NightFalken's Blood Mage guide, posted to JeuxOnLine in May 2007 when his own Blood Mage was level 41. An English edition of the French original; his section numbering is kept, and the two sections he left marked "to be written" are noted as such rather than filled in.
Introduction
The Blood Mage is a cloth healer who can do enormous damage. His own description was that the Blood Mage is a damage dealer who heals as well as any other healer — though he was wary of putting it that way in case other classes stopped seeing him as a healer at all.
Everything here came from his own play. He was level 41 when he wrote it, so he did not claim to know the whole class, and he asked for corrections: there is no single way to play it.
The races
Eight races can be Blood Mages. Choose on three grounds: the statistics, the racial ability, and what you will enjoy.
The statistics that matter are intelligence, which raises damage and so raises drains and transfers, makes it easier to spot what your target is casting so you can counter it, and lowers their resistance to your spells; vitality, which raises mana regeneration and the strength of heals; and wisdom, which raises spell critical chance, and so how often your chains fire, and the size of your mana pool.
- Thestran — 10 points a level, at most 5 to any one statistic. The racial buff is pleasant without being large: 2% group damage, or 2% group mitigation, or 2% off group mana cost. The +10 weapon and dodge skills are no use to a Blood Mage.
- High Elf — 3 wisdom, 1 intelligence, 6 to spend, at most 4 to any one. 2% off mana cost, and a spell that rebalances the group's mana.
- Kojani — 10 points a level. Weapon and dodge skills and a heal spell; particularly ill-suited to the class.
- Half Elf — 2 intelligence, 1 dexterity, 1 vitality, 6 to spend. A 15% barrier against offensive spells, of little use if you are countering them anyway.
- Goblin — 3 vitality, 1 intelligence, 6 to spend. A curse that adds life and mana drains to every spell cast at the target, which is useful here, and 2% dodge, handy when something will not let go of you, which happens often.
- Qaliathari — 10 points a level. Dodges every attack for ten seconds, certainly useful when things are desperate, though it overlaps the Blood Mage's own Life Husk.
- Gnome — 3 intelligence, 1 constitution, 6 to spend. Crystal distillation, which he had not used, and 2% dodge.
- Dark Elf — 2 intelligence, 1 dexterity, 1 wisdom, 6 to spend. Summons an ornamental dragon that buffs spell damage by 10% for fifteen minutes, on a fifteen-minute timer, so effectively a permanent 10%.
The combat forms
There are three, and a good Blood Mage must use them.
- Unfocused does nothing. He advised against it in every situation.
- Focus of Gelenia is the damage form: +25% damage, your own health falling 5% every five seconds, and the blood link to your target rising every five seconds you are idle.
- Sanguine Focus is the healing form: your health regenerates, heals of every kind are 25% stronger, your damage is halved, and your mitigation rises 15%, rather as though you had put on plate.
One way to use them is to switch whenever the shape of the fight changes: stay in the damage form while you are dealing damage and topping people up through transfers, and switch the moment it turns bad. The way he preferred is a macro per spell, putting you in the right form first:
/combatformset "Focus of Gelenia"
/cast "Union of Blood I"/combatformset "Sanguine Focus"
/cast "Infuse Health I"The order matters: the form has to be set before the spell goes out.
Never stay in Focus of Gelenia out of combat. He died several times standing away from the keyboard with it on.
Blood links
The dots to the left of your offensive target's name. They belong to that target: change target and the level drops to zero, so pick one and stay on it. Do not, for instance, spread damage-over-time spells across everything in the fight; that wastes links.
The level runs 0 to 5. It rises in the damage form, and from certain spells — Union of Blood raises it by two.
Links are spent two ways. Passively, without lowering the level: direct and group heals, drains and transfers all return more health for each link you hold. Actively, by the rituals, which are instant, cost neither mana nor health, and consume links.
Counterspells
Like every cloth class the Blood Mage can counter, and it is indispensable. There is no point doing damage that takes 2% off a creature's health when a counter would stop it healing 40%. Whenever you see an enemy cast, interrupt what you are doing and counter — unless you are mid-heal on someone who will die without it.
Remember the Y key for the counter; you have to be quick, so use the shortcut. Or macro it, which cancels your current cast and tries both counters in turn:
/cancelability
/cast "Dissolve"
/cast "Metamorphosis"Click that when you see a creature start to cast and it stops what you are doing and counters, even if your counters are not on the bar.
Spells learned from creatures
Some spells can only be learned by fighting something that has them. At the time he knew of one:
Ritual of Awakening, a ritual, so instant, costing neither mana nor health but two blood links. It gives 20% spell haste for five minutes. Learned in Vol Tuniel, the dungeon on Thestra south of the Wardship of the Sleeping Moon, from the Rotblood Zealot and Disciple of Krigus at level 30 with three dots, and the Rotblood Plague Fiends at level 36 with four.
Pacts
Pacts are buffs that spread damage around. There are two kinds and they do not stack: those that spread it across the group, and those that share your target's damage with you.
Searing Pacts, level 14. You link to your defensive target and share the damage: your ally takes 85% of what they are dealt, and you take 125% of the remaining 15%. Very good on the tank — effectively a 15% damage reduction for them, and what reaches you is usually soaked by your Blood Fest. The drawback is when you take aggro yourself: then you carry what is hitting you and your share of the tank's.
Blood Pacts, level 22. Your ally takes 70%, and the rest of the group splits 200% of the remaining 30%. Where another healer has a group regeneration buff running, the others barely notice. Where there is not one, you will want your chains firing often so you can use group drains, which rewards having built wisdom, or you will be casting group heals regularly. Its real value is that when somebody other than the tank takes aggro — you, usually — they are far harder to kill.
Turn it off against anything using area attacks. Everyone reflects 30% of what they take, doubled, so if the whole group is caught the attack effectively hits 30% harder.
Sever Pacts, level 14, cancels every pact within 500 metres.
Playing in a group, and playing solo
The author left both sections marked "to be written", and never came back to them.