Ever since Path of Exile 2 began to take shape, certain ascendancies have risen above the rest—not just as strong options, but as defining pillars of the meta. Right now, no ascendancy embodies that role more clearly than Blood Mage. In the current league, Fate of the Vaal, Blood Mage sits at the very top of the ladder, accounting for roughly 20% of all builds on Path of Exile Ninja. That alone would make it noteworthy. But what truly sparks debate is how long Blood Mage has remained dominant, and how consistently it has escaped meaningful nerfs.

This isn’t a one-league wonder. Blood Mage has been one of the strongest ascendancies in POE2 Currency since version 0.2, and arguably earlier. While other classes rotate in and out of favor depending on mechanics, content demands, or itemization trends, Blood Mage has simply… stayed. And not just stayed viable—stayed elite.

So the real question isn’t whether Blood Mage is strong. That’s settled. The real question is whether Blood Mage is too strong—and if so, what Grinding Gear Games should do about it.

A Meta That Slowly Bent Toward Blood

At the beginning of the current league, Blood Mage wasn’t immediately dominant. Pathfinder led early popularity, with Shaman and Oracle also carving out strong niches. That’s fairly typical—early league metas tend to favor mobility, safety, and well-understood mechanics.

But as the weeks passed, something familiar happened.

Blood Mage climbed.

Then climbed again.

And eventually settled at the top.

By the latest snapshots, Blood Mage has become the single most played ascendancy in the game, overtaking all others not through a sudden buff or exploit, but through sheer inevitability. As players optimized their builds, scaled damage ceilings, and pushed pinnacle content, Blood Mage emerged as the most efficient answer to nearly every question the endgame asks.

This pattern isn’t new.

Blood Mage’s Long History of Dominance

Looking back at Rise of the Abyssal, the story is strikingly similar. That league ended with Deadeye as the most popular ascendancy at around 27%, largely due to the overwhelming power of Lightning Arrow Deadeye. Temple content demanded high damage scaling, and Deadeye delivered.

But Blood Mage? It sat comfortably in second place from week one onward.

The reason was simple: life scaling was absurdly strong. Interactions like Adal scaling and the infamous tech-rod setups allowed Blood Mage to reach damage and survivability levels that trivialized most content. The only reason it didn’t overtake Deadeye entirely was that Rise of the Abyssal didn’t meaningfully pressure damage ceilings in the way Temple mechanics do. If Temple had existed that league, there’s a very real argument that Blood Mage would have been the most popular class even then.

Going further back to version 0.2, Blood Mage again stood near the top. Lightning Spear Deadeye was technically the most popular build, but Lightning Spear Blood Mage was right behind it—powered by the Rake + Blood Hunt interaction that produced hundreds of millions of damage. Even in a league where another ascendancy held first place, Blood Mage was still defining the upper bound of power.

The only time Blood Mage wasn’t a meta staple was version 0.1—and even then, it was more of a meme than a failure.

In other words: Blood Mage dominance is not accidental. It is systemic.

Buffed Again and Again, Never Truly Nerfed

One of the most concerning aspects of Blood Mage’s trajectory is how its power has evolved across patches. Despite already being strong, Blood Mage has consistently received buffs or side-grades that increased its flexibility rather than reining it in.

Early on, Blood Barbs added a modest 10% physical damage as extra physical—hardly impressive. But that eventually evolved into one of the most important mechanics in the ascendancy: aggravated bleeding on cursed targets. That single change is the foundation of modern attack-based Blood Mage builds, and it turned bleeding from a niche archetype into a top-tier damage engine.

Later, Blood Mage gained Between the Cracks, allowing critical hits to ignore monster armor—an absolutely outrageous effect that supercharged attack builds. While this specific mechanic was removed in 0.3, it wasn’t replaced with a nerf. Instead, it was reworked into a flask-based scaling system that grants physical damage per flask charge used, additional life flask charge generation, and increased life recovery.

