Remember the best possible reward (which is still not the point - people want to compete and become the best and have a fair shot at doing that) is the top 0.1% title, which 0 MM hunters are getting and about 800 augmentation evokers are on track to get.
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I find this post ironic since it came during rio break the meta event. But yet its still old.
Meta will always be a thing, this is not something new, this isnt something that will change. When you are limited to 5 people there will always be 5 specs that perform better then anything else. Happens in any game, even phone games like clash of clans has meta comps. But you have the freedom to choose what you want to play.
The thought you have that najority of people switch classes is completely unfounded except for the people that play the game as a “career”. Or people like me that plays several alts. Im currently enjoying playing brewmaster even though in tank rankings it is one of the worst tanks this season, which in a way it is compared to others such as paly and dh. But it being the worst does not change the fact that i enjoy playing the spec.
Not really, but I will say that Augmentation specifically has been a net negative for this game as a whole.
This isn’t entirely accurate; they’re doing keys that are 47% harder than 28s, but they’re absolutely not 47% more effective than (most) off-meta comps.
The thing with these keys is that Augmentation provides a gigantic survivability boost for a group, and that involves giving the group higher max HP. A hit that could’ve overkilled someone by literal dozens without an Aug is now not killing someone at all with an Aug. The survivability might be a couple percent better, but when you’re given that inch you can go a mile when the difference between “you live or you die” is made by that tiny percent.
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Most people dont care about getting that .1% award. Most people dont even know its a thing. And the people that get that are typically the same people everytime that play the game as a career such as people in guilds like method
theres actually more people who actually play for fun and not care than the small percentile of meta chasers to your surprise.
So what stopped you from running your own keys, and running with friends. This idea if “i wont get invited” is bs when yiu could do the inviting yourself and not take any meta classes if you chose
Yeah, we can definitely run our own keys, but it doesn’t feel good knowing if you brought a good playing Aug along that it trivializes the current difficulty you’re at. Extra armor/survival for the tank, better healing for the healer, and overall better throughput for the dps.
And there’s no change in my gameplay. I’m not playing any better during that. I’m just getting great passive support. And I’m not even doing any high keys but it’s noticeable.
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This is the issue, not the meta. Feeling as though something would be easier to run with x included is not how you should think about group content. When you think of the content as a chore rather then something you would enjoy doing, of course you will always look to where its easier rather then for the fun of it. I garuntee inviting metas in pugs has a high chance to fail as most of these people just play the meta and cant utilize the spec at 100%
I for one hate things becoming trivialized and would rather seek the challenge rather then have it easy. When i form a group, i ask myself who would be fun to bring. While also making sure i have some dispels and quick interupters for certain dungeons
When you run with a really good Aug - eg high uptime on buffs, great use of their utility (like rescue to help slower, seals on wheels, tank like Prot Paladin move), etc. - the gameplay feels smoother. At any key level.
Yes, you need the complete package for progression: good tank, good heals, good dps. But if you have those, and then bring a slamming support, that’s a force multiplier that is useable at any week, at any dungeon.
We don’t want trivialized content. And I agree with you that if anything becomes chore-like, it’s a vibe killer and nothing kills progress like that.
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Im sorry, but every time i have invited a pug aug, they die quickly because of standing in stuff or bareky buffs many people. The only good augs i have seen are in my guild that i have run with, but again its like i said epople will switch to the meta for easy invites
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Yeah, no need to apologize. Not everyone will play a good class well. I don’t even play mine as well as I should. I’m just comparing my experiences with good augs - e.g., 60% uptime on the Ebon Might buff, as a good example that’s easily identified in the meters. If bad players chase the meta, they will still be bad players. But good players tend to play well on every class they dedicate time to.
I guess in short, I’m working off an assumption that a highly skilled player is playing either a dps class or an aug, and if your usual group doesn’t have an aug, and you bring that solid player playing an augmentation, it will feel like a much different, generally more positive key experience. I argue that their skillset will bring more to the table as an Aug in a group that doesn’t have one, vs. another DPS. (This argument is assuming the other dps are pumping, and use their utility, etc. This isn’t an argument in favor of the aug making up for failing players)
A meta isn’t the problem, there’s ALWAYS going to be a meta, it’s literally unavoidable so long as different classes work in different ways.
But there’s a difference between a good meta and a bad meta.
This graph clearly outlines the two different kind of metas.
Prior to Week 28, there’s a decent amount of class variety. Some specs are outliers at one point or another, Shadow Priests near the end of the Pre-Aug meta and Ret Paladins shortly after getting reworked.
But realistically speaking nothing super egregious considering we’ve got 30+ specs competing for only 5 slots in a key.
