QCF Design Community

One thing has been bothering me for a long time now, and reading the thread about Wizards brought it back to mind. So, I wanted to start a thread on our favorite power-hungry casters.

Bloodmages are the one class that continuously eludes any kind of efficient use for me. Hard dungeons are becoming fairly routine now...unless I'm playing a Bloodmage, in which case the dungeon requires extremely tight play and victory is usually just gained by the skin of my teeth. For the life of me, I can't tell if it's just that I'm playing them badly or if they're really just that weak. It's a shame, because I love the idea conceptually. It just fails to really *click* together into a neat, cohesive package like most of the other classes have.

If I try to play the class as a heavy caster, I end up consuming giant patches of black space all the time from BLUDTOPOWA, and yet still feel inferior to a Wizard or Sorcerer. If I try to play the class as a hybrid brawler, BLUDTOPOWA ends up being fairly useless except in certain specialized situations (like when I want to blow up a wraith that won't level me) amd I have no abilities that's really helping me much early-game. In either case, I don't ever really feel "powerful" at any stage of the dungeon.

Perhaps I'm missing something? Or is the class really weaker than the other casters at the moment? What's the "intended" way of playing these guys?

Play as gnome. Waste mana potions to level spike then use the insane healing from sanguine late game to melee stuff to death.

I find bloodmages to be remarkably useless without either being a gnome or doing something about the mana penalty VERY early.

Bloodmages' deal is that they are fireball spikers at first and melee spikers at endgame. To excel during the beginning, they either need to overcome their mana penalty or boost their health. At 1st level, B2P trades health for mana at a 1-to-1 ratio, and it is very easy to boost health. For this reason, dwarves and halflings make surprisingly good Bloodmages.

If you're struggling, try elf or gnome bloodmages, and prep Elven Boots and Mystera. With a little bit of work, you can easily be casting four fireballs on one tank. Once Mystic Balance kicks in it goes nuts. GETINDERE and CYDSTEP are fantastic because they can be precast and used as a finisher.

The thing is that Bloodmages reach the endgame with all of the exploration resources expended, but then they get a whole new slew of resources in the form of bloodpools. It's awesome because you think you're at the end of the line, and then suddenly you realize that you have a massive pool of resources still untapped.

Despite the nerfs, Bloodmage remains one of the most powerful and versatile classes in the game. That's why Bloodmage Silver is set up to be overwhelmingly horrible to you. Mystera, Dracul, Elven Boots, Crystal Balls, apothecary prep or elite items (Kegs hopefully) and such turn BMs into wrecking balls. Dwarf BMs used to be the big deal before the mana pot = +sanguine thing was around. Now it's Gnomes. Gnome BMs of Dracul are insane. You can get over 50% sanguine. On most maps that means you'll end up with 20-25 half-health heals (and 1mp heals!) Outside of levels with a heavy Bloodless content, Gnome BM is my go-to of choice for saying "screw this level, I want it CLEARED."

I have just won Bloodmage Silver. It took me three days. And yeah, what they said. Be a gnome, boost your mana with JJ or Mystera or Elven Boots or whatever then bloodpools for a late game extravaganza.

The spiking power of your average bloodmage is silly. He does require preps (and not necessarly huge preps, but he doesn't play purist as well as other guys). Everbody loves the gnome, I say hogwash (well, not really, it's bloody strong, but there's so many other fun places to take the bloodmage).

Halflings! Prep dracul, a pendant of helth and magnet fireball. Don't take the boon which increases your level since it also increases the B2P cost, but do grab two more levels of sanguine. Convert potions for piety, pick up a level of lifesteal. You can get silly with bloodswells on a bloodmage (I know he's a hybrid, but I've rarely ever played him as anything but a fireball machine).

Halflings! Prepp JJ, fix up you mana with a mana potion, grab an early health boost, laugh at the meaningless punishments and kick ass left and right.

Goblin! Prep elven boots and kick everything's ass.

Oh, get into a habit of prepping the subdungon.

Orc! Prep binlor, extra mana boosters, and elven boots, pissorff everything into oblivion (+ damage and resists for getting more out of sanguine).



Prepping mystera plays out like it always does, except if prep a subdungeon, you can grab one mana boost down there, and take 2 from mystera. You can then either find the "missing 2" for 12 or grab mystic balance and be fine at 10. Or if you prep elven boots you can do all that and have 3 fireballs at 15. Fun!

Etc.

Most of the 3rd tier classes aren't optimized for their classes, and Bloodmage is no exception. Wizard or Sorcerer gets better use out of B2P, a Monk gets more out of HALPMEH than Paladins (even factoring in the Paladin's bonus), APHEELSIK is also better on Monks than Assassins, and Rogues compete with Warlords for best CYDSTEP user.

B2P has a few nuances that are hard to see right away. It allows you to play a regen game using magic alone. Every square you explore grants you one mana and one mana's worth of health. Think of it as doing level*4 damage for every three squares you use, whereas the monster heals (monster_level-1)*3 health for every three squares. Assuming you're doing this after emptying a full tank of resources, then you also have 4 or more burning stacks contributing. This means you can typically squeeze an extra fireball or two out at a reasonable cost. The main power in this is that monster damage is irrelevant, allowing you to demolish fragile but powerful monsters like Wraiths or Warlocks that are typically immune to regen fighting.

You need to use your mana potions to make the early Bloodmage really excel, so go ahead and do that. With a potion, plus normal resources, plus a bit of regen fighting, you can squeeze out 6-7 fireballs. If you have access to first strike or death protection, you can throw a melee strike on top of that.

I agree about purist Bloodmages. You really have to have Fireball from the start. Purist Bloodmage is too random for my tastes.