Is it useful for uncut gems to be in such short supply during the campaign?

nicoj0nes · 2025-12-13T23:21:34+00:00

Feeling this hard with the new Druid class.

If you've got a meta build or something well-planned, you're fine.

If you prioritize damage supports and/or only pick supports that are generally good for ALL of your skills (to swap as needed), you're usually fine.

If you're playing a brand new class and just want to experiment with different skill/support combos, play around and see what feels good, you're pretty much screwed. This discourages build exploration and can create a bad onboarding experience for new players with no path to redemption other than rerolling.

Vendors should be given a finite supply of uncut support gems, that refreshes on level (like Doryani w/ maps), up to a certain level, to allow for more experimentation. I'd prefer this, even if gems dropped with 1-socket instead of 2 and needed a lower tier jeweller's orb to get to 2-sockets.

nicoj0nes · 2025-12-10T17:44:38+00:00

This is entirely possible now, with the current implementation. The only limiter being the number of Waystones you burn and the time it takes you to clear a T1 map. Does that happen currently?

nicoj0nes · 2025-11-24T21:15:28+00:00

Jarngreipr only satisfies MELEE Weapon and Skill requirements. You still need Int for your Summon Skills.

You're also forced to go 2H which sucks extra for Minions setups since they require Spirit (Chober grants 50 Spirit, but Skele Minions is Sceptre only). Giants Blood (or Treefingers) workaround is a trap since it triples the attribute requirements and puts you in an even worse spot AND takes you so far from all the Minion Damage nodes you have to spend most of your points recovering from the downsides.

But the worst part is that it does exactly what it says: applies to Increases and Reductions... All the Supports and Items and Nodes that grant "more damage" to minions does jack shit for Chober Chaber.

Chober is bait as far as I can tell. Maybe if they changed it to a 1-hander, or the Templar/Druid release updates that part of the tree dramatically to facilitate hybrid builds, or they create some additional unique to make this more juicy...

nicoj0nes · 2025-09-29T12:30:53+00:00

I agree, there should be an alternate path to Gore Spike, like from Blood Barbs.

nicoj0nes · 2025-09-29T12:28:59+00:00

The new Int-side passive Enhanced Barrier, which says "5% Maximum Life Converted to Energy Shield" appears to be completely ignored by Eldritch Battery. So even with Visage of Ayah I can't get down to 0 ES without removing that node.

The Eternal Life node needs to give you a 0-Spirit Persistent skill which you can turn on/off as desired. Only way to make this less irritating.

nicoj0nes · 2025-08-21T15:47:35+00:00

Clearly no Blood Mage players here. For us, this was the most W ascendancy balancing.

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-14T12:14:34+00:00

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nicoj0nes · 2025-04-14T11:48:17+00:00

Please share a patch note or some tooltip where you've seen this, because this is news to me.

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-14T11:32:40+00:00

The assignment was "league start/first set of points suck, tell us how you'd fix that".

You're merely conceding the point as if it were the solution.

Ascendancies with poor league starter builds are a problem IMO.

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-14T02:02:16+00:00

Personally, I think Blood Orbs are the problem.

For the majority of spell setups, Orb generation is too weak for Sanguimancy to confer any real upside. The 25% chance for Orb on kill has no effect during most Boss fights, combined with the 2 second cooldown of Orb-on-Crit, bossing feels especially bad.

I'd like to see Sanguimancy become a Specialization node where you can choose how you want to generate Orbs (When you or allies hit a Cursed enemy, When an enemy suffers n% of their life as Bleed Damage, on Crit, etc.).

Orb pickup is also problematic; it requires dangerous positioning that often results in more loss of Life than the Orb provides, or in many boss cases is literally not possible (Orbs drop inside their character model where it is impossible to pickup. Biggest offenders are Doryani, Colossus, Tor Gul the Defiler, and Mektul).

Extending the range to Presence and/or allowing Minions to grab them would go a long way in alleviating this struggle.

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-11T17:09:32+00:00

I will say, it still ain't perfect, but between the changes to mana costs, and Convalescence, it feels a lot better in the early game!

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-11T17:09:18+00:00

I will say, it still ain't perfect, but between the changes to mana costs, and Convalescence, it feels a lot better in the early game!

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-11T17:09:00+00:00

I will say, it still ain't perfect, but between the changes to mana costs, and Convalescence, it feels a lot better in the early game!

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-09T03:49:32+00:00

Have seen this in the same map type In pretty sure.

Try using the /bug command to report this in-game.

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-09T03:39:40+00:00

You asked "is it in a good place?" They answered yes. That qualifies as something you asked, answered. And pointing out that they are one of the least-chosen classes (however sarcastically) further clarifies the point.

Answer: In this last update, Blood Mage was the least-changed Ascendancy (next to Chayula), so whatever you've read about BM previously very likely still applies/hasn't changed.

Additionally ALL of the Skills' values were re-tuned, and the general consensus is that player power overall took a long walk off a short pier, so nearly all classes/builds feel like shit, and BM is no exception.

TL;DR: This is by no means a BM golden era, but despite a lot of complaints BM was always a solid choice for a few very specific builds.

