Bloodlust reliability as a support gem against Maim/Multistrike

Hello.

I am currently debating between using Bloodlust support or Multistrike/Maim on my weapon. I have gloves with an explicit Level 16 Chance to Bleed modifier being slotted with Frenzy which is regularly used and this alongside a sword passive for 25% more Bleed chance. However, I do not know my actual bleed uptime against bosses. On the other hand, Maim is almost always 100% up even though I already have a debuffing Totem. Finally, Multistrike gives me the most DPS increase according to Path of Building but my main issue with Multistrike is that it changes targets when there are other possible targets in an area though I do not think this would be an issue for the most part where heavy-damaging skills are used.

My question is: is Bloodlust a reliable gem to use at all or should it be switched with Maim or Multistrike?

Any opinions on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

bloodlust is good vs bosses when you realiably bleed them with for example a warchief. For mapping you usally don't want to attack monsters with 2 different skills.

If path of building is telling you multistrike is the best dps increase then path of building is wrong (or you're using molten strike or something else that can't fully scale with bloodlust), because multistrike is awful as far as dps amps go. It maxes out around 36% more dps even if the target-swapping doesn't screw you over.


Bleed is easy to maintain against bosses, a warchief will apply and renew it pretty much constantly, and just using something like frenzy a couple times or a quick cyclone is usually fine with 50%. Bleed lasts 5 seconds by default, same as fortify support's duration, so doing something like a puncture-fortify or cyclone-chance to bleed-fortify setup is a nice way to quickly apply bleed and renew fortify on the same tempo if you don't have a warchief to constantly cause bleed for you.

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Shppy wrote:

If path of building is telling you multistrike is the best dps increase then path of building is wrong (or you're using molten strike or something else that can't fully scale with bloodlust), because multistrike is awful as far as dps amps go. It maxes out around 36% more dps even if the target-swapping doesn't screw you over.

It was because I did not tick the "Target is Bleeding" checkbox due to my uncertainty about my Bleed uptime; Bloodlust is miles better when the checkbox is ticked. However, since I've recently learned, from here and reddit, that Totems can apply Bleed, I'm rather close to sure that I can have 100% uptime on it and would like mean that Bloodlust is my best bet for damage.

Thank you very much for taking your times to reply.

In the situations where it matters (heavy targets such as bosses), Bloodlust is one of the most powerful damage boosts out there specifically because it's not a guarantee. You have to use something else to maintain it, whether that be a secondary utility skill a'la Frenzy, a Warchief totem, or even a trigger skill like Vengeance or Riposte with high natural bleed chance. The fact that it requires external support means it's specifically made more powerful than anything which does not specifically require external support.

That said, the degree of difficulty with which one can apply Bleed is often quite different between characters. A max block Gladiator with Reckoning configured for 100% Bleed chance basically bleeds bosses for free, whereas something like an Earthquaker needs to generally go well out of its way to Bleed stuff. A lot of times you get better overall DPS by putting BLoodlust on the Warchief to amp its damage and Bleeding stuff yourself, or at least such has been true in my experiments. You won't get Bloodlust's damage bonus often against trash, but you shouldn't need it against trash.

Also yes. Path of Bonking will not report Bloodlust as a good idea if it's told the target will not be bleeding :P