I honestly think that most of the issues that the community has with aug could be alleviated by following some of the great suggestions about how their buffs work. For example, ebon might only buffing the party you are in, or choosing 4 people before the encounter starts as targets. For the people who like the pre-raid spreadsheet planning and maths, could always keep prescience as a targettable buff in that way so that it has less of a skewing impact on the game but to truly min-max you could still plan that one out.
I also think, perhaps contrary to popular belief, that aug is in a cool place in m+ too. Bit lower damage than a dps but provides a bit more survivability to the group, so ideal if your group wants to play it safe. I think that’s a cool compromise.
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While I main Prevoker I do enjoy playing Augvoker as it’s a change from the holy trinity of tank, healer, dps and I hope we see more of it.
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I’m a big fan of Aug, and I’d hate to see it sacked in favor of a tank or anything else. Really my only criticism is that I wish I could play it solo, and I’ve previously mentioned offhand that it would be cool if the spec had a pet so it could still buff something when by itself. I wish Evoker had a tank spec because it would be cool, but I also think that about a bunch of other classes.
That said, its existence seems to come with a host of other considerations. That by most accounts it’s still somewhat difficult to get a clear picture of Aug’s contributions to any group or raid content is kind of a problem–and how much of a problem is directly proportional to how “hardcore” the content in question is, since to my understanding a less accurate measure is still better than nothing. Also the nature of support is just that: the life of a buff spec is only as good as the worst performing teammate. There’s also the compounding issue: One and only one support spec to a team of five, but aug still “counts” as DPS.
None of this is reason enough to scrap the spec, nor is the fact that the spec is easy to play (and I’m speaking from no meaningful experience, but just as an armchair developer), but I can’t say I’m surprised by the volume of concern for the spec, both legitimate and manufactured. Say what you will about it, but it’s definitely a wrench in some of the game’s oldest assumptions.
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I love the idea of Augmentation, but wish it was a stronger off-healer rather than a weak DPS.
In fact, I’d love it if every healing spec became more Augmentation-like.
Fistweaver is basically already there, and it’s probably my favorite healing spec.
I love being able to drop a Wild Growth and some Rejuvs when playing Balance Druid, and don’t see why Resto Druid couldn’t be more similar to Balance.
I love Ele Shaman, but I do miss back when it used to be a decent AoE off-healer. There’s a lightning/lava split in Elemental right now, and I think it’d be nice if Elemental went full Lavaburst, and Restoration went Lightning + Healing Rains.
Thematically, it makes a lot of sense for lightning spells and rain spells to play off of eachother. You summon a Healing Rain, and then every enemy hit by Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning inside the Rain’s AoE takes an extra hit of lightning damage from the stormcloud the rain the falling from. etc.
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I do wish we could have chosen between healing Aug or Dps Aug. Yes that would make it even more complex but at least we could go full in on the support aspect. Yes you wouldn’t get as many group invites cause 2 heals but still.
Devastation will never be competitively viable until they extend the cheat death with the group heal, the extra 4% health/10% movespeed aura, and the targeted shield over to Devastation.
Quite frankly, they should rework the spec so it only provides a DPS bonus, and that’s it. Providing a survivability bonus that no other class can match is too much of a dominant niche in M+
They’ve hammered the spec with nerf after nerf and it’s still miles ahead of anything but mages in M+
It’s already competitively viable and better than Aug in most situations.
None of this is necessary for dev, though defy fate would be very nice. There’s a ton of survivability baked into our new hero trees.
This would effectively kill the spec. Currently, Aug DPS is bad but they still have a niche in super high end content because of the utility and survivability.
The utility (paradox, timelessness in particular) would definitely be welcome in the class tree vs strictly Aug.
Not even remotely true. In all but the highest keys being done, devastation is better than Aug.
100% agreed. There’s a very compelling playstyle in Dream of Spring that’s hamstrung by horrible mana issues.
Being able to go heal-heavy or dps-heavy depending on your comp or encounter would be incredible. There’s a razor’s edge they’d have to balance on to make this happen, but given that the majority of the healing would be from blossom, it would be incredibly simple to balance if there were issues.
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I agree very much!
Finally something new and not old holy trinity and people whine.
I rly hope there will be a support-role and more support specs 
Also i agree with @Kalterash
Im in the same boat with you and i don t like stressful gameplay or just looking at numbers, so aug evoker is perfect for me
There are still people who love to support others!
Hopefully there will be other supporters too!
Like the bard e.g. <3
People are just coping because they were wrong about the 3rd evoker spec being a tank. So they are just using their imagination, working themselves up with said imagination, and here we are.
Aug is a full blown dps spec. Described as a force multiplier. It has less supportive tools than Retribution Paladin in PvP, and is less tanky than Retribution Paladin.
It’s very ironic people’s opinion on Aug. On the PvP side I feel like it stems from a laziness. No one wants to learn how to fight against an Aug, so they’d rather complain and call it a tank, instead of adjust to a new dps spec like we did with Death Knight, Monk, Melee Survival Hunter, and Demon Hunter.
What do all those have in common? The brand new classes already all brought tank specs, and Melee Survival Hunter was the 3rd addition of a new melee dps spec with no new caster spec, then Demon Hunter made a 4th new melee dps spec.
Devastation and Augmentation are the only new ranged DPS specs introduced to the game, and Survival Hunter was a ranged dps spec that was taken away and added to the already too full new melee spec basket. Makes absolutely zero sense to cater to more melee dps or tanks. This is the only time we’ve ever seen a new spell caster class introduced!
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