Community Council Interview with Graham Berger and Ion Hazzikostas - Augmentation Evoker & Damage Meters

Posted 2023/07/14 at 10:03 PM by Squishei

Augmentation Evoker

Keeping balance on all classes is the goal and that includes Augmentation. Seems really good in Mythic+ right now, and they're waiting on more raid data to come in.

At a high level, they want to balance Augmentation similar to all other DPS. They're looking at participation, representation, success rate in activities.

People are obviously fixated on DPS numbers, but especially in keys, utility matters. Augmentation spotlights that aspect of it and some parts are quantifiable, but what about the times that your tank didn't die because they had extra stats. The goal is for every DPS spec to feel like they're contributing and be valued.

The top third of the talent tree is your core talents, the bottom third is options for ways to add damage to your group and the middle section is very utility focused.

They've been talking about the secondary stat issue of Augmentation and following along with the theorycrafting around it. From a design perspective, having Mastery be the best stat -- they kind of like that as Mastery is the unique thing for your spec. Graham thinks it's a tuning question more than a design question - can Versatility buff something as an example. They're keeping an eye on Mastery being so much better than the other stats, but part of it makes gearing easy which leads into the approachability of the spec. One of the first places that they might look is nerfing the Versatility coefficient on the Mastery, but they're going to keep exploring options.

Augmentation & Damage Meters

The team has seen the meme compilation of Augmentation Evokers getting called out for low DPS.

Right now in-game addons can't read the attribution shown in advanced combat logs, but right now the spec is super new. The playerbase has only had this spec for 3 days, and information needs to be shared amongst the playerbase. Augmentation has been really successfully in high level keys and that has spread amongst the community, and they expect news of the spec to spread more over time.

This reminds Ion a little of the Disc priest rework and when Disc Priests were getting kicked from groups for DPS'ing instead of healing.

Battle Pets

No immediate plans to add more Battle Pet dungeons.

A better use of time might instead be to add more accessibility to the system as a whole, rather than add more challenges for those who have already done everything.

Gearing

There's ongoing experiments with the gearing system in WoW. Maybe one day they'll feel like gearing is perfect, but Ion is skeptical they get there.

They're trying to strike a balance between chases, goals and having some excitement where it's there, but also having some safety net to protect against the worst aspects of randomness.

If things are too predictable, you can almost take out a calendar and circle the days on which you'll get your goals and there's no spikes of excitement and that's why the rare items are to keep some of those chase goals.

The other stuff like Catalyst, professions, upgrade system -- those are there to try to limit the variance in outcome between if you're the luckiest and unluckiest player.

Acquisition of the Evoker Legendary changed as they realized the psychology of something that starts off as exciting, but once enough weeks pass and periodic global reminders of other people's good fortune and your lack thereof turns it into something that is more negative.

The goal is to keep loot exciting but also have a safety net to limit frustration.

UI & Action Bars

They're working on a hotfix right now that will disable or roll back a lot of the Action Bar flashy stuff that people have seen. They've heard it was appreciated by some, but disruptive to many.

Pings

There are sound effects on pings. Ion isn't sure on adjustable sounds though.

Water Elemental & Observer

No current plans for a glyph to have a way to summon Water Elemental for RP purposes. They want to stick to Water Elemental having a combat-focused impact.

Regarding the Observer, there's a difference between adding new things that the community will need to learn collectively and potential for meaningful confusion. There's another pet that is a floating eye; that felt like more of a source of confusion than it was worth. They recognize some people thought it was cool. As they were working on Warlock customizations, a complete transformation in the movement, silhouette and everything about it but kept the functionality felt out of place.

Leveling Experience

They plan on having Dragonflight be the new leveling experience and replacing BFA.

No heirloom rework in very near future, moderate future likely. They'll be taking a look at leveling as previously mentioned as they move into future expansions and it would make a lot of sense to look at heirlooms with that.

Scholomance

Is there any chance of resurrecting obsolete quests? Anything is possible, but Cataclysm was an interesting time and some data might not be there anymore. Have to determine if it's worth it, but they liked bringing back some things as a fun nostalgia time.

Zaralek Caverns

No immediate changes to announce regarding rares and scaling but they understand that week 1, rares die so fast that they end up having to buff the health, but on week 16, people are afk or summoning.

Future content in Dragonflight will be designed with these lessons in mind.

Time Rifts Lag

Very actively looking at the lag in Time Rifts. They're looking at how the shards are spun up and balanced. Hopefully looking at improvements in the next week or so.

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Comments

Comment by Clinoclase

I hope that means we're getting the old actionbar animations back.

