Augmentation Evoker made a significant impact in the community when it was introduced in Dragonflight, as the first true support specialization in World of Warcraft.
As the only support class in the game, Augmentation also excels in its assigned DPS role, making it a likely choice for inclusion in World First raid teams. For those new to it, this specialization offers a distinctive playstyle.
Initially, the powerful damaging abilities of the Black Dragonflight enable players to dominate the battlefield with remarkable AoE and single-target damage. Many of the spec’s support capabilities are derived from the Bronze Dragonflight, and it is through the synergistic use of both that players will achieve success as an Augmentation Evoker.
Augmentation Evoker Class Changes in The War Within
As anticipated, given the spec’s impressive efficiency in the previous expansion, Augmentation received several nerfs with the launch of The War Within. Fortunately for current players, there are few changes that will notably impact gameplay in PvE or PvP.
The most significant development is the introduction of Molten Embers, a new capstone talent focused on maintaining Fire Breath’s uptime. Keeping Fire Breath active grants a 20% damage boost to Black spells, significantly enhancing output when utilized effectively.
Additionally, players should note the new toggle ability Sense Power, which provides a visual cue to allies with active cooldowns, helping you track when teammates achieve major damage bursts for optimized output.
Augmentation Evoker Talents, Hero Talents, and Build
The Evoker talent tree outlined below showcases the utility for which the Evoker class is renowned. This includes key healing abilities such as Verdant Embrace, cleansing capabilities via Expunge, and damage mitigation through Obsidian Scales.
There’s also ample crowd control available with abilities like Landslide and Oppressing Roar, in addition to vital passive buffs through nodes like Draconic Legacy and Instinctive Arcana.
The final nodes of the tree provide two critical abilities for support roles. Spatial Paradox grants movement while casting and increases the spell range by 100% for both the player and a friendly healer, making it especially handy in Mythic+ dungeons, which are rife with floor hazards this season.
Considering the significance of Fire Breath in the effectiveness of an Augmentation Evoker, we have chosen several talent nodes aimed at improving its performance. These include Blast Furnace, which enhances the damage-over-time effect, and Leaping Flame, allowing Living Flame to hit one additional enemy per empower level following Fire Breath.
The Augmentation tree is where the fun begins for a DPS player, starting with a supportive node in the Ebon Might keystone. This unlocks Eruption, a core ability in your damage rotation, further enhanced by the Ricochet Pyroclast passive, boosting AoE damage output.
In the next tier, two major damage abilities become accessible. Breath of Eons accumulates damage from allies affected by Ebon Might before unleashing it in a powerful attack. Upheaval lifts enemies into the air before slamming them down for substantial damage.
As you progress through the tree, you will enhance essence buffs, and improve specific abilities and overall stats, ultimately leading to more active support-oriented abilities.
The first is Blistering Scales, which boosts an ally’s armor and triggers explosive damage on hits from enemies. Draconic Attunements lets you select a buff for four nearby allies, boosting their Maximum Health by 2% or Movement Speed by 10%.
The remainder of the tree focuses on buffing Essence Burst while enhancing Eruption and their interaction. Key talents like Ignition Rush reduce Eruption’s cast time by 40%, aiding in avoiding complex mechanics and maximizing damage.
Key talents to highlight at the end of the tree include Interwoven Threads and Molten Embers. The former provides a 10% universal cooldown reduction for spells, critical for optimizing your rotation. Molten Embers increases damage taken by enemies hit by Fire Breath from Black Dragonflight spells by 20%.
Hero Talents
Although Scalecommander demonstrated significant promise during the early phases of The War Within beta, Chronowarden has emerged as the top Hero Talent tree for Augmentation, applied in both raids and Mythic+. While it demands greater attention to buffs and mastery of ability interactions, the rewards are substantial when executed properly.
Like many Hero Talent trees, Chronowarden features a largely fixed design, with three choice nodes for players to customize their builds. The first allows a choice between Temporality and Motes of Acceleration, favoring Temporality for its valuable damage reduction.
In the second slot, Double-time was selected over Time Convergence. Double-time grants Ebon Might and Prescience a chance to offer 50% extra stats, which aligns well with our higher Critical Strike priority for this specialization.
The final choice of Master of Destiny versus Instability Matrix is generally best filled with Instability Matrix, as it reduces empower spell cooldowns by 6 seconds each time one is cast, which occurs frequently.
Scalecommander is currently only slightly behind in the overarching framework, and with minor adjustments, it could potentially become a strong contender. Should that occur, or if you wish to explore its potential anyway, there’s an effective strategy to build into its core theme.
