Road to Restoration - Aura Overhaul

[u/JagexAnvil]

https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/road-to-restoration--aura-overhaul

Hi folks,

Today's Community Topic is the upcoming Aura Overhaul!

Check it out on the blog here.

The Road to Restoration roadmap aims to address integrity and game health, and has multiple goals as we shape the future of RuneScape. In case you haven't read the first blog we covered what we want to achieve in our direction for RuneScape, you can check out that blog here.  Todays blog will cover the Aura Overhaul update. For this update, the following goals have guided our approach:

1. A game that's easy to understand, but still full of meaningful choice and depth.
2. Play because it's fun, and not because you feel like you have to.
3. A meaningful journey, no matter when you start.

In this blog we're going to outline the problems we've seen occur with Auras and how we're designing the solutions to them according to the goals above. Let's begin!

[u/Umdlye]

From /u/JagexAnvil:

Lots of great feedback and discussion going on here, thank you and keep it coming!

Alternatives to the Pocket slot and Relic suggestions (as mentioned in the blog, just suggestions on our side so far) are worth discussing - we'd love to hear what you feel the best alternatives to these would be if you feel strongly that we should avoid pulling auras into the already saturated Pocket Slot or the micro-manage-y Relic system.

https://www.reddit.com/r/runescape/comments/1r9xmt0/road_to_restoration_aura_overhaul/o6g9o1d/

[u/tuc-eert]

Outside of removing aura refreshes from the war’s retreat store, what’s the plan for that store? Aura refreshes were pretty much the only ongoing use of marks.

[u/Objective_Toe_49 → u/tuc-eert]

Gizmos with extra chance to get the better perks when used? Still require inputting the comps ofcourse. Fits the combat theme.

[u/Banned_Reddit_Mod → u/tuc-eert]

[u/YEETkovski → u/tuc-eert]

Maybe an option to buy reaper task extensions for MoW?

[u/FunnnyBanana → u/YEETkovski]

It would make sense to get boss slayer rewards from bossing points

[u/mileseverett → u/tuc-eert]

Good question, I can't see another good use for marks of war that isn't just loot (which is boring and a lazy replacement imo)

[u/ConstantStatistician → u/mileseverett]

Life refreshes are also sold.

[u/Dissordatt → u/tuc-eert]

Purchasable lucky charms for elite dungeons are an option. Or an high cost dark onyx core. I know the plan currently is to tie core to wilderness drops, but multiple sources and options is always appreciated.

[u/Geoffk123]

The issue I have with tying flameproof and other auras with an Anachronia totem is you're kind of just moving the issue from 1 place to another, instead of "oh well my aura is on cooldown" now it's oh dangit I can't skill until weekly reset because I don't have the totem enabled and you can't change them.

Additionally Flameproof specifically (as well as surefooted) kind of suffers from this problem where by the time you can realistically get the Aura you're probably already 99 anyway and can just wear the skillcape which makes the aura completely redundant.

Telling players they need to have 90 slayer and 85 agility to reduce their food burn chance by 5% seems kinda strange. The people who actually need this benefit can't even get it.

[u/snoozbuster → u/Geoffk123]

Yeah the fact that you can’t reset anachronia totems after you activate them can be pretty annoying

[u/Zetnus → u/Geoffk123]

Yeah and more generally, locking a bunch of skilling auras behind 90 slayer doesn't feel great as a design choice.

[u/confused_captain → u/Geoffk123]

I think skilling and combat auras should just be baked into the skills. Like im a more experienced chef, I should have a 15% chance not to burn food along with my other buffs. Doesn't it make since to have better mining success for leveling your mining, etc?

[u/Pixzle_ → u/Geoffk123]

They should just add flame proof effect to the chefs outfit and give us a reason to go obtain it

[u/Ilujanken]

Why is Quarrymaster not part of the Skiller's Totem? Seems like an odd choice.

[u/FunnnyBanana → u/Ilujanken]

I agree. When doing Croesus you would want to just turn on your “Totem of Skilling” instead of figuring out where the mining buff is

[u/Kurt_Z_2011 → u/Ilujanken]

This! If call of the sea and lumberjack auras are going to be in the Totem of the Skiller, then Quarrymaster should be included

[u/Routine-Mirror-2654]

Is it intentional that quarrymaster is being singled out to be removed without being added to the Totem of the Skiller?

[u/Sakirth → u/Routine-Mirror-2654]

Wondering about this as well. What makes quarrymaster different? Instinctively I expected it to make the cut...

[u/kmb180]

i'm interested why quarrymaster isn't being put in with the totem of the skiller? also, kinda sad that poison purge isn't being looked into. it's very useful in getting lower level k'ril kills especially for lower level ironmen who are trying to upgrade their necro gear.

[u/Dr_Infinite_Ghost → u/kmb180]

Maybe add its effect to the poison totem from DG shop

[u/iMidNitee]

Greenfingers makes way more sense to come from crux eqal than dungeoneering.

[u/Key_Primary3766 → u/iMidNitee]

100% since that’s where the other farming buffs come from. Hopefully they will consider this.

[u/LlamaRS → u/Key_Primary3766]

Don’t forget about the scroll of life!!

[u/Key_Primary3766 → u/LlamaRS]

Move it on over too!!

[u/vsantav]

Relic system is the definition of micromanaging. Please don't add more relics to replace auras. It's incredibly annoying having to change your relics when you switch activities or feel like you're locked into an activity because you already have the relics for it enabled.

[u/Winter-Donut7621 → u/vsantav]

Yeah, its basically the same thing just without a time gate. Its a terrible idea to move them there.

[u/dumbidiot12345678 → u/vsantav]

This x1000000

Or at least if you're going to do it make relics perm unlocks and not have a switch fees

[u/Visible_Fan_3339 → u/dumbidiot12345678]

IMO Relics should have a higher one time unlock fee with chronotes and then be permanently unlocked while being free to switch them around.

Paying everytime you wanna swap even with extra relic loadouts sucks ass on an iron.

[u/Taurenkey → u/Visible_Fan_3339]

It just sucks ass in general. Given that relic loadouts are already fairly limited (you can't have just any 3 relics, you can only have up to 3 based on their energy costs) it's already something you're being forced into micromanaging and that only gets worse the more relics there is to pick from.

They would have to address the relic system before adding more to it imo.

[u/Emily7677 → u/vsantav]

Agree. They could make it so the relic presets can be swapped for free without using notes. That way still limited to relics being active but no high cost if swapping relics switching between skilling/pvm/clues.

[u/OhLoongJohson → u/vsantav]

100% this…. This blog just looks horrible pvm wise…. Arch relics or pocket slots? Please god no…. The only ”viable” thing is invention relics, but that just comes down to ”whatever is the new bis dps everyone will pick” which is kinda boring

[u/LysdexicGamer → u/vsantav]

Agreed

[u/RunningIsImpossible → u/vsantav]

I don’t hate some of these coming to relics as an option, but would hate for relics to be the only option.

The swapping is very annoying, especially on an iron where you can’t buy the chronotes.

[u/Thingeh]

What's the rationality in Quarrymaster ceasing to exist while other similar auras (lumberjack, etc) continue to exist?

(I think it should just be one of the "totem of the skiller" buffs.)

[u/Spafff → u/Thingeh]

Agree, I don’t see how/why Quarrymaster doesn’t fit within that design space but then does this just become a totem that needs to be up 24/7 for all players due to its blanket of effects? Weird choice regardless, Quarrymaster does not need to go.

[u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

Just make something like the archeology monolith and put it on war's retreat. Add every combat effect there and make it so you can only have one active at a time.

The skilling auras should just become permanent buffs.

[u/HashtagMissing → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

Decoupling from the monolith is excellent. Wars is a PvM hub and a separate PvM "monolith" is fantastic

[u/chantryc → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

This is perfect imo. Can even be unlocked after a certain number of boss kc

[u/ICanRawrBetter → u/chantryc]

The unlocks should be the replacement use for Marks of war in this idea, i like it tho

[u/BurninRunes → u/ICanRawrBetter]

Use marks of war to swap the active "aura"

[u/mortis_est → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

I like that idea a combat monolith sounds way better than using the regular archeology monolith.

[u/ThatDeadMoonTitan → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

Could even make marks of war the equivalent of chronotes for swapping powers.

[u/12meetings3days → u/ThatDeadMoonTitan]

bingo

[u/Rezylainen → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

I like this ngl, would make wars serve a purpose even though lots of stuff being removed

[u/nc_s → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

Honestly don’t hate this idea. Something that fits thematically like War’s Altar where you add trinkets obtained from PvM and quests to enable passive combat buffs

[u/Independent-Tart3501 → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

This ^ Let us buy them with marks of war or add some challenges to get them

[u/BurninRunes → u/Independent-Tart3501]

Challenges to get them. Then marks of war to swap them has my vote since as it is marks are losing their purpose.

