Blizzard totally killed Aug evokers and it's potential and it's sad

I know this is a pretty sensible subject, but here we go.

When aug was first introduced in DF it was sold to the community has a ‘‘support spec’’ a bit like FF14 with class like bards, at that moment I think the community became divided in two camp.

You had thoses that were extremly happy that blizzard finally took a risk and innovated in a new type of gameplay for their IP and it made it possible for players to takles the raids and mythic+ with a new optic.

I am of course fully aware that this choice wasn’t all rainbow and sunshine, for many, specially at the top of the player base, this became simply another part of the puzzle that is group compositions, Once some understood the true value of a support like aug, The group composition for dungeons specially was TOTALLY changed and brought a negative impact.

It use to be that a dungeon group would be composed of 3 damage dealers 1 healer and 1 tank, yes sometimes people once overgeared or highly skilled would adventure in M+ with 5 tanks or One Hybrid tank that could off heal and 4 dps but generally your group was made of 3/1/1, Now this spec was so OP and transformative that the ‘‘meta’’ totally changed, it became 2 dps 1 aug 1 healer 1 tank, and specially in those 2 dps you would look for specs that would scale better then others with said buffs the augs would bring.

This created some frustration for many players in the dps category that suddenly saw their spots already challenged by the HIGH competition for the 3 dps spot even more challenged since now 1/3 of the spot would always be allocated to aug if you wanted to push.

In response to some of the community that despised thoses change Blizzard is slowly but surely totally changing what was innovative and fun about Aug, shifting good amounts of the damage back to the class itself and less empowering for the healer and tanks making them less of automatic pick for the groups out there.

The result of this is that we should see more groups with 3 full dps again and a step back to what once was, some will be happy, others will be very sad. I am part of the later group.

To conclude, Why was it not possible for blizzard to embrasse that new playstyle and maybe changes the dungeons groups and make them 6 mans instead of 5 man, it would totally erase the frictions with this new type of role, also why not designe new supports specs all togheter to promote choice and variety, it definetly seem like there is an interest in the community? Instead they chose the ‘‘safe’’ options to appease the angry mob and return to old style of gameplay and I find it sad. when evoker aug came out yes it did open the door to the ‘‘god comp’’ but anyone that played it I have a hard time believing that they didn’t have alot of fun with the change in gameplay and the way you clear a dungeon it brought. After all who doesn’t like big pulls and big numbers right ? Obviously nothing that I have spoke about matter if you arent trying to push and I know that most casual try to mimick the top groups and that will ALWAYS be.

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They just have to go back to the drawing board. Its not an issue of not wanting support. Its an issue of it not working as released.

Also, i thought thr change was that they only affected DPS. I dont get why thats killing the spec.

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One spec of one class enjoying an entier role all to itself was never a serious idea. If they were in any way commited to the concept of a support role aug would have debuted with other support specs from a handful of other classes.

This was always a gimmick and it seems like they’re tired of it.

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I put the blame on M+. M+ has really brought out the meta slaves in the community.

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That was the initial change, which honestly I was fine with.

They just announced a nerf to Shifting Sands, Breath of Eons, and Close as Clutchmates.

They murdered the spec. It’s done now.

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I largely agree with the OP; Augmentation could have worked if Blizzard shifted the game towards making support a new role. Instead, they stuffed the support role into a game system where there’s only DPS, Healing, and Tanking. That makes a support spec a weird outlier that has to operate outside the current paradigm of the game (aka the Trinity). When you have something like that it’s almost impossible to balance.

Blizzard pretty much has two options; Create a new role for support specs, or redesign Augmentation into a standard DPS or tank spec. If they go the former route, you’re going to need at least 2-3 more specs out the gate alongside Augmentation to make it work.

The easiest (and most likely) option is to redesign Augmentation into a standard DPS spec by boosting their personal damage and tamping down on their support aspects. A tragic end to a grand experiment that Blizzard themselves royally screwed up.

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Agreed to a certain point!

Correct!

I always said+wanted that there would be a 4. role= support.
But then with 2-3 specs atleast so people have some choice.
AND: Supporters should never be super OP!
Support specs should be NICE to have in a grup, just playing nice and do not be super high APM (is not the case atm) or super for e-sport nonsense.

If they would bring such supporters who are just nice to have in a grp, no person would hate them.

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I fully agree with everything you just said. well written take!

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Can you explain what a support provides that a DPS doesn’t, and what stops players just not inviting a support and instead getting another DPS?

Support isn’t it’s own role because it still just provides damage regardless of who actually ends up doing it, and utility. Same as a DPS does.

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I can answer for him if you don’t mind, put it simply it does NOT provide just more damage, atleast at this very moment(Changing with new patch) it also made the tank tankier and the healer stronger allowing them to pull off way more then if they did not have an aug with them, in there lie the real strength of aug. it basicly allowed groups to SURVIVE stuff they wouldnt otherwise. and provided more CC if well played with all the knock ups and stuff it brings. there is WAY more things then just dps that an aug brings.

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Without getting too deep into it, support classes are not a new idea. That was what paladin was supposed to be from the beginning. A “defensive” oriented easy class that buffs the party/raid and provides off-healing and a little damage. No one wanted that though, because a holy paladin provided all the same utility without sacrificing a raid slot that could be utilized by a better DPS or Tank.

Support roles sound good in theory, but people were min/maxing from the very beginning of the game. It didn’t take long for raid leaders to see that certain specs were just badly designed.

Augmentation is the same. It’s either too good or not worth the spot. There’s no way to make it worth bringing along without making it mandatory.

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thus why not make it a real role and changing the groups composition to 6man ? everyone would win!

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I made an aug evoker not too long ago and timewarped them to 80 just to see what they were all about. I found them extremely boring to play and now they sit there unused. I think the design is half-baked, and while a nice idea on paper, just doesn’t work out in reality. The spec needs an overhaul from top to bottom in terms of design.

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Adding another “mandatory” role would only extend queue times. As it is, incentives need to be created to have tanks and healers. I can imagine it would just be worse with a 3rd hum-drum role.

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You create more support specs, problem solved.

I feel bad for the developers, the WoW player base is so entrenched in their ways, that trying to shake things up always ends up in disaster.

This is kind of why dmg meters and the parse culture that is in WoW kind of sucks, it doesn’t leave room for much creativity when it comes to class design.

In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m playing a spreadsheet simulator rather than a game.

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I totally understand your concern, on a side note tanks and healers already live a miserable experience and the nerfs to augs will also affect them since they are losing aug buff isnt that bad in itself ?

Same. I deleted my evoker, because the class is badly designed. Once the novelty of being a pseudo-dragon wears off, it’s a less fun to play mage. Preservation wasn’t very fun. It’s like a less fun version of any other healer. Even sinking a lot of time into it, didn’t make it better. Just showed how much better the other classes were.

Support specs have been part of MMOs since the late 90s, WoW is like the only MMO that doesn’t really have a support role. They sort of did early on, but that fell by the wayside because of the parsing crowd

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Aug was sold as a DPS, and should’ve been balanced as a dps. Not a dps and, half tank, half healer.

Because hybrid tax and 40 man raids mean you only want one, and cause how talent trees worked at the time, they were better off healing.

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