Aura Reservation and Reduced Mana Support Gem Change

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Jerle wrote:

This does mean new players/new builds can potentially benefit from a couple more auras. Possibly a good move but the ramification of such a huge change can only be understood with actual observation of in game meta evolution. Excited to see how this shakes up the beta landscape!

Here's what it means:

You can run two auras virtually for free (a 60% aura and a 40% aura in today's costs will leave you with enough mana to cast in the beta setup).

You need an 10-12 nodes plus travel nodes to even consider running a third 40% aura or a second 60% aura rather than a 40% - and this leaves you with practically zero mana. To actually use spells after running a third aura, you need to go to a third -aura location on the tree, for approximately 10 more skill points.

So, in practice, this drastically increases homogenisation. Almost every mana-based build will run 2 auras. Almost none will run more than 2, unless also using high level enlighten. Those that do will require heavy tree investment (2 aura locations on the tree is not enough - you need at least 3, if you aren't running an enlighten).

To put it into context, consider my level ~70 summoner in beta. Before today, I was specced 4 points into the sovereignty wheel, and 2 points into the leadership wheel. As well as those two spots, a flow on effect is that I have 7 "travel" nodes that I could otherwise use elsewhere if I didn't spec into them.

With this setup, running purity of elements, discipline and anger (40,40,60) leaves me with 6 mana unreserved, where I used to have ~100. At my level, the cost of even my support spells (flesh offering, lightning warp, etc) is 30. With 99% aura reserve which is what I have as a result of the change, I would need thousands more mana unreserved to be able to cast my required spells - or I would need to drop an aura.


To reach another set of -aura cost nodes will cost me at minimum 10 points.

So, my choices are thus, ignoring the enlighten change:

1. Keep my current aura nodes, run only 2 auras - I lose anger, which is a huge dps loss, or I lose ~1000 energy shield, or I lose purity of elements in a summoner build. Only losing anger is actually viable. Bye bye dps.

2. Respec out of my aura nodes, run 2 auras only. I lose anger, I gain 12-14 points on the tree, auras are effectively an afterthought. My discipline and elements lose a tiny amount of effectiveness, but certainly not enough to even bother worrying about - and I certainly wouldnt spend points on aura effect to buff just 2 auras.

3. Spec even further into auras to gain just ONE aura that, up until today, I was already running.


So... in actual practice, if I don't use enlighten, running a third aura will cost me more than 22 spec points, or slightly over 18% of my total nodes. I only have 16 nodes in MINION-related nodes as a summoner, and I would need to effectively spend 22 nodes to run a third aura.

This is ridiculous and untenable. I would simply run 2 auras on every single build I ever made except the absolutely MOST specialised aura support builds, and EVERY SINGLE BUILD will do the exact same thing except for blood magic builds and people who have high level enlighten.

3 aura builds with moderate investment in aura nodes have been effectively killed by the change. Every build will run 2 auras or 2 heralds and an aura - period. No investment or gem is necessary, it will simply be the defacto standard that for 2 gem slots you run 2 auras. This doesn't increase diversity; it destroys it.

First flame totem, now this? GGG did show some hatred against casual players.

LF vorici'service to re chrom my red socket in blue on my corrupted items...

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Dread_Lord wrote:

First flame totem, now this? GGG did show some hatred against casual players.

Here in lies the problem I believe. GGG must believe that we all have the gear and skill of all the streamers they see play. They see streamers do it and think this is to easy and yet for most of us casuals (about 90-95% of player base) that is not the case. They need to get real with some of these changes if they want the game to increase in players, it seems they keep hurting new players and casuals more than anyone and only 5-10% of the population might like the changes. Game keeps getting harder and more complicated for new players will push them away.

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Dread_Lord wrote:

First flame totem, now this? GGG did show some hatred against casual players.

Dunno about that, in the stream with Rory you can see firsthand that Flame Totem is still going strong. It was probably the skill with the most raw power of all he has shown and it didn't really benefit from those 10 extra projectiles he had going.

Man, with all this salt, I thought this forum was Utah!

So, I poked at what your intended changes were with enlighten and reduced mana gems. Something gives me the impression that enlighten is an underused gem, when it's really not. I personally use enlighten for catching new gem xp to old characters (which makes sense in standard, since it's the dumpster league, and 50+% of our characters in there need to be rebuilt from scratch).

What I can tell from my extensive play, and knowledge of items/builds is the exponential gain from aura stacking is still a lingering problem (well... for GGG's balance team... I personally don't mind playing an imba character ;) ).

I have a couple suggestions, that you can try for solving this problem, rather than shifting the burden of reducing reservation costs to enlighten.

Suggestion 1:

Continue with your intended reduced mana gem rework. This will give more play for builds like lightning warp totemers and cast-on-melee-kill cycloners.

Keep enlighten the way it was. Don't give it aura reservation reduction. Or you could make the gem level all connected gems instead of just active ones (asking too much... thought so T_T).

