Blood mage / black jacket ideas

[Tomucci]

So I'm looking at building a blood mage / black jacket battlemage. The basic idea is to have lots of utility and combos for cc and dmg while still being able to tank.

Looking for general ideas about weapons and combos, things like morningstar with modal > clear out > aoe spell that lowers fortitude > aoe spell that targets fortitude (if that works, also wondering if instead of clear out, rymigands repulsive visage to trigger disengagement attacks will work with body blows). Same idea with flail / club to follow up with spells that target reflex / will.

Might tank with whispers greatsword with riposte to stay active while I'm recovering, are there other weapons that will work well to do specific things or should I just use a sun and moon flail for the PL buff and reflex nerf modal / club for will nerf modal as my other weapon sets? Also does one handing a weapon with empty offhand give me a accuracy bonus to my spells?

For stats I'm thinking max dex / per / int because I want my buffs and debuffs to last as long as possible and I want low enough recovery to be able to combo effects before they expire, and per obv just maximises my crit chances on the back of all my debuff set ups for attack spells.

For gear the fighter resource gauntlets, DoC armor, helm that adds power level to illusion stuff or aloths helm maybe, prob some HP regen stuff too.

Thoughts? 

[Shai Hulud]

20 hours ago, Tomucci said:

So I'm looking at building a blood mage / black jacket battlemage. The basic idea is to have lots of utility and combos for cc and dmg while still being able to tank.

Looking for general ideas about weapons and combos, things like morningstar with modal > clear out > aoe spell that lowers fortitude > aoe spell that targets fortitude (if that works, also wondering if instead of clear out, rymigands repulsive visage to trigger disengagement attacks will work with body blows). Same idea with flail / club to follow up with spells that target reflex / will.

Might tank with whispers greatsword with riposte to stay active while I'm recovering, are there other weapons that will work well to do specific things or should I just use a sun and moon flail for the PL buff and reflex nerf modal / club for will nerf modal as my other weapon sets? Also does one handing a weapon with empty offhand give me a accuracy bonus to my spells?

For stats I'm thinking max dex / per / int because I want my buffs and debuffs to last as long as possible and I want low enough recovery to be able to combo effects before they expire, and per obv just maximises my crit chances on the back of all my debuff set ups for attack spells.

For gear the fighter resource gauntlets, DoC armor, helm that adds power level to illusion stuff or aloths helm maybe, prob some HP regen stuff too.

Thoughts? 

One-handing does not give a bonus accuracy to spells.

Why black jacket? Black jacket can be interesting with very specific weapons you want to use for some effect and then instantly go back to your damage weapon. I guess that's what you're getting at? For instance I like using Essence Interrupter on enemies about to die to spawn summons, then switch to whatever. Can use Grave Calling to kill vessels. My knowledge of the various weapons is not that extensive unfortunately.

I think a devoted / blood mage specialty pike would probably be better overall, but it depends what you're trying to do I guess. Sun and Moon is overrated IMO.

Stat priority for a battlemage should be per => int => dex => mig => con => res IMO. I would have con around 10, might 8, and dump res and max the other three. Blood mage has enough defensive buffs dumping res doesn't hurt too much. For something a bit more balanced, can keep might con res all in 8 to 12 range, max per and int, put whatever is left in dex. 

[Tomucci]

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

One-handing does not give a bonus accuracy to spells.

Why black jacket? Black jacket can be interesting with very specific weapons you want to use for some effect and then instantly go back to your damage weapon. I guess that's what you're getting at? For instance I like using Essence Interrupter on enemies about to die to spawn summons, then switch to whatever. Can use Grave Calling to kill vessels. My knowledge of the various weapons is not that extensive unfortunately.

I think a devoted / blood mage specialty pike would probably be better overall, but it depends what you're trying to do I guess. Sun and Moon is overrated IMO.

Stat priority for a battlemage should be per => int => dex => mig => con => res IMO. I would have con around 10, might 8, and dump res and max the other three. Blood mage has enough defensive buffs dumping res doesn't hurt too much. For something a bit more balanced, can keep might con res all in 8 to 12 range, max per and int, put whatever is left in dex. 

Shame about the one handed weapons, maybe there's a particular weapon I can use as a stat stick for spell casting.

