Auras are boring.

Auras are boring. They just sit there and give us their effect(s). We don't even need to toggle them most of the times. Yet, they are also quite effective, to the point that most builds run multiple Auras, and to the point that we use Support Gems to further buff these Auras. This game should encourage using more skills, rather than spamming 1-2 skills with a billion Auras up.

And I'm not exactly sure how we'd fix this. Maybe something like extra sockets, like on a belt, that can only be used for Aura Gems and Support Gems, which limits the total number of Auras you can run, so people don't use these new sockets to run even more Auras at once. To hopefully encourage use of more active skills, without giving up on Auras (as the Support Gems for Auras don't necessarily work with your build's active skills).

Remember: this is an ACTION RPG.

Auradins were boring, too.

I think the Blood Magic gem should give you a permanent negative impact on auras.

THere's like 1000000 people out there that just use a BM gem, and use all their mana for auras, thus can use like 6 auras and the cost of their skill suffers no downside

Make the BM magic gem limit your auras at 1-2 (or all of them altogether) as long as you have it equipped.



Also I thought auras were supposed to be a "niche" thing for specific builds that had little defense/DPS and HAD to use them, or little bonuses
In this game they are basically required, specially Hatred/Wrath and the like for WED builds (which is a lot of them)

I currently run Anger, Wrath, Clarity on my HP

While I run Hatred, Haste, Purity on my Mana.

Why? Because I can. Well, except on 50% regen maps. Then Haste gets turned off.

I hate auras with the burning passion of a thousand suns. And totems. And curses. Basically, anything which is too good to pass up on ANY character. At least auras have drawbacks, but they are too easily negated.

Semi-Passive skills like Auras might be boring, but they serve an important purpose in this game. They give you something to use without having to be constantly activated.

The way a game like PoE works makes it so that only a very small number of active abilities can regularly be used - after all, you can only use one attack/spell at a time. There are only four ways to ever make more than 2 active skills (one aoe, one singletarget) viable on any given char:

- skills with a passive effect, like auras
- skills with a certain cooldown, but stronger impact than similar skills(like cold snap tries to do but fails because of lack of impact - easily fixable though).
- skills using some kind of alternate resource mechanic (like discharge tries to do but currently suffers from too few charge buildup mechanics - this will likely fix itself over time).
- movement skill (of which you usually only need one)

So really, auras have their place in a build and will stay dominant as the secondary abilities until the other categories are filled with interesting stuff.

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

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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.

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Stormfox wrote:

There are only four ways to ever make more than 2 active skills (one aoe, one singletarget) viable on any given char:

- skills with a passive effect, like auras...

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.

Yea, this game should encourage using 8 different skills for the sake of action. Let's dispose with all senses of efficiency and common sense, we might as well have active skills linked to more active skills so we can play action RPGs with even more action.

No.

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