Blood Mage Ascendancy - How do you survive?

Hello everyone, I hope you're having a great time playing PoE2. Going into early access, I knew I wanted to try out the Blood Mage with an Arc build.

Once I got my first two ascendancy points, my character became basically unplayable. The life cost of the spells heavily outweighed the life remnants, so I ended up removing the mandatory Sanguimancy perk, and that fixed the issue.

Last night I finally managed to get my third and fourth ascendancy points, specced into the Spell Leech thinking it would now finally offset the Sanguimancy perk, but to my surprise, it really did not offset it as much as I anticipated. Clearing mobs is somewhat easier now, but bosses become literally impossible, as due to the life cost of spells, I end up using all of my life flasks just trying to sustain myself. Even if I play perfectly, dodge all of the bosses attacks, I still die due to Sanguimancy.

I've used up most of my currency trying to get good rolls on gear, mainly life regen and life, and even respeccing into some defensive nodes doesn't help too much on bosses.

My question is, how have you made this build work? I'm contemplating just restarting with a new character, as I do not see how this build can be viable late game with the every increasing cost of spells. Respeccing into too much defense just to stay alive tanks my damage.

Anyways, I'm interested in what builds you have used to make this Ascendancy work?

I had a thought of starting up as a blood mage myself and even named my witch accordingly, but at the shrine of ascendance I started weighing my choices:

Do I just want a permanent free minion that'll also absorb 20% of the damage I sometimes take

OR

Do I trust that the sanguimancy passive is balanced so that the class is actually playable?

I'm so happy I took the option #1.

Now when it comes to the potential fixes I'd suggest you look into inspiration support to potentially lessen the impact of the life cost. Also having a buff/aura with vitality in it could help.

You also have the "Templar start" close by which has Devoted Protector (0,5% life regen), small nodes totaling 0,6% life regen and resilient soul giving your total regen a 20% boost (provided it works similarly as in PoE1).

Reducing skill cost I feel would be too much point investment unless you're already pathing to the monk side of the tree and even then there's only the "Conservative Casting" cluster for a total of 16% reduced skill cost..

I hope this gives you a bit of help!

Thanks for the information. I will definitely try respecing again and pathing towards the life regen nodes and adding an Inspiration support gem before completely giving up on this character.

The monk cluster is way too out of the way for me currently, but I don't think the additional 16% reduced cost would be worth it anyways.

Have a look a Pohx's setup, he has a good YT vid on the blood mage.

You don't, the ascendency is completely broken and it's mechanics are counterproductive. I just gave up on mine and re-rolled a Sorc.

Totally agree. I'm at level 47, with 3 unused Ascendancy points. The way the class is designed makes no sense, and it feels like every time I add a point, I'm nerfing myself. It's not fun, and I'm constantly penalized while the rewards are minimal. I seriously hope they change it before launch day.