Augmentation evoker is destroying M+ since its release

It is very easy to understand. In fact, you number is not completely correct (only DF season 1 has over 2 million runs/week in average, while season 2/3/4 never reach 2 million runs/week)

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/79611-the-lowest-mythic-runs-per-week-in-any-dragonflight-season-so-far/

Even if we take your number (average 2 million runs/week) as reference, that is 10 million characters (each run needs 5 characters) totally.

Considering there are M+ players doing multiple M+ per week with same char, and players doing M+ every week with multiple chars, those 10 million characters result to much fewer accounts/players.

E.g. if each M+ character does 2 M+/week, then those 10 million characters are just 5 million different chars, because each repeats twice per week.

And if each M+ player does M+ on 5 different chars every week, then those 5 million different chars belongs to only 1 million accounts.

According the latest statistics, WoW’s active sub in 2024 is around 7 million. It means the majority of WoW players don’t even touch M+.

Even if we take your 2 million runs/week evenly on all 7 million subs, that is less than 2 M+/week per player. That is exactly what I said (Barely 1-2 M+ completed per player per week on average).

You said “it doesn’t make sense if most players complete 1-2 M+/week”. You are right, because it doesn’t. 1-2M+/week is the average of ALL players, that is why I said “Barely 1-2 M+ completed per player per week ON AVERAGE”. But in fact, most of the runs are done only by a small minority of player base, and most players don’t even do it.

No matter how hard for you to believe, the numbers don’t lie. And the math makes perfect sense.

I ignore aug completetly when I search groups for m+! It has never been part of wow. We never asked for aug spec, we ASKED for tank spec! So please DELETE aug and stop ruin the game, thanks!

I really think a specialization of such magnitude should have been included in the alpha and beta process of the game, not mid-expansion.

Well… the ones that complain about metas for a 10 are few.

Never had an issue with that. With maybe the exception of early S2 with God Comp. That meta was objectively better in any form of content.

In fact, for uncoordinated PuG groups I argue Aug is an overall loss. You explained it really well why.

If I had some wish-list for WW it would be to make more than 1 meta comp. The new shaman raid buff has windfury with it. I wonder if you could have a caster meta, and a melee meta for example. Depending on the buff combo.

That would be really cool. Not sure if it will happen though.

1 Like

You are embarassing yourself.

S2 we all know why the participation numbers dropped : God Comp. And S4 had the key level squish, effectively taking low level keys from the metric.

You just vomit whatever suits your narrative. And from the actual graph you post I can clearly see a ton of 2M there. And obviously they decay as the season progresses.

Stop with your dumb math.

Whatever metric you choose to take its STILL 1 or 2 orders of magnitude more than people raiding and PvPing.

Remember your original comment :

“nobody cares about M+”. Let me quote it again :

So keep doing maths. The only metric you can give to me that would make M+ outdated and irrelevant is :

If you somehow claim that there are 1000 people doing 10000 keys per week. Nobody else is.

Which is a ridiculous claim. No person can do that. So reality is somewhere in between. And I will repeat :

Any number, any approximation, any data you take from the internet… none of that would make it “irrelevant”.

So keep throwing numbers proving me right. Go ! :slight_smile: I enjoy watching you prove to the public what a troll you are. And a bad one at that…

2 Likes

The only 2 issues I personally have with augmentation are:

Firstly the fact that they only released augmentation. They should have had a number of support style specs ready to go at the same time. I mean there are specs in the game that are seeing barely any game play, could have just reworked some of them along the side and launched a slew of support specs into the game at the same time.

And secondly the fact that support specs are way too supporty. In FF14 there are also a few support jobs (bard and dancer). However if you look at the percentages in that game most buffs they provide give 1% increase in some stat. Dancer is considered the most supportive of the jobs and their main dps buff is a 5% damage buff to one other person. Compared to this augmentation is in a league of its own. So basically support specs like augmentation should be dealing way more personal dps while offering way less in terms of damage boost/healing to their allies.

But that is basically all, I love support as an archetype and hope Blizzard will rethink their approach and give us more support specs in the future.

1 Like

Tbh the only issue I see with Augmentation Evoker is the fact he exists. Back in the day Ion told us the game will never have a buff-bot class.

What is the issue with their existence? Lore-wise, the build makes sense and has a great quest introduction for the class; visually spells look appealing; from the perspective of individual gameplay it is novel and can be fun if one is interested in being a support, from the perspective of group gameplay it creates novel interactions between classes and gives new utilities that can be fun to incorporate into a fight strategy.

I think augmentation is one more step towards doing away with the DPS-Healer-Tank system completely, It will take some time but when the time comes it will seem like a natural seamless transition and a lot of us will even demand it before

2 Likes

Well, I can see that you clearly don’t understand maths. Then there is nothing to discuss here. absolutely no need to reply.

Chaos brand I think

1 Like

The existance of augmentation is fine, the implementation is not. The main problem is, it’s a dps role which makes the entire group (Tank & healer stronger) which makes it mostly Mandatory to take an augmentation for timing keys easier, main due to the healing boost & defensive boost. Augment buffing the dps is completely fine, but making the tank and healer stronger is putting it in the direction where you will always need augmentation in every single key. As i said before there’s some premade hardcore players who have been playing together for years, but i’m not going to compare 99,9% of the population with some people on the level of Echo/Limit players.

in short. " Take augmentation and the key feels 1 key level easier " mainly due to survivability. Augmentation is a dps specialization and takes up a dps slot, that is the main issue. Either augment should become a healer/tank role, or revamped that it doesn’t buff the tank/healer, or there should be a 6th sloth which becomes the " Support " role.

