Do you like pushing buttons? Do you like having lots of talents to use with the utility to handle any situation that the game can throw at you? Do you like well constructed optimal builds created by people with in-depth knowledge of the game and a history of many successful wins? GO AWAY. THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. This is not a real build. This build has only two buttons: Autoexplore and Pass Turn. This build has no active talents. This build does not do any damage.
What is an Auramancer?
A few years ago I made a post trying to figure out an idea for a passive build. There are a lot of talents in this game that do damage and kill things without you--the player--having to press any buttons or do anything at all. I call these kinds of talents auras. They are passives or sustains that you turn on and then everything around you dies. An example of this is the Celestial/Radiance talent Searing Light. It's a sustained skill, you turn it on, and then everything in the radius takes light damage every turn.
Great. That's cool. Stack up on those, never push a button, everything dies, game complete. The problem, though, is that a lot of these skills are not as simple as Searing Light, and they require a complex rube goldberg mechanism of other talents in order to get them working passively. Take Corona from the Celestial/Eclipse category for example. On paper it looks like it should do exactly what we want it to do: It's a sustain, it passively deals damage in an area, you turn it on, things die, pack it up, see you in High Peak. Except in practice, it doesn't work that way. Firstly, you need another spell to crit, so it doesn't work on its own. You need to pair it up with something like Raze from Spell/Undead Drake, except that also doesn't work on its own and needs another skill to trigger first so then you're pairing it up with Body of Fire from Spell/Fire Alchemy which can crit, and can trigger the Raze, which can crit, and then they all trigger the Corona and then everything dies and you're rolling. Except, we didn't factor in that Corona needs negative energy to run and we've got no way to generate negative energy, so now we're sad and realising that Corona is a piece of shit and our carefully constructed rube goldberg machine has crumbled to ruin around our feet. So what do we do, we just need a skill to generate negative energy, right? For that, we'd take Twilight Surge from the Celestial/Twilight tree, and that is an Active skill which deals Direct Damage and that is not allowed on an Auramancer. It is illegal.
So that's what it is. An Auramancer is any build whose damage source comes only from passive or sustained talents and who never--not once--uses an active damage dealing talent, or bump attack from level 1.
Why do I say "from level 1"? Well, you've probably seen a few builds like this float through the forum over the years. There are pretty notorious ones. Stealthy Rocket Pods could do it, a build that uses lightning auras from Air and Storm trees, that notorious builds that used Temporal Hounds to complete the game naked... yeah yeah yeah. But none of them did it from LEVEL 1 did they? None of them started the game at level 1 and only used the Pass Turn button to complete the game? And while they might have used aura talents as part of their builds, did they really forego active damage dealing talents? We do! The Auramancer hates active damage dealing talents. If an Auramancer is forced to take an active damage dealing talent as a pre-requisite to his aura, he takes that shit off his hotbar and never uses it. That's what an Auramancer is.
This thread is not a build guide. It's just a way-too-in-depth purging of my notes on this subject. I mean, come on, you're reading this and you already know it's a bad idea. How much damage does something like Searing Light do? It's like 46 damage. You can't complete the game with that. And you're right. It's terrible. This is a terrible idea. And now you know what it is, you don't need to read any further. Go, live your life, do not join me in this pit of despair.
Damage Sources
Okay, now that the suckers are gone, I'll be honest with you. I lied. This kind of build can put out some nutty damage. It's not good damage, but it's a lot of damage in a big area all at once. I'm not saying it's easy, or optimal, or that it will compete with real builds. You're still making a build based around only passing the turn, don't get your hopes up. But once you understand where the damage comes from, and once you get a little bit of luck, it can go pretty wild. Here are some of the ways that we can create passive damage in the game:
- Passive Damage Dealing Talents (Raze, etc.)
- Sustained Talents (Searing Light, etc.)
- Triggered "on Spell" or "on Mind" hit style Equipment
- Retaliation Damage (Thoughts of Iron, etc.)
- Triggered "attacks" (Dread Mindstar hits for example)
- Other passively summoned entities (Shadows, Golem etc.)
Don't use this link as a build guide. I was just testing some stuff. I'm just putting it here as an example. In this example the character was perma-stealthed and used Gloom, Nightmare Aura, Dreamforge, and Backlash; then tried to stack as many "on Mind hit" pieces of gear as I could find. It walked through the game and killed Nightmare Atamathon by standing still and pressing pass turn. It also picked up the Size is Everything achievement for doing 1500 in a single hit. It wasn't even a good build because I took some talents to test their interactions and they didn't even work how I thought they did. Just saying, that when you play Adventurer, everything is broken, and doing nothing is a viable way to win.
How do we do this from Level 1?