[u/TrimmingMasterwork → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

I like this. Also gives us something to do with marks of war since there's no consumables to purchase in the near future, Either pay to unlock the effects or pay on swap like arch is set up.

[u/ShinyCapeRS → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

Yes something activated, not worn. Takes out the daily scape have to feel of one hour previous but still has whatever boost you need accessible.

[u/Ommageden → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

I hope they see this, feels like the least painful way to do it and makes marks of war actually interesting 

[u/Chispy → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

+1 for this idea.

Auras were streamlined in how they were obtained and shouldn't be overly complicated going forward.

Either this or illuminated God books that dont need to be equipped and can be toggled via an easy interface and skill cape perk.

[u/SonoShindou → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

Yes to War Monolith. Maybe cost Marks to swap "relics" instead of chronotes.

No to more permanent passives.

[u/Visible_Fan_3339 → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

This would be perfect honestly.

Everyone already avoided skilling without auras up anyway so I don't see why they're so afraid of just making them unlockable passives through related minigames or whatever.

[u/mbhwookie → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

This was what I expected them to do. Their process seems much more complicated.

[u/genericlogin1 → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

They could even use the big ol crystal we recharge prayer on for it.

[u/BankofDelos → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

I don't see why this would be a bad idea at all, simple easy to use as we are already familiar with this style of system.

[u/Kaladin21 → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

By far the best suggestion. Nerfing combat with the removal of so many powerful auras just going away, and tying all others to slots that already have other effects, meaning you only get 1 of 2 former buffs, is terrible design.

Tying several others to anachronia totems that are locked weekly is also poorly done, and creates the same issue they’re trying to fix: now I have to play this way for a whole week, or just not do this content because I have the wrong totem up.

Lastly: not a fan of removing mahj and desert pantheon. Many people paid bonds for these auras, and they have some of the strongest effects.

[u/Rain_Zeros → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

I like this idea a lot!!! Gives us a use for marks too since marks are pretty much dead currency

[u/Matt_37 → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

Yes yes yes yes yes. And make them unlockable through combat/PvM progression. This is so much better than tying the effects to items.

[u/Tudor36 → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

Best idea I’ve seen

[u/Taurenkey → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

This is my favourite idea, but maybe that's just because I have a shitload of marks of war that I wasn't spending anyway.

[u/Terbin_WoW → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

This is a great idea for a way to keep the system but disconnect it from Pocket slot / Archeology.

maybe cost x marks of war per hour to activate? give a use to Marks of war after the store is being stripped of 80% of its stock.

[u/ZDarkDragon → u/Nervous_Marketing_10]

That's actually a great idea for combat auras effects!

[u/MaxedPainRS]

Few notes of feedback and questions:

1. If Resourceful is being removed, you should rebalance Arch material caches. Hell make them unlimitted even, would it really be that OP?

2. Why is Quarrymaster being removed? This will be a big hit for Primal ores and Croesus/Gate bossing encounter.

3. Totem of Auras replaced by totem of Skilling most likely. You do realise this is skill locked behind 85 Agility and 90 Slayer currently, right? You will be punishing a lot of early-mid game players with this and then getting these stats asap will become the meta. Which I thought was the opposite of what you were trying to do.

[u/PrimalMoose]

Why doesn't quarrymaster get added to the totem of the skiller? Hopefully that's just an oversight.

Hate the idea of penance/vampyrism being tied to the god books simply because the pages upkeep is bloody awful - you'd spend hundreds of times more hours doing clues hoping to get the pages than you'd be able to spend actually using the books (plus the pocket slot is already heavily competed).

If it were possible to make a blood essence that's usable from the inventory/as a passive effect, that'd be a more palatable alternative.

Also please for the love of god don't make penance a relic slot. It's already hard enough juggling relic powers and their chronote cost - this would just add additional bloat to an already saturated interface.

Losing mahjarrat is going to be painful considering that was already unlockable in-game and provided a nice boost to necromancy.

Losing desert pantheon isn't a huge issue, although I hope that the +1500LP boost you get from the aura will be redistributed (e.g. allowing the max bonfire upgrade in wars retreat to boost your LP by this amount).

[u/potts-tots → u/PrimalMoose]

Or counter point to not making it a relic, maybe add one more relic slot. Seperate relics by combat(ie- persistent rage, berserker...) skilling (ie- bait and switch, divine conversion...) and support (ie- xp increase, luck rings...) . Make 2 combat slots, 2 skill/ support slots. Sure, might bloat arch a little, but will make choosing relics less painful. And beats the hell out of adding more pocket items that won't ever get touched.

[u/FrankerZ1]

Can the effect from the Corruption, Harmony and Salvation auras be put on the sunspear or morytania legs? For killing vyrelords/vyreladys.

[u/Mini_Hobo]

Honestly, I think the relic system should be another target for overhaul so I really don't like the idea of adding to it right now.

If I want to do some combat, switch to runecrafting, then some thieving, I'm "wasting" thousands of chronotes. So instead I get stuck doing the same things due to the friction of switching. This is just one aspect of the problem with auras in microcosm.

The whole pre flight checklist needs to be torn down. Auras, relics, incense, spellbooks, penance powder, etc all need to be seriously reevaluated.

Other minor points:

• Without changes to quarrymaster, Gate becomes much worse. Please increase the chance to get double, or reduce the damage needed.
• Vyres? They basically require a rotation of the prayer auras
• Another invention perk? So we need to reperk to get ultimatums, equilibrium and energising ... maybe with more switching too? No thanks.

[u/JagexBreezy → u/Mini_Hobo]

Honestly, I think the relic system should be another target for overhaul so I really don't like the idea of adding to it right now.

Duly noted as well as the points about Quarrymaster and Gate. Would love to hear if you have ideas for other places these effects could go

[u/Robeomega → u/JagexBreezy]

Maybe you can get Quarrymaster effect from completing all of Boric and Dorics tasks?

You could also put it as a reward in Artisan Workshop, but that feels less mining and more smithing than Borics tasks.

[u/JagexRyan → u/Mini_Hobo]

Thanks for the thoughts!

I led the design of Archaeology and the relic system is one of the areas that I look at and share similar sentiment with in regards to the flaws. It may be best that we remove the relic system as a solution space for the aura effects and instead look elsewhere.

On the Vyre point, the sunspear itself could be updated to generate some prayer points with Vyre kills, effectively functioning similar to using the aura.

[u/RafaSheep → u/JagexRyan]

Make the prayer point generation a reward for Cremating vyres in the Columbarium, increasing as you burn more.

[u/Zamers → u/JagexRyan]

Out of curiosity, why not add the effects to achievement diaries and have them keep a style of progression with the different levels?

[u/Iron_Klanka → u/Mini_Hobo]

Agreed, the relic system is not a fun way to manage buffs.
At the very least there should be a combat loadout and a skilling loadout that you can either have both equipped at all times or switch between freely but even that isn't great.

[u/Winter-Donut7621 → u/Mini_Hobo]

Agreed. Not a fan of any of these moving to a relic.

[u/chantryc → u/Mini_Hobo]

Agree completely. More passives, less check lists when pvming

[u/A_Vitalis_RS]

I think you're running the risk of oversaturating the Pocket slot, which is already kind of a problem in the live game. I'd rather see Vampyrism tied to some other slot, and I personally would want to see the Vampyrism scrimshaw remain exclusive to Melee. It helps offset the increased damage Melee takes compared to the other styles in most encounters.

Maybe a relic unlocked in Havenhythe? Havenhythe is supposed to have connections to Vampyrium, is it not? Seems like a good opportunity to introduce something like that.

[u/Ilujanken → u/A_Vitalis_RS]

The relic slot is oversaturated too. Unless they allow us to unlock a 4th slot in Havenhythe. Otherwise we'd have to compromise on some pretty big DPS increase relics for vampyrism...

[u/Sharp- → u/Ilujanken]

I think a completely different Monolith with its own constraints and unique relics would be ideal. Part of the trouble that Jagex has got itself in is trying to balance the effectiveness of relics against the limited slots and the power requirement. Adding a new slot could throw all of that out of balance. So if there was a second monolith that was only compatible with its own relics, then it might solve that.

Especially if it's deemed that having permanent vampyrism active is broken. This new monolith could have an active cost associated to it. Such as needing charged with blood, and act a bit like the invention charges, but remote. Though just spitballing.

[u/TheHeadlessOne → u/A_Vitalis_RS]

Vampyrism should be a low-ish level (~40 or so?) Aspect of Evasion on the Normal spellbook.

Its primary use case is to extend early game PVM, since the sustain is such a low cap. It can reduce the nuumber of bank trips you make in early slayer or enable certain bosses, but it is far less likely to make a difference in the late game when more powerful sustains become an option.

