75 réponses à ce sujet

[DragoonKain3]

Blood Wound is the star. It's basically Sleep that doesn't wake the target upon hit, plus decent damage as well.

Blood Control, while not as useful as Blood Wound, still is quite powerful. Use it on a Yellow enemy in the middle of the enemy pack, and not only you removed one person out temporarily, but you diverted the attention of anyone nearby into attacking the controlled enemy. It even works on Reds provided your spellpower is high enough (note Reds that initiate conversation to your PC are immune, sadly).

Blood Sacrifice essentially made the above two spells casts FOR FREE, considering you will only use Sacrifice on an ally currently not under attack (in other words, the damage they take is trivial because they aren't in danger).

I dunno about you, but that's pretty powerful. Sure it can only be cast under blood magic, but considering switching sustains is only a fraction of a second before it applies, this isn't a big deal. Also assuming you don't cast regular spells under blood magic, since its far easier to regen mana than it is to regen health.

Really now, there are three lines of spells that gives you non-friendly fire CC AoE spells... Paralyze line, Sleep line, and Blood Mage line. Out of the three, Sleep line is the only one that competes with Blood Mage line, since Waking Nightmare can affect things Blood Magic does not. I still feel Blood Mage line is more powerful though, since Blood Wound already has a 0.6 damage coeffecient and Control has a 1.0 coeffecient, allowing you to do CC AND damage at the same time at practically no cost to the caster.

[Mordaedil]

Blood Magic is powerful... When Lyrium was addictive.

[throwmeaname]

Your blood mage is not suppose to get hit anyways, that's what the tank is for.

[TastyLaksa]

I wish they would change it such that u can take control of a creature and blood sacrifice him. But u can't cause he's not an "Ally" which is a combo wasted IMO.

[themaxzero]

Against enemies that are not immune Blood Wound is near unique in its power. There are a lot of dodgy ambush scenarios they cut scenes put you in that Blood Wound has the unique ability to get you out of.



Get Fire for Undead and don't worry about Demons. Apart from the Mage tower you hardly see them.



For most enemies a combo of Fireball->Bloodwound->Fireball will clear a room at no danger to yourself.

[Ibian]

Well its not like the Tevinter slaves were exactly given a choice to be sacrificed. I think you should be able to drain life from your enthralled slave, it just makes too much sense not to.

[Kimberly Shaw]

I think Blood Magic and Spirit Healer are both very fun and viable specialties.



I think to the OP I would say that the lore's blood magic delves into uses that the PC does not have access to for moral (and balance) reasons, and involves killing other people and using a lot more blood than your own. We are only given a small taste.



And yes, Blood Wound and Blood Control are two of the best spells in the game, up there with Cone of Cold, Crushing Prison, and Virulent Walking Bomb for me.



Has anyone tried using Blood Control to keep a pet for a longer period than one fight, perhaps an entire dungeon? IIRC the cool down timer is such that it may be possible, but maybe not without sleep or force field. Could be nice to bring an Ogre along for a crawl.

[Heals.like.Jesus]

Would've been awesome and lore-wise correct if you could use enslaved creatures' life force from the fourth spell to cast your spells, instead of using your own health.

1. Lore in this game is tainted by the perspective of those telling the tale. The Chantry has outlawed blood magic and demonized those who practice it. It should come as no surprise that they may exaggerate its dangers in order to keep its spread at a minimum, or perhaps simply because they fear it so much.

2. This is a game, and as such it needs to maintain some semblance of balance between the different classes. Making blood magic even stronger than it already is would harm the game.

I notice you forgot to comment on point #1. It's OK, I understand... After all, it was a pretty devastating counter to your argument. http://social.biowar...ticons/wink.png

I did not comment extensively on your points because they contrdict themselves. You bring together balance and lore which cater to powergamers and roleplayers, respectively. Therefore it turns out that lore-wise blood magic is supposed to be powerful, as it is widely feared for its chantry-forbidden practices, but at the same time it cannot be what we expect for the players, because of balance.

Lore and balance are two points that should be brought together to form an argument, because with the same success you might say "cone of cold should logically instantly kill  when you freeze an enemy, as the frozen liquid expands its width, therefore bursting the targets' veins...but it also shouldnt because of balance"

Modifié par Heals.like.Jesus, 09 décembre 2009 - 02:05 .

[Gecon]

Yes, BM is awesome. And your mage should never be under attack in the first place.

Heals.like.Jesus wrote...

Spirit healer's first spell is a global heal that is dirt-cheap to cast, heals more than a regular heal and doesn't have pre-req spells. Combat revival is also awesome.

Uh, Group Heal costs twice as much as standard Heal. I dont know how much it heals exactly (Heal does 40+0.4*spellpower), but unless your whole group has been hit, I fail to see the point of casting Group Heal, ever.

Yep, Revival is a musthave. I completely agree.

