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FAZ 308 - Augmented Release Schedule · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
Happy New Year from all of us at Farazzarov.
0:04
We have a couple of episodes that are going to be starting
0:08
off the new year, so you're going to see episodes on off
0:11
days as well as the normal days of Thursday releases.
0:15
So check back and you will see such stuff from a number of
0:19
people from the Warcraft community as well as the Prime
0:23
episode. For Lordaron, for the Karen
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tour. For.
0:28
Pandaria for Calendar to the burning region for Gilnaeus, but
0:37
has not died for the Lich King. For the.
0:43
Sindora for the Alliance for the Horn for Azeroth.
0:52
Hello and welcome to another special episode of Four Azeroth.
0:55
I'm Sean, one of the Co hosts of the show.
0:57
I'm here as always with Manny and a very special 3rd guest
1:01
today, the Augmentation guide writer for Wowhead, the one and
1:06
only Jericho. Jericho, thanks for being here.
1:08
Thanks for having me. We are going to sit down today,
1:11
so augmentation has been a hot topic since it came into the
1:14
game. In was it 10 point 2.5?
1:18
I believe it's 10 point 1.5 so it was the the middle patch of
1:22
season 2 of Dragonflate. Yeah, and it came in, hit the
1:26
ground running, made a big splash.
1:28
We're going to get Jericho's opinions on how Ogg has been
1:31
since its inception and where it's going in the future.
1:34
Why don't we start with just maybe give a brief rundown of
1:37
what augmentation does and how it first came into the game?
1:42
Oh boy, so how how absolutely exciting to be talking about
1:45
augmentation and how it's kind of come along all this way.
1:48
So augmentation first came into the game halfway through season
1:53
2 of Dragonflight. And the best way to kind of
1:56
think about that is OK, the race to world first has ended.
2:00
We're well into kind of farm for rating groups, but the mythic
2:05
plus scene is still going strong.
2:07
So there's a lot of, you know, still jockeying for that top 1%,
2:11
the latter, that sort of thing. So the biggest impact that
2:15
augmentation had when it first hit was in Mythic Plus.
2:18
And it goes without saying that augmentation was pretty damn
2:23
strong when it first hit. In fact, augmentation has got
2:29
hit with nerfs pretty much every single major patch since then,
2:34
and it's still in every group in Mythic plus at the very top end
2:39
and still very strong in raid, especially in the hands of some
2:44
of the top guilds. And that's something we can kind
2:45
of talk about as well. But when the spec first hit, we
2:49
had these hilarious videos of 30 augmentations in a raid, buffing
2:54
two death Knights and just killing bosses in 10 seconds.
2:59
We, you know, just absolutely ridiculous stuff in terms of
3:03
the, the scaling. And through time, Blizzard's
3:06
gone. OK, we're gonna hopefully peel
3:08
that back to more reasonable levels.
3:10
Let's try and get the damage in check and that sort of thing so
3:14
that, you know, we're, we're not running thirty of these in, in a
3:16
raid. One of the biggest changes
3:19
initially in in the rating setting was limiting you to two
3:23
buff targets essentially for your for your Evan Mites, or
3:28
rather, you can only receive 2 Eben might buffs.
3:31
So the sort of limited stacking the augmentations and raids.
3:36
And then as we've gone in mythic plus as well, the potency of a
3:41
lot of these buffs has been peeled back a lot.
3:43
So I, I actually pulled some numbers for a while had article
3:48
that I put together and remembering this is hilarious.
3:51
Eben Might when it first came in was a 10% stat buff that gained
3:57
an additional 40% when when in sort of a solo situation or in
4:03
in M plus because of that clutch of sorry closest clutch mates
4:07
buff, right? So this thing was giving 14%
4:11
main stat in in these M plus groups.
4:14
Also we had black atunement, right, which was basically this
4:17
big health aura like you know, fortitude giving 5% health as as
4:22
being pretty strong Black atunement if you popped Obsidian
4:25
scales was giving you 16% maximum health for the duration
4:28
of that buff absolutely insane right.
4:31
So all of this stuff has kind of come back and in, in many
4:35
different ways. And in addition, it's kind of
4:39
been hammered all over the place.
4:40
So frankly, 1 of augmentation's biggest strengths and continues
4:44
to be the case is that it has a lot of buttons there.
4:47
There are just a lot of different ways that it interacts
4:49
with the group, that it controls, you know, mobs in a,
4:53
in a mythic plus setting. And it just has a lot of
4:56
different sort of support and utility options.
5:00
And it's it's been kind of a multi layered thing to kind of
5:04
get a lot of those things in into check for fragmentation
5:07
since then. So to get a little bit of
5:10
perspective where we are now in 11 point O or you know, point O
5:14
seven, however you want to look at it, Ebenmite is now 5% main
5:19
stat closest clutch mates is gone, which means that it's
5:23
Ebenmite is just as effective in raid as it is in mythic.
