Blood Magic Melee Builds & Variants

So I don't mean this to be "my" thread, but I'll start with the build I am playing now.

Hopefully we can discuss some variations on the basic (cookie cutter) theme:

- Blood Magic + Lots of Life + Life Regen (Golem's Blood)
- High Physical Damage (lots of weapon nodes)
- Iron Reflexes
- Unwavering Stance

This is a fairly basic build on that theme, using Sword and Shield.

Main Skills:
- Heavy Strike (finishing bosses)
- Lightning Strike (+ Life Leech ...)
- Anger and Grace are low cost on the blood pool
- Enduring Cry (+ Duration + Faster Casting ...) to top off resistances.
- Leap Slam / Shield Charge / Whirling Blades for emergency.

Problems:
- Cleave seems always weak to me. With very average gear I can get Heavy Strike to 2500K or Lightning Strike to 2000K but I can't seem to get Cleave to even just 1500K. Spamming Lightning Strike is vastly more effective. So the character doesn't play like a true melee character (imho). I end up still "tanking" just because LS is easier to aim at close range and with 8% or more Life Leech between items, nodes and a support gem it heals nicely.
- I'm never quite sure how best to augment Lightning Strike : Culling Strike, Pierce, Blind, Added Cold, Multiple Projectiles, Weapon Elemental Damage, etc? (mind you I'm stuck with 4 sockets atm).


What changes would you make to this build ?

EDIT: Oh and maybe we can discuss what uniques and skills + support gem combos can augment this type of build?

A good offense can be a good defense. I would personally suggest you use s 2H sword instead of a shield, as the defense from the shield should be both inefficient and redundant (you should have great armor as it is since you're an Eva+Iron Reflexes char), unless you are desperate for the resistances.
Remember, Anger requires intelligence, so you might as well spend 2 points to grab another Savant node and use Wrath as well.
Besides that, this looks pretty good, assuming you capitalize on elemental damage to keep your dps up. ^^

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Lezli escribió:

A good offense can be a good defense. I would personally suggest you use s 2H sword instead of a shield, as the defense from the shield should be both inefficient and redundant (you should have great armor as it is since you're an Eva+Iron Reflexes char), unless you are desperate for the resistances.

Ah yes Wrath is another aura I could use.

Indeed the armor rating is fairly good, but resistances are not that easy to top up.

This build is pretty much as in the Krip LS Ranger thread, except I'm not sure Point Blank actually affects Lightning Strike (at least last time I checked, the support gem didn't), so I put points in Armor instead.

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DeF46 escribió:

Main Skills:
- Heavy Strike (finishing bosses)
- Lightning Strike (+ Life Leech ...)
- Anger and Grace are low cost on the blood pool
- Enduring Cry (+ Duration + Faster Casting ...) to top off resistances.
- Leap Slam / Shield Charge / Whirling Blades for emergency.

Leap Slam works with only 2handed weapons, not Swordnboard builds. Just wanted to point that out.

As for a basic SwordnBoard build, I personally would go with this:


What's the point in going SwordnBoard without picking up those shield notables? Though I'm using 6 more points, the solidity of this build is there.

Cleave and Lightning Strike is an interesting toss up, but I would agree that Cleave simply loses out to LS in terms of AoE damage. If I had to gear up a LS socket combo, it would be this: LS + Melee Physical Damage + LMP + Faster Attacks. Simple, effective, and it gets the job done.

I must note that gearing up for a SwordnBoard build with the skills and supports you selected will be difficult in OB. Difficult in terms of actually being able to attain such gear/gems when everyone else is starting from scratch. Just something to chew on.

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What's the point in going SwordnBoard without picking up those shield notables? Though I'm using 6 more points, the solidity of this build is there.

For resists, armor or eva and additional hp mod.

But what point of picking BM on ranger i will never get:)

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ykyshaeq escribió:

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What's the point in going SwordnBoard without picking up those shield notables? Though I'm using 6 more points, the solidity of this build is there.

For resists, armor or eva and additional hp mod.

But what point of picking BM on ranger i will never get:)

Blasphemy! :P

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Islidox escribió:

Leap Slam works with only 2handed weapons, not Swordnboard builds. Just wanted to point that out.

It says "requires axe, mace, sword or staff". I can confirm it works with sword and board, and it looks kinda cool. It might just need a little Faster Attack support gem.

Edit: I ended up using this like Kripp because indeed it is more life saving in the areas where you are stuck in stairways and such. But on the other hand, Leap Slam is a bit awkward to use, many times I want to leap away from the fray, it won't register, whereas Shield Charge is instant and always triggers. I wonder if it's a targetting issue, or maybe related to Leap Slam being interrupted by enemies where Shield Charge is not?

As for Whirling Blades I don't really get the point, if I had to choose between that and Shield Charge. It has no advantage in terms of emergency exit over Shield Charge, afaik. It looks cool but is very weak. I think Shield Charge is potentially more useful to spam against a single target.

