Mechanics of duplicate spells (Phantom, Watery Double, Etc.?)

[Shai Hulud]

I'm working on a blood mage summoning build for potential BPM ultimate run and am wondering what the doubles share with the caster, particularly if they share stats? Was considering running with stats like MIG/CON/DEX/PER/INT/WIS 3/15/19/19/19/3, but... do summoned duplicates share stats with the caster? I mean is it going to have my god-awful might and resolve? Or do they get generic stats? 

[Not So Clever Hound]

They all get their own stats, but they will copy your equipped weapons & shield and armor. I think Watery Double and the Living Illusions from the Shroud of the Phantasm behave the same. I think there was a trick where retaliation-on-death items worn by the caster (e.g. Mantle of the Seven Bolt) would carry over the effect on the clones upon their death, but not sure right now.

[Shai Hulud]

29 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

They all get their own stats, but they will copy your equipped weapons & shield and armor. I think Watery Double and the Living Illusions from the Shroud of the Phantasm behave the same. I think there was a trick where retaliation-on-death items worn by the caster (e.g. Mantle of the Seven Bolt) would carry over the effect on the clones upon their death, but not sure right now.

Ha, so I could have explosive suicide phantoms, if I can remember those items. Mantle of the Seven Bolts, yes. There's "Echo of the Godhammer" in One Dozen Stood plate. Cape of the Falling Star. Unstable Coils. Can't recall any others, but probably some of the weapons and shields have those enchants. I never used them because going unconscious is very very bad in solo runs, but I'm pretty sure there are others. Assuming the effects stack one could do pretty significant damage with those.

Oh, the sword Effort has one of those enchants. "Valiant Demise" gives Steadfast for 20 seconds to allies on unconscious and does a full attack on every enemy in 6 feet.

Cape of the Falling Star is in general a better cape. IDK which one does more AOE damage. But that's potentially four AOE attacks, though two are late game items. 

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Another question, maybe a stupid one, how many summons can you have at one time? I've never played a character that summoned more than one thing at a time. Usually I nuke things or beat them up. 

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Also I found some old ultimate runs with blood mage where they dump RES and CON but not MIG. I assume they're using Potions of Final Stand or something because with 3 CON and 18 MIG won't one Blood Sacrifice nearly (or actually) kill you? 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Not So Clever Hound]

9 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Ha, so I could have explosive suicide phantoms, if I can remember those items.

Yup, I think so. If he's still checking the forums, @Raven Darkholme was quite the expert of that strategy IIRC. Could give you thoughts.

9 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

how many summons can you have at one time?

You can have only one active summon ability at a time, not counting your pet if non-Ghostheart Ranger or Familiar if Conjurer. Anything you'll summon on top will refresh or replace your active summon.

If you want to dig deeper into summons, the thread below by @Elric Galad is super helpful, but also Elric improved quite a few summons in BPM but it mostly doesn't touch Wizard summons I think.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/114591-mechanics-the-summoners-tables/#comment-2202629

[Shai Hulud]

29 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Yup, I think so. If he's still checking the forums, @Raven Darkholme was quite the expert of that strategy IIRC. Could give you thoughts.

You can have only one active summon ability at a time, not counting your pet if non-Ghostheart Ranger or Familiar if Conjurer. Anything you'll summon on top will refresh or replace your active summon.

If you want to dig deeper into summons, the thread below by @Elric Galad is super helpful, but also Elric improved quite a few summons in BPM but it mostly doesn't touch Wizard summons I think.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/114591-mechanics-the-summoners-tables/#comment-2202629

Huh. Could have sworn I saw some videos of Pale Shelter with like a dozen summons on the screen, but I just looked up his run and it's actually just one summon spell, the instruments of death (3 summons), plus the chanter phrase that summons an endless stream of skeletons. So he has like 7 or 8 skeletons at a given time and 3 weapons. 

Maybe I should do a loremaster. I did find a skaen celebrant at Deadlight during Blow the Man Down. There is another one in the secret dock but that group is pretty nasty. BUT you can explode them with the barrel. BUT to explode all of them or nearly all of them you need sparkcrackers. BUT Vela runs after sparkcrackers and gets blown up unless your timing is absolutely perfect. And because of Skaen you can't see where all the characters are so I'm not sure it's even possible to kill the ones you want to kill and leave just the celebrant, for example. 

The spellblade down there also has some good low level spells (spirit shield and concelhaut's staff mainly, but 8 others also). I don't think I can do this encounter right now though (even though it is only available during blow the man down)... only have two withdraw scrolls. I did steal escape from the celebrant so he is definitely skaen, but I'm like 1 for 30. Keep blowing Vela up, or blowing everyone up, or leaving 4 to 5 alive and I get wrecked if there's more than two. 

