BM/MC, Aura mechanics and builds and MC Suggestion

ScrotieMcB
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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.

No, you got it wrong, read what I said "no reduced mana to use 3 on prism guardian"
Do you have sources on how GGG rounds the number ? You can always round the 8.7%.
In maths, rounded before than the end always kinda screws up the result, that's why I didn't round it at all here.


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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 ).

Yeah I don't know where I made a mistake there Oo this should be 12%, maybe I misstyped, idk.

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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.

Dude, do you realize what you say are saying ??
the max reduction means only 2 auras that way since there are 3 sockets in the prism guardian and you are using one for reduced mana.
And this wouldn't be 99% whatsoever :
1-(0.46+0.25+0.08) = 0.21
0.79*0.71*0.5 = 0.075
0.075*0.6 = 4.47
so still 5% aura reserved for those only 2 auras.
not abusable. You got your maths wrong.

Didn't know that alpha's howl bonus was global though, this is dumb to me.



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.


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ScrotieMcB wrote:
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


that means that if you had 5k HP in closed beta you got like 1k HP more.
considering that the patchnotes give 2hp more per level, with 200% increase that makes it 600, not 1k.
And for the new kaom's users it should make it just about the same.
Or I missed something about life in the patch, possible too.



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ScrotieMcB wrote:
Fruz: you are not entitled to multiple auras, or even to one.

If it stays the same, this means that BM users won't even run one single auras because it's not worth it, meaning that with the auras buff, BM is not worth it, therefore sucks.
GGG needs to find a way to change this, not stacking auras for a BM build is normal, not being able to run a single efficiently ruins the keystone, it's as simple as that.


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ScrotieMcB wrote:
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.

This is why Prisme guardian should be nerfed and GGG shouldn't balance the auras game around it.




SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
Last edited by Fruz on Nov 9, 2013, 11:33:56 AM
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Fruz wrote:
No, you got it wrong, read what I said "no reduced mana to use 3 on prism guardian"
Do you have sources on how GGG rounds the number ? You can always round the 8.7%.
In maths, rounded before than the end always kinda screws up the result, that's why I didn't round it at all here.
When it comes to not using Reduced Mana support, you're right, it would be 9%. My bad on that one. Also, source.
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Fruz wrote:
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ScrotieMcB wrote:
Spoiler
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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.
Dude, do you realize what you say are saying ??
the max reduction means only 2 auras that way since there are 3 sockets in the prism guardian and you are using one for reduced mana.
And this wouldn't be 99% whatsoever :
1-(0.46+0.25+0.08) = 0.21
0.79*0.71*0.5 = 0.075
0.075*0.6 = 4.47
so still 5% aura reserved for those only 2 auras.
not abusable. You got your maths wrong.

Didn't know that alpha's howl bonus was global though, this is dumb to me.
I thought you were talking about adding an additional 20% reduced reservation to MC. Which would allow a total 99% reduction.
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Fruz wrote:
that means that if you had 5k HP in closed beta you got like 1k HP more.
considering that the patchnotes give 2hp more per level, with 200% increase that makes it 600, not 1k.
And for the new kaom's users it should make it just about the same.
Or I missed something about life in the patch, possible too.
You mean you haven't noticed that all the old 6% nodes are now 8%, and all the old 10% nodes are now 12%? I remember right after patch hit this guy who had "I have 7k life" thread posted a new thread with a title something like "lol I have 10k life now."
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Fruz wrote:
This is why Prisme guardian should be nerfed and GGG shouldn't balance the auras game around it.
In my opinion, you're missing the past tense. I feel it's a little late to nerf Prism Guardian now, as the new leagues have already started. I believe it would have been smart to legacy the old Prism at the same time they legacy'd Kaom's and Shavronne's and all the others; I personally think 20% reduction (instead of 25%) on Prism would be plenty strong and still fair under the new system, where you can get 46% reduction on the passive tree instead of the old 20%. However, in my opinion it is currently too late to do anything about it, at least for another 4 months.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
Last edited by ScrotieMcB on Nov 9, 2013, 12:24:11 PM
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You mean you haven't noticed that all the old 6% nodes are now 8%, and all the old 10% nodes are now 12%?

Actually, no. My main char is CI and didn't pay attention to the other ones (had not been playing them for a while ). I have one BM char and havn't touched it baack since at his level, he cannot reach the new BM keystone anyway .... ( ranger )


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I thought you were talking about adding an additional 20% reduced reservation to MC. Which would allow a total 99% reduction.

naah, I just believe that nerf Prism and double the MC passives ( to 60%less mana reserved ), with more tweak to the number would kinda solve the problem atm.
SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
Very good analysis.

Allow me to share my analysis on auras and BM/MC.

I don't mind the aura change. Stacking 5+ auras was nuts. However, certain auras that have been changed completely fall off the list of usefulness. And the obvious ones are the auras that had a flat cost. This also ties into the role BM/MC.

