Consider replace the maneuverable deep breath talent with a improved hover talent.
The improved hover talent should allow casting empowered spells while moving. This would be a much better upgrade.
2 Likes
Picture Godzilla, when he takes the Queen Muto, holds her jaws open and uses his plasma breath to cook her from the inside out. Possibly the best part of the film. Thats what I want from Disintegrate. Evokers are essentially tiny Godzillas. Let us fight!
3 Likes
This is why this feels specifically like a PvP centric spec. Deep breath is essential in PvP, to the point you spec into the stun and cooldown reduction as dev.
A lot of these changes are pure buffs in PvP. I wish the squishiness would be addressed, or Obsidian Scales need to get reworked so we can cast it while stunned, and have the cooldowns add, not override eachother.
Please, make Bombardment look, feel and sound SICK!
Alright after the new wave of talents have been released you Devastation dev should feel ashamed. I originally thought steering was a great addition to the spec but now I realize it is just addressing a fundamental flaw with an arguably key ability, not improving, bug fixing with a talent.
The functionality to steer Deep Breath should be baked into the ability by default. A new capstone talent that was a hunterâs mark for bombardment would be ideal.
As well, there needs to be a more single target focused swappable talent for bombardment. Either buff the damage when there are no enemies in range, or make the bombardment procs an interrupt or stun. There needs to be more controllable flavor in the way that people play as a Scalecommander.
Deep Breath is already one of our most vulnerable moves, it actually hurts the class fantasy of having the commander rush in and die before issuing any âordersâ (bombardment).
Allow it to be cast after a mass disintegrate, as well as through a castable debuff, new capstone talent. You can call it Kill Chain.
Everyone in this thread hating on Deep Breath but Iâm not getting why.
If I had to guess itâs because most of the players here are seeing things from a PvE perspective where weâre all just busy super optimizing our play patterns and any ability that takes away from the core rotation feels like a dps loss even if it feels good to press it.
Iâm seeing similar complaints from demolish on colossus warriors.
That said, if the ability is worth the dps gain I donât see why itâs an issue and the power fantasy and gameplay dynamic changes that will be effected sound super exciting to me. The base talent priority will obviously change based on the hero talents and I think thatâs a good thing in a way though it will suck to lose some agency in terms of talent builds.
2 Likes
That actually sounds amazing.
But I think maneuverable deep breath should be a thing either way.
So you want deep breath to not only get insane amounts of CDR from this hero tree, but also want it to essentially be castable after every empower.
I feel like people donât even remotely take balance into account when they propose things, this would be beyond broken, especially in keys. I wonât even get started on the pvp implications since Blizzard doesnt care about those.
This would let you cast 3 deep breaths in 7 gcds. That would be absurd for both specs, but completely out of control for augs.
I donât even know what you mean in reference to the âcastable debuffâ.
Without even knowing how itâs tuned, this canât really be a concern. DEFINITELY donât want to see it become a stun and just arbitrarily stun DR mobs.
This hero tree is already absurdly strong. Iâd rather see them work more on Flametender because as it stands, I have zero interest in touching it outside of a world where itâs miles ahead of SC on dps.
a Quick note before my Wall of text:
Many of these are copy pasted, if my feedback applyâs to both speccs
Looking at the tree from a PvE Dev point of view.
Mass Disintegrate
This sound like an amazing effect!
Will this work with Scintillation? â will Scinitllation procced of of this work with Eternityâs Span? â if Mass Disintegrate hits 3 Targets A B and C, will Scinitllation pocced on A be able to hit B or C?
I think this effect would work better if Mass Disintegrate was itâs own spell and not a conditionally trigged effect (iâm going into why under the Bombardments point).
Might of the Black Dragonflight
Wooo 10% more Deepbreath damageâŚ
Melt Armor
Pushing Devastation to use Deepbreath. Iâm not sure how I feel about this. Especially when Dev can talent it down to a 1 minute Cooldown. Previously DB was only used in nieche or AOE situations, turning it into a throughput CD might feel odd but we will see.
