Blood Mage Witch Ascendnecy feedback and suggestions

The Blood Mage ascendancy sounds incredible conceptually, but in reality it is underwhelming at best and downright terrible at worst, forcing the player to waste their precious ascendancy skill points on nodes that give no value just to stay alive.

I will go through each node issue and suggestions for improvement:

1. Sanguimancy: grants skill Life Remnants and make skills cost both life and mana, with life cost being equal to mana cost.

Issue:
So Im forced to place my first 2 hard-gained ascendancy points into this keystone, it the shtick of Blood Mage afterall, I get it.
But now I pay with my HP on top of mana for every spell cast, and to get back that lost HP I need to run around like a headless chicken in hope that enemies drop Life Remnants just to stay alive!

Life Remnants allow Life to overflow, but they are so scarce they are barely enough to keep me alive.

This passive feels like nothing more than an handicap, it feels terrible and a waste of precious ascendancy points, especially in scenarios where a rare monster hit you hard, you are out of healing flask charges and on low life - risking killing your self with a spell cast, or dying to the rare mob as you can't fight back, or in scenario where the Life Remnants drop from mobs that spread poison ground or some other damaging floor.

Suggestions:
- Merge Vitality Siphon with Sanguimancy (will touch it more later).
- Make Life Remnants pickup automatically from range and increase their drop frequency. Automatic pickup from afar will allow the witch to focus on the action and dodge without being worried about chasing those small Life Remnant heals.
- Remove the mana cost from skills, there is no reason for skills to cost BOTH life and mana. Skills should cost only life (it is a Blood Mage afterall), and buffs that manipulate skill damage based on mana should be now based on life. For example Archmage should now work based on Life instead, increasing spells damage based on max Life but also increase life cost of spells.
The mana we now have free could be used for some other synergies like taking Mind Over Matter.

2. Vitality Siphon: 10% of Spell Damage leeched as Life.

Issue: 10% life leech, nice... What else it does?
I mean, surely after spending my precious first Ascendancy Trial points on this handicap called "Sanguimancy" and barely making it through the second Trial, you're not seriously expecting me to waste another 2 precious Ascendancy skill points on Vitality Siphon just to offset the handicap of Sanguimancy and not get any other benefit from it, do you?
Unfortunately, as it current state, Blood Mage must take this keystone just to survive...

Suggestions:
- Honestly, there is no redeeming this one.
This node should be deleted alltogether and merged into another keystone, preferably merged into Sanguimancy as it should be, it only makes sense that a Blood Mage pays for their spells with their own life, and leech it back from their enemies to regenerate.
- Another option, assuming Life Remnants is fixed, is allowing life leeched to be added to the Blood Mage life overflow.

3. Open Sores: Your curses have Infinite Duration.

Issue: This feels out of place for a Blood Mage, and a very niche keystone in general. The only build I can think of that would want it is perhaps a Minion Master, and even then curses are hard to use as they are so slow enemies just walk out of them before they finish their cast...

Suggestions: I don't really have anything to suggest here, this keystone is not really the issue as the main issues with Curses lie in their difference compared to POE1...

4. Blood Barbs: Gain 10% of damage as extra Physical Damage, and Elemental Damage also contributes to Bleeding Magnitutde.

Issue: Honestly this keystone its self isn't half bad, I would have taken it in a heartbeat - if I didn't have to waste half my Ascendancy skill points just to make this Ascendancy work, leaving me with only 4points to actually put somewhere good...

Suggestions: yeah, nothing really to change here for now, this keystone looks awesome, and I would love to give it a try once the rest of the ascendancy is fixed, maybe then I will have skill points to spare on this.

5. Gore Spike: 1% increased Critical Damage Bonus per 40 Life.

Issue: yeah, this one is actually good, perhaps it feels alittle shallow, but it definitely got potential.

Suggestion: I'm not sure I would really change anything here, it is pretty strong as it is

6. Sunder The Flesh: Base Critical Hit Chance for Spells is 15%.

Issue: This is a trap.
On paper it sounds absolutely amazing for crit spell builds... But in reality there are ways to achieve high crit chance if not even max crit chance for spells without this keystone, I'm sure players will find ways to achieve high crit chance without this even on spells that have low base crit chance.
Besides, there are several spells that already got 15% base crit chance, making this keystone completely useless.

Suggestions: This keystone need to be buffed, have something on top of the base crit chance. Maybe merge it with Gore Spike or Blood Barbs

7. Grasping Wounds: 25% of Life loss from hits is prevented, and then lost over 4 seconds instead.

Issue: This one is not bad, but as the Ascendancy currently stands - you have to make a choice between offensive keystones or defensive keystones, as you can't really have both with just 4 skill points to spend after fixing that god damn handicap at the start of the tree...

Suggestions: No much to change here, just hopefully it will be more viable once the ascendancy is fixed and then maybe we will be able to pick both defensive and offensive nodes.

8. Crimson Power: Gain Energy Shield from equipped Body Armor as extra maximum life.

Issue: again, a really good keystone that perhaps feels a 'must have' for Blood Mage, wasted away because we don't have enough ascendancy skil points to take this and invest in offense the same time..

Suggestion: not much to fix in the keystone its self, maybe just move it closer to the start of the ascendancy tree, and hopefully we can have it once the Blood Mage ascendancy class is fixed.

