Blood
Mage Creation
Guide
by Suranui
Archetype:
Healer
Primary Attributes:
WIS,
VIT, INT
Continents:
All
|
The Blood Mage is the most arcane and unique of the healer classes.
The Blood Mage can heal in a number of ways and has a large variety of
spells. The Blood Mage spell list includes healing spells, life taps,
direct damage spells, buffs, and symbiotes. In addition to these
spells, they have forms, which allow them to adapt effectively to a
variety of situations, and they can draw extra power by bonding with an
enemy, creating a Blood Union. This union can be used to enhance the
potency of their spells, or be focused into a powerful damage or
healing spell. The Blood Mage abilities are focused around using her
blood and her enemy’s blood for her and her ally’s
benefit.
Wisdom, vitality, and intelligence
are the Blood Mage's primary attributes. Wisdom gives the Blood Mage a
large
pool of energy to cast healing spells. Vitality provides a bonus to
healing spells. Intelligence makes it harder for enemies to counter a
Blood Mage's heals and allows the Blood Mage to do more damage with
spells of his own. Dexterity could be a good choice for Blood Mages who
use bonds with defensive fighters to share their damage.
Building a good Blood Mage takes some careful planning at the
character
creation screen and requires you to learn a handful of tactics in the
lower levels.
style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0);">Selecting
the Right Race
Blood Mages of all races start with the same attributes, but
the
choice
of race can affect how many points the Blood Mage automatically gets placed
into its prime attributes.
Starting
attributes:
Each character gets 20
attribute
points
(AP) per level, starting at level 10. 6 of your AP are placed
for you automatically--one per attribute (STR, CON, DEX, VIT, INT,
WIS). 4 points are assigned to attributes based on your race if you are
not a human (humans are kojani, mordebi, qaliathari, and thestran).
You can
place 10 (14 for humans) wherever you want to within soft caps of 5 per
level.
Additionally,
characters get
racial bonuses to their soft caps. These
are called preferred stats and allow characters of a race to flesh out
in a way that reflects the traits of the race. Non-human races get 4
bonus points to soft caps (usually two or three attributes only) while
human
races get 6, 1 for each attribute. Thus, a human can be more balanced,
while a non-human becomes more specialized.
The table below shows the attribute scores at level 50 before
gear
and buffs for
the Blood Mage based on the race selected. We've highlighted the best
results for each of the primary attributes for you. It is possible to
reach the soft cap for three attributes as a human, but those soft caps
may be lower than those attainable by other races.
src="http://media.tentonhammer.com/vanguard/gallery/albums/album32/BMG.jpg">
style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0);">Racial
Abilities
The other important factor to consider when picking the race for your
Blood Mage is racial abilities. With their short durations and long
recasts,
racial abilities are less important than attributes in the selection
process, but they can be used to pick between races that are otherwise
equal. The racial abilities are listed below.
style="font-weight: bold;">Thestran: Inspirational
Commands
You will have 3 inspirational commands at your disposal:
Inspirational Presence, Inspirational Wisdom, and Inspirational
Tactics. Each command is a group buff that will add either 2% to
mitigation, a 3% reduction to mana cost of all spells, or a 2% increase
in damage. You may only maintain one command at a time, however you may
have all 3 effects active at the same time. Recast is instant.
Human Ingenuity: + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Ingenuity
Harvesting: +5 Lumberjacking
style="font-weight: bold;"> style="font-weight: bold;">High
Elf: Arcane Balance
This ability will take the cumulative amount of mana in a group, add
25% to that number, and evenly redistribute it to all members. Recast
is 15 minutes.
Elven Wisdom: 2% reduction in mana cost
Crafting: +10 Reasoning
Harvesting: +5 Reaping
style="font-weight: bold;"> style="font-weight: bold;">Kojani:
Spirit of Jin
This ability will immediately restore 45% of energy and hit points to
the target. This ability has a diminishing effect on any target that
has benefitted from this ability (used by another player) in the last
10 minutes. Recast is 30 minutes.
