I would honestly not be, I dislike the idea of my spec becoming more linear in its focus like that.
There will always be - and should be - a degree of hybridization. But I could envision, say, a Necromancer Warlock spec that wants to use his Bone Prison CC because he buffs the group as he siphons the mob soul or whatever. Or a Mage spec that can spell steal a buff and some it out as they see fit. A Decay DK that makes everyone snared around him take more damage. And so on.
You can do support in ways other than casting a direct buff (although I do prefer that).
I think this is cool but again, to me its a dps in the same way aug is. That’s a playstyle choice within a role.
Which is support. Damage-oriented support, in WoW’s case because it still needs to fit the 1/1/3 format, but support nevertheless.
A buffer is a trash role.
It doesn’t increase party damage. It simply results in nerfing player damage to force players to bring a buffer to get their damage back to where it would have been if the buffer role hadn’t been created.
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That’s certainly a negative perspective you’ve chosen. 
This is reality.
Buffers benefit no one but themselves by being parasites of the real players doing the real work by making the devs reduce player stats to force them to bring along a buffer parasite to get back the stars they would have had if the buffer parasite role didn’t exist.
I have played far too much Lineage 2 which was ruined by buffer parasites to ever want to return to that situation again. In Lineage 2 the situation was so bad that at the highest levels you couldn’t step out if town without having on 10 or more buffs. And heavens for it was a week when your side lost server necropolis/catacomb contest where you would get debuffed when leaving town by ghost NPCs stationed at the town exits requiring you to have to kill yourself and get resurrected to remove the debuffs.
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You’re overstating your case. And you’d get no sympathy from a former bladedancer, regardless. 
Overstated case aside, I will say that significant party-external buffs are a relic.
Blizzard needs to address the heaps of modifiers present in this game if support classes are going to be a thing, then they can be simpler to balance.
Seems like right now instead of addressing the root problem they want to tackle symptoms instead.
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I agree that the readability is a concern. When you have three bars of buffs, you lose the ability to discern useful information. WeakAuras exist, but they shouldn’t be the sole method of sorting through to see what’s actually impactful.
In a phrase, we need actionable data.
I’ll second that case, though.
Blizzard’s entire design philosophy regarding PvE is everyone is meant to engage with the mobs AND the party they’re in; dealing damage, interrupting, healing, etc. What I’m hearing in this thread is pretty much the equivalent of the old and tired 'I’m a healer I just want to heal’ nonsense of never having to target something with a red name above it.
Secondly, Aug is fine if it doesn’t replace a DPS and no, I don’t mean adding a sixth slot. Six-person parties are not going to be a thing, it’s so deeply coded in WoW that we’d get class starting zones before we got that. The math needs to remain that a 1-1-3 without an Aug performs just as well as a 1-1-2-1 with an Aug. Not worse, but as close to 1:1 as possible.
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Lol @ blizzard
You know as the blues don’t play the game, they will nerf it again, just watch the dumb reason.
Go to STEAM and find the game “Rift” and get 5 of your friends to play with you.
Support class is king (and queen). Too many are worried but guess what, you can have fun and not top charts.
The rogue in Rift is a great example: be a bard. 600% buffs to everyone except you. Be a skald. 8000% buffs to ranged only. Be a minstrel. 10,000% buffs to heals only.
Get it yet?
No more I need 4 friends to mythic. Take 2 of the baddest mofaks around and gitt’er dun.
Only have two friends and they both play mage? Guess what, rogue (and every class even cloth) can tank.
I enjoy WoW, but she a haggard old boar that is stuck on 4 classes and their 4 cousins.
Math is not some of y’all strong suit here. It’s not mine either, however, I understand how this is supposed to work. DPS are literally getting buffed by the augvoker: your damage is going up. They are supposed to sacrifice their own damage in order for the group to benefit. That’s how this is supposed to work. From my understanding they aren’t supposed to be almost on par with the dps.
Now if their damage is too low than what Bliz wants it to be, then yeah, their dps should be buffed to be about where it should be, Not just because people don’t understand how this is supposed to work.
They aren’t technically a hybrid spec, but at the same time it is.
No, it’s not. It’s a support spec. You want dps, play the actual dps spec that evokers have.
Chrono Ward?
I’d probably nerf it because conceptually it’s cool, but yes that’s definitely another egregious part of the kit at the moment.
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I need it so bad. I need it so bad. I can’t tell you how much seratonin I get from augmentation.
It’s a hit from a drug I haven’t experienced for nearly two decades.
The game was never designed for support roles. Paladin / Shaman were the original support guys…you know how that turned out? They were converted into dps.
.
The current devs dont care to learn from the past devs mistakes and seem to like to repeat them.
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I don’t even know if they have an overall vision. They are certainly… Doing things. With various degrees of success
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