Were the aura / blasphemy nerfs intentional?

Here's blasphemy for example, with a base radius of 22 -- which did not get a radius buff to offset the AoE nerfs, unlike most of the other skills. The same goes for the base radius of auras, they were left at 36.

See here --> http://imgur.com/a/1hiZd or look at the embedded images below

As you can see blasphemy is basically limited to cursing things that are already within striking distance of you now. Even if you pick all 5 aura/curse clusters at a huge cost to you.

To me it seems like an oversight that the curse and aura radii were not buffed.

GGG can we get some clarification on this? Did you really intended to drastically reduce the range of auras/curses when you addressed the "aoe clear speed meta?"


1 Aura Cluster (HexMaster)



2 Aura Clusters (HexMaster + Leadership)



3 Aura Clusters



4 Aura Clusters



5 Aura Clusters (Max Possible)

TBH a good way to improve is to change qualtiy on auragems to give increased effect per % and to get more area you have to add a area gem what will limit your aurapool

Crossing fingers this is an oversight. It really ruins a lot of aura builds to be able to be hit by ranged stuff well outside of your curse auras. Anything that jumps will hit you before temp chains even kicks in. TBH even before the 2.6 Nerf and investing into every single aura radius node it was still a little weak and could have been 20-30% larger.

These reduced ranges do not impact any of the strong clear speed builds that dominated last league (HoWA i'm looking at you) and will dominate again this league. They just penalize people for trying non OP-META builds or support builds.

oh man now im really curious about blasphemy's new range

It's a boost to melee.

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Mythabril wrote:

It's a boost to melee.

In the sense that they've just removed a bunch of non-melee range build variety I guess.

Auras and curses are now a skill that can't reach its full potential. If an enemy can shoot at me outside of the range I can curse it, then we have a problem. Summoners will have to facetank with their pets, and aurabots are pretty much dead. Any build that uses curses as a defensive buff when walking into a room of ranged snipers is now non-viable.

It's still not great for melee cause you can no longer curse ranged guys either, nobody can now -- even with every single aura node. It's really a lose-lose. Melee didn't gain anything they lost, along with everyone else.

I still think it's an oversight that GGG didn't add any base radius to auras/curses, when other skills got a bump to compensate.

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Mythabril wrote:

I still think it's an oversight that GGG didn't add any base radius to auras/curses, when other skills got a bump to compensate.

I don't think so. I'm using auras and curses for my build and specced in the tree of it and noticed that the nodes are now far more generous when increasing aura range. Take a look a the tree.

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Mezion wrote:

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Mythabril wrote:

I still think it's an oversight that GGG didn't add any base radius to auras/curses, when other skills got a bump to compensate.

I don't think so. I'm using auras and curses for my build and specced in the tree of it and noticed that the nodes are now far more generous when increasing aura range. Take a look a the tree.

Yeah it looks that way initially until you have both skill trees in front of you.

Nodes that used to give 12% Radius now give 20% Area. HexMaster used to give 20% radius now gives 40% area. Leadership used to give 30% radius now gives 50% area. The thing is these aren't the same. Radius vs Area. Radius was simple math, you could multiply the initial radius by the % boost and get the new radius -- very straightforward. The new way does not do this, instead it uses "Area" inside the circle, which does not scale linearly. It has very bad diminishing returns.

Check it out for yourself at http://poecraft.com/legacy/aoenerf

Just look at the pictures. With the same aura nodes chosen pre/post 2.6, the new AoE is in red, the old AoE in blue. There should not be any errors in those calculations but if you find any let me know.

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Mythabril wrote:

It's a boost to melee.

If melee had not also been nerfed in several ways, I'd agree

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Legatus1982 wrote:

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Mythabril wrote:

It's a boost to melee.

If melee had not also been nerfed in several ways, I'd agree

Yep agreed it's not a good thing for anyone. I think it hurts ranged / support the most. Any build that requires you to stand still and be vulnerable for a few moments to get off your damage. Meta clear speed people never played these types of builds.

Walk into a room and get stun-lock sniped by 30 ranged monsters before you can even get off your casts. It certainly doesn't hurt clear speed builds that dash around spamming one button and never stay in the same place for more than a millisecond. Looking at you HoWA (which got buffed by the claw nodes LOL)

Personally for me it was the edge between life or stun-locked death when I could go into a room and have the guys temp chains and enfeebled if they were in firing distance of me, it lets you get out the ~1.5-2 second ED+Contagion casts without getting stun-locked by ranged monsters.

This makes a lot of slower safer builds very dangerous. It's a huge blow to Hardcore.

I would really love a response from GGG, even if it's just "we are aware and monitoring/looking at it." Just acknowledgement would be great.