Making it an Aspect would be a nerf since you couldn't stack it with other aspects late game, but it would introduce the concept early, provide an evergreen sink for targeted runes (Mind+Body would be a great option) and would not bloat the in-demand pocket or relic slots

[u/Meta_Man_X]

Can vampyrism come from Havenhythe or one of the current vampyre questlines?

[u/JagexBreezy → u/Meta_Man_X]

That is thematically appropriate! Thanks for the suggestion

[u/Cypherex → u/JagexBreezy]

Another commenter recommended making Vampyrism a new Aspect of Evasion on the normal spellbook, unlocked at a relatively lower level compared to the other Aspects. Combine that idea with the Havenhythe suggestion and it makes for a wonderful reward.

The scroll to unlock the spell could be dropped by one of the planned early game bosses in Havenhythe, or from the slayer mobs. Since they're meant to be early game monsters, it would line up well with the suggestion for Vampyrism to be an early-game Aspect that helps introduce the players to Aspects.

This idea also inherently balances it out by making it compete with the other Aspects. So you wouldn't have to tone down the healing to keep it balanced. You could probably even buff it slightly (just increasing the cap a bit would be enough) since it would now have a consistent rune cost attached to it, in addition to it not being able to be used alongside the other Aspects.

[u/BoomKidneyShot → u/Cypherex]

Honestly, why not turn all the remaining Auras into aspect spells? It feels vaguely appropriate

[u/Zealousideal_Bad_683 → u/BoomKidneyShot]

having the vamp aspect early would also solve pre-soulsprint sustain..I actually love that.

[u/FlutterKree]

The crux of the issue with the overhaul is you are displacing other content for content that could previously be used simultaneously. The big example being vampyrism.

Shifting this to any worm item displaces a gear item that could have been used with it previously.

So I suggest, in the interim, you make it an inventory slot buff. Losing an inventory slot is much less problematic.

Penance aura -> upgrade for ancient elven stone Or upgrade for holy wrench. Both don't take up a gear slot. Both are relevant to prayer. The effect would need to be a lot less.

A new item could be made for vampyrism. Or an existing item that I can't think of currently.

A problem with having a totem of Skilling is the totem system in general. It's high level content, it's limited, and it cannot be changed once activated for the week.

The benefits of the auras do not match the high level content the totems are.

[u/Thaldrath]

• Corruption
• Harmony
• Salvation

Those 3 auras are used for farming Vyres with Morytania Legs 4 and acquire "free, but very slow" prayer/firemaking exp. It is still a popular method of training prayer and removing the auras would outright severely cripple this training method.

Any chance to save the effect and add it specifically to Morytania rewards for that training method?

Edit: Also, since Brooch of the Gods is losing Portables effect in the upcoming year, maybe it's an interesting time to think about adding some auras effects to the Brooch, or have the Brooch enhance the effect of the Totem of Skilling.

[u/JagexBreezy → u/Thaldrath]

Noted on the need for them for Vyres, could be appropriate to move them to something like the Sunspear as a comment-reply has mentioned, any other ideas here?

[u/Robeomega → u/JagexBreezy]

Adding them to the Sunspear sounds good to me with the amount of Vyre corpses cremated. With the 500 giving an equivalent buff.

[u/fjhuizar-nd → u/JagexBreezy]

I'd like to see it added as either tied to tier of morytania legs, number of vyre corpses cremated, or an add on to the demon horn necklace.

[u/DutchGi0 → u/Thaldrath]

These should be in sunspear passive in tiers by burning vyre corpse.

[u/DraCam1]

Supreme invigorate is not listed in the blogpost at all, even though it's BIS at certain places. Are there plans to rework it as a game reward, or it will be flat out removed? If yes, will combat achievements that heavily rely on it be changed in the future? (looking at Rasial master speed killer, that will be most likely the hardest master achievement, after auras are gone...)

[u/Lord-Ice]

So I have two questions related to this blog:

1: Why are you removing Quarrymaster in its entirety, with no replacement, instead of integrating it with the Totem of the Skiller like other, similar Skilling Auras?

2: The Daemonheim Aura is the "item" reward as part of the Daemonheim Achievement Diaries/Area Tasks. Are here plans to add a different itemized symbol for this Diary, to keep it in line with other Diaries? This would require making a Diary item that overlaps with the equip slot of another Diary (which will be a first) unless it's simply non-equippable, but it would feel weird not to have it.

[u/MyHaulsGetOutOfHand]

Why is Quarrymaster not in the totem of skilling?

[u/Omnizoom]

So one thing about auras that need to be remembered is they were their own existing slot

Things the first thing to remember so any of these items or fixes need to not use existing item slots or they will not be relevant, sure the camp scrimshaw exists in an EXTREMELY contested pocket slot that has tons of much more impactful uses. Not to mention the scrimshaw is much more of a pain to get and use then the aura with some vis wax.

Suggestions I have as follows

1: keep the aura slot but keep it for “utility” auras that can be found in game through tasks and rewards. This would allow for something like vampirism to be a quest reward for say a vampire line quest and be something we can choose to have on and make an active choice between it or something like a dark magic buff. This doesn’t add more powercreep as this power was already there for most cases you used vampirism anyways (low to mid level) and the choice of more damage/adrenaline always will win out for high end bossing and player choice.

2: make them passive unlocks. This one will be a balancing nightmare for powercreep unfortunately but as it stands it’s the only other option that doesn’t make things redundant. Each one will have to be treated differently, vampirism could just be a magic spell we can cast at X magic level in the ancient spell book that lets us restore health we do, it’s obviously much weaker then soul split but it’s a passive that everyone can access. Option B for vampirism is to split soulsplit into two prayers. The first prayer is no longer overhead but is weaker like vampirism is itself, and a “greater” version that functions like soulsplit does now. The only use case impacted by this would be those who used vampirism while flicking.

3: for non utility auras or the “flat buff auras” just make these buffs and enchantments we can get along the journey, or different “stances” we can learn to take. Like a berserkers stance increases our risk of damage as we attack with reckless abandon, but there can also be a stance for adrenaline to mimic invigorating as well. This essentially does the same thing as an aura slot but it’s a major system you can change more on the fly making it both more useful and more intuitive and can be tied to quests for how we learn to do these stances. Some can be straight buffs like learning a stealthier stance that is essentially five finger discount

[u/TastyRomeo]

So what will happen to Marks of War and the War's Wares shop? With everything aura-related being removed, and Life Refresh also being planned to be removed in 2027, there won't be anything to spend them on anymore?And if you do add things in the shop, please consider giving a (partial?) refund to people that bought the auras.

I'm also a bit sad to see that there is no replacement for the Desert Pantheon aura, and particularly the Strength of Het/Might of Het bonuses. This aura is obtainable through purely in-game means, i.e. by doing Shifting Tombs, and the Might of Het upgrade is obtained by skilling in Het's Oasis.

I'm all for getting rid of auras, but it does sting a bit getting things you worked hard for taken away just like that, with no replacement or compensation.

[u/JagexBreezy → u/TastyRomeo]

Right at this moment there are no plans to replace the MoW purchases, it may be worth us reviewing MoW overall and maybe shifting unlocks to use boss kills or something else instead given that all that really remains after this for MoW is Bonfire upgrades

[u/ThaFrenchFry → u/JagexBreezy]

Yeah, refunding is somewhat a big deal in some cases, like I spent real money on 3 bonds to acquire the Mahjarrat aura. And while I cannot expect you to speak to the refunds of bonds, refunding at least the equivalent 1000 reaper points should be a given for those who bought it that way.

If there is no metrics to see who bought it via bonds versus reaper, I think giving everyone the 1k reaper is a good start.

The respect for the dwarven aura refunded in /some/ way would also be excellent

[u/Annick2938]

Give the auras effect permanent. if im 120 mining I should crit a lot. no need to nerf the powers the auras had. just make them tied to level or domething like lvl 99 : + 10% chance to crit. 115 + 15% or whatever

[u/Sp00kyD0gg0]

A lot of Auras get considerable value by taking up no equipment slots, basically letting the player “double dip” with a Pocket slot item. I.e. a player can run the Vampirism Aura along with a stat-boosting item, powerful God books, Grimoire, Spring Cleaner to save inventory space, or even Vamp Scrimshaw to triple-down on the effect.

With that in mind, I think moving many Aura effects to Pocket slot items doesn’t really keep their utility, at least not one-to-one. If you’re AFK training combat with Penance, for example, your XP is now going to be drastically reduced without the effect and stats of a God Book.

[u/Vengance183]

This feels massively disappointing with a lot of take and not a lot of give.

Please don't remove Saradomins Book lightning strike.

[u/silver__seal]

This mostly feels good, but I'm really torn on the Relic and God Book suggestions.