5:26
Plus black atonement has been nerfed so much that we basically
5:32
don't even run it anymore. For the most part, it's the the
5:35
2% Max health that we get from it.
5:37
You're almost better off just putting those points somewhere
5:39
else. And frankly, when it comes to
5:45
you know, augmentations placed in the meta, it's still
5:48
considered to be, you know, strong enough from a damage
5:51
standpoint to be brought to these mythic plus groups.
5:55
When we look at Raid for example, interestingly not part
5:59
of every composition in the mythic race, the world first,
6:04
but was absolutely included on a few key bosses towards the end.
6:08
And in this case, Evoker was absolutely well represented.
6:12
It's just that Preservation and Devastation were particularly
6:15
strong this time. We had 4-5 plus Evokers in on
6:20
pretty much each kill, especially towards the end.
6:23
It's just augmentation was either better or worse than
6:25
devastation in in certain spots. So Long story short and happy to
6:30
dive in on on any one of those topics in in a little more
6:33
detail, but this spec started strong.
6:36
It's seen a lot of kind of changes in nerf since then.
6:41
Right now it's still in a pretty good spot and the changes going
6:46
into 11.1 are meaningful, substantial, but not, I wouldn't
6:51
say, the death of this spec in any meaningful way.
6:55
Not yet. We won't say that yet.
6:57
Maybe by the end? Of the episode.
7:00
Manny, you are a longtime wild player, obviously more years
7:03
than you'll care to admit. You play mainly as DPS when
7:07
augmentation, the very first ever and the date only support
7:11
spec was introduced to Warcraft. How did you feel about it?
7:15
Did you? Did you welcome Ogg with open
7:17
arms or were you hesitant? I was hesitant, but not because
7:23
of Aug itself, but because Aug was the only buff class put in
7:27
that. It's such a big change to find a
7:31
place for something that the game has never supported before.
7:34
And based on how it's been going, they're still trying to
7:38
find the exact place for it. So Aug itself, I was like, yeah,
7:43
OK, we're going to see changes. It's got, it's going to have
7:45
growing pains, which it's had, but I was expecting that with
7:49
the War Within, with the hero talents, I was expecting some
7:54
other classes to start going into that that role so that Ogg
7:59
would have some competition that they could really carve out a
8:03
niche for it. But they decided not to do that.
8:05
And I think that's the biggest issue with Ogg is that they want
8:10
it to be viable. They want it to have a place,
8:12
but if that place becomes mandatory, then everything is
8:16
Ogg and that screws up their classroom representation.
8:18
So they've really put themselves in a hard place in my opinion.
8:21
Maybe we need some totem, totem twisters, seal seal, throwers on
8:26
paladins and and shamans just to say OK people need to have the
8:31
buff class, but at least it doesn't always have to fall on
8:34
this one class. Also the one thing I hate about
8:36
Ogg Earthshield looks crappy compared to what they gave
8:41
augmentation. Come on, it's.
8:43
True. It's true.
8:43
They. Absolutely nailed it.
8:45
Sorry with the visuals for this spec.
8:48
It is the newest class to the game and it shows.
8:52
The visuals are fantastic. Yeah, yeah, it is beautiful.
8:55
So I wanna touch on community feedback now.
8:57
We're hesitant. I say we man.
8:59
He's always hesitant to use the term the community as a giant
9:02
all-encompassing entity. I love to do it because I'm a
9:04
big fan of paint brushes and generalizations.
9:07
Jericho, can you tell us how was like what was the community
9:10
sentiment on Ogg when it was released and up until right now?
9:15
Yeah, I'm going to also agree that the community at large is a
9:20
bit of a difficult term to use in this case.
9:23
And as, again, as, as the writer for Wowhead, I get the, I have
9:27
the pleasure of reading these fantastic comments on all of
9:30
these articles that we post, which is just fantastic.
9:34
I'll, I'll try and summarize in, you know, in in a pretty
9:39
straightforward way what I think different segments of the
9:41
community look like and what that kind of means.
9:44
First off, just by design, the way that the spec has been
9:48
implemented and by virtue of how it interacts with other
9:52
characters in in your groups and in your raids, necessarily right
9:57
now is going to have a very different impact for different
10:01
players of different skills and different sort of points.
10:04
The game necessarily by way of buffing other characters, you
10:09
rely on the scale of your allies to sort of boost your your
10:13
damage output and your effectiveness.
10:15
There's that aspect, but there's also this aspect of sort of
10:20
being able to recognize, for example, how to move your buffs
10:24
between different players in a raid setting, which is a huge
10:28
part of how Ogg is sort of most effectively played in a raid.
