I agree. Unfortunately since the Test server they were nerfed so much they are almost useless. The class has so much potential to be a favorite as well mostly because of its creative design.
You are 100% correct from my point of view. The class was unique, powerful, and the only real issues with it were the lack of health -> mana skills such as Transfuse now, syphon's small glitch and slightly high cooldown, and soulleech's damage potential. At the time, it was an almost perfect class apart from a slightly boring start with only drainsoul to keep oneself interested, and syphon, which was broken at the time, as well as StealEssence, which was more of an anti-bard/caster kinda skill which still rarely finds use but was a nice touch. The class was well worked and just needed a tiny bit of tweaking just as many classes do in HC today.
Since then..
- Soulleech has been nerfed beyond recognition. Yes, it was overpowered because of the low cooldown mostly, and yes, as we experienced in the Freeper-Treeper raids on the test server, it made the user just about immortal unless they were approached from all sides by melee. But apart from the cooldown it was honestly fine. The nerf damaged the Bloodmage a lot, but not to the point where it was as broken as it was now.
- Bandage now takes double the time when compared to the other Healer classes. This was to discourage PVP. It instead discouraged healing and killed the class's healer aspect until it gets Chant, which is a long way into the class. THIS broke the class truly.
- Smite was removed. Makes fair sense, as it was quite overpowered when used in conjunction with drainsoul. Only thing is, smite is stronger in all ways than drainsoul, and drainsoul provides very little healing capability with a HP pool and a defenselessness that the Bloodmage carries.
- Transfuse was added. Good fun. But there's no point getting mana from hp when there are no spells worth spending mana on anymore, and when a lack of good heals makes hp so precious.
- Silence was nerfed a little. No comment.
- Hoe damage was reduced because Healers were 'too strong', despite healers also being unable to heal. Instead, the Healer was given smite skills, apart from the bloodmage, which are essentially much more strong than high hoe damage anyway, but make the class far more of a caster.
- Syphon was removed. At the time of its use, it gave the target 7 hp and took 5hp from the user, I believe, meaning if it was used on self, it would heal 2 hp. Had a 2 second cooldown. It was not meant to be able to be used on self, and I understand that it could've been removed for fixing, but if the cooldown were removed and the hp - hp heal were balanced out so that the target was getting 10 hp and the user was spending 10 hp, it would've made a very good sacrificial heal. So, who knows why that's still gone
- SoulBond broke.
- StealEssence was realised to be almost useless against every class except the bard, because it did not steal some of the bigger buffs, but oh well.
- Drainsoul was buffed slightly, I believe, but was still useless compared to Smite and Fireball, with particular emphasis on smite.
- The Bloodmage was only used by about 2 or 3 people constantly. Most switched out. Only time when people started on it was because of the megaclass incentive, for which it became one of the most annoying classes in the game because everyone realised how bad it was.
- The class was ignored as usual.
Please tell me one good thing that's happened to the class to justify all of its nerfs. Or really, just justify any of the nerfs at all. Apart from the Treeper/Freeper soulleech nerf, I honestly have no clue. The class is useless compared to all other healers. It's useless compared to just about any other class. It's useless at doing damage. It's useless at healing. It's not unique anymore. The concept isn't followed anymore. It's ignored because nobody plays it. Nobody plays it because it's useless, annoying and boring. It makes me sad to spout facts that make my favourite class in both Zeal and Dragongarde testing look like shit, but to be honest, it is, after the nerfs, the absolute worst class I have ever seen, and the only reason I've been sticking with it for the last few months is because I'm hoping for a fix to the class to make it as fun as it was in Test, or even late Zeal. Yet it doesn't seem like a fix is ever coming.
EDIT: Thanks Azen, means a lot.