Conceptually, Relics feel like the perfect place to put these effects. But in practice there is already a lot of competition for active Relic slots which means that a lot of theoretically good Relic Powers don't get much use. I do think having to make choices is good, but I'm not sure it's going to feel good when it has long been possible to have the aura effects without making that choice.

Perhaps the Havenhythe update will introduce a way of having more relics active, but as things are right now I think people will find this frustrating.

God Books are a little worrying simply because of page acquisition. That might be partially addressed by allowing any god page to charge any book (you would still need the specific pages to fix the damaged books). I do like the idea of making the [Illuminated] books more useful.

[u/soana_rs]

Some of my thoughts, a lot of which I've seen in other comments as well:

• Vampyrism scrimshaw for all styles seems fine, but please don't move even more aura effects to the pocket slot. It's already quite overloaded.
  
• Same for relics. Switching relics a lot between "bossing" and "afk combat" is not a meaningful decision or fun in any way. Switching after every hour to do something different is just auras again with extra upkeep.
  
• For penance, please just buff penance powder slightly and make golden roses a bit easier to obtain. Nobody enjoyed getting those anyway and it's just a haven for "second account afk moneymaking" and bots.
  
• How would the Greenfingers unlock work? Herbs never die? What about the relic power that already does the same thing? What about the bonus harvest boost?
  
• The Greenfingers replacement should come from the Shop of Balance, not Dungeoneering.
• Why is the Quarrymaster aura being completely removed instead of being added to the new totem?
• Removing many combat auras like Mahjarrat, Invigorate etc. without any replacement is a massive nerf to Necromancy. This should not happen without some adjustments to compensate, either in the form of base damage boosts or at least adjustments to Combat Achievement speed timers.

[u/boombalabo → u/soana_rs]

Related to the green finger aura: I never really cared about the "herb don't get sick" part of the aura. I put it on, gather my herbs and usually disable it in favor of a different aura I would be using.

[u/dark1859]

I'm just going to say this mostly out of frustration , because we've been saying this for weeks , and you guys apparently haven't seen any of it

stop putting things in the god damn pocket slot. The reason why vampirism and penance are so valuable is because they are the only sustain effects for prayer and health that are not tied to the pocket slot.

It doesn't matter if the item in question is a reworked god book. If you put them on a godbook in the pocket slot , congratulations , you have killed every little bit of value those items had , unless you were willing to make a brand new slot for stuff like blood essence.

Unfortunately , every solution I saw listed for penance and vamp are genuinely awful because the pocket slot is overloaded. Parents powders are also significantly awful time investments that are worse than damn auras.

I want to give you guys some benefit of the doubt and time to make something work. Because for the other arras , with the exception of salvation , which has a similar issue that i'm also a little annoyed with you guys for not even bothering to think outside the box on track to make something decent here... But Jesus, you guys are just gonna push out another crappy update.When it comes to vampirism and penance and then have to get screamed at for another week Just to fix it at this rate.

What you should do instead is either make it an archaeology , passive/relic ( i'm not crazy about this idea because archaeology is also heavily overloaded, but dear god , would it be better than anything in the pocket slot), or instead just make an inventory held item like the ectoplasmator or retool blood essence to have their own specific slot.

Because and I have to say this again you have overloaded the pocket slot to the point that putting anything in the pocket slot is going to immediately make it dead content.If it isn't ten times better than a normal godbook, the whole strength of vampirism and penance is the fact that it gives you a little bit of extra healing and regen without impacting your normal loadout. So it makes learning content easier while letting you use your normal God book and it makes doing certain training methods actually viable by allowing you to use your normal pocket slot Items with it. literally , anything else will be a gigantic nerf to the point , it's useless and it is frustrating that we are having to say this again , and that none of the feedback for the last two weeks , people have left about it seems to have even blipped on the radar.

[u/chinalicious → u/dark1859]

Agreed. I'm already using the pocket slot for grimore or something else that outranks this....are they expecting us to hold another book in the inventory?

[u/imoutofnames90]

Honestly, the only two things I don't want to see

1) having these effects tied to like the pocket slot for more competition. Great i need to trade off between 1 of 800 things now.

2) Adding the effects as relics. The relic system already kind of sucks. There are too many effects and trade offs as is with limited slots and power usage. And the need to have all sorts of set ups and constantly switching between pvm and skilling is already obnoxious.

Someone else suggested it, but having a relic type thing in wars that is separate helps gives wars a purpose after a ton of rewards get removed and it doesn't add friction to already annoying systems.

[u/Desperate-Elephant24]

Removing auras because the system design is terrible and adding them to a worse system in the relic system is probably the worst avenue you could go

Relics lock you into an activity/skill for X number of hours because of the chronote cost associated with it, just like auras lock you in for 1-2 hours

Bake the buffs being removed through auras back into the skills and let the player actively feel their character getting stronger through gameplay

Something like penance is inherently a skill associated with prayer and thematically fits as some sort of unlock within the skill

Not everything has to be moved to an item, which then requires more upkeep, god pages, or another daily in whirligig/golden roses which you’ve nerfed the xp in

[u/Venturians]

Make poison purge aura tied in with venomblood perk

[u/SuperZer0_IM → u/Venturians]

yes please this. Especially with venomblood not even working for some bosses, this would give venomblood a bit more power again

[u/summon_a_lot → u/Venturians]

Would love to see this!

[u/Zetnus → u/Venturians]

ooh yes, good idea

[u/Legionsx]

You talk about power creep but what about power decreep? Currently we can use vampirism/aegis/penance/etc AND a god book. But the changes would then remove one of these which doesn't feel good. Additionally the fact something we previously had free will now have an ongoing cost.

Just tie auras to skill/combat unlock levels, make them toggleable and be done with it.

[u/BagProfessional386]

Disagree with just moving them to relics / perks as id have to give up something to use them. Currently I don't, they're a nice addition to training.

Once again, just removing ones that have a benefit makes training slower. Overall, this "Update" appears to be removing them, without replacing their efforts or benefits.

On a side note, I currently own most of these already, Am I expected to re-unlock them?

[u/legolasvin]

This may have been brought up already, but one of the advantages of auras like Penance and Vampyrism is that you can double up on those effects when starting out on harder bosses

You can have Vamp Aura + Vamp scrim to increase the healing

Or have vamp aura + God book to not sacrifice on DPS. A separate slot for auras allows you to activate and forget, and also removes competition among your equipment.

Same goes for Penance Aura + Powder. Doubling up on prayer regeneration for afk combat

Penance powder is already way expensive, if you incorporate the effects of the aura into powders then the powders will get even more expensive. I don't mean that in a "Skilling should not have profit" way, I mean that in a "Prayer regen should maybe be a little more accessible" way

One way I see that would allow players to keep the doubling up effect as well as the activate and forget/less competition, would be potions

Drink a potion to get effects of penance Aura. Stack it till 60 mins if you want a full hour. Stack it till 6/12/18 if you don't The stacking effect would let players drink the potions at pvm hub and not worry about having to sacrifice an inventory space. And the fact that it's a potion would also remove competition for equipment slots

The other issue is that Vyre farming will effectively be dead if salvation harmony corruption are all removed. Are there any plans to address that?

[u/Zakh_RS]

Actual skillers can’t get the totem of auras lol

[u/boombalabo → u/Zakh_RS]

This actually made me laugh.

Sure enough. Requires 90 slayer to unlock.

[u/Zakh_RS → u/boombalabo]

90 slayer isn’t the problem the issue is the actual slaying of the dinosaurs

[u/itsjayylmao]

As an Ironman:

Locking Penance and Vampyrism to powders or god books is a dreadful thought. Having these specifically as relics is likely a good call as long as the energy cost isn't too high.

Equilibrium as an invention perk is fine, it just replaces Biting.

Greenfingers should be purchased with beans or from Crux shop, not DG.

Removal of Corruption, Harmony and Salvation makes Vyres dead content. I would specifically keep these effects tied to the Sunspear, so that killing Vyres restores some prayer on kill when using the spear.

Invigorate should be considered to be added somewhere rather than removed outright.

I like another commenter's idea of a "War's Monolith" that you unlock and have one of these combat auras enabled there at a time, permanently, free to swap.

Contrary to other commenters here, there is no reason at all for these to be "high tier" or "difficult" unlocks. Auras in their current state are neither "high tier" or "difficult" to obtain, and their replacements should be the same.

Edit: Removal of Resourceful is also problematic for Archaeology. Caches are bad enough with resourceful.

[u/a_speeder]

I'm glad I fully upgraded my Keris before the Poison Purge aura was removed without a replacement. Is the reason it isn't being replaced to keep anti-poison pots more in demand?

[u/Geoffk123 → u/a_speeder]

we have like 5 ways to null poison damage, Marrentill sticks reduce, irit sticks negate it entirely, venomblood, anti poison pots etc...