10:32
That's changed a little bit more recently, but by and large,
10:35
still fundamental. And then also just the simple
10:39
fact that so much of what all brings to the table is in the
10:41
form of this utility, this crowd control, the box that it brings
10:44
to the group. It's it's stuff that as maybe a
10:48
more casual damage dealer, you know, DPS player, you might not
10:53
think about all the time, especially if you're just kind
10:55
of blasting through keys just for fun.
10:56
You're not necessarily pushing. You're just like, I'm going to
10:58
push my damage buttons and be done right.
11:01
So when it comes to all of that augmentation, if played just for
11:07
its damage isn't really right now anyway, especially anything
11:12
particularly special. But once you layer on all of
11:14
these different sort of effects, the way that it buffs your tank
11:17
and your healer, the way that it brings all of these control
11:21
options, you have Tail Swipe, Wing Buffett, Oppressing Roar,
11:25
you know, Landslide, all these damage reduction buttons like
11:29
Zephyr. You know, you have spatial
11:30
paradox for your healer. I've got a fun list on the side
11:33
here just to just remind me just in case, but the list goes on,
11:38
right? So really what I think a lot of
11:43
where, where a lot of the dissonance is, is in, in terms
11:46
of community reception and that sort of thing is recognizing
11:48
what aspects of the spec are, you know, really valued by the
11:53
the top players in terms of, you know, why they're bringing them
11:56
to groups versus why the average player might want to play this
12:00
spec. So I've seen a lot of different
12:03
opinions on augmentation as we go.
12:06
There's a pretty, I, I would say I, I don't want to say, you
12:10
know, uninformed, but maybe just less interested in a productive
12:15
discussion where, you know, it's just, hey, you know, delete the
12:18
spec. This thing's no good failed
12:20
experiment, that sort of thing. That that's one that hits close
12:25
to home because for me, I, I think this has been a very
12:28
valiant experiment, so to speak to, to sort of bring
12:31
augmentation in as the first and I would say sorry, support
12:35
oriented damage dealer. Really by and large, if there
12:40
was any hope of calling this thing a support spec, they've
12:43
moved away from that as much as possible, especially more
12:46
recently. It's, if anything, they've been
12:49
moving away from this spec that brings a ton of just crazy
12:54
utility and, and really try and focus on, on the damage more
12:57
than anything. And I think the community
13:02
reception has really shaped a lot of that.
13:05
I, I had a similar sort of thought to to many that if there
13:09
was appetite for it, especially in terms of design and, you
13:13
know, community feedback and that sort of thing, that the
13:15
hero talents would have seen a lot more sort of support
13:18
elements brought in to give players of other classes the
13:22
option to play those sorts of things.
13:24
And my personal opinion, my hot take on the matter is that the
13:30
wells sort of got poisoned by the specific implementations of
13:36
some of those that we saw in in the beta.
13:38
We saw the light force Paladin, for example, which dropped the
13:42
the weapons on the ground that you, you know, were supposed to
13:44
have your team go and pick up and that sort of thing.
13:46
And then we had the first cut of Oracle for healer priest, which
13:51
frankly was just not a very good implementation of what something
13:54
like that could be. And that's sort of the thing
13:57
that makes me the most sad at the end of the day is I do see a
14:00
world where, you know, having a, you know, having one of the five
14:05
players in an M plus situation, for example, be a support
14:07
oriented spec makes a ton of sense.
14:10
Where you know, OK, maybe you're giving up a bit of direct damage
14:12
or healing to bring a lot of this extra utility to the group
14:17
in in different ways and in creative ways, frankly.
14:21
But I think the overwhelming feedback that Blizzard received,
14:25
especially in in the beta for the War within was we don't like
14:29
what you've suggested here for these hero talents.
14:32
We'd rather something more conventional.
14:34
And I think that really scared the development team in the big
14:37
way from doubling down on support classes going forward,
14:42
which is, which is a shame because frankly, I, I adore the
14:45
idea of, you know, a less conventional, but more support
14:48
oriented character ultimately. And, you know, that's bringing
14:53
something different than just pure damage, pure healing, that
14:55
sort of thing. But as it stands, you know,
14:58
having augmentation as a role that brings just as much damage
15:03
as any other spec, if not more, depending on the meta.
15:06
And then also all of these other tools.
15:08
Yeah, that's probably a little bit unhealthy.
15:10
If you want a an M plus meta, for example, that has broad
15:14
representation of a lot of different specs.
