Blood Mage — Creating Symbiotes

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_{originally posted by Handler on the VG Forums}

The Blood Mage is very unique class, and it has a very varied playstyle. One of the most unique spell-lines the class gets is the Symbiotes.
Symbiotes are created by the Blood Mage by using his own blood and organs harvested from enemies, and subsequently cast on allies or yourself for various buffs.
Do not expect your Symbiotes to be huge buffs; they give you a ton of flexibility and are very interesting.
This document will cover the following topics: Construction of Symbiotes, Using Symbiotes and a List of the Symbiotes a Blood Mage will learn to use (and when).

Construction

When you get your first Symbiote-spell you will see that it requires a Symbiote-item to cast. To construct a Symbiote, follow these steps:

Note that there is no need for you to be at an assembly table!

• Cast “Siphon Blood”, this will give you the “Vial of Blood” you need for constructing your new Symbiotes.
• Cast “Bursting Cyst”, “Exploding Cyst”, “Constrict”, “Union of Blood” or “Blood Letting Ritual” on a mob, any rank will do.
• While the mob is affected by the spell you cast on it, cast “Grim Harvest”, depending on which spell you cast you will get the following organ for your Symbiotes:
  • “Bursting Cyst” or “Exploding Cyst”: Quivering Brain
  • “Constrict”: Twitching Muscle
  • “Union of Blood”: Still Beating Heart
  • “Blood Letting Ritual”: Pulsating Stomach
• Open your Crafting list and go to the assembly-pane. In the pull-down menu select Blood Mage.
• Find the Symbiote you want to construct, check if you have all the components (If not go get them as per steps 1-3).
• If you have all the components, click Combine and get your Symbiotes!

You should now have 10 of the Symbiote you constructed, and a few less components. No worries though; components stack, and a Still Beating Heart will continue beating even though you’ve had it in your bags for weeks.

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Organs

Getting the organs you need can be a bit tricky, so heres some comments and tip.
First of all, don’t harvest organs when you’re in a group. You’ll divert your attention from the action and that could prove fatal.
Since organs stack (up to 20) go find some mobs (even gray ones will do), and harvest off those by yourself.
I find that going into “Sanguine Focus” makes it easier to harvest several organs from the same mob since you wont do as much damage and wont take as much damage while waiting for “Grim Harvest” to refresh (15 seconds).
I do this since you can harvest several organs off the same mob – yes, a bear does seem to have 4 brains, 3 hearts and more stomachs than a cow!
Also you can make absolutely sure which organ to get by having only one debuff on the mob at one given time (so don’t cast Cyst followed immediately by Union of Blood, since you cant be sure which organ you’ll get).

• Vial of Blood: Not quite an organ, but deserves mention. Go into “Sanguine Focus” (for the HP regen), then cast on yourself “Transfusion of Serak” (for more HP) and then just go nuts with “Siphon Blood”. Just remember that you can kill yourself with “Siphon Blood” so take it easy when you go low on HP.
• Quivering Brain: Easiest organ to harvest – cast a Cyst-spell followed by Grim Harvest.
• Still Beating Heart: Cast “Union of Blood” and then “Grim Harvest”.
• Twitching Muscle: Root the mob with “Constrict” , and then cast “Grim Harvest”. If root doesn’t break (“Grim Harvest” does cause a little damage), you can just wait until “Grim Harvest” refreshes and cast it again for another muscle.
• Pulsating Stomach: Build up 1 Blood Union Point with either “Despoil”, “Entwining Vein” or from “Focus of Gelenia” (Using these spells does not work with “Grim Harvest”, so they wont mess up which organ you get). Then cast “Blood Letting Ritual”, followed by “Grim Harvest”. The Duration on “Blood Letting Ritual” is long (1 minute), so you’ll be able to get 3 or 4 stomachs off the same mob (if the mob lives that long of course).

The points here is of course that having only one debuff on the mob ensures that you get exactly the organ you want, and that you can harvest several organs from one mob.
Of course this is only my way of doing it, but I think its a very easy and quick way to get a lot of organs.

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Using Symbiotes

When you have constructed your new Symbiotes, you can cast the spells associated with them.
When you cast the spell your Defensive Target will be buffed with the Symbiote and one Symbiote of the appropriate type will be removed from your inventory. Remember that a player can only be buffed with one Symbiote at a time.
The only offensive Symbiote is “Controlling Symbiote”. Casting it will apply it to your Offensive Target. Remember that the spell can miss, be resisted or just not work if the target is of a type that is not charmable or is to powerful (4dots and up usually). If you try to charm a mob which has already been charmed by “Controlling Symbiote” once, it will also fail.
It does not cost you anything to construct or cast Symbiotes, the only cost you have is in getting the components.

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