BM/MC, Aura mechanics and builds and MC Suggestion

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BrianWeissman wrote:

Thanks for taking the time to write up this amazing analysis of auras! This is a must read for anyone interested in theorycrafting the game.

I like how he conveniently skipped over all the parts that mention auras being useless for BM builds now. Way to go!

The OP could have been a bit more succinct, but it seems like the point of the 1.0 aura changes was to reduce the number of auras players use. Rather than increase the number of auras BM can use, I think it would make more sense to reduce the number of auras a mana build can use instead. To that end, I would change all the "Reduced Reservation" nodes to "Less Reservation" nodes. Mortal Conviction can be swapped to "Reduced Reservation" so BM compares more favorably, if necessary.

blood magic keystone is dog shit if you want to have a aura. /thread.

BM + Mortal Conviction + Auras sucks. What is there to discuss? I mean really.

lol

Edit: Alright on a serious, less troll note, I agree with the majority of your post.

Everybody knew the combo wouldn't be very good. Hell, people were complaining and getting laughed at by Chris before the change even happened. Meh.

Well stated post, man. Good to see people thinking about these things. Perhaps needs more summary of the content though, it's quite a read.

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Fruz wrote:

Spoiler

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It also explains why 50% less (nevermind an added reduction) is too much. MC can (and should) go to 40% less, but 50% is going too far; at best, 50% less would be the maximum (making the Blood Magic version of the build superior to non-BM), but in no case should a reservation reduction be added to MC's effect.

I really disagree with this.

Let's take the maximum reduced mana reservation ( no reduced mana to use 3 on prism guardian ).

46% red. mana reserved ( whole tree )+ prism guardian with BM with MC 50%
The cost of a single aura would be : (1-(0.46+0.25))*0.5 : 8.7%

There is no such thing as a "8.7%" aura. It's either 8, or 9.

This is how you do the math: 60 * 0.71 (mana cost multiplier) = 42.6. Round down, 42. 42 * 0.29 (reduction) * 0.5 (less) = 6.09. Round up, 7. In this case, it's a 7% aura, which means you were pretty far off.

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Fruz wrote:

( maximum : 3, the next one will cost 20% and won't be worth the cost whatsoever ),

More bad math. Mana cost multiplier hasn't changed, so 42 * 0.54 (reduction) * 0.5 (less) = 11.34, round up to 12%. and this is for a full tree spent for aura management, mana users can run that completely freely, so basically, taking BM to have the same efficiency <=> paying : 46.26% of your life assuming 6 auras ( a little less with purity in there ).

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Fruz wrote:

20% red. mana reserved ( moderate investment ) + prism guardian with BM with Mc 50%
Let's say we got 20%reduced mana reserved from tree, so not a single build.
Assuming you're using prism guardian, you can get 2 auras for ... (1-(0.2+0.25))*0.71*0.5 = 0.195*60% => 11.7% life reserved .... who would run this ? I bet almost no one, 11.7% of one's life is huge already, and this would be for one single aura ( forget about more .... ).

This time you actually got the math close, this situation would be a 12% reservation.

However, you're forgetting about the extreme case. Adding 20% reduction on top of the 71% reduction you just went over in your first example means a total of 91% reduction. And that is without Alpha's Howl — you'd be able to get a 99% reduction! Every aura would become a 1% life reservation! It should be obvious that it doesn't matter what the "normal" case is, someone would abuse the hell out of that if allowed. It's the OP builds which demand nerfs, and thus it's the OP builds, not the normal ones, which dictate the limits of how far we can push things.

In absolutely no instance should MC be given a "reduced reservation" benefit; it should be purely "less." The reason should be obvious: MC isn't supposed to be designed around stacking auras. A reduction is something for the aura stacker, because it gets progressively better the more of it you stack; "less," on the other hand, doesn't care if you're stacking or not. That's why we definitely need to stay away from reductions for MC.

However, I do wish to take back my stance against "50% less." Since Chris has announced that they will be releasing more Aura gems soon, it will soon almost definitely be impossible to run all thirteen (or maybe twelve, who knows?) auras on one character, forcing some amount of decisionmaking. "50% less" (actually 49% for sticklers) still represents the breakpoint where the Blood Magic keystone massive aura-stack build surpasses the non-BM version... but is that necessarily a bad thing? The gear requirements are still intense, and Alpha's Howl is still at least somewhat tempting, because it might allow an eleventh aura and provides extra levels to auras which you run (which is what that build would be all about).

Essentially, my feelings on MC have changed to this:
30% - Too little. Needs further buffing.
40% - Definitely okay. The minimum buff.
50% - Experimental, but possibly okay. The maximum buff.
60% or higher - Overpowered. Should not be allowed.

A straight "50% less" would mean that a 60% aura would reserve 21% life (with Reduced Mana) while Purity would reserve 14%, assuming no other passive commitment. That's still a pretty big chunk, but let's not forget an important fact: Life was pretty heavily buffed on release compared to Beta. 79% of your life now is probably about equal to 95% of your life then — which means that your max life after Grace now isn't much different than your max life after Grace now. There's a difference between looking bad and being bad, and reserving 20% or so of your Life in today's environment looks worse than it is.

But perhaps more to the point, Blood Magic really shouldn't be going crazy with auras anyway — one aura, tops, most likely zero. And that's perfectly fine. You don't need to run auras. It's not a right which the game needs to provide every character, and it's perfectly fine to say that some builds are just not set up to run any auras at all. This isn't something we need to fix, it's something we might like to. Which is the main thing you're not getting, Fruz: you are not entitled to multiple auras, or even to one.

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mattw wrote:

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My analysis is a little better, although perhaps less suitable for layman reading.

I think your analysis paints a very extreme edge case that has only a tiny bit more marginal utility than my heavy aura-user, while ignoring the low-end user completely. I felt like just using Prism Guardian and Alpha's Howl was an edge case, but you're suggesting balancing BM/MC around a case that includes a Shav's and I think you've glossed over the low end case, the survivability of the Shav's character, and whether even all those auras provide sufficient utility to justify all that gear, given a team that are all at that gear level are probably steamrolling everything.

I have glossed over the low end case. Deliberately.

Low end cases don't lead to situations like the one in this video. It's not the low end cases which break the game. When arguing that a suggested change to a game mechanic is too good, too much in the players' favor, nothing the low end user does matters. It's entirely about the kinds of players who make (or could make) videos like that one.

I find it sad that you would balanced the whole game around 2 items.

Not everyone can afford the prism and alpha. It's bad to balance the game around them.

Just my 2 cent.

Also, as a BM trapper at lvl 72, I can say that I find it more viable to run without auras, then to invest into 35% reduced and 30% less and run ONE aura for a price of 18% life.

My thoughts on BM auras:http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/554952

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Odoakar wrote:

I find it sad that you would balanced the whole game around 2 items.

One has to. The alternative is to allow those items to do degenerate things, creating builds which should never exist.

Although I like that exact use of words: balance around. Kind of like going around something, creating a minor detour. Because those items set the limits, they don't set the objective. I think I made it clear in my position earlier that I'd like to see MC buffed as much as possible without leading to potentially degenerate play with the items I referrenced.

There's something to be said for leaving some headroom so that future aura-focused items have space to breathe too. Like aura boots, chest, or weapon. Buffing the passives too much leaves no room for future cool gear to work with the same mechanics.

There's already practically no space to grow the pool of mana-oriented aura items, GGG gave too much in the passives department already.