Rework of the keystone bloodmagic

Hi

The issue isn't Blood magic as much as it is the auras being all capped at not only 60% but all as percents! Some of the old auras were point value and they allowed a limited variety for blood magic, it was limited but at least it was a variety.

I wrote on the first day of full release that the aura's would still be abused by simply raising the costs. Within 24hrs of release the players using 5-8 auras were now using 4-5 auras(and complaining about it), meanwhile the average player that was using 2-3 auras can now only use 1- barely 2. Capping all auras at 60% in theory sounds great like communism but in practice?

Making all the auras cost the same seemed like the last option one would go with on a list of choices. Would it not have been easier to cap auras at 2( the average) and players that want more auras get a keystone called:'' Auric Transmogrification: player can now have 2 additional auras''(4 being the rough average of a player with lots of auras) and rework the price of all auras to equal there usefulness in conjunction with how many people/builds make use of that aura?

Not all builds made heavy use of auras to warrant such a heavy handed balance.

cheers

"

Berjiz wrote:

But that problem lies completly with the BM support gem, those builds do pretty much what this is suggesting, keep mana for aura while still having BM. Maybe the mana multipiler of the BM gem is to low?

If the Blood Magic support gem ceased to exist a Blood Magic build incorporating the key stone would still only put yourself at a serious disadvantage. There are still tons of other very clearly better alternatives especially since they just added even more competition with MoM builds. Blood Magic talent is 100% worthless in it's present state except if you just want to run it for lulz. If they made it so you could run 1 free aura, it still would not be very good compared to other builds, but at least it wouldn't be trash...

I also don't think at lvl 20 having almost double the cost is low. I wouldn't wan't to up this due to aura changes as such a nerf might hit users not into the aura game, but that are using BM support gem.

It is kind of nerfing 1 part of the game, but not paying attention to the collateral damage. I feel this is similar to lightning nerfs due to spark/ added lightning freezing pulse, while arc and shock nova and other combos weren't OP, but ended up shocking (managed to pull shock flame totem off, but the freezing pulse nerf on shock duration on the tree ruined that).

Open beta had a serious issue with non stop nerfs on popular build playstyles, that by the end it pretty much came down to unique farming to play good builds, let us not travel that path down again *shivers*

:::::::::: Why I think the keystone has to change (more detailed):

Currently I feel you can get a maintainable manapool quite well,, whether that includes MoM or not doesn't matter, because if it isn't too hard to get a decent pool/ regen than what is the value of the keystone? It's current location isn't exactly the convenient highway to pass along. In most cases you got to travel towards it, but with mana abound I might as well take 9 nodes into mana and spare myself the travel, that removes aura options and effectively lowers my life regen, due skills working off it.

The balance was:

Don't need to get mana (which use to be harder with less notables and less mana clusters in the tree). Need to get good life regen, due to skills using life.

Now it means giving up all/ most aura options, while taking the detour and ignoring all those mana clusters. If we go from duelist to templar, tell me where there is a mana issue? You do have to stay in the marauder area completely, but no one would ignore the Scion/ Marauder life cluster which is also conveniently 1 node or 2 nodes away from: 80% increased mana regen 24% increased max mana and 1% life regen. That cluster and running clarity is enough to support most skills, get 1 or 2% mana leech and you're settled as "pure" Marauder. It isn't like those points can get you more life... there is only the tiny 24% nodes close to bloodmagic.

There are no more paths where you can't get life and mana. Not that I do not like this, but it does have its consequence on BM. I think is the main point people don't realize:

Let me give an example, planning a crit bow build with elemental hit:
CLICK

Where ever I look I see mana nodes and a lot wasted while grabbing Blood Magic. There is also no room for an aura. Now the same build, but without BM:

CLICK2

120% increased regen 56% increased max mana and MoM in reach, in fact if that is the case than you can drop Vaal pact, go for passive life regen while grabbing mana leach or even combine the two. This way reflected crits would go over the mana first and than you still have the Vaal pact for the lifepool... sounds good? If I rearrange the paths more I can run grace with all the increased evasion. There are so many more interesting options and easier choices than the BM keystone. So I decided to look for a specific BM keystone build and the same thing kept happening.

There is room though, crit 1 handed BM + Vaal pact is still interesting.
CLICK

Spectral throw your rapier ;), probably want to take fending for the knockback. Should work with spectral throw pierce nature, since it also works with flame totem, which has similar pierce.

Now the smart move is some mana and you don't use your life. Some aura nodes and you don't reserve life. Using the blood gem support or potentially grabbing MoM, allows for aura palooza or a small/ large buffer to your life. So the keystone truly has lost its value, there are simply very few options left where it still makes sense to take in builds.

The advantage of Blood Magic is that it lets you do everything from your main resource pool, at normal cost and without any extra support gems required, so you can focus on passives, equipment etc just to improve that pool.

The disadvantage of Blood Magic is that it forces you to run all skills from your main resource pool - you don't have a small side pool for percentage reservation and the like.



I think anything which leaves you with any sort of mana pool fundamentally undermines the concept of the Blood Magic keystone. It's not supposed to be easy to run auras with it, because auras are supposed to be a choice rather than an obligation. Mortal Conviction is just there to make things slightly less difficult. I think what you're supposed to do if you want to run auras with Blood Magic is go up to the Templar area, get aura passives and ES passives, and have a hybrid life/ES defence, so that reserving a large part of your life doesn't take your total hitpoints down too far.