Augmentation Evoker DPS Guide — 12.0.5

For Patch 12.0.5 Augmentation has received two notable changes to talents. The talent Molten Embers has been removed and replaced with Mighty Inferno. For Chronowarden, the talent Energy Cycles has been replaced with the new talent Chronal Dynamo. To see what the new talents do expand the section below. These changes impact your talent choices and rotational decisions which will be explained below in the second section.

• Removed Augmentation Talent: Molten Embers.
• New Talent: Mighty Inferno — Replaces Molten Embers which has been removed. Increases Inferno's Blessing damage by 40%. All effects that extend Ebon Might now extend Inferno's Blessing.
• Removed Chronowarden Talent: Energy Cycles.
• New Chronowarden Talent: Chronal Dynamo — Replaces Energy Cycles which has been removed. Reduces the cast time of Living Flame (and Chrono Flame) by 0.2s and increases the damage done of non instant Living Flames by 50% (Excludes Afterimage).

Overall, the changes are approximately a 2% nerf for Chronowarden at all target counts. For Scalecommander, we expect these changes to be approximately a 1.5% on Single Target, Neutral at 2T, and approximately 1.5% DPS loss on higher target counts.

As a result of these changes the gap between Chronowarden and Scalecommander in raid has shrunk to 3.6% between the best builds. If you opt to play the easier Chronowarden build Interwoven Threads instead of Time Skip then it is only 2.8% ahead. With differences this small we recommend playing whichever option you enjoy more, as both are fully viable for all groups. That said, Scalecommander still performs significantly better on encounters with extended two target cleave and in Mythic+.

The loss of Molten Embers makes it correct to uprank Fire Breath in all situations where you can as generating more Leaping Flames is efficient. Previously getting as high uptime on Fire Breath was correct for Molten Embers.

When playing with the new talent Mighty Inferno there are no notable gameplay decisions to be aware of. The talent will just passively function increasing your overall damage with Inferno's Blessing. This ends up being a reasonably strong ST talent and is better than Molten Embers was on ST. However, the loss of Molten Embers is noticeable especially on Scalecommander in Mythic+ in high target count pulls.

The new Chronal Dynamo talent is considerably worse than the old Energy Cycles. Despite the faster cast time on Living Flame with Chronal Dynamo, you will generate far fewer Essence Bursts than before. This results in far lower uptime on Duplicate. The increase in damage to Living Flame does slightly compensate however, this only applies to Living Flame from casts and not from Afterimage.

Midnight Season 1 has released, and with it came a lot of new content. It brought with it three new Raids, alongside heralding the start of Season 1 for both Mythic+ and PvP. With all the new things available, we've provided some dedicated hubs covering everything available!

In addition to this, a variety of open world content releases worth checking out!

• The Voidforge Unlocks!
  The Voidforge is Midnight's take on Bonus Rolls and Turbo Boost, allowing you to target specific big ticket items through a new bonus roll system. You can also further empower trinkets and weapons, and we have recommendations on our Gear page.
• Void Assaults are Unleashed
  Eversong Woods and Zul'Aman are under siege from the forces of the Void. Thwarting their attacks provide a new way to acquire gear all the way up to Hero level, and you can check out more on our Void Assault hub.
• Disrupt Ritual Sites
  Sharing a similar reward structure to Void Assaults, Ritual Sites are instanced content similar to Delves. You can find out all about them on our Ritual Sites page.

Click for Previous Season 1 Hotfixes

Augmentation Evoker received some last minute additional tuning, nerfing the power of its Tier Set. To compensate for the Tier Set nerfs, they increased Augmentation Evokers damage by 13%. This change results an additional 5% nerf on ST, and 6% nerf on AOE. Combined with the 5% nerf that was already happening on March 17th, Augmentation will be 10-11% weaker.

This last minute tuning has once again adjusted the best builds slightly and has brought Scalecommander closer to Chronowarden for raids, closing the gap between the two options, although Chronowarden remains the stronger choice of the two by ~4%. Additionally, it has lowered the value of Overlord-based builds, resulting in a return to Molten Embers for Scalecommander.

The change to Motes of Possibility has significantly reduced the power of the talent and means we no longer recommend playing it. Previously, Motes of Possibility would automatically give Shifting Sands to an appropriate player no matter who picked up the Mote (E.g. always to a DPS when possible). Now it will always place it on the player who picks up the Mote which a large portion of the time will be you. This is a very significant nerf.