Also blood sacrifice seems to be bugged in BPM. Won't really be an issue once you steal enough spells but it makes stealing them at the moment extremely difficult. The way the spell is supposed to work is you get a variable amount of damage, low, medium, or high, and then you get a spell back corresponding to that damage (low level, mid level, high level). But if you are only missing a level 4 spell you should always get the level 4 spell back. That's how it worked in vanilla anyway, unless my memory is really, really bad. Now it seems to roll for the damage amount and if it doesn't correspond to "medium" you don't get the level 4 spell back, so I have to cast blood sacrifice I think twice on average per cast of minor grimoire imprint. That can't be how the ability is meant to work. It is bad enough with the healing malus and increased recovery but having to cast multiple times to get one spell back is ridiculous.

[Elric Galad]

45 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

You can have only one active summon ability at a time, not counting [...] Familiar if Conjurer. 

Note that this part only works with BPM.

Other exceptions are :
- Secondary skeletons from Chanter Skeletons invocation upgrade
- Secondary drake from Chanter Drake invocation upgrade
- Skeletons from Chanter skeleton phrase

45 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

If you want to dig deeper into summons, the thread below by @Elric Galad is super helpful, but also Elric improved quite a few summons in BPM but it mostly doesn't touch Wizard summons I think.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/114591-mechanics-the-summoners-tables/#comment-2202629

I didn't touch them. Touched Water Clone because the IA was broken and he wasn't able to use his spell. So I made it longer to compensate (I have no idea how to fix the IA).

16 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

Also blood sacrifice seems to be bugged in BPM. Won't really be an issue once you steal enough spells but it makes stealing them at the moment extremely difficult. The way the spell is supposed to work is you get a variable amount of damage, low, medium, or high, and then you get a spell back corresponding to that damage (low level, mid level, high level). But if you are only missing a level 4 spell you should always get the level 4 spell back. That's how it worked in vanilla anyway, unless my memory is really, really bad. Now it seems to roll for the damage amount and if it doesn't correspond to "medium" you don't get the level 4 spell back, so I have to cast blood sacrifice I think twice on average per cast of minor grimoire imprint. That can't be how the ability is meant to work. It is bad enough with the healing malus and increased recovery but having to cast multiple times to get one spell back is ridiculous.

This is not a bug, it is an intended nerf. Minor is up to 3, Medium up to 6 and Major up to 9.
When Noqn make the 3 blood sacrifice activable separately he remarked the displayed levels was 3, 6, 9 and this was most likely what the devs intended. But somehow it ended being 4,7,9 in vanilla.

This change is a small nerf and a way to harmonize with BPM Brilliant Cycle, which is 3,6,9. 

[Shai Hulud]

45 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Note that this part only works with BPM.

Other exceptions are :
- Secondary skeletons from Chanter Skeletons invocation upgrade
- Secondary drake from Chanter Drake invocation upgrade
- Skeletons from Chanter skeleton phrase

I didn't touch them. Touched Water Clone because the IA was broken and he wasn't able to use his spell. So I made it longer to compensate (I have no idea how to fix the IA).

This is not a bug, it is an intended nerf. Minor is up to 3, Medium up to 6 and Major up to 9.
When Noqn make the 3 blood sacrifice activable separately he remarked the displayed levels was 3, 6, 9 and this was most likely what the devs intended. But somehow it ended being 4,7,9 in vanilla.

This change is a small nerf and a way to harmonize with BPM Brilliant Cycle, which is 3,6,9. 

I recently played a blood mage in vanilla, using lots of grimoire imprints and I'm pretty sure I always got back a level X spell if that was all I was missing. 

Yeah I just removed the mods and loaded a fight, toggled god mode for testing, and tried casting one single spell from every tier and blood sacrifice always returns exactly the missing spell.

Yes, if you're missing one (or more) spells from levels 1 to 4, 5 to 7, and 8 to 9, and I'm missing a L6 but not 5 or 7, there's a 1 in 3 chance I get back the level 6 spell, but if I'm only missing a level 6 spell, the chance I get back a level 6 spell should be 100%, and it IS 100% in vanilla. 

I don't care about 3/6/9 vs 4/7/9, the bug is that I'm taking damage from blood sacrifice and getting no spells back. Right now I just have 1 to 4, so with your new division that's two tiers of spells and spell damage. Okay, sure. But there is always a 50% chance I get back a spell from tier 4 when that is the only level that I've cast from. That cannot be the intended mechanic. If it is, then the original blood sacrifice is "bugged" to give back spell levels you actually need instead of rolling randomly for it.

