Blood Mage questions (Lone Wolf)

[Neosoul]

Hello!

I'm currently on my 1st playthrough with DOS 2 (did 2.5 playthroughs on the 1st game). I'm playing tactician with 2x lone wolves and am currently in act 2 lvl 12.

I really wanted to check out all the fun new spells but also really wanted to have a 2h melee bruiser as my main character. When testing out different builds to get an idea of them in act 1, I ended up finding that it was quite annoying to have a mix of physical and magic dmg dealers as they didn't synergize at all together. The spell casters would just spread fire and poison onto my melee (or freeze/stun) on top of each type having to DPS into their respective armor before they could finally both damage the enemies.

Long story short, I ended up deciding to make that 2h warrior (with a few points in other trees for shields/lifesteal/utility) and made a summoner/necro for my spell caster in order to have a physical dmg spell caster that would synergize better with my warrior.

I was a bit skeptical about people saying that the summons kind of suck in the late game but I'm only level 12, I have 16 in summoning and I'm already starting to find they're soso compared to my warrior. I guess the advantage I have is they can soak a bit of damage and once they're setup, I can deal my own necro dmg on top of the summons doing decent damage (I usually use blood Incarnate with all 3 buffs I've got at lvl 12, blood totems or the spider).

My int is maxed on my caster, my str is maxed on my warrior. Warrior warfare is at 13, caster warfare is at 12. The warrior doesn't have exceptional gear (a few pieces lvl 15 from killing the lvl 15 bridge troll at lvl 12 and such but nothing that special), 2h skill is currently at 7 with gear so my damage isn't maxed out yet.

Overall, both characters are roughly in an even spot in terms of dmg/gear.

I currently have 2 source points unlocked and crafted the Hands of the starved book for my caster. I read people saying how it was super powerful so I was happy to finally get a skill that could be strong because so far, necro offensive spells really aren't that impressive. I've got the decay touch that deals around 215 dmg and is almost never any useful because it's rare that I have anyone in range for it (and I don't really want to go into melee range just to use this). Then I've got the bouncing shield that does about the same dmg having a top armor shield for my level but hits 2 targets (not even a necro spell but at least an other attack). Then I've got the moskito spell that also does the same damage with good range, the bleed it applies is pretty much worthless. Finally, I've got the other infection nuke that does lowish 300s dmg (about 50% more dmg than the other attacks but 3 AP instead of 2).

My warrior auto attacks deal about 300 dmg... and he has a good crit chance (and when I use enrage, 100% crit chance so over 600 dmg per hit which is about 3x the dmg my necro can do without even needing CDs). When I use Enrage + Onslaught, I deal over 1800 dmg (with adrenaline, I can pull off an other 600 dmg for 2.4k dmg in 1 turn onto a single target).

So now that I've got that "super OP" source skill, hands of the starved, I checked it out, used rain of blood, then the skill.... for about 525 dmg... I know it's an AOE but enemies need to be covered in blood so you kind of have to use rain of blood 1st and the AOE isn't even that large.


Am I missing something here? Why do people say that it's super powerful?? My warrior using enrage+whirlwind hits for over 600 dmg AOE which is stronger than that supposedly super strong source skill (without even needing to spend 2 source points). Then there's the next source skill I have crafted (but can't use yet since I only have 2 source points) that also is supposed to be super strong but I read that it basically does 1 moskito spell dmg per mob for 3 rounds. Sounds alright I guess if you're fighting a bunch of weak enemies but still, 3 source points, 4 AP for about 600 dmg over 3 rounds doesn't sound that impressive either.

All I can think of is that I couldn't afford to have the talents to make my spells crit yet (that one plus the +10% crit chance talent) but even if I did so and used the dragon sword from act 1 I saved up, my crit chance would only be around 20-25% and it would only crit for 150% dmg.

Why is blood mage considered to be super strong (or is it just that 2h warrior, even in soso gear at lvl 12 is already WAY stronger than everything else?). It only has a few soso attacks on CDs and I'm not seeing how the source skills are that OP at all right now. All I can think of would be to abuse the poly master skill that drops the source point cost of spells and pull off some sort of combo with the blood rain master skill followed by hands of the starved (since I guess enemies might have puddles underneath them from the 1st source skill)... but that would consume a ton of memory points and turn my necro into some sort of 1 trick poney and need to refill source all the time.

[Pyromus]

Do you have points into warfare on the necromancer? Necro deals physical damage, so warfare will increase the damage dealt there. Most newer players assume the best way to build a character is to pump points into the skill that provides their main skillbooks, but that is not always the case. The talent savage sortilege will let you crit on spells and will help out tremendously if you do not already have it.

You are also mistaken on what necro's hyped up source skill is. Combine a hydro skillbook with a necro skillbook and make sure at least one of the skillbooks requires source to cast it's skill. You will get a bloodstorm skillbook, which has a larger area than grasp of the starved, and will set blood puddles underneath enemies, which allows a followup grasp to hit them. To fully optimize this build, you'll need 5 in polymorph for their skin graft and apotheosis skills, a point in scoundrel for adrenaline, 3 in hydro and necro to be able to use bloodstorm, and then pump points into warfare to boost damage, and later scoundrel if you have more points left over so critical hits deal more. I would suggest dropping summoning.