Hardened Scales/Menacing Presence
Hardened Scales
Going from 30 to 35% on Obsidian Scales will rarely safe youâŚ
Menacing Presence
This is for PvP? Because i donât see myself ever choosing this.
Bombardments
I am a bit concerned about the 10 second durration of this debuff. While Devastation can stagger the empower casts (or rather the Empowered Disintegrate cast), 10 seconds sounds like a very long time to hold it.
I think this effect would work better if Mass Disintegrate was itâs own spell and not a conditionally trigged effect.
Wingleader
Since you can already talent to reduce DBâs cooldown to 1 minute this either has a igcd or can only trigger very rarely, else you could get Melt Armor to uptimes of 40+% which i donât belive would be healthy.
Extended Battle/Diverted Power
Extended Battle
This plays into my previous point of leading into absurd uptimes of Melt Armor or extremly low proc chances.
Diverted Power
A talent that says âEssence Burstâ thus i must add my
Obligatory Hoarded Power rant:
Hoarded Power is the worst node on the Augmentation (and Devastation) Talent trees (design wise). Not only does it limit the power of the Essence spenders, it also decreases the value of any Essence cost reductions or Essence Burst granting talents. While at the same time dulling down the gameplay. Pressing the same button 4+ times in a row really isnât exciting! PLEASE REMOVE THIS TALENT FROM BOTH TREES! (rebalance the specs around having slightly fewer but more impactful spenders)
Onslaught
This seems a bit weak? A single instant living flame per combat really doesnât do much.
Could this be added on a timer? Or a specific refresh condition? As it stands it looks laughable weak/unimpactful.
Unrelenting Siege
More power to the fillers but with a HUGE ramp-up time since Dev is actually casting quite alot of Living flames (around 10% of itâs damage) this could actually be pretty strong.
My only wish is for this to not drop the entire 50 stacks at once and instead lose them one by one.
Nimble Flyer/Tailwinds
Nimble Flyer
10% avoidance while Hovering a nice defensive boost.
Tailwinds
Will DB refresh all charges of hover or only 1? Either way i donât think iâd ever take this over on demand 10% avoidance.
Maneuverability
Assuming the damage effect is classified as Black: Yaaay another effect to get buffed by Might of the Black Dragonflight!
In all seriousness, how well stearing the DB feels will make or break most of this tree. If it still feels as clunky to use as currently i wonât enjoy about 50% of this Hero-Talent-treeâs effectsâŚ
Looking at the tree from a PvE Aug point of view.
Mass Eruption
Will all 3 Eruptions extend ebon might (like the S3 Tier-set?)
I think this effect would work better if Mass Eruption was itâs own spell and not a conditionally trigged effect (iâm going into why under the Bombardments point).
Might of the Black Dragonflight
this buffs: Eruption, Upheaval, Blistering Scales and (probably) the dmg effects on this tree
Melt Armor
Buffing Augmentationâs personal damage sounds weirdâŚ
Hardened Scales/Menacing Presence
Hardened Scales
Going from 30 to 35% on Obsidian Scales will rarely safe youâŚ
Menacing Presence
This is for PvP? Because i donât see myself ever choosing this.
Bombardments
I am a bit concerned about the 10 second durration of this debuff. Augmentationâs two empower spells are usually at roughly the same cooldown (due to accretion). Youâd usually also want to cast them in quick succesion of each other to hand out your mastery-buff âShifting Sandsâ, especially when using Breath of Eons you want to cast both empower spells as soon as possible to maximize the damage you allyâs can deal into the Breath debuff. Staggering the empower spell usage sound very antisynergistic to Augâs (current) generall gameplan.
I think this effect would work better if Mass Eruption was itâs own spell and not a conditionally trigged effect.
Wingleader
Reducing the Cooldown of Breath of Eons is essentially useless. You only ever want to use BoE alongside your alliesâ cooldowns to maximize itâs effect. And since most cooldowns are on a fixed 2 minute cooldown, reducing the BoE cooldown will likely NOT lead to ANY value whatsoever.
Extended Battle/Diverted Power
Extended Battle
This is alot more interessting for Aug then for Dev, as Aug usually skills Power Nexus ontop of its main spender beeing cheaper. This wonât make or break this effect however.