15:17
I, I, I think that's at least the sentiment that most people
15:21
can agree on is if this spec brings so much to the table and
15:26
it feels like it's locked in, that really restricts your
15:30
ability to make viable compositions at the end of the
15:33
day. And that's, that's I think where
15:35
a lot of the the conservation has come from, especially at the
15:37
top end. Seeing Blizzard be hesitant to
15:41
implement more support style classes or specs, is there any
15:46
concern among augmentation enthusiasts that they will
15:51
eventually start to shift augmentation away from support
15:54
and that it will become a purely DPS spec?
15:58
Well, I think that's if anything, a fear that we've been
16:01
seeing manifest a little more recently.
16:03
And you know, as we kind of go through the war within into
16:07
Season 2 here, the, the elephant in the room in terms of the
16:11
biggest changes coming in 11-1 is that Eben might will no
16:15
longer affect tanks or healers. Ebenmite will purely be for the
16:20
benefit of the DPS players in, in the group and in the raid.
16:24
And for what it's worth, this is of course more impactful in
16:27
mythic plus setting than than raid.
16:28
It was frankly only very niche situations that you would ever
16:31
have plus a healer, Sorry, Ebenmite, a healer in in a raid
16:34
setting, for example. But what this does and, and I
16:38
want to be a little bit clearer that it it it, it does not
16:42
completely remove all of augmentations buffing power on
16:49
tanks of healers, so to speak. In fact, blistering scales for
16:54
tank armor is absolutely still there.
16:56
It still gives a, you know, a few points of damage reduction
16:59
by way of armor source of magic, which many of ochre brings or
17:04
well, devastation and and augmentation both bring is a
17:08
significant source of healing for the group as well.
17:10
And Eben might in its most recent iteration.
17:13
That's just 5% main style for the tank and the healer.
17:17
Taking that away, it's not necessarily the end of the
17:20
world. It's not, you know, like maybe
17:23
as big of a game changer for for the entire group as as some of
17:27
the Aug haters, for example, might have hoped for.
17:32
But I mean, and, and that's not to say that healers won't notice
17:37
it, they probably will notice a a 5% cut here or there.
17:40
But essentially what this change does, and coupled with the
17:47
closest clutch mates sort of buffed back up to 25%, is it
17:51
does move that throughput from the tanks and healers back into
17:55
the DPS players as a combination of augmentation's own damage and
18:01
the other DPS players in the group.
18:03
Essentially, we are moving away from, you know, the additional
18:08
throughput for the tank and the additional throughput for the
18:10
healer and really just focusing back on damage.
18:13
And this has been pretty consistent with a lot of the
18:16
nerves that that we've seen over the last bit.
18:18
And that's not to say that it's not warranted because it
18:22
probably is if augmentation's going to be the only spec that,
18:25
you know, can do these things and still bring, you know,
18:28
enough damage to be competitive. But it is pretty clear to me
18:32
that, you know, OK, in its current form, they're they're
18:37
really trying to maybe narrow the gap between the additional
18:42
utility that augmentation brings versus other more traditional
18:46
DPS specs. I mean, if we think of utility
18:48
in the way of throughput that that other specs bring, we think
18:51
of priest with power infusion, which frankly, anytime you can
18:55
put a priest in your group in mythic plus, you absolutely try,
18:58
whether it's, you know, discipline or holy priest as the
19:00
healer or if you can bring a shadow priest.
19:02
Awesome mages have been, you know, popular forever since
19:06
usually they do a ton of damage, but also arcane intellect has
19:09
been incredibly strong to, you know, benefit healers as well.
19:13
The God comp that we saw towards the end of, you know,
19:16
Dragonflight bringing both was, you know, a perfect example of
19:19
just that, that synergy where you know, OK, you've got the
19:23
power infusion plus arcane intellect plus Ebenmite, all of
19:27
these things working in tandem. It but also, but you know, not,
19:31
not any one of those specs necessarily not pulling their
19:36
own weight, right. Like, I, I would argue
19:38
absolutely that power infusion is a support ability.
19:41
These raid buffs and having them in mythic plus, for example, are
19:44
also support abilities. Absolutely, they're very
19:47
passive, but hey, it's it's utility, right.
19:50
So while augmentation has just an absolutely crazy laundry list
19:54
of of different buttons and different things that benefit
19:56
the group, it it, it is pretty clear to me that until we see a
20:01
little more experimentation in the form of a new class or a new
20:05
spec or some enhancement to these hero talent trees or what,
20:09
it seems like they are really trying to peel back on on the
20:13
support aspects of augmentation. Push it a little more in the way
20:16
of damage, at the very least to try and narrow that gap a little
20:20
bit. I don't think it's at least for
20:24
the foreseeable future. It's still quite a crazy kit in
20:28
terms of all the things that it brings, but but I definitely
20:31
would say that that's the direction that that it's been
20:33
heading, so to speak. So I'd I'd like to ask you if
20:38
augmentation didn't have the the buff to DPS and could opt to
20:44
instead throw it on on the tank and healers, right?
