I completely agree with this. I think it’s more of a community thing than a developer thing. The community is intolerably and obnoxiously obsessed with their own personal numbers which is why they hate any abilities that buff anyone and another person.
They either want personal CD"s that only affect them or CD’s that affect the entire group/raid for their own personal gain or because they feel some sort of pressure/anxiety when choosing the other beneficiaries of their skills.
I mean, people can like certain parts of things but not other parts.
Not the entire community. Hence this thread, defending the playstyle.
I prefer to have naturally lower dps if I provide my team with other things, like off healing, cc and other utility. What I don’t like is giving flat primary stats to my group. Besides source of magic and blistering scales, I think Ebon Might should be changed into a longer cooldown group buff that way Aug’s personal damage can be higher, and the problems we’re having right now wouldn’t be so bad.
A 30s constant upkeep of primary stat to my team to fully make use of my class isn’t the type of “support” I first think of.
Deleting it, no. Reworking it for % to damage and healing, maybe.
But the primary stats aren’t really that much of an issue. It’s not like PI, where you have to get it cast at a specific time so that it lines up with other cooldowns.
Anyone remember when that was because of how they decided to spec back then and it wasn’t intended for this game to have support roles?
I’m getting tired of Vanilla wonky talents being used as some form of excuse.
But some things are inherent and integral elements of it. The elements are inherent to Shaman. Tanking is inherent to Protection. Magic is inherent to Mages. Support is inherent to Augmentation.
If Augmentation can’t support, it may as well not exist. Make an Earth mage spec for Evoker instead. Because it lost its entire purpose.
Buff classes have never been popular in any RPG.
The only reason there’s a non-insignificant number of Augs right now is because Blizzard did what Blizzard does and made the new thing colosally OP to get people to play it so they can tell upper management how “popular” their new thing is.
The overall isn’t very different, the main thing is that now the augvoker can do good damage if they are in the open world questing by themselves. If you’re playing well, or basically just playing, you will still contribute more than enough to your group.
I think that’s the key difference in opinion. In other examples, nothing is “off limits” for a support class. But for a support to be a support, it needs to help the other roles do their roles better.
Do not confuse “support” with “utility.”
So does a Shaman. And if doesn’t have a support spec. So you can see why this is a problem.
Edit: support specs will mean a wholesale revision of hybrids.
Which is fair. But this is one of those oft-referenced slippery slopes.
Which is unacceptable. (The “more than enough” part.)
If 1 DPS does 1 unit of damage.
And 2 DPS do 2 units of damage.
Then 3 DPS should do 3 units of damage.
3 DPS, one of whom is aug, are doing more than 3 DPS worth of damage.
Nerf it to the ground to bring them in line.
And at that point, your net contribution to the group will be the same as bringing any other DPS… except you don’t really do anything and rely on others to do it with your assistance.
And that will NOT be popular.
I just want Aug to not be so meta changing. This spec should be balanced enough to where nobody cares if you have one or don’t have one. It should all be based on playstyle preference of the player. That’s all I want.
In raids or M+?
In everything. Just play what you want, in my perfect world.
Well a 5 man and a 20 man have different selection pressures.
Won’t happen. Only way it wouldn’t be meta at this point is if they nerfed it into the ground to make it nearly useless, or rework all there buff or something.
That’s a fine opinion to have! Why not be more transparent with it?
My solution, however, would be to shift more specializations to this type of damage profile. Be they new or repurposed. Or original purpose, as it was for Enhancement.
Emerald Bloom?
Verdant Embrace?
Living Flame?
Blistering Scales?
Expunge?
Cauterizing Flames?
Sleep Walk?
Wing Buffet?
Tail Swipe?
Eruption?
Source of Magic?
Oppressing Roar?
Rescue?
Zephyr?
I will never agree. I don’t want more personal damage on my Aug. I get it that losing a DPS in a 5 man is crippling to Augmentation output but I think that falls into the support category and is easily mitigated by all the utility given by off-healing/Cleansing/Repositioning/Shielding.
You want to convert existing specs to the least-popular form of gameplay for MMORPG’s?
That would be absolutely insane for Blizzard to do.