Did something happen recently with how the M+ community at large views Aug?
I consider myself to be an above average aug player but the last two weeks or so it’s been like pulling teeth trying to get invited to even an 8. Near constant declines. I suppose I haven’t kept up on all the recent patch notes, did we get nerfed or something?
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Aug is not required for low keys and their damage is lower than bringing pretty much any other DPS that is 10 ilvls lower, 15-20 ilvls if the DPS is one of the meta melee, it is almost a handicap when going for fast clears for crests unless it’s a 630+ team that would get more out of a bad pug aug than a bad pug DPS.
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Aug does not perform well in lower keys, nor are they require in lower keys. Once you start getting to higher keys beyond the +12 range, then aug starts to really shine because they improve group survivability.
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Augmentation PUG players are bad. I’d avoid most of them too.
If you’re running keys below 12, go Devastation (Scalecommander) and be miserable with doing 700M less overall than your peers.
Don’t bother applying as Flameshaper, you might be inadvertently reported for trolling a group.
Yeah, Aug is not fun in Pugs…I wouldn’t pick one up. I roll Deva sub 10s
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I decided to main Aug recently, because I have always loved buffing party members. I love it. It took some time, recently everything just clicked and it feels great. I think part of it was needing more secondary stats. A fresh 80 Aug felt really sluggish. That or it just took a minute to get the gameplay loop down.
It’s the stats.
The way Aug works heavily punishes dropping EM, which stats help (haste and mastery) keep up. Its extremely punishing due to being about buff extension when it drops.
It’s really unfortunate that chrono plays so much better feel wise but performs so much worse than scale. But like you, I love playing buffing support classes and Aug fills that niche for me. I still think people that think removing Aug will make them selected for a group are silly. They’ll just grab the shaman over them still lol
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In fairness, aug can be fine as chrono in coordinated groups. Its just… you need to line up CDs to really take advantage of it whereas scalecommander resets breath so often its just fire when ready.
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“Above average” playing the easiest spec in WoW
Most specs are kinda easy.
BM Hunter for example x)
And Dev evoker is rly not hard too. But yes Aug is a bit more simple. And?
The community perception on Aug went way down after their recent balance adjustments which were mostly nerfs. The recent changes to Aug made it so Ebon might no longer effects tanks and healers, in addition to some other nerfs. The Ebon Might buff is stronger on dps than it was before, but that also means your performance on Aug is way more reliant on your damage dealers being alive and playing well. Since if they aren’t doing good damage themselves, you buffing them isn’t going to equate to much.
They still have other utility for tanks such as blistering scales and source of magic for the healer respectively (to name a few). As well as prescience that can be applied to anyone still, however a lot of their kit has moved to buffing the dps and their personal damage.
Are they still viable, yes, but you’re a lot more reliant on your other two dps surviving and performing well (as well as performing well yourself). Otherwise it tends to feel better to just bring a 3rd dps, rather than a support at the moment. And outside of some Aug specific abilities, Devastation and Preservation Evoker have access to a lot of the same core class utility.
Due to community perception just being in the gutter atm, it might be hard to get into groups that you’re not starting yourself unfortunately.
While I’ve always mained Dev, I do like Aug as a concept as and spec. And while I do think some of the changes to them were necessary, they could probably find a way to tweak a few other things going forward.
Maybe even consider giving them a Battle-rez now that can only be used on dps (since both dps being alive is a huge factor to how aug is going to perform.) Or slightly buff the personal damage or the buffs that get applied to the dps in your party.
Hard to say what the exact fix would be, but I want them to keep trying to make it work personally.
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LOL. You want them to have Lust and a Brez? Priests and Monks have nothing, and you suggest giving more to the spec that already has too much?
Deletion. The moment you accept that the spec cannot be balanced, the sooner you’ll be able to move on.
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The sooner you accept any spec will not be deleted, as that just isn’t how business has ever been done here, the sooner you’ll be able to move on.
That said, it feels more and more likely that Aug won’t be deleted (because again, it’ll never happen, just stuff that suggestion in the bin), but will likely be reworked to be something much more closely resembling a bog standard DPS. I would like it to be reworked to a tank, as that’d be the first fully int-based fully-hybrid class.
Realistically though, it’ll just end up another DPS at the end of the day. Pretty much the direction it’s been slowly creeping already!
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Survival and tank Demonology say hi. Also Blood DPS.
That person is a) toxic and b) do not want any proper conversation mate.
Sev. people have tried that. He just wants to spill his troll-comments and negativity here. Because all should flag his/her posts as trolling and move on.
I still hope they will work with MORE energy+power on the rework+ the support role and more support-specs. Just make them NICE to have and not totally OP!
The specs weren’t deleted. They were reworked. The spec is still there, you can still play it, it’s just different than it was.
Survival still exists as a melee spec, and your marksman can get a reasonable approximation of what Ranged-Survival was (albeit explosive shot functions differently).
Demonology still exists as a spec, but the glyph you’re referring to (not a spec at all) is basically just a trash version of what became Vengeance Demon Hunter. So, you can still play it more or less as it was with DH.
Blood DPS, again, was never a spec. Blood was the spec, this was back in Wrath. All three specs still exist and are playable, but also, all 3 used to be able to tank to a degree (though if I remember correctly, Blood or Frost were the preferred), all 3 also DPSed. Blood “DPS” such as it was is kinda still a thing in pvp last I checked, I don’t know if it still works like it did last season.
Short and sweet is no. Objectively no, no spec has ever been deleted. It is simply not a thing. Blizzard will rework a spec, but they have never deleted one outright. There is not a single solitary example you can give of a deleted spec. Best you can come up with is ones that were drastically reworked, and even then, a lot of the abilities usually end up cannibalized into another spec later on.
In this vein Augmentation will NEVER be deleted. Period and full stop. It will likely end up with a drastic rework into something more closely resembling a regular ol’ bog standard DPS with a whiff of the support they once had. I’d love it if it were reworked to a tank, but I very much doubt they’ll go through that effort.