Dear Rory

Hi Qarl! People surely are upset about this changes to auras...I hope you don't take this too personally, it would feel too awful otherwise.

Some word about the most controversial changes (aura dependent builds being hit, like aurabots or elemental builds, and having a weak version of Reduced Mana with Enlighten, that feels like wealth gating auras...)?

Why do people feel aura builds were hit?

A max old 60% aura with a max RM reserves 42% before aura nodes.
The same aura is now a 50% aura base, and with a max Enlighten (level 5) is... 42% before aura nodes.

Max hasn't changed. Progression has, but the end of the road is the same.

Here's what's changed:
- different support gem
- corrupted gem matters more
- +1 to gems affix matters more
- unsupported (or different supports) is much more viable than before

Thing is that getting the gem is more costly. It can't be that bad for people that go low life, but for someone doing, let's say, a support build, it can be bad (I heard it impacts summoners more). That seems unfair, but I don't know the details of the Beta. You tell me. One cannot ignore the concerns of people saying that build diversity will go down (although some people seem...biased...about the subject).

Wow really you guys are hard and unfair in your comments sometime. First this is a free to play game... I don't even see why you should start conplaining about anything at all.

Secondly I've seen this game changing over the past years and growing up to become a masterpiece of Action-RPG.

I've also notice how GGG constanly bring new contents to the game, and work really hard to make it a better experience. But even more important, I can tell that GGG has been making business with really good moral standards over the years especially compared to what other video games publisher does to their clients.

I'm just going to say I am Grateful for what GGG are doing, and I don't understand the Salt all over the forum.

"

Rory написал:

"

NeroNoah написал:

Some word about the most controversial changes (aura dependent builds being hit, like aurabots or elemental builds, and having a weak version of Reduced Mana with Enlighten, that feels like wealth gating auras...)?

If we really are wealth-gating any otherwise accessible build absolutely dependent on having a specific number of auras, then the values are too high on Enlighten (Which is entirely possible, as we didn't want it to feel worthless). The support is designed to be an additional bonus that players can work towards to let them have slightly more mana or an additional aura in extreme cases, but a gem level of enlighten should be equal or inferior to a single aura reservation cost passive. We need fresh perspectives to know if this is the case; Many opinions I'm seeing are based on making adjustments to existing builds, rather than builds that take the new costs into account during character growth.

As for builds that get the majority of their damage from aura bonuses, we've got some new tools and balance adjustments coming that should give new interesting avenues for boosting or granting added damage. These boosts will be incremental, though; We want a clear path for progression for core builds that involves more than leveling gems and taking a small subset of passives.

Sounds reasonable, :)

Thanks for the answer, Rory.

"

ScrotieMcB написал:

Why do people feel aura builds were hit?

A max old 60% aura with a max RM reserves 42% before aura nodes.
The same aura is now a 50% aura base, and with a max Enlighten (level 5) is... 42% before aura nodes.

Max hasn't changed. Progression has, but the end of the road is the same.

Here's what's changed:
- different support gem
- corrupted gem matters more
- +1 to gems affix matters more
- unsupported (or different supports) is much more viable than before

true, but thats also why its an unthinkably bad change.

"

Rory написал:

"

NeroNoah написал:

Some word about the most controversial changes (aura dependent builds being hit, like aurabots or elemental builds, and having a weak version of Reduced Mana with Enlighten, that feels like wealth gating auras...)?

If we really are wealth-gating any otherwise accessible build absolutely dependent on having a specific number of auras, then the values are too high on Enlighten (Which is entirely possible, as we didn't want it to feel worthless). The support is designed to be an additional bonus that players can work towards to let them have slightly more mana or an additional aura in extreme cases, but a gem level of enlighten should be equal or inferior to a single aura reservation cost passive. We need fresh perspectives to know if this is the case; Many opinions I'm seeing are based on making adjustments to existing builds, rather than builds that take the new costs into account during character growth.

As for builds that get the majority of their damage from aura bonuses, we've got some new tools and balance adjustments coming that should give new interesting avenues for boosting or granting added damage. These boosts will be incremental, though; We want a clear path for progression for core builds that involves more than leveling gems and taking a small subset of passives.

Simple question: Why were the current aura values set at what they are? In essence, the whole thing is as "if you want to run the same amount of auras as before, you need a high level enlighten, otherwise sorry." That's how the majority of players are perceiving it, and they're not wrong - even if this isn't your intention.

I'm all for the removal of reduced mana as an aura support gem, it was incredibly mandatory and it would be nice to free up some gem links for a lot of builds. But with the way the change is being implemented those slots are simply being replaced by enlighten.

If the aura values were chosen to be similar to current L18 reduced mana instead of the L7 or so they're current at, and Enlighten was reduced to actually be the niche item you're intending, then I think the reception would be a bit different. But in my humble opinion while I welcome the removal of reduced mana, I'd prefer not to see any of it's functionality whatsoever transferred to another gem.

"

Rory написал:

"

NeroNoah написал:

Some word about the most controversial changes (aura dependent builds being hit, like aurabots or elemental builds, and having a weak version of Reduced Mana with Enlighten, that feels like wealth gating auras...)?

If we really are wealth-gating any otherwise accessible build absolutely dependent on having a specific number of auras, then the values are too high on Enlighten (Which is entirely possible, as we didn't want it to feel worthless). The support is designed to be an additional bonus that players can work towards to let them have slightly more mana or an additional aura in extreme cases, but a gem level of enlighten should be equal or inferior to a single aura reservation cost passive. We need fresh perspectives to know if this is the case; Many opinions I'm seeing are based on making adjustments to existing builds, rather than builds that take the new costs into account during character growth.

As for builds that get the majority of their damage from aura bonuses, we've got some new tools and balance adjustments coming that should give new interesting avenues for boosting or granting added damage. These boosts will be incremental, though; We want a clear path for progression for core builds that involves more than leveling gems and taking a small subset of passives.

yeah but the thing with passives is, its the same situation as when we had significant max res on the tree in the marauder area etc. If youre expecting a mana fueled build to need passive aura investment to function with 2 auras then you create a system where theres 2 types of builds, ones where the natural tree placement of their passives makes those nodes very convenient to get and ones that are now shit builds because its a nightmare for them to make that investment. The way around this is a 50+ exalt gem.

Im not even talking about aura stacking builds that are built around 4+ auras, just builds than run 2 simple auras and go nowhere near aura passives are just gimped by this change by having to drop either their main damage or defense aura or spend 8+ passives pathing to reserve nodes while random similar builds that happen to path right past something like sovereignty are merely taxed a couple of passives for business as usual.

Unless you are rich... and thats what gets people. Its gone from if you are poor you cant have the same gear to now if you are poor you cant have the same passives (jewels) and you cant have the same auras either. Its taking away power from poor players, things they used to be able to rely on being universal for all players.