Dragonflight Retrospectives & War Within Wishlists
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Augmentation Retrospective & War Within Wishlist
Since its original debut halfway through Dragonflight Season 2, Augmentation Evoker has made quite the splash as the game’s first real support-oriented damage dealer specialization. The spec has since seen a variety of adjustments to various aspects of its kit, mostly in the form of balance tuning aimed at reining in its overwhelming popularity in raid and Mythic+ compositions towards the end of Season 2.
With the better part of Dragonflight Season 3 now behind us, many of us have had the opportunity to experience Augmentation Evoker in all major forms of content and at different levels of relative power, from the high level of throughput the spec was first capable of achieving at its launch in Season 2, to the current, much more modest tuning target of Season 3.
The spec has drawn a number of new players with its unique abilities and support fantasy, with PvE players having been especially eager to include the spec in group content, largely for its distinct and expansive utility kit. Unfortunately, many of us have also seen the excitement of playing the spec be short-lived, especially in a raid setting, as the realities of competitive raid gameplay begin to weigh on the player, leading to a degree of dissatisfaction and burnout that I’ve seldom experienced in my time with the game.
At the end of the day, I still remain eagerly optimistic about “The Great Augmentation Experiment” and the overall direction of support gameplay going forward. As we look towards the upcoming The War Within expansion and beyond, there are some real lessons to be learned from our most recent experiences with the spec that when considered carefully and critically, could directly address many of the concerns that Augmentation players have been actively experiencing, and could very well lead to the solid new foundation in the coming expansion that the spec so thoroughly deserves.
Summary
The Big One: Raid Gameplay
- Augmentation Evoker gameplay in raids suffers from an overreliance on external tools and out-of-game preparation, combined with an exhausting Prescience micromanagement mini-game. This is at the core of the frequently-discussed lack of enjoyment in raid gameplay and subsequent player burnout.
- There is simply too much power in the ability to swap buffs between different targets throughout a given fight, leading to a wide gap in performance between Spreadsheet and Autopilot playstyles.
- This disparity has massive implications with respect to overall balance and tuning, as it is completely infeasible to achieve a similar tuning target for both styles of play, as seen through the progression of tuning changes from Season 2 into Season 3.
- The proposed solution involves choosing four Ebon Might buff targets before the start of combat using a persistent “Beacon of Light” type spell, and restricting or altogether preventing changing these targets until the end of combat.
Secondary Stat Scaling: Mastery and Versatility
- Mastery is the overwhelmingly dominant secondary stat for Augmentation Evokers due to its dual function, while Versatility is especially ineffective by way of not contributing to Augmentation buff throughput. Adjustments to the value and function of Augmentation secondary stats could help make gearing a less restrictive experience.
Evaluating Performance on Augmentation
- Evaluating performance for the sake of self-improvement continues to be a challenging experience for Augmentation players, particularly due to a lack of direct useful feedback in-game.
25 Yard Range and Targeted Buffs
- In contrast to damaging abilities, the 25 yard range restriction on targeted buff spells like Prescience and Blistering Scales leads to highly frustrating experiences, particularly in a raid setting. Increasing the range on direct buff spells to 40 yards would reduce this frustrating aspect of the spec while maintaining the mid-range positional requirement for damaging enemies, in line with the Evoker class fantasy.
Unique Utility Means Unique Dependency
- Augmentation’s unique utility spells such as Spatial Paradox, Draconic Attunements, and Timelessness, are an interesting and welcome aspect of the spec’s support fantasy, but can in certain situations result in a sharp preference or even dependency on bringing Augmentation over Devastation or Preservation. Augmentation’s ability to enhance tank and healer throughput in a Mythic+ setting also notably contributes to this experience.
Motes of Possibility (Capstone Talent)
- Motes of Possibility is simply too impractical for most players to effectively utilize in any realistic gameplay scenario. While it’s true that cooldown reduction effects have in the past been characterized as disruptive or undesirable, improving the visibility, spawn location, and interaction mechanism of these motes could actually make this talent a realistic niche choice for certain encounters.
The Big One: Raid Gameplay
In order to achieve a comparable level of contribution to raid damage to other DPS specs, Augmentation Evokers are currently overburdened with an unprecedented degree of in-combat buff micromanagement, along with an unavoidable reliance on external tools.
Prescience
Prescience currently performs double-duty for Augmentation in raid, acting as both a medium duration buff (providing Critical Strike and additional damage through Fate Mirror), as well as the primary mechanism for Ebon Might target selection. Ebon Might prefers targets with an active Prescience buff, and then chooses remaining targets by proximity, the latter being less than reliable in a progression raid setting and does not currently permit buff stacking between two Augmentation Evokers.
