[BUG]? The Covenant + Aura reservation

Hello

At the time being it is possible to equip The Covenant, then cast an Aura (like Grace) and only have it reserve 100% of the aura's mana cost as health compared to 2xx% with the use of a Blood Magic Gem.

After casting the aura, you can unqeuip The Covenant and still have the aura running for a very low cost.

Kripparrian explains it in one of his recent videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxXPRdHMomI.

Is this considered a bug or cleaver use of game mechanics?



DISCLAIMER: Picture randomly taken from a google search!

Really just wondering if it's considered cleaver use of game mechanics (and by then every player should have this item) or if it is not intended?

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ashgod wrote:

Really just wondering if it's considered cleaver use of game mechanics (and by then every player should have this item) or if it is not intended?

This :)

I'm certain it's not intended, because every other piece of armours dont let you do that. Removing gears with the aura gem in it immediately deactivate the aura.

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rephikul wrote:

I'm certain it's not intended, because every other piece of armours dont let you do that. Removing gears with the aura gem in it immediately deactivate the aura.

Thats still the case. But this is an item that mimics the working of the keystone blood magic. Blood magic is global when equipped, not just fpr gems in the item.

Equip Covenant + link Auras (NOT on the Covenant) with Reduced Mana => cast fixed cost auras off your health with the reduced mana cost.

Unequip Covenant , cast Auras with %reserve => goes off your mana because without the Covenant you dont have global blood magic anymore.

you could do the same thing with either the support gem blood magic (and remove the gem after casting), or with the other unique - but with both it is more expensive to cast the auras since there are cost multipliers on them, but not on the Covenant.

So you do NOT get to keep Auras that you dont have equipped anymore (because the auras are not on your covenant - they would be removed on unequip) , you just take advantage of the fact that the casting cost is cheaper with the Covenant as with a support gem.

Some dev or other confirmed that they will change this at some point but it will require a rather substantial re-working of aura mechanics or something. So it's not really working as intended but will probably not be going away that quickly.

My opinion is that is cool that the auras actually remain. That way those uniques have some value. Uniques should be unique and give something special.

i reported this too some time ago, rory posted and he said they will fix this as soon as they can, they said its not intended.

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ashgod wrote:

Is this considered a bug or cleaver use of game mechanics?

It is not an intended mechanic, and highly likely to change in the future.

However, it has always been our stance that we don't want our players second guessing what it allowed and what isn't in these situations, so if you take advantage of it, that is clever use of game mechanics. Just be aware that it is likely to change at some point.

If the lack of increased mana cost weren't intended, then why wouldn't the item description read "All gems are supported by level # Blood Magic", or include an explicit cost multiplier?

It seems to be doing what's on the tin. You equip the item, you have Blood Magic, you cast the auras, their properties (including their cost) are determined by your passives and their statistics at the time of casting.

I think treating this as a special case would certainly be pretty weird and undesirable. So if there's an unintended aspect of it, then it has to be that auras have their properties determined entirely at the time when they are cast.

Personally, I think the present mechanic is actually good, and apart from the mechanics being easy to understand, allowing this kind of trickery opens up some options which are really cool, not just in this case, but in the future in general with various uniques being able to manipulate the properties of auras when worn during the cast.

Maybe the game is a little harder to balance this way, and if you think the problems with balance are too hard to solve, then fine, but I think this is a mechanic which is otherwise worth preserving, because it opens up more potential complexity and diversity, being able to extract some additional creative use from uniques that would otherwise sit in your stash or be traded away because they don't really have a place on the character.

The only thing which I think perhaps ought to change is that auras are presently not preserved through a logout/login cycle, so if you do something like this, you not only have to repeat the ritual when the gem levels, but also every time you log in. It would be nice to log in with the same auras on your character as were active when you logged out.