Auras: A Build Decision or A Build Obligation? Alternatives Inside

"

Finkenstein wrote:

I am all for capping players usage of auras to an average amount(2) and adding a keystone for another 2-3 giving a player a total of 5. The auras could have different costs like Veta321 suggests to give it more flavor then the old pt or % based auras.

It feels like Chris asked Jay for advice,''DOUBLE IT!'' flat out.

I agree with Veta321 also on that GGG took a lazy approach to this issue since high lvl players with access to the uber end game uniques can still use 4-5 auras instead of 7-8. In the scale of things GGG has actually done nothing and will have to come back to this issue which they never would have had to if they did a better more balanced fix.

Hopefully GGG won't be so busy being rich to read these posts and think about it because there are some good ideas here.

AMEN!

Another major issue is that this system gives increasing returns for "Reduced Mana Reserved" because that stat reaches an absolute at 100%, just like block and resist. So it's incredibly costly to be able to run a third aura, and then after that, the more reduced reserve you stack the easier it gets to add another aura. This results in a meta where players tend toward either extreme rather than proportional investment, either 1-3 auras, or all of them. It has also, as other people have said, effectively made the mana globe obsolete as a UI element, with the exception of MoM builds who use it as life.

"

Uvne wrote:

This results in a meta where players tend toward either extreme rather than proportional investment, either 1-3 auras, or all of them. It has also, as other people have said, effectively made the mana globe obsolete as a UI element, with the exception of MoM builds who use it as life.

Indeed. I'm sort of partial to the idea of auras being limited to one and that limit only being increased by items and passives. In fact, I'd rather items and passives were required to effectively use any auras or curses. These skills should be specialized into, otherwise they run the risk of becoming compulsory, and instead of an interesting choice in character development they become obligations and optimal strategies.

"

Veta321 wrote:

These could include fixed mana drains, fixed percent mana drains or fixed reservations. While I agree % reservation makes sense on some particularly powerful auras I'm not sure it makes sense to reward regeneration and punish stacking life/mana.

Here are examples of what I mean:

Fixed Mana Drain
-60 mana per second
This punishes players dependent on mana leach

Fixed Percent Mana Drain
-60% mana per second
This punishes player dependent on mana regeneration

Fixed Reservation
-60 max mana
This punishes players dependent on a small pool of mana

Current Fixed Percent Reservation
-60% max mana
This punishes players dependent on a large pool of mana

For Blood Magic replace mana with life.

I should note, I am happy with the shift in aura design. Players should not be stacking many auras without investing passives. I just think it disproportionately rewards some strategies and punishes others. More varied drawbacks would be welcome.

-x mana per second wouldn't punish players dependent on mana leech. Look at Artic Armor. It destroys anyone without large mana pools, mana regeneration, and huge amounts of mana leech. Mana leech is also tricky as it requires constant engagement or you risk having your aura(s) deactivate.

-60% mana per second is basically a single Righteous Fire for your mana. This would be impossible for any build to run unless it specifically gets enough mana, regeneration, and reduced mana reservation to counteract the degeneration of a single aura. Minimum degeneration per aura would be roughly 5%, and one would be hard enough to handle.

-x mana would be harder for low base mana builds, but things like helping Alira in Normal would be a must have for any future build. High mana pool builds would then be able to run all of the auras without much penalty.

That leaves the current plan with percentage based reservation. It's the best idea to fit GGG's idea for auras.

Yes, Natharias. You were right, I've since edited the post to reflect better examples and explanation.

I must say I have recently been thinking similar thoughts. To be it's not the number of aura's on a particular character, but I feel they are too mandatory.

In this game I feel you can do good damage without any aura's at all, or at least only with 1 aura. For instance all physical damage builds, with hatred do just fine. My problem is it is to hard to gain a solid defense without the defensive aura's.

High effectiveness purity aura's are so effective at making you able to clear very hard content. I tried Olmec's Sanctum on my lvl 90 bow-user. Needless to say 75% resistance was not enough.

My friend did it pretty easily with high effectiveness purity aura's, because his max- elemental resistance was around 10% higher than mine.

If GGG scales the elemental damage around players having 75% resistance, then an extra 10% max resistance makes a huge difference. Combined with a potion it is the difference between not taking damage or taking huge amounts of damage.

I would also like to see a rework on aura's.

