2.1.
New Content
Midnight Season 1 has started bringing with it three new raids, Mythic+
Season 1 and PvP Season 1. Alongside the new content classes have access to
new Tier-Sets further boosting their power. If you want more information on
any of the new content then we have linked dedicated pages below that explain
each in more depth.
2.2.
Class Tuning
Augmentation Evoker has 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.
Click to expand to see changes.
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.
-
New: All ability and pet damage increased by 13%.
-
New:
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).
-
New: 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%).
Blizzard has said they will continue to do tuning during Heroic Week and we
expect there to be further changes to many classes. We will keep the guide up
to date on any changes. Keep checking back on this section here to stay up to
date!
When it comes to tuning adjustments, our next planned pass is expected to
arrive with the Midnight Season 1 launch on March 17. Our next pass will
follow immediately afterwards utilizing data gathered during the week
Heroic difficulties are available; these changes will go live with the
launch of Mythic raid difficulty and Mythic+ on March 24.
Beyond these dates, we will look to perform more tuning passes based on
data gathered during the starting weeks of Mythic difficulty for Season 1
and the March on Quel’Danas available the week of March 31. For these two
passes we err on the side of caution with the amount of tuning we do
until their respective Mythic end-bosses die to avoid being overly
disruptive to progression.
After these key dates we will have several
check-in passes planned roughly a month apart. Once players obtain higher
item level and better optimized gear sets, the throughput of several
specs will shift up or down relative to others and we feel it is important
to be diligent in looking at the current state of class balance as time
goes on.
2.3.
Midnight Changes Summary for Augmentation Evoker
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.
2.4.
Apex Talents
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.
2.5.
Buff Changes
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.
Click to expand to see changes.
Developers’ notes: The goal of these changes is to simplify Ebon
Might targeting in raid environments. Since it now applies to all
members of the raid, there is no need to micromanage who it
should go on. There will still be some buff management gameplay
with Prescience, which will continue to have a smart-targeting
option for those who do not want to swap targets between enemies
and allies frequently. Overall, this should make raid gameplay
much smoother and similar to dungeon gameplay.
-
Ebon Might applies to all damage dealing allies within
100 yards and DPS can now be affected by any number of
Ebon Might.
-
Breath of Eons and Breath of Eons now reduce their
effect if affecting more than two other allies.
-
Ebon Might now grants 8% Primary Stat (was 5%).
-
Breath of Eons now accumulates 15% of damage (was 10%).
-
Close as Clutchmates has been disabled as it no longer is
needed to bring Mythic+ and Raiding to parity.
-
Prescience is still capped to a maximum of 2 (1 per
Augmentation Evoker).
-
Shifting Sands is still capped to 1.
2.6.
Chronowarden Changes
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.
Click to expand to see changes.
-
Removed Talents:
Threads of Fate and
Master of Destiny.
-
Reworked Talent:
Golden Opportunity mdash; now makes
Prescience last 15% longer (Previously 20% chance to be
100% longer).
-
New Talent:
Nozdormu Adept — Reduces the Cooldown of
Prescience by 2 seconds and increases the Critical Strike
Chance Buff provided by 1% to 4%.
-
New Talent:
Chronoboon — Reduces the
Cooldown of Tip the Scales by 30 Seconds.
-
New Talent:
Energy Cycles — Temporal Burst
grants an 
Essence Burst every 6 seconds (5
Essence Bursts in total).
-
New Talent:
Overclock — 
Chrono Flame maximum
damage is increased by 40%.
2.7.
Scalecommander Changes
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.
Click to expand to see changes.
-
New Talent:
Command Squadron — While flying during
Breath of Eons or 
Deep Breath summon 2 Dracthyr that
will cast 
Pyre up to 4 times each (8 times total).
-
New Talent:
Concentrated Power —
Mass Eruption strikes 1 additional target.
-
New Talent:
Refined Essence — Eruption
deals 15% more damage.
-
Adjusted Talent:
Slipstream — Now grants only one
charge of 
Hover instead resetting all charges.
2.8.
Defensive Changes
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.
Click to expand to see changes.
-
Reworked Talent: Twin Guardian — Now increases
movement speed of you and the target of
Rescue by 100% and
allows cast while moving for 3 seconds instead of giving an absorb
shield equal to 30% of your health.
-
Reworked Talent:
Renewing Blaze — This is now passive
and causes 
Obsidian Scales to heal you equal to 100% of
damage it reduced over 8 seconds (Was an active Defensive).
-
New Talent: Improved Defy Fate — Reduces the Cooldown
of Defy Fate by 1 Minute and increases its healing by 100%.
-
Moved Talent:
Stretch Time — This is now on the Class
Tree instead of the Specialisation Tree and has been buffed to
stagger 100% of all damage taken during Breath of Eons.
-
Removed Talent:
Inner Radiance
2.9.
Core Spell and Talent Changes
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.
Click to expand to see changes.
-
Spell Change: Hover — Can now be cast while casting
granting you the Hover buff. It also no longer has an Animation
Lockout letting you use it at almost any time (except during Empowers).
-
New Talent:
Clairvoyant — Increases
Motes of Possibility chance to Proc by 10% and allows it to
grant Prescience to allies.
-
Reworked Talent: Molten Embers — Enemies affected by
Fire Breath now take 25% increased damage from Black Spells
(Previously, scaled between 10 and 40% depending on Empower Rank).
-
Reworked Talent:
Imminent Destruction —
Breath of Eons reduces the Essence cost of your next 4
Eruption's by 1, stacking up to 8 times (Previously
lasted for 15 seconds and increased Eruption damage by
10% for the duration).
-
Buffed Talent:
Ignition Rush —
Essence Burst reduces the cast time of
Eruption by 40% and increases its damage by 20%
(Previously only reduced the cast time). Moved to
Rockfall's old position.
-
Buffed Talent:
Regenerative Chitin — Now increases
the damage of 
Blistering Scales by 20% and stops it from
losing charges (Previously, added 5 charges and gained an
additional charge every time you cast Eruption).
-
Buffed Talent: Inferno's Blessing — When casting
Fire Breath you and one nearby ally gain the Inferno's
Blessing Buff. Inferno's Blessing damage buffed 4x to
compensate for affecting less targets (Previously affected you and
4 allies).
-
Removed Talent: Rockfall
-
Quell is now learned in the Augmentation Tree.
Scalecommander
Chronowarden