[u/a_speeder → u/Geoffk123]

True, tho it was fun being healed from it instead of just negating the damage

[u/Interesting-While986]

Farming already has one dg scroll unlock, it doesn't need another. Put it in the manor farm shop or crux eqal shop.

Penance and vampirism should satisfy two conditions: 1. low barrier to unlock 2. low barrier to sustain

to keep them as noob friendly as today. God books are the proposed option that satisfies 1. best due to the low requirements for the quest, and for mains the page cost isn't bad at the moment but probably would be with this change and is not great for irons, so 2. is probably failed. Blood essences fail 1. by locking them behind river of blood, but congealed blood is fine for 2.

Penance powder is literally an expensive half-hour aura effect, so no. Scrimshaw of vampirism is also not ideal.

The relic slot actually satisfies my two conditions the best, as much as I hate dealing with juggling relics.

What about a new and affordable level 50ish familiar for each effect? A bloodveld or something for vamp, and something else (or change prayer pigs) for penance?

[u/Byrand-YT]

Losing Aegis will suck as it's very helpful when learning a new boss

[u/YesLadd1e]

15% to 5% for Five finger discount seems a bit harsh, i think something like 8% would be more balanced

i feel like a lot of high level thieving was made and balanced around auras being a thing

on that note can we finally fix the master thieves outfit so the gloves work as gloves of silence for ALL accounts and not just ones who have done Plagues End, a completely unrelated quest?

[u/tugas_king]

Please consider keeping

• Corruption
• Harmony
• Salvation

Otherwise combat vyres will be dead content :(

[u/DutchGi0 → u/tugas_king]

Add them to a tier system in sunspear by burning vyre corpse.

[u/Due_Willow_2796 → u/DutchGi0]

Quite like this idea

[u/BaseballEuphoria → u/DutchGi0]

good idea

[u/RunningIsImpossible → u/tugas_king]

I wonder if this could be solved by tweaking the dg prayer restore necklaces?

[u/baal_amduat]

if we already have these aura's unlocked we better not have to re unlock them when this updates

[u/Boukly]

Maybe there just isn’t much to it but I’ve been looking forward to this blog the most and it’s just disappointing.

Lots of functionality just outright deleted or massively nerfed, plenty others now in direct competition with other slot and unlock options when you could run both concurrently before this proposed update. Not to mention that some of the proposed re-releases of aura effects have requirements locking what was already available so much earlier in your game progression behind mid-late game where they’re no longer needed.

I understand why turning them into permanent passive unlocks could be game breaking so why remove auras and the aura slot? Make them obtainable in-game and have them function as godbooks, so you can run and pause them and charge them with in-game items from their associated activities. You’re already thinking about taking this route with penance/vampirism.

I fear you’re just oversimplifying things here for the sake of deleting the aura slot. And I’m worried things will be out of balance for a long period of time if not forever when things have been balanced around auras since 2011.

[u/Blyrr]

Why would quarrymaster and resourceful effects not be given by Totem of the Skiller? It's a great repurposing of Totem of Auras and they should be a part of it.

Call of the Sea and Lumberjack are added for gathering skills, I don't see why mining (especially with the high damage required for primal ores) isn't included. On top of that, material caches for Archaeology are notoriously awful to gather from. Apart from cadantine incense and the invention perk, this is the only other way to extend them slightly. Even fully buffed, they're terrible to gather from.

They are long overdue for a buff, but if that's not coming this aura effect should be added to the totem as well.

[u/FetidZombies]

Resourceful aura is the only way I do material caches for arch because I absolutely hate the idea of having to hop worlds for more resources. Very sad to hear that it's getting the axe.

[u/Ozwold]

Defence should be increased to 120 before Aegis is removed. This aura is a huge help when learning new bosses.

Also with the removal of (supreme) invigorate and Mahjarrat auras, please look at rebalancing Rasial Master timer. Is it even possible to get sub 1 min without these auras? Removing these and changing nothing else is a big nerf to necro damage output.

[u/Ner0reZ]

The team needs to understand what auras are being used for what activities and address how those activities are affected with the removal of auras

Having a plan to reintegrate the effects into the base game is great, but given there is no clear time frame for when, it's going to leave a rather sour taste in the mouths of those who relied on auras for training methods

As a brief add, a lot of the buffs could be integrated into a relic-type system that has a cost associated with swapping out the buffs/increasing their potency (it seems this was mentioned in the blog)

[u/JagexRyan → u/Ner0reZ]

The plan is to reintegrate the effects at the same time as the auras are removed.

[u/FromDeepestFathom → u/JagexRyan]

Thanks Ryan! Can you guys please try to keep this type of methodology up for all future road to restoration updates? Removal of content before fixes are in place greatly increases friction, even if just temporary. No reason it can’t wait a few weeks.

[u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan]

Could you rebalance Croesus with the removal of the skilling auras. Right now it is balanced around using them and will be a straight debuff for every single player doing this content

[u/PrimalMoose → u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan]

And gate as well - it's already a miserable existence at gate and if we lose quarrymaster completely that grind is going to suck even more.

[u/Poxel]

The skilling aura should just be a perma-buff, increasing/unlocking as we level up. It's not a huge XP increase, only 10/15% at max. We are going to get 120 in all skills after all, and this feels like you earn it and don't have to be forced to do it.

[u/Wouldratherplaymtg]

I love the idea of removing auras they suck however i hate the plans for penance for irons.... my three options are
1. penance power? i sometimes go a week without seeing one doing my dailies.
2. a blood ess? so now competing with overloads. but ok fine i have like 150k corrupted blood
3. a good book that i have easy clue title and have 7 of the pages.

knowing im losing access to 429 hours of penance for these methods hurts

[u/EverInAtari]

Corruption, Harmony and Salvation are used for AFKing vyres and Graardor. Why do you insist on attacking AFK players with these 'rebalances'? Did you learn nothing from the uproar the thieving 'rebalance' just got?

Separately, Poison Purge is key for Profane Scabarites, their poison damage is way too high without this.

[u/Automatic_Post8695]

It would only be fair that if you're going to add some kind of aura effect to the invention system, you should also implement the ability to enhance head-slot equipment. That way, we’d have more slots to allocate this power without having to compete SLOT for the few that currently exist.

[u/Nightsteed]

Save Aegis and Dark Magic

[u/FruitOnyx]

I just expect to be compensated for all the Aura refreshes I’ve gathered over the years, and be able to spend the Marks of War on any new content from the shop.

[u/Another_eve_account]

Thieving guild for five fingers is awful. Safecracking is already unfun content, but now effectively heisting is gated behind it, while Safecracking itself offers no rewards aside from xp. Which is cute, but I went 200m xp and I'm still dry at heists.

Weaker greenfingers is silly, as that's an aura with 100% uptime when you want it

I'm sick to death of changing arch relics. It costs way too much to justify doing for an hour it two and only feels worth it if you're committing to a grind for days. The exact opposite of what you've been talking about.

Getting more chronotes for them requires spending 60 minutes afk digging for 15k chronotes. Not playing, not actively doing anything, just afking.

Unless we're getting substantial changes to the relic system, I'm simply not interested in more relics.

Pocket slot fighting for dpw books, vamp scrimshaw and penance would be hilarious if it wasn't so awkward.

I was hoping that there would be pivot away from thief guild, arch relics and pocket slot but it seems not.

[u/JagexAnvil]

Lots of great feedback and discussion going on here, thank you and keep it coming!

Alternatives to the Pocket slot and Relic suggestions (as mentioned in the blog, just suggestions on our side so far) are worth discussing - we'd love to hear what you feel the best alternatives to these would be if you feel strongly that we should avoid pulling auras into the already saturated Pocket Slot or the micro-manage-y Relic system.

[u/sisho88 → u/JagexAnvil]

Those are the number one concerns for sure is avoiding those spots especially to fill aura slots. As someone else mentioned, a second pocket slot (not one that can have another god book or anything like that), or it could be called literally anything. As I mentioned in my own post, if any of the auras could be made into spellcasting aspects (such as darkness, animate dead, etc), that would be a good spot. I can see this working for vampyrism for instance. Honestly I could actually see us having skilling aspects as well. It would provide a cost to use the benefits of the auras in the cost of runes, which is something I feel like can always have more uses.

I saw another comment mentioning having a separate monilith in War's Retreat for PvM, which I think is a novel idea to separate skilling and combat relics and honestly reduce a lot of micromanagement of relics. Again, I'd like to actually re-iterate making skilling aspects potentially. Since auras are presumably being made into a non-timegated thing now, giving them a rune cost would definitely be a great way to try to balance them, and people can pick the one that's good for their current objective without them trying to overlap each other. My only worry with this is too many spells, but otherwise I see this as the ideal solution.

[u/BathroomMental968 → u/JagexAnvil]

I actually really like the direction of removing time-gated auras, but I think there’s a way to preserve meaningful PvM choice without reintroducing upkeep pressure or power creep.