This double-duty on Prescience presents an immediate challenge to intuitive gameplay. One would generally expect a spell like Prescience to be best used on a player that is expected to deal significant damage imminently, so as to immediately benefit from the buff effect. In practice however, the buff effects are treated as an afterthought, as it is generally more important for the Evoker player to cast Prescience for the express purpose of Ebon Might target selection, often up to 20 seconds in advance of the next Ebon Might window.
Spreadsheet Playstyle
In order to achieve the Augmentation’s fullest potential in a raid setting, the player is encouraged to carefully pre-plan buff targets and timings down to each second of the encounter. This process is in itself quite daunting and incredibly challenging, as the player attempts to evaluate which players will benefit the most from the spec’s various buffs during each 30 second window of the fight. Even assuming equal player skill, Augmentation’s buffs inherently interact differently with each of the different DPS specs—often for unintuitive reasons—and so many players rely on a combination of external tools, including complicated multi-actor simulations, and sites like WarcraftLogs and WoWAnalyzer for parsing and analysing combat log data.
Once this list of buff targets and timings has been created, the player is ready to enter combat. While in the heat of combat and dealing with a fight’s various mechanics, the player must continue to exercise intense focus at all times, as missing a cast of Prescience at the prescribed time could mean the difference between buffing someone at the height of their cooldowns and someone dealing with a mechanic and dealing no damage at all.
In fact, this approach of carefully mapping out buff targets can often result in highly counterintuitive moments in practical gameplay. For example, while a player might reasonably be excited to have their Ebon Might buff extensions critically strike and provide higher Ebon Might uptime, too much extension might actually be unwelcome if it causes the buff to bleed into the subsequent 30 second window. When this happens, the optimal play for the Evoker might actually be to stop casting Eruption and deliberately let Ebon Might fall off of its current targets, in order to ensure that new targets are chosen when the spell is next cast. Players at the highest level of gameplay experience this interaction regularly, and might have their allies even use “cancelaura macros” for Ebon Might in order to allow the Evoker to reset their buff targets at will, which adds yet another layer of complexity and required coordination.
This extensive collection of out-of-game preparation and in-fight timing-focused gameplay is, at its core, what I describe as the “Spreadsheet” playstyle of Augmentation Evoker.
While this combination of intense Prescience micromanagement, as well as unprecedented amount of out-of-game preparation certainly presents a unique challenge to the player—and I’m quite sure there are players out there that do genuinely find it satisfying—I have no doubt that Augmentation Spreadsheet gameplay is the ultimate root cause of the all-too-common Augmentation player burnout and overall dissatisfaction with the spec in a raid setting.
Autopilot Playstyle
On the other hand, a player can, of course, decide to completely forgo the process of developing optimal timings and buff targets outside of the game, and instead simply rely on the automatic targeting logic of Prescience. This essentially causes the Evoker to buff targets either randomly or by proximity, without consideration for specific cooldown timings or buff synergies.
Playing on Autopilot strips away all of the intense focus required around micromanaging Prescience, leaving behind a simple, but still reasonably satisfying DPS rotation centered around maximizing Ebon Might uptime that still rewards thoughtful positioning, resource management, and traditional “always be casting” spellcaster gameplay. Most importantly, it most resembles the way that the spec plays in a dungeon setting, and actually affords players with an average attention span the ability to focus on fight mechanics without staring at raid frames and relying on additional WeakAuras.
Hybrid Playstyle
The natural evolution and midpoint of these two approaches is a third, emergent “Hybrid” playstyle, which is essentially a best-effort compromise. Players employ a smaller, discretionary amount of pre-planning and focus by choosing, for example, to buff the same four targets throughout the fight, or to only micromanage target selection around major cooldown timings. In my experience, this is where most Augmentation players eventually settle, in order to combat burnout while still hoping to achieve a respectable result in terms of overall throughput.
The Big Problem
There is certainly logic in rewarding highly demanding gameplay with bigger numbers, but at the end of the day, the sheer disparity in damage throughput between the carefully-executed Spreadsheet playstyle and the comfortable Autopilot playstyle, or frankly even a middle-ground Hybrid playstyle, is exceptionally high.
There is simply too much power in the ability to swap buffs between different targets throughout a given fight in a typical raid setting.
Alternatively, there is no practical way for the player to opt out of the Prescience micromanagement mini-game without taking a significant hit to their overall damage.
From a broader standpoint of overall class balance and tuning, this wide disparity makes it effectively impossible to achieve a consistent tuning target across different levels of skill. In a paradigm where an Autopilot playstyle can achieve competitive damage, the Spreadsheet style is able to achieve outlier results on the top end, like we saw in Season 2. Conversely, tuning around the Spreadsheet style of gameplay leaves the remaining players at a significant disadvantage relative to other specs, which is more akin to the current state of the spec in Season 3.