You don’t need to be a genius to figure out when Augmentation dropped. Pre Aug, we went from some specs being pretty solid, some being largely rounding errors and 1 spec being REALLY good.
Then Aug dropped and M+ became a 5 spec show that very occasionally features Vengeance and the odd Boomkin.
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If this was still season 1 you might have a point.
But a lot of the playerbase has quit on this season.
If you’re the head of the group and you’re not a meta spec you just won’t get that many applications. Even the non-meta specs always try to get into a group with an aug/Spriest
I still laugh at the people still defending this garbage. Usually the people with their inflated 3K io’s who wouldn’t even come close to 3K without their meta comp
When you discuss ‘meta’, what you’re really discussing is class balance.
The gap/disparity between the lower end of the utility/damage/healing spectrum versus the top. The ability to perform and simultaneously over-perform compared to your peers.
The unfortunate reality is Shadow Priest, Fire Mage, Guardian Druid, and Holy Paladin are so wildly far ahead of their counter-parts that after significant nerfs they’re still #1 by a long shot.
Why? Because Blizzard refuses to bring classes who have no utility/group utility/raid cooldowns/insufficient damage/button bloat/bad talent trees in line with their competitors. You have stuff like Surv Hunter existing at all. Rogue having 66% of their specs representing 50% of the bottom 4 specs in the game. Non-functional M+ specs that are just clunky/bad/have terrible rotational loops for M+ like Unholy DK, Warlock as a whole, etc.
It’s not that nerfing the top end over-performers isn’t enough. Buffing the bottom end to bring them in-line with utility/ease of play/qol/button bloat/rotational difficulty/etc needs to be done… and isn’t. At all. Fix button bloat on 60% of all specs, make talents feel important not busy-work cooldowns, and let the game be equal.
The margin of disparity should be 3-6% maximum. Not 25-45% as current.
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There’s actually good competition for fire mage. On smaller pull dungeons like VP and Nelth Lair there are better options for that 5th DPS spot. It’s counterpart frost mage for one, Enhance shaman (no intellect buff unfortunately but compensates with incredible CC), Sub Rogue can all fill in for the fire mage and do as good / better in certain dungeons.
Spriest is irreplaceable due to PI / MD. Augvoker is definitely irreplaceable for obvious reasons. You can try sub your tank with a VDH or a BDK but you lose the Vers buff for no real upside other tanks provide.
Holy Paladin is still the best designed healer for M+ by about 100 light years. The Disc redesign looks intriguing and it looks like they’re finally learning how to adapt healing to M+.
The absolute bare
All that plus the ridiculous utility advantage bears have.
They come with the vers buff, battle rez, and all of the other delicious druid utility. You have to sacrifice so many good talents with DK if you want any decent utility, stuff like blinding sleet and improved Death’s Advance should be built in. even if they were they still don’t stack up at all against Bears in their current form.
I feel like you’re leaving someone out.
Realistically speaking, those classes (well, except for Shadow) probably wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the lizard buffing them. The thing all those specs share in common is that they are exceptionally when cooldowns are stacked and their cooldowns line up very well with Aug.
Bears are a great example. Compare them to Blood DK’s. When they get buffed by Augmentation, Blood DK’s get nothing except more damage and a tiny bit of extra survivability from the extra Parry conversion to Strength.
But Bears? Basically EVERYTHING they do scales with Agility. Ironfur scales with Agi, so they get even more armour. Dodge scales with Agi, so more of that. They directly convert damage into absorb shield, which gets increased even further due to the aforementioned Ironfur scaling. Not to mention that both of Bears offheals (AtW and DoC) both have insane AP ratios, so having Ebon Might massively increases their effectiveness.
With the exception of Shadow being broken cause of PI/MD, you can trace basically every problem with the meta back to Aug.
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I’m going to be completely honest. I don’t think Blood DK’s are in a bad spot.
Their group utility isn’t bad, Grippy Hands + Death Grip makes positioning mobs ridiculously easy compared to other tanks and DK’s personal survivability against basically any damage profile is very, very good.
They’re just not bears. You delete Augmentation from the game and I’d guarantee you that Blood DK’s would become 10x more desirable as a Tank instantly.
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Oh for sure, I agree 100%
My post was strictly in the context of Bear vs BDK.
BDK’s are fantastic tanks compared to the rest of the field.
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None of which is made better by Blizzard’s constant stream of adding new classes and specs to the game, when they can’t even handle what they already have.
There’s a hole in the bottom of the bag, yet Blizzard keeps trying to fill the bag with more and more stuff, so the hole keeps getting bigger.
And people just ignore this and keep begging Blizzard to make the problem worse by adding more classes and specs.
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