My feedback on bloodmage at 200+hours

Poe 2 suggestion made by (Badhon725)


The Issue with Bloodmage( After playing the game for 400+ hours. 60% time with bloodmage)


1. The very 1st node (sanguimancy or something) is very misleading. Instead of Blood magic(a keystone passive) your skills cost both life and mana. This is purely a negative modifier as bloodmage is a spellcaster and it uses too much mana (and life also because of the node)

2. There is little to no life regeneration you get from the tree and the items. For example, my spell has 180 life cost to it and casts 6 times per second. But my life regeneration is only 95(i have max tier life regeneration in all my gears i could get), that means, the regen can’t even recover a single spell cast life cost per second. Also the life recoup mechanics is nerfed(takes effect over 8 seconds) and don’t work with the life cost as it is not counted as getting damaged.

3. You can say, the 1st nodes drop life orb on kill and you gain life when you pick them up. Then again, bloodmage is supposed to be a spellcaster. And being a spellcaster, you need to keep your distance to the monsters to avoid dying. So in a real gameplay scenario, it is not possible to go over a dead monster and pick up that life orb. So this is a bad ascendency choice IMO.

4. You can’t even skip the 1st node!!! When in the campaign, you need to not take your 1st node to avoid dying. How strange is that.

5. Now you can say that, bloodmage has leech in his ascendency. Now if i take the leech, doesn’t it solve the problem i created with my 1st node??? So it is 4 ascendency points to create a problem and then fix itself (and also leech is not that good in the game as the endgame monsters have built in leech resistance. And if you do so, you only have 4 points left then. Where will you put them???

6. You can’t even go full crit with bloodmage. Surely the left nodes are for crit damage (based on life) and 15% base crit chance. Now, the crit damage is based on your life. And to stack life, you have to take the farmost right node that adds your energy shield from body armour to your life. But if you do so, then you can’t take the base crit chance node.

7. The crit damage based on life does not seem to work.(at least it doesn’t show on the in-game tooltip). Also it does not specify whether it is based on your total life or your current life.

8. When you level up your spells past 22-23. No spell build is playable with bloodmage. I quit bloodmage when I got a +3 level wand and made my Lightning Warp level 27. I couldn’t survive in a single map as i was dying because of my insane life cost( I even also had inspiration support on my gem)

9. The bleed node is a real Joke. As a witch, bloodmage has no access to bleed chance or dot damage increase in it’s part of the tree. So it is useless as of now.

10. The only two viable builds for bloodmage are Hexblast and the detonate dead. The only use cases of them are in the Trial of Sekhema and the bossing. What a shame!!




What can fix Bloodmage(my suggestions)

At least for the 1st node (sanguimancy) make the spell cost half life cost and half mana cost. Also you can completely remove the mana cost and go with only life cost (then players may come up with something to counter the cost)

Make life regeneration more accessible in the game. (The current state of life is truly miserable as shield and MOM(Mind Over matter) outperforms it in every situations)


The node that gives 25% damage mitigation (grasping wounds) make it at least below the Crimson power. So that players can go for full critical builds.

Make the 1st node optional if possible.(I understand this is the identity node of bloodmage, but don’t make it mandatory if you do not change the node.

As there is a potential for bleed build, give witch tree a little bit more access to bleed scaling stuff.
The cost gets ridiculously high as you level up your gems. Reconsider the gem cost of higher level past 20.
The skills that are for bloodmage (bone cage or some other skills like that), give some power to them as they feel clunky to play.
Fix the problem with crit damage bonus node.(gore spike). At least, clarify if it based on the current life you have or not.
If you are keeping the life orb mechanics, at least make it’s pickup range higher as Bloodmage is not a melee ascendency.

These are most the issues i had with Bloodmage during my 200 hours playthrough with my bloodmage.

Here is a Citadel Doryani boss fight i struggled to survive( because of my unimaginable life cost) as a proof that Bloodmage is truly in a terrible state. (also the title is Pun Intended)
Deleting Stone Citadel Doryani with my Godly Bloodmage!!! PoE2 Archmage Bloodmage Boss Showcase!!


At last, i wanna say that, though the game has so many faults, these 400+ hours are the best 400 hours i’ve ever spent in a Video Game. I look forward to what the game has to offer in the future!!!

Also i’m a PoE1 Veteran with 4000+ hours in it. So i think, i know what i’m talking about.

Thanks!!
If you wanna see my youtube channel here is the link( I’ve uploaded 4 series of my build update there)

https://www.youtube.com/@respawnin321