All three choice nodes appear preceding the Capstone talent at the end of the tree. The first selection allows the choice between two damage-reducing abilities. Hardened Scales is the preferred selection due to more frequent use of Obsidian Scales compared to knock-ups.
For the second slot, Extended Battle is preferable to Diverted Power, as it adds extra seconds to Bombardments for each essence ability used, ensuring consistent benefits during gameplay.
The final slot is better suited for Nimble Flyer, which reduces floor-based AoE damage by 10% while hovering, offering consistent mitigation in Mythic+ and raid settings where Deep Breath usually presents no significant issues in rotation.
Stat Priority
Fortunately, the stat priority for Augmentation Evokers remains stable, irrespective of the activity type or the chosen Hero Talent tree. Primarily, the most critical stat to pursue when gearing up is Intellect, due to its synergy with Ebon Might and the frequency of its use.
After Intellect, the secondary stat priority you should follow is:
- Mastery
- Critical Strike
- Haste
- Versatility
Critical Strike offers a chance for double damage on spells, which is always beneficial for a DPS with a high-volume rotation. A unique aspect of playing Augmentation is the Sands of Time passive talent, which can increase Ebon Might’s duration by an additional 50%.
Haste decreases the cast time for all spells and adds extra ticks to damage-over-time effects, as well as reducing the Global Cooldown for all abilities, making it crucial for maximizing damage output.
Mastery: Timewalker grants Shifting Sands to one ally each time you cast an empower spell, providing a 3% Versatility increase for 10 seconds, favoring DPS allies preferentially. Moreover, it extends the duration of various ally buffing abilities.
Versatility is the most versatile secondary stat option, improving both damage and healing while decreasing incoming damage, but it’s less compelling in prioritizing as an Augmentation Evoker.
Rotation
As an Augmentation player, the primary responsibility is maintaining the appropriate buffs on DPS and Tank players. This requires casting Prescience on two DPS players and Blistering Scales on the Tank for additional damage reduction. The general rotation you should follow is as follows:
- Prescience
- Blistering Scales
- Ebon Might
- Breath of Eons
- Tip the Scales
- Living Flame
- Fire Breath
- Upheaval
- Eruption
- Living Flame
Essentially, the strategy involves utilizing Tip the Scales to prepare for the damage burst phase after buffing your team. Following that, use major abilities while employing Living Flame to fill in any cooldown gaps during the rotation.
Don’t forget the numerous utility abilities available to integrate into the rotation when needed, such as Azure Strike, which can be particularly useful in group PvE settings.
Augmentation Evoker Tier Set Breakdown
Tier Sets are powerful armor sets for each class that provide specific bonuses when equipping 2 or 4 pieces of the set. For Augmentation Evokers, the Scales of the Awakened set offers the following bonuses:
- 2-Piece Set – Every third Prescience lasts 100% longer.
- 4-Piece Set – Casting Prescience enhances your next Eruption with smaller fissures for each active Prescience, each dealing (110% of Spell Power) damage and extending Ebon Might by 0.2 sec.
The extended duration of Prescience notably boosts your outgoing damage due to increased uptime, allowing for more opportunistic usage.
The 4-Piece bonus is particularly notable, maximizing the use of Eruption. Prescience Fissures can stack up to five times, in combination with the 2-Piece bonus, resulting in roughly a 10% increase to outgoing damage as noted by Wowhead.
Gems and Enchants
In line with recent WoW expansions, certain Enchants substantially outperform others. Therefore, the best choices for each slot are as follows:
| Slot | Best Enchant |
| Weapon | Enchant Weapon – Authority of Radiant Power |
| Cloak | Enchant Cloak – Chant of Winged Grace |
| Chest | Enchant Chest – Crystalline Radiance |
| Bracers | Enchant Bracer – Chant of Armored Avoidance |
| Legs | Sunset Spellthread |
| Boots | Enchant Boots – Defender’s March |
| Ring – Regular | Enchant Ring – Radiant Mastery |
| Ring – Cursed | Enchant Ring – Cursed Mastery |
Enchant Weapon – Authority of Radiant Power is paramount. Each instance of damage has a chance to trigger it, resulting in significant single-target damage and a temporary boost to your primary stat.
The remaining slots focus on maximizing DPS output. Crystalline Radiance significantly raises the primary stat by 745 when equipped. The other enchants emphasize boosting secondary stats, including Mastery, alongside enhancements to Stamina and Avoidance.
This concludes the complete guide! For those seeking further information, we have additional detailed guides available for Healer and Tank roles.
Leave a Reply