Viability of BM keystone in solo play

Um...wth does Bloodmagic have to do with solo vs group?
Yes it's "viable" I use it on every melee character I've rolled.

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henar wrote:

Blood magic keystone can be helpful for leveling in normal/cruel since you don't have to bother about mana, but after this it's totally useless , at least for physical damage build since a single 2% mana leech piece of gear keep you full on mana .

I think blood magic is good for softcore to play fun , but for hardcore, mana pool is mandatory for optimize your build

You have no clue what you're talking about. BM works fine in Merc....don't know what to say . Just wow.

Viable, sure. Using those auras is objectively better than not using them, however. A character that takes full advantage of the auras is going to be far better than one that takes the Blood Magic keystone.

I would like to see if anyone, who has a level 80+ character, would disagree with this.

Blood mana is godly. I'm a 75 LA ranger using BM and also have over 10k armor with iron reflexes. I survive just fine in maps.

edit: I play exclusively solo and haven't until yesterday even attempted to trade, which I still haven't actually done lol so currently solo self found using BM in endgame.

Yes, it's definitely good. Once you get a 6L and sockets situated you should drop the keystone and run the BM supports on everything. Then add 3-4 % auras on mana, keep anger, grace and wrath on health. Should be able to run 6, 7 if you pick up - mana reserve and use a reduced mana gem.

Blood magic is absolutely fine for solo play. 5000 life and 350 life regen/sec will be perfectly adequate without auras.

Viable? Yes. Optimal? Not even close. I ran bm keystone up until level 83 before switching to bm gem and the 4 additional auras are amazing. I get more dps 40k armor with granites overcapped resists 9 extra stat points (don't need the 15% ones to stay overcapped anymore with purity) movespeed the option of getting an addition 150 regen/s and all for the cost of a gem slot.

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DaveSW wrote:

Viable, sure. Using those auras is objectively better than not using them, however. A character that takes full advantage of the auras is going to be far better than one that takes the Blood Magic keystone.

I would like to see if anyone, who has a level 80+ character, would disagree with this.

I do have, and I don't agree.
It's not that cut and dry. Not taking the keystone means you waste a gem slot. Not all of us are flippers and/or trade tycoons, rolling in viable 5L/6L's.

I think this is the main thing that made the Blood Magic keystone less appealing:

When Open Beta started, most of the "flat mana cost" auras had their mana costs increased. Both the base cost, and the additional cost per level. During Closed Beta, it was really easy to stack all the "flat mana cost" auras without reserving as much of your life. Patch Notes (scroll down to Active Skill Balance) http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/70479

Examples:

lvl 1 Wrath + Anger + Grace
closed beta: 100 life reserved
open beta: 180 life reserved

lvl 5 Wrath + Anger + Grace
closed beta: 160 life reserved
open beta: 248 life reserved

Also, at least 1 of the percentage based auras was improved (Haste) which made it even tougher to decide to go with high mana + percentage auras or blood magic + flat cost auras.

Overall though, these aren't massive changes, and obviously the Blood Magic keystone is still a great choice for many builds, it's just that with high mana allows you to easily stack flat cost auras AND at least one percentage cost aura. Plus, the Blood Magic support gem allows you to stack auras on both mana and life, but costs even more life reservation if you run your flat cost auras on those.

Now, is the Blood Magic keystone viable in solo play? It should be, yes. It allows you, with enough life regen (which isn't hard to get) to basically ignore resource costs, without needing Clarity + Inner Force or having to take Eldritch Battery + wear a couple pieces of energy shield gear. Ignoring resource costs is powerful, especially with the large variety of support gems in the game that are balanced around mana cost multipliers. When choosing support gems, you can go for the more expensive ones, and have 1 extra slot to put them in if you don't rely on the Blood Magic support gem itself.

Well im pointing it out in HC so take it as is from that view point.

The issue with BM gem is that the life costs is rediculously high once you fully support a 6L. So you have to keep that in mind as well because there are many 50% regen map rolls you will have to contend with.

But overall, when you roll in the leet gear, auras is the way to go. Its a little more difficult in HC to find that kind of gear but it is possible.

I just prefer BM keystone because I can roll with 4L's for cheap and still be really effective. The dps difference is not that huge, because you need to reserve one gem slot for bm gem while i could put another dps one in.