More Aura Support Gems!

Right now, there are only 3 support gems that are worth using with Aura gems - Empower, Reduced Mana, and Increased Area of Effect. The last is somewhat weak unless you're a summoner, meaning most builds that have auras just use the first two, or just the second if the player in question is too poor to get their hands on an Empower. This, to me, is a pretty stark contrast to the normal way PoE goes about things; by which I mean there's usually a ton of viable support options for any given skill. Auras don't have that, and I think that should be changed. So without further ado, my ideas for Aura Support Gems:

Increased Aura Effects on Minions. This gem does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin; it's worth nothing that this probably shouldn't affect party members if possible, as party members usually aren't minions. Leveling bonus should increase the effect of the aura on minions, quality bonus should affect minion speed/damage/life while under aura effects or further increase the aura effect on minions.

Concentrated Aura. This could also be done by tweaking Concentrated Effect to effect auras, although that might require some weird, roundabout programming. Leveling should increase the aura effect boost, quality should be a minor mana reduction modifier.

Reservation to Duration. This gem turns spells with mana reservations into Duration casts, much like Molten Shell is now; it should probably have a significant mana reduction modifier to compensate for having to constantly recast it. Leveling it should increase the duration of the cast, quality should increase cast speed.

Point Blank Aura. This gem would increase aura effects close to the caster and have falloff similar to what the Point Blank keystone has for projectiles. I'm not quite sure how well PoE's engine would handle having an AoE with variable damage - if I could get an official work on that, it'd be nice. Leveling should improve the effect boost from point-blank range, while quality should improve the area over which it works. Also, and I forgot this in the first draft, the aura would have decreased effectiveness on the caster so as to prevent this from being abused in solo.

Aura Merge. This gem would merge all linked auras, averaging their mana cost in exchange for a significantly reduced effect. I could see this one being something like Empower and Enhance; this is another one in the list that would probably be difficult to implement. Leveling it should reduce the effect loss somewhat, and quality should either increase aura AoE or gem XP gained if it ends up being like Empower.

Aura Cone (this name should probably be changed). This is probably the oddest bird of the bunch; the idea is that it would summon a totem, much like linking Spell Totem does to auras now; except instead of broadcasting the aura in a circular AoE, the totem would consistently target a a cone AoE with the aura effects towards the casting player (and maybe other totems). Leveling would increase totem survivability as well as the area of the cone; quality would increase aura effects. This could also be done with an "Targeted AoE" support gem that could work with AoEs besides auras, allowing for cone-targeted Discharges or Freeze Mines or something.

While I appreciate where you are coming from OP some things must change before aura supports are workable. For starters, we don't necessarily need every aura, minus clarity, to be % reservation based. Some could be drain based or % degeneration based.

I do agree support options for auras, beyond reduced mana, would be interesting.

I was actually thinking of your aura merge idea too. My idea was that all supported auras are cast simultaneously with 1 60% reservation. The gem would scal with, 2 auras - 30% reduced effect of both, 3 auras - 60% reduced effect, 4 auras - 90% reduced effect.

I also like the idea of a lone aura gem. Buffs the effect of aura on you and your minions, only can be buffed by linked aura.

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Veta321 escreveu:

While I appreciate where you are coming from OP some things must change before aura supports are workable. For starters, we don't necessarily need every aura, minus clarity, to be % reservation based. Some could be drain based or % degeneration based.

I do agree support options for auras, beyond reduced mana, would be interesting.

That's actually sort of the point of the Reservation to Duration gem - it turns a permanent mana reservation into something that's used temporarily; so you could churn through a bunch of normal baddies, then take down a rare after casting a duration aura or two. Drain or degen based auras is a neat idea, too - I'll have to think about those.

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T3hswagman escreveu:

I also like the idea of a lone aura gem. Buffs the effect of aura on you and your minions, only can be buffed by linked aura.

I didn't include that here because I thought it'd probably be better implemented as a mod on a unique item instead of as a gem. And someday, I might have the cash to throw at GGG to have it made. :P

I was thinking too about aura support gem for solo players (or some team builds):
- aura affects only caster
- reduced mana reservation

For example, my companion wants additional fire damage but it's critical for me not to have fire damage at all. Result: he can not use Anger.

I like the cast option tbh. Cast the aura and have the buff effect available for an amount of time. Nice and elegant. Gives more options to support further on (Increased Duration) and makes more skills available (Increased Buff Duration, Inner Force, etc)

Increased Aura Effects on Minions: I don't like this idea, because I think we can do better; see the comment on Point Blank Aura below.

Concentrated Aura: Although I really like this idea, two issues:
1) This is too close to Concentrated Effect. Thus, it shouldn't be its own gem, but just an added feature of Concentrated Effect.
2) The aura change increased the cost of auras to such an extent that this gem is essentially unusable. I think the best change to implement in conjuction would be to reduced 40% aura to 30%, and 60% aura to 40%, while simultaneously reducing the effect of all auras by about 1/3. For example, let's say Determination was changed to 40% and providing 17% more Armour at level 1, plus 1% per level past that.
Level of Gems, Before, After w/o CE, After w/ CE
1, 32, 17, 25
2, 33, 18, 27
3, 34, 19, 28
4, 35, 20, 30
5, 36, 21, 32
6, 37, 22, 34
7, 38, 23, 35
8, 39, 24, 37
9, 40, 25, 39
10, 41, 26, 41
11, 42, 27, 43
12, 43, 28, 45
13, 44, 29, 46
14, 45, 30, 48
15, 46, 31, 50
16, 47, 32, 52
17, 48, 33, 54
18, 49, 34, 56
19, 50, 35, 58
20, 51, 36, 60

Reservation to Duration: This would be OP, because it would allow characters with high mana regen to easily run all auras at once.

