I’m genuinely curious how people think the Evoker Augmentation spec will go. For myself my biggest concern is that balance is going to be insanely difficult. Not only is it going to make people feel bad in raids when certain people (the good players) get selected to get the evoker buffs while others don’t, but how exactly do you even balance something like this? Let’s say (for simplicity sake) an Augmentation evoker provides a flat 20% damage buff to a group, well in dungeon content it won’t be worth taking them since the healer is only doing minor DPS. On the flip side of that look at a raid group where you’ve got 4 people way at the tip top of the gearing scale and doing top tier DPS, they will do substantially less DPS without an Evoker there buffing them.
On the flip side let’s say your raid generally needs 7 healers but with an Evoker buffing them they only need 4. Even counting the Evoker slot in the raid that’s 2 more DPS slots that the Evoker is freeing up. Ultimately I could just see a situation where they’re so immensely powerful that they can sway how an entire group is formed. Likewise if Blizzard becomes too worried about them being too powerful they may err on the side of caution and cause them to underperform meaning they will be extremely niche and rarely used outside of specific situations.
I know the tri-spec meta is getting stale and Blizzard is looking for a way to spice up the meta but I’m just not sure if this spec is exactly what the game needs or not. Don’t get me wrong I hope it goes well but I do think we will likely see new iterations of this spec for years to come as things constantly have to be reworked and rebalanced. What do you guys think? Do you think they’ll get it right the first time or do you agree balance is going to be extremely difficult?
Anyway, I think the spec is, like a few things Blizzard has tried, an attempt to tame Pandora’s box. I could pontificate, but the gist is the game gets more and more unhealthy the more and more focus is on trying to get perfect balance and inevitably the easier specs, if all are balanced, just becomes the only viable specs and in a world of overly complex fight encounters and convoluted specs, the left of bell curve (or “bad”) players are pushed more and more out despite being otherwise viable for the content at hand.
So I see augmentation as a good idea on paper. It should be tank level of easy to play (let’s be real, all tank specs are maybe 1 notch about as mechanically complex to play as a BM hunter or Havoc DH) at the cost of buffing the better players.
This is absolutely going to TRASH parses worst than PI and once before the WoD rings did. For those that weren’t here and the faux vets, the WoD legendary rings were a linked cooldown where 1 person in that role used their ring and everyone in that role saw their rings go on cooldown while granting the respective perks. At the end, the triggering player culminated all the effort of their teammates in a burst which largely was attributed to “their” output). To the naked eye, whoever triggered the ring was the “hero” who did the amazing burst damage or what have you despite it being a group effort.
Anyway, I see augvokers in that space. They’re willingly sacrificing their own personal output so that others are better. It should absolutely be a role that the left of bell curves could and should play and be stupid easy to boot so that their lack of numbers are more than made up for in buffing their betters and thus they are less of a drag on the raid/team.
I feel like this has minimal value in mythic+ unless intentionally designed to overperform. Mythic+ highly values high consistent damage and pressure to be applied to critical/priority targets at time. Carrying around a DPS who maybe does just above tank level DPS and marginally buffs 2.5 - 3 other people on the team (counting the tank and healer as maybe 1 whole person) doesn’t seem like a good tradeoff unlike a raid where you can reasonably be assured your better DPS players are getting the buff.
I see most augs being in their respective raids /key groups after a few weeks . I like the spec and think another support class is cool but to be real . Pug lifers wont have many augs because players are more self absorbed.
It probably will be hard to balance properly, which is why I think it’s silly for Blizzard to add an entire new spec (and essentially an entirely new role) in the MIDDLE of an expansion. This is the kind of stuff that should be reserved for an expansion’s release with lots and lots of testing in Alpha and Beta (of course, history shows Blizz will just ignore Alpha and Beta anyway).
Ultimately, I think when the honeymoon phase is over and the dust settles, Augmentation will become that niche spec that only appeals to a small group of players who aren’t hyper-focused on min/max’ing their character to be the top of the DPS charts.
I don’t see any viablity for them in mythic+ unless their personal DPS + contribution to group DPS outweighs just a regular DPS…especially in pug groups where the healer is being a worthless lazy leech not doing DPS themselves and wanting to only heal. Any buff the augvoker gives to them is just wasted as is if they are paired with a crap DPS tank like DKs currently are.
