Lay off the aura hate, understand the game.

With the update to the tree coming up, I've seen multiple threads and discussions, both here and on twitch and reddit, about how auras are broken again and how people shouldn't be able to run multiple auras. And I say, please understand the game and where you should aim your hatred at, instead of blindly saying "auras are op", "everyone runs auras" etc etc. TL;DR at the bottom for those that don't care for the text.

ABOUT AURAS:

Auramancers (builds that dedicate themselves to multiple auras) HAVE a place in the game. Perhaps they need a little bit of tuning, but otherwise, GGG probably wants to have builds like Buzzsaw, which fit perfectly into party play and are fully capable of soloing content when geared up well. That's probably why they put ways to reduce mana reservation in the game after the aura change.
Auramancers are also present in many other games. Maybe they're not as strong when alone as they are here, but they're still a valuable part of all games. (To illustrate that point, upon entering this game for the first time back in the last few days of OB, the first build I had wanted to try was an Auramancer, because that's what I have always enjoyed playing - although I did it wrong back then.)

GGG probably also intended the current meta of "most builds run at least 1 aura". Changing auras to reservation costs points directly to that - it means even meager mana pools can support an aura. Why? because then people can gather up and, if everyone runs a different aura, create a nice, synergising party.

THE SIDE CASUALTIES OF WAR:

Yeah, Blood Magic Keystone/Item status sucks. It should be buffed. Read again: IT SHOULD BE BUFFED. That's how you fix things. Not by nerfing everything else. Perhaps make it so that BM converts a bit of your mana/mana regen to HP/HP regen (not 100%, but say, 30% or 50%). Dunno, the community should have plenty of ideas.

And yeah, Bows are worse than ST unless you have a super expensive one (*cough* Windripper *cough*). Buff them too. Give them some mobility skills, change the affix ranges (in a way that existing bows get updated instead of going legacy i.e. Flaring flat dmg gets buffed, bows with Flaring prefix now have the NEW ranges). It's completely retarded that they share their damage affixes with 1handers, when quivers are so much worse than shields in every way.

THE REAL PROBLEM:

The real place to aim your rage at is Low Life status. With or without snapshotting, Low Life still is a problem because you get too many benefits for literally 0 drawbacks - other than the cost of course, but if there were any real drawbacks it wouldn't cost so bloody much anyway. People keep saying that we can't do anything about it because nerfing Shavronne's Wrappings/Crown of Eyes will still mean legacies exist - it's not the items, but the STATUS, that needs to be nerfed. MORE damage from Pain Attunement, free attack speed and frenzy charges from blood rage? Change Pain attunement to offer Damage and cast speed/crit/aoe/whatever else instead. LowLife spells still have the full power of Pain Attunement, CoE only gets half of it or less because only the damage modifier applies. Chaos Degen from Blood Rage needs to change the same way as RF changed - be based on both your ES and Life, to make it non-free to cast for 800 HP lowlife specs. And less IAS wouldn't hurt of course.

TL;DR AURAS ARE FINE, LOW LIFE STATUS IS NOT. Also, if you didn't read the text above, refrain from posting.

I was discussing Blood Magic with my guild and possible buff options. Below was the original idea:

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More of a discussion of a suggestion than an actual suggestion itself. I know this is a rather dangerous one and wanted to see what holes you guys can poke in it.

What if Mortal Conviction (the 40% less mana reserved node behind Blood Magic) also allowed the Blood Magic user to run one free aura?

As of right now, most people are running high mana+mana regen builds and/or Blood Magic support gems (and/or Snapshotting...) because auras are obviously very powerful. Very few people seem to be using the Blood Magic keystone right now (by far my favorite), and I feel it's because you can't honestly run -any- auras with it without a huge sacrifice (much more than any other build has to sacrifice, anyway).