Genuinely no idea what he means by pet battles needing more accessibility. We're already rolling in so many catchup mechanics it takes like 10 minutes to get a new pet to rare quality and lvl25.

Comment by Jessicavee

very nice to see bfa will exit current timeline and enter chromie allowing DF to be the current time line for 10-70 at end of DF or sooner. not sure what they are implying but i assume end of DF. either way i am pleased to see that.

Comment by nozzlegear

> CTRL+F "PVP"
> 0 results found
> I close the tab

Comment by KarthusTeemo

It's a headache sometimes to read their takes on Gearing and the gearing system as a whole. They don't want people to circle calendar days yet that's exactly what has happened with timegating Sparks on specific set days and timegating the catalyst to a set date. They really just don't understand that gearing was fine when there was 0 rng associated with it. Does the boss drop 408 gear? Yes the boss drops 408 gear. That's all there is to it and nothing more. Does the gear have haste crit and 2 sockets? Yes it does. Perfect, there's nothing else to it. Right now you can RNG sockets and tertiaries and then the upgrade system of which there are 5 tiers it can be thrown into. It's a headache and convoluted for no reason.

Comment by Torgall90

Genuine question. How?

Comment by Ashley

Is there any chance of resurrecting obsolete quests? Anything is possible, but Cataclysm was an interesting time and some data might not be there anymore. Have to determine if it's worth it, but they liked bringing back some things as a fun nostalgia time.

You... you mean the data that's on the Classic servers right now? Seriously?

At least they're sticking to their stance on Augmentation.

Comment by kpiaum

They're working on a hotfix right now that will disable or roll back a lot of the Action Bar flashy stuff that people have seen. They've heard it was appreciated by some, but disruptive to many.

Noooo, liked the new animations. At least make it so the player can chose wich they prefer.

Comment by phatb

People are obviously fixated on DPS numbers, but especially in keys, utility matters.

Oh shut up. Do big numbers, things die fast, less need for utility. If utility really mattered that much to you, then you'd equip ALL classes with an ability to CC Dragonkins or purge your stupid ghost affix. Quit overthinking *!@# Blizz.

The goal is for every DPS spec to feel like they're contributing and be valued

Blizz only values evokers, spriest, mage, dk, or lock, so if you're not playing those classes, you're not a dps spec. Waiting for a rework? Good luck. Feel sorry for the monks and DHs. I'd include rogues, but their rework is coming soon.

Very actively looking at the lag in Time Rifts. They're looking at how the shards are spun up and balanced. Hopefully looking at improvements in the next week or so.

Did you learn anything from the Community Soup event?

Our code is spaghetti - don't know how to let addons read the attribution. Afraid to let 3rd party authors see how %^&* our code is.

The goal is to keep loot exciting but also have a safety net to limit frustration.

You're overthinking again. Eff your rare loot, rare drop rate crap. Bring back Dinars/tokens. Make catalyst available earlier. Let me send gear/crests to my alts.

Comment by XxTytoNxX

I don't understand, they designed new hooks specifically for Augmentation damage, so that logs could read it, then haven't given access to said hooks for damage meter addons... Why? Like obviously this was going to happen. A large majority of the playerbase just does not pay attention and won't understand the concept of a support spec.

Comment by Clinoclase

Comment by Natakutdh

We got 3 mythic bosses in this week, and as an auggy I only have two problems.

1. I like prescience but dont like how it plays. Maybe ill get better with better tracking and play, but it feels like I am always pressing it. Its a fun ability, But feels bad if i am dumb and let it fall off and now im potentially not keeping buffs on one of my two buds.

2. Range issue is hurting me more than devastation. On heroic sark, Theres no way I will be able to buff melee using our strat because I have to stay max range and melee are further than that. On other fights It felt like keeping track of my people who i want to keep buffed was a huge pain with me doing mechanics and them doing mechanics and them my cooldown timing and being in range of what i need. Would prescience having like 100 range really mess anything up?

I am having fun. Group members enjoy ascending into ludicrous range. I am enjoying helping them, doing less damage to do mechanics so my friends can dps, emegency shielding from scales on low people, being mini windrush or last stands from my auras. Really, loving the utility and blaming my friends for my low dps, these are just my experiences.

Comment by the9tail

> CTRL+F "PVP"
> 0 results found
> I close the tab

Good. PvPers are worthless to the health of the game.

WoW lost its way with PVP - like it started as a way to have fun killing people, then an alternative gearing pathway and now its kinda neither, as it come across as elitist, unbalanced and kinda cut off from the rest of the game even from an ability standpoint.

