I was in the same boat and ended up going with a shield and trident and I have 18 AC and Sentinel which will go great with the brand. So sagacity potion will be great as well to pump your curse DC and your brand damage.

Quote from Rockinfella >>

I'm actually really excited about this. At first I was very disappointed because they changed for int and I had wis my third stat and rely a bit on wis skills. Also I'm level 3 and had some ideas about ASI and now have to reconsider. But after letting it sink a little this might be amazing for me. I'm a order of the mutant Str build and want to go polearm master. I was thinking to go for 4th level Str 18 and Dex 14. But now I probably stay at 17, 13 and take the polearm master. With mutagens I get to Str 20 (And Dex 16 if  need it). I only worry about the 1 less AC that I usually end up with. As far as I understand I don't need to invoke both ends of the polearm anymore? That's simply amazing for my build! Can't wait till it's up on dnd beyond and I can look deeper into it!

That sounds like a really cool build!! I just started at level 1 with Str and Dex at 16 (rolled well). My last character was super min/maxed so this one I'm going much more versatile so I'll probably wind up going Mutant.

Quote from Stormknight >>

The new, updated Blood Hunter is available now!

 is it? everytime i try to open it, it times out

Will this update ever be forced on existing PCs, as in, will it force them to change it over if they level up?  Additionally, is there a way to roll up the archived version of Blood Hunter, should a player wish to do so?

With the change to Blood Lust, if you are below half health, transformed, but out of combat, do you have to roll a save every 6 seconds?

While disappointed that it doesn't cross class as well with Monster Slayer any longer, I'm interested in the future cross classes my players will come up with, Artificer in particular.  While War Wizard will be an expected cross class, seeing Battle Smith and Mutagen combined will be an interesting play style.  I'll still allow my players to use the older options, but they will just need to print their character sheets.  I think a work around we'll do is have one of our players allow others to claim his character and make a copy, should they want to play the older version.

I'm getting ready to go Mutant in a few sessions and wanted to get your opinions on Impermeable, Shielded, and Unbreakable. Anyone have an idea how often the different damage types come into play? Our last session we fought thugs that did piercing and bludgeoning and I know there are some creatures that have bite and claw attacks for piercing and slashing. How much of a concern would you have for gaining resistance to one damage type but vulnerability to another? Was thinking maybe I'll take one of them just for fun and take it case by case.

I don't have any of these (level 3) and the main reason is probably, that you can only switch your mutagen on a rest and you only have one. That's the reason why I tried to pick mutagens that are "always" helpful. So far I've been using potency (with my strength build) all the time except once, where I was exhausted and used the rapidity +10 feet movement one to keep up speed (basically without any sideffect, as I already was on disadvantage). The reason? +1 (now +2!) to hit and damage helps me in every possible fight and even outside of fights. So far we never encountered a Dex safe (which might change on higher levels) so the side effect didn't come to effect at all so far. Resistance only helps if you know exactly what you're going into and knowing that there might not be some minions that could **** you up. If on lower levels you could have more than one mutagen prepared, I think it could be worth it, especially because the BH likes to be protected from harm as much as possible. As it is now with one mutagen per rest, I will stick to +Str (+Dex if I know I want to be out of melee) because it's always useful, whereas having +10 to movement and immunity to grappled and restrained at the back of my hand for situations that need it. This is specific to my built and I'm sure there is great other options. I also think it is a pity that you're not able to change more often to try out different things. But that's how it is and maybe necessary  for balance. I still love my BH. :) 

To all you Bloodhunter: what do you think about the (new) blood curses? How do you use them? Which ones do you/don't you like? Any tips?

Disclaimer: I love the class and don't mind my issues with the BC too much. This is not at all a flame against the class. I just want to give my opinion and hope to learn from you all how to use BCs. 

I personally am very underwhelmed, to a degree that I feel they are almost useless unless used in very rare specific situations. Before the update I had the mutual suffering. It happened often enough that I put it on a creature that didn't attack me, or was killed before attacking me. But I had ways to still make it useful and was happy with it. (Provoking opportunity attacks, roleplaying to convince to attack me etc) 

With the new BH, I didn't know what to choose at all and don't feel I have an option that I would use frequently and get at least a small use out of. 