You used to be able to run the flat auras without much issue (when flat auras besides Clarity were a thing) before Aura effectiveness got buffed so much (albeit at the cost of reservation increases). Having one aura to run sounds like a solid enough draw to bring Blood Magic back into play without pushing it over the edge into being overpowered, but again, I understand this is a dangerous notion.

What do you all think?


One issue I just thought of is potential to buff the aura without any downside (aka reserved mana increases) - most notably through Empower. This might not be such a bad thing though. It would open the door for quite a few interesting builds, and most builds out there are already "abusing" auras in some way or another. Rather than running a multitude of them, this would allow you to run a single potentially powerful one. If this were an issue, it could be reworded along the lines of "allows the user to cast one free, unsupported aura."

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MonopolyLegend wrote:

I was discussing Blood Magic with my guild and possible buff options. Below was the original idea:

To fit the flavor of Blood Magic builds, the Mortal Conviction node should also give something like:

• 40% reduced mana cost of skills (along with the current 40% less mana reserved)
• x% Life Leech for all damage types (instead of only for physical attack damage)

Just some ideas that would incentive more people to go for BM builds.

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rrtson wrote:

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MonopolyLegend wrote:

I was discussing Blood Magic with my guild and possible buff options. Below was the original idea:

To fit the flavor of Blood Magic builds, the Mortal Conviction node should also give something like:

• 40% reduced mana cost of skills (along with the current 40% less mana reserved)
• x% Life Leech for all damage types (instead of only for physical attack damage)

Just some ideas that would incentive more people to go for BM builds.

As an avid Blood Magic user, I can say with certainty that would be absolutely overpowered.

I'm confused by the idea that auras need to be nerfed again (maybe a slight rework to the tree or something would make sense). In most cases where they are used to a powerful extent, there is something else involved, be it snapshotting or a powerful unique.

Auras in fact seem to be in a good place right now, in my opinion. You must invest in them if you want to run a lot of them, which is not how it used to be. That's why they were originally nerfed at release (I think it was at release, might've been OB still). Everyone used tons of auras, and all the same ones.

Now you can make tons of different (good) builds using all different configurations, from just one aura and up (yes, you can make good builds with one aura, including my last level 90 invasion character, who got there solo).

If anything needs to be nerfed (I don't agree there, I think other things should be buffed, as OP said), it is the uniques or skills being used in these builds. But as I said I don't think they do. I think other, less useful things should be buffed. Diversity would only make the game better.

And yeah, the BM keystone definitely needs to be buffed, heavily. I also wouldn't mind seeing more CI builds again.

Aura builds require heavy passive investment to function. People seem to be missing the point when they complain about these builds running 5 powerful auras.

In the past auras required no passive investment at all(aura nodes didn't exist) which is why all their mechanics were changed. GGG wanted aura builds to be powerful with the right passive investment, that was fully intended. Without passive investment you're going to be running 1-2 auras usually that aren't all that powerful in comparision.

Like everyone else I consider bloodmagic weak. I'm actually fine with it having little interaction with auras and it being a more niche passive(for flame totem,explosive arrow, some melee builds,some casters..etc). Mortal conviction should emphasize the flavour of bloodmagic by giving it a large lifeleech value that applies to all damage or even something like very high life regen(10%).

Bloodmagic doesn't need to be this all powerful node like it was before release, just filling a niche that gives an interesting option is enough. At the moment it's underpowered and mortal conviction is just useless. I would rather the aura focus be completely off the keystone to have more varied builds. I don't play a bloodmagic character to function like other characters that run a few auras.

Why do so many people consider auras overpowered? Shavs has been the biggest influence and combined with snapshotting it allowed for something like 8 auras. The whole lowlife and shavs situation has dominated the upper wealth balance, it's powerful for several reasons that are discussed in other topics so I won't get into that.

