[Skill] Bloodlust (buff)

[Ragwortshire]

Suggestion: Buff Bloodlust as follows:

- Remove the defense penalty.
- When Bloodlust is activated, the Infernal Behemoth immediately gains 10 HP. The IB may go over maximum hitpoints in this way.
- When Bloodlust is deactivated, the IB loses 10 HP. If he has fewer than 10 HP, he dies.

Reasoning: Well, my character build says I'm supposed to buy Bloodlust right now for A Mutant Giraffe-Mole. And I'm now thinking, does this skill actually grant me any benefit at all?

The -10% defense is really a killer. It means all pets will hit me significantly more often, so that if I'm only being hit for 1 point I will get woodchippered away rather more quickly than without Bloodlust on.

I can either immune most pet damage away or soak it to 1 with just a couple of potions anyway, so the +1 soak is not really enough to even compensate for this. Maybe the +1 damage just about brings it back to break-even...

but oh wait, I have to pay 30 CP for this skill. And it's not even always active.

In my opinion, the benefits of Bloodlust right now fall far, far short of justifying the CP/activation costs and -10% defense. My suggested changes would go at least some way towards making the skill vaguely worthwhile.

[bidigam]

Support. It is nice to have 30 cp skills that are worthwhile, and I think IBs need some love.

[FeetOnFire]

My IB got Bloodlust a little while ago, only to buy Adrenal Glands later, so I'll talk about this from an anecdotal perspective.

Activating the skill is a huge hassle, because I was silly and went blood claws instead of melee. My damage it awful, just awful. I'm level 23 and still have 7 damage claws, because buying any combat upgrades more or less means I'll be less proficient at tanking (but CP constraints for tanks is well recognized). As such, I must rely on blood ice, which is a high price for the effects as they stand.

A wonderful DO (thanks again Lejes!) gave me some dodge armor to help cover the defense penalty (and I even dodge and evasion in anticipation of this; still not sure if this was CP well spent), but it is still awful to see that I'm easier to hit. When you're tanking pets, often the problem isn't that you're not soaking enough (what with potions) but that pets will ping you to death. Lower defense makes it that much easier, especially on a class that can't accept external healing.

I've held the opinion that demons in general, but especially IBs, need more innate ways to recover HP. As it stands, I need four healing potions to recover from near death; at that point, I find it more prudent to kill myself and respawn rather than waste such precious resources, and that will grow up to a full batch of healing potions at max HP. On the suggestion, I'd rather the additional HP only degrade if the IB remains above maximum HP when Bloodlust has expired, but it's a minor point of contention.

Now, would I love to see these changes? Absolutely. I don't think I'd be remiss in saying that Bloodlust is the signature skill for the Infernal Behemoth, and questioning whether to buy it or not should be reserved for special cases.

[Toben]

Whoa, I didn't even realize how brutally nerfed Bloodlust had been. Yeah, I wouldn't buy that skill the way it is now. 30 Tier 3 CP seems like it might be okay for a passive +1 damage, +1 soak and -10% defense. But with the activation requirements and the huge MP cost? Yeah that's pretty bad.

I'm not sure 10 temporary hit points is really enough to matter; especially when we're talking about IBs I'm not sure the thing they really need is more hit points. Some kind of regeneration seems better - or up the damage bonus to +3 (so it'd be +5 with Berzerk Frenzy).

[FeetOnFire]

[Mallich]

[Ongewitter]

What if Bloodlust were to be reworked to not activate on a kill, because you're a tank and not supposed to be actually killing very easily, but instead as a toggle command?

A passive regeneration might be tied to the pet tick, so that they happen simultaneously or something?
The problem with the previous Adrenal Healing was that any action healed the IB, including talking for 0AP, which doesn't seem very 'bloodlusty'.
So maybe Bloodlust gives you some regeneration and Adrenal Healing buffs it considerably?

