I would like to see an aura for each mastery.
This aura would be given when chosing the mastery, exactly as the mastery bonuses.
It would be a passive that would not use a skill specialization slot, unless you chose to specialize in it and then, it would become a specialized skill. And in the case it replaces something in the passive tree, the corresponding passives could be removed.
Here are some proposals for these auras. Some “quick and dirty” thoughts. I don’t know if they make sense (probably some do while some don’t), but they’re here for the initial proposal and as first ideas.
Lich : the Wandering Spirits spell would be the aura. It would work exactly as the current spell without specialization. And as such, it would be removed from the pool of Acolyte skills.
Necromancer : a “Life Drain” aura would surround the Necromancer. It would be a kill threshold of 5% for all enemies inside the aura. And the size of the aura would be small. It’s a “last hope” defense for the Necromancer, which usually relies on the minions.
Sorcerer : the “Elemental Affinity” aura would give a 5% elemental damage reduction.
Spellblade : the “Blade Sharpness” aura would give 5% attack speed per sword.
Beastmaster : all animal-type enemies close to the Beastmaster would not attack him unless attacked.
Druid : the aura would slightly reduce close enemies’ movement speed. It would be a small aura.
Shaman :
Bladedancer : a “Blur” aura would add 5% dodge chance.
Marksman : the “Blur” aura would add 5% glancing blow chance instead of dodge.
Forge Guard : the aura would add 5% effectiveness to all friendly fire skills around.
Paladin : the current Holy Aura would be the passive aura, with smaller values. It would come back to current values if specialized. And the Paladin should get a replacement mastery bonus, I guess.
Void Knight : the aura would add +1 flat damage per 10 levels to all void skills in the aura (+2 at level 25, +3 at level 30, +10 at level 100).
What do you think of the global idea? What auras here could be good to have?
I agree, that’s why I wanted to give each aura something related to the identity of the mastery.
I understand your point of view. Probably things will stay this way. ^^
I’d argue that this is the same mechanic simply with different flavors, which in my opinion actually detracts from the identity of each mastery. I think that can lead to masteries feeling like simple re-skins of the same mechanics and not something which fundamentally defines a different playstyle/feel for the mastery. It’s presumptive of me but I think this was the point Heavy was making as well.
I do think that introducing mastery-defining mechanics that are more oriented to group synergy is brilliant, but hopefully the mechanics themselves would be part of that, not simply the flavor of the mastery if that makes sense?
Really neat ideas, thanks for posting this! Getting my thoughts a’ churning
Sure, we can say that all masteries having an aura is the same mechanic with different flavors, I agree with that. But where is the limit? All melee masteries could be the same with different flavors. Like a Serpent Strike Beast Master would be the same as an Erasing Strike Void Knight. Of course it’s very different, but both are melee hitters. At what step does a global mechanic become a class-specific mechanic?
I guess the response is not so easy. And maybe my proposal is not good, sure. But I had this in mind and I wanted to share it. ^^
That’s a fantastic point, and honestly I don’t know where that line is either. I suppose that’s where the real art of game design comes into play and I’m certainly no expert on that front.
I do think it’s a really fun and interesting problem to think about, and that great solutions are the result of considering and evolving many different ideas. That’s why I love reading posts like this, they’re always thought provoking.
My only problem with this is that Holy Aura is so RIDICULOUSLY good it skews the specialization balance of Sentinel and that when Multiplayer comes in it gives an inherent advantage/desirability for Paladin that Forge Guard and Void Knight won’t have.
Will that matter? Only time will tell. If Multiplayer becomes a huge part of the game and groups have to optimize for certain higher end content, I would have concern about certain specializations being rejected in lieu of others.
On a lesser note, auras make the mechanical playstyle of classes easier, while still adding diverse buffs – especially if they ever punish for numlock.
As for why I would want to see every class receive an aura as powerful as holy aura upon specialization, I think it would make you feel like your selection had a lot more immediate impact than the small innate ability each gets.
You can say exactly the same about the Void Knight’s echo mechanic though. IMO, The Forge Guard is the only one of the three missing a “wow” mastery bonus.
IMO, giving every class an aura would make the Paladin significantly less special, since everyone would have an awesome aura, not just him.
How does Void Knight’s echo affect multiplayer? Unless the innate abilities are shared with your entire team (doubtful), Paladin stands alone in conveying automatic buffs to his team.
I would honestly say trash the crappy stance that VK have and pop an aura in it, then swap it with erasing strikes for the mastery, make VK more of the evil version of the pali, it should pop different stuff than holy aura and be decent. Make it cold/physical/void related, maybe deal with bleed, (something the pali should honestly lose) faster attacks for every enemy hit stacking or something along those lines.
