Guild Wars 2

If this is a Grandmaster trait, why not make it GRAND. Make it so every time an Ele actually does a combo finisher and triggers an aura, this trait also procs. Perma fury, swiftness, prot would actually be a good thing. Make it so Ele can support teammate not just with staff. D/D could make a better comeback because of this, and I feel like teamwork would synergize A LOT better. Spirit rangers can do the same thing pretty much, why not let Ele’s. Hell maybe Spirit Ranger + Ele would be a good start of a 3 core team. Any thoughts?

I was using a d/d auramancer until few days ago (then bough Kashmeer’s Staff and looking for a staff build on my ele ^^) and Powerful Aura doing just well, sure it’s not exceptional, and I’ll love to see my Ring of Fire+Magnetic Leap fiery aura passed to my teammates, but even without working with combo finishers I was able to mantain almost permanently a lot of boons on my teammates.

If I have to being honest, I just think the whole auramancer concept is a little vague in those times; I mean, actually you become a better support if you focus on stability sharing and condition removal, and most of the DPS builds around can give perma fury and a tons of might stacking, so auramances just sit in between, lacking something “exclusive” who make them unique.

If I have to think on something for making the auramancer more appealing, maybe I start thinking about giving maybe a little reflection effect for you and your party on aura use (not combo finishers), but that may be too much, since auramancers are still a lot hard to take down in PvP and WvW.

Furako.4829:

so auramances just sit in between, lacking something “exclusive” who make them unique.

you don’t give just boons, you share the auras themselfes which can be quite effective when you time it well (CC or damage-reduction+chill). This won’t be noticeable in larger groups though .

I personally always wanted an on attunement aura trait. It would probably be a grandmaster depending on the cd but basically just grant the corresponding aura depending on which element you switch to. So if powerful auras stayed a GM tier trait you would have to choose between sharing auras or having instant access to any of the 4 auras.

Gorni.1764:

you don’t give just boons, you share the auras themselfes which can be quite effective when you time it well (CC or damage-reduction+chill). This won’t be noticeable in larger groups though .

That’s true, but it’s only 5 seconds every 25, 30 or 40 depends on aura.
And those effect activate only when you’re struck and aren’t that strong: Burn and might, chill and 10% lesser damage, stun with an internal cooldown of 2 secs…

The most of the good from an auramancer build comes from the boons he/she gives with the auras..boons who usually are up for almost 90-100% of the fight, while the auras effect are up only 20% of the time.

Necrotize.2974:

I personally always wanted an on attunement aura trait.

That’s a little too much, only that trait alone will be overpowered, expecially if combined with something like Fresh Air, who result in an almost perma-shocking aura. And if we consider adding an internal cooldown, that may make the trait less attractive.

Auramancer is a very fun and solid build, but as I say, just feeling I should and can do a little more, we’re talking about a Grandmaster trait who need at least 2 adept trait to become really useful instead of the other one we can choose.

Or at least that is my opinion, as I said before, is easy to make this trait overpower instead of balanced

Furako.4829:

Gorni.1764:

you don’t give just boons, you share the auras themselfes which can be quite effective when you time it well (CC or damage-reduction+chill). This won’t be noticeable in larger groups though .

That’s true, but it’s only 5 seconds every 25, 30 or 40 depends on aura.
And those effect activate only when you’re struck and aren’t that strong: Burn and might, chill and 10% lesser damage, stun with an internal cooldown of 2 secs…

The most of the good from an auramancer build comes from the boons he/she gives with the auras..boons who usually are up for almost 90-100% of the fight, while the auras effect are up only 20% of the time.

Necrotize.2974:

I personally always wanted an on attunement aura trait.

That’s a little too much, only that trait alone will be overpowered, expecially if combined with something like Fresh Air, who result in an almost perma-shocking aura. And if we consider adding an internal cooldown, that may make the trait less attractive.

Auramancer is a very fun and solid build, but as I say, just feeling I should and can do a little more, we’re talking about a Grandmaster trait who need at least 2 adept trait to become really useful instead of the other one we can choose.

Or at least that is my opinion, as I said before, is easy to make this trait overpower instead of balanced

I would’ve imagined a trait like I described would have an internal cd per element like evasive arcana, so each element’s aura is independent of each other but also on a cd that is either equal to or greater than the cd on swaps.

Powerful Aura is simply not going to do much for you in PvE. Sure, you can dish out some boons, but frankly that’s something other classes already have access to and can do, if not better. The real benefit is the effect of the Auras, themselves, which doesn’t do much against mobs with Defiance (champs/legendary bosses are the only ones that should really pose much threat or require teamplay in PvE, and even then they’re rarely challenging).

Where the trait really shines is PvP, where the chill and stun especially can help to turn a fight in your team’s favor. However, it’s still only going to be valuable in team fights when applied to multiple allies. Depending on whether or not you feel that you can reliably make good use of the trait in this way, you may find that Cleansing Water is more beneficial.

What I should of mentioned is this is for PvP, I do not PvE/WvW. At the moment Auras do not shine in PvP. The reason being is great you blew both of your Auras, now what? You are not going to be doing good damage, you are going to be able to cleanse 2 conditions from allies, and give them a decent heal. But after that, your auras are on CD. I would love to say bring a Necro or Engi to create a Ice Field, ele just blast finisher into that. Then Fire Auras, with own spells, and then Shocking Aruas for when people are getting low. We all know ele’s are not doing as well as they should be because of how clunky their AoE skills are and lack of support. And Dec 10 is not addressing any of these problems.

TL;DR Better availability to share auras through auras for PvP, better the support and better plays by Eles and teammates also.

The buff to tempest defense in the dec 10 patch means that a third “share-able” aura will be available every 25 seconds or so. So it’ll be a buff, especially to offensive auramancer builds, which were required to invest on arcana for attunement cooldown before, and will now get stronger burst.

If the build will be truly viable, it remains to be seen, though.

I don’t think Shocking Aura (or any aura, for that matter) should be used as an emergency skill “for when people are getting low,” as you say. Yes, that’s one use, but the damage mitigation is better selectively used earlier on to interrupt/slow an enemy’s combos or high damage output skills.

I’d love to see Powerful Aura proc on fire field leap finishers, which would make it a little more enticing for d/d (Magnetic Grasp/Leap should be every ele’s best friend). That and having some use for the trait underwater, but I don’t see ANet even touching underwater combat any time soon…

And as Diogo points out, the Tempest Defense buff could be interesting. I really don’t want to lose either Evasive Arcana or Cleansing Wave, but being able to maintain a potential ~30% uptime on Shocking Aura would be mighty useful. Combine that with Powerful Aura in team fights, and that’s a lot of stun.