Blood Magic: The Comprehensive Suggestion Thread, Part One

[Trvth Jvstice]

From wikipedia on Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, which Stoker based on Vlad the Impaler, and tales from Transylvania's villagers.

"Count Dracula possesses numerous different supernatural abilities inherent in vampirism, along with additional skills derived from his abilities as a necromancer which allow him to comune with the dead, his age and potency make him far more powerful than the creatures of traditional Eastern European folklore. He has enormous physical strength which, according to Van Helsing, is equivalent to 20 men. Being undead, he is immune to conventional means of attack. The only definite way to kill him is by decapitating him followed by impalment through the heart, it is also suggested that shooting him with a sacred bullet would suffice . The Count can defy gravity to a certain extent, being able to climb upside down vertical surfaces in a reptilian manner. He has powerful hypnotic and mind control abilities , and is also able to command the loyalty of nocturnal animals such as wolves and rats. Dracula can also manipulate the weather, usually creating mists to hide his presence, but also storms such as in his voyage in the Demeter. He can shapeshift at will, his featured forms in the novel being that of a wolf, bat, dust and fog. He requires no other sustenance but fresh blood, which has the effect of rejuvenating him. Without it, he physically ages at an accelerated rate."

If ANet were to actually use the abilities of the traditional Vampire from literature, the Character would be way overpowered.

EDIT: One interesting change would be for every attribute point put into blood, the Necro gains health and attack dmg, but has health degeneration that slowly increases between each life steal. That way the Blood Nec would have the advantages and disadvantages that comes with being a Vampire. Add some of the shape shifting, disorientation, and shadow form type abilities and we would be a lot closer to a true Vampire, without going too far.

[Drakken Breathes Fire]

Originally Posted by Trvth Jvstice

From wikipedia on Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, which Stoker based on Vlad the Impaler, and tales from Transylvania's villagers.

"Count Dracula possesses numerous different supernatural abilities inherent in vampirism, along with additional skills derived from his abilities as a necromancer which allow him to comune with the dead, his age and potency make him far more powerful than the creatures of traditional Eastern European folklore. He has enormous physical strength which, according to Van Helsing, is equivalent to 20 men. Being undead, he is immune to conventional means of attack. The only definite way to kill him is by decapitating him followed by impalment through the heart, it is also suggested that shooting him with a sacred bullet would suffice . The Count can defy gravity to a certain extent, being able to climb upside down vertical surfaces in a reptilian manner. He has powerful hypnotic and mind control abilities , and is also able to command the loyalty of nocturnal animals such as wolves and rats. Dracula can also manipulate the weather, usually creating mists to hide his presence, but also storms such as in his voyage in the Demeter. He can shapeshift at will, his featured forms in the novel being that of a wolf, bat, dust and fog. He requires no other sustenance but fresh blood, which has the effect of rejuvenating him. Without it, he physically ages at an accelerated rate."

If ANet were to actually use the abilities of the traditional Vampire from literature, the Character would be way overpowered.

EDIT: One interesting change would be for every attribute point put into blood, the Necro gains health and attack dmg, but has health degeneration that slowly increases between each life steal. That way the Blood Nec would have the advantages and disadvantages that comes with being a Vampire. Add some of the shape shifting, disorientation, and shadow form type abilities and we would be a lot closer to a true Vampire, without going too far.

So basically, he's holding a vampiric weapon 24/7?

I don't like it. It's too cheesy. If anything they should up damage from life steals only and make them 2/3 healing like they're under some hex.

So, if the necro steals 40 life, he gains 26 ect ect, he still has the potential to kill, but he needs to feed a LOT more to sustain himself.

If he gains shadow form abilities, or mist form abilities, it's really just redundant, since there are already classes in the game who benefit from this.

If one was so enclined to make a 'Vlad/Dracula' inspired necro, just bring /A or /E. (Or if you really want a wolf that badly, /R.)

Blood Magic isn't JUST vampire oriented. However, the skills that are need to be adjusted seriously, and fairly.

Touch Range//Half Spell Range comes to mind. 2/3rds life stolen comes to mind, less hexes? yes, that's a good idea. Maybe have them as slow moving projectiles aswell? (the ranged ones.) They should *NOT* lose their potential to kill, however.

