Blood Mages

A small word of advice

Bloodmage in an incredibly fun and powerful subclass. However clicking a bloodmage is entirely different from clicking a regular fighter or lesser subclass. It is advised to first click another subclass, or learn the ropes as a fighter and then become a bloodmage. However just because your bloodmage has X amount of ranks doesn't mean they are capable of hunting area Y and Z.

How to become a Bloodmage

Become a third circle Fighter
Qualify for the Bloodlade
Become proficient with the Bloodblade
Gain insight into blood magic

Qualifying for the Bloodblade

In order to qualify for the bloodblade, you must practice fighting on low health. You should occasionally get the following message:

• You experiment with a new fighting style.

When you’ve qualified for the bloodblade (or Gossamer, or Fell blade) you will get the following message:

• You discover an important combat technique.

When you’ve qualified for the bloodblade you can acquire one from Nacerus (located in the savannah maha den) in exchange for a moonstone and a dagger.

Nacerus says, “I see you have mastered the skill needed to perform elementary bloodmagic.”

Nacerus says, “I can fashion you a weapon which will allow you to use bloodmagic in combat.”

Nacerus asks, “<name>, will you provide me a moonstone and a dagger?”

Becoming proficient with the Bloodblade

Once you have qualified for and purchased a bloodblade, you can begin training by using the /use /practice command. You will gain ranks in it whether you have it equipped or not. You can use the /use /reflect to see how proficient you are with the bloodblade. When you equip your bloodblade it will drain your health and you will gain Atkus/Darkus according to the amount of trained bloodmage ranks and the level of your health.

Gaining Insight into Bloodmagic

The most common way to gain insight is to use your Bloodblade, fight on low health and kill undine. Undine hut in NE field is a perfect location to gain insight.

When you have trained a significant amount of bloodblade ranks (around 60–80) you gain entry to the Nacerean Order (located in the Savannah Maha Den) and the ability absorb creatures for the bloodpool. The bloodpool is located in w town under the cemetery and in the Savannah cave. The bloodpool will hunger for a certain creature, if you absorb it and bring it to the bloodpool you will gain insight into the bloodpool.

• You learn from your brief foray into butchery. <Completing the drag-a-creature quest for Vaun Gutturt (needs confirmation)>

• You gain insight into the nature of your bloodblade. <Using you bloodblade>

• You learn about the nature of life and death from the passing of the <undine monster>. <Killing undine>

• You gain insight from fighting on the edge of death. <Fighting on low health>

• You learn from working with the blood of the <blood dropping monster such as a T’rool>. <Collecting blood>

• You gain insight into the nature of the bloodpool. <Feeding the bloodpool>

You will need at least 80 bloodblade ranks to become a Bloodmage.

Becoming a Bloodmage

Once you meet all the requirements Haima Myrtillus will officially indulge you into the order.

Bloodmage items

Bloodblade

The bloodblade is the cornerstone of the Blood Mage class. The blade allows access to all of the offensive abilities of the class and it can give the mage an immense amount of raw power. In general each rank trained in Bloodblade gives a lot of atkus, a huge amount of darkus, a moderate amount of balance, and a moderate amount of regia. If a bloodmage weilding fighter is severely wounded, if they are fighting at, say, 1% health instead 25% health, the bloodblade roughly doubles in effectiveness. These fluidly accessible stats can allow a bloodmage to tag and deal useful amounts of damage even in areas that are normally well beyond an exile of their rank count. Or they can cause a creature that attacked the mage, but just barely didn't kill it, to regret their life choices.

Non Bloodmage Bloodbladers may get more use out of a non-infused bloodblade since it gives a different combination of atkus/darkus/balthus/regia and a different % increase in stats when weak (most notably, it gives more regia when low on health). However an exile will need an infused bloodblade if they wish to absorb creatures for the bloodpool. When becoming a Bloodmage the exile's bloodblade will automatically become infused, draining notably less health and allowing access to all of the class's secret abilities.

