Blood Mage

[Whisperedn7x]

New player question how would you build a blood mage from the ground up?
I know you have to pump a ton into int & wits. Also i need warfare, do you guys take apotheosis & skin graft?

[PK_Ultra]

Apotheosis and Skingraft are good in general. With Bloodmage you'll want to Spec Int and PHYSICAL damage. Necromancy spells deals physical. The only other Magic skill that does that is Geomancy. Though you could argue Polymorph is also a Magic skill.

Heres a good newbie build for entry level Blood Mages.
https://fextralife.com/divinity-original-sin-2-builds-blood-mage/

dont be afraid to check the Guides section either. Lots of good builds there too.

[Pyromus]

Yes to skin graft and apotheosis. If you can grab some scrolls, they make both skills even better. You'll want to use an elf for blood mages, or even an elf shape shifting mask, as flesh sacrifice gives easy elemental affinity on top of its normal effects. They are late bloomers, and won't really shine until level 16 when apotheosis is available.

Stat wise, you'll want max int, then pump wits, sprinkling in memory when needed. Definitely flame rune of power in the neck slot for crit and int bonus. Weapon wise, whatever gives you the best crit chance, and mystical masterwork weapons on the rune slot give you more wits.

You want 3 hydro and 3 necro for blood storm and blood rain (and really any other necro spells)
10 warfare for the bonus physical damage and if you want, bouncing shield.
5 poly for skin graft and apotheosis.
1 scoundrel for adrenaline.

Generally, you want to get the non warfare skills up first (or at least by level 16) and then start pumping warfare, so you can pull off the big combo. But minimum one warfare early one for executioner. And if you can get any of the stats from gear that you want to keep long term, then those are very helpful, such as the poly gear in arx and the belt in act 2.

If you are using some kind of mod that will end up putting you above the normal 20/21 level at the end, you'll want to pump up scoundrel or 2 handed after warfare is maxed.

Finally, the big combo is prebuffing with apotheosis right before the battle, flesh sacrifice, bloodstorm, adrenaline, grasp of the starved, skin graft, flesh sacrifice, bloodstorm, adrenaline, grasp of the starve, and then if anything is left, mosquito swarm/bouncing shield/infect can wipe them out, or you can just go invisible and let the double bloodstorm kill on the following turns. You can also recast apotheosis if you prebuffed with it, as it will cost 0 source.

[A Old Man]

The only problem is the annoyance of having to get source for this to work.