I play Devastation Evoker, and really enjoy the spec.
It is completely overshadowed by Augmentation, and while Augmentation does take up a dps slot in general, it impacts Devastation more than other dps specs. Augmentation provides everything to a group that Devastation does, plus a lot more. No real reason to bring a Devastation evoker at higher keys if you can instead bring an Augmentation evoker. It’s different in lower keys, but there are actually groups for +11s that want an Augvoker, because community perception is what it is.
Then again, as a mage, you share the “preferred spec” status with Augmentation. Nearly every timed key on the high end has a mage in the group.
Evoker should have been able to be any race with the race choice being your Dracthyrs visage.
As for Agumentation. Unfortunately support classes pretty much forced a complete redesign over how specs are made and work together. Especially since it ups the complexity in in design by a wide margin since now classes needs to be designed with other classes in mind rather than in isolation.
Like the devs now have to ensure that a buff from a support spec provides about the same effect across all other specs. So that one spec doesn’t get a 1% boost of what another spec gets.
We had them. And you play one of them yourself. Enhancement was originally an off-tank support spec with lots of totems for buffing the group, with a lower damage output as a result.
This was removed as part of the “bring the player, not the class” strategy of WotLK.
It’s unclear to me what exactly it would mean to restore things like Enh, Ret, Surv, etc. to their original state of being a support role at this point, but I doubt it would be received well. Same with ferals being a rogue on 4 legs instead of their original support jack-of-all-trades design. I know MANY druids who’d want that back, but the modern feral community all thinks they’re rogues, so what do you do…
At the same time though, having Aug as the only support is pretty nasty as well. It makes them far too popular and there’s really no way to solve it other than getting rid of it.
What about a DH support spec? Or a mage spec with time magic that doesn’t heal, but speeds people up? (Cause mage healer is weird) Or a warlock spec that empowers people with the fel. Idk.
Deva/pres can stay and even be incorporated as specs for a tinker to give other races an access to these specs, they perfectly represent what a moving turret with exoskeleton and SC body armour mech would do, the renaming and reskining the abilities part shouldnt be much of the issue.
Dracthyrs should have general access to mage, priest etc classes. But the dracthyr evoker concept as a 1 race class combo nonsense must go away.
Class skins are long overdue for retail.
The unholy dk is almost perfect mechanically as a spec, but the undead and rotten theme puts me off. Mechanics shouldnt be tied to visual representation that much, you should be able to spam death coils in any flavour from rotten green death to pink happy pony.
Nah adding the damage increase for other dps to aug dps lands them like 15% under other specs. They simply do less dps but bring so much else to a group that they are basically mandatory at top level keys.
I play shaman, and honestly - I never found tanking spec desirable for shaman, they are support class, not alpha males of the group but it’s a matter of taste
You fool! Earth Magic is all about endurance… the ideal element for a tank spec.
That went out of the window a long time… When they removed most of our totems because some people that dont like shaman complained about having to use totems…
whats even funnier is that Shamans in PvE are the only class that doesnt provide a unique form of group utility. Which makes Shaman less of a support class than mage!
It’s got nerfed to the point now where for the average WoW player, is it not required, or needed for an aug to be in the group.
I fail to see the issue honestly. Any more nerfs and it’ll just be a completely dead spec. I think it’s in a good position for the most part.
If anything, I hope we get more support specs. Chronomancer mage would be kinda sick. Removing fun specs and gameplay for the sake of complete balance WILL NOT make the game more enjoyable. It’s already been done, and it led to boring homogenization.
The problem isn’t really Aug, it’s that the game was never designed with support specs in mind.
Blizzard had to either:
Make a new “support” role meaning:
1a) Changing every dungeon to work with 6 players, or with 2 DPS
1b)Adding multiple support specs so that the role doesn’t only have 1 spec in it
1c)Work out the balancing issues
Not introduce Aug evoker
There was never this strange half option they went for, yet here we are.
There’s no problem with support specs, imo, except that there is only one. Aug needed introducing at a time when several other classes could gain a support spec as well, but that didn’t happen.
And honestly, augmentation was only mandatory because dungeons were tuned around survivability instead of making the timer. It would be much easier to balance out if the primary check was getting enough damage done rather than handling damage taken.
But it’s true, they are ugly and another clear furry addition. Personally I’m tired of seeing yet another tumblr race, it’s getting old and killed the vibe the game used to have.
This isn’t true though. The damage an Evoker brings to the group with its dps and buffs is less than a dedicated dps. This isn’t my opinion, it’s shown on Warcraftlogs, it has been discussed by the best players in the world, Max from Liquid has talked about it in great length recently.
Aug is taken because they help the group survive, the damage they contribute through buffs isn’t as high as a 3rd dedicated dps.
He’s talking about raiding. He also said we don’t have data for M+ because the MDI and proper testing hasn’t been done in dungeons as there is no way to repeat the same instance and level with different comps yet.
oh… i changed so many appearance and races in 17 years… But it fits perfectly for the w40k primarch.
Anyway: i cant compare a detached jaw zombie with a pale elf…
The only thing i can say is the old vibe we hade ages ago in wow is definitely dead for good: now is probably the time of "tumblt races and thing - (i hope to understand correctly what you mean - if not i beg your pardon. im old.)
when i wanna play somethin old vibe or grimdark i play another game.
but it’s a matter of taste