Spoiler: While the bloodblade is equipped its ranks, in part, increase your balance. But it also removes defense equal to the defense bonus that balance would give. This means that right after you swing you can actually have less defence than you would using another weapon, or even negative defense. Source

Bloodstone Ring

The Bloodstone Ring can be bought for 3000c from Sargasti Avantis. Everyone, regardless of profession and training can use the bloodstone ring to block healing at desired health. After you've completed training with Unrastin (12 ranks) you gain the passive ability to see "sparkles" around the monster with the highest health nearby. The Bloodstone Ring is also used for feigning.

To set the Bloodstone Ring to 40% health, you would type /useitem bloodstone /set 40%

Bloodshroud

The Bloodshroud is a bloody red shroud with no special abilities. It costs 6,660c.

Bloodmage abilities

Blood

Bloodmage's unique spiritual resource is blood. Bloodmages do not regenerate spirit on their own very well, nor do they have any trainer that can aide them in this. Instead hitting a critter with the bloodblade or an inferno explosion causes the critter to drop blood droplets when it dies. These droplets are the primary way a bloodmage recovers their spirit. The only other notable way of recovering spirit is to absorb creatures into ones Bloodblade and feed that to the Bloodpool for a lil spirit (and the pleasure of the Bloodpool).

This system means that bloodmages have to share their spirit between each other over a hunt. It contributes to 3 main things

A general blood droplet manner system
A rough limit on how many ranks in bloodmagic a mage can get
Not a lot of bloodmages

Each time a bloodmage attacks a creature with their Bloodblade, they use up a bit of spirit based on how many ranks in Bloodblade they have. When the creature dies, the total amount of spirit in its blood droplets is equal to the amount of blood in Bloodblade swings to kill it plus a complex formula that incorporates how much of a vanquish the critter was and how strong it was in general.

When it comes to ranks in blood magic, gaining 100 ranks in any (or all) bloodmagic skills is extremely practical and sustainable. Getting 250 ranks in any specific skill will likely cause a bit of restraint when grouping with other bloodmages, or if you are hunting creatures you only dispatch. Getting 400 ranks in any specific skill will require strong rationing of your own skills when hunting with other mages, potentially a bit of rationing even when alone, and definite problems when hunting in areas where you do not routinely vanquish/kill things. Some mages have been known to train as much as 500 or 750 ranks in certain blood magics, but they are weirdos and oddballs.

Bloodblade abilities

Debuffs

All of the bloodmage debuffs have their strength improved by training in either Disabla or Cryptus. Both trainers currently do the same thing and pool their ranks.

Disable

Activating this causes the next attack to consume spirit in order to cause a disabling wound that will lower the target's defense.

Not only can this help exiles hit evasive targets, but Rangers and Champions both may have atkus conservation on their swings (they only use as much atkus as it takes to hit) so they can swing more frequently against disabled critters.

Each rank in Disabla/Cryptus increases the reduction to defense and the spirit cost of the skill.

Cripple

Activating this causes the next attack to consume spirit in order to cause a crippling wound that will lower the target's ability to hit and its balance regeneration.

Each rank in Disabla/Cryptus increases the reduction to atkus, reduction to balance regeneration, and the spirit cost of the skill.

Hamstring

Activating this causes the next attack to consume spirit in order to cause a mobility-related wound that will lower the target's ability to move around and mildly effect its balance regeneration.

Each rank in Disabla/Cryptus increases the reduction to movement speed, reduction to balance regeneration, and the spirit cost of the skill.

Damaging Abilities

Control Mode

Toggling this will cause all damage from the bloodblade to be dealt instead as damage-over-time (DoT), similar to hemo.

The benefits of this are a lower blood consumption and a more group friendly way of tagging. Keep in mind that the bleed will still end up doing, potentially, a lot of darkus worth of damage.

Each rank in Aneurus will further increase the damage done by this DoT.

Hemo

Activating this will cause the next successful bloodblade attack to deal an additional hemorrhagic wound. The creature unfortunate enough to be hit by the attack will suffer an extra large amount of damage over time (DoT).

Each rank in Aneurus increases the spirit cost of the ability and adds a large amount of damage to the DoT. The damage of the hemorrhagic wound is further increased by how low your current health is when you make the attack, much like the bloodblade itself.

