Make Blood Lock useful

[donkatsu]

Blood Lock is a cool talent in theory, but it currently does nothing for anyone. The AI has a habit of using it at the start of the fight, rendering its effect completely useless. Meanwhile, it's only useful to the player if a foe is healing faster than it is taking damage, and realistically speaking, that never happens, especially not on such offensive-heavy classes as corruptors and reavers. I'd like to see it gain another effect. Here are a couple of ideas that keep its uniqueness and stick to the "lock" idea:

1. Prevent the application of beneficial physical effects throughout its duration.
2. Stop skill cooldowns.

Both of these being rather powerful effects, the duration would have to be reduced to maybe half of what it is now.

[The Revanchist]

I like that, although it isn't especially "blood themed". Perhaps rename it life-lock, and indeed implement the suggestions.

[AlexanderR]

foe is healing faster than it is taking damage .. never happens

Are we playing the same game? Corruptors and Reavers are good at dealing damage, but as soon as you run out of Vim (which can actually happen, if you are underleveled or up against some Fungal Solipsist Farportal boss with Bone Shield and huge blight resist) you have to retreat, which is when "foe is healing" for all he needs. Long duration is the only way to get back to fight in time in such case. Also Defilers can't use wild gifts now, so you can't just use Healing Nexus for the same purpose.

[Todasmile]

Blood Lock would be dead useful if it prevented healing entirely, instead of preventing healing above the level at application. As it is, it's only useful if, as you said, the foe would ever actually go above that level - healing faster than getting damaged.

Still, the way it is does cause some interesting choices to be made. Do you use it after your huge burst, or during it? Can you time it to block their burst heal? If you get it on you, you already know that your healing is going to be truncated.

[donkatsu]

Are we playing the same game? Corruptors and Reavers are good at dealing damage, but as soon as you run out of Vim (which can actually happen, if you are underleveled or up against some Fungal Solipsist Farportal boss with Bone Shield and huge blight resist) you have to retreat, which is when "foe is healing" for all he needs. Long duration is the only way to get back to fight in time in such case. Also Defilers can't use wild gifts now, so you can't just use Healing Nexus for the same purpose.

You should not be running out of vim under normal conditions, and if an unusual situation pops up (manaclash), that's when you should be using Bloodcasting. Even if for some reason you run out of vim all the time and you ignore Bloodcasting, there are not many enemies that heal themselves. Of the ones that do, even fewer have strong healing options, what with their increased infusion cooldown.

As for Bone Shield Fungus Solipsist farportal bosses... if you have to go that far to find a use for Blood Lock then I believe that only supports my point.

[HousePet]

I think just one of Bone Shield, Fungus or Solipsist can be enough for a Bloodlock to be useful.
It could be slightly more useful though.
How about adding a heal mod penalty to it?

[The Revanchist]

By that, do you mean a regeneration malus? That'd be interesting, to say the least. I don't know that it'd count as a poison or disease, either.

[HousePet]

It would apply to regeneration and instant heals.

[PureQuestion]

The problem with blood-lock is that if you can't out damage their healing blood lock still won't help unless you can kill them from whatever HP you locked them to; If it stopped healing outright it might actually have a use but as-is it's causing a stalemate, not helping a problem.

[The Revanchist]

Worse yet, it causes a stalemate, and wastes a turn. And that's inefficient. If it was instant, I would imagine it being used a lot more...

[donkatsu]

I'd rather that it not just become Impending Doom 2.0, plus there's already Curse of Death for regeneration.

edit: oh and Epidemic for -healmod

[PureQuestion]

I would rather have it cut and replaced to be quite honest!

[Doctornull]

Seems like Blood Lock is intended as a way to compensate for tanky, durable opponents.

How about: in addition to locking the victim's max_life, you also steal 50% of their healing as Vim. That makes it a tactic which is potentially useful at several points in a long boss-fight.

[The Revanchist]

Seems like Blood Lock is intended as a way to compensate for tanky, durable opponents.

How about: in addition to locking the victim's max_life, you also steal 50% of their healing as Vim. That makes it a tactic which is potentially useful at several points in a long boss-fight.

That would be a very intriguing solution. Especially for enemies with lots of health regen.
Mechanically, would it give them only half healing, or do you get Vim while they get all their regen?

[Doctornull]

Seems like Blood Lock is intended as a way to compensate for tanky, durable opponents.

How about: in addition to locking the victim's max_life, you also steal 50% of their healing as Vim. That makes it a tactic which is potentially useful at several points in a long boss-fight.

That would be a very intriguing solution. Especially for enemies with lots of health regen.
Mechanically, would it give them only half healing, or do you get Vim while they get all their regen?

I think they'd get half healing up to the Blood Lock cap, and you'd get some % of their lost healing as Vim. If they try to heal at Blood Lock cap, they fail, but you still get some Vim.

Right now the AI uses Blood Lock in a really stupid way, so this would be a mild AI buff as well.