Auras are boring.

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etunne wrote:

I'm inclined to believe people dislike active skills solely because Diablo 3 had six active skill slots

And? We have 8.

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generalmx wrote:

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Cruxation wrote:

I personally love auras. I love "passive" skills, buffs and debuffs. Stuff like eduring cry is exhausting to use.

I agree -- I think Arctic Armour is a step in the right direction, taking mana over time, instead of mana reservation. Having super-short buffs you need to recast 3+ times per minute also takes away from the game.

Yep. The entire charges mechanic has that tedious feel to it because the charge length is so short you have to reapply in a very short interval, have to rush from group to group to not drop them and when your charges drop for one second, you have to re-spam the skill again to stack it right back up.

"

Passive effects are indeed useful and interesting. But "passive effect" doesn't have to mean "static, always-on stat boost". To me, auras are boring, not because they require little to no active interaction, but because that aspect of them is so uniform. More semi-passive buffs (whether auras or not) that have conditional effects (eg Tempest Shield) or do more than just take some number on your character sheet and increase it, would be wonderful.

And yeah, I also agree about Arctic Armour. Flat mitigation (at least for fire damage) is reasonably unique, and the cost is handled differently. It's a good step.

I absolutely agree with you there. Both very good examples of how to do passive abilities. Even an entirely always-on ability could be more interesting by not having it give the same flat increase all of the time but instead giving temporary, slightly irregular stuff.

Example: A crossover between enduring cry and warlords mark. A passive mana reservation skill that periodically marks nearby enemies to give an endurance charge (and perhaps some additional effect like a small heal) when slain, making you try and hit that guy before the mark expires - of course with an interval that makes it non-tedious to maintain the charges, but requires some effort.

I sllready suggested this:

Make auras a choice and add an heavy drawback for taking multiple ones. Would also balance multiplayer - in todays system every party gets all auras for free as a total no brainer.

My solution is quite simple: Add dimishing returns for auras!

All numbers can be tweaked of course:

Player has 1 aura -> he gets 120% of the listed effect of that aura
Player has 2 auras -> he gets 100% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 3 auras -> he gets 80% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 4 auras -> he gets 60% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 5 auras -> he gets 50% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 6 or more auras -> he gets 40% of the listed effect of that auras

So auars are in fact a meaningfull choice in single and party play:

Take 1 or 2 strong ones?
Take 4 medium strong ones?
Take 8 but very weak ones?

I hate no brainers - and now auras are no brainers - more = better

"

Cruxation wrote:

I personally love auras. I love "passive" skills.

This. In any skill-tree RPG, I always look for passives. I never want more than 5 or 6 active skills, with maybe a couple of situational ones. Other than that, I want all passives.

What attracted me to PoE in the first place was a WHOLE TREE of passives! I was in my happy place!

Love auras, love passives. Please give more.

Auras suxx big time. They are unbalanced, they are boring. They are no-brainer for morons. They are synonym to 'generic'. They are everything that is wrong (and lazy) with RPG skill design.
Many builds are just 'stack auras and chosse skill to pew, pew'.

They should be balanced and nerfed like totems and curses.

Concept is good but not when we can stack 7 auras. I dont even mention how lame and out of place they looks.
One aura per char, more only with passives and/or uniques. Period.

"

I sllready suggested this:

Dont bother with suggestions. They go straight to the trashcan m8. Apparently GGG thinks that they are new gods of aRPGs and everything they create is automatically 'new Diablo 2 coming".
Thats is why we only need one new skill per week, 4 uniques and no balance for 2 months after changing basically whole game with transition CB->OB.

I bet they thinks that disco-disco, nobrain-nopain GENERIC LIKE HELL auras and stacking them is great as well.

I stopped suggesting and giving feedback some time ago because i think its worhless and waste of time now. I just whine - its more fun, fanboys rage is comical and hilarious and its exacly same constructive that 'real feedback' that is used like toilet paper because noone gives shit about it for 2 months when forums are bursting with threads about balance and mechanics flaws that appears in OB.

"

return33 wrote:

I sllready suggested this:

Make auras a choice and add an heavy drawback for taking multiple ones. Would also balance multiplayer - in todays system every party gets all auras for free as a total no brainer.

My solution is quite simple: Add dimishing returns for auras!

All numbers can be tweaked of course:

Player has 1 aura -> he gets 120% of the listed effect of that aura
Player has 2 auras -> he gets 100% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 3 auras -> he gets 80% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 4 auras -> he gets 60% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 5 auras -> he gets 50% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 6 or more auras -> he gets 40% of the listed effect of that auras

So auars are in fact a meaningfull choice in single and party play:

Take 1 or 2 strong ones?
Take 4 medium strong ones?
Take 8 but very weak ones?

I hate no brainers - and now auras are no brainers - more = better

this.

Oh nice, a topic where I can vent my frustration with auras!!

Auras have made mana turn into a pool of passive buff, instead of the resource for active spells that it should be.

Eldritch Battery ? More like Eldricth StackMoarAuras.

Want to win in mercicless? Well, you'll NEED a combination of Clarity, Grace, Determination or Purity. No way around that.

Need more elemental damage, as if ele is not strong enough already? Auras got you covered and they'll synergise so very well with the %increase elemental you already got... yum

Why do Hallowed Mana pots that regen 550 mana even exist? Everyone has such a low available mana...
---------

My point is, auras should be that little something that has only real benefit for group play (by definition of what an aura is). Not superstrong self buffs that you can stack with "reduced mana cost" support.

"

return33 wrote:

Player has 1 aura -> he gets 120% of the listed effect of that aura
Player has 2 auras -> he gets 100% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 3 auras -> he gets 80% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 4 auras -> he gets 60% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 5 auras -> he gets 50% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 6 or more auras -> he gets 40% of the listed effect of that auras

What's the point of that ?
Punishing ppl that invested massiv points into reducing the mana cost of the auras to run 6+ of them by then saying thx for the wasted points with lowbie auras?
No +1 for you Sir :/

As I stated in another thread, I think auras are just too easy to stack. I would limit the player to 1 aura, and then add +1 Max Aura nodes through out the tree, and then maybe add +1 Max Aura to a few future uniques. If it takes an investment for curses, summons, charges, etc, why is there no investment for auras?

"

Darkrox01 wrote:

"

return33 wrote:

Player has 1 aura -> he gets 120% of the listed effect of that aura
Player has 2 auras -> he gets 100% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 3 auras -> he gets 80% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 4 auras -> he gets 60% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 5 auras -> he gets 50% of the listed effect of that auras
Player has 6 or more auras -> he gets 40% of the listed effect of that auras

What's the point of that ?
Punishing ppl that invested massiv points into reducing the mana cost of the auras to run 6+ of them by then saying thx for the wasted points with lowbie auras?
No +1 for you Sir :/

Its called BALANCE. And the point is BALANCE.

ffs.... :/