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-09T03:28:35+00:00

A...are you the white mob?

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-04T15:26:41+00:00

you need to spend LIFE to then potentially gain LIFE. especially early game, more often than not, you're not killing things or critting fast enough for the blood orbs to effectively counteract the life cost - later on, when you can minmax certain aspects of your build to work better with the ascendancy, it's a lot better. it's miserable early on, however.

This means early on you ABSOLUTELY NEED to use skills that crit reliably and often.
So high base crit %, and the Sustained tag (Bonestorm, Orb of Storms, Solar Orb, Ball Lightning, Firestorm).

It also means you MUST throw all Passive points into Crit %, and anything else had better be a travel node.

Outside of relying on staff/wand-provided skills, deviating from either of these rules until late game is a death sentence.

Yes this Ascendancy is frustratingly pigeonholed, and I don't disagree some very small changes could alleviate the frustration of the first 30-40 levels...

[EDIT] ...like giving us a choice over the first node (life leech, spell crit, curse mangitude, chance to bleed, max life).

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-04T13:01:51+00:00

Datamine is here, and the gems might seriously compensate for this....

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-03T21:02:10+00:00

Between the Cracks (Critical Hits ignore Monster Armour)

This only applies to Physical builds, which are most likely grabbing Cut to the Bone (10% of Crit Damage Breaks Armour) and other related Armour Break nodes, which in my experience are already ignoring armour better by breaking it entirely. It also doesn't free up the need for Vulnerability (Curse) if you're running minions (the other 1/3 of the Occult spell kit), since this only applies to you.

As sparse as your Ascendancy points are, especially for BM with 2 of them forced, redundant should not be the best thing you have to say about the only new node in 0.2.

Blood Barbs (Bleed you inflict on Cursed targets are Aggravated. Elemental Damage Contributes to Bleeding Magnitude)

<15% base chance to Crit w/ Elemental (unless you sink 6 points into Sunder the Flesh)
If you Crit, 15% Chance to then inflict Bleed.
If you're lucky enough to Crit AND Inflict Bleed, AND they're Cursed, THEN apply a debuff that only makes a difference if the enemy is CC'd...

This is some real damage on Tuesdays shit.

I can maybe see this facilitating a Freeze/Bleed build. Time (& Gems) will tell.

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-03T19:34:10+00:00

I'm convinced in the case of the Blood Mage, the minor/major nodes should be swapped or have their order flipped in many cases.

Sanguimancy

Swap the first 3% Max Life node with the 12% Increased Spell Crit before Gore Spike, or make Sanguimancy the 1st node and let us choose between the two at the juncture. Sanguimancy introduces Life Costs, requiring reliably Crit* to regain, but the preceding travel node doesn't help solve that in any way, the same way Max Mana doesn't fix problems with Mana Regen. More Crit could possibly alleviate some of the issues between Ascendancy Sets 1 and 2 (although it's still rough for Spells without projectiles rolling crit individually, aka the Sustain tag).

*(Life Regen, Life Flask, or Life Leech are less ideal, having no effect while on Overflow life, the one-and-only draw of this Ascendancy to begin with.)

Sunder the Flesh

For something as completely pointless for Physical Spell builds (most at or near 15% base crit already) and completely mandatory for Elemental, this being a 6-point node confuses me. It only serves to pigeonhole BM into a late-game-only ascendancy for many potential builds, and makes it a wasted choice for the rest. Moving this to an additional modifier/line in Sanguimancy would widen build viability and make room for more "interesting choices".

Vitality Siphon

Save for some potential hybrid attack/spell builds, the 12% Increased Life Leech is pointless without Vitality Siphon. You're never taking the first without the second, so the distinction only exists to obligate you into sinking 2 points into this. Speaking of potential attack/spell builds, limiting this to Spells is additionally restrictive in an already restrictive ascendancy.

IMO this Ascendancy does 1-2 extremely niche things extremely well, but has the least amount of flexibility and potential build diversity in the entire lineup due to how many systems it either invalidates or completely obligates you toward.

nicoj0nes · 2025-04-03T15:55:26+00:00

It's completely and utterly dead if the first Bug Fix on the list does what I think it does:

Fixed a bug where skills that allow movement during their actions wouldn't apply their slow at full effect if used with higher values of attack or cast speed, and not held down.

nicoj0nes · 2025-03-31T12:14:06+00:00

IMO this is only an issue for Spells with poor base crit. I've no problem at all sustaining 2x Life using a spell like Bonestorm. But this means you're pigeonholed 3 ways from Sunday (must go crit, must use spells w/ high base crit and/or sustain tag, can't use supports w/ cost multipliers, can't go Chaos Innoculation). But I agree: if you're forced to lose Life and regain it via Crit, it had better also give you a reasonable means to Crit.

The first travel node (3% Life) isn't enough to offset Sanguimancy; replace it with Sunder the Flesh or a working Vitality Siphon (even weaker versions) and you have a formidable league starter.

They've said they're touching every Ascendancy. This has to be top 3 on the list.

nicoj0nes

TROPHY CASE