +4 PEN and +50% Crit damage spells.... or stay invisible with Brilliant Departure and torment enemies with +25 Accuracy CC.

Well, it may not be quite as broken with the Balance Polishing Mod, I guess.

But there is no real clash with party play, since you're not relying on kiting/breaking combat/DoTs ticking, etc.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Haplok

[Elric Galad]

Bloodmage has its use vs Megaboss due to versatility.

Spamming certain spells does help a lot :
- Arcane Dampener vs Auranic
- Thrust of Tattered Veil vs Hauni
- Deleterious Alacrity / Fleet Feet vs Dorudugan for hit & run maybe ?
- Summons for tanking in general

The "new" Enchanter will have a good perk vs Belranga  (I've set Free Action to provide Immunity to Dex Affliction when under the effect of a Dex Inspiration...)