Human Ingenuity + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Ingenuity
Harvesting: +5 Lumberjacking
style="font-weight: bold;">Goblin: Hex of Ghalnn
Whoever is afflicted by this hex will return 3% of the mana and hit
points for every hit that is made on them. The effect lasts for 60
seconds. Recast is 15 minutes.
Small Race: 2% bonus to evasion
Crafting: +10 Reasoning
Harvesting: +5 Mining
style="font-weight: bold;">Half Elf: Symbol of Jin
This ability will apply a rune to every member of the group for 60
seconds, which will mitigate damage by 15%. Recast is 30 minutes.
Human Ingenuity: + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Finesse
Harvesting: +5 Skinning
style="font-weight: bold;"> style="font-weight: bold;">Qaliathari:
Swiftness of the Sands
For this next 10 seconds, you will evade all melee attacks and spells.
Recast is 30 minutes.
Human Ingenuity + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Ingenuity
Harvesting: +5 Lumberjacking
style="font-weight: bold;">Dark Elf: Spawn of Haelufir
This ability allows you to summon forth a small drake for a short
duration. The type of drake you summon will be based on class and
level. Each type of drake will have a variety of effects at their
disposal, ranging from group auras, to breath attacks. The
higher
level drakes will also learn spells that are sympathetic with their
associated class. Recast is 30 minutes.
Elven Wisdom: 2% reduction in mana cost
Crafting: +10 Finesse
Harvesting: +5 Skinning
style="font-weight: bold;">Gnome: Forge Crystal
This ability allows you to operate a variety of devices, only
available to gnomes, which are able to materialize a energy crystals.
Crystals will have several common effects, ranging from percentage
based mana, health, and endurance heals to several uncommon, rare, and
even ultra rare effects such as prismatic group resist buffs, rune and
damage shields, minion summons, and more.
Small Race: 2% bonus to evasion
Crafting: +10 Problem Solving
Harvesting: +5 Mining
Level 1-10 Tactics
Level 1
At level one you start out with two spells, a heal and a nuke. Chain
cast your nuke to burn enemies down, you won't be using the heal spell
much unless you try to get overconfident and pull multiple mobs.
Level 2
You gain the spell Union of Blood. At this level, it's good to
familiarize yourself with the Blood Union system. "Blood Union" shows
up as 5 dots in a semi-circle that appear just to the left of the
enemies target information (in the top right corner of the screen if
you're using the default user interface). As you cast spells that gain
blood union, you'll notice the dots fill with red. Once you get 3 blood
union, casting Bursting Cyst will allow you to not only do direct
damage, but it will leave a damage over time effect with additional
damage, increasing your DPS. Union of Blood itself is a DoT spell that
adds 2 blood union. This is useful for "union buffering", in which you
quickly try to gain a large amount of blood union for other purposes.
The best strategy for the next 2 levels is to pull with bursting cyst,
then immediately cast blood union, then cast bursting cyst again, then
melee the rest of the fight to gain some melee and defensive skill
points. If you get bored, finish the job with a nuke. You can easily
take mobs 1 level above you at this point.
Level 4
Once you're level 4, you'll see a big jump in your soloing power. You
gain serak's mantle, which is a great AC buff, and health graft, to
increase your health pool. Make sure you maintain these two great buffs
at all time. The third spell you gain is Despoil. This is your first
lifetap, and the key thing to remember here is it is SELF ONLY. You
should still have no problem doing the quests in your newbie zone, with
minimal downtime (5 to 10 seconds between kills). These will quickly
take you to level 6, where things will start to slow down a bit. This
will be your first introduction to lifetapping and timing. The key to
this is that you get more % health back from your lifetap, if you have
more blood union stored, so the trick is to avoid lifetapping unless
you have 4 or 5 BU (unless you must do it to stay alive). This will
maximize the Health you get per tap, and minimize energy inefficiency.
