Who will play devastation?

With that new dps spec that has more survability, why would you even play devastation? Like are they going to give devastation an even higher damage output to compensate? Because augmenter is still a damage dealer class, meaning they should pretty much do decent damage already.
I think they should give devastation 40 yard base range to compensate which would make sense for the glass canon.
Weak def high range vs high def low range, That’s how the 2 spec should work

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A lot could change, but based on what I’ve played of the current version, I still plan to do dev at least in the open world. Aug has better survivability, but dev has higher damage and will be better to kill things where survivability isn’t an issue.

In group content I’ll probably prefer aug, but I can see dev still being useful, especially in content where stuff dies quickly. Their mastery might be better than aug’s buffs.

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they are going to do nowhere near the damage of a dps spec.

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Let me doubt. If they wanted to make it deal for instance the same damage output of a disc priest, they would have set its role to healer. But they set it damage. Meaning in a couple months when we check the dps chart, it might be at the bottom, but not far from the one before the last…

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People who want to play devastation will still play devastation. I will still main it because I enjoy the playstyle and no other spec in the game replicates it. Based on what we’ve seen so far I am almost definitely going to have augmentation as my “alt”, but it will replace my shaman or tertiary alts rather than my time spent playing devastation.

I know they’re from the same class but you might as well ask who’s going to play arcane or fire or destruction, or any other DPS spec. Hypothetically the spec will be tuned such that it’s contribution is not greater than any other individual spec overall. If that mark isn’t being met it’s a balancing issue same as if any class is doing too well or too poorly. If that’s your mentality you already should be playing something instead of devastation because other DPS specs already do more damage.

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It doesn’t have much of any healing tools, and if it did it would be the best healer due do its damage amp on others. It’s damage abilities are significantly weaker than base devastation, it lacks a powerful damage cooldown like dragonrage, and its mastery and other buffs will in general not target itself. It’s going to be nowhere close to any dps, and it shouldn’t be. Its damage is really the additional damage it provides to others.

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Is the PTR up yet? Has anyone tried out the spec in the PTR or just going off of guesses on the numbers? [I am at work, so I do not know/cannot check]

People are talking with a lot of confidence about complete opposites so I’m just like, “How many of the people talking have actually tested it out?”

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ptr is available

From my quick testing so far, Devastation is insanely more mobile, does way more dps aswell.

So while Augmentation does have increased survivability, it actually feels more like a traditional caster, it’s very “Turret” feeling.

Ofcourse early days, tuning and changes will obviously happen, but I’m enjoying it more so for the play style, I play healer to support, but if I can eliminate the pressure of Healing and still do adequate dps while supporting I’m enjoying it.

But who knows. The biggest question is going to be is the trade off worth it?, less mobility for more survivability?, less damage for more support/utility?.

Higher keys most mechanics is a one shot regardless, is it going to be worth it?. They even gave Augmentation a 6min cd cheat death because of how stationary it is.

But regardless it’s good to see Blizzard stepping out of its comfort zone in spec design, there most definitely is going to be a lot of trial and error testing coming after they launch the spec.

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So then why would you play the zdps especially if you’re usually a solo player

its a buff spec, so their damage alone doesn’t really matter. and if you’re a solo player you don’t play the spec that relies on buffing others.

I’ve never seen someone looking for adequate dps in group finders

Majority of people in the game are selfish just look at the tanks who run to the end of dungeons from the beginning with no regard to the rest of the group. why would you make a spec that doesn’t allow for a lot of the solo style things, and doesn’t go well with that same self serving play style most people are doing. Cheerleader class just cause?

Oooooh so NOW we have an off limits if you’re mostly solo spec I see…

I’ll say that I really like the concept of the class. It looks fun. Looks like a damned mess to balance, but it looks fun!

There’s nothing stopping you from playing any class/spec however you want solo.

You can talent into AoE and pull one mob at a time.

You’re solo, do whatever you want.

Very True, but it all determines on how the buffing is tuned and balanced on ptr and they already announced they going to have like details determine the dps given to others to be calculated.

So in a perfect world of balance say in M+, Augmentation Evoker is 80k overall dps, but the other 2 dps are 110k overall dps, but each got 10k dps boost from the Evoker essentially makes the 3 dps 100k dps overall and the final metre should show the true dps from the Evoker.

But it’s all currently tuning and testing, like I previously mentioned, I’m foreseeing a lot of trial and error moving forward.

You mentioned solo content, that’s no issue even healers can solo everything pretty good, might take a little longer but doable, that’s not an issue.

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Couple things:

  1. Augvoker buffs can be self cast. I just tested this on PTR.
  2. Moving Blistering Scales and the following Molten Blood talent to the general side of the tree would fix most of the survivability concerns with the Devoker spec.

Augvoker feels good on the PTR minus it’s output damage being pretty bad in solo content. No idea about group content yet.

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they should probably make it so ebon might can be applied to yourself when solo

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It’s already like that and has 40% increased effectiveness when not in raid.