Auras for all classes at level 105--input needed

For Bards, we get two different auras, but can only use one at a time.

Aura of Maetanrus - Increases your companions' attack speed, spell damage, attack rate, and chance to flurry as long as they stay inside the area of the aura.

Aura of Sionachie - Calls forth a blessing of renewal to regenerate the health and mana of your group, as long as they stay inside the area of the aura.

Of course depending on what type of group we are in determines which aura we use, but we always have one or the other up.

Frostweave base damage is 3365. Mana Reciprocation base damage is 4137. (That makes MR 23% more damage than Frostweave.) Augmenting Aura is +4% to base damage of spells, but Augmenting Aura does not work on most magician DD spells (can someone please explain to me why this is?). So if you're in a group of mostly magicians, they will most certainly want the enchanter MR aura instead of the aug aura.

This is usually not the case for Mages in a raid group.

Silv, do you know the technical reasons behind aug aura not working on mage spells?

They aren't affected by skin to seedlings, but I'm told they are affected by certain class-specific abilities, which tend towards boosting fire moreso than ice.

SPA 413 for "some reason" doesn't affect Line of Sight (Bolt, Spear, Storm) spells. I PMed Elidroth about it during beta and after beta, and he said that he was waiting on a code change. Currently SPA 413 still does not work on those spells, which also means that the focus AAs for Bolt and Spear do not function properly. They currently use SPA 286 (unlike all the other focus AAs that use 413), which is a flat damage addition (1782 for the third rank of the Spear AA, for example) and does not crit.

So are there some of our spells that aug aura does work on? Which?

If the aug aura were to be fixed, obviously we would adore having TC, aug aura, and frostweave up! Hope springs eternal.

Augmenting Aura will likely never affect rains (and obviously not RS). Even if SPA 413 was fixed, I can't say for certain it would work properly with Storm of Many. It does currently affect spells such as Fickle, Shock, Searing Sands, etc.

If it were to be fixed, it could be situationally useful. I ran the numbers back in CotF (which I have subsequently misplaced...) and I recall different aura configurations winning out in different scenarios (admittedly it probably has changed). It would not be a slam dunk, but it would be greatly appreciated, especially as it would also mean focus AAs working properly (Something like 12.5k boost to spear damage on a max burn, not huge but nice).

That's sad. I always keep Aura on my spellbar unless I'm in a group of necromancers. It doesn't stack with Reluctant Benevolence, so I use the level 70 regen/cure aura instead. (That one lasts a really long time so it's nice to have the spell slot freed up after casting.) The only other time that I don't have my Frostweave aura loaded is when I swap it out momentarily to cast the bear familiar for mana regen.

The enchanter aura is slightly stronger, but the difference is small enough that it really don't mean squat. I would much rather the enchanter runs Twincast and Mana Regen unless using another aura for a specialized purpose (such as runic). Those two last a very long time and free up the spell slots for much more beneficial spells. (In the case of my enchanter, I load group runes.)

I think 23% is fairly significant! Raid gear players should not need the mana regen. I'd have to figure out how to do the math, but my gut tells me that the extra damage received from Mana Reciprocation (compared to Frostweave) versus the extra mana received from Mana Regen (and the subsequent extra nukes that could be cast as a result) would in no way justify using Mana Regen over Mana Reciprocation. I cannot imagine that you'd get a better return from the mana than from the extra damage.

23% would be significant if the base was significant. It's not, though. An extra 3k on the nukes chipping away at a boss with 20 million HP...I don't see the value. I'll take the mana regen, or leave the spell slot freed up for the enchanter. The enchanter can run runic aura or something similar, which is far more valuable than a tiny increase in DPS. My enchanter uses twincast + mana regen auras in the background and has those spell slots released to use for group runes. Keeping the group alive is the priority. Getting back on your feet after taking a death is a real .

I see you play a mage. I don't want to pass judgment on how you play, but my usual assignment during raids is to keep a group full of mages up. Those guys are down under 20% mana on virtually every event. (Partly because they're working hard and partly because we don't have enchanters and bards to go around.)

On a full burn, the difference is just under 8k a hit. Now that is admittedly not huge, but it's also not nothing. Other auras may situationally be better, but I'd much rather have an extra 8K a hit than mana regen (mana really isn't an issue). If Runic Aura is making a noticeable difference, then go for it, but I generally find that with the debuffs/CC/etc from an Enchanter, tanking is almost never an issue.

Personally it is very rare if I run anything other than TC Aura + MR. I can certainly envision scenarios where other auras make more sense. However, most of the time I find the Mana Regen or Runic Aura to actually have no benefit to the group, and I'd gladly take the extra damage over that.