[Trvth Jvstice]

Actually my post was in response to Carinae's comment, "I don't have any specific spell suggestions, yet, but feel free to conceptualize around those (and possibly other) Vampire characteristics." I suspected I would get a vampire weapon comment but at say, 16 in Blood, the character would be starting with really high HP. I think there should be a short delay after the last life steal before the health degen starts. And with the increased HP, dmg and speed, there would have to be a downside.

[Carinae]

Ok here goes:

Blood Magic:

ALL Lifesteals ramp up slowly in effect and then sharply increase beyond 13. The idea being to encourage VERY high Blood speccing for lifesteals to be effective.

Furthermore, one of two inherent drawbacks increasing with your rank in Blood Magic: Either a natural health degen or increased damage from Holy Damage.



Skills:

Awaken the Blood - Leave this one alone.

Dark Pact - This should be a defensive skill. Possibly a non-elite form of AotL, or an evasion skill causing attacks to "miss". Ends if you attack. Causes a sacrifice when it ends.

Blood of the Aggressor - This should be an IAS or IMS. It should have a drawback. I'm thinking something along these lines: For 4s you move 50% faster, afterwards you move 50% slower for 4s. It is a 'skill' not an enchantment.

Demonic Flesh - Couple of ways to go with this one. 1) Immunity from Conditions for a limited time. 2) Greatly increased strength which has a percent chance to cause KD per attack. 3) An AoE KD. Adjacent range, akin to people pilling on and you throwing them down. I don't think GW has an AoE KD, so that might be neat.

Jaundiced Gaze - Let's take this in a different direction. Familiars. This skill lets you 'control' other peoples PETS, including allied pets. A bit like Verata's Aura. It doesn't cause people to permanantely LOSE their pet, but it would become hositle to them for a bit. It includes a sacrifice. It is AoE.

Oppressive Gaze - Maybe Weakness, maybe a snare. Maybe both. No lifesteal, but remains AoE.

Touch of Agony/Wallow's Bite - Decrease sacrifice to 5%, increase damage to 70-100ish. These deal Shadow Damage, which is Protable.

Vampiric Touch/Bite - These would scale slowly (like all lifesteals) until 13 Blood and increase SHARPLY after that. This prevents Touch Rangers because it wouldn't deal much damage for them, although it would be cheap. Their current damage at high Blood is fine. Decrease costs to 5e, no sacrifice. These are your primary damage dealers , along with the two above.

Unholy Feast - Decrease costs to 10e. Leave alone otherwise.

Vampiric Swarm - Major change here. This one is essentially "Bat Form". You take on the essence is the Bat. Your health is reduced to 50hp, no degen, you deal no damage. 50% IMS. Opponents CANNOT target you. AoE can kill you easily. It is a maintained enchantment, so you can leave it whenever you want. I am quite flexible on this one, but I like the Bat Form idea.

Barbed Signet - Something like the barbed bombs Celine threw in Underworld. AoE Shadow Damage.

Signet of Agony - Signets are mechanical devices. What would a Vampire need these for? Perhaps a Teleport?

Blood Bond - Reverse Life Bond. Whenever you take damage, half of the damage is redirected to target ally....perhaps target Party member. Ends if party member drops below 33% health. Causes a sacrifice when it ends.

Blood Drinker - Spell. Target foe becomes Dazed for 1-3s. If you steal health from target foe while target is Dazed, you become Dazed for 1-3s. Dazed is a strong effect, I imagine this only as a way to approach a target without them being able to respond.


Other skill changes:

Orders - You can be under the effect of only ONE Orders spell at any time. Newest one ends previous one. Eliminate restriction on Order of the Vampire. Dark Fury is an Orders spell???

Cultist's Fervor - Decrease sacrifice costs to 25-10%.

Life Transfer - Decrease recharge a LOT. 15-20s??

Spoil Victor - Reduce effect by 40%ish. Reduce duration significantly. Convert to full lifesteal. This is the Elite form of Insideous Parasite. It should be moved to the same line as IP, weather that means moving IP or SV, we can discuss.

[Drakken Breathes Fire]

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Demonic Flesh - Couple of ways to go with this one. 1) Immunity from Conditions for a limited time. 2) Greatly increased strength which has a percent chance to cause KD per attack. 3) An AoE KD. Adjacent range, akin to people pilling on and you throwing them down. I don't think GW has an AoE KD, so that might be neat.

Enchantment Spell.
I'd go a different route on demonic flesh, like +40 armor and half of it's current HP increase. This will make necromancers using touch skills slightly less fragile and possibly more usable. I'd also scale it's duration//benefits so that only primary necromancers can upkeep it.

