VeryAngryFelid wrote:I see, that's risky play IMHO. If you get 50 damage and have 100 HP remaining, instead of mere running away like I would do you cast SoB and get to 70 HP remaining
No, i won't. First, my example with 70 vs 100 hp was relating to a phase when the character had 100 max hp. To be clear: i DO NOT SoB when my hp aren't at or near max, and i most certainly do not SoB if i took 50 damage (unless the threat got neutralised somehow, e. g. by succumbing to a freezing cloud right after swinging — even then, a Regen spell is first priority). If i take 50 damage, it means i need to take measures to make sure i don't get hit again, and i need to take them NOW; not stand around spending turns on SoB (which can recover puny 3 mana for 2 mana cost if it's in the mood) and bringing my HP even lower. It is not an appropriate time to cast SoB at all, and i fully agree with the reasons you've listed for that. Nor would it be an appropriate time to use Channeling, even though it doesn't cost HP; which shows HP cost isn't the main concern here (the fact that you're standing around taking damage is).
The way i try to play this character, the priority is to not be hit at all; and that is something SoB helps with. It is cast BEFORE i get hit for 50 hp, and before i fully run out of mana, so i don't run out of options that give me the upper hand. It is cast if i'm in the fight, but i know i can afford the action cost even if it whiffs; same as Channeling. It pays for itself if the extra spells i get to cast prevent more hp than it took.
It's actually quite rare to SoB yourself for -50 hp in a single casting. Outside of safe resting, it only happened to me about three times so far. If it happens, i treat it as any other emergency (e. g. the same as if a yaktaur appeared on the edge of the screen and immediately hit me for the same amount of damage): a reason to pull off and to feel free to use emergency items. Again, it is a far less frequent happening than eating a hit for the same amount of damage due to bad play or two bolt misses in a row.
Nobody said i don't retreat because i have SoB. In fact, it helps in agressive retreat via Freezing Cloud; if i see a monster on the edge of LoS, place a fCloud between it and myself and start running the opposite way while laying Freezing Clouds behind me (at a cost of letting the enemy one square closer each time i do that, of course), there's only so much distance i can ran before running-and-hurting-the-enemy-via-fCloud turns into ordinary running-while-recovering-MP-while-the-threat-recovers-its-HP-and-catches-up-with-you-via-energy-randomisation. SoB means that by spending an additional turn to recover my MP, i can spam almost twice as much freezing clouds and i'm kinda more free to reset the distance via uncontrolled blinks (which can put the cloud back between you and a monster that caught up with you).
I didn't have zombies (nor Bolt of Draining anymore, had swapped it for Bolt of Cold quite a bit ago, so my main killdudes against shrikes was Airstrike with freezing cloud probably helping; i DID have Simulacra in the first and second fights, but they didn't last two turns against shrikes), but in the third fight i've spammed Spellforged Servitor as a meatshield (it's been in a corridor). It's a spell you'd barely call spammable without SoB, and i think it prevented more damage from shrikes than i've used up on SoB. Shrikes DID deal a lot of damage, that's true (that was my first game with them spawning, which is also accountable for me losing one of three fights); that only magnified my need to have enough mana to stay in control. I agree that fighting them at all was an unnecessary risk and the most risky thing i did in that game, though; but i've been very mindful of my HP and when to say "NOW i have to use consumables", so spending HP on SoB has been not a matter of being closer to death but a matter of having less buffer (and therefore less time) before i need to escape.
BTW, does (a potion of) Haste make you tele faster after reading a scroll, or merely let you act more while you'll tele in same determined time?
Sunday, 11th September 2016, 15:42 
Sublimation of blood usage