Although easy at this stage, this timing will become critical if you
are to master the later techniques.
Level 6
Level 6 is a great level for the blood mage, as you receive the three
spells that will define the play styles that you alternate between.
This is also your first step into crowd control. If you are grouping or
soloing, get used to pulling with root if you are afraid you'll get an
add. That way you can fight only one mob at a time, and if you don't
get an add, you can just chain nuke to break root and get a head start
on the damage. Without further delay, your introduction to Techiniques:
The Root Rot Classic
The first of the three spells is constrict, which roots an enemy for 30
seconds, and has a 60% chance to break whenever you deal damage to the
enemy. For this strategy, it's best to nuke twice, then constrict. Run
off a good distance, then nuke twice, and root again. DoTs can get you
in trouble here as they will break root, so be careful once the
bursting cyst DoT effect triggers. This is probably the least effective
soloing method, and it gets boring very quickly. It also becomes a bit
more difficult at higher levels, but remains the second safest form of
exp (next to standing back and healing for a party).
The Prime Healer
You can begin to group now in the local dungeon or field around your
city, fighting level 7-9 mobs. Blood Gift I steals a bit of your own
health and energy to grant a very powerful heal to an ally (Note, this
spell can NOT be used on yourself). Groups gain fast exp, and get
interesting loot through group only quests and named mobs
(mini-bosses). If healing from a safe distance isn't your thing, this
could become a boring play style, so we have alternatives.
In The Fray
This was my primary strategy as a soloist (or if you're grouping with
other healers, and end up doing the primary damage). The key to this
strategy is to maximize blood union, because the last two spells you
get at level 6 are meant to increase your damage. Bursting Cyst II is a
nice upgrade, but your "holy hand grenade" of damage, if you will, is
Scarlet Ritual I. This skill expends 4 blood union points, and does a
high damage nuke for 0 energy and 0 health cost! That's as close to
free damage as you can get! The typical strategy with The Fray type
soloist is to maximize blood union, tap life back while you have near
max BU so you're full on health, burn scarlet ritual, and begin
stacking BU again. This will unleash a merciless amount of damage (as a
healing class) and if in a group, quickly gain you aggro. Here's the
works:
Burning Cyst II -> Union of Blood -> Burning Cyst II
(activates DoT component) -> Despoil I -> Scarlet Ritual
-> Repeat
This is a key technique to mastering if you want to become very
efficient as a soloist or dualist (a technique mentioned in the
strategy guide on the BM forums), because you will be adding more
steps, and very timing intensive steps at that, as you grow stronger.
Fighting 3-dot enemies your level, or level + 1 two-dot enemies should
grind you to level 8 rather quickly if you get this down to an art.
Solo Quests are great at this time for gearing up a little.
Level 8
At level 8, the truly unique aspects of the blood mage start to emerge
in many forms. Take the next two levels to really adjust to the MANY
powerful combinations of abilities you are given. At level 8 you gain
your first of two forms, the Sanguine form. This form increases healing
effectiveness by 25%, damage mitigation by 15%, and gives you a small
boost in health regeneration, whilst decreasing your spell damage by
50% and the effect of heals that are cast on you by 50%. This is very
useful when playing the prime healer in a group, and even more so if
you are a Fray-type fighter. This may not seem like an obvious benefit
at first, but as you play around with the skill, you will find many
different utilities for it, so create your own unique play style! For
spoilers, there are in-depth strategies on the forums. The next spells
you obtain are Infuse Health II, which is your next heal, rather
straightforward in usage, and Vitalize, your first vitality buff.
Remember, always remain fully buffed, or mobs will start putting a
heavy hurting on you. Level 8 introduces the key to the blood mage :
Siphon Blood and Mental Transmutation. Siphon Blood takes 25% of your
life to form a vial of blood. The vial of blood can be used at later
levels in spells that use symbiotes (explained in the full-guide on the
forums), and for the spell life husk, which you also gain at level 8.
