Thanks guys !!

2 eitr 1 stam when blood is leveled, 1 each at low blood level. I feel good about ditching the health food around 40 bloodmagic. 1 eitr is a lot of waiting for it to regen at low skill, but no way I'll ever give up a stam meal. Better to be out of eitr than out of stam.

It depends on what you want from it. If you want a pure full mage, then yes, all 3 food + the armor set will be eitr at least until your skills are so high that you don't need as much to use the staves and can cut back on either the armor or the foods and still play full mage (this at least > 50 in all magic skills, a tedious undertaking).

And as others said, hybrid works even better, at least for me.
I use 1 eitr food and don't use dead raiser generally (only when doing stupid stuff like cutting bulk wood where they keep the dwarves and necks and such under control). That is enough that I can use a staff as a no-ammo, stamina free bow yet still melee as well as ever (Ive replaced my stamina food with eitr, and since the staff doesn't use stamina and food doesn't change rate of stamina gain, its more or less a no-loss all gain change). The biggest drawback is the frost staff has poor accuracy so you need to get closer to small targets than you would with a bow. This is where the fire staff comes in, though, it can't miss.

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

Also, are all staffs cool?

No, only the staff of frost. Staff of embers is fire.

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

Also, are all staffs cool?

No, only the staff of frost. Staff of embers is fire. :urw_fire:

lol fair..

I generally run a spell blade sort of build, where I keep most of my martial equipment and just add frost/ember staff as a range supplement to my crossbow. I use an HP/Stam/MP balance for food as well since now that royal jelly can respawn I can easily sustain seeker aspic( the best eitr food) in my diet.

I would definitely recommend powerleveling blood magic before you fully commit to an eitr specialist build, because without a shield bubble or a tank player to keep aggro you are super squishy.

What @qwerm said. Build the Dead Raiser and visit greydwarf spawners in the Black Forest. Let your spawned skeletons pile up greydwarf kills and watch your blood magic level grow. If you park in a small 1x1x1 shack complete with campfire and roof you get a resting bonus while your skeletons do all the work and your leveling is even 50% faster. How much is enough? As much as your patience can stand. Getting to level 50 blood magic requires your skeletons to get just over 5K hits on greydwarves but your protection bubble is extremely strong at that point. Also you can build an elemental magic trainer and likewise grow that skill. My most recent visit to The Queen had a mage with 52 BM and 54 EM and she had no problem coming out with the trophy. I've heard that skills of 75 or more will be needed in the next biome so I'm spending time in this inter-release waiting period to level up.

Much like everything else, you are likely to get closer to optimal results by combining various builds (e.g. wearing different armor pieces than, say, full padded).

Both elemental staves are excellent ranged weapons (although the frost one is terribly inaccurate at long range) and actually require skill to use. Getting that ballistic curve right on the staff of embers requires training and it is a fun thing to try doing.
Both let you RELIABLY parry regular seekers and soldiers, if your blocking skill is at least in the late 50s/early 60s, and you keep an eye on your stagger bar. Unless you are swarmed by a group of 3 regular seekers or stronger, somewhere in a tight spot, you will be fine. If you do get swarmed, get your buckler out and buy yourself some time. You cannot reliably parry 1-star seekers' claw attacks, so avoid those and just parry the bites and double claws. The higher your blocking skill, the less chance of attacks staggering you, of course. A stagger from a 1-star immediately followed by its claw attack might as well mean death.
My armor is 68 (carapace helmet, root harnesk, eitr-weave trousers, feather cape) -- a good balance between mobility, pierce resistance (by far the most common damage type in mistlands), and 'tankiness'. Lose the root harnesk for a SIGNIFICANLTY harder challenge.

Seeker aspic is my go-to eitr food -- seeker meat, royall jelly and magecaps are all plentiful. It also provides an extra 28 HP, which, combined with at least cooked seeker meat and any stam food, gets you some 120-odd HP. If you know what you're doing in mistlands, it's perfectly survivable.

Somehow, blood magic is not appealing to me and I do not use it at all.

Been having a heck of a blast with this build. It feels great to be able to fight almost anything on your own terms. For this build, having more than 85 eitr is counter-productive; I get by on seeker meat or wolf skewer, if I can find enough mushrooms, salad and seeker aspic. If I do need some extra length on that stam bar, I'll gobble up some fish 'n bread.

Have an absolute blast with your magic build of choice. :-)