The Potential Solution
All of this background and context ultimately leads me to this point: I don’t believe that the dominant Spreadsheet playstyle is particularly healthy or suitable for the game in the long run. Between the extensive time spent out-of-game working with external tools to optimize buff targets, and the intense degree of focus required in-game to effectively execute on pre-planned buff sequences, it doesn’t surprise me when I hear that Mythic raiders are experiencing a high degree of burnout while playing Augmentation, or simply don’t find the spec enjoyable to play, which is a real shame as far as I’m concerned.
I won’t be overly prescriptive in describing an alternative design for Augmentation, but I would like to illustrate a couple of examples of potential design directions which could certainly lead to a more sustainable baseline playstyle for the spec.
At its core, I would like to see Ebon Might reworked in such a way that allows the Evoker to choose four buff targets before the start of combat, and then simply heavily restrict or altogether prevent swapping targets once combat has begun. This change has the immediate effect of minimizing or altogether eliminating the need for spreadsheet buff timers, narrowing the immense gap in throughput between playstyles. It also inherently makes it easier to find a balanced tuning target for the spec that is appropriate for players of all skill levels, and not just those playing at the highest level, as it is in the current Live patch. Although different specs still benefit to different degrees from Augmentation buffs, this also affords additional freedom to choose players based on overall throughput over an entire fight, rather than choosing targets exclusively around short cooldown-based damage windows.
Another benefit of this approach is that it solves the unintuitive dual-purpose of Prescience, allowing it to either continue to exist as a simple, short-duration, but relatively low-impact targeted buff, or even be removed altogether and replaced with a different talent at any time without breaking any core functionality of the spec.
There are a couple of potential ways to achieve this effect, from an implementation standpoint. My preference for a potential mechanic would be to have a new, persistent “Beacon of Light” style buff that can be placed on up to 4 eligible targets before the start of combat, which designates those targets as Ebon Might recipients, with heavy restrictions on the ability to change these targets during active combat.
The less elegant but similarly viable approach would be to simply have Ebon Might behave like Windfury Totem and target the other four players in the Evoker’s group or party. This does introduce additional pain points that don’t necessarily exist with my preferred solution, but would in my opinion be a vast improvement over the status quo.
Ultimately when it comes to raid gameplay for Augmentation, the spec absolutely needs to see fundamental changes to the way that buff targets are chosen, in order to address the pervasive player burnout driven by its overly-complex dominant playstyle. The proposed mechanic by which the player selects up to four Ebon Might targets prior to the start of combat has immense and immediate benefits, and would go a long way in creating a new and interesting baseline playstyle that can continue to be built upon through time.
Secondary Stat Scaling: Mastery and Versatility
Due to the fact that Augmentation deals up to 70% of its damage through its buffs on allies, Augmentation inherently interacts very differently with both primary and secondary stats when compared against the more traditional DPS specs. Augmentation’s secondary stat scaling in particular is deliberately designed to be less than that of other DPS specs (upwards of 2-3 times less value in the current patch), due in part to the fact that a portion of Augmentation’s damage also technically scales with the gear level of its buff targets.
Mastery contributes very little to an Augmentation Evoker’s personal damage output, but has two distinct effects which improve buff throughput: it increases the duration of all Augmentation buffs, and it increases the potency of Shifting Sands. Augmentation’s Mastery has seen quite a bit of tuning since we first saw the spec in the 10.1.5 PTR, but this combination of effects remains incredibly powerful.
Critical Strike and Haste both perform a similar role in the Augmentation kit, as they both contribute to personal damage, and also both contribute slightly to Ebon Might buff extension. The combination of effects here is somewhat useful, but certainly not as potent as Mastery in either case.
Versatility is incredibly weak for Augmentation from a damage standpoint, as it only contributes to the spec’s limited personal damage output, and in no way benefits its buff throughput.
At the end of the day, it’s certainly not unusual for a spec to prefer one secondary stat over the others, but in the case of Augmentation, the degree to which Mastery outperforms other secondaries, combined with the lack of buff interaction from Versatility makes the gearing process for Augmentation Evoker straightforward, but also incredibly restrictive in terms of finding viable item upgrades in an already limited pool of potential drops.
Evaluating Performance on Augmentation
One category of common questions I frequently receive from both new and experienced players of the spec essentially boils down to “what is the best way to measure my performance on Augmentation” and “how can I improve my gameplay?”
Most DPS specs generally have the benefit of being able to glance at Details (or a similar add-on) for a rough idea of how they’re performing on a given pull, and then can later review their performance on a more granular level using external tools like WarcraftLogs and WoWAnalyzer.
