about bloodmagic

A less-ES modifier would help culture non-low-life Blood Magic builds. Only GGG know the numbers but I'd be willing to wager that the majority of characters taking this keystone have significant Maximum Energy Shield values.

If you ask me, LLBM shouldn't even really be a thing, and I suspect GGG aren't thrilled about it either.
Was it Rory who was discussing this on one of those State of Exile podcasts?
The stronger Mortal Conviction is, the more desirable full-life blood magic builds become. Whilst I cannot give personal feeback on this specifically, I have my doubts that things are where they should be.
The only life-based Blood Mages I'm aware of are Flame Totemers, and they're probably better categorized as being hybrid (something else I suspect GGG would like to see more of). Again, I cannot comment on the efficacy here.

I doubt any Aegis users look at the blood magic keystone seriously as it denies them the (potential) use of the Melee Damage on Full Life support gem.

"

Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

A less-ES modifier would help culture non-low-life Blood Magic builds. Only GGG know the numbers but I'd be willing to wager that the majority of characters taking this keystone have significant Maximum Energy Shield values.

If you ask me, LLBM shouldn't even really be a thing, and I suspect GGG aren't thrilled about it either.
Was it Rory who was discussing this on one of those State of Exile podcasts?
The stronger Mortal Conviction is, the more desirable full-life blood magic builds become. Whilst I cannot give personal feeback on this specifically, I have my doubts that things are where they should be.
The only life-based Blood Mages I'm aware of are Flame Totemers, and they're probably better categorized as being hybrid (something else I suspect GGG would like to see more of). Again, I cannot comment on the efficacy here.

I doubt any Aegis users look at the blood magic keystone seriously as it denies them the (potential) use of the Melee Damage on Full Life support gem.

A less modifier won't help culture anymore builds then simply making the bloodmagic keystone more powerful. Most of what BM issues are the fact\reasoning of why take it? Mana is very manageable now for most builds for those that aren't they have found ways to make it so.

Now you have to ask yourself why would people take bloodmagic or at least use it past the leveling phase a bit more. It needs something else as you don't gain anything that you couldn't by investing elsewhere in the tree.

The only people that use melee damage on full life is CI, every other single build will just use melee damage. Might be a niche mana based flicker striker that isn't CI, but that is a very big stretch.

If bloodmagic was made to be as powerful or as desired as acro\phase then i'd say give it the %less ES, but currently it isn't anywhere near that so while it will prevent "abuse" or discourage it, it isn't powerful enough to be widely or even slightly abused in temp leagues.

"

goetzjam wrote:

Most of what BM issues are the fact\reasoning of why take it? Mana is very manageable now for most builds for those that aren't they have found ways to make it so.

Now you have to ask yourself why would people take bloodmagic or at least use it past the leveling phase a bit more. It needs something else as you don't gain anything that you couldn't by investing elsewhere in the tree.

This is my point. Things probably aren't where they should be.

Mortal Conviction is that "something". You give up all mana, you gain all skills being cast from your life pool. How many mana builds achieve > 500 mana regen/s? By way of comparison, I think some guy managed to achieve > 900 hp regen/s, granted that was a long time ago (by PoE standards). 500 hp/s is easy.

Aegis builds do use Melee Damage on Full Life, especially if they also use Bringer of Rain which already has the Melee Physical Damage support built into it (they stack).
But yeah, aside from that it's been a compromised concept for a long time. Melee + Full life = lol.
Definitely don't want to go down that rabbit hole here though.

I post this every time, but the blood magic keystone should have a new stat appended to it. One that would allow reserving life to not be a death sentence for anyone but low-life summoners.

"Mana reservation instead lowers your life recovery rate"

Life recovery covers regeneration, flask recovery and leech. If you reserve 50% "mana" you'll receive half healing. Manage to reserve 99%, you'll pretty much never regain health other than from on-hit. The reasoning is that it's much easier to double your flask recovery, leech or regeneration than it is to double your max life if you want to reserve 50% of it.

With this, mortal conviction could then have "mana reservation applies to life instead of life recovery rate" added to it. This way low-life users can still make use of blood magic to reserve max life. If necessary, including a "25% less mana reserved" on the blood magic keystone then lowering the bonus on mortal conviction to 35/25% would allow for the numbers on how much reservation of life recovery to be fine-tined to be the most fair or workable.

