Hey all!
As the first person to master bloodmage (and probably the only person to seriously speced it) I feel I have a good understanding of the mechanics and balancing of this class. On first look at the skills, it might seem the bloodmage is some caster-healer hybrid, but once you get into combat you find you can only really choose to damage or to heal; choosing to do both ends in failure due to exorberant mana costs, or choosing to focus on one, which also puts you at a disadvantage because you don't have an open skill set as much as either healer or caster specced. Therefore, as unbiased as I can, I will suggest some changes that will hopefully make this class more balanced and more fun to play. There have been other threads on this, but I don't want to necro, and some skills have changed since then.
*A general change to bandage
Bandage was buffed a while ago to remove cast time, while adding mana cost to balance. This gave healers much more capability when in danger to burst heal, and also gave a use for the base class healers mana pool. I think this needs to be changed to no mana cost, but increase cooldown between uses (3-8 secs), so bloodmage and healers in general can still have a reliable heal spell even when low on mana.
*Balancing of syphon
People might initially think this spell drains target health and transfers it to the caster, but that skill belongs to the dreadknight, drainsoul. Syphon drains your own life and passes it to target. Currently, there is no reason to use this skill over bandage; it also costs mana (more mana than bandage), drains the same amount of health it heals which to me feels unbalanced, and has something like a 6 second cooldown. The only advantage this skill has over bandage is that you need bandages to bandage, which is a very easy criteria to meet. I suggest this skill drain less health than it heals (I will never use this skill unless this changes) and either cost no mana or have no cooldown, the reasoning being it can either be a true bloodmage-type skill (no mana) or be the burst heal skill to use on allies. This will bring it in line with other healing spells other healer specs use.
*Bring back leech!
Leech was recently taken out, and replaced by dispel. With the recent changed in health and combat, leech can now be actually used in combat (before health changed it was either you be on offensive, and they would be dead before cooldown on leech came back, or you were dead before you could use a skill then leech). Originally I used this skill only to be able to spam heals on allies, draining their mana out of combat. This skill should hopefully come back, as it gave the bloodmage a skill that made it unique (mana stealing/denial, which can fit with either bloodmage or enchanter). Dispel doesn't seem to fit at all imho.
*Fireball costs too much!
Fireball costs 75 mana. Regardless of whether the bloodmage should be able to use fireball and heal, this is a rediculous cost and I never use this skill in combat as missing = useless for 20 seconds. Smite, which I can never miss with, costs less and does much more damage. This skill should be reduced to something like 20-50 mana cost, similar or more to the caster fireball, but with a higher cooldown. This gives the bloodmage to be offensive in a fight, without such a great risk to use.
*Smite
Smite is fine.
A new skill that can be added is something similar to the dreadknights, drainsoul, but seeing as how this is the dreadknights final skill, and all the other damage output from other skills the bloodmage has, this might be considered too powerful to be able to combo in fights with other skills.
A interesting change could be that all of the bloodmage skills cost a small amount of health, instead of using mana, with only bandage or some other self healing spell costing mana. This would greatly diversify the bloodmages gameplay from the other healers, making him more attractive to choose to play as, over the utility the other healers have (invulns, group heals, safefall etc).
If anyone would like to offer any feedback on these ideas, that would be appreciated.
As the first person to master bloodmage (and probably the only person to seriously speced it) I feel I have a good understanding of the mechanics and balancing of this class. On first look at the skills, it might seem the bloodmage is some caster-healer hybrid, but once you get into combat you find you can only really choose to damage or to heal; choosing to do both ends in failure due to exorberant mana costs, or choosing to focus on one, which also puts you at a disadvantage because you don't have an open skill set as much as either healer or caster specced. Therefore, as unbiased as I can, I will suggest some changes that will hopefully make this class more balanced and more fun to play. There have been other threads on this, but I don't want to necro, and some skills have changed since then.
*A general change to bandage
Bandage was buffed a while ago to remove cast time, while adding mana cost to balance. This gave healers much more capability when in danger to burst heal, and also gave a use for the base class healers mana pool. I think this needs to be changed to no mana cost, but increase cooldown between uses (3-8 secs), so bloodmage and healers in general can still have a reliable heal spell even when low on mana.
*Balancing of syphon
People might initially think this spell drains target health and transfers it to the caster, but that skill belongs to the dreadknight, drainsoul. Syphon drains your own life and passes it to target. Currently, there is no reason to use this skill over bandage; it also costs mana (more mana than bandage), drains the same amount of health it heals which to me feels unbalanced, and has something like a 6 second cooldown. The only advantage this skill has over bandage is that you need bandages to bandage, which is a very easy criteria to meet. I suggest this skill drain less health than it heals (I will never use this skill unless this changes) and either cost no mana or have no cooldown, the reasoning being it can either be a true bloodmage-type skill (no mana) or be the burst heal skill to use on allies. This will bring it in line with other healing spells other healer specs use.
*Bring back leech!
Leech was recently taken out, and replaced by dispel. With the recent changed in health and combat, leech can now be actually used in combat (before health changed it was either you be on offensive, and they would be dead before cooldown on leech came back, or you were dead before you could use a skill then leech). Originally I used this skill only to be able to spam heals on allies, draining their mana out of combat. This skill should hopefully come back, as it gave the bloodmage a skill that made it unique (mana stealing/denial, which can fit with either bloodmage or enchanter). Dispel doesn't seem to fit at all imho.
*Fireball costs too much!
Fireball costs 75 mana. Regardless of whether the bloodmage should be able to use fireball and heal, this is a rediculous cost and I never use this skill in combat as missing = useless for 20 seconds. Smite, which I can never miss with, costs less and does much more damage. This skill should be reduced to something like 20-50 mana cost, similar or more to the caster fireball, but with a higher cooldown. This gives the bloodmage to be offensive in a fight, without such a great risk to use.
*Smite
Smite is fine.
A new skill that can be added is something similar to the dreadknights, drainsoul, but seeing as how this is the dreadknights final skill, and all the other damage output from other skills the bloodmage has, this might be considered too powerful to be able to combo in fights with other skills.
A interesting change could be that all of the bloodmage skills cost a small amount of health, instead of using mana, with only bandage or some other self healing spell costing mana. This would greatly diversify the bloodmages gameplay from the other healers, making him more attractive to choose to play as, over the utility the other healers have (invulns, group heals, safefall etc).
If anyone would like to offer any feedback on these ideas, that would be appreciated.