20:48
So you can choose to either buff the damn DPS or buff the tank
20:52
and the healer, right? That's a I think a big problem
20:55
with with lining up augmentation is that it brings everything to
20:59
the table and it's like, what can you leave off the table?
21:01
So if you had to make that sacrifice, would that ever be a
21:04
sacrifice that augmentation players or theory crafters would
21:08
ever consider worth it? Or is it just that DPS just
21:11
rules everything at this point? Well, when, when was the last
21:14
time that we've had a meta, for example, where we've been like,
21:17
OK, what if we could run 2 healers in mythic plus, right?
21:20
What if we ran like 2 discipline priests and just, you know, went
21:23
nuts with power infusion, that sort of thing.
21:24
Like I, I would say in general, and, and this is just my, my
21:30
naive view, I'm not necessarily, you know, a, a crazy key pusher
21:33
or anything like that. But to me, the sentiment that
21:35
I've I've seen through time is the the meta in the community,
21:40
so to speak, seem to prefer when damage is king, when your damage
21:46
throughput dictates whether or not you succeed in the key.
21:49
And that it's not, you know, oh, we're getting overwhelmed by
21:52
incoming damage that we have to, you know, have all these crazy,
21:57
you know, sort of like stacking defensives and making sure that
22:01
we can survive every single like incoming ability.
22:03
And that, you know, it's not that you're worried about timing
22:06
the key, but you're worried about surviving hits.
22:07
It. It seems to me that players
22:09
prefer when damages the the sort of when, when, when damage
22:13
throughput is sort of the the limiting factor, right.
22:16
And as long as that's the case, and again, this is a very M plus
22:19
sort of focused, you know, point.
22:21
But I think as long as that's the case, Blizzard is going to
22:25
continue to sort of design in that direction, which is to say,
22:28
OK, players really try and do as much damage as possible and, you
22:33
know, healing and survivability or that sort of thing, or a bit
22:36
more of a checkbox exercise. And that's really, I, I think
22:40
that's driven a lot of the community reception through
22:42
time. I think that's driven a lot of
22:43
design through time. And we, we do see it in terms
22:47
of, you know, compositions in the meta and that sort of thing.
22:50
For example, when you can bring a pallet and tank to the group
22:54
and they're doing all this crazy off healing, that sort of thing,
22:56
you're happy to have them, right?
22:58
They're, they're absolutely contributing to the success of
23:00
the group. But that's not usually your
23:03
first thought. Your first thought is, OK,
23:05
what's, what's the tank that's gonna, you know, succeed in
23:08
these, you know, huge crazy 5 pack pulls that we're trying to
23:11
do without falling over and that's, you know, also
23:14
contributing a substantial amount of damage and, and that
23:16
sort of thing, right? So I think by and large, it's an
23:21
interesting thought to say, OK, you know, what if we had a
23:23
version of augmentation that was more focused on the tanker
23:27
healers, right? And, and would that be an
23:29
interesting, you know, choice, for example, to, to bring
23:34
perhaps in a rate setting right there?
23:36
I mean, I could see a world where, and, and it's a little
23:39
bit difficult there as well, because most encounters are
23:42
balanced around, you know, specifically 2 tanks on on that
23:46
side of things. But you can imagine a world
23:48
where, hey, I have a third character that's like kind of
23:51
beefy and is able to like off tank some ADS or something every
23:54
once in a while or that has, you know, just a few extra externals
23:58
to keep the tanks alive in, in crazy moments, right.
24:02
And healing's always interesting because healing is the situation
24:05
where sort of towards the beginning of the tier, you need
24:07
a lot of it. As farm goes on, you need less
24:09
of it and you focus more on damage and kill times and that
24:12
sort of thing. But there are moments where, and
24:15
this comes down to tuning and how hard you're you're pushing
24:18
and that sort of thing. But in in the race to world
24:21
first, for example, augmentation has every once in a while had
24:24
moments where you might want to put Ebenite on healers.
24:28
And again, very niche. But but you you know, we're in a
24:31
position where you might do that just just to give the healers
24:33
that extra, you know, 510% throughput for that one moment.
24:37
And then you go back to the to the the DPS, right.
24:39
And so having a spec that that could do that right or go I'm
24:44
going to buff this healer right now and then this healer and
24:46
that sort of thing. Yeah, absolutely.
24:48
It's a it's an extension or, or you know, an an interesting
24:52
design idea, certainly. But I do think the game is
24:55
personal anyway, just more designed around the the damage
25:00
question in general. So that that's kind of an
25:02
interesting thought for sure. So if if the survivability
25:06
through healing and tanking is so binary where it's like it's
25:09
good enough move on to DPS, how do you how does like
25:15
augmentation like work with that if not focused on the DPS beyond
25:20
good enough to survive? Let's get the numbers.
