Idea: How Auras Cast

[Noren]

The auras are great, but those of us in the later raid tiers... we know that the way auras auto-cast can be a real headache at times for hate-list sensitive mobs. There are a couple threads discussing this, but no one proposed any solutions. Allow me! So, I have two ideas to fundamentally change how auras work if you devs are interested:

Who casts the aura?
My first thought was that when an #auracast happens manually or automatically, each player is allowed to self-cast it if a qualified owner of the aura exists within the group and their cooldown is ready. Thus, when someone does a /say #auracast, instead of buffing the group everyone in range would self-cast (and it would no longer be a group buff). That would produce zero hate-list issues since no one is casting on anyone else.

Another idea, drawing inspiration from the Cleric epics 1.5/2.0 click effect ( webtools/spell.php?id=6265 ), I noticed that it is a spell that produces zero hate. Ideally, if auras could mimic the way this spell works, that would be great.

This is all maintaining that auras are 36 minute duration song window buffs. That has its own inherent problems with dispelling and whose enhancement focus gets used, so here's another possible solution:

Alternate idea: a duration-less buff that acts like an aoe bard song
I never liked the dispellable nature of auras, but I see the overpowered nature of a perpetual divine intervention aura. Here's a possible fix. Tier 8 bard cantata (webtools/spell.php?id=9492) being the foundation of the functionality... we have an aura refreshing on 3-6 second intervals like bard songs so that it's more 'aura-like' and less 'buff-like' (group-only and AoE where appropriate to the aura). While buffs can be dispelled by bosses, songs and auras would be allowed to quickly refresh given their short-duration nature. Assuming the above hate list workarounds stop the hate generation, there could be a recourse debuff that triggers when the DI aura fires to keep people from being masters of death =). The catch with this method would be that group members would lose the buff in the same manner that they would lose bard songs when they move out of range of the caster. Personally, I'm okay with that. This is way more true to an aura and it's my top choice.

Thoughts? Ideas? Why did you bring this up when we're busy with T9 go away!? Hehe

[yaeger]

Maybe we can disable the periodic auto-cast attribute of the auras. Either make the auras controlled by #auracast alone, or make it a spell that needs to be cast to buff the group/raid with the aura.

I wouldn't mind either option. I just don't like the timed auto-refresh of an aura during a critical point of an event.

[Beatboxin]

Idk I never have a problem with aura's pulling agro no matter how many mobs I have around me and have aura's on 12 toons

[Vaion]

It would be possible to add an "aura type" feature to the Player Auras since I essentially set it up with the Donor BP for priests. I'll look into seeing what all it would take to translate the pulse aura code into the player aura code. It shouldn't be that bad, but I'll have to play with it a bit and see how it works out. As you guys mentioned, the only one that we may have an issue with will be the DI auras, but I'll play with them and see if I can come up with some kind of timer for the DI auras for how often it is allowed to save you.

As for the hate issue, I recently added a way to dictate exactly how much hate is generated by spells. I'll add the Auras onto the list and set them to 0 hate so that they will not generate any hate when cast.

[Noren]

Idk I never have a problem with aura's pulling agro no matter how many mobs I have around me and have aura's on 12 toons

I didn't mean that they pull aggro, but rather they bring unwanted players onto the hatelist in cases like Arch Bishop Ikliz, Kerani the Egg Keeper, Fevarn the Omniscient, Lithluran the Gate Keeper, etc.



And Vaion - sounds perfect, thanks!

[Ydiss]

As for the hate issue, I recently added a way to dictate exactly how much hate is generated by spells. I'll add the Auras onto the list and set them to 0 hate so that they will not generate any hate when cast.

Has this been implemented yet?

I ask as we were just doing Fevarn and the auto aura cast caused several characters to be put onto the hatelist and then they were immediately debuffed at 64%.