Inferno

Activating this will cause the next successful bloodblade attack to deal extra damage and, if the attack kills the target, extra spirit will be consumed to cause the target to explode in a rain of blood which damages all nearby enemies. If an enemy exploding kills another enemy, that newly killed enemy will also explode damaging enemies around it. This chaining of explosions can get silly in certain situations.

If you have completed training with Unrastin, preparing the inferno will also indicate which creature you are sure to slay with the inferno blow. If an inferno attack causes a creature to explode, the amount of damage done to the surrounding creatures is equal to roughly half of the health the creature had left plus half of the bonus damage inferno added to the attack (i.e. killing a creature that had 10 histia left will do 5 histia worth of damage to the surrounding creatures plus an additional amount based on training in Dantus).

Each rank in Dantus increases the spirit cost of the ability, adds a moderate amount of damage to the inferno-enhanced bloodblade attack, and a moderate amount of damage to any resulting explosion(s). The bonus damage Dantus adds to the attack is further increased by how low your current health is when you make the attack, much like the bloodblade itself. With low amounts of Dantus the explosion will not deal that 'half of the health' in aoe damage. It is currently assumed the first 50?-150? ranks increase the % explosion damage as well, culminating in that 'half of the health' in aoe damage.

Bloodstone ring abilities

Healing Blocking

In order to maintain an ideal ratio of durability to murder ability, bloodblade wielders commonly use this ring to limit how high their health can get. The bloodblade gives an immense amount of stats while at as low a percent of health as feasible to fight with, this ring is key in making that possible. When setup it can prevent its user from receiving healing while at or above a user defined percent health allowing them to start and continue a fight while at a threateningly low amount of health.

Sidenote: Natural troilus and large bursts of healing may still take an exile past the set amount.

Feigning

The ability to feign can be very useful in tight situations. When you feign you will appear fallen to the enemies around you so they won’t attack you, even if they run into your body. There will be a short delay between pressing the command though and actually feigning. During this delay you will lie down and most of your balance will be gone, leaving you vulnerable to being attacked. Also if you attempt to maintain the feign too long you will start to lose control over your life-force causing your spirit to quickly drain from your body. If this happens and you run out of spirit, you will be dead, for realsies. To get up from a feign you must either say your magic word (default is "Nacreus") or unequip your Bloodstone Ring.

Beware, although feigning causes creatures to not attack you, stray rocks and lighting can still hurt you. If you sustain enough damage from these sources in order to have killed you if you didn’t feign, you will be dead, for realsies.

Each rank in Posuhm will at first decrease the time it takes to feign, then, after 50~ ranks, it will only increase how long you can feign.

Bloodmage trainers

Ability trainers

Aneurus

Training Aneurus will increase the damage done by the hemorrhagic wound.

Cryptus and Disabla

Training with either Cryptus or Disable will increase the effect of the debuffs. The reason there are two separate trainers is that there used to be only 2 debuffs; cripple and disable. Those were trained individually. When hamstring was added they were added up.

Dantus

Training Dantus will increase the strength of the inferno blow as well as increase the damage of the explosion.

Posuhm

Training Posuhm will increase the duration of the feign as well as reduce the delay before the feign.

Unrastin

Capped trainer to unlock the full potential of the bloodstone ring.

Core trainers

Anemia

Anemia trains a mix of Histia and Regia, while training negative Troilus.

Stedfustus

Stedfustus trains a mix of Histia, Regia and Troilus.

Crato

Increases the amount of blood you can store (spirit pool). Identical to Spleisha and Splash.

Bloodpool

The bloodpool hungers, we must work to fill it.
The bloodpool quivers in agitation.
The bloodpool feels restless.
The bloodpool feels slightly restless, but could use some more life force.

Tips

Combat tips

Hemo/Inferno deal a lot of damage for the ranks put into them. If a hunt looks like it may wipe, having some spare blood in the tank and ranks in the spank can really turn things around.
Its better to be safe than sorry. When things get messy it is almost always better to be patient and wait for the safe attack than dive in and die for a greedy one. Finding a safe spot near the healers and picking off any problems that jump on them or bounce off the tank is a simple, reliable strategy.
Know your enemies. Keep an eye out which creature has high Histia/Troilus, runs fast, ferals, etc. so you know which skill to use on which. Hamstring is great for managing problematic creatures. Cripple can be useful on some low regia creatures. Hemo is great for bleeding out durable creatures or annoying ferals. Inferno is great for bursting down problematic creatures or large spawns.
Get used to how long it takes to feign. It can be very useful for avoiding a critter that is running at you or a critter who is looking to swing back at you if you use it quickly enough.
Don't stay too close to snell borders, if something you didn't expect crosses the snell you're toast.
Time your swings so you're not close to the creature when it's about to swing next, it might turn your way.
If possible, always move back after you've swung.