I sometimes take four to five blood sacrifices to get back ONE spell, and meanwhile I'm just taking damage and negating healing for no reason! You really intended this or did I not communicate the issue well? And it is a *huge* nerf if blood sacrifice is indeed functioning as you intended. Going from always getting a spell back to 50% is really bad, and at high levels it would drop to 33.33% chance. This on top of the increased recovery and healing malus. 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Elric Galad]

6 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

I recently played a blood mage in vanilla, using lots of grimoire imprints and I'm pretty sure I always got back a level X spell if that was all I was missing. 

Yeah I just removed the mods and loaded a fight, toggled god mode for testing, and tried casting one single spell from every tier and blood sacrifice always returns exactly the missing spell.

Yes, if you're missing one (or more) spells from levels 1 to 4, 5 to 7, and 8 to 9, and I'm missing a L6 but not 5 or 7, there's a 1 in 3 chance I get back the level 6 spell, but if I'm only missing a level 6 spell, the chance I get back a level 6 spell should be 100%, and it IS 100% in vanilla. 

I don't care about 3/6/9 vs 4/7/9, the bug is that I'm taking damage from blood sacrifice and getting no spells back. Right now I just have 1 to 4, so with your new division that's two tiers of spells and spell damage. Okay, sure. But there is always a 50% chance I get back a spell from tier 4 when that is the only level that I've cast from. That cannot be the intended mechanic. If it is, then the original blood sacrifice is "bugged" to give back spell levels you actually need instead of rolling randomly for it.

I sometimes take four to five blood sacrifices to get back ONE spell, and meanwhile I'm just taking damage and negating healing for no reason! You really intended this or did I not communicate the issue well? And it is a *huge* nerf if blood sacrifice is indeed functioning as you intended. Going from always getting a spell back to 50% is really bad, and at high levels it would drop to 33.33% chance. This on top of the increased recovery and healing malus. 

OK, your request is perfectly clear.

Based on the assumption that Blood Sacrifice always restores a spell in Vanilla, your request is that it should always restore a spell in BPM.

I'm just dubious that Blood Sacrifice actually always restores a spell in Vanilla. This wasn't my understanding and the actual modification should not have caused this divergence between the Vanilla and BPM. But I don't pretend to fully understand and I possibly made a mistake. I did a lot of testing with BPM Brilliant which has similar properties, but I might have overlooked something. 

 

I will test it by spending a lvl 5+ spell slot and using Blood Sacrifice, and repeat it several time with vanilla just to be be sure. Either it should work 66% of time (my understanding) or 100% of time (your understanding and testing) (for spell lvl 8+, it should work only 33% of time)

Any third party tester will be welcome for sure  
 

But I agree that if Blood Sacrifice always restores a spell in Vanilla, it should always restore a spell in BPM. 

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Any third party tester will be welcome for sure  

I deactivated all my mods (CP & BPM) and BS does not restores a spell all the time, at least not in my game. I only cast lvl 9 spells and I was only getting the spell back every 3-4 BS which is in line with the 33% probability.

Edited January 20, 2023 by Not So Clever Hound

[Shai Hulud]

7 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I deactivated all my mods (CP & BPM) and BS does not restores a spell all the time, at least not in my game. I only cast lvl 9 spells and I was only getting the spell back every 3-4 BS which is in line with the 33% probability.

Damn. You're (mostly) correct. I just tested it extensively, was going to post a video showing it always gives a spell, but I just ran good when I tested it last night.

If you are missing a level 1 to level 4 spell and cast blood sacrifice, you always get back a spell. But this doesn't happen for level 5+, I didn't do enough to get a sample size but it is probably 33.33% if you have all 9 spell levels, 50% if you have up to 7. I didn't catch this until now because the spell I spammed the most was minor grimoire imprint, and that was always restored with one blood sacrifice. By the time I was casting higher level spells I typically had brilliant, plus Wael to make it harder to track. 

My bad Elric. I guess blood sacrifice is working more or less the same as vanilla, though it seems weird to me the description doesn't say there's a *chance* you get a spell back, it says "variable raw damage to self to restore a proportional level wizard spell resource". I mean I get now it first does the damage, then checks if there's a missing spell in that proportional level, then restores if missing, if not, damages you and does nothing. Would make more sense (to me at least) if the programming first checked for what was missing, then rolled for damage if missing multiple spell tiers, otherwise does the damage corresponding to whatever tier you're missing and gives you that back.

