Which blood hunter subclasses are best and what are they good at?
Matt Mercer’s Blood Hunter class is a unique martial warrior that uses blood magic to enhance their abilities and curse their enemies. Each blood hunter gains access to enhanced abilities through their subclass, often through the process of unholy rites that grant monstrous abilities. These subclasses include:
- Order of the ghostslayer – Hunters of undead that possess even greater skill with blood magic.
- Order of the lycan – Blood hunters that willingly take on the curse of lycanthropy to enhance their powers
- Order of the mutant – Imbibers of mutagens that transform their bodies, providing both enhancements and disadvantages.
- Order of the profane soul – These blood hunters make pacts with powerful beings to gain access to the magic of warlocks.
But which blood hunter subclass should you take for your character? Luckily for you, I’ve assessed the different capabilities of each subclass and how good they are so you know which subclass to choose.
Order of the ghostslayer
What are they?
The most ancient order of blood hunters. They have honed their use of hematurgy allowing it to work on bloodless creatures. They have even developed some of the capabilities of the undead they hunt to help in their quest to destroy these creatures.
Key abilities
- Rite of the dawn (lv3) – Your crimson rite deals radiant damage, you gain resistance to necrotic damage and deal more damage to undead.
- Curse specialist (lv3) – You gain an extra use of your blood maledict feature and your blood curses can target bloodless creatures.
- Aether walk (lv7) – Walk through objects and creatures.
- Brand of sundering (Lv11) – Deal more damage to foes afflicted with your brand of castigation and stop them using incorporeal movement.
- Blood curse of the exorcist (Lv15) – Gain a new blood curse that can end the charmed and frightened conditions.
- Rite revival (Lv18) – Prevent yourself dropping to 0HP by ending your crimson rites.
What are they good at?
Dealing with undead, using blood curses more often and walking through things. For the most part, ghostslayers just do the things all bloodhunters do, but a little bit better.
How effective are they?
The order of the ghostslayer is OK. It manages to navigate enhanced abilities against undead without making the subclass only useful against undead. I would still question whether you’ll get the most out of a ghostslayer if you’re not playing in an undead heavy campaign, but these features are mainly extras on the core subclass.
Aether walk would benefit from a bit of clarity and rite revival feels quite weak for a level 18 feature (it basically does what an Orc or Half-Orc can do at level 1, but worse). Everything else about the ghostslayer works well enough.
If all you want to do is kill undead all day or be the most blood huntery blood hunter around, then the ghostslayer is for you. Otherwise, there are more interesting subclasses available.
Score: 3/5
Order of the lycan
What are they?
Blood hunters that perform an unholy ritual to willingly take upon themselves lycanthropy. Through training and their blood hunter fortitude, they are able to control the normally frenzied urges lycanthropy grants (mostly). This allows them to benefit from the greater power lycanthropy provides without losing their minds to the curse.
Key abilities
- Hybrid transformation (lv3) – Become a hybrid lycanthrope with increased damage, AC and the potential to fall into a bloodlust.
- Stalker’s prowess (lv7) – Become faster and more accurate and make your crimson rite attacks magical.
- Advanced transformation (lv11) – Use your hybrid transformation more often and regenerate hit points when dropping below half your hit point maximum.
- Brand of the voracious (lv15) – Become better at controlling your bloodlust and better at hitting creatures branded by your brand of castigation.
- Hybrid transformation mastery (lv18) – Transform into your hybrid form as often as you want and gain the blood curse of the howl to frighten nearby creatures.
What are they good at?
Lycan blood hunters are very good at fighting in melee, and particularly at making unarmed strikes. Just beware of that bloodlust.
How effective are they?
The order of the lycan is a really effective subclass. Your damage and defence are better than those of the other blood hunter subclasses. Even the enhancements to their brand of castigation and the unique blood curse they receive are better than those of other subclasses.
The only drawback is their bloodlust (which shouldn’t affect you too often, especially with a solid wisdom). But this can be managed, even just through things like regular healing or not standing too close to allies. The other challenge is you are at your best in melee combat, but must also grapple with drawbacks when low on hit points and the fact that some of your blood hunter features will drain your hit points.
Despite these things, the advantages of a lycan far outweigh the disadvantages; especially with some careful planning. This makes this order a top tier subclass.
