Like many roguelike games, Tainted Grail: Conquest uses the formula of slowly wearing down players before they can cross the finish line. So when a class like the Blood Mage pops up and claims that it works but only at the cost of health, red flags will naturally be flying.
And these red flags come to fruition during the first few playthroughs with the Blood Mage. Sometimes the character gives away all of its life before the first boss in Tainted Grail: Conquest. But with the right build, the class has a chance to breeze through the final boss.
Take A Golem And Overcharge It At Level Four
This build is not Golem-heavy, but one to start is always good for business. The player will already be doing loads of damage to themselves, taking extra hits from opponents will obviously tilt the scales in favor of the enemies. The single Golem has a second, more important purpose in life, too.
At level four, a full ultimate overcharge of the Golem heals the player for 40 (more with boosts to healing). This will recover most, if not all, the damage that the Blood Mage has done to themselves during the fight and it is key to keeping the Blood Mage competitive with the other characters.
Give Priority To Wyrms And Abominations
The Golem is going to do its thing, so the focus needs to be on damage. Forget about healing them since the minions automatically die after level four anyhow. The best two damage dealers are the Wyrm and the Abomination.
The Abomination will attack all the enemies on the screen at once, making it excellent for smaller fights and farming up currencies. The Wyrm places marks and devastates single targets. Between the two of them, there isn't a challenge that the blood Mage is weak against.
Promotions Decrease Damage
An important lesson to learn is that promotions end up decreasing damage, so use them sparingly. There is more immediate damage, but it rushes the minion through to its next rank, so the promotion ends up skipping a round of damage that the Wyrm or Abomination could have used.
Instead, focus on activation cards and sigils. The minions have short but effective lives and there is no reason to rush them to their graves. Extra energy to spend on barriers and buffs is never a bad thing, using the Master-At-Arms can assure that an activation card is always in the hand.
Level 10 - Lesser Key Of Binding
- Whenever a minion overcharges, remove its sigils and return them to the hand. Their cost is returned to 0.
Of the selection, the worst is Lesser Key of Punishment, which increases damage done to the Blood Mage for summon cards but also does damage to enemies. Most enemies have more health than the Blood Mage, so this is a net negative. The other option, gaining an ultimate charge for an overcharging minion, sounds enticing, but players should be at about maximum when minions overcharge already.
For this build (and most others), the common sense pick is the Lesser key of Binding, which gives back sigils on overcharged minions and makes them free. This incentivizes gathering buff cards and keeping them up on Abominations and Wyrms.
Level 20 - Greater Key Of Chaining
- Allows the ultimate ability to charge to 16. At 16, does 1200% of the overcharge effect.
To put into perspective how completely overpowered the Greater Key of Chaining is, remember that the usual 12 charges only produce 400% of the magnitude. So that 40 healing with the Golem is now 120 healing. If the Blood Mage is alright on health, give this to a Wyrm or Abomination and watch them take out half of the final foe's health (or possibly all of it with buffs).
Greater Key of Punishment saves minions that are overcharged and returns them to level two, but that's not all that much better than a new minion. The other option gives a 200% overcharge effect to sacrificed minions, but sacrificing is not what this build is all about.
Tainted Grail: Conquest was released on May 27th, 2021, and is available for PC.