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Blood Drinker - Spell. Target foe becomes Dazed for 1-3s. If you steal health from target foe while target is Dazed, you become Dazed for 1-3s. Dazed is a strong effect, I imagine this only as a way to approach a target without them being able to respond.

Make this one your 'bat form.'
Spell.
Your HP remains the same, but you begin bleeding for 25 seconds. For 10 seconds you take on the aspect of the bat and your normal attacks and skills steal 17 health. (same scale as OoV only just for you. .)

[Mister_Abc]

I think it'd be nice if the blood line was more a meleemancer type of attribute. He would excel in close combat, have the ability to steal life at touch range, and have tons of health, but low armor. A core staple to that idea would be Demonic Flesh:

Demonic Flesh 1 E, 1 C, 20 R, Enchantment Spell. For 60 seconds, you have 10...250...310 maximum health, but -20 armor.

He would also need some point blank range touch skills to satisfy the melee vampire part. Also, to prevent abusing by rangers the skills are now spells.

Vampiric Bite/Touch 10 E, 3/4 C, 3 R, Spell. Touch foe to steal 10...70...85 health.

Wallow's bite/touch of Agony 1 E, 1/4 C, 3 R, 5% sac, Spell. Touched foe take 20...50 shadow damage and deals 25% less damage for 1...3...4 seconds.

Blood Drinker 5 E, 1 C, 5 R, 10% sac, Spell. If touched foe is bleeding, you steal 10...70...85 health. If target foe is not bleeding, he begins bleeding for 1...13 seconds.

Also, he would need some utility spells to prevent himself to simply dying from overwhelming pressure, especially with the reduced armor.

Signet of Agony 1 C, 15 R, Signet. You suffer from Bleeding for 25 seconds. Your next spell does not sacrifice health.

Barbed Signet 1/4 C, 5 R signet. The next time your are attacked, 1...25...31 damage is negated, the attacker takes 1...25...31 damage and begins bleeding for 1...13 seconds.

Vampiric Spirit 10 E, 1 C, 10 R Elite Spell. You steal 10...60 health from all nearby foes.

My 2 cents

[Ensign]

Sanity check time.

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Drawing from lore, Vampires have many abilities that have corresponding matches in GW

"Flavor" attribution of an ability is what gave us the messes like Tiger's Fury in Beastmastery. Enfeebling Blood to Blood because it has Blood in the name? Flavor needs to imply mechanical coherency. Hodgepodge abilities are more fun to design than to play with.

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

ALL Lifesteals ramp up slowly in effect and then sharply increase beyond 13.

Doesn't work with the way GW is programmed; everything is a linear scale between 0 and 15 for better or worse. A couple skills that might work nicely with a different scaling are not going to force a significant change to low level optimization coding.

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

The idea being to encourage VERY high Blood speccing for lifesteals to be effective.

Why is this an important mechanic? What does it accomplish that linear scaling does not? Last I checked people universally max out their damage attributes.

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Dark Pact - This should be a defensive skill.

Why? What is the pressing need that you're trying to fill by converting this?

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

2) Greatly increased strength which has a percent chance to cause KD per attack.

Procs are swingy and tend to be really bad in PvP.

Most of the changes you are pushing seem to support meleemancers, though you're simultaneously thinking of the 'you must max blood' notion. Where are you going with this?

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

3) An AoE KD. Adjacent range, akin to people pilling on and you throwing them down. I don't think GW has an AoE KD, so that might be neat.

Whirlwind.

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Jaundiced Gaze - Let's take this in a different direction. Familiars.

Really radical changes like this are things that should go into GWII wishlists, not into a proposal for changes to GWI.

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Vampiric Touch/Bite - These would scale slowly (like all lifesteals) until 13 Blood and increase SHARPLY after that. This prevents Touch Rangers because it wouldn't deal much damage for them

Who cares about touch Rangers? I don't understand why you're so adamant about making this a 'you must spec 16 in blood and use Awaken to do anything!' line. What does that add to the game?

[Trvth Jvstice]

Carianae specifies A high Blood attribute because that would be the only way to stop a non Necro from using the more powerful proposed Blood skills at an unbalancing lvl.