2 Likes

You made the right choice to give up. You kept your integrity atleast.

  1. Augmentation in a m+ may make a run more effective time-wise, but not necessarily it will. There are more factors that account for an effectiveness of a run. To name a few: stats of the group, knowledge of the map, individual knowledge of fights’ tactics; group synergic play; effective use of consumables and rotation performance on individual and group levels. Moreover, ‘easier’ is a subjective evaluation of an event - even if you have a notion that a run with an augevok was easier than your previous run with some other damage dealer doesn’t mean that your evaluation is correct. It well may be that it’s a combination of some other factors, even beyond the game that made you experience this feeling. Even if we talk about not a subjective notion of easiness of a run, but an average timed completion rate of a key, there is no data available that could support your statement. Leaderboards on raiderio are not relevant in this case as they do not allow us to infer that it’s augevoks who are the key factor accounting for those teams being in the top; similarly, they do not allow us to infer that it’s the presence of an augevoker in a team on average results in a higher rate of timed keys compared to other setups.
  2. The fact that an augevoker may make a m+ run timed, doesn’t mean that it is mandatory to take them for a mythic+ run. It is completely possible to take any other class with any build and complete a key. You can even go with four damage dealers and complete a key. In season 2 of the Dragonflight there was a famed completion of a +24 without a healer and without an augmentation evoker (though quite likely there are more events like this, they just do not hit the news).

You’re missing the point. And i do understand you like playing augmentation evoker but this cannot get in the way of the facts. that Augmentation evoker brings extra tankyness for the entire group as a dps specialization. Which can be used to buff the top 2 meta specializations and still have enough dps to time any key, while the key feels 1 level easier just due to defensiveness of augmentation evoker.

What augmentation evoker gives to the group is way more advanced then a simple group buff.

We all know everyone would like to make the dungeon easier, which is why they take augmentation evoker, because the logic of general people is and always will be " Taking the easiest way ", and it taking up a dps slot is one of the major problems, as a dps spec it shouldn’t be making the tank " Tankier, and giving the healer more output " This is the main problem. It’s a support role, not a dps specialization. By that logic every dps specialization should buff the healer & tank , but it simply doesn’t. You can actually track the data on Raider.io and it’s pretty accurate.

It cannot be ignored and should be fixed.

Read again what I wrote. It’s not about lore, it’s about the fact that Ion Hazzikostas have lied to us. Having a specialization solely responsible for buffing when the game struggles with the idea of having exclusive class or spec buffs 20 years after its release is exactly what WoW didn’t need.

Try to imagine, in the future all boss encounters will be balanced around the idea of having an augmentation evoker in the raid which adds an unnecessary level of adjustment required from the balance team. I think, that juggling all 39 specs is already a nightmare for them, and having to double check whenever one of the other 37 specs have a head start over others does absolutely nothing for the rest.

As the other guy said, at best Augmentation should have been a healer or tank spec. And in my opinion, not one that would significantly influence its group.

1 Like

Its the mail wearing tank spec many asked for, none of us wanted a buff bot.

1 Like

1000% Thank You. Yes, I dreamed of Shaman Tanks forever, Evokers seemed like a great alternative. Now we have none.

In my experience of playing different classes, most of pug groups do not have an augevok in m+ runs, but prefer to take meta damage dealers according to the ‘dps tier list’. Moreover, I doubt that it is even possible that most groups have augevoks with them because evokers appear to be the least played class at the moment (according to class population char on the dataazeroth website, though they indicate that their data may not be an accurate reflection of the overall WoW population).
So it is my experience and opinion versus your experience and opinion. Do you have a solid proof that across all realms most m+ runs have an augevok in their groups? Or perhaps a survey data showing that across all realms group leaders prefer to take an augevok?

There are plenty of other damage dealing classes that make tanks tankier, give healers more output and increase damage of other damage dealers and provide unique utilities that make runs easier. To name a few - shamans, shadow priest, windwalker monks, havoc dh, retro paladin. In previous expansions some of these classes had even bigger overall utility impact.
Also to this point, while augevok brings increased damage and survivability, it doesn’t mean that they are the best choice or a necessary choice because for them to be effective damage dealers, first, they should effectively apply buffs, second, other damage dealers must take advantage of these buffs. Taking instead some other direct damage dealer with utilities that increase survivability and damage of others appears to be a much easier approach for a pug group as generally their coordination isn’t that good. Moreover, a group of meta damage dealers may well outperform a group of two damage dealers + an augevok.

Finally, it is important to remember that m+ isn’t the only way to play the game - plenty people mainly raid, plenty mainly pvp, plenty mainly do casual activities and rp. When making decisions about classes and builds there are many more things to consider aside from m+ and many more wishes to consider aside from m+ players.

Well this is obviously not true as plenty nowadays enjoy playing augevoks and because in earlier days paladins and shamans were such buff bots and once again people played them :slight_smile:

1 Like