June 7, 2023

The Pros and Cons of the WoW Augmentation Evoker

The Dracthyr race introduced by the Dragonflight expansion to World of Warcraft was a nice and unique addition. As you probably know, these warriors of dragon progeny have a limited choice of a playable class. Namely, Dracthyr can only play as Evoker. Evoker comes with two specializations — Devastation to bring damage and Preservation to heal. And even though they have unique interactions and mechanics, two specs feel too little for an entire race, to say the least. But with the upcoming patch 10.1.5, the Fractures in Time, things will change. The new specialization for Evoker, called Augmentation, will be added to the game. But what does this mean for said class? Are players happy with this new addition? Or did they expect something else? We at WowVendor took a closer look at these questions in our WoW Augmentation Evoker overview. Below is what we managed to find.

To Empower Those Around

As many of you have probably guessed from the name, the Augmentation spec focuses on enhancing the performance and capabilities of the party. Using the powers of Black and Bronze dragonflights, this class can imbue allies with strength and resilience, as well as bend time and space in their favor.

This is quite a unique case in WoW. There is no in-game role such as support, only tanks, healers, and DPS. But this spec does not quite fit any of these categories. Despite being listed as a Damage Dealer, the spec is not about dealing big numbers. Your job is to enable others by providing them with extra stats and other viable buffs.

Let us take a look from the gameplay loop perspective. The main goal is to maintain a buff effect called Ebon Might. The ability of the same name increases the primary stat of 4 nearby allies by 10% of your Intellect. The effect stays for 10s, but the cooldown is 30s. Thankfully, you can keep the uptime of this buff by using other Augmentation Evoker spells.

Aside from Ebon Might, there are other talents in this specialization’s arsenal with both beneficial and detrimental effects. They can grant damage-absorbing barriers and retaliating shields, increase the movement speed and maximum health of allies, reduce ability cooldowns and double abilities, as well as slow down enemies and their attacks, etc.

The spec feels unique and fresh, being the closest to a support role that World of Warcraft has to offer.

But What Do The Others Think?

It is hard to please everyone at once. Of course, the community’s reaction to a new specialization was positive. Many awaited the third spec for the class but believed this would only happen with the next expansion.

Questions arise when it comes to the role in the party composition. As was mentioned before, Dracthyr can only play as Evoker. They were expected to get access to a tank, so they could fit any role in a group. But this didn’t happen, making players question the choice to add another damage dealer, even if unconventional. Players still ask either for a fourth spec or allow Dracthyr to play some other classes.

Regarding another topic, we have concerns about Augmentation placement in a high-end environment, such as Raids and Mythic+. The player base has worries in several aspects regarding high-end content. First of all, since the game has never had support-focused classes before, many are afraid that the new specialization may become a mandatory requirement for parties. Its effectiveness is yet to be fully tested, but on paper, it may become a meta for the rest of Season 2. Many people have already voiced concerns that their spots may be taken in favor of the new support.

The next issue is balancing. It’s a tricky matter to manage a support class in a game without such a role. The class needs to be good on its own to make sure players can play solo content without any issues. In a party setup, it needs to be worth a spot, while also not being a mandatory requirement. To help balance things, devs are already doing some inside work to make parsers and DPS meters properly calculate Augmentation Evoker’s contribution to the group.

Despite all the pros and cons, we hope you will have a great time playing Augmentation Evoker. And if you need some help to level one, our WoW Evoker boost is always there for you.