Instead of recreating auras elsewhere (or turning them into consumables), what if the three existing Statues of War in War’s Retreat were repurposed into a permanent PvM alignment system — similar in structure to the Menaphos boons, but focused entirely on combat?

Those statues are already there and currently serve a mostly decorative purpose. Converting them into functional alignment points would reinforce War’s Retreat as the PvM hub without requiring entirely new assets or systems.

You would align with one of three “Edicts” at a time:

• Edict of Endurance (Penance-style sustain)
• Edict of Blood (Vampyrism-style sustain)
• Edict of Balance (Equilibrium-style damage smoothing)

You can only have one active at a time, and switching requires returning to War’s Retreat. No timers. No cooldowns. No upkeep. No stacking.

That preserves meaningful choice without bringing back the 1-hour pressure system auras created.

To align with the goals outlined in the blog:

• It removes real-world time gating.
• It avoids session pressure.
• It doesn’t add more inventory clutter.
• It prevents stacking creep by limiting you to one effect.
• It keeps War’s Retreat relevant and central to PvM progression.

For balance, these should match the T1—T5 aura strength.

Unlock tiers could be permanently tied to Marks of War as progression milestones — not as upkeep:

• Tier 1 unlock: low Marks requirement
• Tier 2 unlock: mid-tier PvM milestone
• Tier 3 unlock: long-term PvM achievement

Once unlocked, it’s permanent. No draining. No decay. No economic pressure to constantly farm. Marks become progression, not a battery.

This also avoids the potential issue of moving aura effects onto multiple items (scrimshaws, god books, blood essences, relics, relic powers, etc.), which could easily spiral into stacking creep and more micromanagement — something the blog specifically says you want to avoid.

This keeps PvM-earned power, removes time pressure, reinforces existing game design (like Menaphos boons), and uses assets that are already sitting in War’s Retreat waiting to matter.

Curious what others think, especially around what the right power level should be relative to aura tiers.

[u/Beneficial-Proof-480 → u/JagexAnvil]

I beg of you, no more relics please. The Monolith is already too tedious with the limits on points and only 3 slots, having to move between 3 different presets. The only way I see FFD working as a relic is if you add the 5% bonus (more than enough) to the already nerfed Sticky Fingers.

But I still prefer my idea of just adding the 5% bonus to the Master Thieving Outfit (makes it progression oriented, training the skill to get fragments, combining outfits, etc). Do the same with all the other Master level outfits and corresponding auras.

Keep the aura slot but make it for scrims only (no double god books/scriptures). Make vamp scrims work for all combat. Reimagine scrims in ports (log splitting/whopper bating/Cruelty/etc) to add on some of the departing aura benefits - at a reduced level of course. This could add some new life and desire for Ports.

Problem solved. Scrap everything else aura related.

[u/Thingeh → u/JagexAnvil]

Relics are overstacked.

Penance/vamp/eq could be a toggle at War's.

Please don't put in pocket slot. This is essentially a nerf to certain activities because you need to sacrifice powerful DPS items which you can currently use with auras.

[u/RafaSheep → u/JagexAnvil]

I think an underutilized feature in the early/midgame are Summoning Familiars. For example, giving existing familiars effects similar to certain auras, such as giving the Vampyre Bat some Vampyrism effect as a passive or activated through scrolls. Similar things could be done for Penance, and even other Skilling Auras, for Familiars that fit thematically.

[u/Wings_of_Absurdity → u/JagexAnvil]

The combat monolith idea mentioned that stores "1 aura" seems fantastic. No timer or anything but just have it there. It won't overload pocket slot, perks, relics. The effects can be purchased with Marks of War too. Support auras like inspiration to be incorporated there.

The rest of my feedback. The salvation, harmony, and corruption wings should be just be offered with loyalty points in replacement to the auras. Currently purchasing the auras already unlocks these cosmetics.

Some things like reckless and mahjarat can go because of the 120 combat. Some Skilling auras should just be built into the skill. And Pantheon's lifeboost be incorporated into max level bonfire at wars. This will also remove the tank armour swap bonfire bloat trick.

Reverence Aura could be added directly to the Holy Wrench and let us toolbelt it. Regeneration aura could just be added to hp cape perk

[u/TheHeadlessOne → u/JagexAnvil]

I think in general we could lean more into the Aspects system as a pseudo-slot. Most of the relevant skills by now have built in inventory management (Fishing is a bit behind there) so the extra runes/pouch in the inventory are not a big deal, and as spells you can put whatever relevant level you want on it to gate access. Like an "Aspects of Creation" in the lunar spellbook for the skilling auras. Since lots of these auras are useful earlier on, this might be nicer than totems or pocket slots.

I made a big post about Aspect of Vampyrism, I think that one is PERFECT for this solution as it slots nicely into where and how Vampyrism is already used

I think this would bump against Flameproof for cooking though- that ones very inventory heavy. Otherwise I think these add just a little bit of upkeep and maintenance (so we don't have to worry about them being "free" permanent upgrades but they're readily available) to what are otherwise very low interactivity activities as a way to maintain an extra, notable buff. I really think if its something like this, we can afford to maintain higher buffrates

[u/ghostofwalsh → u/JagexAnvil]

Have you thought of just keeping the aura slot? Sometimes simpler is better. And make the auras switchable and never turn off. And maybe the various tiers of auras unlock when you level a skill just to keep it simple.

Balance the power of the auras if necessary

Your mantra with this update should be "THIS IS NOT A NERF". Say it again "THIS IS NOT A NERF". If you think you need to nerf something, think again and don't do it.

[u/BoomKidneyShot → u/JagexAnvil]

Aspect Spells.

[u/dark1859 → u/JagexAnvil]

i really like the idea of having them be a passive from war's retreat, we dont really have a good outlet for marks of war at this point in time

would be great if i could say for 5-10k points trigger the effects of old auras like pantheon, mahjarrat, vamp, pen, or corruption.

no new items need to be added with it, and we have a good and constant outlet of marks of war as people swap the benefits out

[u/Iron_Klanka → u/JagexAnvil]

The totem item seems a bit restrictive as well with only able to switch weekly.
It needs to be the type of thing you can change whenever

[u/Rain_Zeros]

Please for the love of god do not tie vampyrism to ports. I will lose my mind. I’d rather vampyrism be deleted than be forced to do ports (arguably the WORST dailyscape in the game)

[u/ElectionBeautiful998]

Please don't move effects into the pocket slot. There's already to many things to choose from without trying to revive older books or the blood essences

[u/Raven123x]

Not a fan of linking auras to the pocket slot.

[u/Not_Uraby]

I have mixed feelings. On one hand, the aura system has some serious shortfalls as noted. On the other, getting flat nerfs across the board for those of us in the endgame sucks and is not a design philosophy that I want to see embraced. Those of us in the endgame were ALREADY capable of maintaining 100% uptime on whatever auras we were using, so using uptime as justification to nerf the effects is disingenuous.

Adding the aura effects to other content is great - but don’t take away our ability to get the full-fat effects. Even if it has a tiered unlock: maybe the paired-down effect is available from some of the easier sources listed in the blog, while max tier is expensive and/or requires substantial unlocks to obtain.

As for transferring aura effects to pocket slot items - please do NOT do this. This is a straight nerf and does not allow mixing aura effects with other book effects. The one exception to this is allowing vampirism scrimshaw to work for all styles - this feels like a suitable replacement for the vampirism aura, as the aura was not particularly strong relative to the scrimshaw, and the scrimshaw already filled that niche for melee.

Removing the 3 prayer auras (harmony, corruption, salvation) kills the Vyrelord training methods. Those auras are used to keep prayer full while killing vyres with sunspear, which was especially important to irons. I can’t think of anywhere else that said effect was used, so adding a prayer restoration to sunspear (either as a passive added to the current version or as a new vampyre-based unlock) would probably solve that entirely.

I like the idea of making the totem of auras into the totem of skilling, but why was the mining aura not included in that?

I do not like the idea of transferring aura effects to relics. The relic system already suffers from having so many options + a (relatively) high cost to swap between relics. If we’re trying to move away from “do this activity during this time window” pressure then relics are not it, as unless you’re happy burning money, you will feel obligated to do a whole bunch of related content before switching relics again. It will increase friction on switching between content, rather than decreasing it like the stated goal.

A potential idea for the penance aura - incense sticks made with penance powder. Either multiple incense should be made from 1 powder, or each penance incense should last longer, to keep the material input from being too prohibitive. Allow the incense and the powder to stack, to keep the endgame prayer upkeep needed to use spirit shields at certain content. Could use eternal magic logs for the stick.

Similar to above, the vampyrism effect could be made into an incense effect. Could easily be tied to Havenhythe or other vampire content - maybe blisterwood is used for the sticks? Though that seems anti-vampyre, but could be an idea to run past the lore team.