Score: 5/5
Order of the mutant
What are they?
Blood hunters that alter their bodies further through the consumption of alchemical mutagens. These provide both benefits and drawbacks, but allow mutants to adapt their capabilities to whatever task they face.
Key abilities
- Mutagencraft and formulas (lv3) – Allows you to create certain mutagens you can use to alter your capabilities.
- Strange metabolism (lv7) – Become immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition and be able to occasionally subdue the negative effects of a mutagen.
- Brand of axiom (lv11) – Your brand of castigation can prevent branded creatures from benefitting from invisibility, illusions and shapeshifting.
- Blood curse of corrosion (lv15) – A unique blood curse that lets you cause the poisoned condition on a nearby creature.
- Exalted mutation (lv18) – More easily swap between different mutagens allowing you to adapt to a situation more easily.
What are they good at?
Adapting to a given situation, if given preparation time. Being tough against poison.
How effective are they?
The problem with the order of the mutant is they’re supposed to be highly adaptable, but the way their mutagens work, mean that adapting on the go is very difficult. If you can plan ahead, they can work, but this is often challenging.
The drawbacks to each mutagen are about as hefty as the advantages, but because you choose which mutagen to take, you can mitigate and adapt accordingly. So while this feels like a negative, I don’t think it’s overly problematic.
Despite this, mutants remain quite weak in my opinion. Without the adaptability to take whatever mutagen they need, when they need it, they end up either sticking to generally useful mutagens (like celerity), or stabbing in the dark when it comes to which mutagen to prepare.
Score: 2/5
Order of the profane soul
What are they?
Blood hunters that have made pacts with powerful patrons to receive spellcasting capabilities similar to those possessed by warlocks.
Key abilities
- Otherworldly patron (lv3) – Choose a patron from among those available to warlocks.
- Pact magic (lv3) – Gain warlock spellcasting capabilities, but with spell progression slower and only ever reaching 4th level.
- Rite focus (lv3) – Gain a special benefit based on your patron.
- Mystic frenzy (lv7) – If you cast a cantrip with your action, you can also make a weapon attack with your bonus action.
- Revealed arcana (lv7) – Gain a prepared spell. Which one depends on who your patron is.
- Brand of the sapping scar (lv11) – A creature branded by your brand of castigation also has disadvantage on saving throws against your warlock spells.
- Unsealed arcana (lv15) – Gain another prepared spell. Which one is also determined by who your patron is.
- Blood curse of the soul eater (lv18) – Gain advantage on attacks and resistance to all damage for a turn when you use this when someone dies nearby.
What are they good at?
Combining swords with sorcery. They can both attack and cast spells. This works nicely with the limited number of spells you can cast as you can use weapon attacks and other blood hunter features when not able to use a spell.
How effective are they?
The order of the profane soul is a pretty good subclass. Attacks and spells are easy to weave amongst one another and there’s always something useful they’re capable of doing whether it’s a spell, cantrip, attack, blood curse or some other trick.
There are drawbacks to the subclass. Having a focus on spellcasting likely means pulling back on attack or defence a bit. Playing a ranged profane soul can mitigate a lower constitution a bit, for example. Chances are though, you won’t excel as heavily as a martial combatant or as a spellcaster as more dedicated characters.
Balancing spell slots is also a challenge, but with so many tools at their disposal, this isn’t as problematic for the profane soul as it might be for other classes.
All in all, I think this is a fairly strong subclass with a lot of utility and a broad range of capabilities.
Score: 4/5
Which Blood Hunter subclass is best?
The order of the mutant isn’t even in this conversation and the order of the ghostslayer is only fine, but nothing special. For me, the 2 stand out subclasses are the orders of the lycan and the profane soul.
While profane souls have really broad utility and spellcasting is a huge boon, I do think the raw power and melee specialism that the order of the lycan has is difficult to match. For me, this makes the order of the lycan the best blood hunter subclass.
Of course, choosing the right subclass for your character is different, and you should flavour your subclass after the role you want to play and that fits your character. The order of the lycan is a poor choice for a ranged blood hunter for example, or a party that needs a backup caster.
Which blood hunter subclass do you think is the best? Let me know about it in the comments below.
Other class guides
You can also check out our other class and subclass guides.
