I tested the new Spec, and I have to say that its not as bad as I thought it would be, but it does draw concerns.
1). As being support, the problem lies within the community that focuses on “Dps Meters/Rushing” and “Hps”. Meaning, if the support buffing doesn’t push what this Spec Dps is not able to, then it will be useless in Raids/Mythic+ content. So, they will have to go through a good amount of tuning to make it valuable in said content.
2). I got Ebon Might to last for almost the cooldown, but had to use Breath of Eons, which is a 1.3 minute CD; meaning the Primary stat boost will fall off for a while. I think this should not happen, and Ebon Might should be maintained through its rotational usage. Or, maybe I’m doing something wrong there.
3). Eruption and Upheavel seems to have a bad CD. Meaning, even spec into Accretion, which reduces the CD of Upheavel, I still have 3-6 seconds of wait for Upheavel to come off CD when using Eruption. Something doesn’t feel right there, so I’ll test it out more later.
Other then that, I like some of the abilities like Prescience and Blistering Scales.
“While we’re still working on some aspects of this new paradigm (like introducing some new combat log hooks so that addons and community websites can effectively measure your performance, for example)”
I’ve been saying we need more support classes for awhile now. Why 3 DPS build classes. You could make that tinker and let him toss turrets that offer support. Enhancement shamans with better and more specialized turrets. Interrupt is so huge in M+ so why not five hit the earthquake totem. Maybe a warrior spec that shouts commands raising moral and tossing banners that add defense and mana regen.
Rogue bard build playing tunes that buff and heal. If you’re are worried that meters are an issue then offer all support classes a group buff. 10% stamina, 5% DPS and 3% mana regen on top of buffing. There are other ways to go but you get my point I think. That way everyone brings a support or up groups to 6 people. And each group requires 1 tank, 1 healer, one support and 2 DPS. It can be dealt with.
I’d love a Druid support that plants trees that give vines, toss leaf attached and occasionally root everyone. The summon fairies that can do small heals and bark skin everyone. Leaving players with only self buffs and maybe likes the heals from Paladin consecration.
Could even let you rework healers. I’ve want Tree form healing back for awhile and maybe give them a self root casting spring blossom on everyone in a 20m circle. Rooting increasing mana regen and lose the weak version of innervate we now have.
I think a tanking ice mage would just be awesome. Area frost, ice armor and a 5m CD for summoning ice golems to help tank and redirect Agro again.
People hate healing and tanking now because they are mental task and when people just want to go faster it taxes you out. These support might be the way yo fix it. Especially going forward in the future with new patches or expansion.
Shamans and Paladins, when they had their blessings, were considered support, but obviously Shaman had more support style with their totems. I do hope they wont make more classes for a while, and focus on unique tress, Spec balancing, and maybe add another tree for support for many classes. It can be done.
I only use recount for rotational usage and remove it. So, I have to install addons now to see how beneficial this class really is, especially build wise. Have you tried it yet?
My big concern for augmentation is its roll in 5 man content. The main buff applies to 4 players which seems to be a design meant to help with that kind of content, but buffing primary stat for tank/heal is less impactful then it is for dps to the point where I think it’ll be harder for augmentation to be even situationally better then dev in any situation in m+. The one exception to this that I can think of might be the no healer style of play where you run one or two augmentation evokers and no traditional healer.
Alternatively I think it will be very strong in raid by design since an augmentation evoker gets to give its buffs entirely to dps players.
My main apprehension with the spec is that it’s buffing is so big and it’s damage is so low that you’re very dependent on other people doing well to do well yourself. I’d honestly shift more of the damage towards personal just so you’re not totally poo-poo’d if your group is sub-par.
Then again, maybe the goal of the spec is to just be niche. I can see this being heavily reworked later if it doesn’t work out.
Do you take the capstone talent at the very bottom that reduces cooldown times by 15% passively? I can maintain near 100% uptime with this so long as i’m not interrupted too much.
I Feel that the Ebon might talent should also do direct damage and buff allies, perhaps it would be fun to borrow from the battleground the seething shore, So you cast Ebon might and that pillar will come out of the ground just like in the battleground, while the pillar is up your group gets the stats, when the duration ends the pillar explodes causing damage, you can place the pillar at 30 yard range.
they dont need to make more classes when they could just add specs into the game to fill in gaps. like adding bard to either hunter or rogue im not sure what class i would throw tinkerer on and im bias since im not a fan of boomie so make that into a support spec since druids already have 4. couldnt be to hard to rework disc into a support and im torn with shammy between a support with totems and a tanking spec using a 2h wep
This new spec is so god awful it shows how out of touch blizzard is currently with their own game. Most buffs ether help a tank or a healer with even more meh dps “buffs” to the point you don’t even realize there’s buffs for dps.