Anger and Wrath have become almost useless. The reason being is that the incredible cost hoisted on these auras doesn't correspond to their added power. In fact, it's hard to say that the change was necessary at all. From what I saw of the new Anger/Wrath, the increase in damage from the old version was a 1.5x multiplier. By changing the flat cost of the aura into a high reserve aura, the cost of mana has basically been multiplied 10 times over. Essentially, the new cost of these two auras render them near useless because no one would sacrifice so much mana/life for their benefits, and only 1.5x more damage than their previous versions. This needs a revisit. The same concept applies to Discipline but not as extreme. Only CI builds could benefit from using Discipline - no other builds could utilize it unless they heavily invested in auras and use aura-enabling uniques.

The interesting case lies with Grace and how it compares to Determination. Let's not kid ourselves here; the majority of people use IR and utilize Grace as and extra set of armor. However, the benefits provided by Grace is so good (has always been good) that I don't mind the conversion of flat to % cost. The issue is comparing Grace to Determination. Determination was changed to a higher % cost but nothing changed in terms of aura power. While Determination has always been strong, this really struck me as odd considering that it should've been expected that some sort of increase was necessary. What I found was that characters that did not have a lot of base armor/armor-passives were better off using Grace. Characters with lots of armor/armor-passives gained more by using Determination. This is noted comparing 2hander/DualWieldiers versus 1hander+shield useres. The shield users benefited more from using Determination than Grace.

I find that determining which aura provides more armor shouldn't even take place. If GGG wants to make our skill/aura selection meaningful, then the benefits should be meaningful. In the case of Grace/Determinaion, that line is marred. You essentially have 2 auras that perform almost the same function. Obviously for evasion-based characters, Grace is worth using as is. I suggest that the Determinaion aura be buffed a bit more, that way it allows people to make the choice easier. Anyone who has played this game long enough knows what a joke armor is due to its formula. I'd say armor needs all the help it can get.

And Vitality, this aura has been weak since the start of the game and is still weak as the change to the life regen does not warrant the usage of this aura when compared to its cost. At the very least, Vitality should provide the minimum of 2% of life regen.

......

So how does this tie into BM/MC?

BM users are people who use BM as a way to sustain really expensive skills or have very high attack speed, or both. BM allows a socket in a 4-6L to be freed from using the Mana Leech or Blood Magic support gems. This allows BM users to have more DPS by virtue of having the extra socket to put in a DPS-adding support or defensive like LL/LOH. This basically rules out 1hander+shield builds since those are not usually specced with high attack speed. This leaves dual-wielding and bow-users. (Dominating Blow and Cyclone also fall into this category.)

However, this also means that characters give up the benefits of being able to stack 2 auras on mana. Given the above analysis and the current 60% cost of the other auras, it's safe to say that most auras aren't even worth using on a BM character. In fact, the main issue with BM characters now is that they give up defense for a resource with no conversion, no added benefit. This is unlike EB where you trade a defense for a resource. With the BM keystone, you give up a resource to universally power up your skills on your primary defense, life. I strictly view BM as inferior to EB. When built properly, EB builds are much stronger than BM builds, and moreso in this incarnation of PoE.

Essentially Grace or Determination are the only auras worth using on BM. Anger/Wrath has been rendered near useless as previously mentioned, and Hatred isn't really needed when you can link more DPS-related supports. Bow-users and DWers are essentially bereft of a defense given by shield users. Coming full circle to the OP of this thread, the use of a single 60% aura is so cost-prohibitive that even BM-users can't really use ONE SINGLE aura comfortably. This ties into how BM operates. You can change all the numbers that MC provides (40-60%), but BM users will always lose out because by eliminating your mana, you gain nothing in return even though you gain the ability to use your skills on life.

I say the main culpirt of why players can't reliably use a single aura is due to how BM works. If BM had a benefit like the Infused Shield notable (1.2 more life) or something along those lines (like +### to life), players would be incentivized to use the BM keystone AND be able to run a single aura comfortably.

That's my analysis/suggestions on the interaction of auras with BM/MC. I find that the fault originates from the weak keystone itself, which is then compounded with the new aura changes.
For Ranger build tips, tactics, and critiques, visit this thread:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/69224
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The interesting case lies with Grace and how it compares to Determination. Let's not kid ourselves here; the majority of people use IR and utilize Grace as and extra set of armor. However, the benefits provided by Grace is so good (has always been good) that I don't mind the conversion of flat to % cost. The issue is comparing Grace to Determination. Determination was changed to a higher % cost but nothing changed in terms of aura power. While Determination has always been strong, this really struck me as odd considering that it should've been expected that some sort of increase was necessary. What I found was that characters that did not have a lot of base armor/armor-passives were better off using Grace. Characters with lots of armor/armor-passives gained more by using Determination. This is noted comparing 2hander/DualWieldiers versus 1hander+shield useres. The shield users benefited more from using Determination than Grace.

I find that determining which aura provides more armor shouldn't even take place. If GGG wants to make our skill/aura selection meaningful, then the benefits should be meaningful. In the case of Grace/Determinaion, that line is marred. You essentially have 2 auras that perform almost the same function. Obviously for evasion-based characters, Grace is worth using as is. I suggest that the Determinaion aura be buffed a bit more, that way it allows people to make the choice easier. Anyone who has played this game long enough knows what a joke armor is due to its formula. I'd say armor needs all the help it can get.