[Gecon]

tranj84cl wrote...
Yes, I appreciate the irony of it all   Well, yes, you have unlimited potions rather early in the game.  But, that would mean I'd have to grind out prepare, say, 200 mana pots before venturing forth.  I, for one, hate doing that, so I just travel the world with what I have.  I'd rather activate one skill than spend 30 minutes grinding out potions. 

What ?!?!? 30 Min for 200 potions ? Err ?!?

I estimate I create about 2-3 potions per second, maybe more. Its just click-click-click as fast as you can, after all. 200 potions are therefore ca 80 seconds. In half an hour I would get 4,500 potions this way (150 potions per minute * 30 minutes). Now getting the ingredients is some mouseclicks from the corresponding merchants. So the only remaining issue is to get to the right merchants, and that might take some time, but not too much either.

[Taleroth]

Gecon wrote...

unless your whole group has been hit, I fail to see the point of casting Group Heal, ever.

I mainly use it because it's on a seperate cooldown from heal.

[Heals.like.Jesus]

Group heals more than a regular heal. By 25% or so. Its costs twice as much and heals everyone. Its on a separate cooldown, effectively being a second heal spell. One more obvious use is to recover from a chain lightning and the others, well im pretty sure you do not control who 10+ ranged enemies attack all the time.

Or are you telling me that in every fight only one of your characters ever gets damaged?

Modifié par Heals.like.Jesus, 08 décembre 2009 - 04:09 .

[Brunopolis]

The blood mage is a pretty decent sub-class with one super broken spell, blood wound. The ability to use health instead of mana is quite useful(too bad infinite Lyrium potions kind of break this).



If you think blood magic bites you're not using blood wound to your advantage. That is really the only reason to go into this branch.

[corporate-slave]

Heals.like.Jesus wrote...
I did not comment extensively on your points because they contrdict themselves. You bring together balance and lore which cater to powergamers and roleplayers, respectively. Therefore it turns out that lore-wise blood magic is supposed to be powerful, as it is widely feared for its chantry-forbidden practices, but at the same time it cannot be what we expect for the players, because of balance.

Lore and balance are two points that should be brought together to form an argument, because with the same success you might say "cone of cold should logically instantly kill you when you freeze an him, as the frozen liquid expands its width, therefore bursting the targets' veins...but it also shouldnt because of balance"

No, my points do not contradict themselves at all, you simply refuse to accept the truth in them because you want blood magic to be insanely overpowered. As it stands, it is already the strongest of the mage specializations once you know how to use it properly. Blood Wound alone is so amazing that using it almost feels like cheating.

You also continue to quote lore to support your opinion while completely ignoring the fact that the Chantry is not an unbiased source of information about blood magic. No lore in this game is untainted by perspective. The dangers of blood magic have most likely been exaggerated.

[Esternogligen]

I made Morrigan a blood mage and set her tactics to switch to blood magic and cast blood wound. She kills herself early into every battle.



Then I made Wynne a blood mage out of moral irony.

Ha.

[CounterfeitDecoy]

Even the lore doesn't state Blood Magic was its own school, it was for increasing the amount of power available. If you have any of the BM items, you have a lot of fuel between your health and mana.



Though it is sadly amusing that I keep seeing "Die with a full mana bar" being parroted with "I beat it on nightmare so I must know how to use it".

[traversc]

Blood wound itself is overpowered. It's the best CC a mage has, bar none with a ridiculously low recharge.

But even without blood wound, blood magic is still insanely strong. It has to do with the ability to interconvert mana and HP offering almost limitless energy if used right.

The fallacy in your post is that you tried to heal yourself under blood magic. That's just not using your head! Better to disable blood magic and then heal yourself, then switch back to blood magic. -OR- have Wynne slap lifeward on Alistair (which she should be doing anything) and then use him as an energy tank with blood sacrifice. Either way nets you a HUGE amount of energy to power your spells for basically free.

Sure, you could just rely on potions and infinite potion/money exploit, but why do that when you can do the exact same thing without potions at all. You shouldn't have to use potions at all.

Modifié par traversc, 12 janvier 2010 - 07:58 .

[AtreiyaN7]

Yes, well, seeing as BLOOD magic is fueled by, oh, BLOOD, I don't know how you can complain about drawing from your health pool...yeah, my suggestion is read the description and don't whine about this after the fact. If you don't like having to sacrifice your health...then sacrifice your allies' health instead. At any rate, blood mage shouldn't have overwhelming superiority over any other mage specialization. Personally, I generally ignore the specializations completely and drop all my points into primal anyway (at least I did on my second mage). Future mages will be spec'ed for the other achievements.

[soteria]

I don't use potions, so I find Blood Magic to be the greatest thing ever. Your mileage may vary.

[castaftw]

Could go into detail but the word sustainables or maybe spellmight(!), might give you an idea why using hp to fuel your spells is better than mana when maxing out spellpower.



If you want a detailed character build including items to go for I can provide it, but you will find that the game simply becomes boring when you can kick everybodys arse on nightmare singlehandedly.

