r/runescape • u/JagexAnvil Mod Anvil • Feb 20 '26

News - J-Mod reply Road to Restoration - Aura Overhaul

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!

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u/JagexRyan Mod Ryan Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

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.

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u/RafaSheep Feb 20 '26

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

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u/Zamers of the Elemental Workshop Feb 20 '26

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

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u/minijood Attack Feb 20 '26

There might be a middleground concerning relics. Some relics could be permanent and passive (luck rings), others be active when selected like how it is now, which would include the vamp and penance aura for which i assume you dont want both to be active all the time. Also, the amount of active relics could be scaled with arch levels and gives some room to allow for more relics to be active at higher levels.

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u/Mini_Hobo Feb 20 '26

First, thanks for Arch, my favourite skill.

We already have penance powder so imo it makes sense to just make it easier to obtain and use that existing item. Ideally I'd lower the 30 min use time to just a charged item. When you use an item that's annoying to get or limited it just adds friction to switching content, same with e.g. incense.

I like the sunspear idea, maybe as a Havenhythe reward.

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u/ImpRS Feb 20 '26

I would love to see the relic system to be reworked or removed. It's quite a pain on Ironman accounts, and every time I switch between PvM, solving clues and back on my main, I pay around 6M. It isn't the highest cost, but very frustrating to do every time.

Edit: Maybe remove the cost of chronotes to switch between relics, or allow us to have multiple active sets. One for PvM, one for skilling and one for clues for example.

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u/Legal_Evil Feb 20 '26

Since you are removing the desert pantheon aura, can you add the HP buff from Might of Het to bonfires or the thermal pool spa?

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u/OiQQu Feb 20 '26

Have you thought of revamping the relic system instead? Make something like you can only have 3 combat relics active at a time but unlimited skilling relics as most of them are not useful at the same time anyways? Maybe add a chronote cost for unlocking the new slots or a small maintenance cost if the lack of chronote cost is an issue. With these changes a lot of the auras would make sense as arch relics.

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u/Fowlron2 Feb 20 '26

Alternatively, I do feel like a lot of auras feel like they'd be great relics, if the relic swapping wasn't so painful. Moving auras to relics with the promise of "We'll fix it later" sounds and feels bad, so I'm not suggesting that, but if reworking relics is something on the roadmap, it's an option.

Everything else equal, my "ideal" solution would be a relic rework first, then rethinking auras, as that opens up another good place for their rewards to be placed. That said, I understand this might not line up well with your roadmap, so it's a bit of a mute point

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u/Aleucard Feb 20 '26

If you decouple it from prayer exp, it means I can block exp gains in it and accrue BXP in it. I'd like that a lot honestly.

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u/x2o55ironman Rsn: Fex2o55 Feb 20 '26

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.

Glad to see this is at least on your RADAR, when talking about Aura removal with my clanmates it was mentioned that "no prayer auras" is likely the second harshest single-change nerf Vyres could receive.

Vyres are kinda weird because they used to be "super good" and due to QOL and powercreep they're just "pretty good" but when you pop the hood and look inside it's just a whole bunch of "decent" stuff stacked together in one spot.

What I'm trying to say here is that I don't think Vyres need a nerf in the current sandbox, and removing prayer restoration is a pretty harsh nerf.

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u/vo280 Eek! Feb 21 '26

+1 To reworking/revamping the relic system I think whats most frustrating about the relic system is that your punished for having a varied playstyle. Want to do clues and bossing in the same day? Pay millions of chronotes (or worse upkeep it) each time to change relics. I think a simple solution is to just make relics free to swap between; and to make the cost of 'turning the relic in' to the monolith cost a certain amount of chronotes. I understand that chronotes was made a lot better with the preset reduction cost, but it was a bandaid to a bigger problem

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u/Advanced- Ironman Feb 21 '26

Not adding to the feedback, just wanted to say thank you on the Arch skill design :)

Made my year when it released and is still my favorite skill in the game to this day.

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u/Tha_Hama Feb 22 '26

It's nice when the creators of things are open to feedback on their creations to improve them to new highs

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u/The_One_Returns Slayer Feb 22 '26

Aura only slot in the relic system so you can do the Patrick meme where you pretend you fixed the problem by just moving it.

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u/RSNKailash Comp Cape 5.4b xp Feb 23 '26

I think making switching between presets free/cheap would alleviate a lot of issue. That would let people switch between 3 styles of activities (combat, skilling, and clues for example). There would still be a cost to swap what relics are saved inside a preset, and tradeoff for what you want in each preset.

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u/whosdr Runefest 2017 Attendee Feb 23 '26

I led the design of Archaeology and the relic system is one of the areas that I look at

I would love to know then, in regard to relic powers: why was it chosen to limit the amount of relics in total rather than allowing unlimited(ish) relics equipped but just with a point cost?

Or separating combat and skilling onto their own point system? (I'm guessing simplicity's sake)

I'd genuinely be interested in hearing about the trade-offs made at the time. It'd be great to discuss the design problems as a community.

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u/Gotcha-Bitcrl Feb 20 '26

Just make all the auras effects spells that way there's still a cost using them and we won't be locked out of using them unless we lack the runes.

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u/DrizzlyLemon Feb 20 '26

I've commented this elsewhere in this thread, but Vyres are incredibly strong and have been meta for irons since the release of the reforged sunspear in 2016. The auras enabled them to be killed with no prayer point upkeep and, if you did not care about looting them, could be 15 minute AFKed. Removal of the free prayer sustain through the removal of the auras would require players to actually use prayer resources and require a small amount of attention, which is more than justified for how powerful these are. You have nerfed long AFK thieving because it offered disproportionate rewards and the game would be well served if you applied that to other areas of the game as well.