That would be contrary to the fantasy of the role. 
I would be entirely fine with it being expanded to a myriad of other classes, however.
Honestly, if itâd make the babies on the forum happy, Iâd be 100% down for that.
That or do what I suggested and change how the buffs work to just be flat buffs instead of stat percentages.
Aug has been the itch Iâve been wanting in this game since they clearly had no idea how to do so properly with ret and enhancement, so as long as it still plays like a support spec Iâd be happy.
Well the purpose of Aug isnât to boost the damage of the entire group higher compared to the damage without an Aug, itâs to boost the damage of the group by somewhere between the lowest DPS and highest DPS, putting it on par with any other group comp. But itâs overtuned right now so Blizzard can have test subjects.
Supports in WoW are a terrible idea and with the reception of Aug scuppering plans for future Support specs Iâll be very surprised if Aug doesnât get reworked to be a true DPS.
WoW was designed without having Supports in mind, which precludes the niches where Supports can normally exist healthily in a game. We already have tanks, we already have healers and all three roles have access to utility and CC and there is no combat economy so the value of a spec doing well with minimal resources isnât of any real use.
Basically the only way that Supports can exist in WoW and be viable is to be a force multiplier and Force Multipliers are historically pain points in every game where they exist with Aug being no different.
Adding additional Supports wonât fix the problem, because theyâre all competing for the exact same niche so any new spec would be competing solely with Aug and either be worthless if it doesnât provide as much as Aug does, or Aug would be made worthless if it provided more.
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If vanilla ret tells me anything, they were 100% on board with support specs at the start.
They were just so bloody terrible at designing it that they just went with âgimp dps with a bad healâ instead.
Thereâs lots of funky stuff from Vanilla (and some BC) where youâd be able to do stuff like Shaman/Warlock tank, or hybrids having lower throughput because they brought value in other places.
But that was abandoned completely in Wrath in favour of a design that is more self-sufficient.
For significantly more time that they havenât, Blizzard have been designing a game where the idea of a support is not sustainable.
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Canât have multiple either.
Due to the way balance works in these games you canât really have any support outside of a flat x% party wide bonus.
Anything else increases the complexity in balance and design too much.
Iâm shocked that War Within isnât adding more support.
Meta wouldnât matter as much in m+ if m+ keys couldnât deplete and it lacked a timer.
Aug getting nerfed though:
Evoker
Augmentation
Developersâ notes: The amount of utility that Augmentation Evoker brings on top of its high damage has proven to be too powerful despite recent changes. Therefore we are further reducing their damage contributions to the group in order to balance them against other specializations.
Ebon Might grants 6.5% of the Evokerâs primary stat (was 8%).
Close as Clutchmates increases the effectiveness of Ebon Might and Breath of Eons by 10% (was 20%).
The amount of Versatility granted by Shifting Sands has been reduced by 15%.
Yeah, GW2 has a design around support, but that support can pretty much be summarized to be a more active variant of the semi-passive raid buffs classes bring like Battle-Shout.
Having more of the same role just means better uptime, not that that the buffs stack.
And any time a class has gotten to bring a unique buff, it ends up becoming mandatory in all teams.
Ever played launch monks?
Almost like they should just balance the classes correctly, release something reasonably powered on release and sell it not on being unbalanced to move expac units with the intent to later hit it with a hammer but sell it on the merits of a unique, interesting playstyle. I get there are only so many of those but at the point you run out, maybe time to stop adding new classes just to please the insatiable âwhy my new expac no come with new class, literally unplayableâ types.
As to blaming players. Theyâre happy to call themselves disciplinarians and the people who say âyou think you do but you donâtâ but this is a lack of discipline on dev team and corporate. Probably marketing bullying them into doing it and them caving. Players want lots of things, if devs condition them with certain habits and expectations thatâs their fault.
Class fantasy is important. So important it should be carefully considered when a new one is introduced and kept consistent.
It isnât at all a situation of buckling to player pressure. Itâs about dollars. Player pressure for things they still havenât buckled on that has been a constant for over a decade has failed to produce them giving when they donât want to (despite in many of these cases giving not harming the game, the balance, the playstyle, or selling players things based on lies or temporary conditions). On the other hand things like this. So itâs good and fine to blame the players as if players forced their hand, no, corporate forced their hand and they either couldnât stand up to them or thought it too much trouble to.
That was monk, no?
That could be resolved by changing the rules.
Make dungeon 6 person optional. 6th slot only aug. Now 3 dps is not ranting one of will be kicked.
Raid maybe 26âŚagain 26th slot aug only and optional.
And there can only be the one! Diminishing returns if not hard code only 1 dude can boost.
I am on the side that says player issue here. I came form eve which had this built in since day 1 really. Said before this put in place maybe the devs should have looked at its setup.
They made all the mistakes to learn from over 20 years really. That game min maxes to the point math bends, if not breaks, really. And yeah, the core of that setup was ye old dude boosting the fleet.
Interesting business model, letâs see how thatâs panned out over the last few expansions.
*checks in with the boys at the lab
Ooooh⌠bad newsâŚ
I was hoping, almost expecting, to see more support specs announced for the next expansion.
But I agree, if they arenât going to do that then they should change the spec to be a normal dps spec focusing on black and bronze magic since dev does red and blue. Or better yet (IMO), make it a tank spec so the game has more than one single class that has both ranged and tank specs.
if you truly knew him, youâd know his name isnât Ian, itâs Ion.
Let me add this to the BLink is a heal, 1 ilvl is 1% effective memes
no you didnt - you fixed it to suit yourself . He was right in all his comments.
Mythic can be done with any combination of classes , its teh players that form teh meta and insist on it , and i dont mean the top players , its teh ones below that . They think their invation to join Limit or Echo is in the mail .
So people who play Aug have to change because others are stupid --seems logical to me
exactly -its not new , there will always be a meta and people will blindly follow it or insist others do .
so both of you are saying all Aug players dont find teh spec fun - sorry if i seriously disbelieve you
oh you mean like MANY times in teh past when raids stacked 5 of x class . Or in M+ when your DPS was X Y And Z class and if you wernt then you didnt get a look in .
Always happened and unfortunately always will , unless you are in a guild with a leader who really understands that it doesnt matter , you will still clear regardless if you are good enough with any composition
really - because my guild had 4 hunters and two Aug . The only hunters compalining are those in guilds with leaders who must follow the meta instead of using their own brains .
Oh so the enrage timer doesnt exist ???