IMO since Blood has very limited use as it is, a total change as discussed should be made, with more of the actual Vampire lore being used the define the skills. As far as wish lists are concerned, we didn't start the Vampire stuff, ANet did with Vampiric Gaze, Vampiric Bite, etc. The bad part is that they have taken an attribute line, leaned it toward one of the most powerful monsters in classic literature and turned it into one of the most unusable attributes in the game - other than solo or gimmick builds.

[Carinae]

Originally Posted by Ensign

Most of the changes you are pushing seem to support meleemancers, though you're simultaneously thinking of the 'you must max blood' notion. Where are you going with this?

I thought that was the only logical direction to go. Ranged lifesteals are dangerous, and several of the DD spells are touch range so I though we were automatically boxed in to Vampiric Meleemancers as the only real way to make Blood viable. If we're gonna do that, they need some support, because Blood doesnt have it, and I didn't want to force the build to go to it's secondary for defense.

Originally Posted by Ensign

Who cares about touch Rangers? I don't understand why you're so adamant about making this a 'you must spec 16 in blood and use Awaken to do anything!' line. What does that add to the game?

If we're gonna make Vamp Touch/Bite usefull to a necromancer, we have to greatly reduce their cost. That automaticaly buffs Touch Rangers even more, so I wanted to find a way to provide advantage to a necro in that situation. Anything that builds around VT/VB has got to consider rangers. The only thing they can't do is go over 12 Blood.

I also thought the high blood speccing would be something new. Everyone specs 14 for the same reason, I was trying to give a reason to go over that and include the disadvantage in the theme.

[horseradish]

I think we're getting absorbed into Vampires too literally.

I don't think we have to worry about Touch Rangers. All you need is a snare or a timed D-shot. :/

If anything, Vampiric Touch and it's duplicate should have it's functionality changed rather than to keep it in it's current form.

Blood magic needs other niches besides life stealing, but not so similar to the other attributes in terms of debilitating hexes and corpse exploitation.

I agree with Ensign. We should figure out what the attribute line should do before anything else.

[Carinae]

Well, you said to provide direction, I thought building on the Vampiric idea was logical and thematic. I guess I missed the mark badly. I indicated several times in the thread about going to a N/A or meleemancer idea and no one corrected me. We don't want hexes, thats been said. I didn't include cast times/recharge on purpose, we'd allow the PvPers to provide those. And building around lifesteals pretty much requires touch range, since ranged lifesteals are too dangerous.

What would you do with Blood Ensign?

[Kaida the Heartless]

I liked the idea of the necromancer blood line moving to party support. Currently, you have to run a paragon, third monk, or warder to really get any support at the stand. Having the necro help to fill this role may actually squeeze them into a balanced gvg build occasionally.

Blood Drinker: 5E, 2C, 8R
Enchantment Spell. For 5-18 seconds, target other ally steals 5-20 Health and causes bleeding for 5 seconds with thier attack skills.

Blood Bond: 5E, 1C, 2R
Enchantment Spell. For 5-20 seconds, target other ally gains 1-8 Health Regeneration, you suffer from 1-3 Health Degeneration, and any conditions inflicted on them are duplicated to you.

Dark Pact: 17%S, 1E, 1C, 8R
Spell. You steal 1-6 Energy from target foe. For each point of energy lost, that foe takes 1-5 Shadow Damage.

Vampiric Touch: 15E, 3/4C, 12R
Touch Skill. Target foe loses 10-50 Health. Party members gain 5-50 Health (soul reaping range).

Hell, I don't know what I'm doing. I can't balance skills. XD

[Drakken Breathes Fire]

Originally Posted by Mister_Abc

I think it'd be nice if the blood line was more a meleemancer type of attribute. He would excel in close combat, have the ability to steal life at touch range, and have tons of health, but low armor. A core staple to that idea would be Demonic Flesh:

Demonic Flesh 1 E, 1 C, 20 R, Enchantment Spell. For 60 seconds, you have 10...250...310 maximum health, but -20 armor.

Why in gods name would you want that much health and no way of keeping it there? Lower the HP gain on demonic flesh, (possibly duration aswell, but scale it so only a necromancer can upkeep it.) and add an armor bonus of +40.

Originally Posted by Mister_Abc

He would also need some point blank range touch skills to satisfy the melee vampire part. Also, to prevent abusing by rangers the skills are now spells.

Vampiric Bite/Touch 10 E, 3/4 C, 3 R, Spell. Touch foe to steal 10...70...85 health.

