Yeah, if you pretend for 20 years people weren’t asking for bard. Almost every single one of those threads were asking for bards. And I won’t even touch the severe lack of logic it takes to conflate asking for something that didn’t exist in the game (i.e., support) versus a tank. You say some dumb stuff, but this is right near the top.
Even more, since the third spec for Evoker was leaked to when it was announced as a support, I guarantee you there were more threads on these forums asking for it to be a tank and not a support.
The problem isn’t support in of itself. The problem is that Blizzard made Augmentation the ONLY support spec in the game. Which means that if its falls off in any way, it’s going to get benched, and if its OP in any way, its going to force DPS Evokers to be Augmentation or get benched.
You fix that by either creating an entire new 4th role for support specs and making more support specs (unlikely).
OR, you change the spec into a real DPS spec or a Tank spec and change the name (more likely).
I like the idea of Augmentation, but Blizzard screwed up. I really don’t know why they went this route, because they could have gotten the spec out on time and made the class far more popular if they had just went tank or straight DPS.
If you’ve seen the effort Blizzard puts into allied races, you’d know they prioritize maximizing profit and efficiency. Adding a “4th role” would massively increase their workload—both now and in the future—and that’s not even debatable. Why would they willingly take on that extra burden when the return on investment would be minimal at best?
I agree it’s highly unlikely, but even if Blizzard did implement a 4th role, I don’t see how it results in a net positive. Sure, a handful of players might flock to the shiny new support specs, especially if they’re overpowered. But then the complaints would start rolling in: balancing would be an absolute nightmare, and instead of Aug taking all the hate, it would shift to the new support roles.
There’s just no clear win here. Anyone asking for more support specs or a dedicated support role is essentially asking for the impossible—unless Blizzard decides the workload is worth the squeeze. And honestly, based on their track record, that seems pretty far-fetched.
Augmentation nerfed again! This time a 20% nerf to Shifting Sands, a small nerf to BoE, and Clutchmates has been nuked from space.
The only way this spec works is by being grossly overpowered. Any attempts to bring it inline are going to make it unusable in groups. Time to end the experiment and make it either general DPS or make it a caster tank with support elements.
Que times are long enough as they are without them adding an additional slot to fill. It’s way easier, and efficient, to remove aug by converting it into a tank spec.
Just let support specs die with Aug. The experiment failed.
I would not be opposed to Aug filling a tank position at all.
Considering how Aug was needed in high end m+ proved that a support or buff class can assist with pushing a group higher key levels then otherwise possible (due to survival group wide DRs etc).
Perhaps a tank that does some of the buffing. Kinda of like how VDH is all about control and kiting. An Aug tank could be about buffing self and players to maintain threat and DRs.
I do like where your headspace is. However, you also have to think about the grand picture. If such a tank spec did exist, then raids would have a spot taken by the new aug tank.
It’ll be brewmaster monks all over again. Brewmaster monks were OP till they were reworked. Now, look at them now. Begging for scraps and crumbs of attention from devs. You do not want to go there. The highs would be high, but once you hit bottom… who knows when you’ll surface again.
Yes! Exactly, I’d be stocked with this! However…not by buffing. I’d personally prefer an effect you maintain on allies that procs damage as they do their rotation, that credits you for the sake of threat.
Throw in a tank management thing where you gotta pass a ‘buff’ between yourself and the other tank that determines who gets credit for the threat, and woo doggy you got something interesting there