There’ve been many posts calling for life siphoning to scale with something (damage dealt, Healing Power, Power, etc.). This is my twist on that theme.
The suggestion:
Blood Magic – Blood to Power (grandmsater minor trait)
X% of Y stat is given as a bonus to life siphoning.
Discussion:
Life siphoning is currently quite lackluster. The amount of health gain is pitifully small, requires considerable cost in trait points and stat specialization to achieve (if going full blood/vampire necro), and does not scale with those costs. That is to say, if a necro were to trait into Spite as part of a power build, the Spite line increases the necro’s power; thus synergizing with and scaling up the very stat the necro is relying on for their build.
Conversely, neither traiting into Blood Magic which increases Healing Power nor traiting into Curses to increase Precision do anything to improve life siphoning. Blood Magic grants access to life siphoning and Curses improves the chance of landing a critical hit to process Vampiric Precision; but neither scale up the life siphon amount itself.
However, I do concede life siphoning is rather the exception than the rule. It’s a tricky mechanic; it heals, it inflicts additional damage, and ignores armor all in one. It must be approached cautiously when balancing because of it’s multi-faceted impact and greater potential for becoming OP. It shouldn’t come without a price. At the same time, there should be a reward commensurate to the cost.
The reward – per this suggestion – is to replace the current Blood to Power trait with one that will scale life siphoning on the basis of some stat or mechanic (damage dealt, Healing Power, Power, etc.). The cost is this will require a truly dedicated bloodmage/vampire to put 25 points into the Blood Magic line.
I do not see this suggested change to the current trait being a major loss to the necro community. Blood to Power currently allows a necro to deal 5% more damage while their health is above 90%. How often – really – is anyone staying above 90% health for any significant length of time during a fight to actually benefit from this trait (especially a grandmaster trait)?
On the other hand, allowing life siphoning to scale – somehow – will be a trait that synergizes well with the other traits in the Blood Magic line and would prove useful at any stage of a fight rather than the very narrow windows of opportunity which exist with the current trait.
As for the specific amount of scaling, there’ve been other posts that have made suggestions regarding this. I lean towards 5% of Healing Power. This is consistent with previous suggestions that life siphon scale with Healing Power, Healing Power is increased by the Blood Magic line and would thus maintain a certain synergy, and maintains balance by avoiding “double-dipping” into power.
By this last statement, I mean many bloodmages/vampires likely attempt to maximize their power. If life siphoning scaled with power, they are gaining the dual benefit of the extra damage that comes with power and the extra damage and healing that comes with life siphoning. By making life siphoning scale with Healing Power, instead, bloodmages/vampires are forced to choose between Healing Power to maximize life siphoning, Power to maximize direct non-life-siphoning damage, or a hybrid; they don’t get to have their cake and eat it, too. This maintains balance, makes Healing Power actually useful as a stat for necros, and prevents the new trait from becoming OP if it were based on the Power stat.
If this trait were changed and if it scaled off of Healing Power, then I recommend renaming it to “Blood to Life” (credit to Pendragon in my previous post for the inspiration for the name)