The Plasma Blast Blood Mage is one of the most devastating single-target damage builds in Path of Exile 2, blending elemental bleed mechanics with high-impact hits to melt bosses and elite enemies. As a Blood Mage, this build capitalizes on the ascendancy’s ability to convert elemental damage into powerful bleeds, turning every shot from Plasma Blast into a POE 2 Currency ticking bloody nightmare for your foes.

Why Plasma Blast?

Plasma Blast is a crossbow skill that fires a long piercing beam. It boasts insanely high base damage, which scales extremely well with Bleed mechanics because the bleed damage is calculated from the hit damage itself. When Plasma Blast connects, it can stack enormous Blood Loss on a target — perfect for transforming raw power into sustained damage over time.

However, Plasma Blast’s attack time is slow and clunky for clearing mobs, so this build uses Galvanic Shards or similar skills for efficient area clearing, saving Plasma Blast for bosses and high-health uniques.

Core Mechanics

This Blood Mage build centers on creating and exploiting Bleed damage using elemental hits. The Blood Mage ascendancy has unique perks that let you inflict bleed with elemental damage, turning Plasma Blast into a bleed machine rather than just a raw damage shot. It also provides life regeneration through Remnants and ways to delay incoming damage, boosting survivability.

Key gameplay revolves around charging Plasma Blast before boss fights or major engagements, letting the intense initial hit stack a massive bleed. Once bleed ticks begin, you can switch to Blood Hunt, a finisher skill that consumes bleed stacks to deliver an explosion of damage for quick boss kills.

Skill Synergy & Utilities

To maximize effectiveness:

Plasma Blast + Support Gems: Use supports that improve critical strike chance, ailment application, and bleed magnitude.

Temporal Chains + Blasphemy Curse: Slow and curse enemies for better control and damage spread.

Voltaic Mark or Shock Enhancers: Amp up shocks to double damage taken by bosses in many scenarios.

Herald of Blood: Adds residual explosion damage on enemy death, synergizing with bleed and shock effects.

Weapon swapping between Plasma Blast for bosses and Galvanic Shards for hordes keeps your clearspeed solid without sacrificing boss damage.

Gear & Passives

Aim for high life and resistances, plus items that increase critical strike chance, ailment magnitude, and damage with elemental hits. Jewels that boost bleed and shock effects further enhance your damage.

Playstyle Tips

Against hordes, engage with quick AoE skills. When a boss appears, position yourself, channel Plasma Blast, and let the bleed stacks accumulate before executing with Blood Hunt. Strategic use of curses and shock amplifiers turns this build into a buy POE 2 Chaos Orbs boss-slaying juggernaut.

This build is high-skill and rewarding, geared toward players who enjoy complex damage mechanics and maximizing DPS through bleed and elemental interactions.