Pretty sure when they released evoker at start of DF, they knew already they would give them a 3rd spec.
They already had in mind the support spec, and they thought, well if that spec does not work we can always adjust later.
The fact that they did not announce and probably dont have the intention to give any other classes a support spec let me believe they will eventually wipe out the support spec from evoker.
If that happens, what do you believe will become the 3rd evoker spec?
Will that be a pure dps spec focusing on black damage aoe magics, or would they make it a tank oriented spec?
Personally i would be fine with any. In both scenarios they would have to replace the support spells with either other damage spells or tanking abilities.
You guys really think the augmentation spec will remain there forever?
Yes.
I don’t think you’re off base that eventually most of the support flavor will be gone, though.
If they don’t figure out a way to balance the spec as a support to where it isn’t an issue, they will likely just shift most (or all) of the power to being a personal DPS.
The ONLY other direction I could see would be as a healer, but I somewhat doubt that.
The tank fantasy is alive and well on these forums, but I see no world where they completely scrap the spec to add a tank.
Blizzard always favors the path of least resistance, and shifting power ratios out of our buffs and into personal DPS is an incredibly simple fix in the grand scheme as compared to designing an entirely new spec.
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I don’t think they’ll fully get rid of it, maybe there will be a rework of it.
My $.02 is they’ll probably slowly shift it towards being more DPS heavy, and removing some of it’s other utility. The premise will be the same – buff your teams DPS – but they’ll make Aug’s other utility less important and increase Aug’s dmg output so it acts more as a primary DPS that also boosts your teams output.
It seems kind of similar to how they treated the Disc priest rework, where they tried the flavor of “DPS to heal” and slowly have balancing that out with direct healing capabilities.
I’m more interested in the future of devastation and preservation.
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They don’t need to do much to it.
Make ebon might give dmg and not primary stat. Remove vers from mastery, remove armor for tanks. And then just jazz up their own dps rotation. Then they’re just a normal dps but still do a good chunk of it through others.
Literally their only problem is that they give passive survivability to the group that is too good.
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I hope so, it is my favourite spec. I would hate to see it made into a pure dps or a tank spec. I like having a class that is focused around managing buffs on my teammates.
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If they ever decide that a support spec is no longer worth the hassle of balancing it, they rework it into a regular dps spec. Its the easiest path.
They’re not going to change it into a different role. That would greatly upset the players who enjoy the gameplay of the spec.
A lot of the sentiment that Aug should be a tank boils down to the fact that there are people who like dracthyr, but are tank mains, and they have no option to do that. This will no longer be true at some point in TWW, when they give Dracthyr more class options, and we’ll probably see fewer people demanding aug be made into a tank spec.
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Gonna go ahead and “Press X to doubt” here
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Eh, other specs have done so but nobody ever cared. For example old monk auras; 8% passive healing amp to your whole group, along with 4% avoidance is a lot of passive survivability.
Resto shamans can currently increase everyone’s HP by 10% at any moment. Aug’s health increase got nerfed into irrelevance, but nobody cares about resto doing the same though.
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I agree with you, cause I was making resto sham S3 and having double 10% max HP buffs was kind of clutch in a few situations.
But, Aug just does it in too many ways, passively, all the time.
Like, I’m pretty sure some tanks get more armor from primary stat like bone shield/shield of the righteous. And scales armor buff. Monks get stagger % from primary. Also dodge/parry I believe? So not only does it help a tank not instantly explode, but is increasing heal effectiveness on them.
Then buffing healers healing output by a good amount. Also mage barrier every 2 min. And maybe like 8-10% DR on your dps from vers.
It all adds up
I would say they will add a visage glyph of some kind. Then in a year or 2 they will rework augmentation
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I could see them changing Aug to be less about boosting the groups damage by making the buffs not as strong and and adding that missing power into its own personal damage.
Pres will probably forever get Temporal Anomaly changed every major patch.
Maybe Dev will get a single target red spell essence spender?
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I think aug will remain and they might add other supports in (wouldn’t bet on it), but they would only add another support in if they wanted to make it so Aug wasn’t the only one who brings crazy utility.
As for if Aug gets replaced I would hope it would turn into a caster tank (which is what most people thought Aug was gonna be).
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Would love to see the source on this one.
Oh okay for a minute there I thought there were actually facts involved.
False alarm!
IIRC, from the first whiff we ever got about aug it was pretty clear to everybody that it was going to be a support spec. I recall the first thing we ever saw that tipped us off was datamined text of Neltharion describing the Adamant Vigil as “bolstering their allies from the backline and exploiting enemy weaknesses” (paraphrasing).
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