Phys Blood Mage isn't there yet for many reasons.

TLDR: Not nearly enough Physical spells for Occult. Blood Orbs should be able to be picked up at range since it's a ranged class. You should get Attack Benefits for using your Life for spellcasting!!! Need Exsanguinate. Unplayable unless you have 2nd Ascension and Life Leech on spells. Currently Very Slow and Not Fun. Not any more survivable on bosses in current form.


There's basically two spells for Physical Magic, which is pretty much what you are kind of funneled towards if you go Blood Magic ascension, since the graphic art is 100% the Bonestorm skill. Bone magic only really has two options, a burst AoE defensive skill, and a charge up barrage skill. There is no alternative there, while the Occult Minion abilities completely dominate.

The expenditure of Life for fueling spells, honestly, has no upside to it from my play testing. It's not making my spells any more powerful in exchange for the life force, and the Overcapping of Life is FINE... but it's not nearly as nice as it should be for the demerit of costing you life for casting everything. It's practically required that you take Life Leech on spells for your second ascension, and I had to leave my second point from my First ascension uninvested to just be able to keep playing the character.

The Blood Mage also does not have any synergies with Minion builds as far as I can see, and so it incentivizes you to build AWAY from the most populated Occult niche there is, the dozen or so Minion centric skills.

In order to be able to even get in some good shots on Clearing in the Acts, I had to slot in Arc, so that I can have something at range that fires off faster than the Charge Up Bonestorm. And it feels like the Leech on spell damage doesn't work with Arc, so I end up bleeding out!

The Blood Mage is a perfect role for Exsanguinate, which I know is not yet in the game. But even with Exsanguinate, you're going to need at least another three Bone and Blood centric spells to fill out this Ascension, to give it some actual utility and reason to be. You should also give something like a 20% bonus to spell effects or damage (or both) for powering up with Life, because as far as I can tell from my gaming with the Ascension, having an Ascension centered around Situational Survivability isn't really very fun! We need some kind of offensive payoff for self harm in addition to the Life Overcapping!

Also, the blood orbs need to stick around for another 5 seconds or so before they disappear. Because my attack power gets NO boost, it's still taking me a long time to clear fights, especially since I have to charge up every attack I use with Bonestorm. And so I'm often left unable to pick up the Blood Orbs in time before they despawn right before my eyes as I'm moving towards them to pick up.

Or, how about this? Increase the range of suctioning them! The Witch is a Ranged Class! Why do I have to run up to the dead bodies to pick up the blood, putting me in melee range of the surviving monsters, or within melee bonk range of the bosses I'm fighting! I want to be able to recoup that life without risking getting one shot by a swing meant for fighting against a Warrior!