I would like to see IR getting back the dext bonus ( or maybve morl eike 50% of it ), but removing the armor bonus given from the tree to its result.


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I say the main culpirt of why players can't reliably use a single aura is due to how BM works. If BM had a benefit like the Infused Shield notable (1.2 more life) or something along those lines (like +### to life), players would be incentivized to use the BM keystone AND be able to run a single aura comfortably.

This would probably make them too powerful in groups, while having something more or less balanced for solo playing.
SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
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Fruz wrote:
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I say the main culpirt of why players can't reliably use a single aura is due to how BM works. If BM had a benefit like the Infused Shield notable (1.2 more life) or something along those lines (like +### to life), players would be incentivized to use the BM keystone AND be able to run a single aura comfortably.

This would probably make them too powerful in groups, while having something more or less balanced for solo playing.


You should probably explain why BM players would be more powerful in groups than solo since I'm not seeing the connection.
For Ranger build tips, tactics, and critiques, visit this thread:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/69224
They would not have to use auras since other party membres could have them, and would just profit from 20% more life, which would be huge.
SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
"
Fruz wrote:
They would not have to use auras since other party membres could have them, and would just profit from 20% more life, which would be huge.


This is true. But, most players build their characters for solo play. A character that can't go through the content isn't a good one and isn't fun if it needs other players to shine.

Also, most BM characters (including mine) don't even bother running an aura, thereby relying on a stupidly high amount of life to help soak damage. I don't think there's anything wrong with having more life when all your skills use your own life as fuel.

To reiterate, the keystone is weak. It has always been weak, as most advanced players end up respeccing out of it to utilize the stronger %-based auras. Now with the new auras, the weakness of BM has been magnified. Adding the MC notable doesn't change anything - nobody with BM will use a single aura. I myself have given up using Grace on my DWing Cyclone Ranger. I use IC/MS/EC on CoDT to compensate for my lack of armor, and with the upcoming nerf to CoDT, it's going to be rough to get my Ranger end-game viable. (lvl 83 as she is)
For Ranger build tips, tactics, and critiques, visit this thread:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/69224
Last edited by Islidox on Nov 9, 2013, 11:13:12 PM
Hi there,

so what can I say more here ?

a lot of us see here that there is a problem with the use of aura and blood magic.

If I take the suggestion, 18% reduced and 50% less calcul and a level 20 reduced mana gem, the 18% life for 1 aura is for me too much.

When you want to play the end content, if you have about 3500-4000 Life, those 18% life is almost 700 HP, which in my opinion really too much. I really prefer to have the 700 hp more than running an aura.

I would more reduce the cost of it to let the chance playing at least 1 aura.

I would add this proposal too :

I would add directly in the blood magic node a reduction bonus to aura (why not the 18%, 50% that was proposed a the beginning even if I would give a better reduction).
I would also show those reductions with only one clear information. To say "18%, 50% etc.." makes the thing more complicated, especially for new players. An easy -xx% would be easier for example or the basuic cost of an aura is xx%.

At last I would transform the node mortal conviction in a way to give a huge bonus for Aura like reduce the cost to 10-15 % max but limiting the use of maximal 1 aura for example. It would, in my opinion, make the node more attractive and easy to understand. It will also give the possibility, for the cost of 1 skill point and life, the possibility for player to use aura with blood magic.

Hope it will help !

regards
Since this got necro'd:
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mattw wrote:
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ScrotieMcB wrote:
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 have softened a little on the "marginal utility" side of things. A "50% less" version of MC would make that extreme edge case build stronger... but not ridiulously stronger. When I first responded to this thread, I lost sight of an important design principle: a little OP is actually a good thing, because players want their characters to feel a little OP. (I still feel "60% less" would be too much.)

That said, I haven't softened at all on the "extreme edge case" or "low-end user" fronts. Preventing (degeneratively) OP builds is not a matter of considering the low-end user, it's almost entirely a matter of considering the edge cases, those builds trying very hard to break the game. As such I am STAUNCHLY opposed to adding any form of "reduced" to MC, as that modifier obviously benefits dedicated auramancers far more than it benefits your average BM keystone user — better to have more "less" than ANY form of reduction.

Nevertheless, I expect at 50% dedicated Shavs-wearing auramancers would be the primary party interested in MC. And that's fine. Not every node should be attractive to everyone; the reason for sticking with "less" and avoiding "reduced" is to expand MC's appeal the widest audience through versatility, not to make it an auto-include for all BMK builds.

Even in terms of low-end users, you need to understand the drawback is solo only. In a large party, a BM keystone user with no personally equipped auras can expect to gain all aura benefits. So it's important to target solo BMK builds more than party BMK.

Thus I'd recommend this keystone, not adjacent to BMK but close enough to combo with it (in a similar manner to IR+US):
Sever the Tie
You do not receive Debuffs from Curses
You do not receive Buffs from Auras
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
Last edited by ScrotieMcB on Jan 24, 2014, 9:25:19 PM

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