The idea with black jacket is that I can use morning star / flail / club modals to reduce defensive stats and set up crits with spells (which i plan to do my actual dmg with rather than the weapons). Sun and moon is there for flail modal and the PL buff it gives to fire/ice spells, and I can have all my recovery time covered with a riposte weapon or a sword/shield setup, but I'm wondering if there's other cool combos between wizard spells and weapons.

As for stats I've done pretty close close to what you've described, per / int / dex are maxed, mights been dumped instead of resolve to do less self dmg with blood sacrifice and I dont like dumping res on my characters for rp reasons.

 

[Shai Hulud]

7 hours ago, Tomucci said:

Shame about the one handed weapons, maybe there's a particular weapon I can use as a stat stick for spell casting.

The idea with black jacket is that I can use morning star / flail / club modals to reduce defensive stats and set up crits with spells (which i plan to do my actual dmg with rather than the weapons). Sun and moon is there for flail modal and the PL buff it gives to fire/ice spells, and I can have all my recovery time covered with a riposte weapon or a sword/shield setup, but I'm wondering if there's other cool combos between wizard spells and weapons.

As for stats I've done pretty close close to what you've described, per / int / dex are maxed, mights been dumped instead of resolve to do less self dmg with blood sacrifice and I dont like dumping res on my characters for rp reasons.

 

Ah, so you're wanting a spellcaster that can also tank. I tend to build mage/martial hybrids the other way, mostly casting a few buffs and then whacking things with a stick, vs whacking things with a stick then casting damage / CC spells.

I didn't realize the modals could be insta-switched like that. I mean it makes sense, but for some reason the animation on the modal refreshes every time you switch weapons (like turning it off to on) so I assumed it was actually cycling it off/on, but I checked and with quick switch you can in fact insta switch with the modals active which is pretty cool.

Your concept of quick switching to debuff fort/reflex/will is good, should be pretty effective and net you effective +25 accuracy when landing crucial spells 

You probably want a club too, Kapana Taga is the best, does crush/slash and has good melee enchants (+engagement, flanking immunity etc.), and the club modal does -25 will.

Or you can stick with a morning star, the willbreaker morning star is really good for debuffs, -3 will on hit stacks 5 times, plus the fortitude debuff modal. But if you're doing black jacket might as well have dedicated club for when you need to quickly debuff will. In that case saru sichr may be preferable. You can get it early and it does a lot of corrode DOT. 

And I guess yeah sun and moon is pretty dang good for this purpose of debuffing reflex and acting as a stat stick. I tend to prefer Sungrazer or Ball and Chain for the on-crit effects but if you're mostly casting hard to beat sun and moon.

I made a black jacket / blood mage with stats 8/14/15/19/18/3, if you don't want to dump resolve that much something like 8/11/13/19/18/8 would also work. Maxing dex isn't as big a concern because you can cast deleterious alacrity for a long lasting action speed boost (about 90s with the first stats). And we don't care a ton for resolve because of llengrath's safeguard and fighter bonuses helping out. Probably want at least some CON so can blood sacrifice, but with hylea's bounty and tough you can have a decent health pool even with middling CON.

There are very likely some cool weapon interactions of which I'm unaware. My knowledge in this area is kinda limited. Ones I do know: Bardatto's Luxury's Death and Taxes Hardy inspiration is easily procced on ally unconsciousness and has a long duration. You can proc it with essential/substantial phantoms also, switch to the mace and kill them at near death for the hardy inspiration which lasts around 2 minutes with high int

Also you might want one weapon slot with scordeo's edge and/or scordeo's trophy so you can open with that and get some -recovery time (or if lucky proc blade cascade and extend with wall of draining)

Griffin's Blade is really nice as a stat stick also. Can dual wield that in the offhand and get +10% damage with spells / 5 will or +10% action speed / 5 reflex, plus steadfast on 50% health once per encounter, in main hand use flail/club. Can dual wield it in multiple slots using "copy" function (little white square in top right of weapon icon).