25:23
Well, and, and again, I, I do think this is where Blizzard
25:27
might have designed themselves into a bit of a corner here
25:29
where and, and I, I don't think this will be shocking to anyone.
25:33
But I mean, at the, at the end of the day, if you have one
25:36
speck that brings, you know, again, sufficient damage to earn
25:41
its place in the group, but is also just, you know,
25:46
automatically causing the tank to, you know, generate more
25:50
thread and have 5 percent, 10% more survivability and do more
25:54
damage. And the healer is doing the same
25:56
thing where, you know, maybe they can just cast a regular
25:59
spell instead of a cool down because they have that buff.
26:01
Right. When, when you have all of that
26:04
in play and you're the only spec that can do that.
26:07
And again, especially noticeable in mythic plus, you, you have
26:11
kind of solidified a spot for that character in, in that
26:14
group. I, I mean, I again, I, I love
26:18
the idea of support characters in, in Mmos in particular.
26:22
I'm like when, whenever I try a new MMO, I'm always sort of
26:26
going towards that support character first and foremost.
26:30
And it is a bit of a bummer to me that, you know, in, in World
26:33
of Warcraft, OK, I'm either playing a direct damage dealer
26:36
or I'm playing a healer, right? But there there isn't really
26:39
something in the middle that you know, that that I can that I can
26:43
choose that does a little bit of both, unless in this case I'm,
26:48
you know, I'm playing this one spec that brings more than maybe
26:52
one slots worth of of utility. At least that's how it largely
26:55
was at the end of Dragonflight. And so it like in, in terms of
26:59
its current state and especially going into 11 one, I, I think it
27:02
is in a much sort of, I would say healthier state in terms of,
27:06
you know, do you need one in your group?
27:08
I would say largely, a lot of players will probably look at
27:10
everything by and large and go, OK, I don't need Warren Stone
27:15
because we're not doing any weird tech.
27:17
I don't need rescue because I'm actually not like that confident
27:21
in my ability to use twin guardian.
27:23
Well anyway, so maybe I don't care too much about that.
27:27
And you know, hey, yeah, I really do want to bring my my
27:30
shadow priest because Pi on this enhancement shaman would be
27:33
nuts, right? So like by and large, players
27:36
might decide, you know, hey, I, you know, they're just no longer
27:40
is enough on the throughput side of things that, you know, hey,
27:44
maybe I can experiment a little more.
27:47
But the biggest thing ultimately to to me when it comes to
27:53
augmentation and why it gets this big of a wrap, I think
27:55
personally is this idea of kind of agency and the way that the
28:00
buffs are felt. OK.
28:01
And then this is something that we don't necessarily talk about
28:04
a lot, but when I am a shadow priest player and I just have my
28:09
1, you know, power infusion that I put on people, I have my
28:12
passive fortitude and then I'm just doing damage the rest of
28:15
the time. No one's really looking at that
28:17
and going like, you know, for, for example, Wow, that that
28:21
shadow priest is is making all the difference in terms of
28:24
whether or not, you know, we succeed this key.
28:26
The healer is not going like, oh shit, you know, I've got this
28:29
buff on me and I'm doing more now, right?
28:32
And then especially when it comes to to tanking, for
28:34
example, it, you know, you might have a, a priest in your group
28:38
and everyone has more, more health, or you have a major
28:41
group and everyone has slightly more, more main stat.
28:44
But the fact that Ogg has these buffs and they're, they're
28:47
active and that you're like, you know, pressing buttons and
28:50
that's causing, you know, players to, to have more
28:52
throughput. They, they, it's almost
28:55
psychological, but you almost just feel it more when, when
28:58
this, this spec exists and, and is doing this stuff.
29:00
So I, I do think by and large, the, the changes that are, that
29:04
are coming are going to even the playing field a little more,
29:07
especially in terms of perception.
29:09
And then hopefully by then players will realize like, OK,
29:12
this back is, is pretty neutral in damage.
29:14
We can, you know, we can live or with or without it, It has very
29:18
specific utility. So if you know, if I really need
29:21
to be able to do this or that, great.
29:23
It still has a lot of, you know, different crowd control options
29:27
and God cauterizing flames super useful.
29:29
Like, you know, just the the list goes on in terms of all
29:33
these different buttons, but you might decide, hey, I don't need
29:36
that, right? And, and I, I do think at the
29:39
very least in terms of this, this design pit that, that I
29:42
think we've kind of ended up in where if we're not gonna make
29:45
more of these things, then they should kind of still exist in
29:49
the DPS paradigm. I think they're at least moving
29:53
in, in a way where it can live a little healthier in, in, in the
29:55
world of DPS specs, so to speak. And again, it's a bit of a
29:59
bummer for me. Like, I, I love the idea of, you
30:02
know, hey, we'd have like support characters that are
30:04
doing cool stuff. It just doesn't seem like that's
30:08
where we're at right now anyway. Or at least, you know, there
30:11
doesn't seem to be a lot of appetite at the moment.