Wallow's bite/touch of Agony 1 E, 1/4 C, 3 R, 5% sac, Spell. Touched foe take 20...50 shadow damage and deals 25% less damage for 1...3...4 seconds.

Why not just apply weakness?

Originally Posted by Mister_Abc

Blood Drinker 5 E, 1 C, 5 R, 10% sac, Spell. If touched foe is bleeding, you steal 10...70...85 health. If target foe is not bleeding, he begins bleeding for 1...13 seconds.

One trick pony much? You need to keep mashing this skill and only this skill to kill a target. Hell, even arcane echoed this skill is cheap. Not very well thought out at all.

Originally Posted by Mister_Abc

Also, he would need some utility spells to prevent himself to simply dying from overwhelming pressure, especially with the reduced armor.

Signet of Agony 1 C, 15 R, Signet. You suffer from Bleeding for 25 seconds. Your next spell does not sacrifice health.

This skill was fine before.

Originally Posted by Mister_Abc

Barbed Signet 1/4 C, 5 R signet. The next time your are attacked, 1...25...31 damage is negated, the attacker takes 1...25...31 damage and begins bleeding for 1...13 seconds.

I like this one, but I'd make it a party wide buff and limit it to 2-8 seconds to wear off.

Originally Posted by Mister_Abc

Vampiric Spirit 10 E, 1 C, 10 R Elite Spell. You steal 10...60 health from all nearby foes.

This one isn't BAD. It reminds me of an elite Unholy feast, however, it's WAY too powerful. you can steal over... 1000 health in one shot if you have enough enemies around. Nice idea, just not executed well.

[Cathode_Reborn]

Originally Posted by horseradish

I think we're getting absorbed into Vampires too literally.

Yup. This is Guild wars. You don't do skill balance based on silly fantasy themes. Look at Assassins...Anet did create an "assassin" type character that does what they do in real life - get in, kill instantly, get out......and guess what? They were very bad for the game before they took all the nerfs.


imo.....

High damage Blood skills can exist, but they can't be so unconditional and braindead like pre-nerf Angorodon's Gaze. Blood Magic DD's are much too simple - cast spell on foe, foe takes damage. Skills that are so unconditional like that need to be given low damage so they don't get out of hand. The result is what we have now: a bunch of weak DD's with no utility and absolutely no reason to be used.

Some good high damage but conditonal skills:

Shattersone - A hefty 200 damage total at 15 spec. It's balanced by being in a 3-sec hex form.

Freezing Gust - Powerful snaring tool, but has a pretty useless effect if the target already has a water hex.

Ancestor's Rage, Spirit Burn - Previously used in Ritspike, but changed so that the damage remained the same but couldn't be stacked when used on multiple Rits.

Just random examples of how Blood DD's can be changed - Make them conditional so their damage can safely be buffed. You could have something like: A hex that deals X damage when applied. Give it a short duration and maybe add a little degen, or some secondary effect. If you meet the req, have it do an additional X damage when it ends.

The whole Life Stealing thing isn't exacly a good idea, but some skills handle it well:

Insidious Parasite - It only takes effect when your target attacks.

Weapon of Remedy - It's different from everything else because it's Target Ally.

Both are very viable skills that use the Life Stealing mechanic, but the caster also has little control over them. You can't force a target to kill themselves on either of these skills. Skills like Angorodon's Gaze are the opposite, and shouldn't exist. There shouldn't be any foe-targetted spells that steal life so easily and unconditionally. The caster should have little control over life-stealing. It's safer to give them control of normal armor-ignoring damage, since it's prot'able. Still though, make all of it conditional.

Hexes

I think hexes are perfectly fine, but not the way Curses does it. GW doesn't need anymore of the "fire-and-forget" stuff that any idiot can use. Shame/Diversion/Freezing Gust are good examples: Hexes that are very short-lasting, but powerful when used at the right time. Mark of Subversion is a start, but could use a change.

Since they're slightly in that direction already, Blood Magic in general could probably be: Conditional direct armor-ignoring damage, ability to buff phys classes, and aid slightly with party survival. Sacrifices should be considered the "cost" of a skill - any skill that makes you sac too much should have a very low energy cost.

[Stormlord Alex]

In one of the other threads, the idea I really liked was making Blood a party-support line as opposed to a damage-dealing line; changing lifesteals to party heals and the like.

So, here's my skill change list.