One thing to note about changing from 4/7/9 to 3/6/9, though, it affects the probability rolls significantly when your highest spell level is either 4 (goes from 100% to 50%) or 7 (1 to 4 go from 100% to mixed 100% / 50% and 5 to 7 go from 50% to mixed 50% / 33%). I'm guessing, if the *sometimes return a spell* behavior is intentional, that the devs did 4,7,9 because level 7 is where multiclass caps and multiclass blood mage plays a lot better when your highest level spell comes back 50% of the time instead of 33%. And they made the level 8 to 9 spells hardest to get back. That also corresponds with doing the most damage. With BPM you get high tier damage on L7 instead of medium tier, and you get medium tier for L4 instead of low tier. 

One more thing, I'm not sure if blood mage is even worth using anymore unless you're solo. You can't reliably get back spells, and I guess you couldn't in vanilla either, but in vanilla there's no recovery penalty or healing malus so you can spam the sacrifice to get back the spells you need. I agree that is a little OP (though nothing compared to grimoire imprints), but having to cast on average 3 times for one level 7 to 9 spell means you're going to basically always have the severe healing malus if you mostly cast, and meanwhile half the enemies have +15 accuracy vs all your defenses. And you can't empower, which in vanilla isn't that big a thing but BPM buffs empower, right? So I need a L8 spell, I might have to cast eight or nine times with bad luck, and with the inability to heal that is just going to kill me. An ultimate run may actually be impossible, now. And I know, not intended for that, but to me it's kind of sad. 

Think I might just remove the blood sacrifice change, if I knew how to do that...

The healing malus is a good nerf, OR the recovery time, but both, especially combined with 4/7/9 to 3/6/9 make the skill almost unusable because of how random spell restoration is for L4+ spells. It also encourages multiclass, because again, the high tier spells are impossible to get back reliably without taking massive massive damage that you can't heal. 

One could maybe work around it with an infinite supply of healing potions and patience. Blood sacrifice, miss, wait 6 seconds, heal self, blood sacrifice, miss, wait 6 seconds, heal self, blood sacrifice, miss, wait 6 seconds, heal self, blood sacrifice, miss, wait 6 seconds, heal self, etc. 

Honestly those potions of enlightenment seem way better than blood sacrifice now. Yeah it takes 30 seconds for a spell but 3 casts of blood sacrifice with intermittent healing takes just as long, and sometimes you'll need more casts than that (sometimes less, but in an iron run it's only the more that matters). But with potions of enlightenment, you can actually do things while waiting for class resources to replenish and aren't taking massive damage in the process. 

Edited January 21, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Not So Clever Hound]

7 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Think I might just remove the blood sacrifice change, if I knew how to do that...

Just delete this dude right here, mate 

7 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

One more thing, I'm not sure if blood mage is even worth using anymore unless you're solo.

Great reading your POV around the spell tiers and probability of getting something back. Obviously this is more aimed at Elric, but wanted to share a couple thoughts. Agree Blood Sacrifice is a lot trickier, but:

1) in "normal" gaming, you can build around reliably using only Ability Tier 1-3 spells (a lot of which are fantastic) for replenishment for most fights and, when you want to go nova to finish a fight in apotheosis, use your AT 4-9 spells and work around less/no replenishment. 

2) you can use the BPM Moon Godlike passive + Voidward to cut raw damage from BS by almost 50% (-25% + -25%). If you use BS a lot, it's like getting a truckload of free healing back. And also, if you invest in CON, you will get more uses of BS, since Elric buffed CON +% HP.

Edited January 21, 2023 by Not So Clever Hound

[Shai Hulud]

50 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Just delete this dude right here, mate 

Great reading your POV around the spell tiers and probability of getting something back. Obviously this is more aimed at Elric, but wanted to share a couple thoughts. Agree Blood Sacrifice is a lot trickier, but:

1) in "normal" gaming, you can build around reliably using only Ability Tier 1-3 spells (a lot of which are fantastic) for replenishment for most fights and, when you want to go nova to finish a fight in apotheosis, use your AT 4-9 spells and work around less/no replenishment. 

2) you can use the BPM Moon Godlike passive + Voidward to cut raw damage from BS by almost 50% (-25% + -25%). If you use BS a lot, it's like getting a truckload of free healing back. And also, if you invest in CON, you will get more uses of BS, since Elric buffed CON +% HP.

Thanks for showing me where the file is. Still unsure if I should delete it. I prefer the original but it kind of defeats the purpose of an ultimate run if I alter the mod so idk. May just reroll a normal wizard and chug potions of enlightenment. They last through entire fight so I only need them in a handful of encounters to steal certain spells, maybe a dozen if I'm greedy and want more wizard spells that aren't necessary to the build. But really Beina encounter, Biakara, Eamund the Fox and Katrenn give me everything I want.

Nornal wizard with potions of enlightenment looks better than blood mage in bpm unless it is a tanky build centered around low level spells like your armored arcanist. 