Like why would I pick one if I could just have a devastation one? Again, mythic+ capitalizes on high cooldown/bursting mobs. Doing marginally more sustained DPS is, at best, decent on tyrannical bosses but clearly where it is meant to shine is raids where you just got more bodies and can organize groups as such that the augvoker is buffing better targets than healers and lackluster DPS tanks. I admit I haven’t fully looked into it or thought all that hard about it but until I see some actual data/numbers and/or videos where it is used in common situations and not just prebuilt setups where it is meant to really overshine, then I’ll remain skeptical.
from the overview i read a few months back it sounded a bit like a low dps that buffed others the same way say, emeni soulbind would. As fun as it was to buff people by throwing primordial waves out i can’t see that being worth a dps slot and if its a more focused thing like being able to buff resource gen or haste i can see some specs benefiting from it waaay too much and it turning into essentially required to run if those classes are present.
It’s a bit of both “smart target” buffing and the player selecting a target.
The primary buff is Ebon Might, which is the 4 nearest allies. Other “smart buffs” then prioritize those with Ebon Might, if they’re close enough, over those who don’t have it.
Other buffs like Blistering Scales and Weyrnstone are targets you chose.
I really hope it isn’t purely proximity based and instead group based. Evokers already stand at weird spots because of their shortened range but count as range for mechanics meaning they can’t just freely camp in melee on certain raid bosses. If I were organizing a group, I would either need a dedicated caster or melee group to pair with the augvoker and both have issues presently. I’d much rather have a group of higher DPS of melee and ranged and stick them in there and trust that no matter what they do or where they stand/move, their party/group is the only one receiving the buffs.
I’d even go as far as to say they need talents or something that forces the buffs to go to DPS role players only. This would go farther to increase their mythic+ viability too since I want more of their buff in the hands of those most capable of using it.
Well that seems really bad. In a world (which is one I presently am in) with 2 strong range DPS and 2 strong melee DPS, unless they can somehow pull off all standing together and/or coming together for the augvoker to be the nearest ally to force the buff on them as much or as frequently as needed, it just means it’s going wherever meaning likely to lackluster targets…or even healers.
Ah well. Not my problem I suppose. Do not like though. Should absolutely be purely group/party based with no positional or range requirements (or a token like 100 yard range or something).
What will also happen is those wowhead reports on top dps… yeah those, gonna go wild and nuts when you see 5-6 specs 20% ahead or whatever, of every other specs.
GL campaigning for your spec getting buffs or even to be put into the aug party.
In theory, the damage contribution from Augmentation Evokers (both directly and indirectly) should equate to the same amount of damage as anyone else in the “Damage” role.
Standard Dungeon Party: 100% damage output
DPS #1: Contributes 25% to overall damage dealt.
DPS #1: Contributes 25% to overall damage dealt.
DPS #1: Contributes 25% to overall damage dealt.
Tank: Contributes 15% to overall damage dealt.
Healer: Contributes 10% to overall damage dealt.
Dungeon Party (With Evoker): 100% damage output
DPS #1 (Evoker): Directly contributes 15% to overall damage dealt.
DPS #2: Contributes 28% with Evoker buffs (+3%).
DPS #3: Contributes 28% with Evoker buffs (+3%).
Tank: Contributes 17% with Evoker buffs (+2%).
Healer: Contributes 12% with Evoker buffs (+2%).
Standard Raid DPS Party: 125%
DPS #1: 25%
DPS #2: 25%
DPS #3: 25%
DPS #4: 25%
DPS #5: 25%
Raid DPS Party (With Evoker): 127%
DPS #1: 15%
DPS #2: 28% (+3%)
DPS #3: 28% (+3%)
DPS #4: 28% (+3%)
DPS #5: 28% (+3%)
The above assumes a relatively “balanced” measurement of contribution. Balancing raid performance nerfs group performance, and balancing group performance buffs raid performance. Putting an Augmentation Evoker in an extremely high DPS squad will perform significantly better than putting that same Evoker in a low DPS squad. Benefits behave multiplicatively as an expansion matures into its final chapters, growing the disparity between “good groups with a good Augmentor” vs. “bad groups with a bad Augmentor”.
Conceptually, Augmentation Evokers are designed around fun… not balance.
at the wall, and eventually, something will stick