Keep in mind that bloodstorm requires 3 source points, so until you get that, I would keep summoning. You also can't get apotheosis until 16, so don't bother putting points into poly before then (using a respec mirror) unless you really wanna use other poly skills. Using the above combos, you can actually beat the game with one non lone wolf character pretty easily. LW with a backup character is going to be a breeze.

[Chaoslink]

Necro is really only strong late game. Its a one trick pony class really as it requires all the source skills to be good, which I'd argue is a big weakness to the class. Many other classes are much better, for the entire game and can be fantastic without using even one source skill. I'd call necro an overhyped build at best. I never cared for it much.

If you wanted to go back to a mixed damage team though, I know quite a few ways to make that work. It can be quite fun, though the 2H build is probably the weakest physical damage to do it with, it can probably still work. Wouldn't really require a lot of changes to make it work either. Just a few skillpoints needed and a few new spells that should be easy to obtain. If you're interested that is.

[Neosoul]

Thanks for the replies. Now lvl 13, yes I do have warfare maxed on the necro (at 15 vs 14 for the warrior actually). I also finally was able to pick up the spell crit + hothead and dump 2 pts into str to use the +10% crit chance 1h sword from act 1 that I had saved up putting me around 35% crit chance I think for 160% crit dmg (2 pts into adrenaline).

My warrior had saved up the quest turn in for Lohar's weapon since lvl 12 as I had just bought a weapon at lvl 12 before finding out his quest reward was better and scales. That 2h has perfect stats (I'll miss it for sure once I have to change it) aside from maybe more than 1 rune slot if that's possible.

Anyhow, I tweaked both characters, warrior now has maxed 2h, maxed str, maxed warfare. Necro has maxed warfare, maxed int and the most spell crit I could get for the moment. Comparing the source skill to overpower (radius being similar if I have to use blood rain), my warrior at 65% crit chance (or 100% with enrage) could deal up to 960 dmg. High chances on normal basis, guaranteed with enrage for 4 AP. The necro could hit for up to 700 dmg with it and have about 35% chance to deal 1120 dmg if it crits making it a bit harder + cripple for 4 AP, 2 SP.

The non-source skills don't really seem to compare, all significantly lower dmg than warrior's dmg (especially if they crit) on top of having CDs at the exception of corpse explosion that deals good damage (but not always very reliable).

The first game had casters deal much lower single target dmg than physical melee or ranged. However, it had a ton of CCs that you could use right off the bat and you could easily build in a way so you could specialize in all 5 spell schools and reach master level to maximum efficiency (it all revolved around int) so you always could capitalize on enemies' elemental weaknesses. Then at lvl 15, you could unlock super strong AOEs that would hit hard enough to 1 shoot most enemies (including several bosses) and/or CC most of them on top of dealing damage. My melee did about 3x the single target dmg with their master skills than master AOE spells but in most cases, it was overkill (aside from a few situations maybe like where I had just enough damage to 1 shot the final boss on tactician with daggers drawn).

In this game, the CC isn't as good to compensate for the lower damage output since you need to break magic shields first in order to be able to CC them.

I guess it isn't that big of a deal anyways, I'll probably complete this 1st playthrough with these builds. I already killed both the lvl 15 troll (not knowing about the poison to stop his regen) and the lvl 18 troll (using fire incarnate and cocktails to block his 4k hp regen) at lvl 12 (got me a nice lvl 15 and 18 ring) as well as let Mordus morph on purpose to kill him in Void form for more challenge and pulled it off. I'm guessing, unless I fight enemies that 1 shoot me from a huge level difference, I can probably already handle anything this game can throw at me without too much trouble.

I sure will want to do a magic dmg oriented game. I thought fire seemed to have the coolest spells and be strongest dmg wise, water for more CC, air seems better for melee hybrids (?) while earth maybe best for mixed parties (?). If the 1st reply is right about earth being the deadliest even without needing physical dmg dealers, I'll sure check it out. Also curious about rogues but I've read they clearly outdamage 2h melee early on and then fall behind later on in the game. Ranger I always liked the least but I'll check them out eventually, seems like they might have the potential to have the highest physical dmg output (or at least for single target).

[Chaoslink]

Archers have the best single target, but also have the best ability to deal both types at once. Using weapons buffs like elemental arrowheads, venom coating, firebrand and more, they can strip both magic and physical armors simultaneously. Rogues can as well, though not quite as much as the archer.

On magic, Aero is probably the best for CC, Hydro being more of a supporting CC. Pyro is probably the weakest overall, though it has the strongest damage the lack of CC kills it. Geo pairs well with most things, but helps mitigate enemy dodge for physical teams and can apply its effects without stripping magic armor first. Worm Tremor being one of the current most OP skills.

If I had to rank things, I'd say archer takes top, folowed by any INT build, then any FIN build with STR taking the last slot. Anything STR can do, FIN can do better (all things considered, not just damage). However, the AoE from INT builds is generally the best by far.

There are ways to CC through armor, they just require a bit of creativity.