Blood-mage Bonestorm AOE + off-screen clear and boss killer

First of all, i still have yet to make a video of it. The reason is because shitty nvidia app can’t detect my game for screen recording and causes a bit of stuttering with its camelshit overlay, but i might make one after all later, for now here’s the build in written form. So far the build is working amazingly for me, so i hope it does for you guys as well

A. THE IDEA ->

I am pretty sure there are a lot of bonestorm builds out there so i thought i would share mine, but with some tweaks for better gameplay ( i don’t know if someone has done this before or not, but if they have then i will delete this i guess ).

The goal of the build is to have a skill for the blood mage ascendancy that can do AOE and single target boss killing at the same time, bone storm for the most part excels in single target but can really suck at aoe clearing so a lot of people switch to bone cage or bone blast for AOE and mobbing, the potential downside is that while these skills are pretty great they might not protect you from enemies that are far away or be able to kill them, one more advantage is that bone storm heavily stuns normal enemies and especially rares, even pinning them. ( Although bone cage and blast can do the same yes, but they lack single target damage ).

You can use bone cage or bone blast for aoe and bone storm for single target / bossing , however the problem is that while you will use lifetap ( the gem that converts your mana cost skill to life cost skill ) in one skill, you can’t use it on the other skill, and considering how dogshit the bloodmage ascendancy passive “ sanguimancy “ is that it now causes all your skills to be both mana and life based cost, you gonna lose both plenty often. My Bonestorm build with aoe clear and single target depending on lifetap solves this issue while enabling survivability as you invest into “ mind over matter “ node which causes all your mana to be lost BEFORE you start losing your life, adding an extra layer of defense.

I hope i an right about these downsides T_T ☠️. But if not then pls feel free to correct me.

B. THE SUMMARY / BRIEF EXPLANATION BEFORE-HAND ->

Again, the build focuses on turning bone storm into a multi-purpose skill, i will just give a SUMMARY before i go into detail just in case some of y’all lose interest :-

-> Bonestorm with scattershot gem ( every bonestorm build uses this ofc ), lifetap gem for converting bonestorm to use your life instead of mana but you instantly leech it all back using “ atziri’s acuity “ unique gloves and considering how high your bonestorm will be hitting you get all your life back with “ vitality siphon “ ascendancy point and “ gore spike for bossing “. However, this is very important ! We use the gem “ ricochet “ in bonestorm which causes projectiles to CHAIN from the terrain.

-> We use “ Snakepit pearl ring “ unique, equip in left ring slot, it causes projectiles to fork. You can equip fork support gem but the projectiles will deal less damage, ring causes forking with no downside to damage and frees up space for other gems for bonestorm.

-> Invest jewels with “ projectiles have x% chance for an additional projectile when forking “ into your skill tree. The highest you can find is 20%, so you will need 5 of these jewels to guarantee your bonestorm to clear the entire field ( however 3 works fine, since i am currently using 3 because i haven’t leveled above 70 so i will surely put the rest of the jewels BUT i would recommend to still slot in all 5 jewels ).

-> So basically we acheived FORKING + CHAINING FOR AOE CLEAR on bonestorm without the downsides in damage which causes it to deal big pp damage to bosses and elites as well and solving the mana / life issue of the dogshit “ sanguimancy “ ascendancy passive with instant life leech.

C. SKILL AND SUPPORT GEMS ~

(1) BONESTORM ( The bread and butter ) ->

Scarttershot :- for cast speed and summon 20 projectiles

Lifetap :- to convert mana cost skills to life cost, you instantly leech back all your life using “ Atziri’s Acuity “ unique gloves and “ Mind over matter “ passive keeps you safe

Arcane tempo :- 25% increased cast speed

Brutality :- 35% increased physical dmg

Ricochet :- projectiles have 40% chance to chain an additional time fron terrain. This is what causes bonestorm to offscreen mobs, stun rares and take a chunk off their life

(2) LIFE REMNANTS ->

Clarity :- for mana regen when you collect life orbs

Cannibalism :- for life regen when killing while collecting life orbs

(3) BLINK ->

Ingenuity :- increased cooldown, we use blink in the off chance that we ger swarmed

(4) BLASPHEMY ->

Blasphemy + vulnerability :- (ignores enemy armour when dealing dmg )

OR

Blasphemy + temporal chains :- ( slows enemies, useful if you can’t get good cast speed for bonestorm )

D. UNIQUE GEAR ~

Atziri’s acuity :- for instant life leech on crit and crit chance

Snakepit pearl ring ( fork ) :- equip in left ring slot, it causes projectiles to fork. You can equip fork support gem but the projectiles will deal less damage, ring causes forking with no downside to damage

E. GEAR ->

Bone wand :- aim for crit chance, cast speed, + to level if all physical spell skills, spell dmg

Focus :- aim for spell dmg, crit chance, elemental res, max life OR max mana ( very good if u got both )

Amulet :- aim for + level of all spell skills, aim for strength ( or you can go for int if you want to ) and crit chance

Other gear :- aim for cast speed, movement speed, elemental res, max life OR max mana ( OR ES if you can’t get life or man )

F. SKILL TREE NODES AND JEWELS ->

Invest jewels with “ projectiles have x% chance for an additional projectile when forking “. The highest you can find is 20%, so you will need 5 of these jewels to guarantee your bonestorm to clear the entire field ( i already have 3 of these slotted in and am already fine with it )

Invest into “ Mind over matter “ for extra defense as mana is removed before life is lost

Invest into “ Touch the arcane “ for mana regeneration

Invest into nodes leading to “ Desensitisation “ for 70% increased critical dmg bonus for bossing

Invest into “ Crashing wave “ for 36% increased damage each time you crit

Invest into nodes leading to “ Spiral into mania “ for 22% increased cast speed

Invest into “ increased physical damage “ nodes a lot for bossing with bonestorm and critical hit chance

G. DOWNSIDES ->

(1) Inb4 i got chewed out, this build only has a BUILD downside which is completely removed once you slot in all 5 jewels, bonestorm for the most part will be able to deal with every and all enemies….except one. Bonestorm does clear aoe and even off screen mobs but without the 100% chance for additional projectiles to fire when forking which is acheived using the jewels, you will not be able to kill the small flies or very tiny enemies.

For some reason bonestorm at its early to mid stages won’t be able to deal with the tiny flies the big ladybug enemy farts out of its arse if you ever encounter them, so you will have to use bonecage or boneblast ( with inspiration + spell cascade + considered consting ) for these small flies.

The way to counter this downside is by having a good amount of cast speed by investing in your skill tree ( as i previously mentioned regarding “ spiral into mania “ node ) or 100% chance of additional projectile firing when bone storm forks due to the jewels but you will need all 5 of them slotted in, I am aiming for both anyways.

(2) The 2nd downside is the cost of this build, you will need a perfect jeweller’s orb to fully utiilzs bonestorm’s aoe clear + single target. So that’s like 1 divine orb and the other is the atziri’s acuity gloves which cost like 2 divine orbs. So you will need around 3-4 divine orbs and a bunch of exalts for this build to fully get going.

I hope this build helps you out, because leveling up as a bloodmage was the worst experience for me ( i didn’t play titan yet ). So i thought this might help some people who play bloodmage but are confused on what build to go or don’t like to play minions like i do xd.