My go to setup would probably be

slot 1: sun and moon + griffin's blade (for debuffs and casting)
slot 2: kapana taga + griffin's blade (for debuffs and casting)
slot 3: saru sichr or willbreaker (for debuffs and damage)
slot 4: scordeo's edge + scordeo's trophy or bardatto's luxury or whatever (for buffs and damage)

Or if you want to be tankier lethandria's devotion is a really nice medium shield that helps healing also. The large shield Akola's Apex Ward is super good but you have to hunt down a huana vegeance ship (wheneena eel's kiss) to get it, which requires tanking your rep with the huana really early (simplest way is kill everyone in takano's estate then hit the ocean), but it is top tier shield for making you tankier without sacrificing much accuracy due to blood rage effect (+10 accuracy on bloodied).

hope this helps

[Tomucci]

On 3/2/2023 at 12:21 AM, Shai Hulud said:

Ah, so you're wanting a spellcaster that can also tank. I tend to build mage/martial hybrids the other way, mostly casting a few buffs and then whacking things with a stick, vs whacking things with a stick then casting damage / CC spells.

I didn't realize the modals could be insta-switched like that. I mean it makes sense, but for some reason the animation on the modal refreshes every time you switch weapons (like turning it off to on) so I assumed it was actually cycling it off/on, but I checked and with quick switch you can in fact insta switch with the modals active which is pretty cool.

Your concept of quick switching to debuff fort/reflex/will is good, should be pretty effective and net you effective +25 accuracy when landing crucial spells 

You probably want a club too, Kapana Taga is the best, does crush/slash and has good melee enchants (+engagement, flanking immunity etc.), and the club modal does -25 will.

Or you can stick with a morning star, the willbreaker morning star is really good for debuffs, -3 will on hit stacks 5 times, plus the fortitude debuff modal. But if you're doing black jacket might as well have dedicated club for when you need to quickly debuff will. In that case saru sichr may be preferable. You can get it early and it does a lot of corrode DOT. 

And I guess yeah sun and moon is pretty dang good for this purpose of debuffing reflex and acting as a stat stick. I tend to prefer Sungrazer or Ball and Chain for the on-crit effects but if you're mostly casting hard to beat sun and moon.

I made a black jacket / blood mage with stats 8/14/15/19/18/3, if you don't want to dump resolve that much something like 8/11/13/19/18/8 would also work. Maxing dex isn't as big a concern because you can cast deleterious alacrity for a long lasting action speed boost (about 90s with the first stats). And we don't care a ton for resolve because of llengrath's safeguard and fighter bonuses helping out. Probably want at least some CON so can blood sacrifice, but with hylea's bounty and tough you can have a decent health pool even with middling CON.

There are very likely some cool weapon interactions of which I'm unaware. My knowledge in this area is kinda limited. Ones I do know: Bardatto's Luxury's Death and Taxes Hardy inspiration is easily procced on ally unconsciousness and has a long duration. You can proc it with essential/substantial phantoms also, switch to the mace and kill them at near death for the hardy inspiration which lasts around 2 minutes with high int

Also you might want one weapon slot with scordeo's edge and/or scordeo's trophy so you can open with that and get some -recovery time (or if lucky proc blade cascade and extend with wall of draining)

Griffin's Blade is really nice as a stat stick also. Can dual wield that in the offhand and get +10% damage with spells / 5 will or +10% action speed / 5 reflex, plus steadfast on 50% health once per encounter, in main hand use flail/club. Can dual wield it in multiple slots using "copy" function (little white square in top right of weapon icon).

My go to setup would probably be

slot 1: sun and moon + griffin's blade (for debuffs and casting)
slot 2: kapana taga + griffin's blade (for debuffs and casting)
slot 3: saru sichr or willbreaker (for debuffs and damage)
slot 4: scordeo's edge + scordeo's trophy or bardatto's luxury or whatever (for buffs and damage)

Or if you want to be tankier lethandria's devotion is a really nice medium shield that helps healing also. The large shield Akola's Apex Ward is super good but you have to hunt down a huana vegeance ship (wheneena eel's kiss) to get it, which requires tanking your rep with the huana really early (simplest way is kill everyone in takano's estate then hit the ocean), but it is top tier shield for making you tankier without sacrificing much accuracy due to blood rage effect (+10 accuracy on bloodied).

hope this helps

Very helpful thank you, had no idea about being able to copy weapons into multiple slots so griffin blade sounds good for offsiding my debuff weapons. I'm guessing/hoping that when duel wielding after I switch weapons the primary hand will always be used first so i can reliably use them for debuffs. That shield maybe with the gladiator sword sounds good for the fourth slot, I'll probably either go with that or whispers greatsword for the riposte depending on how my tanking goes.