[Taura-Tierno]

I like Blood Magic. It was not a disappointment. It was kind of lame at the beginning, but when Blood Wound was available ... I usually start a fight with that, then cast grease, fireball and firestorm. With Spell Might. That kills most things.



And I always assumed that the reason Blood Magic is so forbidden, is because the Tevinter used it for mind control, and since that's against the Chant, it's forbidden. And to make people fear it, you have to make it seem worse than ordinary magic. I don't think it's more powerful than ordinary magic - that's just propaganda from the Chantry. I do, however, see how it's seen as evil, since there are rituals that require human sacrifice and since it can be used for real mind control.



Another reason why it's regarded as very powerful magic could also be because it's, well ... unknown. I doubt there are many mages or templars or whatever that actually know a lot about it, since it's forbidden knowledge. If some Blood Mage of great power appears, that person probably has a lot of more knowledge than the average mage. The BM would know about ordinary magic, AND Blood Magic. So, how would normal mages be fully aware of how to counter such arts, if they aren't allowed to study it?



It feels reasonable that what makes it seem extremely evil and powerful in the lore is part propaganda and part lack of knowledge and understanding of it, including that the only thing people seem to know about it is the darkest aspect - human sacrifice.

[GM23]

Heals.like.Jesus wrote...

First spell auto-turns off on the berserker principle - something nobody likes and many are annoyed. I hoped it would power spells by sacrificing life, instead it just replaces your mana with your life bar.

Well whoop-de-fricken-doo!

Now I risk dying if i cast a spell whilst being attacked, without seeing it coming AND i get to die with a full mana bar, to boot! To put the icing on the cake, I cant make use of my many points in magic to fully heal myself with a simple health potion.

Second spell is a sad attempt to fix 1 of blood magic mode downsides. The fact that you are only ever able to use it when a constantly self-turning off mode is active wins bonus points for me. Not only can you kill an ally with it, but the healing is pathetic. A 63 magic mage heals 85, while damaging the ally for 50. And you must have blood magic on, because  obviously such a powerful ability needs some limitations, lest it be called overpowered.

The third spell is the branch's saving grace, though it is hardly worth it, considering everything else. Blood magic having to be on is still a minus here. And if you get an unexpected critical whilst casting said spell, you risk being instantly killed in addition to not being able to heal yourself in a hurry.

The fourth spell is, well, nifty. An ability which requires level 16, a modal ability active, 3 abilities as prerequisites. And it manages to rank as "nifty". Taking control over an enemy. Goody gum-drops! You cant  use  the controlled creature's skills, and the spell mainly serves as temporarily taking out an enemy from the fight.
Which, to this point, was otherwise impossible, what with the lack of single target disable spells like paralysis, crushing prison, force field...and are accessible way before level 16.

Any rebuttals?

u do know that u can switch blood magic on and off, so you don't need to worry about dying... u cast blood magic, than blood wound and then u go back to your mana... u don't have to stay in blood magic mode... it can be a pleasure having 3 blood mages in your party (main char, morrigan, wynn) every grp of enemy, regardless of the size is killed in a matter of seconds... so i think you just played your blood mage the wrong way....

[brask_me]

I get the impression that Lyrium potions were added later in development, simply because they make a lot of the gameplay seem unbalanced. If no potions existed that boosted mana, blood magic, shapeshifting and the Mana talent line would be a lot more useful. The fact that there is no corresponding stamina potion for warriors and rogues (deep mushrooms just don't cut it) is another reason I think these were added later. It's a shame, because the mana-drained mage is still somewhat useful, since they can carry staff that gives them a ranged attack that never misses and has great armor penetration. No lyrium potions would force more strategy and thought when using tier 4 spells, instead of just throwing them around like they're nothing (such as the way I carefully consider when to use tier 4 talents for a warrior).

So, in a sense, I agree with the OP that blood magic is a bit disappointing, but perhaps for different reasons.

Modifié par brask_me, 13 janvier 2010 - 01:48 .

[ReshyShira]

tranj84cl wrote...

Tonya777 wrote...

Fire & Ice weapons at the same time (2 mages in party) when you're playing a hasted Rogue = Good DPS boost , a good rogue out DPSes mages easily , adding those 2 effects at once just makes it even more

Is that so? I was under the impression that one overrides the other.  *Runs to go check*.

Actually you can have all 3, but only one mage can sustain an enchantment at a time, so what I do is give each mage in my party 1 enchant spell.

Modifié par James_Raynor, 09 février 2010 - 08:02 .

[yasuraka.hakkyou]

what corporate slave said on pg 1. you need to know when and how to use it. although I didn't necessarily realize that about blood control / sacrifice... EDIT: oops, didn't see the multiple pages:whistle:. so the BC / BS combo doesn't work?


I hope Awakening gives the BM more, though. I agree that the game and the lore set the expectations a little too high. I think it's still the strongest mage spec you can go with. A ridiculous CC and damage spell, a control spell, and more or less doubling your "mana" pool seems quite damn strong to me.

Modifié par yasuraka.hakkyou, 09 février 2010 - 08:46 .