Good for you. Meta does not affect KSM+ levels. Especially in SL where it was super easy to get. That is 2500 rating.
Talk to me when you have achieved something more than that. Its where the meta starts to impact people.
I don’t know why you wave around your mediocre M+ achievements with so much pride while at the same time trash talking M+… Makes no sense to me…
Well you really failed quite a lot to understand the whole topic and somehow you feel like you want to argue with everyone .
End of the story , multiple specs bring 2 buff and some utilities another spec bring 6 buffs + more utilizes … That’s what is this topic about …
Currently you compare apple with meat and say they are the same …
You already posted about TwW…and those changes… Have you played at all??
Also the only thing i read from you is examples with if …and if…and if …
If i was a billionaire .
Well spoken
I am not against that idea; if anything I’d love to be able to do everything on only one character.
What I am against is being able to excel at everything at the same time or be able to “switch roles” as if I’m switching clothes. That’s my philosophy.
Nitpicking here but I’ve head stories that Paladins in Vanilla were buffbots, doing nothing else outside of refreshing their buffs on the entire 40-man raid. Which ironically sounds more like a support role than Aug 
And then you can “specialize” in supporting with existing roles, for example with Enhancement Shaman by picking Earth Elemental, double Capacitor totem, double Earth Shield, Healing Stream Totem, Stoneskin Totem, Tremor Totem, Sundering, Cleanse, Thunderstorm, Lasso, totem range increase and totem cd reduction, and spend nearly 30% of your actions on something that does not exist to deal damage but to help the group through damage reduction, AoE interrupt and off-healing. Now add the case of spending your Maelstrom stacks on Chain Heal or Surge instead of Elemental Blast / LB.
Of course it’s definitely not “meta”, otherwise people would be speccing and playing like that. But the possibility exists, and it might even be better than going for gung-ho dps for lower-level keys with inexperienced and undergeared teammates.
Blizzard made more stupid race than Pandas, decided to make them have their own spec. Found out nobody liked it, decided to destroy the game for everyone.
Exactly this
You are not wrong. Hybrid classes were originally thought to be “support” classes.
Where they did not do as much DPS as a pure DPS (or healing/tank as pure healer/tank) but had buffs and stuff. Paladin was one. Shaman and Discipline priest (ever wonder why priest has 2 healer specs ? 
).
And BL is one of those first “Ebon Might” skills out there.
The experiment ended horribly. With abhorrent behaviors like the one you mention (buff bots). And players of that spec actually felt bad, because they neither DPSed, Tanked, or Healed as much as say… a Mage, Priest, and Warrior… And alliance players were bummed that they did not have BL…
They tried to fix it. Making hybrids do competitive DPS. But then the problem was : Hybrids could do as much DPS as a Mage, AND heal… 
So in the end no more hybrid classes… Everyone does DPS, everyone has Defensives…
And blizz made up “space goats on a space ship” to justify shamans (BL) on the alliance…
Why ? Nobody was winning. If the fixed one thing, hybrid players did not like it. If they fixed the other, pure roll players did not like it… if they fixed both, nobody was happy. And it was wrecking raiding. So they ditched it.
Thats the whole story.
Everyone mentions Shaman’s for their utility. While simultaneously forgetting that (A) half of that utility is completely useless… (B) we have to spend talent points on it, hence, loosing DPS to get them… (C) there are better versions of that “utility” you mention.
We don’t get those things by default. Examples :
(A) we spend 1 talent point in Stoneskin Totem. So… 10% physical damage reduction. Compare that with Zephir. What is better ?
(B) Offhealing… The Aug “living flame” heals for more than Healing Stream, Earth Shield, and Healing surge combined. And its baseline. Dosent cost 2 talent points.
(C) Speed totem : Why have that when you can have Roar from a Druid ? Less CD, lasts longer, is not limited by range… Like why even take it ?
The possibility is there. And as in classic you are put in a conundrum :
If you make all that utility competitive and useful… AND… that DPS does the same DPS as everyone else…
Then you have BIG problems with class balance. Like in Vanilla.
And you cant give every spec a “tremor totem”. Its not reasonable. That is why there are no AoE fear mechanincs. Technically there are, but you can counter them with things like a kick (that all specs have).
I think the idea of aug is good for people that don’t want to be stressed by meters/logs.
I did my first raid last reset on amirdrassil normal, no dbm/details.
My only focus was to keep ebon might up more as possible (sometimes it fells off due of having to dodge some boss mechanics).
Got my full clear knowing that I have helped the group and all was peaceful even after.
I’ll act as if you didn’t type that…
Every class and nearly every build will let you have fun if (a) you build it yourself (b) you don’t compare your performance to your peers (c) you emerge victorious, especially so if there was some critical point where your choice made it possible.
So true.
When I play elemental every blue moon I do exactly that : I play a specific lightning build that is fun to play for me. But its far from optimal, and it uses zero advantage of the tier set.
But its fun !
OK. But I wont edit my post… you cute little space goat !
You can still tell the difference between well played aug evokers and poorly played aug evokers. But it’s true that there is less immediate accountability because it’s all so opaque.
But this also prevents people from improving, because crucial feedback (like the meters and the logs) is missing. I am absolutely embarrassed when I can’t seem to get the DPS from my elemental spec that I should be getting with my gear, but that is what incentivizes me to improve.
If I could just coast by, like aug evokers can because most people have no idea what aug evokers are doing, I’d feel less “pressured” to improve.
This also has an interesting knock on effect, though…
“Good” augs are in many cases now also Log-interpretation gods, becasue they had to quite literally sit there with a calculator for a few months figuring out whether they put their prescience (and with it EM) on the correct targets, or whether other targets in their specific raid would have been better at that time, in addition to comparing themselves with better logs like everyone else generally does.
To the point where most good augs know more or less exactly how much DpS and healing other people have to be doing f(or not doing in teh case of healing) or it to even be worth switching specs… Speaking of myself if I’m top ST DpS in Dev w/250k and the next 4 people are doing 200 or less (late S3 numbers), and the healers are coping fine, there is zero point in me switching to aug and is is a net nerf to the raid.
But if people are constantly dying for no apparent reason and there are real blasters in the grp that are easily topping me, or they´re somehow all incapable of soaking first damaging later on Nymue and as a result people are dying to the stacking ae and I´m never in range anyway because I AM soaking, then I can at least switch to aug and be somewhat useful instead of being a pet that runs around soaking and waiting for a chance to actually press a dps spell.
Can’t say i give a damn about the meta but if people really hate that spec then maybe not play it? Surely it’s not as op as it was during its release but with the m+ community you just can’t win , can you?
well Aug still needs to get looked at - or we need other supporters
bumping for visibility - needs a solution!
The player base from wolrd of warcraft wanted a support class in the mix so they are getting that. This being said, argu evokers are on the meta almost every season even in such a way that it sometimes removes the need for a healer. Having a class in the group which job is to 'buff ‘players’ dps and defenifs is not good in small dungeons groups. Instead of making the evoke only buff defines ‘solution one’ make it so that the evoker buff less in numbers but more plyers, make them good for raiding. If this won’t work than remove the support element and make it a melle dps spec or a tank spec.
bumping this a real issue
It is time for Blizzard to remove aug from this game! I dont play with aug any in grp for m+ coz I completly ignore aug 100 %.
Augmentation is ruining the m+ meta.
i mean look at tgp , the same comp for all teams