Point Blank Aura: Since a lot of players play solo, I actually think you have this one backwards... a Far Shot Aura support would be far more interesting, providing minimal benefits to the user but higher benefits to other party members and to minions. The name could use some work though.

Aura Merge: I really dislike this one. It seems very complicated, and at the end of the day is trying to do the same thing Reduced Mana is.

Aura Cone: Redundant with Spell Totem; Aura Cone shouldn't be its own gem, they should just make Totems more compatible with Auras.

@Scrotie

Summed up my thoughts as well. Specifically I think there's potential in reducing the overall effectiveness and reservation drawbacks of auras while compensating them with more aura-viable supports.

I wouldn't mind seeing some viable curse supports either. Aura Curse comes to mind and Curse on Hit could be much more attractive.

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ScrotieMcB escreveu:

Concentrated Aura: Although I really like this idea, two issues:
1) This is too close to Concentrated Effect. Thus, it shouldn't be its own gem, but just an added feature of Concentrated Effect.
2) The aura change increased the cost of auras to such an extent that this gem is essentially unusable. I think the best change to implement in conjuction would be to reduced 40% aura to 30%, and 60% aura to 40%, while simultaneously reducing the effect of all auras by about 1/3. This way, you could either reserve Determination for 40% mana at 2/3 of its current value, or use Concentrated Effect to make it a 64% reservation for up to 112.6% of its current value. This would make it easier for Blood Magic users to reserve one percentage aura, without making auras blatantly OP.

1) I'm pretty sure that I mentioned it could be done with some fiddling with the already-present Conc. Effect gem at the expense of having to include more info in the tooltip. If I didn't, I'll add that shortly.
2) This sounds fine. These were mostly just ideas about how auras could have more supports; I didn't really do a whole lot of math as to how they might end up being balanced.

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ScrotieMcB escreveu:

Reservation to Duration: This would be OP, because it would allow characters with high mana regen to easily run all auras at once.

I don't know about that, although now that you bring it up this would be a lot harder to balance than I thought it would. Auras would still have a rather obscene cast time, and running all auras at once would require lots of these gems taking up lots of slots that could be used for other stuff. Plus if you wanted to use almost any other skills, you'd have to be macroing your auras; and while Chris mentioned having an aura turned on or off by macro is fine, I don't think he approves of macro-casting spells in this nature. Overall, I still think this could end up being somewhat balanced if the durations are well-tested to prevent them from being OP without being complete garbage.

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ScrotieMcB escreveu:

Point Blank Aura: Since a lot of players play solo, I actually think you have this one backwards... a Far Shot Aura support would be far more interesting, providing minimal benefits to the user but higher benefits to other party members and to minions. The name could use some work though.

In the original draft of Point Blank Aura, the plan was to have it significantly decrease the aura effects on the caster so as to incentivize using it with Spell Totem or working as a team along the lines of "everyone stay close to the aura guy for better boosts." I don't know why I got rid of it in this draft, given that it would be a fairly central mechanic of the gem; I'll fix that in a moment. That said, a Far Shot aura would also be an interesting idea. I agree about the name needing work in both cases, though - I mostly used it so I could reference a current mechanic to get my point across more smoothly.

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ScrotieMcB escreveu:

Aura Merge: I really dislike this one. It seems very complicated, and at the end of the day is trying to do the same thing Reduced Mana is.

Sort of. My point with that one was to give hybrids the opportunity to run one aura without picking up a ton of aura boost nodes and still have hybrid benefits, instead of being stuck with one pure aura that only complements half (or a third if you like tribrid Scion) of the hybrid nature. Even with RM, that's not extremely possible right now, but I agree that maybe my solution is a bit contrived and could probably be better executed a different way. What that way is, I have no idea.

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ScrotieMcB escreveu:

Aura Cone: Redundant with Spell Totem; Aura Cone shouldn't be its own gem, they should just make Totems more compatible with Auras.

Sort of agree with this one, too. Ideally, the cone would have a much larger range than the default aura radius, allowing you some more mobility around your totem in exchange for the loss in minion support that normal Spell Totem + Aura would give.

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Veta321 escreveu:

@Scrotie

Summed up my thoughts as well. Specifically I think there's potential in reducing the overall effectiveness and reservation drawbacks of auras while compensating them with more aura-viable supports.

I wouldn't mind seeing some viable curse supports either. Aura Curse comes to mind and Curse on Hit could be much more attractive.

Aura Curse sounds like it could be equal parts OP and hilariously useful, although I don't quite see how that would make Curse on Hit more attractive.

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Aura Curse sounds like it could be equal parts OP and hilariously useful, although I don't quite see how that would make Curse on Hit more attractive.

Oh I meant that tangentially, I had just written this suggestion. The gist being curses from CoH don't count towards your maximum curse or have a separate maximum from manually cast curses. Aura curses of course would be auras and also would not count towards maximum curses but instead would have traditional aura costs.