Sentinel is my favorite base class and Forge Guard is my favorite specialization of the three, though I have played plenty of each. Of all the non-attack skills available, Holy Aura is head and shoulders above the rest in my opinion for a few reasons:
Ease of use: A permanent aura that grants early node access to useful passive buffs (elemental resistance) that can double those buffs with a single key click on a short cooldown. Compare this to having to maintain Sigils of Hope or Devouring Orbs â both from a key click perspective and avoiding the âjankyâ walk animation (during auto cast).
Multiple buffs combined into a single skill specialization: Very few skills have the diversity of Holy Aura that combine many useful passive buffs. The low 10 point requirement also gives an immediate dose of class defining buffs.
Visually appealing: The permanent aura around your Paladin is not overly flashy, but clear enough and class defining.
Every single Paladin on the Ladder uses Holy Aura. With the upcoming multiplayer functionality, it would be great to see other auras implemented to both visually define the specializations, as well as giving each one a multiplayer purpose.
Without diving into specific node suggestions, the Void Knight aura (Purple color) could enhance and buff thematic concepts from the spec tree â life leech, void damage, time rot, etc. Forge Guard aura (Red color) could focus on buffing armor, fire/physical damage and resistance or buff potion use and throwing skills.
In sum, the aura gives the individual player an immediate (10 points in tree) class defining buff, while also distinguishing them from their counterparts in multiplayer â both visually and functionally. I remember fondly the days of D2 Paladin parties with multiple overlapping buffs that were coordinated for maximum efficiency.
This is not directly related to âaurasâ, but i really hope that the devs will make some interesting stuff with the stances.
They already said multiple times that stances will most likely not all get an specialisation tree, but rather will probably get merged into one skill.
This skill could be very similar to holy aura, but maybe without aura effect baseline, but there could be some aura things in the skill tree.
I think Holy Aura should stay unique and i would probably dislike every mastery getting an counterpart.
However⌠i would like to see some uniques that heavily transform Holy Aura.
Myve some unique that turns all the fire stuff in holy aura to void stuff and maybe gives holy aura strogner effects, but also giving you some downsides (like life drain, health cost or other negatives). Sort of a âcorupted void thingyâ.
Yes, something like that. And you could sprinkle in some secodnary âauraâ affects in the skill tree, for people that want to have stuff like that.
So you could have 2 auras in total, but holy aura still being the âmainâ aura skill.
When I first played my Sentinel and saw the stance skills, I was excited. Obviously them lacking skill trees means they are not worth using at the moment, but Iâd also like that they are not just auras with a different name.
To me stance implies something that you activate for certain situations, and can be changed to suit your current needs. In this way if they were to combine all the stances and have a way to toggle between them, so it doesnât take up more than 1 valuable skill slot, that would be how I imagine the difference between stances and auras.
A small example as stances are now - have ephemeral on as default, but you notice a large wave of threatening enemies, change to juggernaut for more damage reduction, defeat them and change back to ephemeral. Obviously a very simple example but it illustrates the point. I do hope the stances have more going on and are not just essentially auras.