When it comes to Augmentation Evoker, it can be especially tricky to gauge how well you’re contributing to the group’s success from a damage standpoint when compared with other specs. Between the lack of damage attribution in-game, the various bugs and issues affecting damage attribution in the combat log, and the fact that Augmentation’s damage output also uniquely depends on the performance of its buff targets from pull to pull, attempting to interpret an Augmentation Evoker’s contribution to the group as a damage dealer is quite the puzzle even at the best of times.
Outside of a few limited, easily accessible statistics like Ebon Might uptime, there simply remains an ongoing lack of real, direct, useful feedback for the Augmentation player to use to learn from and improve upon.
25 Yard Range and Targeted Buffs
I can absolutely appreciate the class fantasy which drives the 25 yard range restriction on offensive abilities. While it’s not my favourite aspect of the class, I can appreciate that my Evoker’s offensive abilities, largely based around breath and claw attacks, have a limited effective range, in line with the creative flavour of the class.
When it comes to targeted spells cast on allies, such as Prescience and Blistering Scales, the 25 yard range is, to be frank, an absolute nightmare, and leads to some of the most frustrating experiences I’ve ever encountered both while raiding and in Mythic+.
Increasing the range on player-targeted buff spells to 40 yards would go a long way towards improving the gameplay experience in raid while making no significant changes to the spec’s positional requirements as a damage dealer.
Unique Utility Means Unique Dependency
One bit of feedback that I do hear frequently from other players, and particularly players of other specs, relates to the power of Augmentation’s unique utility. Talents like Spatial Paradox, Draconic Attunements, Bestow Weyrnstone, and to a lesser extent, Timelessness, are effects unique to Augmentation, but are often strong enough to be a significant reason for including the spec in your group composition. In a Mythic+ setting, this is further compounded by the extent to which Augmentation provides additional benefits to tank and healer throughput, something that is particularly apparent in difficult Mythic+ content.
I do personally believe that it is largely reasonable for different specs to have unique and exclusive elements in their kit, but in this case I can also appreciate that Preservation and Devastation Evokers have been largely overlooked in popular group compositions, in large part because of the unique utility that can only be found within Augmentation’s talent tree. This phenomenon is not at all unique to the Evoker class (abilities like Windfury Totem and Gorefiend’s Grasp immediately come to mind), but Augmentation does have quite a few of these abilities in its back pocket.
Something to consider would be to move at least a couple of these spells, such as Spatial Paradox and Timelessness, to the class tree in order to share the love and slightly even the playing field for Evoker’s other two specs.
Motes of Possibility (Capstone Talent)
Cooldown reduction effects have historically been somewhat polarizing, difficult to balance, and in many cases outright unpopular. Motes of Possibility might possibly be the most cumbersome version of cooldown reduction I’ve ever experienced in this game. The talent’s effect infrequently spawns a small gold orb in a completely random location, frequently up to 30 yards or more away from your character, that must be run into by the intended target before anyone else accidentally picks it up.
There is no trackable aura indicating that a mote has spawned, nor is it a straightforward task to even spot these motes in the first place in the heat of battle. In the worst case, an ally may be required to run halfway across the boss arena, through or into a patch of fire, just to achieve a 10 second reduction on their major cooldown.
There are many ways to approach revising this capstone talent short of removing it entirely, though I do believe any changes to this talent must include improvements to the visibility of the mote effect, a more deterministic location for the mote to spawn (nearer to the player or directly targeted), and ideally some mechanism to avoid players accidentally picking up the mote when they did not intend to do so.
Closing Thoughts
In closing, while the purpose of this piece is, of course, to share earnest, critical feedback, I do want to take a moment and share some additional, encouraging thoughts. I am incredibly appreciative of the risks the team took in bringing Augmentation Evoker to life, and am especially excited to see what the future has in store for Evoker as a whole.
This collection of observations and suggestions ultimately stem from the many conversations I’ve had with various members of the community over the past few months, who play at a variety of skill levels and participate in a variety of content. As someone who has been following the development of the Evoker class since the Dragonflight Alpha, I’m thrilled with how receptive the development team has been when it comes to soliciting community feedback, and how responsive the team has been in addressing significant issues with the class.
My hope in compiling this collection of feedback is to help lay a strong foundation for Augmentation with the launch of The War Within, with an enjoyable core design that has longevity, so that fans of the spec and the support playstyle can continue to enjoy playing Augmentation in all forms of content in the expansions to come. I know I’m looking forward to it.
About the Author
This guide is written and maintained by Jereico, author of the Jereico Evoker community site. Previously a long-time Shadow Priest main, Jereico has been involved as a theorycrafter and contributor in the Evoker community since the early Dragonflight Beta. If you want to get in touch, you can find him in his Community Discord, on Twitter, posting videos to YouTube, and occasionally streaming on Twitch.