Level 1 is tough for an Auramancer. Think of all of those great passive aura skills: Rocket Pods, Thunderstorm, Rain of Fire, etc... You can't get any of them at level 1. But you also can't use any active talents or bump attacks, so what do you do?
Well, here are some of our choices:
Wild-gift/Earthen Vines: In my opinion Stone Vines is the best Level 1 aura. The only downside is that you have to be a Dwarf to use it. It has massive range. It pins. It does passive damage. You can put Raze on it. Even if it's not a core part of what you want your Auramancer to be, it's always useful. The heal and movement ability of Rockwalk is probably worth a point, you just can't take Rockswallow. When you take this talent you will feel like an Auramancer right from Level 1.
Psionic/Projection This works, but it's rough being range 1 and never really improving on that range. I've not found a way to make it work well, even when pairing it with Beyond the Flesh mindstars to pull enemies into melee range. I think there are fun Auramancer ideas based on being in melee range with enemies (focusing more on retaliation, beyond the flesh, and smaller range auras like Dread) but I haven't personally had much luck with it. I'd be interested to see how others could make it work in this concept.
Steamtech/Thoughts of Iron This is a surprisingly valid option for Level 1 if the rest of your aura comes into play not too long after. Build tanky and walk through Trollmire letting enemies die to retaliation damage until you get your first five levels and get the rest of your engine online. You don't really get any use out of the rest of the tree, but it's a good defensive ability throughout the whole game and will always be in play. There are a lot of Auramancer options that lean hard into Cunning, so it makes sense to pair with those if you're going that route anyway.
Spell/Glacial Waste On paper this seems like the magic equivalent of Thoughts of Iron for just being a retaliation skill that can walk through the first zone getting you a few levels. In practice, it doesn't work that way. You need to pair it with a method of generating souls (Raze is good), but also you need to kill something to get your first soul to be able to activate it, so it flat out does not work on its own. But it is a level 1 aura option that can be paired with something else if you're going a magic route.
Cursed/Shadows Shadows are good, but shadows suck at level 1 when they're the only thing you're relying on to get you through a level. Including here because it's a level 1 option if for some reason you were late-loading your auras and want shadows eventually and didn't want to take any of the other level 1 options.
Spell/Golemancy The Golem will carry you through the first few zones and then fall off a cliff and become a waste of talents later on. It's not completely bad as part of an aura package, but it's annoying to keep the thing alive. You'll notice that magic focused auramancers have a lot fewer choices of Level 1 options for getting the ball rolling (but a lot of high power later level options). This is one of the more disappointing of those early options. It's a choice though.
Psionic/Thought Forms Suffer the same fate as Golems, but less to micro-manage. They can absolutely carry the early game though.
Spell/Master of Flesh Ghouls actually work surprisingly well as part of an aura build because they summon themselves passively, and Putrescent Liquefaction is just being another sustained aura that you can turn on to add to your passive damage. It's one of the more "active" passives, but ultimately it can fit really well. The problem is the ghouls suck at level 1. They can barely kill shit. So for one level you're going to be painfully moving around Trollmire watching your ghouls die to Trolls and then the trolls healing up to full before the next ghoul summons. It's possible to get through the early levels with this. But it's not fun.
If you can think of others, let me know. (I didn't include some for reasons: Wild-gift/Ooze can summon a pet at level 1 but it's just not viable for killing things with for example)
After Level 1
Once the ball is rolling, a lot more options open up for the Auramancer. Pick and choose from:
Magic:
Spell/Air (Thunderstorm)
Spell/Storm
Spell/Undead Drake (Raze)
Spell/Glacial Waste
Spell/Death (Grim Shadow)
Spell/Fire Alchemy (Body of Fire)
Spell/Energy Alchemy (Living Lightning)
Spell/Necrosis (Spikes of Decrepitude)
Celestial/Chants
Celestial/Hymns
Celestial/Radiance
Celestial/Eclipse (Corona)
Celestial/Guardian (Retribution)
Corruption/Doom Covenant (Dread End)
Corruption/Spellblaze
Corruption/Bone (Bone Spike)
Corruption/Heart of Fire
Corruption/Plague (Virulent Disease)
Corruption/Rot
Corruption/Vile Life (Elemental Discord)
Chronomancy/Temporal Hounds
Willpower:
Cursed/Gloom (Mindrot)
Cursed/Cursed Form (Nightmare Aura)
Psionic/Discharge
Psionic/Projection
Psionic/Dream Forge
Psionic/Thought-Forms
Wild-gift/Cold Drake Aspect (Icy Skin)
Wild-gift/Earthen Power (Shards)
Wild-gift/Earthen Vines
Wild-gift/Slime (Acidic Skin)
Cunning:
Cursed/Shadows
Steamtech/Thoughts of Iron
Steamteach/Furnace
Steamtech/Magnetism
Steamtech/Mecharachnid
Dexterity
Steamtech/Artillery
Steamtech/Dread (Mechanical Arms)
Steamtech/Chemical Warfare
Technique/Buckler Training (Counter Shot)
Technique/Reflexes (Intuitive Shot)
Strength
Corruption/Reaving Combat (Acid Blood)
*Also any Psionic talent that can give you Beyond the Flesh.
