Limit the number of aura's per player to 1

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Treffnix wrote:

Actually I think this is a good suggestion. Maybe max 2 auras should be the norm, but why shouldn't auras be alternatives to other way of improving your char instead of being a cheap buff?

Cheap buff?

60% of your mana for a huge increase in cold damage if you deal physical damage? That isn't cheap.

A huge portion of your mana just to get some more evasion? 60% is a lot.

40% for less than 40% resistance? Without passive investment that is worthless.

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Treffnix wrote:

And no, auras are only mandatory for certain builds. I have a BM char who uses no aura and is doing fine. My other chars all use only few auras and are also ok.

Mandatory for just about any build. So long as you aren't BM, you run an aura. If you don't, then you should and can run at least two without a major problem.

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Treffnix wrote:

Why not do the counter-example:
1. Monsters can only have one curse. There are itemmods+nodes to increase that number.
2. My shield's block chance is limited to x%. There are itemmods+nodes to increase that number.
3. My resistances start at -60%. There are itemmods+nodes to increase that number.
etc...

...and that is a "counter-example", how?

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Treffnix wrote:

Why should auras be different?

Curses are curses. Buffs are buffs. Auras are auras. Why make auras like curses and limit how many you can use?

Curses cost nothing, so it would be broken if there wasn't a limit to curses. This makes builds that invest into more curses powerful.

Auras cost a considerable amount of life/mana and passive investment. It also requires gear depending on what you're doing, like the Alpha's Howl and either Shav's or Lorica to combat chaos damage. It's a very specific build with specific gear that loses the advantage of the chest piece and head slot for auras. Plus it can lose the shield if it does life reservation.

It's like asking why apples should be different from watermelons.

I think the problem is that the penalty of auras (mana reserved) is too easy to overcome. Reserving mana doesn't affect your mana regen, so you can reserve all but the 80-200 mana you need to cast your skills and gain immense benefits. Most builds that are in the top half of the tree can spend ~10 points to greatly increase aura effectiveness while reducing cost even further.

I think it would be better if auras were more like keystone passives. Each keystone provides significant benefits, but they all have drawbacks so it's not an obvious choice to just grab every keystone you can. If every aura had a specific penalty, you would have to be mindful of which auras fit your build instead of just stacking as many as possible on your extra mana.

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Natharias wrote:

Cheap buff?

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BurnedInEffigy wrote:

I think the problem is that the penalty of auras (mana reserved) is too easy to overcome.

This.

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BurnedInEffigy wrote:

I think the problem is that the penalty of auras (mana reserved) is too easy to overcome. Reserving mana doesn't affect your mana regen, so you can reserve all but the 80-200 mana you need to cast your skills and gain immense benefits. Most builds that are in the top half of the tree can spend ~10 points to greatly increase aura effectiveness while reducing cost even further.

I think it would be better if auras were more like keystone passives. Each keystone provides significant benefits, but they all have drawbacks so it's not an obvious choice to just grab every keystone you can. If every aura had a specific penalty, you would have to be mindful of which auras fit your build instead of just stacking as many as possible on your extra mana.

I will agree, for the most part, that the "cost" of auras is easily overcome, but this is why we have things like Soul Taker.

There are some builds that aren't viable because they can't run auras and others that are weaker because they can't afford to run auras. Builds that use MoM or CoD never use anything besides Clarity and Discipline, since they want the free mana. Blood Magic is totally useless since you can't use any auras effectively.

But making them keystones or notables in the skill tree is not the way to fix them. They need to remain in a skill gem form for a reason.

I'm not saying to actually make auras into passive nodes. I'm just saying that, like keystones, auras could have a built-in penalty so player's aren't incentivized to stack tons of auras.

As for MoM, even though you want unreserved mana you're still better off running lots of auras. My witch from the One Month Hardcore Race was running Hatred + Discipline + Purity of Lightning + Clarity (level 18) with Lightning Coil and MoM and I still had about 800 mana unreserved.

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BurnedInEffigy wrote:

I'm not saying to actually make auras into passive nodes. I'm just saying that, like keystones, auras could have a built-in penalty so player's aren't incentivized to stack tons of auras.

As for MoM, even though you want unreserved mana you're still better off running lots of auras. My witch from the One Month Hardcore Race was running Hatred + Discipline + Purity of Lightning + Clarity (level 18) with Lightning Coil and MoM and I still had about 800 mana unreserved.

Players should be incentivized to run auras. They cost something to offer something.

But they shouldn't be incentivized all the time. The only problem is that the current system doesn't allow for builds who run no auras to compare to those that do.

Look at Blood Magic. It can't run even one aura, under any circumstances. Something like MoM actually benefits more from reserving its mana because it gets more out of it.

What we need is something that Blood Magic can take advantage of, not just non-Blood Magic builds.

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Natharias wrote:

What we need is something that Blood Magic can take advantage of, not just non-Blood Magic builds.

+1!
I think it's strange that a BM char cannot run Arctic Armour, even if she's willing to pay with life instead of mana.

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BurnedInEffigy wrote:

I'm not saying to actually make auras into passive nodes. I'm just saying that, like keystones, auras could have a built-in penalty so player's aren't incentivized to stack tons of auras.

As for MoM, even though you want unreserved mana you're still better off running lots of auras. My witch from the One Month Hardcore Race was running Hatred + Discipline + Purity of Lightning + Clarity (level 18) with Lightning Coil and MoM and I still had about 800 mana unreserved.

In other words your unreserved mana is borderline useless for an actually threatening attack.

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Autocthon wrote:

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BurnedInEffigy wrote:

I'm not saying to actually make auras into passive nodes. I'm just saying that, like keystones, auras could have a built-in penalty so player's aren't incentivized to stack tons of auras.

As for MoM, even though you want unreserved mana you're still better off running lots of auras. My witch from the One Month Hardcore Race was running Hatred + Discipline + Purity of Lightning + Clarity (level 18) with Lightning Coil and MoM and I still had about 800 mana unreserved.

In other words your unreserved mana is borderline useless for an actually threatening attack.

Are you kidding me? That's like having an extra 800 life that regenerates instantly, on top of all my other defenses. This char survived a Vaal smash on a 74 Maze map with +36% enemy damage, and I still had 600 life left. Having more unreserved mana is always good, but I get more benefit from the auras.

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Natharias wrote:

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Treffnix wrote:

Why not do the counter-example:
1. Monsters can only have one curse. There are itemmods+nodes to increase that number.
2. My shield's block chance is limited to x%. There are itemmods+nodes to increase that number.
3. My resistances start at -60%. There are itemmods+nodes to increase that number.
etc...

...and that is a "counter-example", how?

...because it shows that many other aspects of the game already behave the way he suggests.

Although I don't agree with his exact idea, I see merit in the suggestion.

My thoughts on the matter are two-fold.
On one hand, Nodes that reduce Mana reserved already indirectly affect how many Auras you can run.
On the other hand, since these nodes are along the way and fairly accessible, they're a no-brainer and encourage a "must have 2+ Auras in every %"$"% build" mentality.

Auras should be an optional investment, not just some bonus.
So I think:
1 - Auras could reserve more Mana by default, making the OP's suggestion unnecessary, but the OP's suggestion also works.
2 - Passives that reduce mana reserved should be strengthened but made harder to get to (placed behind a decent amount of nodes).
3 - Passives that reduce mana reserved should be placed further away from each other in the tree.

This way everyone can still use Auras, but abusing Auras requires a more deliberate investment, rather than being just another no-brainer, cookie-cutter decision.