Introduction

Auras in AQW (also commonly referred to as Skill Effects) are the gold displays of text that pop up whenever you use a skill in, and outside of combat. They are responsible for modifying the way in which your class performs in battle, usually through the use of secondary stats, but also have been used occasionally to increase your primary stats. Below will be a list of definitions for auras, as well as their intrinsic properties.

Definitions

Stackable Auras: These are auras whose initial instance allows for you to stack its intended effect, through each re-application of said aura, allowing the effect to fade will result in having to start the chain again.

Conditional Auras: These are auras whose effect can only be fully realized when a certain condition is met, such as the stack limit of another aura reaching its max value. In many of these cases it will follow that the stacks get consumed, but not always.

Aura Blockers: Aura Blockers (as the name suggests) are auras that block a separate aura from being activated. These have been utilized in two main ways; to prevent an enemy from applying their own auras in a PvP scenario (such as ShadowScythe General's 'Shadow Seal'), or to avoid any abuse of potentially overpowered effects (such as Lord of Order's 'Stability' which blocks 'Quixotic').

Non-loopable Auras: These are auras that can not be looped, regardless if you have a sustainability >1 and re-apply the effect. They last for the duration stated and chain-break themselves.

Behaviour

• Auras come in 5 different ranges: Long,medium,short,infinite and self. Auras that target an enemy do not apply if they miss/are evaded (life-steal is an exception to this rule, although it is unclear whether it is truly an aura). Self-targeted auras are unmissable.
• On-hit auras are those which apply buffs to you upon attacking an enemy, said aura will not initiate if the skill damage tied to the aura finishes off the enemy. Also, AoE stackable on-hit auras will apply multiple stacks to the player, if the skill tied to the aura successfully attacks multiple enemies at once.
• Passives can be thought of as hidden auras with a constant up-time.
• Any effect supplied by an aura is effective from the next attack onwards, i.e. if you had an on hit self buff that increases your damage by 20%, the 20% would only apply from your next attack onwards, not the attack that initiated the aura. So, if skills are fully loopable (i.e. they have a sustainability of >1), they will be able to get the full benefit of their auras.
• Sustainability = (Aura effect duration)/(skill cooldown*(1-haste)). A sustainability of >1 results in an aura being loopable (constant uptime). This metric does not take into account other variables such as global cooldowns (which is the cooldown between skills, rather than the cooldown of the skill itself ).
• Self-targeted auras applied to only yourself will only be seen by the caster (in a PvE scenario).
• You can only view an ally's self-targeted aura if you have them targeted yourself.
• Auras can be forced to fade if you switch your class. However, unequipping or changing your helm,weapon or cloak will not force an aura to fade.
• Heals will prioritize allies with the lowest amount of health, should there be more players available to heal than the aura's max target count.

Known Bugs concerning Auras

• Haste stacking does not work at any capacity, only the first instance/application applies.
• With some stackable auras it has been well documented that sometimes a stack is applied twice. For example, with Archpaladin, the second stack of 'Commandment' increases enemy All In by 6%, instead of the intended 4%. As a consequence the final damage modifier acts as though the stack limit has been increased to 51, instead of 50 (in this scenario).
• Skills that apply multiple stacks of a stackable aura per target only apply a single stack, and result in the stacking chain to break (i.e., stacks will no longer accumulate). An example of this is ShadowScythe Gnereal's 'Shadowblast', if you were to exclusively use the auto attack you would notice that your Damage Resistance decreases as intended.