Show March 18th Class Tuning Hide March 18th Class Tuning

The full list of changes can be found here: Midnight Class Tuning

• Scalecommander's Mass Eruption — Damage bonus per missing target has been reduced from 15% to 10%.
• Molten Embers — Damage bonus reduced to 15% from 25%. This is no longer ran by Chronowarden for any builds or Scalecommander in Mythic+.
• Duplicate — Duplicate Rank 4 Primary Stat bonus reduced to 75% from 100%.
• Motes of Possibility — This received a bugfix that caused the Symbiotic Bloom and Inferno's Blessing buffs to be granted to the Augmentation Evoker instead of the player who picked up the Mote. This also had the consequences of making Shifting Sands buffs go on the player who picks up the Mote every time. Previously, the Shifting Sands buff would automatically choose an appropriate target no matter who picked up the ball. This is a significant loss and we no longer recommend talenting Motes of Possibility.
• All ability and pet damage increased by 13%.
• Evoker Augmentation 12.0 Class Set 2pc — Eruption damage increased reduced to 10% (was 15%) and Ebon Might extension bonus reduced to 0.1s (was 0.25s).
• Evoker Augmentation 12.0 Class Set 4pc — Empower Cooldown Reduction Rate bonus reduced to 10% (was 20%) and the empower damage bonus reduced to 10% (was 20%).

With the Midnight Expansion Augmentation Evoker has received a number of changes that slightly adjust how it plays with a general goal of simplifying its moment to moment decision making regarding buffs, primarily in Raid. We have broken down these changes into smaller categories to make it easier to understand the changes that Augmentation Evoker is receiving during Midnight. All of the changes Augmentation Evoker has received have been listed below.

While levelling in Midnight you will gain access to Apex Talents. These are powerful nodes at the bottom of your Specialisation Tree. You will be able to put a talent point into these at levels 81, 84, 87 and 90. Augmentation's Apex Talents are listed below:

• Duplicate
• Duplicate
• Duplicate

Augmentation's Apex Talent is focused around Duplicate. This makes Breath of Eons summon a pet that casts Upheaval, Fire Breath and Eruption alongside you. These casts only deal damage and do not extend your Ebon Might or cause Shifting Sands. During Duplicate you receive significant boosts to personal damage and the power of Ebon Might thanks to the fourth Apex Talent Point Duplicate.

Augmentation Evoker's Second and Third Apex Talent Points Duplicate and Duplicate will cause anything that extends Ebon Might to also extend the Duplicate at 50/100% effect. This causes you to shift towards focusing on Haste and Critical Strike Chance as these both impact the uptime of the duplicate while Versatility and Mastery do not.

For more information on the Apex Talent please see the dedicated section on our Talents Page.

We have received significant changes to how our buffs work. These changes do not affect gameplay in Mythic+, while making Raiding play more similarly to Mythic+. In Raid going forward, the only buff that you will need to manually target on players will be Prescience, which no longer has secondary implications, as Ebon Might now affects everyone. This lets you focus on buffing your allies that are doing the most damage now, without having to think about how much damage they will be doing in 30 seconds.

These changes result in a slight buff power decrease for Raiding, a large simplification of buff management for Raiding and a significant potency increase for buffs in Mythic+ (+45% for Ebon Might and +36% for Breath of Eons).

Altogether, these changes bring Raiding and Mythic+ gameplay more in sync for both rotation and output, normalising how the class functions in all content. This should make it significantly easier for Blizzard to tune going forwards.

Chronowarden has received relatively significant changes that smooth out the overall gameplay experience, making it more consistent to play and lowering rotational friction. The design now focuses on stronger Prescience casts, while removing constraints like trying to maximise the number of empower casts during Temporal Burst. These changes align with making Chronowarden the main buff focused Hero Talent for Augmentation Evoker.

Scalecommander has received relatively minor changes opting to further double down on increasing the damage of Eruption and the personal damage output of Augmentation Evoker. These changes do not change your gameplay and allow you to further specialise in what Scalecommander already excelled at.

Augmentation Evoker received several nerfs to its defensive talents, resulting in a slight decrease in survivability going forwards, the most notable being the loss of Twin Guardian as a defensive option. Other Specialisations are receiving comparable nerfs to their defensives as part of broader, game-wide changes to healer and defensive balance, so Augmentation Evoker is still very durable relative to other classes.

Augmentation Evoker received several changes to Spells and Talents which only cause minor changes to rotation. The most significant rotational change comes from Molten Embers. With the new Molten Embers, it is now optimal to only use Rank 1 Fire Breath rather than upranking it. The other changes mainly contribute to quality-of-life and small adjustments to damage output.