Atlas Reactor: Aurora
When I first started playing Atlas Reactor, it was still free-to-play but restricted to a handful of freelancers on a rotational basis. I gravitated to the only support character available during that particular rotation: Aurora.
Soon I found her quite difficult to play, despite the supposedly "easy" difficulty classification. Later I found out that except for Quark, all supports do not have any Dash ability. Hence, playing support was difficult without that obvious escape mechanism.
Perhaps because of this or not, Quark became my choice for support. But much later, for reasons that I forgot, I tried Aurora again and prioritised trying to survive should she be cornered or chased by enemies. Hmmm I vaguely remember one particular game where I was amazed by how good an Aurora player survived onslaught by enemies. Perhaps that was an impetus to revisit this character.
Her main ability (with no cooldown) is Shock Therapy (Blast), which damages enemies and heals allies in a fairly straight line. The default mod is Vain which heals herself for 5. I use this mod since it is a consistent way of healing herself slowly.
Ion Cloud (Blast) deals direct damage to enemies in a 2x2 square on cast and indirect damage to enemies who pass through it or starting their turn there. It lasts for 2 turns.
The default mod, Overcast, reduces its cooldown by 1. I tried and actually favour Invigorating Cloud which also heals allies in the cloud but due to choice of mod for her ultimate ability, I choose Radiant Mist which reveals enemies for 2 turns. This is useful against enemies who hide in the brush or have abilities to be invisible.
Healing Flare (Prep) heals allies or herself and then knockback enemies next to target in Blast Phase. I stick with the default mod, Seeking Flare, which enables this ability be cast through walls i.e. don't need line of sight. This is very useful to quickly help allies in need and yet she herself is safely behind walls.
Another popular mod is Surging Flare which provides significant additional health if cast on allies with less than 50% health. Sounds great but I would think that the default mod is more consistently useful i.e. target could be behind wall and/or health is hover above 50% (could be killed by focused fire).
Paralazer (Prep) weakens enemies and shield allies. Useful debuff and buff combo. Since I also use this as one of the means of surviving attacks (the other major one is of course Healing Flare), I stick with the mod, Gravity Well, which also slows enemies.
Her ultimate ability, Heart of the Storm, shoots out quite broad cross-shaped beams that damages enemies and heals allies. The default mod, Focused Radiance, increase the damage/heal if the beam only hits one target. Instead, I use the mod, Sudden Jolt, which reduces all active cooldowns by 1.
So in conjunction with the catalyst, Brain Juice (reduces all active cooldowns by 2), I increase the frequency of which I can cast the 2 Prep abilities above that are lifesavers.
I have come to enjoy playing Aurora and I believed that I'm quite competent too. Maybe as competent as I am at playing Quark, despite both being wildly different.
Below are the stats of a game my Aurora had the highest contribution:
Soon I found her quite difficult to play, despite the supposedly "easy" difficulty classification. Later I found out that except for Quark, all supports do not have any Dash ability. Hence, playing support was difficult without that obvious escape mechanism.
Perhaps because of this or not, Quark became my choice for support. But much later, for reasons that I forgot, I tried Aurora again and prioritised trying to survive should she be cornered or chased by enemies. Hmmm I vaguely remember one particular game where I was amazed by how good an Aurora player survived onslaught by enemies. Perhaps that was an impetus to revisit this character.
Her main ability (with no cooldown) is Shock Therapy (Blast), which damages enemies and heals allies in a fairly straight line. The default mod is Vain which heals herself for 5. I use this mod since it is a consistent way of healing herself slowly.
Ion Cloud (Blast) deals direct damage to enemies in a 2x2 square on cast and indirect damage to enemies who pass through it or starting their turn there. It lasts for 2 turns.
The default mod, Overcast, reduces its cooldown by 1. I tried and actually favour Invigorating Cloud which also heals allies in the cloud but due to choice of mod for her ultimate ability, I choose Radiant Mist which reveals enemies for 2 turns. This is useful against enemies who hide in the brush or have abilities to be invisible.
Healing Flare (Prep) heals allies or herself and then knockback enemies next to target in Blast Phase. I stick with the default mod, Seeking Flare, which enables this ability be cast through walls i.e. don't need line of sight. This is very useful to quickly help allies in need and yet she herself is safely behind walls.
Another popular mod is Surging Flare which provides significant additional health if cast on allies with less than 50% health. Sounds great but I would think that the default mod is more consistently useful i.e. target could be behind wall and/or health is hover above 50% (could be killed by focused fire).
Paralazer (Prep) weakens enemies and shield allies. Useful debuff and buff combo. Since I also use this as one of the means of surviving attacks (the other major one is of course Healing Flare), I stick with the mod, Gravity Well, which also slows enemies.
Her ultimate ability, Heart of the Storm, shoots out quite broad cross-shaped beams that damages enemies and heals allies. The default mod, Focused Radiance, increase the damage/heal if the beam only hits one target. Instead, I use the mod, Sudden Jolt, which reduces all active cooldowns by 1.
So in conjunction with the catalyst, Brain Juice (reduces all active cooldowns by 2), I increase the frequency of which I can cast the 2 Prep abilities above that are lifesavers.
I have come to enjoy playing Aurora and I believed that I'm quite competent too. Maybe as competent as I am at playing Quark, despite both being wildly different.
Below are the stats of a game my Aurora had the highest contribution:
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