I don't like this new aura system...

I'm an elementalist main ever since I started playing 5 years agoIn every game, I've always hated additional micromanagement mechanics that brought nothing to the table.Good examples are:

• The summoned Elementals abilities that require a manual input for the elemental to do their attack, when that is a skill we want to use off cooldown anyway.
• The conjured weapons that require us to run to them and pick them up if we want to benefit from the second charge, instead of simply having an amo system.
• That was removed at that patch, but Magnetic Leap requiring 2 button press also bothered me.

So now we have this Aura detonation system, and I really don't know how I feel about it...It feels like the devs were looking for something to improve the Elementalist as a whole and thought "Oh, they have a lot of Auras, let's give them a thing with that!". While I think that was a good initiative, I think that they didn't handle it correctly. If we're going this way, I'd rather see some synergy between our attunement and our active Auras (Like getting a second instance of X-mancer buff depending on our active Auras?).

But back to the topic of micromanagement, what is the point of having a skill chain for a second skill that we will want to use anyway? Wouldn't it be more simple/fluid to have the detonation be the base skill, with the side effect of applying an Aura?Furthermore, with the current mechanic, if we want to get the most out our Aura, we have to watch closely the timer, and use the second skill just before the aura goes away, because using it removes the aura. There is no drawback for detonating so late. This is stressful to use...

I'm not sure what to suggest to improve the system, I simply wanted to say I don't like it. I don't see how it fits in the general Elementalist gameplay. Even if the overall damage buffs are nice, I think that this new system actually makes the elementalist less enjoyable, on the gameplay side of things.

@ROMANG.1903 said:

But back to the topic of micromanagement, what is the point of having a skill chain for a second skill that we will want to use anyway? Wouldn't it be more simple/fluid to have the detonation be the base skill, with the side effect of applying an Aura?

Generally yes, but currently you can detonate auras that came from other sources, not just that particular skill. You can trigger your fire aura (from feel the burn for example) even if focus 5 skill is on cooldown, so you get more uses of it. Accessibility is the biggest problem though: you dont have many auras across all weapons, and those skills can be even harder to reach with elite specs (20 sec after overload on tempest or 4 sec global attunement cd on weaver).

I feel like Anet have added this to see how it goes, then add to it depending on how they feel about it

How exactly do the new auras work?

Z

@ZNICK.8537 said:How exactly do the new auras work?

Z

When you receive aura from any source your weapon skills with aura (fire focus 5 for example) can be reactivated to detonate aura (it has 10 or so cooldown, affected by trait cs reduction).

Ok... so my ele gives someone else an Aura... how do they see it to detonate? Does it light in their skill bar?

Z

@ZNICK.8537 said:Ok... so my ele gives someone else an Aura... how do they see it to detonate? Does it light in their skill bar?

Z

Only eles can detonate their auras, and only using the four weapon-skill auras (fire shield on fire focus 5, shocking aura on air MH dagger 3, frost aura on water OH Dagger 4, and Magnetic shield on Earth Staff 3). If the ele, for instance, gets a fire aura from anywhere (a friend, a leap finisher through a fire field, a shout, an overload, swapping to fire with sunspot major trait, etc.) he can detonate it while in fire if he has focus equipped. Otherwise, it is just an aura that removes a condi from him/her.

can any1 explain how the new aura mechanic works?

@BlackBeard.2873 saidOnly eles can detonate their auras, and only using the four weapon-skill auras (fire shield on fire focus 5, shocking aura on air MH dagger 3, frost aura on water OH Dagger 4, and Magnetic shield on Earth Staff 3).

If they just gave us an F5 skill to blow them up or something it would be really cool. As it is now it seems like a gimmick that won’t get much use

@"michelada.2947" said:can any1 explain how the new aura mechanic works?

Copied from another thread:

Basically, the four aura weapon skills (fire shield on focus, shocking aura on MH dagger, Frost aura on OH Dagger, and Magnetic Aura on Staff) now get replaced with another skill to "detonate" the aura (i.e. give up the remaining duration and cast an extra spell) while the ele has the corresponding aura. This "detonation" has its own 10s CD which is independent of the weapon skill that gives the aura. None of the other skills that give auras (tempest shouts, earth warhorn 4, etc) give you access to this detonate skill, but auras from any source can be detonated using their respective weapon skills.