Diverted Power
A talent that says âEssence Burstâ thus i must add my
Obligatory Hoarded Power rant:
Hoarded Power is the worst node on the Augmentation (and Devastation) Talent trees (design wise). Not only does it limit the power of the Essence spenders, it also decreases the value of any Essence cost reductions or Essence Burst granting talents. While at the same time dulling down the gameplay. Pressing the same button 4+ times in a row really isnât exciting! PLEASE REMOVE THIS TALENT FROM BOTH TREES! (rebalance the specs around having slightly fewer but more impactful spenders)
Onslaught
This seems a bit weak? A single instant living flame per combat really doesnât do much.
Could this be added on a timer? Or a specific refresh condition? As it stands it looks laughable weak/unimpactful.
Unrelenting Siege
Living Flame is about 3-6% of Augmentationâs damage. Buffing this by 50% would put it at about 5-8% (without the rampup time) this is pretty minor. But overall okay.
Nimble Flyer/Tailwinds
Nimble Flyer
10% avoidance while Hovering a nice defensive boost.
Tailwinds
Will BoE refresh all charges of hover or only 1? Either way i donât think iâd ever take this over on demand 10% avoidance.
Maneuverability
In all seriousness, how well stearing the BoE feels will make or break most of this tree. If it still feels as clunky to use as currently i wonât enjoy about 50% of this Hero-Talent-treeâs effectsâŚ
Should apply to bombardments as well, no?
Is mass disintegrate going to prioritize players over pets/minions in pvp? Itd be a quite annoying if im hitting lock imps/hunter pets instead of players without the ability to aim ourselves?
Iâll split my feedback into three parts: Positive, Unanswered Questions, and Concerns.
Positives:
Overall, I think that this is a very exciting tree. Iâve been wanting mass disintegrate since Abberus, and I think it will synergize with talents like Causality, Charged Blast, and Scintillation in really exciting ways. It will also make us pay more attention to Blue Iridescence in AOE encounters and M+.
The focus on Deep Breath for Devastation will also make several talents that have gone mostly untouched much more appealing, and I think it will go a long way towards making talents like Onyx Legacy, Lay Waste, and Imminent Destruction much more appealing talents to take.
Unanswered Questions:
Could we get more clarification on bombardments and how they work? Do they have an ICD on how often they can procced? How much damage do you expect them to add to the spec overall? Will they work differently for aug vs Dev?
Concerns:
Could you consider maybe adding some protection to evokers when they are using deep breath? A lot of feedback given on this thread comes from the basis that Deep Breath is a risky spell to use. Could you maybe add a twin-guardian-like protection to evokers while they are using deep breath? I think that would make Deep Breath a less risky move since weâll have to use it on cooldown for the damage buff.
Both Scalecommander and Chronowarden sound like names that wouldâve been created if Aug was a tank spec 
3 Likes
This is an odd thing to think considering that they are names that were created with aug being a dps spec in mind. Not even just aug because devastation and preservation are also scalecommanders/chronowardens respectively.
Scalecommander is already a title used in-game for dracthyr who lead one of the weyrns.
They donât sound tanky to you? Iâve seen similar names as tanks in other games. Besides, we donât know when they created the names.
Not really.
All of the hero specs sound like the could also be titles to me, though. Especially the death knight ones.
I feel like itâs a fairly safe assumption that the names were decided upon pretty recently considering theyâre still open to changing them. If they didnât feel like it was a fit for aug as it is, theyâd have renamed it like they did Ruby Adept to Flameshaper.
Wouldnât this be the perfect time to make disintegrate customisable appearance wise with glyphs or some such? Imagine having a black dragonflight / flame themed beam drools
2 Likes
Shadowflame fire breath/disintegrate would be amazing
1 Like
To this day I still say Aug should have been a tank spec.
3 Likes
Would have certainly not made the mess of M+ balancing it currently has, and then Blizzard baiting and switching when they said that they would expand the support role so one single spec wouldnât corner the niche and crowd other DPS specs out, and then state they have no plans in TWW of bringing any more support specs.