Blizzard really set themselves up for a balancing headache with Augmentation.
Now every spec has to be balanced not only against others to stay in line, but every spec also has to be balanced with Augmentation considered in the equation.
Augmentation also has the issue of needing to be OP at all times or it’s useless. If the damage boost Augmentation brings ever dips below what a regular dps spec can do, Augmentation becomes obsolete and doesn’t need to exist. Why would you bring a lower dps enhancement spec that cannot make up for the loss of a real dps spec?
I give it 1-2 expansions before Blizz gets tired of it and turns Augmentation into a regular dps spec.
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Don’t worry aug will be nerfed into the ground and made into a dps spec like it should have been int he first place just give it time.
If Hunters are still getting groups despite literally no group buffs I think you’ll be fine.
So disc priests aren’t a thing? Druids?
disc priests are healers. druids can play any role, but only one at a time.
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And you can get banned for publicly using them.
The existence of augment support was going to ruin the balance one way or another, it was expected.
Can you truly claim “most” because I doubt you can. I dont. I play the game vanilla and its a great experience.
Agree with this. I could finally keep up in AOE with other classes pretty well and now the AOE gets nerfed. It’s not necessary at all. TBH I was so excited to be playing a more alive spec again with glacial spike coming back and more mobility without RoP, but if these nerfs are what it seems like they are, I might just be logging in to make gold with crafting until the next patch. Very disappointing.
I understand, but mages, hunters, and rogues can’t party heal. Priests, paladins, shamans, and druids can, that’s by definition a hybrid role. Druids even have talents that let them hybrid spec such as nature’s vigil, innervate, heart of the wild, etc.
Blizzard has even defined hybrid roles. Saying a pure dps class should be the potential highest dps isn’t really controversial.
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I love that list, its lets me know monks and hunters are my “never relevant for mythics” brothers
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Blizzard has specifically said this is not something they believe anymore
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bro u really think that aug is the reason why mage and spriest is slamming lmao
this is the same argument as like demo lock and pi
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Warcraftlogs.
Using any class combination other than sPriest/Fire Mage causes a drastic drop in Aug parsed damage. They drop from 5th place to 17th place.
Your 160k with aug evoker is being compared directly to a Fire Mage doing 310k in zone with an aug evoker. You are 150k dps shy of the fire mage. The damage the buffed target does scales into the Aug’s DPS via combat hooks. When you do less damage, the Aug does less damage on logs. When the buffed targets do more damage, the aug does more damage. Your ret without aug is doing roughly 130k. Fire Mage is doing roughly 290k. You lose 30k dps - the fire mage loses 20k dps. The aug nerfs will affect you more than it will the fire mage.
There’s entire youtube videos out there dedicated to breaking down these numbers in an easy-to-consume manner for you.
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Augvoker is PI on steroids. Blizz should turn more of the buffs they provide into their personal dmg.
See, that’s the thing with this and why I want Augmentation to be given time to flourish: I want support to be fully developed as a 4th spec and for other classes to have access to flavorful buffs;
Time mage: Lots of buffs related to movement speed, Attack speed, CD’s, maybe a smaller version of lust that effects the party as a whole, rapid regeneration… there’s a lot you could do with this.
Bargainer warlock: Less focus on demons or damage effects so much as using the corruptive power of the fell to give powerful buffs to team mates but with each one having a debuff associated with it.
Trickster rogue: share some of the rogue’s class powers with other players; things like allowing another player to vanish, open up enemies to higher crit potential… lots of of fun stuff here.
Like these are just the ones off the top of my head that I’d like to see brought in for classes that aren’t already straddling the 3 roles.
The caveat with this of course, is that for it to work blizzard needs to design the game to accommodate these specs and this style of gameplay which it simply doesn’t right now due to it being designed around the 1/1/3 meta that has been the core of the games design since 2004 and that simply can’t happen until the next expansion at least.
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For something like the support spec to work, you have to homogenize those they would be buffing so you don’t get the crazy results we’re seeing now with certain, incredibly potent combinations. This means normalizing damage rotations across all DPS as well as damage windows so that an Aug or similar spec doesn’t cause one class to completely annihilate every other one in the numbers game.
This would essentially require a rebuild from the ground up of every non-Tank class in the game.
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See, I disagree; what you need to do is have a better variety of ways that damage can be churned out so that different supports can benefit different party/raid comps/bosses; like have some classes that ramp, some that have chunky damage output and some that are smooth from start to finish.
And frankly, “Spec of the moment” has been a thing and a problem since WoW was in beta so I’m not really seeing the issue with this.
Except now you further enforce comps; now instead of a 1-1-3, now you need a combination of three specific DPS, each combination forcibly changed depending on what support you’re lucky (or more likely unlucky) enough to draw. You think PUGs are bad now? Wait 'till the votekicks start for ‘unviable class combination’. Instead of getting that ‘experience’ at the top of M+, now it’ll be all the way down.
And let’s ignore M+; what about Raids? PvP? Especially LFR or random BGS, imagine how infuriating for all parties it would be to ‘draw’ an incompatible support/DPS combo.
Niche roles and classes are not something you want.
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If melee specs can do high dps and be survivable than so too can casters.