BC anxious: I love that this is a roleplaying option and the BC gets options out of battle, but I feel it is such a small benefit and at least in my group we use intimidation quite rarely and if so, than it is often two or three of us grouping up and getting advantage through that. The amplify option seems very weak and situational for me. Why would the victim make a wisdom check 6 seconds after being intimidated? Or am I missing sth here? (Is wis to safe against intimidation?) Anyways it happens so rare with my group that it feels useless.

BC binding: this is one of my favourite but I have one big problem with this: the save is str. Most enemies seem to have at least decent many even high str. My dc is 11. I don't know the exact numbers, but it feels like this is gonna fail many times. If there would be a weaker effect with the fail (eg speed is halved) this would be still a great option. But if it saves the bc fails just makes it again very situational in my opinion.

BC bloated agony: this is the one I have now. So far it didn't really help me, but I think I will squeeze some use out of it. Again the safe is easy, but as there is only a safe with amplify, it can still be useful. 1d8 is not a lot compared to what you could do with mutual suffering, but it is nice. I like the disadvantage option for shoving prone or grappling. I tried to use this one in a critical moment last session and it failed (I rolled low) but I feel it at least can be alright here and there. Unfortunately the 1d8 damage is also situational. (Eg last session the monster had a multi attack and a 1 attack grapple option. It used the grapple because it was absolutely logical in this moment so the curse didn't take effect. )

BC exposure: this only helps if someone has multi attacks that deal a reasonable amount of damage. So before level 5 were most classes get an additional attack, this curse seems quite weak. It is useless for spells, as you can only do one spell per turn. Am I missing sth?

BC eyeless: seems to be alright. I don't like the part that you can do it after the roll, because it would lead to my DM always having to announce that they rolled and waiting for me to decide if I want to use the BC. Sure we would find a convenient solution for this, but it seems like disturbing the flow. It seems a bit like the bards inspiration, but the inspiration you can use more often and grows with the levels. I feel that in many cases this will not have an effect (the creature wouldn't hit anyways, or will hit even after the die role). Still it feels like one of the better options.

BC fallen puppet: I don't like this curse because of many reasons, mostly maybe because in our campaign we fight the undead so it seems odd to raise up people, but also again it just needs to be a very specific situation where this works. In hour game the baddies rarely clump up together. The amplify would in many situations just make the curse work at all and could still fail ending up in you hurting yourself without any effect. That's really bad imo!

BC marked: if you hit, you make 1d4 extra damage. That's it. If you amplify you get advantage, giving you a slightly higher chance to crit. Still you might hurt yourself without any effect at all. But just the fact that it is for only one attack and only your hemo die feels weak for me. Am I missing sth?

BC muddled mind: If there is a caster, if he is concentrating, this could be helpful. So far on our lower levels we didn't face to many casters. On higher levels this one gets more interesting maybe. 

Some reasons I see for my problems with this: 

I have a +0 on Int/ +1 on Wisdom. (str is my damage, con my health, Dex my ac, so I chose to go low on Int/wis) someone who focuses on Int for casting might get great use out of the curses. For my character it often would come down to: amplify - take damage - enemy makes the safe anyways - no effect. 

Maybe the BCs are meant for higher levels, where you have different BCs for every situation and the negative part that they are situational, could actually become their strength. But until this comes to effect I believe I would play once a weak for more than a year and since my DM doesn't like to play much over level 10 it might never really happen for me. I know that can not be part of the design, but still would be nice to have more use of this about on lower levels.

Maybe the BCs are meant to be just a small gimmick and I'm expecting too much of them. This might be very true. But If so, I would like the amplification of some BCs more powerful. Meaning: not amplified: small cost (bonus action/reaction) small or no impact. Amplified: higher cost (damage taken) minimum effect +possibility of a stronger effect of lucky or used on the right situation. For me using a bonus action, giving myself between 1 and 4/6/8 damage and not having any effect at all just seems very frustrating.

