Issues of the Blood Magic line

Alright, I'm ready for bashings on this idea, but I felt it should be brought up in hope to institute a better use of the Blood Magic attribute other than "Blood spikes."

Okay, so say my health and my opponents health is 600hp. I use my blood skill that steals up to 60 health. He loses health but I gain nothing (it's registered by my health is full so it's as if I didn't gain anything). Now, here is my idea for the functionality of stealing health: you only gain up to what you are missing in health. Example: I have 600hp and he has 600hp. I use my blood magic spell, but nothing is stolen. But say I have 550hp and my spell says I can steal up to 70hp. I can only steal up to 50hp because that's the peak where my health maxes out. Now, I have 500hp and I use the same skill. Now my health is back up to 570hp.

Now I know this seems like it makes the Blood line more useless, but.. this way I see it it'll now suggest life sacrificing, THEN using your spells to steal health. To balance this out, perhaps make the blood magic spells steal more (not a lot more but a nice amount).

This idea will remove blood spike, insitute a better and smarter way to use blood magic spells, and promote life sacrificing. And you can bring the energy cost of some expensive spells down too to balance it more.

yes? no? I personally think this is a neat idea =)

personslly i'd say it's fine just as it is.

I think it'd butcher it.

Naw, don't think it'll work. You'd have to run around with half health all the time. Plus, spikes wouldn't work anymore. Again, you would have to be almost dead to take advantage of a spike.

Hmm, any suggestions to this idea that would make it work (please don't say "remove the idea then" cuz that's not helping). I just wanna see what would cause it to not work.

Make like Vampiric Gaze steal like 80+ so a good combo would be your "Dark Pack" shadow damage attacks that sacrifice your health, then follow it up with a punching Vampiric Gaze that'll steal some nice health because you've sacrificed quite a bit.

10% of 600hp is 60hp sacrificed so it's not difficult to pull of some nasty combos.

BTW that's the point, spikes are unavoidable. In anyway whatsoever. Blood magic is known for only being spike-friendly. It's never been anything more than that. And no you wouldn't have to be at half health, 10% of 600hp (the least you should have) is 60hp so 20% is 120hp. Like in my above statement, increase the ability of stealing to around 80 and you can fully recover after just 10% sacrifice. I don't see how this can be difficult for people >.> it's almost like a sin combo but with spells.

Yes, please, buff Necromancers some more, cause WoD, Foul Feast and godlke enchant removal just isn't enough!

lol Necros have had more nerfs than buffs... I mean c'mon now, it's PRIMARY attribute was nerfed!! How friggin worse can you go?

This change allows Necros be SMARTER. It removes blood spike.. something that's so noobish I could spit. Not to mention this could allow necros to be a more viable midline character that's something other than hexes >.>

You are describing the conditioned effect of Grenth's Balance.

Conditions are better to remove spikes.

so , you're killing bloodspike , and also killing the whole blood magic line , nice.
/notsigned

I like all the Pro-Blood-Spike advocates here.

Yes, it would eliminate blood spiking, which I think most can agree is overpowered and takes no skill; but this would effectively destroy blood magic. It's a good idea, just way too overkill.

Omg I actually agree with kanyatta again.

/removebloodspikes

2 things

1)I don't see a change in what your suggesting for blood magic and what is already there
2)blood magic is fine as it is, want to nerf something? nerf ursan, thats the ONLY skill I see thats unbalanced.

Guild Wars itself takes no skill. But I guess you don't play very many games to really have a more open-minded comparison.

I like this idea a lot. It eliminates Blood spike and opens the door for some powerful life-steals. It's the current lack of strong life-steals that makes Blood useless now.

The idea is great as-is, but here is another variation: If you are at full health, the life-steals simply deal 'damage' (which can be Prot'd)

Mod this up.

/cough signet of agony, chilbains(maybe not, cant think of a self condition inflicting spell atm. far to early)

blood spikers would just simply spam these skills as much as possible before a match

run out with about 200hp and spike, simply self heal as less as possible and keep on spiking

you wouldnt be doing to much apart from killing the whole bloodline

/notsignedever

This was a rather dumb arguement because it can be done right now anyways. But if players started saccing health prior to engaging, then that's enough for one perfect spike. After that, you've gotta wait to get low, and hope to spike. So this way, spiking with blood skills won't work anymore because all the damage would be off because everyone's hp is at different levels. On the contrary, as a midline character, while the wars are busy bashing on other characters he can secretly sac a little health here and there, then when there's a balanced spike he can assist with a buffed Vampiric Gaze that'll both aid the spike and heal himself. This way necros will FINALLY be seen as a midline character that's NOT a hexer.

I'm glad someone sees where I'm coming from. I like your idea too (it does damage that can be protted).

The blood line attribute has gotta change for the better. You can see anet's first stepping stones to this with the recent buffs of sacrificing skills (1 energy, etc). I hope the anomaly that is "bloodspike" is removed because it's so noob and completely unavoidable. All other spikes in this game are legit because there's a way to guard against these.

It'll be nice to have blood necros (for once) be a nice midline character that's not hexing >.>

A very minor nerf which capped energy regen to trigger no more often than three times per 15 seconds. Basically a cap to energy regen, capping it to 36 energy per fifteen seconds (at 12 soul reaping), or the equivalent of 6 extra pips of energy regen. That's how "nerfed" the necros were.

Other than that Necros get buffed almost as often as Mesmers get nerfed. Way more buffs than nerfs.

I still like my idea (though I'm sure others have thought of it at some point) of changing the entire mechanic of life steal to be simply: "You deal x damage to foe, and gain x health" where x is the same number. This way the health gain remains the same no matter what, and the damage dealt can be protted.