30:13
Yeah, in, in infinitely. Scaling content like M plus you
30:18
have two options. You're either the you get to a
30:22
point where you can't kill the mobs fast enough because they
30:26
have so much health to time the key, or you get to a point where
30:29
the damage they do is so overwhelming, you die and you
30:32
can't time the key. And that's we're currently in
30:34
that state and we've been there since that's August launched,
30:37
where the deciding factor is there's too much damage.
30:40
We need more defensives. And as long as we're in that,
30:42
that design world, augmentation is going to be needed at the top
30:47
level keys forever because people are sheep.
30:51
It will trickle down and we'll be running them in our sevens,
30:54
but if we switch to the other, if we switch to the point where
30:57
OK, what the deciding factor now is can we do enough DPS to kill
31:01
these mobs to time the key as opposed to can we survive?
31:05
Are you worried about augmentations place in the game
31:09
as because devastation typically is tuned for more damage.
31:15
Well, I would say before you tacked on that last little bit
31:17
at the end, yeah, I mean it it it all hit both when it comes to
31:23
augmentation and how it looks sort of in a damage dealing
31:27
paradigm. It I I would say it's it's now
31:31
at a point where we can pretty safely say it depends Before I
31:36
would have said this thing brings 1 1/2 DPS players worth
31:40
of value. Of course you want it right,
31:42
That that was the the Dragonflight tuning angle and
31:45
we're we're past that. It's it's been nerfed to the
31:47
point where it it now depends. The current meta that we're in
31:52
right now, for example, where enhancement is just absolutely
31:57
nuts, lends itself very well to augmentation coming in, buffing
32:04
the enhancement, the enhancements getting Pi and from
32:08
the healer in this case mostly, and the occupations coming in.
32:12
And also, you know, you've got your shifting sans buffer, more
32:15
versatility. You've got your Eben might,
32:17
you've got your prescience for crit and then all these other
32:19
stacking buffs when when you're really leaning on this, this one
32:23
character and buffing that one character up to a tremendous
32:26
extent. It works very well, right?
32:28
It's, it's very well suited for, for that in, in terms of what's
32:32
coming up in 11-1 and sort of what that I think looks like
32:37
we're we're gonna see a little more damage on the Aug itself,
32:41
certainly a little less damage from tanks, healers and more on
32:43
the group. It's hard to say before we like
32:46
I have a good understanding of what the other specs are going
32:49
to bring to the table, but in a similar meta, so to speak, you
32:54
know, assuming you have specs like enhancement that are still
32:56
viable, augmentation absolutely can still kick it from a pure
33:00
damage standpoint. In fact, I, I would say right
33:02
now, it's, it's absolutely, you know, it's, it's competitive in,
33:06
in terms of the, the damage it brings.
33:10
And largely, I mean, when, when you compare to devastation, for
33:13
example, devastation has struggled for a long time in
33:17
terms of just the fact that it, and, and it's, it's crazy 'cause
33:22
it, it was this for a while, but it really doesn't bring enough
33:26
burst damage in the way that you might hope for a mythic plus
33:31
situation. The dragon rage has turned into
33:34
this, you know, really like 42nd long sort of damage window and
33:39
and really there there are a couple aspects of of devastation
33:43
that that could work well in a particular setting.
33:45
You know, pyre is still uncapped, which is wild, but
33:48
using doing unethical amounts of damage to like, you know,
33:52
compare with some of these other specs like enhancement, like
33:55
frost. You know, I mean, even balance
33:57
is doing really well in some of these keys, right.
34:00
So it's just been, you know, it's been something you can
34:03
enjoy in your 10s, elevens twelves, absolutely, and you
34:06
know, I play it from time to time in in those keys.
34:09
It it's not bringing anything special to the table beyond the
34:12
list of evoker utility to those top groups, especially when you
34:17
have another character in the group that brings lust right,
34:20
that sort of thing. So so devastation unfortunately
34:24
has has actually been a little lackluster in terms of its, you
34:28
know, inclusion in in mythic plus, especially it's very
34:30
strong in raid right now and it just has a very good damage
34:33
profile for a lot of these fights.
34:35
But when it comes to mythic plus, it's it's just a little
34:37
bit lacking and we'd probably hear a little more about it if
34:40
augmentation wasn't in every group.
34:42
I think that's sort of a a big thing as well.