Well sure. If your group isn't taking damage, and you're not using your mana, then take the extra DPS. Just wanted to spell out the reasons why we do things differently. The mages in my group often have issues with mana, and I like it that way. (I don't want to see one of them finishing a serious event with 80% mana...what's the point of having it, and how much DPS is being lost?) And if I'm really pushing it, so do I when I'm boxing my Druid/Enchanter/Magician. Do what works best for your situation.

A couple of things to note. I'm very close to max raid gear, I have max AAs, and max augs, so we may not be comparing apples to apples. Fair enough. Also, I generally have an enchanter and a bard in my group (with a druid healer). I've been parsing a LOT lately so I have some hard evidence to present.

On this week's Argin Hiz raid, during a burn phase where I had Black Wolf from druid, TC & MR from enchanter, and Fierce Eye & Spirit of Vesagran from bard, during the 1:45 that all three were up, MR critted for over 25k all 9 times it landed (you can deduct 22% chance to crit if you don't have a bard), which in hard math equalled 2200 DPS. (Also note that I was not running Twincast spell or AA and none of the MR crits twincasted.) So the question is, if you have four damage casters in your group, is MR worth the extra 8800 DPS during a burn (and more when twincast lands)? That would be nearly a million extra damage during the 1:45 and if extended over the duration of Black Wolf, which is near 4:00 fully maxed, even assuming there is not a bard, you should easily get another extra 1 million in damage. And then factor Twincast spell and AA into that, and it's even more.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, moogs, just trying to present facts. Respectfully, you are handicapping your group's DPS by not having MR running. The faster a mob dies, the less mana you need for both nukes and healing. YMMV but it's worth considering.

This conversation has gotten a tad out of hand, I think. All anyone was ever saying was that there could be situations where other aura combinations might be preferable. If you prefer the extra 8K/hit than mana regen, that's a valid preference, but that also doesn't make it gospel. Moreover, the discussion as far as raid went was centered around Augmenting + Twincast + wildblaze and whether that was worthwhile. (Thanks for the spell data info above, guys) Not sure anyone is expecting mana regen on a raid. I certainly don't play it on raids. In fact, when we're running Imp. Twincast on burns, I don't play Twincast Aura.

When I brought up Runic, it was neve rintended to be taken in context of raiding. I find myself soloing or grouping in small, unorthodox groups where I get beat on a fair bit. Pulling in TDS is also sometimes an adventure. Having the Runic up has proven to be nice in those situations. In a traditional group, I expect the tank to do a solid enough job that I don't have to run Runic. Otherwise, I'll run it and tank things my damn self.

Good conversation, though. Twin + MR is by far the most common combo I run as well. It's the alternate scenarios I enjoy exploring. Kinda why I play an ENC, probably.

Hey, I'm just a druid! I don't have MR to give. Next best thing, `cause it's what I've got.

I really, REALLY hope that every MR in this discussion is Mana Repercussions (or whatever the current name is), not mana regen. Replacing TC, amp, or MR auras with regen is giving up on making the most correct choice and going with a completely wrong one.

I spend most raids in a necro group, so our auras are TC, amp from the enc, and aura of life from me. My regen aura is mostly so my aura is only 99.9% useless, instead of 100% useless.

You're not really running a fair comparison there. It's not ManaRep vs nothing. It would be amp aura + frost aura vs MR + no druid aura. And the comparison has to take into account the whole group, not just one mage.

Any group with that choice is going to have a mix of damage casters, since it has to include an enc and druid. Even without any dps from the support classes, one wizard in probably pushes amp+frost over MR+null in total dps.

Well MR+TC Aura is superior to Amp+Frost+TC Aura for Enchanters, and based on the base damage of Druid nukes, my guess is the same would be true for them as well. Augmenting Aura does literally nothing for Rains/RS/Spear/Bolt/Storm for Mages, so the difference is nearly 8k damage a spell cast on a burn. If your group is Enc+Dru+Wiz+Mag+Mag+Mag, Augmenting Aura would have to be making up for 8k damage lost for every Mage spell cast, disregarding the support classes. My guess is a 4% boost to a Wizard nuke is most likely does not make up for that damage.

Edit: By full burn I mean IoG+100% crit chance. Twincast is harder to account for, since MR has a max number of hits in a given time span. However, during Twincast, Enchanters can drop TC Aura and run MR+Augmenting Aura, so that's not as much of an issue.

Hah. It is. Don't worry.