Thus, if you get a fire aura (due to a shout for instance, or swapping to fire with major-tier minor trait sunspot, or by leaping through a fire shield), you can use fire focus 5 to detonate it for an extra skill. After doing that, the focus 5 slot will go back to whatever CD the "fire shield' skill had, and if it was off-CD, you could immediately pop up another fire aura. However, immediately doing so will not allow you to detonate in time as the detonate skill will be ticking its 10s counter (which you can only see while you have the aura).

@MaxwellM.2075 said:

@BlackBeard.2873 saidOnly eles can detonate their auras, and only using the four weapon-skill auras (fire shield on fire focus 5, shocking aura on air MH dagger 3, frost aura on water OH Dagger 4, and Magnetic shield on Earth Staff 3).

As I see it, there will be one main use, and two minor uses:MAJOR USE: Any build that takes fire traitline + focus Off-hand: Every time you swap to fire, you get a fire aura (sunspot), then you immediately use the #5 skills. With the trait smothering auras, this is 3x condis cleansed (2 shared with team-mates) every time you swap to fire....AMAZINGMinor uses

• Tempest builds that situationally pop an aura for some extra cleanse
• Situationally having an extra weapon-skill that is not negligible.

I like the changes so far. Been trying out smothering aura and with a sword weaver bruiser build I don't need cleansing water + woven stride anymore to cleanse conditions. Each time you switch into main or offhand fire attunement, you cleanse a condition. This option brings a bit more build variety, meaning more room to play with builds. The auramancer tempest now probably has more viability with smothering aura since you need powerful aura in water traitline. Before it meant, very little condi cleanse because of it.

@MaxwellM.2075 said:

@BlackBeard.2873 saidOnly eles can detonate their auras, and only using the four weapon-skill auras (fire shield on fire focus 5, shocking aura on air MH dagger 3, frost aura on water OH Dagger 4, and Magnetic shield on Earth Staff 3).

The detonation mechanic is good, but its still tied arbitrarily to whatever weapons you have equipped.

I can only detonate shocking aura with main hand dagger lol...

If they REALLY want to fix auras then those detonation buffs have to apply on aura expire if the aura has been applied to the elementalist (here, new effect of elemental bastion trait for Tempest).Detonation skills are: 3 earth staff, 3 dagger air, 4 focus water dagger water, 5 focus fire.First of all, I'd like to see someone healing with focus.Second, most of auras come from combos and traits, not pressing a skill button (except for magnetic aura).Third, four aura boon appliers across 3 weapons. How is it supposed to work? Elementalist doesn't have a weapon swap, hello.

@Razor.6392 said:The detonation mechanic is good, but its still tied arbitrarily to whatever weapons you have equipped.

I can only detonate shocking aura with main hand dagger lol...

That’s exactly why I don’t like it

@MiskoV.3856 said:If they REALLY want to fix auras then those detonation buffs have to apply on aura expire if the aura has been applied to the elementalist (here, new effect of elemental bastion trait for Tempest).Detonation skills are: 3 earth staff, 3 dagger air, 4 focus water, 5 focus fire.First of all, I'd like to see someone healing with focus.Second, most of auras come from combos and traits, not pressing a skill button (except for magnetic aura).Third, four aura boon appliers across 3 weapons. How is it supposed to work? Elementalist doesn't have a weapon swap, hello.

While I agree I need to correct you: Water Aura is on Dagger 4, not Focus 4

@Razor.6392 said:The detonation mechanic is good, but its still tied arbitrarily to whatever weapons you have equipped.

I can only detonate shocking aura with main hand dagger lol...

Yea, it feels like this ties the different weapons to a specific role depending on which Aura they can detonate, while that isn't their original design, it feels out of place

@MiskoV.3856 said:If they REALLY want to fix auras then those detonation buffs have to apply on aura expire if the aura has been applied to the elementalist (here, new effect of elemental bastion trait for Tempest).Detonation skills are: 3 earth staff, 3 dagger air, 4 focus water, 5 focus fire.First of all, I'd like to see someone healing with focus.Second, most of auras come from combos and traits, not pressing a skill button (except for magnetic aura).Third, four aura boon appliers across 3 weapons. How is it supposed to work? Elementalist doesn't have a weapon swap, hello.

I have a strong feeling that this is just a test, just like they did with phantasm trait that gives them might (which does absolutely nothing on phantasms) in one patch, only to buff it in next one and rework phantasms completely. Only fire spec got aura detonation trait now, which tells me that other 3 specs+tempest will get something similar in near future.