*Demon Seeds can provide some options (Doom Tendrils) but it's impossible to get them without using the active Demon Seeds talent.
Looking over this list you can probably already see a lot of different ideas and synergies about how these talents could be stacked and layered to create an aura of death. Some are pretty simple because they only involve taking a talent and turning it on (Thunderstorm + Hurricane); others are more complex because they require a chain reaction of triggers to make them work (Artillery Rocket Pods -> Triggers Psyshot Mindstar Hit -> Triggers Arcane Combat -> Triggers Lightning (Yes this works (No it's not as good as it sounds))); and some sound like they would be good on paper but are way too awkward to maintain in any useful way (Bone Spikes and Corona).
I'm going to talk about some ideas that I've had, and hopefully that might inspire you to try some things out and improve on them (remember, I suck at this game, don't copy me).
Mind Hit Auramancer
I think the Willpower/Cunning combination of talents is really good for this kind of build. The defensive options that you can package with them feel (to me) better than the magic options, and also their Level 1 options for getting the build off the ground are better. I think a good foundation for a Mind Auramancer would be something like this:
Wild-gift/Earthen Vines [5/1/1/0]
Cursed/Gloom [1/1/1/5]
Cursed/Cursed Form [1/0/0/0]
Cursed/Cursed Aura [5/5/0/0]
Psionic/Dream Forge [1/1/1/5]
Max Stone Vines, get Mindrot, get Cursed Aura to max out Nightmare Aura ASAP, then stand still and start hammering the dream forge with the pass turn button. For defenses you could take whatever. Feedback, Absorption, Antimagic, Ooze (though remember you can't use Reabsorb because it deals direct damage). Important to note is that Dream Forge and Gloom both proc "on Mind hit" artifacts. That's where the majority of the damage would come from, so you'd need to get lucky in collecting some of those. Build out from there.
Other synergistic options: Shadows, Punishments, Discharge
Spell Hit Auramancer
Magic based Auramancers have so many options. I wish I could list all the possible ways you could combine that list of talents into crazy stand-still death whirlwinds, but that's not possible. For a spell-hit version of the Auramancer, a foundation like this is pretty good:
Wild-gift/Earthen Vines[5/5/1/0]
Spell/Undead Drake[1/0/0/0]
Spell/Glacial Waste[1+/1+/1+/1+]
Spell/Fire Alchemy [1/1/1/5]
Corruption/Spellblaze[5/5/0/0]
Spellblaze's Rain of Fire does not proc spell hits, but Body of Fire from Fire Alchemy will proc a lot, and you're scaling fire damage, and Rain of Fire is a fire damage aura, so they partner well together. Raze from Undead Drake is nice on any auramancer, for anything, but here it is doing extra work when you find a piece of equipment that regenerates Vim on a spell crit, which in turn fuels Rain of Fire. If you're running Raze and are a Magic build, then Glacial Waste is nice. Raze will fuel it. From there, whatever you like. If you don't want to start with Earthen Vines, you could take Master of Flesh for level 1
Other synergistic options: Furnace, Air, Death, Necrosis, Doom Covenant
Gear
For both spell hit builds you'll want to stack up on appropriate on hit artifacts:
- T1: Silk Current
- T2: Eye of Summer
- T2: Eye of Winter
- T2 Crystle's Astral Bindings
- T2: Crystal Focus
- T3: Shards of Insanity
- T3: Staff of Destruction
- T3: Serpentine Cloak
- T3: Prothotipe's Prismatic Eye
- T3: Storm Bringer's Gauntlets
- T3: Fiery Choker
- T4: Duathedlen Heart
- T4: Malslek the Accursed's Hat
- T5: Guise of the Hated
- T5: Crimson Robe
- T5: Exiler
- T5: Spellblade
- T5: Lunar Shield
- T5: Black Robe
Other Ideas
A negative life necrosis auramancer. A dual shield retaliation auramancer who stacks defenses and retaliation damage. A close range auramancer who uses beyond the flesh mindstars to pull people into melee range while psionic projection, dread, and other up-close aura effects kill them. A cheating triggered attack auramancer who uses "free triggered melee attacks" from skills like Celestial Guardian and Reaving Combat to proc attacks. I don't know. Go wild, I guess. Do what you want. I don't really have anything more to say other than that this is my favourite terrible build, and I wish more people would attempt something like this and share ideas, because I think it's a fun challenge. That's all.