Voidward says -25% raw. So BPM modified godlikes to make them better and moon godlike which generally sucks has a random defense against raw damage? I mean that would help a bit but I'm still thinking potions of enlightenment are a better option. Assuming they aren't hard to get or something. Like idk if each place only stocks one or something like that. They're only 800 to craft but Vithrack brains are kinda rare.

Investing in CON is not enough for early encounters at least. I actually tried setting all my stats to 35 and I still can't do the secret room encounter. I mean I can kill them easily enough but leaving just the celebrant alive is quite hard and the other guys tend to kill me pretty fast. Barrel explosion sets them all bloodied or worse so it is actually pretty rough for a L7 blood mage. They do massive damage and I'm doing massive self damage and can't heal and rolling for minor grimoife imprint injects so much randomness into this encounter I don't think a blood mage can do it at L7 with all the trials. Not while stealing escape. It is 1/6 to steal that so on average that is 12 casts of minor grimoire imprint. I mean I've done it a few times but the probability of a wipe is quite high unless I can figure out how to consistently kill everyone except the celebrant immediately. He doesn't really do damaging attacks but buffs the hell out of everyone else. Stealing from both the celebrant and the 10 spells the spellblade has is not realistic. He does do damage and I don't have enough withdraw scrolls to grind it out. The celebrant won't attack vela unless he gets within 8m then he may use escape. 

Once I get escape and withdraw I can chug a potion of enlightenment and zip around until I get back minor grimoire imprint. Could script it even. And once I steal shadowing beyond it is easy to steal spells, so the smart thing to do would be run with a normal wizard but buy some potions of enlightenment before any combat because a wizard can't reliably steal escape without it. 

OR I can stay blood mage, it is useful for this specific encounter since I haven't picked up any enlightenment potions and this celebrant is only available during blow the man down, which is best done right after maje for pathing reasons, but dropping by neketaka first wouldn't set me back so much I couldn't finish the eothas challenge. 

Hmm. Working right now but next time I play ill see if I can figure out that encounter as is, if not I think start over with a regular wizard and do neketaka quests first, then go to deadlight, dunnage, crookspur, hasongo. Can definitely squeeze that in but won't be able to do poko kahara before. Hmm. Reaching L16 by beina is also tricky. 

Ah I'm rambling. I'll figure it out eventually with your help 

[Elric Galad]

Right, I'm not dicarding your critic, but I won't make a change based on a single feedback. What I could be considering is reducing Blood Sacrifice recovery to 2s, but right now I don't plan to make a BPM upgrade anyway (no critical issue identified, although I keep a list of minor ones - mostly display).

All things considered, it's probably a good thing that Blood Mage can't pretend to be a strict upgrade of Wizard anymore.

Few observations :

- Consider also DEX. Blood Mage is indeed meant to be uber versatile more than anything, and DEX helps this goal for a potentially unlimited ressource class (which other wizs are not).

- Potion of Enlightenment and Blood Sacrifice aren't mutually exclusive. For the fights where you want to afford the Potion, Blodd Mage is really great. You could have Blood Sacrifice renew your low tier spells (which include great instant self buffs) while the Potion tick renew the high level one. With the Potion only, you will really have to use only 1 spell every 30s.

- several possible multiclass had their self-healing enhanced, especially Fighters (Actual constant recovery) and Barbarian (Defiance). I had good feedback from a BPM Blood Mage / Corpse Eater user if I remember well. 

- 33% renew on Tier 7 is important to lower the convenience of infinite Walls of Draining.

[NotDumbEnough]

I still think Blood Wizard is pretty strong. PoE2 is generally easy enough that I don't really need to use either Blood Sacrifice or Empower for most fights, so subclass downsides are not really existent. In fights where you do need resource replenishment, the ability to repeatedly use Blood Sacrifice is much better than a one off Empower I think.

[Shai Hulud]

8 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Right, I'm not dicarding your critic, but I won't make a change based on a single feedback. What I could be considering is reducing Blood Sacrifice recovery to 2s, but right now I don't plan to make a BPM upgrade anyway (no critical issue identified, although I keep a list of minor ones - mostly display).

All things considered, it's probably a good thing that Blood Mage can't pretend to be a strict upgrade of Wizard anymore.

Few observations :

- Consider also DEX. Blood Mage is indeed meant to be uber versatile more than anything, and DEX helps this goal for a potentially unlimited ressource class (which other wizs are not).

- Potion of Enlightenment and Blood Sacrifice aren't mutually exclusive. For the fights where you want to afford the Potion, Blodd Mage is really great. You could have Blood Sacrifice renew your low tier spells (which include great instant self buffs) while the Potion tick renew the high level one. With the Potion only, you will really have to use only 1 spell every 30s.