For the phantoms I was thinking of using that hp siphon summoned weapon that targets fortitude seeing as how ill be debuffing fortitude regularly.

[Shai Hulud]

4 hours ago, Tomucci said:

Very helpful thank you, had no idea about being able to copy weapons into multiple slots so griffin blade sounds good for offsiding my debuff weapons. I'm guessing/hoping that when duel wielding after I switch weapons the primary hand will always be used first so i can reliably use them for debuffs. That shield maybe with the gladiator sword sounds good for the fourth slot, I'll probably either go with that or whispers greatsword for the riposte depending on how my tanking goes.

For the phantoms I was thinking of using that hp siphon summoned weapon that targets fortitude seeing as how ill be debuffing fortitude regularly.

I'm like 99% sure the primary weapon always attacks first on a quick switch.

Personally I don't like the Gladiator Sword, does give you a deflection bonus but +5 is pretty meagre bonus to trade the extra damage you'd get from better weapons. Haven't used Whispers much but mostly because the game forces a rest when you create the sword. The offensive parry can be cool with some builds though the base damage of the sword is pretty low. I wonder if that procs on disengagement if you're wearing something that gives immune to disengatement attacks like Nomad's Brigandine...also, that would be a cool sword to use on a shattered pillar monk, cast instruments of pain and you'd get 5x length for the cone attack presumably. 

Yeah Concelhaut's Draining Touch is really good for Essential Phantoms but it targets will, which is even better because enemy will defenses are usually lower than fortitude. 

There's also the spell Concelhaut's Draining Missiles from Iron-Clasped Grimoire that siphons with raw damage missiles, and that one targets fortitude. 

Just had a cool thought with the phantoms, thought summon one with draining touch in main hand, kapana taga in off-hand with modal, but it doesn't seem to apply the modal. Oh wells. You might want to have slot 4 be a shield in the offhand so you can cast draining touch on that one and then essential phantom, that way the phantom has more deflection and always attacks with the draining touch weapon. Or leave off-hand empty for the bonus accuracy.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Boeroer]

On 3/4/2023 at 12:09 AM, Shai Hulud said:

Personally I don't like the Gladiator Sword, does give you a deflection bonus but +5 is pretty meagre bonus to trade the extra damage you'd get from better weapons.

Since defenses have increasing returns, +5 all-stacking deflection is quite nice. Given how important PEN is, the +1 PEN enchantment isn't too shabby for damage dealing, too. I played an Unbroken/Streetfighter tank with offensive capability using the Gladiator Sword & Bronlar's Phalanx as main weapons and it was pretty effective. 

On 3/4/2023 at 12:09 AM, Shai Hulud said:

The offensive parry can be cool with some builds though the base damage of the sword is pretty low.

 The base damage of Offensive Parry is different from the base dmg of the AoE attack. That is indeed pretty low, but at the same time it comes with higher PEN and a crushing lash as well as reach (1.2m instead of the normal 0.8 melee weapon range). When using Clear Out it's one of the best options (besides Citzal's Spirit Lance) because every hit in the cone of Cear Out procs a cone of WotEP. You can combine that multihit-attack with Combusting Wounds for example.

On 3/4/2023 at 12:09 AM, Shai Hulud said:

I wonder if that procs on disengagement if you're wearing something that gives immune to disengatement attacks like Nomad's Brigandine...also, that would be a cool sword to use on a shattered pillar monk, cast instruments of pain and you'd get 5x length for the cone attack presumably.

 It is so. You can use Nomad's Brigandine or Gipon Prudensco to generate Offensive Parry from disengagment (immunity means 100% misses of disengagment attacks against you).
Shattered Pillar is nice in that regard because Offensive Parry does generate wounds for a Shattered Pillar. Instruments of Pain doesn't work well because only the initial attack will get more reach (1.2m*6 = 7.2m) but the cone unfortunately remains unchanged in size and position.