The other reason is that elemental builds completely rely on auras for damage. Do note these elemental builds are still technically the budget version of much more powerful builds in the form of physical crit damage. Elemental buzzsaw is a popular example which I consider to be quite balanced. The damage is not outrageous while the build itself sacrifices defenses in favour of going all over the tree for aura nodes. This is simply how current elemental builds function. Elemental damage on gear can be relevant but it has never been better than auras(even before release). I consider this fine.

Bloodmagic as i always thought should be used when you have mana problems.

In the meta right now when you have mana problems you take EB while you can still buff your char now with auras and things like MoM for a double dip.

There are no mechanics that would buff bloodmagic like those mentioned except flasks and life leech. But those aren´t strong enough to negate the negative effect of having literally no auras.

Talking about the keynode though not the support which is fine.

"most builds run at least 1 aura" is fine. "All good builds have to run at least 2-3 and probably more" is not. It's not just snapshotting either since even without using that, there is still far too much incentive to use every aura you possibly can, no matter what the cost.

I'll agree that it may be more a case of a few smaller adjustments rather then one massive across the board nerf to auras, but right now at least, they are definitely NOT fine. And I'll also agree that with or without any aura changes, some of the other things you mentioned need to be fixed, such as adding a mobility skill for bow users and making BM viable.

Even with all those fixed though, the fact still remains that auras give far too much benefit for what they cost. Being able to run 5+ auras at once should be something that only a few VERY specialized builds should be able to do at the cost of not being able to do much of anything else, not the default that most top-level builds are running. Having most builds run a couple auras is fine as long as there is a meaningful choice on WHICH auras to run. It should still be viable to run a build with no auras at all as well. Right now, this is not the case.

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Being able to run 5+ auras at once should be something that only a few VERY specialized builds

Running 5 auras requires a build that has all aura nodes except the unwavering set, high level reduced mana, alpha howl and the use of 100% of your mana which makes BM gem mandatory.

Now lowlife would require all aura nodes including the unwavering section to run 6 auras. They have to use mana so can't fully use their mana for auras. More requires prism guardian which is very situational(it hurts both survivability and damage of the toptier builds atm).

In both cases they're very specialized. Make no mistake, lowlife has a lot more that makes it overpowered than just rampant aura use.

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It should still be viable to run a build with no auras at all as well. Right now, this is not the case.

That's due to the BM keystone being weak. EA/flame totem/some casters are viable with BM but not amazing. BM should be buffed.

There is tons of great builds that only use 1-2 auras though. A prime example is physical crit bow builds(uber capable).

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Hodari wrote:

"most builds run at least 1 aura" is fine. "All good builds have to run at least 2-3 and probably more" is not. It's not just snapshotting either since even without using that, there is still far too much incentive to use every aura you possibly can, no matter what the cost.

I'll agree that it may be more a case of a few smaller adjustments rather then one massive across the board nerf to auras, but right now at least, they are definitely NOT fine. And I'll also agree that with or without any aura changes, some of the other things you mentioned need to be fixed, such as adding a mobility skill for bow users and making BM viable.

Even with all those fixed though, the fact still remains that auras give far too much benefit for what they cost. Being able to run 5+ auras at once should be something that only a few VERY specialized builds should be able to do at the cost of not being able to do much of anything else, not the default that most top-level builds are running. Having most builds run a couple auras is fine as long as there is a meaningful choice on WHICH auras to run. It should still be viable to run a build with no auras at all as well. Right now, this is not the case.

This is exactly the kind of aura hate I'm talking about. Auras do NOT give too much bang for their buck, because their buck is quite hefty - 5 aura builds are VERY specialised and more often than not do NOT function well below lvl 70-ish, unless you count purities as "strong auras", since they need to span the entire top of the tree and have an entry fee of 2+ exa for an alpha's howl.

Buzzsaw is fine. EleWander is fine. Shavronnes CoE 6+ Auras 100k DPS 10kES 30k Armor is NOT fine. But it's not the Auras that make it not fine, which is the point you seem to be missing.