Near-half(40% instead of 60% auras, 25% instead of 40% auras) the old reservation value on all auras.

Leave herald reservation values where they are.


Why this works (benefits):
-the "mandatory gem slot problem" is removed. People will now use RM purely for skill cost reduction, and not for the usual aura stacking.
-you (GGG) will have greater control over aura balancing since there will be one less variable to worry about.
-people no longer complain about "not being able to run 3/4 auras. Because at lower base costs, most players should be able to run that many with little to no trouble.
-Enlighten keeps it's niche as a gem for leveling new gems for old characters.

Drawbacks:
-aura stacking becomes a bit more difficult, since there's no gem to reduce the costs of auras ran on life (which was the premise for the low-life shavs build)
-pure aura builds still work, but will require passive point investments from the tree.


Suggestion 2:

keep the old RM gem values (or not, whatever seems to work).

Categorize existing auras into types (note AURAS, not heralds).

Limit player active auras to 1 per type (attack, defense, support, cold, fire, lightning, etc.) like war-cries are.

Why this works (benefits):
-the aura restriction will not effect any builds that run heralds + an aura
-you (GGG) can use typing to essentially nerf specific problem builds, and open up new types.
-while it'll be possible to run 3 auras + heralds, it won't be for ridiculous amounts of damage (since you can only run 1 additional attack aura in addition to heralds)

Drawbacks:
-defensive focused passive trees will essentially be pushed out of meta and replaced by more balanced builds
-copy paste above bullet for attack focused passive trees.
-the "7+ aura" build will be completely destroyed, due to type restriction.
-mana costs for running 3 auras will still be an issue for most players.


While my suggestions aren't silver bullets, I do hope that they at least provide you guys with insight, and perhaps more options to solving the issues at hand.

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PrimordialDarkness wrote:

Where did GGG's commitment to not destroy existing setups go?

there was never a such commitment. making up a commitment and passing it off as GGG's does not count.

I look at these notes and I can't help but remember the downfall of Star Wars Galaxies. The developers at SOE thought they were doing something cool and didn't listen to their players. Well, we all know how that worked out for them. I really hope that PoE doesn't go the same way.

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HammurabiJones wrote:

I look at these notes and I can't help but remember the downfall of Star Wars Galaxies. The developers at SOE thought they were doing something cool and didn't listen to their players. Well, we all know how that worked out for them. I really hope that PoE doesn't go the same way.

if anything, GGG listens too much to their players and all the qq

Allright, I'll try to explain why this change enraged so much people.


Problem 1: Reduced mana mandatory?
Yes, it is. But it's not the reduced mana that's necessary for almost every build, they need the auras to survive and/or to deal a decent damage and to run those auras you need the reduced mana AND maybe some reservation nodes on the skill tree, not only the RM.

Solution:
Less mana reserved on auras. RM doesn't work with auras anymore. Enlighten work, with LESS efficiency.

>It's beta, things can change.<

But how it is now almost every build can't do what they did before without a lvl 4 enlighten gem + more passives in reservation. It's a nerf to almost every build. Nerfs make builds less fun to play. Many people like the game harder, but the "more deadly" or "gimmicky", not slower.

Problem 2?:
"characters that previously wouldn't have access to Reduced Mana"
This doesn't make sense. Any class can get a RM and use it. Easy to find, easy to trade.

STR requirements so high int or int/dex can't use it in a high level? There are +30 str nodes on the tree for that and anyone can also get or craft STR on gear. This in neither a problem nor an excuse to be aplied to the current change.

Problem 3:
"Aura+reduced mana" taking too many sockets early on.

Solution:
Now auras reserve less. Leveling should be easier with 1 aura + 1 herald since you'll have more unreserved mana. People don't need that low level RM anymore. Pretty good for new players.

BUT for any experienced player leveling is fast. This problem is not really a problem.

And in the late/ultra late game things are slower and harder, since RM is replaced with a hard to find and hard to level Enlighten.

"Enlighten becomes a much more desirable support. It now gives an option for end-game builds that are willing to give up sockets to reduce reservation, without the support being so impactful that every build that uses auras feels that it's absolutely necessary."
Every build is willing to give up sockets to reduce mana reservation. It's not a solution to end-game builds, is a problem for every other build. Enlighten is hard to find and hard to level.
Early on, heaving to use (RM+Aura) may take too many slots. But with a simple 4l you can already use all your auras (2) and one herald. Maybe 6 slots for RM+Auras, RM+Heralds. Since you can have 18 slots to customize your build, using 2 or at most 3 of them for RM isn't much.

"Reduced Mana can have much higher values than previously, making it a better choice for reducing skill mana costs."
Sacrifice a link to RM? Main skill need dmg and/or leech and maybe AOE. There is no current room for RM. If we at least had one more aura to compensate the sacrificed... oh wait... we're getting one less!