Which BCs are you using? Which ones do you/don't you like? How do you recommend to use them? Do you have tips for me?

I wouldn't worry about feeling limited before level 5, as most classes are like that before 3rd level spells and Extra Attack are a thing.  Keep in mind that your Hemocraft die also scales with level, so anything that calls for a roll of that (like Eyeless and Marked) is going to get better as you gain levels.  

That said, some blood curses are definitely more niche than others and their usefulness varies based on your party composition.  For example, Anxious I can see being extremely useful amplified with a Bard or other spellcaster in the party heavy on Wis-save spells, and I happen to have a Bard who fits that bill, so I plan to take this curse at some point.  Exposure looks pretty nice if you've a target resistant or immune to your party's predominant damage types, and the rest of the curses are of similar situational use.  

I will say that Eyeless is pretty much a must-have due to its general usefulness and potency.  Cutting Words/Bane like effect that can be applied to ALL attack rolls on a creature's turn, not just one with no save?  Sign me up.  

Thanks for the reply.

I see how anxious can be used in the right group constellation.

The problem with exposure is that it says "during that turn" and "is hit by an attack or spell". So it's not for the hole group, it's just for that specific attack and other attacks during the turn. I have to admit that I read it wrong as "after being hit" so it would not include the hit that you are using the BC on. But that was a misread on my side. That actually is than a bit better, because depending on the spell this can deal a lot of damage. I like it more now. 

I need to give the eyeless a chance, maybe I'm underestimating the power.

What do you think about bloated agony?

Bloated Agony is odd.  It seems tailored to punish multiattacking monsters, and the disadvantage has niche use in grappling as you mentioned, but the damage is unimpressive since it reads as if the damage only goes off once per turn regardless of the number of attacks made. 

Might be good vs caster or archer types since they take damage if they make more than one melee or ranged attack on their turn, spell or not.  Good against Scorching Ray or Eldritch Blast level 5 and up for example.  Said monsters typically have smaller health pools and weaker Con saves compared to heavier monsters as well. 

It'll also trigger a Concentration save each time the damage goes off, so that could be interesting. 

But I personally wouldn't take it over Eyeless.  

I took Binding due to the fact that being able to stop something from moving is never not useful. Especially if you use your action to knock it prone, because then it can't get up at all. I play a Mutant so with sagacity potion I'll be able to rock a relatively high DC by rocking an 18 int. 

I took anxious mostly just for fun to see what I could do with it and I LOVE it. I've used it twice now, one of those it actually ended the fight because I scared the leader so bad.

I think people that have big issues with the blood curses are expecting too much out of them. They're a simple tool to gain the upper hand in a specific situation. Think about your character and why they would use blood magic. My character wants to be a forceful presence to those around her so Anxious works very well.

Even though it bothers me that some blood curses might not work at all due to a successful saving throw, this is an Intelligence-based martial class so if your int is low then your character probably isn't that interested in blood magic anyway.

On one hand I'm kind of sad that  Wis was swapped out for Int, because I had a build for a Profane Soul/ Cleric multi-class that doesn't really work as well anymore. But on the other hand, I was at a one-shot event, and the DM was talking about how much better the new version of Blood Hunter was, since apparently the old version had a bad habit of self destructing.

Gotta say I'm mostly just underwhelmed by this class, in general.  Neat flavor I guess, and making it INT based was a great idea, but for the most part the things it can do seem roughly equivalent to what other classes can do WITHOUT having to give up their own hit points.  Maybe if they had a d12 Hit Die?  I know that's stepping on the Barbarian's toes but still.

I'm ready to have my mind changed if anyone has a better sense of how these abilities stack up, but I just don't think they are worth dropping your HP total.

Well at level 5 I get 3 attacks with a +2 to hit and damage (additionally to whatever my build gives me) with each attack an additional +d6 magical damage. This costs me 1d6 damage per fight and disadvantage on dexterity saves which in some fights might not be relevant at all. I didn't min/max and feel quite fine with that. But sure there might be other classes that are stronger. I still enjoy it and don't consider it dangerously weak.