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Islidox escribió:

What's the point in going SwordnBoard without picking up those shield notables? Though I'm using 6 more points, the solidity of this build is there.

I could add Shield Defences later but accoridng to my spreadsheet which can "preview" the armor rating and stuff fairly accurately, I found that for a given amount of % evasion or shield defences, with the same gear, I got more Armor Rating out of Armor % nodes. That's logical since it benefits the whole gear not just the shield. However the shield itself seems to benefit from being an Evasion shield (eg. Ironwood Buckler) instead of a heavy armor shield.

Next, I never put emphasis on physical damage so when I got back into the game I tried that "Kripp LS" build when respeccing since I got a free respec and it's probably one of the easiest melee Ranger I played yet. Therefore ... I realized if compromise has to be made, in fact with decent armor rating, you want to focus 100% on TONS of life and life leech/regen, or you would want to focus on shield and blocking. I think doing both is counter productive.

So you reckon Arcane Efficiency reduces the blood cost, with Blood Magic?

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Islidox escribió:

I must note that gearing up for a SwordnBoard build with the skills and supports you selected will be difficult in OB. Difficult in terms of actually being able to attain such gear/gems when everyone else is starting from scratch. Just something to chew on.

I think you're right about the gear but my Ranger doesn't have anything exceptional. The hardest part I think is to find a high physical damage weapon. Mine is actually not very good!



The life on that build is ~2800 with 350+ Life on items combined, and the STR life bonus.

The life regen per sec. is ~70, it would be ~100 if using another 1% Regen node as you did, so I might do that for Hardcore... Indeed for OB and Hardcore I think without an exceptional weapon (high phys dmg bonus) the extra 1% Life Regen will be a safer bet than the far away Blood Drinker node.

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ykyshaeq escribió:

But what point of picking BM on ranger i will never get:)

Just a different way of handling the skill costs.

I know what build you like (was here months ago), and it's very effective. I saw your videos.

However I'd say for a noobie like me, Blood Magic is just far easier to figure out. Get TONS of life, TONS of regen and life leech, and don't ever think about the second pool.

AFAIK, last time I saw your builds, it requires pretty insane gear in terms of support gems for the mana costs. Blood Magic is much easier in terms of support gems. I respecced my level 71 ranger in Legacy after coming back, and she was already doing a lot better at clearing maps than before, without using any uniques and without any 5 socket chains.

If I remember well you wanted to use some form of mana leech and reduced mana cost as support gems for each main skill. That's a lot of support gems to find or trade. Edit: unless Reduced Mana Cost is now a quest reward and/or much easier to find?

TLDR

Thanks, indeed I think for OB / Hardcore I would go towards Duelist nodes and pick
- another 24% Life
- and 1% Life Regen

Instead of going far away to get Blood Drinker.

Something like this

In the build above I wonder how the extra Endurance Charge would compare against investing in one or two Shield nodes. The main difference I think is the ability to top up your resists.

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DeF46 escribió:

TLDR

Thanks, indeed I think for OB / Hardcore I would go towards Duelist nodes and pick
- another 24% Life
- and 1% Life Regen

Instead of going far away to get Blood Drinker.

Something like this

In the build above I wonder how the extra Endurance Charge would compare against investing in one or two Shield nodes. The main difference I think is the ability to top up your resists.

Seems like a solid build. If you had 6 more levels, I'd continue to fill out the build like so:
+ 6 more levels

Several things to note with this build and responding from above:
- Enduring Cry will be difficult to trade for unless you roll another Marauder to get the quest reward
- Reduced Mana will be hella expensive in OB as only Marauder and Templar receive as quest rewards. Might change, but that's the lowdown atm.
- Melee Physical Damage, the "must have" support is not offered anywhere in the Ranger quest rewards, and as such will make it difficult to up your DPH/DPS.

Reduced Mana cost of Skills passive will help for Blood Magic, or at least I don't see why it shouldn't. If Cleave uses up 10 mana, then instead of spending 10 mana, you're spending 9 mana with Arcane Efficiency and thus, 9 life with Blood Magic. If you're going to get Steel Skin, might as well get the Steel Skin cluster down at the bottom that will connect you to Arcane Efficiency. (lose out on 2% more armor, but that's trivial) A lot people glance over the Arcane Efficiency notable, and I think that's a hindsight as you get more armor (50%) and less mana intensive skills. (AE applies to skill only, not auras or supports)

I'd say for SwordnBoard builds, using Shield Charge is redundant if you're using Heavy Strike due to their knockback effect. Rather, Leap Slam represents a decent way to create space when surrounded and the ability to escape, though arguably Whirling Blades may be better (faster) but more prone to desync effects. Whirling Blades socketed with Life Gain on Hit may well be worth it as Life Gain on Hit doesn't care about the damage being dealt like Life Leech.

I did not know that Leap Slam worked with single-wielding. Guess I saw the "2handed" part and assumed it true for all the other weapons. My skill repetoire would be very different at this point.