Sadly. I don’t see Evoker getting a tank spec now, not after they already revealed the names of the hero talents (a 4th spec would mean a new hero talent tree).
Blizz really shoot themselves on the foot with augmentation, they could have made Dracthyrs wanting to tank happy and wouldn’t be having the hell of balancing issues they are still having today. The most i can see them is opening more classes to the race.
(That “inside joke” Ion said when talking about the leather wearing Dracthyr in the warbands screenshot. He is a colossal *?!$&#/. For leaving that there. You don’t joke with people’s feelings)
the Warbands screenshot at blizzcon showed a low lv Dracthyr wearing leather armor, everyone though that this was a leak showing Dracthyrs being able to be other classes by the time TWW arrived. However when they showed the full character selection list later it showed that the dracthyr was actually just an Evoker wearing leather armor. and when they asked him in a interview about it he said that they leave it like that for the screenshot as an inside joke.
In other words, knowing how the fanbase its super keen and easily exitable with subtle details and hints, he deliverately allowed that low level leather armor wearing dracthyr in the screenshot just to troll us.
I cannot post links yet. But you can find the wowhead mentioned the article by the tittle “Dracthyr Race Possibly Expanded to Other Classes? - Update: Debunked by Blizzard”
And then we could look at all the “Aug should have been support” threads.
These forums are the embodiment of the catch 22 blizz are in-- the Karens will come out to complain no matter what they do.
At this point, in 99+% of content being done, having an Aug isn’t even better than an equally skilled dev… There’s not a balancing issue in almost any content; there’s a community perception issue.
I don’t see how people would have complained about aug not being support spec if that would have meant that support specS would have never existed at all.
99% of content being done with an aug participation not being more relevant than an equally skilled devoker it’s by itself a balancing issue because it would mean that there is no reason whatsoever for a support spec. Having one its supposed to give your team some kind of advantage vs not having one.
I like Aug as well as the idea of support specs, but I am fully expecting Blizz to scrap it at some point in the future and change it to be something else (hopefully tank), the same way they turned SV hunter into a melee spec.
They could even reuse the same abilities but tune them differently. Ex:
EM increases damage by a % and transfers that same % of threat to the evoker
Blistering Scales being self-cast only, increase the armor %, and be our main active mitigation ability
casting abilities - left the same, but perhaps our mastery allows us to dodge/parry while casting, or maybe Blistering Scales allows us to dodge/parry while active
Prescience either being removed, or becoming an active mitigation button (crits have a chance to heal the evoker?)
Add a taunt, or change an ability to also taunt (again using prescience as an example, maybe casting it on a player taunts anything targeting them?)
there’s things they could do to make tank evokers a thing and I’d love to see it, especially if they dumpster the ‘support spec’ idea. I really have no interest in having Aug become just another DPS spec.
That’s something that could be easily remedied by changing how those stats to be based on int for tanks, or just changing tanks to use agi and updating the tier sets to reflect the change.
I like the idea of Int tanks, personally, since they haven’t been done yet, but if they went the Agi route it wouldn’t surprise me. Evokers would need to farm new trinkets/weapons, but let’s be honest, if they did this it would likely be done at the launch of a new expac and allow players to replace their ‘dead’ gear as they levelled.
Blizz might also give out a compensation bag-o-gear to evokers similar to the catch-up bags with a full set of green/blue tank gear for those that wanted to dive right in as opposed to farming new gear using their old stuff gear in Dev spec.
I think there is such a vast amount of redesign that would need to go into making evoker viable as a tank that I don’t see it ever really happening, especially not as a replacement for aug.
Personally i hope they leave Aug as support. I like the concept, and i haven’t been interested in DPS specs since wrath. But if evokers lose their new experimental role, I feel like blizzard would be willing to compensate by giving evokers the missing established role that many have asked for.
Wait, you’re suggesting that the main active mitigation be strictly % armor based? Can’t wait for a big dot/bleed/magic damage situation.
So if EM were to drop, the tank would lose a significant amount of threat?
Why people are so obsessed with trying to make this a tank is so wild, lol. A caster tank would be clunky and doesn’t fit the way encounter design works in wow. They’d need to make a 4th spec to be a melee based tank, which they for sure won’t dedicate resources to.
Yep, this. If they drastically change Aug, they will go with the path of least resistance and just buff personal Ebon Might, neuter most of the group buff, and transition it to a mostly personal DPS.
Look, I’m well aware that blizzard does tend to do some pretty lazy things when it comes to balance. They might tune all the damage back onto Augs personal casts instead of the buffs they provide and call it a day, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea or a satisfying solution.
Also, I’m not a numbers guy. You are more than welcome to nitpick my suggestions (which were just examples off the top of my head with no major thought put into them), but that doesn’t mean they wont work if implemented correctly, or that Blizzard couldn’t come up with something more appropriate. Maybe Blistering scales could be a %DR instead of armor. Maybe EM lasts for a longer duration, or gives a large percentage of threat, so when it falls, the evoker is still leagues ahead of the other DPS and will remain there until it’s back up.
People are more than welcome to point out how Blizzard has never done int tanks, or how it would be too hard to change, but that same Blizzard also made Aug as a support spec and was willing to experiment, so I don’t think it’s out of the question to suggest that they might still have that creative spark if the Support Role idea falls through.
The main thing is not that I don’t think they’d try it if it were their first idea, but blizzard is King of the sunk cost fallacy. Making it a completely different spec would be admitting failure to them and dedicating resources to it would be against their historic mindset, but who knows.
I like Aug for the rare times where it’s better than dev, and I like that it’s honestly in a relatively balanced spot for almost everyone playing the game right now. I also like how much of a skill ceiling it has in raid.
I don’t like the idea of a caster tank and think it would be clunky, but as long as it doesn’t replace anything and is a net new spec, I’ve got no problem with it happening.