The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing - Hunter Skills - Auras

This post has general tips and tricks for The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing played on the PC at Heroic Difficulty. For a list of all our Van Helsing posts, click here.

Hunter Skills - Auras

We aimed to play the game without using potions, and we did not also farm for gold to maximize Essences on every inventory item.

Rampage Increases your Critical Damage multiplier by 45% - 183% as long as you have max Rage.

• The bonuses are large, but you first have to score a critical hit, which can be tricky unless you have focussed on collecting gear that increases the likelihood of a critical hit. Also, it requires that you NOT use Rage, which can be quite limiting.
• Red Fog The bonus is now applied from 90% of maximum Rage.
• Furious Rampage At maximum Rage you gain +1% Critical Hit Chance.

Aura of Counterbalance Heals Lady Katarina by 1% to 10% of her maximum Health for every point of Rage you spend.

• Deathly Resilience When Katarina dies, there is a 10% chance that she rematerializes immediately.
• In almost all cases, you should not allow her to die. Even with the Ghost Whisperer Perk, her cooldown from "dying" is very long. Instead, switch her to Ghost Form when she is at low health, and let her recover.
• Transcendent Rage Each Rage you spend increases Katarina's damage by 1% for 5 seconds.
• Since rage use can be 10+ points for a single power-up, this can be a significant boost. However, the short duration combined with the need to bring Aura of Counterbalance up to level 10 makes it a rather poor investments. There are better ways to get her more damage output.

Hidden Reserves Every point of Rage you spend heals you by 0.5% - 2.3% of your maximum Health.

• Since you can almost immediately pull Katarina out of trouble by switching her to Ghost Form, use this Aura instead of Aura of Counterbalance to make the most of your Rage.
• Power-ups can start to cost in excess of 20 Rage, so every percentile here is pretty decent. Also, you do not need a target for power-ups, so you can flee and blindly activate any power-up to get emergency healing. Power-ups that give you healing (such as Soul Cleave) are very strong because you get several sources of healing all in one go.
• If you aim to play without healing potions and no deaths, then get this and Hunter's Rejuvenation. But if you can manage your Health and recover it with other sources such as strong HP recovery from attacking, damage dealt, and passive Regeneration, then you could dump this and take another aura, or develop your combat skills to get another Mastery bonus.
• Inner Fire When activating powerups, there is a 5% chance that you regain spent Rage points immediately.
• Rage Conversion You gain 1 Mana for each Rage point you spend.
• You can probably get strong enough Mana Regeneration to do better than this in a couple of seconds, compared to having to spend a Skill Point and spend Rage to get Mana.

Clear Shot Bonus Damage of 5% - 18.2% if there are no enemies near you.

• The basic radius is 10 meters, which can be impossible to keep clear when there are frequently fast-moving melee mobs. Often maps combine both brawlers and shooters, so Clear Shot can be a useless skill. In the cases where you are facing only shooters who are keeping their distance, retreat first to swap in this skill.
• Combined with 2 points per level for a mere +5% at level 1, this is generally a poor Aura to invest in, especially when you can throw points into your combat skill trees and work toward levelling bonuses there.
• Quick Aim The bonus is applied if no enemies are within 8 meters.

Treasure Hunter Increases your chance of finding Gold by 20% - 119%.

• Presumably this increases the amount of gold you get instead of the chance of finding gold, since the chance of getting items would be better than just getting gold.
• Since you can grind certain areas repeatedly for loot, this is a poor Aura investment.
• Liquid Treasure Chance to find potions is increased by 15%.
• Just buy potions with gold you got from grinding.
• Relic Hunter Also increases Magic Find chance by 10%.
• 10% Magic Find won't help you significantly in getting epics. Just focus on Essences instead.

Power for Blood Regain 2 - 9.2 Mana per hit (not per target hit).

• Although this looks like a great Aura to help with Ray of Destruction mana costs, it does not apparently restore Mana at the same frequency at which the Ray damages the target.
• This can be tempting to get when Mana costs of attack skills start to get unmanageable, and is an interesting option compared to Hidden Reserves. An alternate tactic is to fall back on one of the basic no-Mana attack skills (Strike or Shoot) instead, and during that time just let your Mana recover normally.
• Using the Diamond Essence (% damage taken converted to Mana) is also a fairly good option if you can get it up to about 20% absorption.
• Enchanted Soul The cooldown for mana potions is reduced by 10%.

Quick Response Lowers the Cooldown of your Tricks by 8% - 25%.

• Immediate Recovery Each time a Trick is activated there is a 5% chance that the cooldown will be reset immediately.

Thrilling Heroics Increases damage when surrounded by enemies by 5% - 18.2%.

• Although you get mobbed frequently, at 2 Skill Points per level for a low damage bonus this is can be a poor Aura to have compared to what else you could get for 2 Skill Points per level, and what auras you can have active.
• Daring Heroics Enemies now count within 4 meters.

Hunter's Rejuvenation Regain 3 - 14.9 HP per hit (not per target hit).

• Highly recommended to maximize this and keep it up all the time. This helps you stand and deliver with any build.
• Enchanted Blood The cooldown for health potions is reduced by 10%.