Path of Exile 2: BEST Budget Blood Mage Build

Hey everyone, Librarian Husky here. We’re back with another blood mage build.

Budget Blood Mage Build Guide

Due to popular demand, we will actually cover the budget version of this build, which is a build that I consider the best in Path of Exile 2 right now in the Dawn of the Hunt. So, without any further ado, let’s dive into the details.

There are two versions of this budget build: the spirit version and the health version. The spirit version focuses on the threaded light focus, while the health version concentrates on the wrath pith globe focus. Both versions aim to stack spell damage, which is then converted into attack damage by the crown of eyes unique helmet.

The spirit version is more affordable, while the health version is slightly pricier but achievable, especially at this stage in the league. I will provide details on how to acquire every piece of gear for both versions. Let’s explore the abilities for both versions.

Abilities for Spirit and Health Builds

Starting things off, the spirit version and the health version of this build have specific abilities tailored to their respective focuses. The spirit version emphasizes the threaded light focus, while the health version prioritizes the wrath pith globe focus. These abilities play a crucial role in maximizing the build’s effectiveness and damage output. Let’s delve into the abilities for each build variant.

The spirit build’s abilities are optimized for maximizing spirit stacking and enhancing the threaded light focus. On the other hand, the health build’s abilities are designed to boost health stacking and amplify the wrath pith globe focus. Understanding the nuances of each ability and how they synergize with the chosen build variant is essential for achieving optimal performance in Path of Exile 2.

By strategically selecting and utilizing these abilities in conjunction with the recommended gear for each build version, players can enhance their gameplay experience and excel in challenging encounters. Stay tuned for more insights on optimizing your blood mage build for success in the Dawn of the Hunt league.

Differences in Life Remnant Versions

How they’re different is that the life remnant is going to have one more support gem on the spirit version, which is going to be vitality. The reason why is because we’re stacking spirit. So, we do have more spirit on this version. Obviously, the health version is not going to have the vitality in there. Everything else remains the same.

Lightning spear is the main ability that you’re going to be using on mapping. Obviously, you just walk around, throw the spear, everything dies. Then rake and blood hunt are going to be within the rotation of the bosses. Rake is the most important ability here that you need to time correctly and make sure that you hit it correctly. And then blood hunt is your executioner. These two, as we said in the previous video, they are not mandatory. However, they become a slightly bit more important now that our gear is not insanely minmaxed or super expensive.

Like I don’t have a chest piece that cost 25 divines or a tangle tongue that costs like 26 divines. Everything here is exalted orbs. So we do need the booster in damage. Disengage is going to provide us with that physical damage extra. And orb of storms is going to provide us with the rage that we need so we can increase our damage. We’re going to see that in a second.

Infernal cry once again remains the same in both versions. Herold of thunder and combat frenzy are going to be there for the mapping. However, as you can see, the spirit version is going to have clarity on there, so we can be able to regenerate some more mana. The health version cannot support that because we don’t have enough spirit.

And then the final thing here, the difference between the two is that both of them have blasphemy on low level and temporal chains on low level. Both of them. However, the spirit version will have encumbrance and focused cursed. Why? Because this is going to be active through mapping and bossing, whereas the health version, you’re not going to have that. you’re only going to have blasphemy for bossing.

Personally, in the main video, you will see that I’m currently maining the blood mage and I have the health version. I think it scales a little bit better because how many things can you actually get with spirit?

Gearing Choices and Passive Tree Variations

You can obtain powerful gear with high spirit attributes, like chest pieces and amulets, or opt for regalia for enhanced spirit. Consider playing an Invoker monk with lead me through grace for additional spirit. On the other hand, prioritizing health in gear can provide durability. In the passive tree, distinguish between the spirit and health builds. For the spirit build, aim for gore spike for critical damage bonuses based on health. The health build leans towards crimson power for alternative benefits. Minor adjustments in the tree can enhance shield strength for added tankiness. Investing in jewels for critical hit chance or specific clusters can boost survivability. Gear-wise, items like Tangle Tongue and various focuses offer essential stats at different price ranges, allowing flexibility in budgeting and progression. Start with basic options and gradually upgrade to optimize your character’s performance.

Gearing Choices

But if you do have the divine, maybe it will be better to start with a wrath pith so you can build up only on maximum life because it’s going to be a lot easier. But if you don’t and you start with the build of the spirit, it will still be okay for you to convert later on, it’s all good. You can get an amulet with spirit and maximum life. And the same goes for the chest. Speaking of the body armor, we’ve got the two versions right here. The first one has the 45 spirit that we need. It has a little bit of maximum life as well, which is what I was saying before. Triple resistances, evasion, and energy shield at 20 exalted orbs, and the body armor with the maximum life here which has double the maximum life of the previous one. It costs a tiny bit more at 30 exalted. But this version, don’t forget that we don’t care about evasion.