I lived it and watched it, I understand every change to PVP they made - people were screaming for PVP to balanced around itself rather than try and be both PVE and PVP - but now it is like its own game, like it shouldnt even be in WoW anymore. Maybe WoW Arena should be a separate game entirely, then they could rework things to avoid problems like Tanks in Arena by changing/removing abilities entirely.

Comment by Avelphina

"No current plans for a glyph to have a way to summon Water Elemental for RP purposes. They want to stick to Water Elemental having a combat-focused impact." Man just screw frost mages I guess.

Comment by the9tail

The range issue on targeted buffs hurts alot. You are trying to be in range of a boss which is ok, I am used to that as Devo - but also be in range of your preferred targets as well? That is too much.

Comment by Ammertoss

Really weird that these people dare to do an interview after the mess to M+ they caused. Pure DPS classes like hunter, DH, warrior and lock are dead in M+ keys higher than 20. Shadow Priest, mage and aug evoker can do keys 2-3 higher than them. This is the most unbalanced season ever and it absolutely sucks

Comment by the9tail

"No current plans for a glyph to have a way to summon Water Elemental for RP purposes. They want to stick to Water Elemental having a combat-focused impact." Man just screw frost mages I guess.

We want them to for combat...
Removes them as a combat choice...
Doesnt elaborate

Comment by Tjdogg

I may be biased because I was really hoping that evoker's obsidian dragonflight aspect was going to be more melee just looking at their initial obsidian abilities which mostly consisted of cc (landslide and deep breath) and defensives (obsidian scales).

I still gave Aug a good try just so I could say i gave it a shot. I put a lot of effort into making the spec the best I could. I did not have much fun playing it. It felt very difficult due to how many actions and positioning were required and it also didn't feel like i was doing anything at all for the group. On the non-evoker side, I felt like as a warrior I wasn't getting buffed at all so I get to see all the ranged dps sky-rocket which made me feel like I was doing bad. I feel like It would be better if It was tanking instead of "dpsing" and using some of these abilities and maybe instead of buffing primary stat, to give more health (or maybe versatility) like warriors rally to feel more useful. It would fit much much better imo.

I'm not saying they should give up on support specs in the game. Shamans and paladins could totally still be a good place for support. I hope they add more specs throughout all the classes. There are some really good ideas out there.

Comment by the9tail

Genuine question. How?

There are too many sources to make a complete list in one comment, honestly. Search up Battle Training Stones and Battle Stones or look at the wowhead guides.

You get tons just for doing WQs. I have more charms than I know how to spend.

It takes just 15 Polished Pet Charms to buy a Marked Flawless Battle Stone to upgrade to rare. You can do WQs for these on each character and then mail them all to your main. I can't recall how many you get for each WQ and can't check right now but it's really not bad. A couple of 5 minute quests and you're good. The Pandaria dailies have a particularly high droprate for family specific rare upgrade stones. I have tons of rare stones sitting on my bank alt collecting dust just from these. Your Covenant Trainee (i.e. like the dredgers that occasionally spawn loot) will provide all kinds of stones.

Ultimate Training Stones are sold for 35. Alternatively, most pet WQs drop various family specific stones, 1 level each, by the handful. I just keep them and put them in my bank until I need them. The Pet Treat item from pvp pet battles will add 50% to xp gained from ANY source. Legendary pets in Tanaan Jungle drop Fel Training Stones that level any pet by 5 while the Critters of Draenor dailies bags of drop individual stones. There's also Super Squirt leveling, but I wouldn't know as I don't bother with it.

Honestly you can pick whatever place you want from 5.0 onwards and find some way to farm them.

I think what he saying about accessibility isnt the leveling standpoint - its looking for a drive in the playerbase to want to do pet battles. Currently its cut off from the game as its own thing when it really needs to be integrated with some aspect of the game.

I think it needs to be an alternative path to resources but at the same time, it cant be grinding. They should have a Pet gym that changes theme on a weekly basis, you fight all the members in the gym getting a PVE resource and when you beat the boss you get a PVE resource of a higher tier and a Pet reward.

I should add that a stable of 6 pets shouldnt be enough to win every challenge, we all know the usual culprits that can defeat anything one-on-one and they either need to be nerfed or banned from these type of events.

Comment by Peesneeze

Useless interview. "They're trying to strike a balance between chases, goals and having some excitement where it's there"

What's with the word chase being used constantly anymore? I literally only saw it after Diablo came out with the annoying "chase uniques" articles.

Comment by Masterik

"Chase" is the new buzzword from the devs.

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