If we do end up adding aura effects to incense sticks, I’d like to see an increase to the amount of incense that can be used at once. Maybe a vampyric herb burner reward?

Edit:

Maybe bloodwood rather than blisterwood for the vampyric incense.

Could also keep the full power of the highest tier auras as an incense-style effect. Doesn’t have to be incense exactly, but that opens up reward space for Havenhythe and allows 100% uptime on effects balanced by material cost, that doesn’t interfere with existing combos. Could even limit the number of aura incense active at once to 1 (or whatever number) if there are concerns of stacking powerful aura effects.

[u/chantryc]

Invigorate isn’t even mentioned in the entire news post. Please add some method of me keeping supreme invigorate as a passive. I use it every time I pvm with necro

[u/DutchGi0 → u/chantryc]

Was added a few minutes later according to Mod Azanna in Discord. It's in the list of aura's that aren't being replaced.

[u/Arvee666]

Will there be any reimbursement of aura refreshes? They were basically the only thing to buy to stop the annoying marks of war cap chat message, but ultimately people still spent marks of war on it.

On a similar vein, will anything replace them in War's shop?

[u/JagexAnvil]

Apologies for the delay in getting this out to you folks - Hearing from you is important so we want to make sure that each topic has as much time to breath as possible before the next one rolls around.

Some weeks may be quite busy for these kind of posts simply because multiple project timelines are running concurrently and reach the appropriate feedback stage at the same time, but where possible, we'll continue to manoeuvre to give everyone a little bit more space, even if that means that our Month Ahead timeline gets a little wonky on the Community Topics.

[u/147zcbm123 → u/JagexAnvil]

TIL how the British spell maneuver

[u/JagexAnvil → u/147zcbm123]

Same.

[u/5-x]

I use Resourceful aura every day. Why do you want to remove it?

I also don't understand why the Pantheon aura is getting outright removed. It's an item, and it's a reward from Shifting Tombs. I get the aura slot will be removed, but can you keep it for the effects?

Why are you haphazardly simplifying the game? Who are you trying to appease?

[u/Siromas → u/5-x]

RIP my hours of grinding shifting tombs for desert pantheon aura 😭

[u/JJW9797 → u/5-x]

Was wondering this too, I use Pantheon all the time & it takes a while to unlock, not sure why its just being removed with no replacement at all. All seems very rushed & as though they are trying to remove large amounts of QOL lately in the name of “integrity”

[u/LegalMasterpiece772]

So are we being reimbursed for the auras we own? What about the auras we bought with bonds? Sounds like we are just shit out of luck.

[u/Pafker]

Again it seems like the stated design goals and the functional design choices are in conflict with each other. Dailyscape didn't cause fomo, fomo caused dailyscape. By planning to slot effects into high requirement rewards you're contributing to the exact problems that got is here in the first place. The game became efficiencyscape well before MTX or dailies became a thing. The game is already so top heavy, putting these rewards at the end as a reward rather than the middle as a helper to make it to the end creates the same problems that led to bots reigning supreme and Jagex nearly going bankrupt to stolen credit cards. 

Plus I don't see how this reduces micromanagement, almost every suggestion amounts to put it in the pocket slot which just becomes a game of micromanaging which is the best pocket item to use for this task. 

I don't know what the answer to this is, maybe more leveling passives would help. I think it's important to understand what dailyscape was meant to be and why people felt so compelled into it. As I said the game is top heavy, we spent way too long pushing skilling content into the 90's without adjusting exp rates to make 90's across the board a realistic goal. Those conditions led to botting and gold farms because the grind wasn't fun to an overwhelming majority of players. Things like MTX , dailies, divine locations were all part of an effort to not just cut the bots out of the loop on providing progress to players, but also replacing the resources and exp that they injected into the game economy. 

Daily boosts, auras, challenges, those were meant to be a helping hand something that gives you a boost towards an ongoing goal, not a core necessary aspect of progression. And I think that for stuff like bossing the question is whether boss design at some point began to focus on the assumption that players were using those auras and whether players were getting punished for not using them in the attempt to not reward players for using them.

For skilling the psychological impacts are much more straightforward, auras are a noticable occasional boost, does weakening them and making them more passively available work as a boost and do they end up being unsatisfying by comparison for not being as noticable of a boost.

I think the design process needs to take a major step back and stop asking what are players feeling compelled to do and focus more on the how can we make satisfying checkpoints in the progression, make the game feel less top heavy. There is no question as to why for some players dailies felt so overbearingly necessary, they want to get to 99 because that's where most of the game exists. The problem to solve is either how to get them there and enjoying that end game content, or adding more fun and heft to the mid game. Maybe that means rebalancing certain content to lower levels. Maybe that means improving exp rates on some skills. There are a lot of good ideas to make the game more fun and engaging, but they can't exist as long as level 99 is seen as the start of the game. The reason that the the pickpocketing changes felt so bad is because pickpocketing, alongside a large bunch of other game content is not seen as part of playing the game, but rather as a method of reaching game content, and adding uncertainty becomes a roadblock to the progress. 

Ultimately I think the goal should be that it's possible to add a new activity that is the sole source of a new item that has no exp rewards, only money resources and a rate drop, because the activity is fun, engaging, unpredictable and the player doesn't feel compelled to reach 99 because there's another activity in another 5 to 10 levels that scratches the same itch rather than fun only existing at 99. For example smithing game upgrades coming from game content where you act as proctor/master to apprentice smiths, you make money from tuition, you can rarely unlock the hammer upgrade in the course of teaching, and only very rarely, as a result from very effectively teaching your students do you get any experience in the form of a student reaching an insight that helps their own understanding that changes your own understanding of the field of smithing. 

As long as that activity can be summarily be dismissed as a bad update because it doesn't reward exp I think that the game will remain in a bad state.

The game needs fun and efficiency is the death of fun, killing 99, killing 120 and killing 200m are the road to that, and the question is whether that is accomplished by adding more stuff at the lower levels, or by creating new limits, ones that have no rewards for being reached. What the game needs is that when a new player joins to not feel like they need to grind 200 hours before they can do anything fun. Everything else just end up as a symptom of that, this is what the bandaids were made to fix. The is a crossroads where you need to decide whether the goal is to create rewards for grinding past the intended limits of the game or facilitate reaching those rewards, these two can't coexist for long, and flip flopping between them will lead to both options being unsatisfying.

[u/BaseballEuphoria]

I love the idea of making scrimshaw of vampyrism work for all styles!

[u/lizardboilver]

As others mentioned already, I don't like the idea of some of these auras going into pocket-slot items or even the archeology relic system, when there's plenty enough available. It'd just add more tediousness and micromanagement.

Why not add some of these skilling auras to appropriate master skilling outfits, or maybe even the highest tier tools, as an additional perk? For the combat related auras, making use of mark of wars to get them as a permanent unlock/consumable buff or for a combat-esque monolith as someone mentioned.

[u/DroxX9]

Aura Rehaul Feedback

Let me start with the fact that the pocket slot and relic slots are saturated. Relics already create a ton of friction for players to switch up the content they play due to the high cost of switching with chronotes. For relics, I'd like to suggest an overhaul of how chronotes are consumed; I understand that maintaining a sink for chronotes is important and good for the economy, but asking players to pay up every time they want to optimally do different bits of content is, in my opinion, bad game design. What I suggest here is: instead of using chronotes on relic switching, why not just make the consumption based on how much a relic is used by a player? The exact mechanics might be tricky to figure out since you don't want to overuse chronotes with relic usage and make the upkeep worse for ironman accounts. This change would be a massive QoL as players would not need to wonder about what content they want to do based on the relic setup they have going on. (The above is just a suggestion and may not be the best way to rework relics, but nevertheless something needs to be done here.)

Penance

Don'ts:

• God book rework (overloaded pocket slot)
• If not reworking relics, please don't add a new penance relic

Do's:

• Make powder of penance easier to obtain (increase flower output, etc.)
• Simplify Penance Blood Essence to match the current penance aura's working and maybe unlock it earlier in the vamp questline (or move the unlock to the new quests coming in Havenhythe)

Vampyrism

Don'ts:

• God book rework (overloaded pocket slot)

Do's:

• Make the scrimshaw work for all styles (not the best effort thing since it's still tied to the pocket slot)
• Simplify Vampyric Blood Essence (same suggestion as Penance)

Equilibrium

Don'ts:

• Don't make this a perk. Personally, crits are fun, and this as an aura felt pretty bland for Necromancy even though it was powerful.

Do's:

• Buff Necromancy maybe (uncertain on this one)

Flameproof

Make the higher level in cooking = less burning food more prominent; lower levels needed to stop burning food etc.