There'd be little difference to low-lifers who would be taking mortal conviction anyway, but for builds that don't rely on ES, this form of BM would be a whole lot better to use. Would also make using the covenant or malachais simula a lot more interesting if you didn't absolutely NEED to take mortal conviction for BM to be useful.

Also, none of this would effect BM gems, so the classic way of reserving life would still be there for those who never go anywhere near the BM keystone and want to reserve all mana and life.

Just had what I feel is a better idea.

1. Change Blood Magic keystone to:
50% of Mana Cost is converted to Life Cost
50% of Mana Reservation is converted to Life Reservation

2. Remove Mortal Conviction entirely

3. Change Blood Magic support gem to:
50% of Mana Cost is converted to Life Cost
50% of Mana Reservation is converted to Life Reservation
150% mana cost multiplier at gemlevel 1
110% MCM at glvl 21

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

Just had what I feel is a better idea.

1. Change Blood Magic keystone to:
50% of Mana Cost is converted to Life Cost
50% of Mana Reservation is converted to Life Reservation

2. Remove Mortal Conviction entirely

3. Change Blood Magic support gem to:
50% of Mana Cost is converted to Life Cost
50% of Mana Reservation is converted to Life Reservation
150% mana cost multiplier at gemlevel 1
110% MCM at glvl 21

Eeeh, it'd work better but be a little lame, you know? It's very build defining to have NO mana. To be able to completely ignore mana as a resource and focus only on life - because your mana stopped existing!

As much as I'd like for all keystones to be useful, they should also have a big impact. Stuff like "removes all mana", "no non-fire damage", "deal no damage with skills yourself", etc are all pretty definitive of what it is your character is meant to be.

I was actually thinking the same thing as Scrotie, except Mortal Conviction would be changed to
"50% of mana cost is converted to life cost;
50% of mana reservation is converted to life reservation;
You have no mana."

Splitting between life and mana would bring entirely new benefits and generate an entirely new flavor, as well as a much needed synergy between BMK (but not MC) and MoM.

Edit: @Wooser, "stuff like "removes all mana", "no non-fire damage", "deal no damage with skills yourself""

Notice all of those are on the Str side of the tree? I feel like a few other keystones have really gotten away from that old design. EB GR and IR each convert some x into some y. Ondar's is just fuckin dumb (for a keystone that doesn't act one bit like a keystone). Meanwhile everything on the Str outter tree is "outright nope" to something.

There is a support gem if you want something to run on blood instead of mana.

Blood magic is right the way it is(not considering mortal conviction).

"

CanHasPants wrote:

I was actually thinking the same thing as Scrotie, except Mortal Conviction would be changed to
"50% of mana cost is converted to life cost;
50% of mana reservation is converted to life reservation;
You have no mana."

Splitting between life and mana would bring entirely new benefits and generate an entirely new flavor, as well as a much needed synergy between BMK (but not MC) and MoM.

Hmm.

Perhaps to replace my earlier suggestion:
1. Mortal Conviction and Blood Magic keystone switch locations (MC in front). Blood Magic keystone text remains same as official current.

2. Mortal Conviction now reads "40% of Mana Costs and Reservations converted to Life Costs and Reservations."

3. Blood Magic support gem now converts 60% of Mana Costs/Reservations to Life. MCM starts at 180% and gets -3% per level, 120% at glvl 21.

@Crackmonster: Thank you. I did not know there was a support gem that allowed me to run something on blood instead of mana. What is this support gem that allows me to run something on blood instead of mana?

Seriously, though, splitting costs simultaneously between mana and life is wholly different than paying fully on life all the time (BMK), paying fully from life some of the time (BMS), and paying fully from mana all of the time (neither). The concept of split costs alone breeds new potential resource management strategies, which translates into new builds.

@Scrotie: I feel that is much more elegant, although I'd contest the exact numbers for MC. Or maybe I wouldn't. I suspect the difference between 40%, 50%, or even the other direction with 60%, each bear significant differences in developing "new" MC's identity. I'm apt to favor 50% out of sheer laziness (which is why it's a good thing I don't make up the numbers ^-^)