- several possible multiclass had their self-healing enhanced, especially Fighters (Actual constant recovery) and Barbarian (Defiance). I had good feedback from a BPM Blood Mage / Corpse Eater user if I remember well. 

- 33% renew on Tier 7 is important to lower the convenience of infinite Walls of Draining.

Literally never use wall of draining, you could also nerf that spell rather than the whole tier for every blood mage / x combo. Well I see you did nerf that spell. Nerf it harder then, IDK. 

Yeah of course I can use both the potion and blood sacrifice. I'm still on the fence and haven't done enough playtesting but I think blood sacrifice may be borderline unusable at low levels for this specific build at least, and the "borderline" question is likely outweighed by the +15 enemy accuracy malus which is pretty serious at lower levels. If I just avoided combat until high levels blood mage would probably still be better. 

Money is not hard to come by so whatever the potions cost it doesn't really matter, I tend to have over a million dollars halfway through the game. 

I agree about DEX which is why I have it at 19 base. That makes blood sacrifice cast time .6, recovery 2.4, for 3 seconds per cast if I spam as fast as possible and don't heal in between. So that's 6 seconds on average to regain a level 4 to 7 spell and 9 seconds on average to regain a level 8+, but I need to heal in between and just drinking a healing potion takes 4.4 seconds at the moment. Plus 6 seconds to wait out the -100% healing malus. I need to heal roughly every one to two blood sacrifice since I'm meanwhile being attacked. One cycle of cast spell, blood sacrifice, wait, heal, takes on average say 5 seconds for the spell, 3 seconds for blood sacrifice, 6 second wait (can trim to 5 and start drinking potion early), 4.4 seconds to drink a potion, for a total of roughly 17.5 seconds per cycle. With two cycles to regain a level 4 spell on average, that's 35 seconds. Also sometimes it will take much more than the average cast to regain a spell, and that is what matters on iron runs. It's just too random. I'll try moon godlike with voidward, maybe that helps enough I won't have to drink as many potions but this nerf is pretty serious especially for more difficult runs (solo, POTD upscaled, etc.). 

I get the larger audience doesn't play on those difficulties but some of us do, and some of us post videos of our playthroughs so I'd hope you'd at least give some consideration to feedback from people like me. 

IMO, drop the recovery time OR remove the healing malus (or at least reduce it to -50%). My 2 cents.

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I still think Blood Wizard is pretty strong. PoE2 is generally easy enough that I don't really need to use either Blood Sacrifice or Empower for most fights, so subclass downsides are not really existent. In fights where you do need resource replenishment, the ability to repeatedly use Blood Sacrifice is much better than a one off Empower I think.

What difficulty do you play? Do you have a party? Do you have to babysit Vela, etc.? The ability to repeatedly use blood sacrifice USED to be much better than a one off Empower, but now to get back a spell you want can take ages and you take more damage from the -100% healing. And we have alternative sources of resource replenishment now with Potions of Enlightenment which have zero downsides besides money, which is not really a downside.

[Elric Galad]

I don't think I would remove the healing cut or recovery time, but I've been thinking about 2 actually unfair traits of Blood Sacrifice (that are hidden by its OPness in vanilla) :

- The raw damages do have a PL scaling and a level scaling, making it quaadratic and making PL bonus kind of detrimemtal. I'm thinking about cutting the PL scaling. 

- Encapsulated randomness. When you finally get the major version of Blood Sacrifice (up to tier 9) and loose the most hp, you might end up regenerating a tier 1 spell anyway. Health loss should be IMHO either proportional to the actually regenerated tier (technically impossible to mod) or fixed. So I'm leaning to set health loss to always average, making it predictable AND FREAKING DISPLAYED (godd side effect).

Both changes would be fair and a slight compensation for my nerfs I think. 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Elric Galad

[Not So Clever Hound]

That would be awesome @Elric Galad

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

I don't think I would remove the healing cut or recovery time, but I've been thinking about 2 actually unfair traits of Blood Sacrifice (that are hidden by its OPness in vanilla) :

- The raw damages do have a PL scaling and a level scaling, making it quaadratic and making PL bonus kind of detrimemtal. I'm thinking about cutting the PL scaling. 

- Encapsulated randomness. When you finally get the major version of Blood Sacrifice (up to tier 9) and loose the most hp, you might end up regenerating a tier 1 spell anyway. Health loss should be IMHO either proportional to the actually regenerated tier (technically impossible to mod) or fixed. So I'm leaning to set health loss to always average, making it predictable AND FREAKING DISPLAYED (godd side effect).

Both changes would be fair and a slight compensation for my nerfs I think. 

Sounds good. Always hated it when you take major damage and get back a level 1 spell (or worse, nothing, if you haven't used low level spells). Unfortunate the damage can't be correlated to the level regained though.

