Blizzard’s new support DPS class, the augmentation evoker
The WoW augmentation evoker is the single most dominant character in World of Warcraft right now. This support DPS class, which focuses on buffing allies instead of dealing damage, is a completely new playstyle for the MMO, and it’s a huge boon for players who love supporting others in World of Warcraft. However, it’s also become a game-breaker in Blizzard’s legendary MMORPG.
The introduction of the augmentation evoker has already led to massive shifts in World of Warcraft’s meta and is a requirement for high-level content like Aberrus. However, a video by World of Warcraft site WoWhead highlights an experiment by guide writer and streamer Jereico, which exposes a dangerous strat involving two death knights and 22 augmentation evokers.
As Jereico demonstrates in the video, this strat takes advantage of a flaw in the classes’ design, resulting in extraordinary damage output. Each augmentation evoker scales multiplicatively when more are added during their burst phase, with abilities like Ebon Might, Shifting Sands, and Prescience, which buff Intellect, Versatility, and Crit respectively, contributing to the amplified damage.
This is paired with buffs such as Fate Mirror, which add an additional 15% damage for each spell or ability. Breath of Eons, a key ability, tallies the damage dealt by an ally and deals 15% of that damage as a critical hit. With 22 augmentation evokers providing massive multiplicative boosts to base damage, the damage output becomes astronomical.
Simply put, one player’s burst damage gets echoed by 15% of its total damage from all 22 players. Again, this is for damage that’s being dealt by a single player, and the damage output becomes astronomical.
You can see the video, which showcases this strat annihilating bosses in the Aberrus raid, below:
WoWhead explains that the only hindrance to this strategy is when bosses become immune or highly resistant to damage during transitions, forcing players to simply stop stacking. However, simply stopping stacking would create another design issue, so finding a balance is crucial.
There’s no doubt that a patch is incoming to address this unintended consequence, but for now you can see the future of WoW’s new support DPS playstyle in the clip above. Check out some of the other big changes coming to World of Warcraft in 2022 here.