 

On 3/4/2023 at 12:09 AM, Shai Hulud said:

Yeah Concelhaut's Draining Touch is really good for Essential Phantoms but it targets will, which is even better because enemy will defenses are usually lower than fortitude. 

 Indeed. Also the wizard can use a club+modal and Miasma in order to lower enemies' Will by 65 points which lead to lots of crits from the phantom. You can also raise the accuracy by +10 by wearing the Helm of the White Void. Since Draining Touch weakens with every hit all attacks with it will get +10 ACC from the helmet. Also works with the phantom.

On 3/4/2023 at 12:09 AM, Shai Hulud said:

Just had a cool thought with the phantoms, thought summon one with draining touch in main hand, kapana taga in off-hand with modal, but it doesn't seem to apply the modal. Oh wells. You might want to have slot 4 be a shield in the offhand so you can cast draining touch on that one and then essential phantom, that way the phantom has more deflection and always attacks with the draining touch weapon. Or leave off-hand empty for the bonus accuracy.

Phantoms cannot use active abilities and unfortunately a weapon modal is an active ability that needs to be turned on/off by the player.
But if you use Kapana Taga as offhand-club (to use with the modal by yourself for your phantom) then your phantom can have +2 engagement. You can turn that engagement into damage by forcing enemies into disengagement attacks via Ryngrim's spells (terrify - best used after Miasma). Your phantom can then dish out disengagment attacks against at least two of those terrified enemies who break its engagement. Draining Touch has the highest base damage of all melee weapons - so it works really well with the bonus ACC and bonus damage of disengagement attacks.
A shield also works (only 1 engagement - but better defense of course). 

 

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Boeroer

[Shai Hulud]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Since defenses have increasing returns, +5 all-stacking deflection is quite nice. Give how important PEN is, the +1 PEN enchantment isn't too shabby for damage dealing, too. I played an Unbroken/Streetfighter tank with offensive capability using the Gladiator Sword & Bronlar's Phalanx as main weapons and it was pretty effective. 

Oh. I thought Sharpened Blade just removed the Corroded Blade and gave the sword normal penetration. If it does give +1 pen compared to other swords (i.e. sharpened blade gives +2pen to how you find it) then I agree that's a pretty good weapon. Also I like Bronlar's Phalanx.

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

 The base damage of Offensive Parry is different from the base dmg of the AoE attack. That is indeed pretty low, but at the same time it comes with higher PEN and a crushing lash as well as reach (1.2m instead of the normal 0.8 melee weapon range). When using Clear Out it's one of the best options (besides Citzal's Spirit Lance) because every hit in the cone of Cear Out procs a cone of WotEP. You can combine that multihit-attack with Combusting Wounds for example.

 It is so. You can use Nomad's Brigandine or Gipon Prudensco to generate Offensive Parry from disengagment (immunity means 100% misses of disengagment attacks against you).
Shattered Pillar is nice in that regard because Offensive Parry does generate wounds for a Shattered Pillar. Instruments of Pain doesn't work well because only the initial attack will get more reach (1.2m*6 = 7.2m) but the cone unfortunately remains unchanged in size and position.

I knew you'd know, should have tagged you lol

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

 

 Indeed. Also the wizard can use a club+modal and Miasma in order to lower enemies' Will by 65 points which lead to lots of crits from the phantom. You can also raise the accuracy by +10 by wearing the Helm of the White Void. Since Draining Touch weakens with every hit all attacks with it will get +10 ACC from the helmet. Also works with the phantom.

Phantoms cannot use active abilities and unfortunately a weapon modal is an active ability that needs to be turned on/off by the player.
But if you use Kapana Taga as offhand-club (to use with the modal by yourself for your phantom) then your phantom can have +2 engagement. You can turn that engagement into damage by forcing enemies into disengagement attacks via Ryngrim's spells (terrify - best used after Miasma). Your phantom can then dish out disengagment attacks against at least two of those terrified enemies who break its engagement. Draining Touch has the highest base damage of all melee weapons - so it works really well with the bonus ACC and bonus damage of disengagement attacks.
A shield also works (only 1 engagement - but better defense of course). 

 

 

Now I want to go back to my phantoms build. Very interesting to stack engagement items and proc disengagement attacks with terrify.