We care about energy shield because of the ascendancy crimson power that gives us 100% more maximum life from the energy shield that we have on the body armor. So is really really good. But again, very very cheap option right here. Moving on to the mandatory unique of the build, we’ve got the crown. The crown with one socket is very cheap. You can find it around five to six exalted orbs as you can see here. And then if you do want the two socket one, I found that to be around 40 to 50 exalted orbs. And two sockets is going to be a little bit better because you can cover more resistances if you put like fire or cold or lightning resistance onto the helmet. So you can cover whatever you need. Or if you’re going for the maximum life, you can put the maximum life soul cores in there.

Moving on to the gloves, we’ve got this bad boy with 16 to 36 fire damage to attacks, 1 to 10 lightning damage. We’ve got maximum mana, which is a dead mod, but it’s fine. Plus two levels of all melee skills. And most importantly, we’ve got a lot of dexterity and a good amount of lightning resistance. All of that for around 25 to 35 exalted orbs. Next, we’ve got the rings. Of course, I’ve got a screenshot of one ring just so I can show you that it varies depending on what you guys go for. It’s got triple flat damage. Yes, physical damage is not a lot.

Additional Gear Considerations

When choosing your gear setup, it’s crucial to consider not only the stats they provide but also how they synergize with your build. Opting for items that enhance your maximum life and energy shield can greatly boost your survivability. The flexibility of gear choices allows for customization based on your preferences, whether focusing on resistances, elemental damage, or skill enhancements. Investing wisely in unique items like the crown can significantly impact your performance, offering unique benefits that can complement your overall strategy. Don’t overlook the importance of gloves, which can provide a mix of offensive and defensive bonuses to round out your character’s capabilities. Rings, while seemingly minor, play a crucial role in amplifying your damage output and overall effectiveness in combat. Be strategic in your gear selection to optimize your character’s potential on the battlefield.

Optimizing Rings and Amulets for Your Build

Fire damage is decent. Cold damage is quite a lot there. 10 dexterity, 42 cold resistance, and only 10 lightning resistance. But Again, this is four exalted orbs. As you can see, it’s been posted 7 days ago, which means that nobody buys this. So, if you raise the price to 10, 20, 25, imagine what kind of rings you can go for. So, again, you want to look for two or three flat damage dealers, at least one attribute in there, and the resistance that you need so you can cap stuff. That’s going to be both of your rings, but they’re pretty cheap options.

Now, moving on to the amulet. We’ve got the spirit amulet that looks something like this. We went for the solar amulet that gives you extra spirit as the implicit. We’ve got 11 to the spirit on the implicit, 46 on the main amulet. So only this amulet gives us 57 spirit. And don’t forget, we need the spirit because it scales our damage from the threaded light focus. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a plus two with this much spirit, but plus one is going to do fine. But most importantly, it gives us 18 strength, 23 intelligence. Not bad. So we can cover our support gems and everything else that we need without actually taking away from our dexterity.

And then we’ve got a second amulet that I wanted to show you which is the life amulet. Again, we managed to find a solar amulet with 14 spirit. It has 76 maximum life. Here we managed to find plus two levels of melee skills, which is very important. Some strength and some mana regeneration. Not that we need it, but again, it’s a very cheap option, so expect to have one or two dead mods on it. The anointment for both of these is going to be preemptive strike. It’s really good. 100% increased critical damage bonus against enemies that are on full life. And the good news is that all three distilled emotions are very cheap. If you have them or you find them or you want to purchase them from Alva in your hideout, you need guilt, disgust, and greed. I think every single one of them goes for probably one or two exalted orbs.

Optimizing Gear Selection

So, a very, very cheap option here. Next, we’ve got our boots. Of course, we’re going to go for 35% increased movement speed, some energy shield on there. Maximum mana is dead, but it’s fine. 23 intelligence, fire resistance, lightning resistance, and stun threshold. And all of this for 20 exalted orbs. However, this one has not been socketed and it has not been quality. So, as you can see in the picture, it says energy shield up to 105, so it’s going to become even better. Again, you can push the price a little bit more for any of these items and try and get better stats or minimize the dead mods that you get, but again, a very, very cheap option for this build to make it work.