[Mallich]

[psyduck]

Why don't we just merge adrenal healing with bloodlust? Well only the healing part. The soak part should go to brezerk frenzy so bloodlust won't be overpowered.

So bloodlust:
Activates after landing a killing blow
+1 to damage.
+1 to soak.
No defense penalty
+3hp per attack
+10hp temporarily (less hp buff than holy fury but gives other stuff above)

Brezerk Frenzy
+3 to Damage (total) and +10% to attack.
Non-Attack actions made cost 1 MP.
+1 soak (moved from adrenal healing)

Right now my IB doesn't have bloodlust. I prefer the aura instead. This would change my opinion

[Ragwortshire]

[Mallich]

[psyduck]

Well just ignore the temporary hp thing and make it so that when bloodlust ends (from my suggestion of merging adrenal healing), the IB takes 10 unsoakable damage (so a cool message can be shown ). Though the problem with that is IBs will almost always end the fight with not 100% hp.

Or move the +10 temp hp to brezerk? that's an easier method

[Ragwortshire]

But then Berzerk Frenzy is way too strong, IMO.

The way I see it, Frenzy and Adrenal are both fine skills. They both grant very significant combat advantages, which are balanced by their high CP cost. The only problem is, well, that you have to have Bloodlust active (and suffer the penalties involved) for them to work.

So (I really ought to have said this in my first reply), I don't think trying to "streamline" the tree in this way is a good idea. Just removing the nasty things from Bloodlust, and buffing it a *little* to bring it up to speed with other 30 CP skills, ought to be enough to make the whole tree a lot more attractive.

[grandioseMumble]

As the player of a melee IB, I can personally say that I will not be purchasing Bloodlust. I probably wouldn't even after this buff. The old bloodlust was probably overpowered by modern standards, but it was fun and worth buying, even the crazy, expensive child trees. As-is, the tree is worse than literally everything else in the IB's kit (edit: except maybe Unfettered Fury. Sorry!). It'd probably be a contender for "worst-spent T3 CP" along with the derpy Defender brothers.

And Rag, the thing you have to consider about both of those "very significant combat advantages" is their ludicrous activation requirements. Either they require you to hit with rage strike (which can be quite difficult, depending on the target), kill somebody (as the above, but harder), or use a blood ice (which is probably the easiest solution, but still pointlessly consumes a useful resource). Compared to literally every other active skill, which usually requires MP and a button press, at most, this is silly.

Also, these would be fine skills for glass cannons or trickesters (again, by themselves), but not at their CP cost and certainly not with their activation costs. Compare either of them to equivalent Divine Herald skills, and they're just tragic. Either of the Harbingers are superior actives to Berserk Frenzy, for similar costs. Holy Fury is superior to Adrenal Healing, but, uh, 30 CP less. Yeah.

It gets even worse when you realize that IBs are tanks, whose job it is to not die. Given that you can get literally dozens of extra HP and armor or to-hit from other 60 CP skills in the IB's kit, without buying a dead-weight precursor, I don't know why anyone would bother with bloodlust or its child skills, aside from an RP-driven desire to represent a demonic berserker.

Double Edit: What I'm saying is that Bloodlust either needs to go, or needs some sort of massive buff or rework that actually makes it effective. It's already delightfully flavorful, but is generally bad when compared to the alternatives.

[Toben]

FWIW, I think (in keeping with the whole, "tanks cost too many CP" recurring theme) that streamling Bloodlust and the two child skills into Bloodlust and 1 child skill would probably be a good idea.

I get the whole custom death message appeal, but what I don't really get is any other point to the 10hp temporary buff. I mean, for another class, sure, 10 more hit points, not bad. But IBs? They can already have somewhere in the vicinity of 150 hit points at full health, 10 piddling temporary hit points is a drop in the bucket. The number of times where something's going to be able to hit you for 150 damage but not be able to manage 160 is a pretty vanishingly small number, I have to imagine.