Cost efficient blood hunting

[Gregstrom]

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

Empower costs ~35 blood slaves. 25 slave booster costs ~32 before forging bonus (if any). .

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Empower does not cost ~35 slaves. Blood boosters cost 25 before forge bonus.

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

The increase between B2 and B3 (effective) is about 1.4 blood slaves. 25 turns for empower. ~23 for brazen vessel.

Waiting #20 turns for a return on investment is rarely worthwhile in MP. If you're talking about equipping, say, 20 blood hunters with thorns or skulls, the 500 slaves (~375 with hammers) you just burned could probably have been used to summon a demon army and conquer another player (or to prevent an invasion).

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

Now, boosting further could be done in a cost conscious way with a blood thorn, even to B4 effect or just 1 more B for any B3+ blood hunter. In those case the RoR is equal to the forge cost of the booster. Armor of souls with a 50% forge bonus takes only 25 (adding the cost of the forger's turn) turns to pay off for even your b6 souped up warlock.

See above. And if you have a B6 warlock, why isn't he doing something like making Soul Contracts rather than blood hunting? If you've boosted all your warlocks to B6, why haven't you won the game yet?

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

Even a modest 25% forge bonus makes the bloodthorn and brazen vessel attractive, especially for low level blood hunters, especially earlier in the game, if you're in a good position.

They're vastly less attractive than dowsing rods, whatever you do. If for some reason you have an extremely limited supply of blood hunters, then maybe you can afford to blow your slave reserves into boosters for hunting use. Otherwise, the spend is less effective, especially in terms of return on investment, than having more hunters and only using rods.