u/Nervous_Basket_8198

i'm theorycrafting for 0.5, haven't played poe2 since launch. my idea is to do pure blood mage bleed build and exsanguinate looks kinda interesting.

however, there are few things that concern me:

• bleed scales with bleed magnitude and physical hit as i understand, and based on tooltip, this skill has very low on hit dmg. wouldn't it be better to use heavy hitting physical skill and just slap 100% bleed chance support gem?
• is it worth investing in life leech on blood mage ascendancy if i go bleed route, as i understand you can't leech from dot?
• is bleed even viable? i see that there are many skills that have synergy with bleed like herald of blood, this is where i got my idea

link for the skill: Exsanguinate - PoE2DB, Path of Exile Wiki us

in poe 1 it was hard to choose which nodes to invest in because options were vast and impactful, in poe2 i struggle to decide where to put the points because it all seems... kinda meh? nodes either have downsides or some weird conditions.

i'm not necessary complaining, because this was primary reason why i always followed builds, i was anxious i can brick my character if i go wrong way, but in poe 2 i have feeling like loot has most of the impact, is that correct?

i'm aware there are builds for reap blood mage online but i want to try and do my own build this time. or at least discuss it instead of just following build.

played poe 2 at the release, but then stopped and there is probably ton of shit i overlooked. i'm asking for a feedback regarding passive tree, i'll deal with equipment as i go. i just don't want to brick myself with the passive tree.

this was my logic when doing the build:

• blood mage kinda gets debuffed with sanquimancy -> use reap (no mana and life cost + it's thematic)
• reap applies critical weakness - > build as much crit chance and dmg as possible (number 1 priority in the passive three)
• besides that go for spell dmg, physical dmg, cast speed and aoe damage
• few life recouped nodes, however i think there is enough defense from ascendancy, if not go for es nodes?
• didn't find any interesting keystones for the build

regarding ascendacy

• go for grasping wounds first
• life leech nodes
• here is dilemma - should i go for gore spike for extra crit dmg? notable node before that, which raises base crit hit chance for spells to 15% seems useless since reap has 14% base chance. or should i go for 2 bleed nodes? i don't know how the bleed scales, i assume it's % of physical damage, does it care about crit hits?

passive tree: https://poe.ninja/poe2/pob/1b1bf

please give recommendations.