Something I was wondering though, the -100% healing debuff seems to override my other healing modifiers, e.g. dawnstar's +50% healing, might physickers belt etc. I don't seem to heal at all after a blood sacrifice, is that intentional? I'd assumed -100% + 50% = -50% healing but it seems to be -100%. 

Also with more practice I'm finding the blood sacrifice ability is still useful in combat, though it requires more planning, can't be spammed etc. Maybe that's a good thing IDK, makes the battles drag on longer that's for sure. I expect I'll be buying a lot of potions of enlightenment.

[Elric Galad]

For memory, it would lead to a fixed amount of (10 + 2 x character level) x (1 + Might bonus) for blood sacrifice.
So 50hp at max level at 10 MIG.

46 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

Something I was wondering though, the -100% healing debuff seems to override my other healing modifiers, e.g. dawnstar's +50% healing, might physickers belt etc. I don't seem to heal at all after a blood sacrifice, is that intentional? I'd assumed -100% + 50% = -50% healing but it seems to be -100%. 

The idea is to cut healing entirely and it is what it does. A -100% penalty always negates every bonus. It's a double inversion thingy and quite complicated to explain, although there might be another topic where it is explained.

Basically penalties act multiplicatively with bonus up to a point where they compensate each other.
-25% negates 33% bonus
-50% negates 100% bonus
-75% negates 300% bonus
-100% negates every bonus  

So if you have 150% bonus and -50% malus, the malus negates 100% bonus and you end up with a 50% bonus.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Elric Galad

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

For memory, it would lead to a fixed amount of (10 + 2 x character level) x (1 + Might bonus) for blood sacrifice.
So 50hp at max level at 10 MIG.

The idea is to cut healing entirely and it is what it does. A -100% penalty always negates every bonus. It's a double inversion thingy and quite complicated to explain, although there might be another topic where it is explained.

Basically penalties act multiplicatively with bonus up to a point where they compensate each other.
-25% negates 33% bonus
-50% negates 100% bonus
-75% negates 300% bonus
-100% negates every bonus  

So if you have 150% bonus and -50% malus, the malus negates 100% bonus and you end up with a 50% bonus.

Strange, but thanks for explaining.

BTW, small bug, probably a bug in vanilla too to be fair, just noticed Concelhaut's Draining Touch does not benefit from spirit of decay. The spell itself is keyworded acid, but it summons a Concelhaut's Draining Touch weapon that has no keywords but does corrode damage and the penetration is not affected, which I'm pretty sure this time is actually unintentional since description says "+1 penetration with decay/acid/corrode weapon attacks"

Huh. Just checked and Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon doesn't benefit either. Neither does Kalakoth's Minor Blights - Corrode. I have Spirit of Flame also and the flame blight gets 9 penetration and the corrode blight 8 penetration, so it definitely seems like a general problem with spirit of decay.

Hmm. I'll pull up another save with more and higher level spells to see if it is universal. Okay I checked all the spells I had

Necrotic Lance gets +1
Noxious Burst gets +1
Minoletta's Missile Salvo gets +1
Death Ring gets +1

Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon does not get +1
Concelhaut's Draining Touch does not get +1
Kalakoth's Minor Blights - corrode does not get +1
Concelhaut's Corrosive Skin does get +1

And I checked the other elemental spells that I had, and they all seemed to get their respective penetration bonuses besides corrode. Except Wall of Many Colors where none of the spells get bonus penetration, but perhaps that is intentional. 

I'll compare with vanilla now... yep the same spells are affected in vanilla, so it's a universal bug I guess. 
  

Edited January 23, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

Strange, but thanks for explaining.

BTW, small bug, probably a bug in vanilla too to be fair, just noticed Concelhaut's Draining Touch does not benefit from spirit of decay. The spell itself is keyworded acid, but it summons a Concelhaut's Draining Touch weapon that has no keywords but does corrode damage and the penetration is not affected, which I'm pretty sure this time is actually unintentional since description says "+1 penetration with decay/acid/corrode weapon attacks"

Huh. Just checked and Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon doesn't benefit either. Neither does Kalakoth's Minor Blights - Corrode. I have Spirit of Flame also and the flame blight gets 9 penetration and the corrode blight 8 penetration, so it definitely seems like a general problem with spirit of decay.

Hmm. I'll pull up another save with more and higher level spells to see if it is universal. Okay I checked all the spells I had

Necrotic Lance gets +1
Noxious Burst gets +1
Minoletta's Missile Salvo gets +1
Death Ring gets +1

Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon does not get +1
Concelhaut's Draining Touch does not get +1
Kalakoth's Minor Blights - corrode does not get +1
Concelhaut's Corrosive Skin does get +1

Noted, should be addressed for next version.