Courtesy tips

Sharing [blood] is caring. If there are multiple bloodmages, have manners when taking droplets. If you unsure how another mage is doing on blood, feel free to ask. If you aren't much for verbal communication... each critter drops 3 bits of blood, so if there are 2 mages, take 1 droplets and see how needy the other mage is. If they take both, conserve your blood a bit. If they take 0-1, you can be a bit more free with it. But, if there are 3 mages, each of you gets 1 droplet. Connie will applaud your manners.
Be conscientious about your damage. With how convenient it is to train Bloodblade it is really easy to wake up one day and realize you do preposterous amounts of damage in one swing. BUT other people like to tag creatures as well, so if you kill things too fast they are missing out on xp. Control mode can be your friend. So can be dumping ranks into balance regeneration or Hemo/Inferno. Those things give DPS without necessarily losing friends.
Be kind to healers, even if you are nearly dead and they forget to top you off. Be like a cat staring at its bowl of food. Walk up to them. Stare. Politely meow, err, talk at them till they top you off.
If you train much Disabla, be aware if anyone seems to be struggling to hit. Cripple can really make the difference for fighters that are on the cusp.

Training Tips

Train Rodnus, everyone gets 50 of it. You should too. It increases the effectiveness of healing you receive. Being a bloodmage means you really love the wubs.
Invest in Posuhm early on to get rid of the feign delay.
Train Disabla. 50-100 of it goes a long way. Regularly hamstringing foes keeps fights from getting too chaotic and prevents critters from swinging back at you as often.
Train enough Bloodblade that you can survive a couple swings from local critters while being able to reliably hit them back. Most problems can be solved by training more Bloodblade. The ones that can't can be solved by it can usually be solved by...
Train Hemo or Inferno. It is damage you can toggle on. Large amounts of damage.
Become the local healer's fav. Kill stuff that goes for them, tell them jokes. SCHMOOZE.
Train more Histia. You will be able to take larger bursts of damage before dying.
Convince someone to play a healer and that you are their #1.
Train Regia. You will get some more DPS. You will swing faster, thus increasing the amount of tags you get, thus increasing experience gain. Angilsa is a really, really good trainer for bloodmage.
Indecisively train more BB because it can be freely untrained into other things without any losses.
Make more friends in real life so you can convince them to play Clan Lord so you can convince them to be healers so you can convince them to be your bff.
Train Spirtus, this will moderately increase the effectiveness of all heals on you. It is somewhat common to get 50~ of it, and a bit more as it becomes convenient. ONLY TRAIN IT AFTER RODNUS. ONLY TRAIN IT AFTER YOU ARE SURE YOU LOVE YOUR BUILD. ONLY TRAIN IT AFTER YOU ARE SURE YOU WILL NEVER NEED UNTRAINUS.
Train some Troilus? Some people do it. It's like Spirtus, but is less needy about healers and messy if you decide to untrainus.
Invest in a shieldstone and some Heen. Shieldstoning is much more efficient for bloodmage than for the other sub classes. It can be awkward though because you have to swap rings to use it and it takes like 25-50k coins to get going with them.
Don't be afraid of training mistakes, Untrainus is your friend. Bloodmages uniquely don't mind untraining as much as other classes do. Trying out weird things to see if they fit you, your playstyle, your regular hunting groups is highly encouraged.

Blood Mage Macros

Know bugs

DO NOT feign while in the library and then log out. It causes a bug where you will log back in, dead, but not be able to receive healing. You will have to have someone feed you health potions to get revived, or, if that fails, get GM intervention. Either way, unequip and reequip your ring afterwards.
DO NOT feign and then disconnect in general. If you are disconnected for so long that you poof, the same bug as above will happen.