Wouldn't it be more simple/fluid to have the detonation be the base skill, with the side effect of applying an Aura?

I think this is much better than a detonation mechanic.

Judging by the patchworkness of the patch I have the same feeling. But maybe instead of testing the waters, things could get just fixed? Who thought of that detonation system? I will sound passive agressive here, which is not my intention, but you'd have to never play ele to come up with something like that...

Also, I stand corrected about the frost aura. It's indeed 4 water dagger, not focus (which doesn't change anything).

Feedback: Very good idea with the boon and detonation effects! As a since-pre-launch-ele-main I like it a lot!Feedback2: Please, for the love of Lyssa, make it actually usefull. (Detonation on expire instead on skill reuse, tie it to Tempest minor trait so it becomes a spec mechanics - dunno how weaver folk would feel about this)

@MiskoV.3856 said:Feedback: Very good idea with the boon and detonation effects! As a since-pre-launch-ele-main I like it a lot!Feedback2: Please, for the love of Lyssa, make it actually usefull. (Detonation on expire instead on skill reuse, tie it to Tempest minor trait so it becomes a spec mechanics - dunno how weaver folk would feel about this)

I can see why it seems a bit clunky having to swap back into x attunement to detonate but I think one of the reasons why they didn't make auras auto-detonate is because, at least in WvW/PvP settings, it'd possibly backfire by revealing you. And also people would just stack aura tempests and spam shouts for easy fire-and-forget aoe damage. I wouldn't want them to move it to Tempest traitline because then you'd be going one step forward, two steps back in making skills like Fire Shield thoroughly useless on focus if you didn't take Tempest.

@steki.1478 said:

@ROMANG.1903 said:

But back to the topic of micromanagement, what is the point of having a skill chain for a second skill that we will want to use anyway?

Wouldn't it be more simple/fluid to have the detonation be the base skill, with the side effect of applying an Aura?

Right now, to benefit from such a mechanic more than if the detonation was the base skill, you must:

• Receive an Aura from another source than your weapon ability
• Receive that Aura while your detonation is avalaible, so roughly every 10 seconds
• Be in the correct attunement when that happens
• Not be in another skillchain in which using the detonation will impair your current spell rotation
• Wait until the very end of the Aura to detonate it if you want to optimize its uptime

I'm sorry, but this feature is waaay too situational to justify so mutch added complexity. I stand on my point of view that the detonation should be the base skill, with an Aura being a side effect to it.

@MiskoV.3856 said:Judging by the patchworkness of the patch I have the same feeling. But maybe instead of testing the waters, things could get just fixed? Who thought of that detonation system? I will sound passive agressive here, which is not my intention, but you'd have to never play ele to come up with something like that...

Also, I stand corrected about the frost aura. It's indeed 4 water dagger, not focus (which doesn't change anything).

Feedback: Very good idea with the boon and detonation effects! As a since-pre-launch-ele-main I like it a lot!Feedback2: Please, for the love of Lyssa, make it actually usefull. (Detonation on expire instead on skill reuse, tie it to Tempest minor trait so it becomes a spec mechanics - dunno how weaver folk would feel about this)

I would be okay with an automatic detonation at the end of the aura. Wether it is baseline, tied to an elite spec, or tied to a core spec is of lesser concern to me.

@BlackBeard.2873 said:

@michelada.2947 said:can any1 explain how the new aura mechanic works?thx, they forgot to explain that only some weapons use this system

People need to understand.

This was not a buff to auras, it was a buff to aura weapon skills.

The weapon skills now have more use. Thats it.Fire shield on focus is not such an useless skill anymore.

If you look at it from this perspective, it was an interesting change.

I'd reserve judgement for now. It smells of a future rework (hopefuly).

Auras in general are crap and need to be reworked, yes. You may argue that it would make them OP in terms of support but just look at druid or chrono (or even herald). Ele looks as if it came from a different game.

@lLobo.7960 said:People need to understand.

This was not a buff to auras, it was a buff to aura weapon skills.

The weapon skills now have more use. Thats it.Fire shield on focus is not such an useless skill anymore.

If you look at it from this perspective, it was an interesting change.

We all understood very well what it was, thank you. The change is still bad and the points everyone made still stand.

We're not arguing wether or not it was a good idea to buff those skills. I think it was, but the issue is how they were buffed.