In practice, this change made Blood Mage more flexible. The old version favored attacks. The new version works for both spells and attacks. That’s not a nerf—it’s a lateral move that expanded the ascendancy’s reach.

Across patches 0.3 and 0.4, Blood Mage was adjusted, tweaked, and polished—but never meaningfully reduced in power. If anything, its ceiling kept rising.

So What Actually Makes Blood Mage So Strong?

To understand why Blood Mage dominates, you have to look at how its ascendancy nodes solve multiple core problems at once—problems that other classes must address through gear, passive trees, or complex mechanical setups.

1. Base Critical Strike Chance Scaling

One of Blood Mage’s defining features is its ability to push base critical strike chance to 15%. That number alone reshapes build viability. Many spells in PoE2 suffer from low base crit, which forces other ascendancies to stack crit chance through inefficient scaling.

Blood Mage simply skips that struggle.

With one ascendancy investment, entire categories of spells become endgame-viable. When nearly every high-end build wants to scale crit chance and crit damage, Blood Mage’s advantage is immediate and universal. It’s no coincidence that Cast-on-Crit setups thrive so well under Blood Mage—this ascendancy was practically built for the current meta.

Oracle may have invincible crit mechanics, which explains its rise to second place, but even then, Blood Mage’s raw flexibility and synergy keep it ahead.

2. Spell Life Leech: The Real Culprit

If there’s a single mechanic that pushes Blood Mage from “very strong” into “meta-warping,” it’s this: spell damage leeching life.

Outside of Blood Mage, this mechanic barely exists. The Covenant robe offers something similar, but at a massive cost. It’s a rare, expensive item that occupies your chest slot—the most important defensive gear piece in the game. Using it means sacrificing armor, evasion, energy shield, or hybrid defenses, which dramatically weakens survivability.

Blood Mage gets this power for free.

No item dependency. No defensive trade-off. Just sustain, baked directly into the ascendancy.

And that sustain doesn’t just keep you alive—it enables reckless scaling.

Solving Mana and Survivability in One Node

Spellcasters in PoE2 have a persistent problem: mana. As spell levels scale upward—one of the most effective ways to increase damage—mana costs skyrocket. Other ascendancies are forced to juggle arcane surge setups, mana regeneration, cost reduction, recovery mechanics, and passive tree investments just to function.

Blood Mage sidesteps all of it.

By converting resource management into life leech, Blood Mage not only solves mana sustain, but also increases survivability at the same time. Every cast fuels offense and defense simultaneously. Other classes have to work twice as hard to reach the same baseline—and often still fall short.

This single interaction is why Blood Mage feels so effortless to play at high investment levels. It removes friction from the entire build process.

Attacks, Spells, and Everything in Between

What truly cements Blood Mage’s position is its flexibility. It isn’t just the best spellcaster in the game—it’s also a top-tier attack ascendancy thanks to Blood Barbs and bleeding synergy. Few classes can claim dominance across such a wide range of archetypes.

In softcore especially, there’s very little incentive to choose another spellcasting ascendancy when Blood Mage exists. Hardcore players may gravitate toward Rasha for safety, but in terms of raw power and scaling potential, Blood Mage stands alone.

Nerf Blood Mage—or Buff Everyone Else?

And that brings us to the inevitable question.

Is Blood Mage too powerful?

Or is it simply the only ascendancy that feels complete?

Nerfing Blood Mage risks making spellcasters feel clunky and restricted again. Buffing other spellcasters to its level could push spells far beyond attacks and martial weapons, warping the meta in the opposite direction.

Or maybe the real issue lies elsewhere: perhaps attack builds and martial weapons simply don’t scale well enough to compete at the highest levels, making Blood Mage look stronger by comparison.

Whatever the answer, one thing is clear—Blood Mage is not just another strong ascendancy. It is the measuring stick by which all others are judged buy POE 2 Currency.

And until Grinding Gear Games decides whether to pull it down or lift everything else up, Blood Mage will remain exactly where it’s always been:

At the top of Path of Exile 2.