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

 Except Wall of Many Colors where none of the spells get bonus penetration, but perhaps that is intentional.   

I see no valid reason for Wall of Many Colors to be an exception (of course, each individual talent has less value here).

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Noted, should be addressed for next version.

I see no valid reason for Wall of Many Colors to be an exception (of course, each individual talent has less value here).

Yeah you are right about Wall of Many Colors...I was thinking since I couldn't find any other bugged fire/frost/electric spells (only checked wizard though) that maybe it was intentional. Also thought maybe hazard spells were treated differently but I checked Wall of Flames and it gets +1, so logically Wall of Many Colors elemental damage should get bonus penetration also.

[Not So Clever Hound]

@Shai Hulud @Elric Galad the plot thickens... after my own testing in combat just now (CP + latest BPM enabled):

My Corrosive Siphon DOES get Spirit of Decay +Pen

My Wall of Flame does NOT get Scion of Flame +Pen, nor does Wall of Many Colors

I was wondering if funny business was about stolen spells, my spells above weren't stolen. So I stole Minoletta's Minor Missiles > it benefits from Spirit of Decay, so it's not about stolen spells.

EDIT: to be clear on Wall of Flame, if you right click on the ability to read the description and hover on the PEN number, it will mention Scion of Flame +1pen, but the tooltip for Wall spells is garbage anyway. In the combat log, I only get base pen + ability level + wizard power level + crit modifier if applicable.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Not So Clever Hound

[Shai Hulud]

54 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

@Shai Hulud @Elric Galad the plot thickens... after my own testing just now (CP + latest BPM enabled):

My Corrosive Siphon DOES get Spirit of Decay +Pen

My Wall of Flame does NOT get Scion of Flame +Pen, nor does Wall of Many Colors

I was wondering if funny business was about stolen spells, my spells above weren't stolen. So I stole Minoletta's Minor Missiles > it benefits from Spirit of Decay, so it's not about stolen spells.

The only corrode spell I'd stolen was corrosive siphon. Nothing funny about wall of flame. I also loaded a different save and tried memorizing corrosive siphon and it was the same (also corrosive skin and draining touch and kalakoth's minor blights - corrode). I was level 8 when I picked spirit of decay and noticed this. 

Anyway after seeing your different results I went back to a save before I had minor grimoire imprint and consoled myself up to level 8. I memorized wall of flame and corrosive siphon and picked scion of flame and spirit of decay. As you can see, I get bonus on wall of flame but not corrosive siphon. I also tried save / reloading because that makes a difference with certain things but it didn't here. Maybe the Steam and GOG versions are slightly different? I'm using Steam.

What penetration do you have for wall of flame and corrosive siphon at L8? Maybe the display text is wrong but the values are the same? I don't understand why I get +1.5 ability level to wall of flame but corrosive siphon says "7 base, +.5 ability level, +.5 wizard power level"

OH I forgot to check Minoletta's Minor Missiles! I just did and mine does NOT benefit from spirit of decay. Just says "7 base, +.8 wizard power level". I also tried memorizing it from the earlier save. 

So for me all of these spells do not benefit from spirit of decay

Minoletta's Minor Missiles
Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon
Concelhaut's Draining Touch
Kalakoth's Minor Blights
Wall of Many Colors (though none of the elemental benefits work on this one)
Concelhaut's Corrosive Skin

I am using Community Patch 2.0.4 and BPM 2.4.1, not that I think that matters because I got same results with the mods turned off.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Not So Clever Hound]

10 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

I'm using Steam.

Me too! This is so weird. I just tested Draining Touch again and I do benefit from Spirit of Decay - another discrepancy vs. your game.

10 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

I don't understand why I get +1.5 ability level to wall of flame but corrosive siphon says "7 base, +.5 ability level, +.5 wizard power level"

Base Pen = usually 7 or 9 depending on the spell, it is the same as the PEN you see if you look at the spell in your character ability sheet.

Ability level = Ability level-dependent PEN scaling of 0.5pen per ability level above 1. so Siphon gets .5 as 1 level above level 1, Wall of flame gets 1.5 as 3 levels above. This is the scaling that makes higher-level abilities hit harder than low level ones.

Wizard Power level = Wizard power level-dependent PEN scaling of .25 per wizard power level above the ability tier level. At level 8, you have a power level of 4 (IV), which is 2 power levels above the ability tier of Corrosive Siphon (II) so you get 2*0.25=0.5 extra PEN, that will increase as you gain more power levels. This scaling is meant to keep lower level abilities relevant in the late game, even if because of Ability-level scaling, higher level abilities will often hit harder.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Not So Clever Hound