Blood Altar

Veraen · January 2017

Is there anybody out there who uses Blood Altar skill from the Undaunted skill line?

What is it good for? What isn't it good for? How and when do you use it? What build are you running?

Any other thoughts?

davey1107 · January 2017

What it's good for: heals
What it isn't good for: it doesn't make tacos?

Ha..jk. So blood altar restores health to your group as they deal damage. My NB hits for about 14k, so when altar is up he gets 280 health back. This isn't much, but in a long fight multiply this by every hit done by everyone and it can take pressure off the healer. In addition, people in the group can use the synergy to get a massive heal. So one cast can provide multiple burst heals that the players use when they need it. And for players with the undaunted passives, they also get 4% of all,resources back when activating a synergy.

Blood altar is designed for 4 person group dungeons or world bosses. Ideally, you'd have tank or melee dps in front and ranged sorc/bow dps in rear with a healer in the middle. Plop a blood altar down in this formation, and people get some sustain. It's a decent skill...if the healer knows how to use it, and the team knows to take advantage of it.

paulsimonps · January 2017

With the next update they are changing how the Minor Lifesteal works and will be a really good Heal over time. It will give you 600 hp per second if you keep hitting the targets inside the Area of Effect. But things like Major and Minor Mending and the CP Blessed can buff it. It will also get buff from anything that adds Healing Done or Healing Received, but not by max magicka or Spell Damage. A good healer will heal a dps for about 1,000+ and a tank for around 1,500+ depending on their healing received. It will be a very valuable heal, but only after Update 13 aka Homestead is released on Live. Currently it gives you 2% of damage done back as healing and even someone with 50,000 Damage per second will only get 1,000 Heals per second from it.

Veraen · January 2017

I was really worried that nobody would respond to this, or that all the trolls would crawl out of the woodwork and snark my face all the way back to Stros M'kay. Yet low and behold, I have received two of the most insightful responses. This has truly renewed my faith in the usefulness of these forums.

davey1107 wrote: »

What it isn't good for: it doesn't make tacos?

WTF? For realz?! WEEEEEAK!!! Haha

davey1107 wrote: »

My NB hits for about 14k, so when altar is up he gets 280 health back. This isn't much, but in a long fight multiply this by every hit done by everyone and it can take pressure off the healer.

That's actually not bad at all. This would be a nice complement to the Force Siphon skill from the Restoration Staff skill line. Do you know if these two effects stack?

davey1107 wrote: »

Ideally, you'd have tank or melee dps in front and ranged sorc/bow dps in rear with a healer in the middle. Plop a blood altar down in this formation, and people get some sustain. It's a decent skill...if the healer knows how to use it, and the team knows to take advantage of it.

That does sound optimal. I presume the goal is to position the fountain so that both the the tank/melee dps and the ranged dps are both in the radius. You're right though, getting players to take advantage of it seems like the challenge. Especially because next to nobody seems to use it.

paulsimonps wrote: »

With the next update they are changing how the Minor Lifesteal works and will be a really good Heal over time. It will give you 600 hp per second if you keep hitting the targets inside the Area of Effect. But things like Major and Minor Mending and the CP Blessed can buff it. It will also get buff from anything that adds Healing Done or Healing Received, but not by max magicka or Spell Damage. A good healer will heal a dps for about 1,000+ and a tank for around 1,500+ depending on their healing received. It will be a very valuable heal, but only after Update 13 aka Homestead is released on Live. Currently it gives you 2% of damage done back as healing and even someone with 50,000 Damage per second will only get 1,000 Heals per second from it.

This does sound like an improvement. So it will no longer heal best on the amount of damage, just based on whether or not you attack the target?

paulsimonps · January 2017

Veraen wrote: »

I was really worried that nobody would respond to this, or that all the trolls would crawl out of the woodwork and snark my face all the way back to Stros M'kay. Yet low and behold, I have received two of the most insightful responses. This has truly renewed my faith in the usefulness of these forums.

davey1107 wrote: »

What it isn't good for: it doesn't make tacos?

WTF? For realz?! WEEEEEAK!!! Haha

davey1107 wrote: »

My NB hits for about 14k, so when altar is up he gets 280 health back. This isn't much, but in a long fight multiply this by every hit done by everyone and it can take pressure off the healer.

That's actually not bad at all. This would be a nice complement to the Force Siphon skill from the Restoration Staff skill line. Do you know if these two effects stack?

davey1107 wrote: »

Ideally, you'd have tank or melee dps in front and ranged sorc/bow dps in rear with a healer in the middle. Plop a blood altar down in this formation, and people get some sustain. It's a decent skill...if the healer knows how to use it, and the team knows to take advantage of it.

That does sound optimal. I presume the goal is to position the fountain so that both the the tank/melee dps and the ranged dps are both in the radius. You're right though, getting players to take advantage of it seems like the challenge. Especially because next to nobody seems to use it.

paulsimonps wrote: »

With the next update they are changing how the Minor Lifesteal works and will be a really good Heal over time. It will give you 600 hp per second if you keep hitting the targets inside the Area of Effect. But things like Major and Minor Mending and the CP Blessed can buff it. It will also get buff from anything that adds Healing Done or Healing Received, but not by max magicka or Spell Damage. A good healer will heal a dps for about 1,000+ and a tank for around 1,500+ depending on their healing received. It will be a very valuable heal, but only after Update 13 aka Homestead is released on Live. Currently it gives you 2% of damage done back as healing and even someone with 50,000 Damage per second will only get 1,000 Heals per second from it.

This does sound like an improvement. So it will no longer heal best on the amount of damage, just based on whether or not you attack the target?

They won't stack next update. And yes its just about if you hit it and how much the healer buffs it.

Veraen · January 2017

paulsimonps wrote: »

They won't stack next update. And yes its just about if you hit it and how much the healer buffs it.

Excellent. This seems a bit complicated, but let me see if I have this straight. Here is my understanding of the differences between Force Siphon and Blood Altar after the upcoming Homestead patch.

Both will apply the Minor Lifesteal debuff.

The benefit of Force Siphon is that dps can be standing anywhere when they hit the creature that is debuffed, but no synergy and only one creature at a time.

The benefit of Blood Altar is that dps can activate a synergy for a massive heal, and any enemy hit in the radius provides the heal, but you must be both be standing within the radius and hit an enemy within the radius to get the heal. Using both would not stack the heal, but would allow you to stand wherever you wanted to when you hit a creature that was either debuffed with Force Siphon or standing within the radius of the Blood Altar.

Does this sound about right?