Aura Reservation and Reduced Mana Support Gem Change

I think it's possible they honestly misunderstood how prevalent auras are, how required they are for most builds, and how every single aura setup in the game runs Reduced Mana.

Reduction is now aligned with int not str, which makes it more fitting for mana.
I like it.

Why reduce auras like Hatred to 50%, while leaving heralds at 25%?

I like making auras easier to run at low levels.

I like ditching the reduced mana requirement when running auras, it was a no-brainer.

I dislike making enlighten the new reduced mana. In theory the other changes make it less mandatory, but in practice people almost always run as many auras as they can. Enlighten is hard to find and harder to level, making it either very expensive or something you won't have access to until an extremely high level. Empower and enhance can provide comparable bonuses in terms of raw power, but being completely locked out of a skill feels far worse.

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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.

It was the same situation for reduced mana years ago, and you ended up giving out reduced mana in quest rewards.

Running 2 large aura leaves 0% mana is simply unacceptable. For that reason many build HAVE TO USE ENLIGHTEN. Even 5% mana left would still make many builds work.

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I called it that, because it was a small patch, because it was only balance. Patches with area changes, and major code changes are more complicated.

Exactly. With the current closed beta progress, I'd say there's tons of fixes that CB testers are eagerly looking forward to, for example lockstep. Balancing changes shouldn't be the top priority ones.

Yes the pay2win Beta is posing new challenges to GGG. So make sure all official fixes are thoroughly discussed before making a post. The filler leagues are rushed, the CB changes are rushed, the forum announcements are rushed. This is not gonna work. Sort things out and be efficient man!

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ZaM wrote:

You guys aren't creating more diversity and choice, you're just giving more choice to heavy traders/flippers and rmters while the rest of the community is left with fewer options.

QUoted for emphasis.

I like it that the auras are now much more restricted.

Also, I feel like some of the most powerful skill should ask for a lot more mana(even more than what it's after this patch).

In the beta right now, CoC build and Lightning Arrow are crazy strong and I feel like those kind of skills, that make your character easily powerful, should be harder to sustain in term of mana cost. This way, those characters would have a certain restriction on how they're making their build and would feel a lot more "fair" for melee character that need to get decent DPS/Defensive gear/passives/aura and engage the monsters which take more time and effort than shooting them off screen, one-shooting them and do not feel any engaging risk.

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rinleezwins wrote:

Why reduce auras like Hatred to 50%, while leaving heralds at 25%?

Looks like they reduced then all by 1/6th of their beta values. Of course the gem they took away was basically a 1/4 reduction, so clearly a steep nerf.

Unless you can afford a levelled Enlighten, of course. Then go nuts!

This change seems poorly transitioned. Especially for permanent leagues.

You are basically telling the high-level aurabots that their build still exists, they just have to reconfigure their gear and somehow get a ridiculous gem (level 4 corrupted enlighten).

You basically did the equivalent of making a legacy gem, but the legacy gem is still obtainable. It is like if you randomly turned all windrippers into chin-sols, but windripper still drops.

I'm all for killing aura reliance on the reduced mana gem, but if you are going to kill it, then just kill it. Don't replace it with an obscure and even more toxic gem combination. Enlighten leveling up is going to be the endgame of every aura user, whether they use 2-3 auras or 10.

Wow... I am starting to hope beta goes for three months now so they can rollback half of the "balance" changes. At least I'll still have three more months of poe at the live realm if they don't rollback, before saying goodbye to my builds and taking a time off. I don't see what kind of balance you are trying to achieve.