+1

"

Veta321 wrote:

Auras are very powerful and with few exceptions they have become obligatory when building a character, much like curses. That's all well and good but it seems to me auras and their % reservation undermines the entire mana mechanic. How much more difficult it is to run non-regeneration, non-clarity setups with a huge portion of your buffer rendered inert. Of course, to give an aura up would be a tremendous disadvantage.

I would like auras to be a more significant choice, not merely the optimal selection. I think that could be accomplished by tying their effectiveness closer to items and the skill tree. For example, capping auras at 1 like curses, but allowing that limit to be increased by items and the skill tree. Alternatively, weaker auras that are augmented by +%increased aura effects on items and the skill tree. Additionally, it would behoove GGG to diversify the drawbacks of auras. I don't see why they should favor one particular mana setup. That would also make them less interchangeable, making your mana choices really matter.

Some alternatives to % mana reservation include the following:
Fixed Mana Drain
-## mana per second
(Arctic Armor)

Fixed Percent Mana Drain
-#% mana per second
(Righteous Fire, but for mana)

Fixed Reservation
-### maximum mana
(Clarity)

And for comparison, our current system:
Fixed Percent Reservation
-##% maximum mana


In essence, I would like auras, even a single aura, to be something players specialize into, or a function of more factors than merely your personal preference - which is often a matter of choosing the optimal - which is not really a choice at all. That isn't to say I want auras weaker. The same goes for curses, I'd rather curses were much less effective until +% curse effects were picked up on the skill tree. Not everyone has to be a Necrobarbadin.

I don't think you understood what I meant by Righteous Fire for mana. RF did around 70% of your ES and 90% of your life for only 50% as damage. If auras are going to drain any more than roughly 5% of your mana per second, it's impossible for ANY build to run any more than a single aura. Even with the 54% reduction, that leaves 2.3% mana degeneration per second, and after a max level Reduced Mana gem it lowers it to 1.633% mana degeneration per second. Combined more than one aura with a four-link or more, or Artic Armor, and any build will run out of mana without high DPS and a Mana Leech gem. This means Mana Leech would be required, and would kill build diversity depending on aura choices and skill sets.

The same can be said about the static mana drain, but this is worse as it would not be altered by the Reduced Mana gem. This might also apply to the percent mana drain, making the whole situation worse.

Here's a suggestion to show that I'm not trying to just derail this thread and actually put something helpful out there. We have a total maximum reduction of 54%, including the Alpha's Howl unique helmet. This is general reduction and not counting the reduction from Prism Guardian.

What it seems we need is a somewhat multiplicative effect between the reduction nodes in the skill tree. Each node reduces less, but stacks with other reduction nodes better.

Here's what we currently have:
Reduced Mana Reservation - 4% reduced mana reserved (2)
Reduced Mana Reservation - 5% reduced mana reserved (4)
Sovereignty - 8% reduced mana reserved
Charisma - 10% reduced mana reserved

Total reduction = 46%

Mortal Conviction - 40% less mana reserved

What we could have:
Reduced Mana Reservation - 3% reduced mana reserved, 2% additional reduced mana reserved per additional reduction node. This includes itself, and for a total of six nodes.

6 x 3 = 18. 6 x 8 = 48. 18 + 48 = 66.

Total reduction = 66%, 74% with Alpha's Howl.

This would make investing into a single node less worthwhile for a build not planning on investing into auras while benefiting Aura builds that invest in them.

Edit:

Noticed I neglected the 8% and 10% nodes in my example. Oh well.

Natharias, while I welcome your analysis I'm concerned you're missing the forest for the trees. The purpose of the OP was not to dwell on particulars but to describe alternatives and ultimately what might make auras a more engaging part of character development. To that end, I appreciate your post and any analysis detailing each potential alternative. At present it does not seem to me a major concern however.

Additionally I apprehend that you mistook my alternatives as replacements for the current system. This is not my intention in the slightest. I want variety in aura mechanics, not a near-uniform % reservation mechanic. I very much like the different build considerations AA, RF and Clarity afford players. Removing all % reservation auras would accomplish the opposite of my intention, which is to establish a variety in aura specialization considerations. Rather each on a case by case basis should have its fundamental cost mechanic appraised.

Do you feel that under no circumstances a % mana drain could be effectively balanced? Is it only a question of numbers? Do you think it is a bad mechanic? Why? Perhaps I should have described what I meant as the opposite of mana regeneration rate, i.e. mana degeneration rate.