This spell, although on a 5 minute cooldown will often save your life.
Whenever you get a resist you weren't expecting, pull an add, or just
need to buy time for another heal, life husk will grant you 6 seconds
in invulnerability, and it will also reflect 10% of the damage that
would normally have been dealt to you back to the target. now for
mental transmutation... Using this spell, you can solo some very
difficult mobs, and never run oom, even if the fight is very long, but
it will take practice.
The best order is to take the Fray technique and modify it a bit:
Bursting Cyst II -> Union of Blood -> Bursting Cyst II
(for DoT effect) -> Despoil -> Scarlet Ritual ->
Bursting Cyst II -> Union of Blood -> Despoil ->
(now you may be low on energy) so quickly switch to sanguine form,
while you're in combat, and immediately hit mental transmutation. Stay
in sanguine form for a bit longer until you are near 50% health or if
you are brave, you can transmute again, then switch out to your
unfocused form, and immediately Despoil to catch up your HP (or heal
yourself if you are more of a vitality build than Int), then cast
despoil again, or nuke again to maximize your blood union and blast
them with scarlet ritual again. Repeat this process, Always Despoiling
if you get down to 40%. If at anytime you get very very low on energy,
heal yourself then go to sanguine form and transmute. Form back to
unfocused mode when you heal yourself again so you don't take the
healing penalty, then go right back into sanguine form, so you're
getting the benefits of added regeneration and mitigation. This
technique should last you well up to 14 and beyond, other spells will
add more to this process. Master your timing in these levels, as the
enemies will get considerably stronger after 11 !
Level 10
Finally, you have become quite a force to be reckoned with, but this is
just the beginning of your true potential. Level 10 offers you many
spells to give you a diversified role as support in a group. It also
offers you your other form, Focus of Gelenia, which increases your
damage by 25%, and cleanses you of poison/disease dots every 5 seconds,
however it drains 5% of your health every 5 seconds, and decreases the
effectiveness of heals cast on you by 50%. It is a very powerful tool
while soloing. Awaken is your resurrect spell which can only be used
out of combat, so keep it handing when adventuring anywhere! Summon
sanguine shard allows you to expend a bit of your life and energy to
give a shard to your defensive target, that will allow them to
resurrect you or another blood mage if they die. Union of Blood II
increases your DoT damage potential. Four new spell lines come into
play at level 10 that will play a major role in how you build your
stats. Those wanting to focus on vitality (healing effectiveness) will
get great bonuses from Flesh Mender's Ritual I, which requires 3 blood
union to heal a player for 1100 health over 20 seconds. Entwining vein
is for those Intelligence builds who want to deal damage. It drains the
life you take from the enemy and gives it directly to your defensive
target, basically like a redirected lieftap. Dissolve is a useful spell
for all players, as it is your first counterspell. To use it, you will
see the spell above your 6th hot key slot (on the default UI) with a
chain on the bottom of the icon. Whenever an enemy casts a spell and
you successfully identify it (a message will let you know). The icon
will light up and you will have a chance to click the spell to nullify
the enemy's cast. The final spell you get is Blood Tribute I. It is a
damage spell that drains life and heals the group with it, however it
is part of a combo chain. It activates, as far as we know, randomly, so
you must be able to quickly react to it. The chain will appear as a set
of crossed swords above your players head, and the icon will light up.
It must be used as the next spell you cast, and must be used within 5
seconds, or the opportunity fades.
Best of luck with your blood mage in the future levels!
style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0);">Other
Blood Mage Resources at Ten Ton
Hammer
-
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=458">Blood
Mage Class Guide -
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=542">Blood
Mage Spells -
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=198">Know
Your Role: Healers -
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=472">Guide
to Vanguard Statistics
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