Shadow Strike/Lifebane Strike
10e 1c 10r
Target foe takes 12...41 damage. If that foe was over 50% health, that foe takes an additional 6...20 damage and your party is healed for 8...41 health.

Blood Bond
5e 1c 2r
Target other ally gains +4...8 health regeneration for 5...12 seconds, and you suffer -3 degeneration. When this skill ends, both you and target ally are healed for 30...70 health.

Life Siphon - needs 1 second cast, a core skill of Blood guys.

Vampiric Touch/Vampiric Bite
5e 3/4c 5r 5% sac
Enchantment spell. For 6 seconds, target ally's next melee attack steals an additional 18...39 health.

Wallow's Bite/Touch of Agony
1e 3/4c 3r 5% sac
Enchantment spell. For 6 seconds, target ally's next melee attack deals an additional 18...39 damage

... then coupled with those two, a change to Dark Aura - casting health sac spells that target other allies causes the Aura to damage foes around that ally (see what Zealot's Fire does, Aura will be a blood/death version of that)

Vampiric Swarm
15e 2c 10r
Target foe and 2 additional foes in the area take 15...51 damage. Your party is healed for 5...18 health for each foe damaged by this spell.

Unholy Feast - pull an Ancestors' Rage on this one.
10e 1/4c 12r
Skill. For 1 second, nothing happens. When Unholy Feast ends, all foes adjacent to target ally take 20...64 damage and your party is healed for 15 health for every foe damaged by this skill.

Signet of Agony - just change it to from foes around you to foes around target ally, with the 1sec timer before damage so it can't stack.

Mark of Subversion - recharge at 20 seconds

Ravenous Gaze - LoD-strength, with damage.
5e 1c 10r
You deal 5...65 damage to target foe. If that foe was suffering from a condition, your party is healed for 5...57 health.

Blood of the Aggressor
10e 1/4c 10r
You deal 5...41 damage to target foe. If that foe is attacking, you deal an additional 10...20 damage and your party is healed for 5...41 health.

... is what I have for now.
EDIT - just a note, the party-healing effects should probably be weaker, to keep them in line with monk and rit options.

[Turbobusa]

Those party heals are really powerful, what about adding a clause like "only allies that have less health than target foe" or something. Because compared to monk party heals, those are on crack.

[Stormlord Alex]

Originally Posted by Turbobusa

Those party heals are really powerful, what about adding a clause like "only allies that have less health than taret foe" or something. Because compared to monk party heals, those are on crack.

Yeeah, now that I think about it - they could probably do with being weaker. A 14-spec Kaolai is 57 health - so if the necro heals were around 40 health at 14 spec, it'd be fair. I'll amend my post, can't be assed to think up new numbers. Feast and Swarm are ok though - I really doubt you'll ever get that much healing off of them in PvP.

[horseradish]

I like your ideas Alex. They're OP, but it's a couple steps in the right direction. My only concern is that this would overshadow Rits in terms of Offensive and Defensive support.

I also have a problem with this.

Originally Posted by Stormlord Alex

A 14-spec Kaolai is 57 health

lolwut?

[Chthon]

A.

Originally Posted by Ensign

"Flavor" attribution of an ability is what gave us the messes like Tiger's Fury in Beastmastery. Enfeebling Blood to Blood because it has Blood in the name? Flavor needs to imply mechanical coherency. Hodgepodge abilities are more fun to design than to play with.

I think Carinae is going in a pretty specific direction here. It looks like a "vampiric assassin" kind of thing. Mobility and snares and high close-range damage against a single-target, but it can afford to be a little less instagib-y than assassins because of the inherent survivability in life steal, and the self-preservation skills seem more active than passive and braindead like feigned neutrality. In some senses, I think this might be a good direction to go in because it would allow instagib assassins to get nerfed into the ground without completely removing the concept of a "ganker" class from the game.