Conclusion:
In it current state, unless Blood Mage gets extra 4 Ascendancy skill points to compensate for Sanguimancy and Vitality Siphon, it just not a viable Ascendancy.
Being forced to pick either offensive or defensive keystones with their remaining 4 skill points - Blood Mage are underperforming, weak and don't feel unique in any way

I really like where you're going with this post, well structured and Constructive Feedback. So i hope i can do about the same.


1. Saguimancy:
I like your Idea of merging the Leech with the Sagimancy to counter the extra life cost of skills a bit.

For the only life cost - i disagree because your still a Witch and infuse your Spells with additional Blood.
But i would like to see something like Double Damage.
If you pay double the amount for casting it should also do twice as much Damage.
This would also help to "kill" faster to then get your Life remnants.
That way there would not be the "need" to pick up leech early on.

As for the pickup range of the Remnants all together it should be higher
or just absorbed directly like on gain on Kill.
As already written, it is absolutly stupid if you cast, using your life and then you got to wait till the blood pool from the dead enemy's goes away just to see your Remnant dissapear on you.
Also there are some Bosses that are just so big, that you cannot get to your Remnants at all.



2.Vitality Siphon:
I like the Idea to add that Leech can count to Overflow Life.

But i could see the node be more usefull if you slap on
10-15% Increased maximum Life or
20-40% increased Life Regeneration rate, even something like
20-30% increased amount of Life Leeched would help


3.Open Sores:
The Infinite Curse is something that sounds good but really isn't that good.
Also it really feels misplaced in this Ascendency.

I only got one Idea to change this node into something meaningful worth picking.
Instead of Curses have Infinite duration, a change to Spirit Cost of Curses cast as an Aura is halved.
Maybe also getting plus one on Curse limit but this might be overkill.


4. Blood Barbs:
Like already written in the post above the Node itself isn't bad.
I got more of a problem with the Skill Tree, as it doesn't really contributes to "Spell Bleed" with a whole 6 nodes close to the Witch that provide something with Bleed. Also every node is surrounded by Increased Physical Damage.

So my contribution to this node would be, add a 50% Convert to Physical on top
to the Gain 10% of Damage as extra Physical Damage.
That way you could at least Profit from the few Physical/Bleed nodes.


5.Gore Spike:
Good Node - nothing really to say about thise one.
Just would like to see a clarification to it beeing Actual Life (with Overflow) or Maximum Life.
Also nice would be if you could actually see anywhere how much the node does.
At the moment i don't know if it even works because i don't really see any differences in my critical Damage when i skill the Node.
(maybe because i use lightning skills which are high variable skills)


6. Sunder the Flesh:
Setting the Base Critical Hit Chance to 15% is ok, but at the moment it feels like this Node is comming to late for the little benefit it brings.

Also like already written the downsides of using two Ascendency points, far outweight the benefits from a little more Base Critical Hit Chance on most skills.

I would love to see something like Critical Hits are Lucky instead of Base Critical Hit Chance.
Or go with something like 50% more Magnitude of Ailments from Critical Hits.
This would make the Node feel worth investing four additional points in.

7. Grasping Wounds:
Nothing really to say about this one.
Sounds good, works, would benefit from Remnant pickup changes.

8.Crimson Power:
Love the Idea that you can get an extra Life Boost from your Body Armour.
I think it would be better if it would Convert all Energy Shield on Armour to maximum Life.
Not add extra maximum Life just from Body Armour.


Conclusion:
The Blood Mage Ascendeny needs some Tweaks and Buffs to sustain
the early Game and add some Power for the Lategame.
As it stands now, Blood Mage is just a Caster with more Spellcost than everyone.$
Criticals don't really stand out, survival can be achieved in other other way's.
The power to gain Overflow Life is a cool mechanic but with the Remnant state now it is just a hassle.

That would be my feedback on the Blood Mage
Have a Nice time Playing everyone.

And Dev's Good Work

I've played my bloodmage for 120h now and I think you're mostly right. But I hardly disagree on your take regarding blood remnants and Vitality Siphon. In all the hours I've played it was the exact opposite.

I'm rarely below 100% life and if so most of the time I'm dead. My screen is filled with blood orbs and I'm hard capped at the overflow limit most of the time. Against bosses it's a little harder but with reliable crits you still get tons of life. That's the reason why leech sucks. It stops at 100% life, so I never get any of it.

+1 with your feedback, except for what the previous person said. I agree with "That's the reason why leech sucks. It stops at 100% life, so I never get any of it."


I'd like to add some things :

1) right before Vitality, we have "12% increased amount of life leeched"... which life leech are we talking about ?
except vitality siphon that comes after, there is no life leech for a witch, except a few "leech 1% of your life when you cast a spell" or on the Covenant Altar Robe (5% of Spell Damage Leeched as Life, that comes with..... Skills gain a Base Life Cost equal to 50% of Base Mana Cost ! So basically more sanguimancy for us)

2) About Sunder the Flesh :

We are talking right now about the witch, so we could expect ascendancy to work with occult spells.
Occult spells are
- physical spells : bone storm and bone cage. These 2 spells already have 15% crit chance.
- chaos spells : a lot of them are damage on time, so no crit. it would work only with hexblast and the initial hit of essence drain.

This node is made to play with elemental damage. Could we have some love for physical or chaos ?