[Yangtze]

While I love the idea of Umbral cloak and I'm glad Illusion, or one of its sub-trees has gotten an aura it feels underwhelming. Even when compared to a few of the public tome skills I feel it's not quite up to snuff- even more so given the fact that you have to dev and apply for the tome.

Umbral Cloak right now is:
+10% AP, with a special that gives +50% DR for 3s (35s CD)

+10% is the same amount as the base aura and, while the DR boost is nice, the cooldown is pretty long.

Then compared to other auras:

Expedience (Gravity)
Aura. +10% AP, +10 vitality. Special: Three swirling projectiles that deal light damage and 0.5s stun on-hit.

Transcendence (Time)
+30 Power, passive heal, light MP regen

Plasma Aura (Plasma)
+10% AP, +20 crit. Plasma trail while moving


While it can be sometimes difficult to compare an aura that gives bonuses of different kinds, I felt these were close enough examples to offer some comparison. All of these are public trees and, in my opinion, seem to be more substantial than the Umbral Cloak; the Cloak's CD on its special is pretty long, the duration fairly short, and the AP percentage only equal to the base aura.

[Hated]

Shadow being given an aura is a lot of love itself. %50 DR every 35 seconds isn't anything to just shrug off either. It essential gives the player the opportunity to shrug off burst damage and when paired before/after shadow walk makes it a bit more overwhelming to fight against. I'm sure the 35 seconds cd is affected by CDR as well and will likely only be 25-28 seconds towards endgame. This tree just received huge buffs imo especially with the addition of Eviscerate which is insane. I disagree with buffing this aura at this time.

[Jess]

Also. The basic aura, aka Essence Shroud is 10% of your base power stat (meaning without factoring in staff, enchants, stance, etc into the math). 

Umbral Cloak is 10% AP which factors in everything.

[Yangtze]

I don't believe the CD is affected by CDR, unless I miscalculated.

However, knowing that the 10% factors in everything does make it a different animal entirely. Thanks for the illumination, Jess.