Misguided WoW Players Keep Kicking Its New Augmentation Spec, Completely Missing The Point

Players of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s new Augmentation specialization for Evokers are having a tough time trying to justify themselves in dungeon groups, as it seems some members of the community aren’t exactly clear on what the spec is all about.

While technically a DPS specialization, Augmentation is unique in Blizzard’s MMO in that it is a buff-focused spec that revolves around upping the damage output of whatever group they are in. Augmentation Evokers do damage on their own, too, but their main goal is to chain together abilities to provide maximum buff uptime for their group, bringing a new style of support gameplay to WoW for the first time.

Unfortunately for Augmentation players, one of the game’s most popular add-ons, the DPS tracker Details!, doesn’t currently accurately show how Augmentation is contributing to their group. That is leading some ignorant players to decry the new spec for dealing low damage, seemingly ignoring or unaware of the fact that the damage the rest of the group dishes out is massively buffed in order to compensate for Augmentation’s lower DPS.

But Augmentation Evokers seem to be taking it all in stride. As seen on on the WoW subreddit, members of an Evoker-centric Discord server have been compiling all of the times they’ve been harassed or kicked from a group for playing Augmentation, and it’s a sad (albeit funny) glimpse into the mind of blissfully unaware WoW players who only see that the number representing one player is far lower than the others, therefore that player must be underperforming.

Though finding dungeon groups with random players as Augmentation might be a challenge for the time being, it seems like more experienced (or at least better informed) players are thrilled with the spec. Players on Reddit are reporting that groups using Augmentation Evokers are having no problem clearing high-level Mythic+ dungeons, and that Augmentation’s buffs and off-healing capabilities also help make the job of healers and tanks easier, too.

Augmentation’s unique playstyle will take some getting used to by the community and will require the creators of some of the third-party websites and add-ons that many players in the WoW community rely on to make some changes in order to properly show Augmentation’s worth. Warcraft Logs, a website that provides detailed stat breakdowns players use to analyze their performance in raids and dungeons, recently outlined all the ways it will be updating the site to accommodate Augmentation.

Alongside Augmentation, WoW’s latest update added a new megadungeon into the mix, and Blizzard is already detailing what’s coming with the game’s next update. Night Elf and Forsaken players will finally be able to unlock their Heritage Armor sets come patch 10.1.7, with the update currently live for testing on the game’s public test realm.