34:45
It's not to say that every devastation player likes to play
34:48
augmentation. In fact, that's, you know, a
34:50
little bit of a dividing point, I think for a lot of players as
34:53
well. But certainly what the situation
34:56
is right now is Evoker is in pretty much every top group.
34:59
It's being run as augmentation and it's well represented and
35:03
it's not purely in fact, it's almost not exclusively at all
35:07
for its its utility. It does enough damage to hang.
35:11
So when we come into 11 one, it's even more personal damage.
35:16
The tier set looks like it's going to sort of, you know, pile
35:20
on to the buttons that that augmentation hits and then does
35:24
more damage with. It's looking like it's gonna
35:27
have a crazy resource economy, which means basically permanent
35:29
uptime on a lot of these buffs and this sort of thing.
35:32
It looks, frankly, and we haven't tested it yet, but it
35:34
looks pretty wild right now. So looking at the immediate
35:38
future, yeah, it looks like augmentation will be fine.
35:40
In terms of damage. It's sort of up to where all of
35:44
the tuning lands. And if there aren't three other
35:47
DPS specs that outperform, right?
35:50
And really, when when push comes to shove, then we're in a
35:53
position where we can say, OK, the side utility isn't game
35:58
breaking anymore. We are mostly looking at the
36:01
specs damage output. Yeah, I, I I think that's at
36:05
least it's a much easier place to balance from.
36:07
And I think a place where people trying to, you know, come up
36:10
with their group compositions by playing their favorite specs are
36:12
a lot more keen on going, OK, yeah, I can do more damage than
36:15
than if I were playing hogs. So let's try this and see if
36:18
this works. So I mean, my, my, my $0.02 on
36:21
it are I think Ogg is in a good position to do good damage in
36:24
season 2. And I think the trend at least
36:28
looks like it'll continue to to do well, especially when you
36:31
have, you know, the ability to buff a crazy damage back like
36:35
enhancement. But I, I, I do think we're in
36:38
kind of a bit of a healthier paradigm, or at least a bit of a
36:40
return to form where we can kind of just hold them side by side
36:43
mostly on damage and then go, OK, do I, do I need the, the,
36:47
the extra utility? Do I need to be able to, you
36:49
know, throw a wearing stone in here?
36:51
Do I need, you know, do I need rescue shield to keep the healer
36:55
from dying on this hit? That sort of thing.
36:57
So yeah. This is where we asked the
37:01
experts for a well balanced, optimistic outlook as opposed to
37:05
the Twitter doomers who quickly announced Dog's demise.
37:10
Manny, I don't have any more questions for Jericho.
37:12
I could listen to him talk for hours, sometimes I do during
37:16
raid. He is very passionate about his
37:18
spec and in his class and I really enjoy it.
37:21
Do you have any questions left for him?
37:24
Honestly, I think that we've pretty much covered it all at
37:26
this point. It is like looking towards the
37:28
future and speculation. So with 11.1 coming soon,
37:32
hopefully on the PTR within the next week, crossing fingers, I'm
37:39
looking forward to seeing where where Voker goes.
37:42
And of course, you know, we're at a lot of enhancement shaman.
37:44
Let's hear more of that. Yeah, Jericho, if any of our
37:48
listeners want to get more of you directly pumped into their
37:51
veins, where can they find? You sure?
37:54
So I, I've got a website, jericho.com, jereico.com and
38:02
haven't updated in a while, but it should have all the links to
38:05
everything that you might care about like Twitch, YouTube,
38:08
Twitter and mainly Discord. I would say if you spend any
38:13
time on Discord, you can join the, the little Jericho
38:17
community that we've got on there and get a hold of me
38:19
pretty easily. More than happy to talk about
38:23
Evoker, answer questions, have a good time and frankly, I could
38:27
again talk in excruciating detail of kind of any of these
38:32
different topics that we only kind of lightly touched on
38:34
today, but absolutely happy to have a good chat so you can find
38:40
me there. I actually lied.
38:42
I do have one more question. Where does the name Jericho come
38:44
from? Are you just a big fan of Skeet
38:47
Ulrich TV shows? It's gonna kill me with
38:50
references beyond my comprehension There.
38:52
It's an. Old TV he's, he's an actor, but
38:56
he was in an old TV show called Jericho.
38:58
Absolutely. No, I'm, it's just one of those
39:01
things, you know, are you, you're 13 years old and you're
39:05
like, damn, I'm gonna come up with a cool name for when I
39:09
spend time on the Internet. And that's where we landed.
39:13
That's why the the spelling makes no sense and why it
39:15
doesn't align with anything you've ever seen before.
39:17
So I dig it. I dig.
39:20
It all right Anyway, thanks for being here.
39:23
Thank you, all of our listeners for joining us.
39:25
And we'll see you in the next episode.
39:28
Until next time, may all your hits be Critz.