My guild doesn’t want me to be running it while we progressive raid which is fair I don’t judge them. It’s in a bad place right now. While I’d prefer you buff it’s support/buffing capabilities if you aren’t willing to do that buff it’s personal damage by way more than the measly 5% we got.
Aug is literally worse than just not bringing another party member. It’s defensive utility? nerfed to the ground. It’s damage buffs? nerfed to the ground. It’s personal damage? minor buffs still worse then tanks.
Agreed. It was an experiment to try a buffing spec in WoW, but it created horrendous balance problems because none of the other specs and none of the encounters were designed with the presence of a buffer in mind.
To try to address these balance issues, the devs gradually removed the utility aspect without sufficiently buffing personal dps. The result was predictable: Aug is probably the least popular, least fun and weakest spec in the game by a huge margin.
Adding an entire new class role is the kind of thing that should ONLY be done when a game is launched so everything can be designed for it from the ground up. WoW is over 20 years old … it was WAY too late to try adding something like this.
The Augvoker experiment is a resounding failure. The devs should delete the spec and give us something else.
I propose leaning a bit heavily on Deathwing HotS, turning the spec into a more close ranged damage spec. Potentially even a tank spec. Turning Azure Strike into Sakareth’s Searing Claws, dumping Upheaval for DW’s Incinerate ability, and changing Breath of Eons into DW’s Cataclysm ability.
Idk that it was a failure… it was a good test with no support.
Blizzards failure was releasing a support spec without other classes getting support roles.
So it funneled everyone into aug. Which created a massive imbalance because… it was the only one.
Tbh they do it every patch. One class/spec is always the bottom dog.
This time around though, they had a dedicated support role that they are nerfing into the ground and just buffing its damage. Doing this sneakily just turns it into another dps and they can sweep the “support role” under the rug like it never happened.
I hate when Aug is good. Every group thinks they need one and only like 4% of people who play Aug are actually good (or even decent) at it, so you end up with run after run of keys that would have been better off just inviting a 3rd DPS.
The fundamental problem is that Augmentation in its current form can never be buffed, because buffing it runs the risk of it being OP again.
Hence the fundamental problem with the spec; It can never be balanced. It’ll either be too strong and overbearing, or too weak and unplayable. It needs to be redesigned into a spec that fits in the “holy trinity”.
