The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Harmful Content

@ hodari, new keystones could fix this sort of.

New rule-set

1) 1 aura per character maximum

New nodes like this scattered around the tree =

for dex side of the tree

"fluid reflexes"

+1 extra green aura type aura per 250 dex.

for int side

"exposure of thought"

+1 extra blue aura per 250 int.

for str side

"who needs a lift" (<- lel)

+1 red aura per 250 str.

The consequence would be that you cant spec into all aura nodes while having the stats requirements to utilize multiple aura's.

Or it would require very HARSH item sacrifices, a full aura support would still be possible but incredibly taxing on a character.

peace,

-Boem-

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Hodari wrote:

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zzang wrote:

I really feel the same although there are diferrent thoughts of what are the reasons for the Aura problem and a lot of players would agree that the combination of:
-the significant U in the skilltree (grab all aura nodes)
-combined with build enabling shavrones (auras on life)
- mixed with a crown of eyes causes the real problem

As Auras themselves are pretty fine, stacking to much of them with above mentioned setup becomes a problem. Especially compared to Lifebuilds which can not afford to put so many Auras on Life.

My issue with that is that auras were this strong even before either of those uniques existed and before the tree was redesigned. Even now, builds that don't use those items are vastly superior with auras than without. It's not just the build-enabling uniques that are the problem. Auras are NOT pretty fine.

so can you elaborate then why you think for players that can grab only 2-3 auras (because they use a life build) why auras should not be fine the way they are. About bloodmagic all i can say is that keynode is vastly underpowered and far from beein viable.

i dont get your point?

Great feedback, Pnemua. I especially want to highlight one of the points you bring up:


I think GGG should add more interesting mechanics like the Voidbearer's Farshot. These mechanics would encourage players to tactically manoeuvre or use different skills (see 3). For example:

1) Necromancers grow in size and power for each enemy they resurrect.
2) Bandits and Humanoids can now use traps and mines
3) Fire-based Golems instantly shatter when frozen irregardless of remaining HP

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zzang wrote:

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Hodari wrote:

My issue with that is that auras were this strong even before either of those uniques existed and before the tree was redesigned. Even now, builds that don't use those items are vastly superior with auras than without. It's not just the build-enabling uniques that are the problem. Auras are NOT pretty fine.

so can you elaborate then why you think for players that can grab only 2-3 auras (because they use a life build) why auras should not be fine the way they are. About bloodmagic all i can say is that keynode is vastly underpowered and far from beein viable.

i dont get your point?

I'll agree that the bloodmagic keynode is underpowered right now and again, auras are the reason why. Right now you are far better off using your mana pool to run as many auras as possible and then using the BM gem to power your actual skills. Again, the need to run as many auras as possible is the factor limiting the viability of the keystone and thus, an entire set of builds.

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Hodari wrote:

I'll agree that the bloodmagic keynode is underpowered right now and again, auras are the reason why.

I see what you did there you just turned my argument around, no offense its alright

but what im saying is bloodmagic itself for example suck and i wouldnt want auras that are fine without lowlife abuse seeing nerfed just because one keystone (blood magic) sux

bloodmagic should have a lifemultiplier (something like CI for life).

As it is now auras itself are not the reason why either bloodmagic sucks or auras in general are OP

Auras become only OP in a combination of things that i tried to express in my other posts.

Auras being "required" is due to their cost not being relevant.

You need a giant mana bulb to have giant base mana regen and a giant mana leech rate, but the actual bulb is no longer needed. As long as you can cast 1 spell and then regen that cost before you're able to cast again, the actual size of the bulb is irrelevant.

So... of course people are going to put auras on with mana reservation. I mean, there's no reason not to. There's no powerful effects for being on full mana, there's no "regen curve" where the more you have the more you regen, or anything like that.

The only attempt GGG has made at incentivizing a large unreserved mana bulb is MoM, where getting a bigger bulb gives you a theoretically larger buffer, but even then, MoM is dominated by regen more than anything (much like it's useless to have 10k life if you don't have good regen/leech). And of course, it's totally optional, so non-MoM still has no reason to avoid auras.

I don't have any great solutions here since mana management in general has been a pretty large blindspot for GGG. I don't think that they can or should fix auras by adding new content. Something fundamental needs to change to give reasons against reserving auras, and it doesn't feel like GGG is jumping out of their chairs to address the prevalence of auras.

^ It is also not strictly auras but also curses as well, more specifically toward stacking layers upon layers of both auras and curses at the same time. It is always better to sacrifice whatever else you need to in your build to multi curse and multi aura. More damage, more flexibility, more survival, more anything else you either need or want.


discipline + grace + determination + enfeeble + temporal chains + blind for example will always be a better way to survive physical damage hits then just adding in as much armor as you can off the nodes as a example. So what do we do? we stack auras, stack curses, grab iron reflexes, double pot, grab one point* wonders like blind then just stack hp and to hell with armor nodes themselves as we let them rot away on the tree unused.



* as in as long as the effect is on the target at the time of the attack then it will do its job with little real investment in it

This game has turned into a giant blob instead being a fine toned beast. As mentioned all gems have a required setup to be useful. On top of the that passive tree is pretty limited.
Now with the Op uniques we are ending up with must have gear.

It's all boiling down to the same everyone has the same build crap. I may try the new leagues but I think my time is better spent else were.

I don't blame GGG though no doubt their original vision would be hard as hell if not impossible to do. I just miss the poe I knew. A unique item gave your character a special way to play. Now these uniques just outright make you better. :(

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pneuma wrote:

There's no powerful effects for being on full mana, there's no "regen curve" where the more you have the more you regen, or anything like that.

You're right with nearly anything, but this is exact the opposite of truth (IMHO)

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heyyous wrote:

On top of the that passive tree is pretty limited.

The core problem I see, is that the tree has too less restrictions to keep the builds "under control". The issue is, that the tree combines the options for all classes in one - making it (close to?) impossible to avoid the "unlimited overkill"; which just enables these things like 5% mana reserved per aura or 2xx% maximum life. If these could be prevented, where would be the problem? Gone; no hassle to balance the options for each - single - class.

About Blood Magic: its 'comparable with Iron Grip, where the skillgem has a drawback and the passive dont, with BM it's (nearly) the other way around (the multiplier is/becomes a non-issue, at least with the 'reduced mana' options - gem and passives). Add: why isnt there an 'iron Will' passive?