Their dmg is so sad it’s like playing a healer dpsing but with meh buffs. In fact having a support spec now just feels I don’t know 10 years too late and all their buffs or at least 90% of them you can basically live without.
In fact it feels like the 25% increased mob dmg and nerfed healing last patch feels like it was a giant push to try and make this spec “hot and new must have omg”.
This is what I’m waiting for them to finish working on, as this is my biggest concern with Augmentation.
People keep throwing “support” around, but this is a DAMAGE spec, it needs to be able to compete with other DAMAGE specs on meters or it will be garbage tier for a lot of people who don’t have the luxury of premades and family-friends guild groups who are understanding of what a supportive damage spec can bring to the table.
If it makes it to live in the state you’re describing, I’ll be beyond frustrated.
Relying on randoms, in pug groups, is so stupid. No class, ever, should have to be overwhelmingly dependent on randoms to do well themselves. Blizzard, come on, if it’s a DAMAGE spec it needs to do competitive DAMAGE regardless of how other people do.
Too many people who play this game, devs included, think we all have friends and guilds we’ve been with for 10 years and M+ premades to play with. That’s crap. A lot of us have no one and play alone, and to make a spec like this, that can’t compete with raw damage on its own against other damage dealers and will be actively shunned from PUGs, is just awful. Don’t rework it later, fix it now before it’s put on Live. I honestly would not care if they pushed this class back to 10.2 if it meant getting it right!
This is a little bit of what I’m worried about, if it’s a support spec then it needs to functionally be different from devastation. If, at the end of the day, its performing about evenly with Dev than what’s the difference? Both do damage, but one also makes other people function better.
They’re both ranged casters that have to stand still to cast (outside hover). If Augmentation had lower overall dps, but could run while casting and doing empower stuff then I’d call that functionally different enough. Where the benefit of being a caster ‘support’ is movement while casting, that’d make much more sense. As is, what’s the difference? Instead of doing a one time Battle Shout or turning on Ret aura, you gotta keep the buff rolling.
I rather Evoker be a Melee Dps then a Tank as a 4th Spec, while they primarily focus on Support, mostly, for this Spec.
Yup. They will have to either tune it to be fully capable to dish out competitive dps, or increase the support abilities, while adding additional ones that will make them relevant for endgame content; Mana/Focus/Energy/Rage regenerations, healing boosts, Physical/Magic Reduction, etc.
It needs to do at least 70% at minimum of the dps of a pure dos in order to even consider taking. The buffs might look strong on paper. But you’re basically just making others do the work you would otherwise be doing as Devastation.
Personally i think this spec. As it is rn. Would have fared much better as a tank spec. Just tuned the buffs a bit so it could be a buff style tank and no one would have cared about its damage too much
This isn’t going to be the spec for you mate. Genuinely. The entire point of it is that it’s a support spec that defines its success by how much of a force multiplier it can be. It is inherent to its core design that your are going to be more affected by who you’re grouped with than most other specs.
On the very, very bright side they finally did it right with there being an actual rotation involved in maintaining and augmenting your supportive aspects, as opposed to earlier attempts at support specs where the supportive aspects were basically just an aura or some tedious, restrictive maintenance buff. If anything it sounds like EM uptime might be too permissive at the moment; it shouldn’t be something you ever have up 100% of the time as that means there’s a cap on how hard you can go with your buffing. Better to make the buff stronger and make it harder to maintain.
Sincerely though, you just fundamentally don’t like the spec. I wouldn’t get invested in it at all because the things you don’t like aren’t going anywhere. It’s very much like if you were to have a problem with affliction being heavily indexed into damage over time, or maybe even more accurately like having an issue with holy priests being a healing spec instead of a caster DD spec that deals in holy damage.
Seems to be a not uncommon theme here where people just want to be a dragonkin even if they hate the playstyle of the specs, and so they obstinately push for the specs to be something they just aren’t.
Also it isn’t a damage spec. It’s a support spec. Support specs just happen to take the place of DPS (at least for now). If you had them take the place of either healers or tanks they would just become the only option in those roles.
I have to agree with the post above, Augmentation is definitely not going to be a spec for everyone. Honestly it sort of feels like a niche specialised spec.
If your group under performs, you’ll under perform, this isn’t a spec that can out gear and carry a group. Your support.
If you want big numbers and to top metres that’s Devastation.
Augmentation is looking more right now to cater to players on the higher end, which isn’t necessary bad having specs that require higher player performance.
I’m sure with tuning, eventually it will be decent in all levels of content, but it’s going to truely shine at the high end.
We need to remember, not all classes/specs is for everyone, if Blizzard continues to cater for everyone then literally they will all be stuck in class design.
Personally I’m happy Blizzard is moving out of its comfort zone in spec design trying something new, time will tell how it ends up.