If we want to take the line in this direction, my thoughts on how to do it:

• 1. Movement buffs.
  • I'd be OK with importing shadow steps into the blood line for this purpose.
  • Probably need a skill that gives a speed boost (and armor boost) in return for a sac. End on hit/spell/touch probably.
  • The bat form idea is kinda cool, but overpowered I think. I think I'd rather leave the player targetable and leave the life total alone, but add a X...Y damage absorb a la life sheath and end the form if the absorb cap is reached.
    I'd also add a self-cripple on end so that a successful flight leaves you in a position to plague touch the cripple to your victim, but an unsuccessful flight leaves you in a bad spot. (Alternatively, you could take damage when it ends equal to the amount absorbed, to create a similar incentive to make it close enough to your target to land a life steal quickly.)
    Finally, this skill would get abused all to hell by runners without something to prevent you from staying in it all the time. 2 sec cast? long-ass recharge? disables all other skills while active? Hefty degen while active? The cripple on end? (Oooh the cripple on end serves two purposes now )
• 2. Survivability.
  • In general, we want something that's more active and player-skill-driven than just hitting feigned neutrality and running away. Afraid that does mean more hexes and conditions though.
  • Probably two cripple skills. One touch range that also causes weakness to keep melee away and double as a snare for your victim. (Perhaps move enfeebling touch to blood for this purpose.) One spell range just for keeping melee away (with some sort of malus to keep it not better than pin down).
  • Probably some deterrent skills.
    • A steal-life-from-whoever-hits-you enchant a la VwK. (Perhaps this should be unholy feast's new job.)
    • Take the blood-bond-as-a-reverse-life-bond idea, but apply to to a foe as a sticky hex. "You can hit me, but 1/3 of that damage goes to your monk."
    • Spec curses for IP, or SS.
    • SV is fine as it is for this purpose. (Though changing it to any elite IP wouldn't bother me too much.)
  • We're still going to need some mindless passive self-buffs though, just because necros are soooo squishy.
    • Armor buff for a life sac, probably same skill that gives you a speed buff. (I hate to turn demonic flesh into this skill because I like using it in PvE for GBing certain bosses, but it does seem like a candidate for that job.)
    • Damage reduction skill along the lines of armor of sanctity. Perhaps longer duration and only against bleeding foes.
• 3. Snares.
  • The cripple skills mentioned above.
  • Maybe a third cripple skill on a shadow step. kinda a mini-shadow-prison.
• 4. Damage
  • In general, shift away from spell-range damage to high-damage touches. A few half-range spells for finishing off a fleeing enemy can fill the gap.
  • Touches:
    • Vamp touch/bite:
      • No need to do silly contortions with the blood magic rank to get around touchers. Either (a) just remove touches from expertise, or (b) make them work like the old lion's comfort to get a huge bonus from soul reaping.
      • Ensign, are you sure that the linear skill scales are an engine limitation and not just a design choice?
    • Touch of agony/wallows - major damage buff.
  • Spells
    • Keep Vamp Gaze, Shadow/Lifebane Strike, life siphon, and life transfer (which a much reduced recharge) at full range.
    • Take the remaining direct damage spells and make them half range with better damage. (Or scrap them and use the names for the skills being added.)
  • Bleeding. It's blood magic for Pete's sake, so at least a few of the skills should cause bleeding. Give bleeding to several of the new half-range spells and maybe one of the touches (touch of agony/wallows?), and maybe as a side-effect on some of the utility spells like rip enchantment got.
• 5. Misc.
  • Just because meleemancers are so bleh -- any also because we don't want to make dagger N/A or A/N an even better instagib than assassin is right now -- some skills should reward using a staff or focus a la way of the master, or fail to give a bonus if you're wielding a melee weapon.

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B.

Originally Posted by Stormlord Alex

In one of the other threads, the idea I really liked was making Blood a party-support line as opposed to a damage-dealing line; changing lifesteals to party heals and the like....
Yeeah, now that I think about it - they could probably do with being weaker. A 14-spec Kaolai is 57 health - so if the necro heals were around 40 health at 14 spec, it'd be fair.

Remaking these as pure party heals is going to put things in a situation where they're always strictly better or strictly worse than the monk and rit options, which is sure to send Izzy into a crazy nerfing fit on something. Let's change their nature a bit so that they aren't exactly party heals that can be directly compared with the party heals already out there. EITHER: (a) the nearest X party members to that foe steal Y health, OR (b) the X party members with the lowest health percentage steal Y health, OR even (c) all party members below X% health (team synch life saccing ftw?).


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C.
Blood magic has a lot of bad skills. We could probably take the line in two totally different directions at once (Carinae's way and Alex's way perhaps) without running out of bad skills to revamp. (Pun intended, sorry.)

[Carinae]

Regarding Shadow Steps...I would be initially inclined towards Teleports because necros already have the only two true Teleports in the game, and they have zero Shadow Steps.

If that is a problem it can be changed, but I'd go there first.