To your point on mana reduction nodes and a multiplicative analogue, I agree. Assuming none of the fundamental changes described in OP, such as an aura cap or aura effectiveness nodes, changing reduction in the way you describe would provide for greater (at least more engaging) specialization.

"

Veta321 wrote:

Natharias, while I welcome your analysis I'm concerned you're missing the forest for the trees. The purpose of the OP was not to dwell on particulars but to describe alternatives and ultimately what might make auras a more engaging part of character development. To that end, I appreciate your post and any analysis detailing each potential alternative. At present it does not seem to me a major concern however.

Additionally I apprehend that you mistook my alternatives as replacements for the current system. This is not my intention in the slightest. I want variety in aura mechanics, not a near-uniform % reservation mechanic. I very much like the different build considerations AA, RF and Clarity afford players. Removing all % reservation auras would accomplish the opposite of my intention, which is to establish a variety in aura specialization considerations. Rather each on a case by case basis should have its fundamental cost mechanic appraised.

Do you feel that under no circumstances a % mana drain could be effectively balanced? Is it only a question of numbers? Do you think it is a bad mechanic? Why? Perhaps I should have described what I meant as the opposite of mana regeneration rate, i.e. mana degeneration rate.

To your point on mana reduction nodes and a multiplicative analogue, I agree. Assuming none of the fundamental changes described in OP, such as an aura cap or aura effectiveness nodes, changing reduction in the way you describe would provide for greater (at least more engaging) specialization.

I'm not trying to be particular, otherwise I'd try to be precise with numerical parts of examples I might give.

As to all of the examples you've given, it would force every build that uses auras to focus more on mana in their passive allocations and gear choices. I'll elaborate.

Let's say 60% auras are translated to a 6% mana drain. This means that the Reduced Mana gem will either have a mechanic change, which would affect Arctic Armor as well, or have to apply to "auras" specifically while not applying to "buffs". Let's assume that this is the case.

6% mana drain would destroy any build out there. It would have to be reduced, and every build that doesn't focus on mana and mana regeneration or recovery would be destroyed by a single, raw aura drain. This means each and every build would have to do something to mitigate this. The common methods of the Reduced Mana gem and nodes being most common.

Let's say they get 10% reduced mana drain from the tree, which usually takes about 20 points to achieve depending on how far away they are and what nodes they take. This reduces that drain to roughly 5.4%. After a max level RMG, it becomes 3.834%. 4% mana drain still kills most builds that don't focus on mana regeneration.

Now let's look at an Aura build specialization. Translating 60% auras to 6% drain, 40% to 4% drains, 25% to 2.5% drain, and Clarity to a 1:1 drain, it would be a total of 62% + 440 mana drained per second. Assuming that you have 54% reduced mana drain and a max level RMG, that becomes roughly 20.2492% and 143.704 mana drained per second. It could be assumed that this is possible if the build only focuses on intelligence, raw mana, mana regeneration, and mana regeneration nodes. The build would also be able to use Mind Over Matter to help in survivability, which would be a huge advantage of an aura build.

Of course the above is assuming a certain percentage, running all auras, and using the mana drain you suggest. I hope you can understand how much harder that would be to balance for the game than the current flat reservations that GGG has in place. I'm not against it, but it would make aura builds much easier to play overall, and it would do so by removing the requirement of high chaos resistance and/or the Shav's chest piece.

My vote: replace all player auras into active spells that does same effect to 1 player per cast and has about 60 seconds duration.

Reason: Not having to worry that much with mana reservation and still having similar effect both as a support player and as a solo player.

Pros: No mana reservation means you may manage your mana/life to cast same spells multiple times to buff yourself or a party member.

Cons: Limited duration means you need to cast it frequently and this is especially annoying with a full party.

Note1: Players auras become ultra-rare gems although there are quite a bunch of them available to trade for exalts. They also become a not quest reward gems anymore.

Note2: Monsters auras still apply to them so beware of increased physical damage aura mob.

EDIT--------
Aura -> Surge
Anger -> Fiery Surge
Determination -> Physical Resilience Surge
Vitality -> Vital Surge
Grace -> Evasive Surge
Haste -> Speed Surge
Hatred -> Chill Surge
Clarity -> Insight Surge
Discipline -> Shroud Surge
Purity Of Element(Any) -> Fire/Cold/Lightning/Elemental Resilience Surge
Wrath -> Shock Surge