Overview
This Blood Mage turns His Scattering Calamity into a one-button machine gun. The skill comes from The Unborn Lich, a unique staff that drops from Kulemak and has its modifiers unveiled at the Well of Souls. It behaves much like Ember Fusillade, but with very high base lightning damage that chains per projectile, and since the last patch it has no base cost. Cutting its duration with Compressed Duration, Swift Affliction and reduced-duration tree nodes makes the projectiles fire almost instantly, so the build plays by tapping a few times and moving on.
Scion’s Temper gives a guaranteed burst: every cast that doesn’t fire a projectile ring adds a stack, so roughly every fourth tap releases a full circle. Archmage scales the lightning damage, and Life Tap plus Blood Mage leech means every spell is effectively paid with life that is instantly leeched back. With Mind Over Matter and Eldritch Battery, the mana pool of around 4,000 becomes the main defensive layer.
A cast-on-crit setup with Comet adds single-target damage for bosses, and the creator notes that almost any spell works there. The result is a build with good single target, quick mapping and solid tankiness.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Very simple to play: tap three or four times, move, repeat
- High base damage with chaining projectiles, plus zero base cost on the main skill
- Tanky through Mind Over Matter, a large mana pool and constant spell leech
- Strong single target from the Comet cast-on-crit package
Cons
- Locked to The Unborn Lich staff, and a good one needs specific prefixes and a level 20 Feast of Flesh
- A level 20 staff needs character level 90 for the fifth socket
- Needs around 181 spirit and careful weapon-set passive allocation so the curse duration isn’t ruined by the reduced duration
Key Skills
- His Scattering Calamity — the main tap skill, run with Deliberation, Life Tap, Scion’s Temper, Compressed Duration and Swift Affliction
- Archmage — lightning damage scaling paid through the mana pool
- Cast on Crit + Comet — single-target burst; swap the spell to taste
- Feast of Flesh — consumes corpses for fast life and mana recovery
- Elemental Weakness — the curse, kept on its own weapon set
Gear & Anointments
- The Unborn Lich — look for three prefixes (elemental damage, spell damage per 100 mana, extra projectiles) and a level 20 Feast of Flesh; the suffix barely matters
- Leopold’s Applause gloves — lots of energy shield and mana, and they cover lightning penetration more cheaply than Rakiata’s
- Helmet, body and boots — as much energy shield as possible (Eldritch Battery turns it into mana), plus resistances and movement speed
- Amulet — +2 or +3 to spell skills with 50 spirit; spirit matters more
- Ingenuity plus mana rings; a Grip of Kulemak ring covers the spirit gap
- Ascendancy: Life Remnants, spell leech, Sundered Flesh, Grasping Winds and Crimson Power
Endgame Notes
The creator shows boss kills and mapping and plans to keep investing. A Mobalytics guide with the full import is linked from the video.
Credits & Source
Build credited to NickZiri. See the source video for the full gameplay and commentary: Machine‑Gun Bloodmage – Simple 1‑Button Build Guide (PoE2 0.5).