Bloodzon needs 25 or 30 sec bloodlust

Let's talk about magic missiles. I was waiting for some changes here for 2 years but it never happened. I tried to make bloodzon again main couple of patches ago and i'm sorry but it wasnt very enjoyable even after 400+ hours played. The main problem is that bloodlust has downtime. 25 seconds (with continuity) of being mediocre glass-cannon at best and then 5 seconds of absolute misery and pain. You easily get swarmed in zones like scos and even fauzt and this often causes death. And dont even start with this low-life crap. It's kinda manageable in fauzt but that's it. You are either full hp with Laek, or you insta dead because you know build has no regen, no TCD steroids, no block, no avoid. It used to be super-high hp but this was nerfed so many times and now it's just a good hp, nothing outstanding here. The only defense you have is your meat shield elems which you must protect with your good clearing ability while being able to kill things before they kill you. But i can deal with all those downsides because it's still top-tier auto-homing ranged spell or at least it used to be.
So i saw patchnotes and thought you are probably heading in wrong direction here. Buffs to damage and especially mm projectiles won't help here. You need to buff bloodlust duration somehow. Probably make a talent +1 sec duration per point, 5 or even 10 points. Even +5 seconds will be huge QoL changes this build desperately needs. But honestly at this point i would just buff base value from 20 seconds to 25. Build is far from being OP and literally noone will get hurt with this small change. Just try it but i'm sure 90%+ will still play javazon/stormzon or maybe geared bow in lategame

Because no one wants to play glass cannon self-caster especially if it's not even a cannon comparing to lots of other builds nowadays. Especially if it offers clunky 20 sec buff-oriented gameplay.
And then build has other problems but at least it will be playable as a viable starter. Sorry for my bad english, i just wanted to help with some feedback.

inb4 this guy with 100k forum messages come here and say its perfectly fine.

True dat.

Bloodmagic and near death -stuff just doesn't work with ARPG's, I have always hated that mechanism. Sure it's manageable early game but then... With games like Dragon Age it actually works as you can handle the battlefield all the time.

The whole tree should be renamed something like Furyzon and make Furylust passive.

The downtime is intended to make the build play differently from just being yet another bog standard caster.

Corona Aureola

Corona Aureola
Amazon Helms
'VezArc'
Runeword Level: 115
Above 70% Life: -10 Life After Each Kill
Below 50% Life: +200 Life After Each Kill
+(2 to 3) to Amazon Skill Levels
+(10 to 15)% Bonus to Spell Focus
50% Cast Speed
+(15 to 20)% to Fire Spell Damage
-(15 to 20)% to Enemy Fire Resistance
+(141 to 171)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist (5 to 10)%
(20 to 30)% Magic Find

is supposed to be the 100% uptime enabler at the cost of bringing your life pool down to where other casters are, but it's probably too much of a sacrifice after the %hp squish reduced bloodzon's starting life total.

I agree that the build could use another defensive mechanic than just fire elementals, and some folks have suggested bringing "skills cost life instead of mana" and mana->life regen conversion into the tree to give it something else distinct, but I wouldn't hold your breath for 100% uptime without a rework to the build like that.

For delayed damage skills such as MM build should not just have one defensive mechanic but lots of them, because non-instant damage is already the worst possible payoff in fast-paced ARPGs. But i don't quite understand "bog standart caster" part. You have standart caster banshee druid, standart caster might flay paladin, death ripple necromancer, mind ripple assasin, stormzon, whole set of sorcs etc. They all are quite boring standart spell-damage-spellfocus casters, so what? Not every build has to be special. Yet they basically don't even have any meaningful payoffs. I tried all those casters at least at fauzt+, they just felt nice especially comparing to MM. And those don't even need to keep 20 seconds buff with 10 seconds downtime. And most of casters have another single-target. Usually you don't even need it but it's there just in case.
MM already felt quite ... special. Its second worst problem is overwhelming visual effects. Go ahead try ascended riftwalker or Phoboss. You just can't reliably see crucial ground effects with all those huge red flashy mm projectiles. And then skill has homing problems, it's impossibe to focus healers in lab, scosglen summon trees, Xazax, Uldy. Balefire doesnt help at all, it's damage is not viable and it can't pierce. So you have to find another single-target skill or struggle. Nice. Usually this is the build reroll moment. But you can choose to struggle a bit more just to find out in the end that there are plenty of "standart casters" which just better in all aspects.
I guess this is the only caster atm which doesn't have its own 2.0+ guide, right? Literally zero people had enough reasons to play and share it in last year. I just suggested you small, simple and easy to implement number buff which PROBABLY will raise it from shit-tier to "standart caster" tier. Is that much?
As for