And lastly on the gear pieces, we’ve got the belt. And no, we will not settle for a normal rare belt. We want an ingenuity belt. And this is what you can get. 28% on the left, 30% on the right just for 20 exalted orbs. Do you know what you’re going to sacrifice here? The only thing you’re going to sacrifice here is one additional charm slot. And to be honest, it’s okay. It’s fine. Just start with this ingenuity belt. Whenever you have a couple of divine that you want to spare and you want to update that, you can update that. But the most important thing here is you’re getting 30% additional bonus on the right ring and 28% additional bonus on the left ring. This is going to increase your damage, your attributes, your resistances. Nobody cares about that third charm slot compared to what you’re going to miss out on if you don’t go for ingenuity belt that has these kind of percentages on it. And again, it’s not even a divine. It’s 20 exalted orbs. Very cheap stuff. Go and get yourself an ingenuity belt and it’s going to really, really improve your build.

And lastly here, we’ve got the Jewels. Jewel number one that you can look for costs around 10 exalted orbs. And this one only has three mods.

Gearing Up for Success

It has attack speed with spears. The two most Important things are the magnitude of ailments you inflict and the damaging elements you inflict with critical hits. Very, very important stuff. Again, 10 exalted orbs. And you can even slap it one more time with the exalted to get a fourth mod hopefully something like critical damage bonus. But second jewel is a sapphire. a little bit more expensive here because it’s more of a fullon jewel here. We’ve got three good mods and one dead one for us. We don’t care about the minion one, but we do have 16% critical damage bonus, 1% of maximum life on kill. Good stuff for survivability, and of course, magnitude of elements you inflict. Important stuff there. Next jewel that you definitely want to try and pick up is the from nothing diamond with a heart stopper as the mod there, which costs around 40 exalted orbs.

This is the one that I told you that you can actually put it anywhere and it’s going to create this little circle right here and you’re going to get this cluster which is very very important. But we cover all of that in depth in the previous video. And last but not least, I wanted to show you an alternative option for a time loss jewel in case you want to go for that. I found an emerald that’s not very bad. We’ve got 50 exalted orbs here, 1% on lightning damage, 2% on life recovery from flasks. But most importantly, the reason why I think this is worth is the lightning damage. And the third mod right there, the notables 5% increase magnitude of damaging ailments you inflict with critical hits. And of course, as we said in the previous video, this is where you’re going to put this jewel.

So as I promised, we’re going to do Zesh together. You guys saw how this build performs in the mapping because I did the twisted domain. I showed you that, but we didn’t challenge Zesh yet. I don’t know how it’s going to perform. We’re going to do it together live right now. So yes, here is the gear, the budget gear. My main gear is all the way here. All the good stuff, the good crown, the amazing chest piece that I have. This cost probably like 22 divine. 22 divine on the tangle tongue approximately or 18, I don’t really remember.

Challenging Zesh

You guys saw how this build performs in the mapping because I did the twisted domain. I showed you that, but we didn’t challenge Zesh yet. I don’t know how it’s going to perform. We’re going to do it together live right now. So yes, here is the gear, the budget gear. My main gear is all the way here. All the good stuff, the good crown, the amazing chest piece that I have. This cost probably like 22 divine. 22 divine on the tangle tongue approximately or 18, I don’t really remember.

Testing the Build

But all the good stuff are here. My good rings. As you can see, all the breach rings are out. We’ve got the budget version of the tangle tongue, the crown, the focus, the amulet, everything here. So, we’re going to go and do zest. I’m going to try and keep this unedited, uncut so you don’t think that I’m cheesing my way through the build and everything. So, I don’t know how this is going to perform now on a T4 pinnacle boss. And reminds me to show you. There you go. 8 out of eight. It is T4.

So, I’m really excited to see how this is going to work. But the servers are really weird. The shaders are still down downloading for some reason. So, I’m really hoping I’m not going to stutter here. Uh but uh yeah, let’s see. Let’s begin with Orba Storms. Yeah, I am stuttering. So, I can get some rage right here. Then, we’re going to start with this. Yes. Look at the damage. Oh, that’s fine. That’s fine. Yeah, there you go. We stuttered a little bit, but that was I consider that as a one shot. I mean, we just got shot from a T4 Zesh with his ultimate ability, I guess, the charge up ability, and we didn’t die. So, yeah, it’s not the tankiest build, but it’s not that squishy that you die one shot. And all of that for like 300 exalted, by the way. So, there you go.

Conclusion

I really hope that you enjoyed this guide. This is the budget version, significantly different from the other version that costs the same but uses the Vines instead of Exalted. I hope this guide was helpful to you. Keep in mind that prices fluctuate, so when you try this, the cost may vary. Remember, this strategy may not suit everyone perfectly. Some players may have spare Divine items, while others may not.

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