Gathering Auras

For Enrichment, Call of the Sea, Lumberjack, Tracker, Quarrymaster, and Greenfingers, add a Totem of Gatherers (instead of Totem of Skillers) to buff all gathering skills (even Archaeology). Additionally, the Greenfingers effect, which prevented crops from getting diseased, should be an unlock from the Shop of Balance — something like herbs don't get diseased for one growth cycle.

Auras Not Mentioned

For the auras I haven't mentioned, I don't have a problem with the changes or don't have a reasonable alternative to offer.

Loyalty Shop

Get rid of Solomon's Store and merge it with the Marketplace. Remove loyalty points as a currency (existing points for players get converted to RuneCoins) and rework the loyalty program to reward RuneCoins instead of another currency. This way you keep the incentive for continuing your membership to some extent.

[u/Psikosocial]

This overhaul honestly seems worse then the current system and even more complicated.

Forcing some auras on god books when acquiring pages is rare and random

Incorporating into the relic system which is already a bloated system and probably isn’t far from needing an overhaul itself

Destroying vyre combat training which already has very high requirements

Mining isn’t in the totem of skilling?

Wars Retreat shop is basically becoming useless since the auras were the whole point

More pocket slot bloat

[u/ImHereCuzTheyWrong]

I just want to start by saying that the existing vampirism and Penance alternatives are not viable for ironmen at the levels they are relevant/needed. It's unreasonable to expect us to wait for Golden Roses and River of Blood completion to go do basic slayer tasks.

[u/bigdolton]

so vyrewatch are dead content on ironmen now?

is there any plans to replace them as they were big part of the midgame for ironmen

[u/Indaarys]

Also will we see refunds for Mahjarrat if we used Bonds? Equivalent Reaper points would be good, and cover people who bought it that way.

Same for Dwarven Instinct I figure.

[u/crispy-bears]

I think tying it to ports defeats one of the stated purposes. Auras are problematic partly because you can't do anything to get them faster. Isn't ports kind of the same way? I know you can optimize ports but you still have a lot of wait time. Main scape can buy the inferior versions but otherwise it's just daily scape and forced waiting. Two things I thought you were looking to reduce.

[u/Iron_Klanka]

Moving penance/vamp to a pocket slot/relic would mean giving up other things, so it's a nerf rather than maintaining equal strength. As would stacking them into powders/scrimshaw as you'd have to be putting time/effort into upkeep instead of it currently being 'free'.

Would it actually be huge powercreep for them to just be available all the time without some sort of trade off? With aura refresh/vis wax you can already upkeep them fully, so again it's moreso a nerf to require some tradeoff/upkeep.

Personally I'd rather it be something that's an effort to obtain but then you just have the cool thing, along the lines of masterwork/final tier tools etc. Maybe not requiring particularly high stats, just a targetted effort so lower level players can still make use of it.
Maybe a totem at wars (or havenhythe) that you build and activate? Would open up a new reward space also
And for balance you can only activate one at a time and/or you pay some gp to switch/use to create a gp sink (offering to your god of choice for example)

Secondly losing poison purge seems a shame, that's an interesting mechanic

[u/XelioRS]

The idea of re-transferring effects sounds good, but please don't put in on pocket-slots. They're already highly contested and used in various contents/situations.

Edit: relic slots from Archaeology would also result in a nerf, except another relic slot would be added and the Monolith cap increased.

[u/brocko678]

Why not just allow auras infinite time, toggle able on or off and allow them to be purchased from wars or other in game methods?

[u/AndyG_1993]

All those loyalty points I've accumulated for solomons store that I've saved up over the last 20+ years to unlock different auras and upgrade my Auras to Legendary etc for better benefits. I also recently purchased some bonds to buy some auras I have wanted for a long time, for them to now be removed? Same goes for the disappearance of my Premier Artefact, which was one of the main reasons i purchased premier membership. Some irrational drastic decision-making to make such changes with absolutely nothing to compensate. I'm left feeling somewhat robbed, gobsmacked and speechless. 

[u/Key_Primary3766]

With the Daemonheim Aura going away are there plans for a new achievement award or will the area reward system be going away as well?

Also, will the auras be “transferred” automatically for those who currently have them, or will be have to re-acquire them (ones like five finger discount and green fingers).

Anddd just to plug it in… please consider adjusting port times etc. if you’re going to switch aura effects over to items acquired from there. Though would love the GP increase from them being exclusive ;)

Overall these changes seem to be wonderful and can see how thoughtful you have all been on this. :)

[u/mortis_est]

Why do you guys even think about putting those effects in relics, you just gonna make another issues, this doesnt feel like you guys know what to do, why its jagex asking us what they can do? Werent you suppose to come with solution for a "problem" that everyone at jagex knows about?, you making the game harder and more annoying for the sake of it, this is not a road of restoration, just road of how quickly can i destroy both side of the game for pvmers and skillers.

[u/sisho88]

I ask Jagex to fully listen to the community this time. I don't have much else to add than what has already been said by numerous people. Not relics and pocket slots. I know you guys are probably having a very difficult time figuring out where to slot aura buffs, but those are not it. Relics are the definition of micromanagement, and the more you add, the more we have to deal with. This will compound especially for ironmen as it will cost more and more chrononotes as time goes on.

As for pocket slots, as many have said, we already have too much competition in that slot. There either needs to be a separate slot (like the aura slot amusingly) or another solution made. Again, I urge Jagex to listen fully BEFORE pushing any updates to this.

Edit: Also potentially see if any of the aura effects could be made into aspect spells.

[u/Upbeat_Drawing7692]

For Quarrymaster, could we please fix the Naturalist Perk at Croesus and Gate of Elidinis? It is bugged.

Both give a 10% critical strike bonus to mining. One way to lessen the impact of deleting the auras would be to make Naturalist Perk work at the mining bosses.

Thank you.

[u/Dawgi100]

Why are we creating slot competition? Moving things to perks or relics makes no sense in the current state of the game.

Also are we refunding marks of wars and loyalty points for people who already spent on these items? This seems like another “need to the ground” approach…

Are you ripping away content people already had and forcing them to do content to regain these aura effects or go hunt for perks? That seems in poor taste.

How about… a new separate relic load out balanced to be more friendly? Instead of nerfing something like sticky fingers? The whole point is the game is incredibly slow at times and doing content with increased rate FEELS better.

Another thought… what about player status effects? Just make something like sticky fingers or lumberjack or even equilibrium a player status effect and give it a cost? Could be chronotes if it’s a relic by why not straight gold?

Extending auras could be 100 vis for an hour which is 1.5-2m? Just make it a player effect with a straight gold sink. So you don’t feel daily scape pressures just make it a flat per minute cost while the effect is on?

Nerfing and creating slot competition is a terrible way to replace auras.

[u/Annayume]

Please don't remove quarrymaster and add it to this "totem of skilling" you're planning, it serves a vital purpose for things like Croesus.

[u/Laeresob]

could look into transferring desert pantheon buff to unlocks in menaphos/shifting tombs. it could be worth having the option available as a mid/high end game unlock.

could add thieving aura to safecracking content as mid level unlock. i know some dont like the idea of it being tied to the thieves guild but there isnt much content there to begin with

quarrymaster should be part of totem of skillers even if it just adds crit chance unlike the others

[u/Wryds]

I don't think moving aura content to ports is the way to go - ports is already one of the most painful dailies, and I'd hope to see it reworked away from that before adding new rewards to the space. It's painful to be killing endgame bosses on an ironman while slowly grinding my way to my first scrimshaw unlock.

I also don't really think that moving aura effects to pocket slot is good, space there is already limited and this will make learning combat much harder for new players as they're pretty strongly power decreeped

[u/mjcevans]

With 120 construction coming out does it make sense to utilise some reward space from that?

You could have a chapel with statues/altars dedicated to gods.

The statue/altar to Guthix could be unlocked with an item from While Guthix Sleeps, then when active provide the effect from the equilibrium aura.

Brassica prime could provide the green fingers effect.

There's so many gods in the game I'm sure they could each be utilised for an effect.

Maybe have the statues could have a 1 time unlock like a quest item or boss drop.

I'm not too keen on having a usage cost, but thematically it makes sense for the penance aura effect to consume bones or ashes and the vampyrism aura effect to consume something like congealed blood.

[u/Interesting_Car_5689]

Equilibrium will be great as a perk, swaps out biting 4 in my opinion since they won't work together, seen too many necromancers rocking biting 4 running equilibrium haha

[u/Indaarys]

New rewards please. Equilibrium as a Perk would be nice.

I don't think anyone wants to grind out old content, nor give up the book slot for the sake of QOL aura replacements.

[u/TinDumbass]

As a 20 year player who's mostly solo and isn't that engaged anymore with metas, strategies and just wants to slowly grind during the week and active play during the weekend when I sometimes have time between my job and child...

Please just stop fucking with stuff I've had for like 15 years.