Corona Aureola

Corona Aureola
Amazon Helms
'VezArc'
Runeword Level: 115
Above 70% Life: -10 Life After Each Kill
Below 50% Life: +200 Life After Each Kill
+(2 to 3) to Amazon Skill Levels
+(10 to 15)% Bonus to Spell Focus
50% Cast Speed
+(15 to 20)% to Fire Spell Damage
-(15 to 20)% to Enemy Fire Resistance
+(141 to 171)% Enhanced Defense
Physical Resist (5 to 10)%
(20 to 30)% Magic Find

. I could use that in Duncraig or Fauzt only for mf purposes. But for any other content why would i pick a helmet with such strong downsides when you have

Unicorn

Unicorn
Amazon Helms
'GhalArc'
Runeword Level: 100
3 Magic Missiles Projectiles
+(4 to 5) to Amazon Skill Levels
+(35 to 40) Spell Focus
+(17 to 20)% Bonus to Spell Focus
50% Cast Speed
Elemental Resists +(7 to 10)%
Fire Absorb 2%
Lightning Absorb 2%
Cold Absorb 2%

or

Black Masquerade

Black Masquerade
Bone Helm (Sacred)
Defense: (2420 - 2904) to (2622 - 3147)
Required Level: 80
Item Level: 120
+100 Spell Focus
+100% to Physical/Magic Spell Damage
+(150 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
+200 Life Regenerated per Second
Physical Resist (0 to 10)%
Requirements -100%
Socketed (4)

. Btw you can't squeeze enough damage with pgems so Paragon isn't even an option 120+. Sadly SoV is the only viable choice for this build and you really really don't have that much hp to afford running on 50-70% hp with zero defensive mechanics. You don't even have any fitting +max res items in this build besides maybe default

Indigo

Indigo
Circlets
'UnTaha'
Runeword Level: 110
+2 to All Skills
+100 Spell Focus
50% Cast Speed
-(15 to 20)% to Enemy Elemental Resistances
-500 Defense
Maximum Elemental Resists +2%
Elemental Resists +(13 to 15)%
Requirements -100%

with it's 20% penetration being wasted for MM . Whatever. You don't even want to give it manageable 30-sec buff cycle (which is already a problem itself because builds with those are always unpopular in all ARPGs, sorry). Time to play another standart caster sorc i guess :-8

TLDR intended downtime is very bad design decision for such mechanically poor skill and in general. And it's not even rewarding.

RadXx wrote:I guess this is the only caster atm which doesn't have its own 2.0+ guide, right?

Fire sorc. Mana sorc. UHC. HB/ava druid (which is quite under the radar at the moment). Fire druid. The poison druid guide doesn't even cover midgame. I can think of a few oskills that are playable on different classes as well, though that's a bit different than a regular build ofc.

The team is quite aware that fire bloodzon and MMzon both need a fair bit of help, more than a simple number change to a single buff can provide, as you yourself point out. The mechanics aren't the best, the payoff isn't quite there (for missiles, anyway; blood is OK), the defenses are lackluster at best. The feedback is appreciated.

Hi guys, I read that "on kill" is only with poison and attack, not spell casting. So why is the runeword corona aureola with "on kill" but with all the stats for casters(spell damage, casting speed, no attack rating, but def rating)? Thanks in advance

mabumabu9734 wrote:Hi guys, I read that "on kill" is only with poison and attack, not spell casting. So why is the runeword corona aureola with "on kill" but with all the stats for casters(spell damage, casting speed, no attack rating, but def rating)? Thanks in advance

cos LAEK(Life After Each Kill) procs from casts too.