Augmentation Evoker Guide for The War Within - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

Last updated on Jun 18, 2024 at 21:00by Saeldur18 comments

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Augmentation Evoker.Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about theAugmentation Evoker spec in the forthcoming The War Withinexpansion, including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions onthe state of the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regularchanges expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to be alaunch guide for Augmentation Evoker, but instead serves as aresource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, andwhat you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Augmentation Evoker has received several notable changes totalents and base kit for The War Within with hopefully further changes, whichcould dramatically alter the contents of this page, so check back!

Evokers now start at level 10 instead of level 58. If you are interested inplaying any of the Evoker specialisations in The War Within we suggest makingan evoker now so it has a higher level.

Sense Power is a new togglable passive ability for AugmentationEvoker. When toggled on Sense Power will show an indicatorbuff on allied player frames when they have cooldowns active.
Additionally to the toggle-able buff Prescience will now prioritizeplayers that have Sense Power (e.g. their Cooldowns up) over otherplayers. This is both a boon and a curse due to how Augmentation Evoker playsin Raids vs Dungeons.
In Dungeons, the Sense Power buff is convenient to be able totrack when other members in your group are doing damage without having to useother addons or Weakauras, and because your goal is to have as close to 100%uptime on the DPS as possible, it does not matter if the auto-targetingchanges which DPS gets the buff - both will have it regardless.
However, while playing optimally in raids, you often cast your Presciences up to 20s in advance of when you want to buff that playerbecause your other buffs prioritize each other in a chain( Shifting Sands prefers Ebon Might, which prefers Prescience). A player with cooldowns active now is not likely to havecooldowns active in 20 seconds, making that target a poor choice for the Prescience. On average, this is likely to be a worse target than arandom one, making this a DPS loss in raiding.

The War Within has major implications for all specs thanks to the Hero TalentTree system, new tier sets, and the natural reduction in secondary stats whenentering a new expansion.

Augmentation Evoker gets to choose between the Chronowardenand Scalecommander Hero Talent Trees. In sections below, we will talkmore deeply about the implications of these Hero Talent Trees for the spec,and some thoughts on what looks strong and weak ahead of launch.

Augmentation Evoker have had a lot of talents move or be added in both thespecialization and class trees. The talent changes and their impacts will bediscussed below.

• A lot of talents changed places, although it did not result in much changeas all of the standout talents from Dragonflight are still taken. For moreindepth information about each change check below.
• Spatial Paradox is now 3 minutes and is a choice node in the ClassTree with Time Spiral.
• Prescience, Fate Mirror and Momentum Shift weremoved into the middle, which makes utility points tighter to grab.
• Arcane Reach was added to help with range but the additionaldamage nodes shifted into the middle make it harder to pick this up inall content without dropping something important like Chrono Ward or Imposing Presence.
• The new damage nodes added in the bottom section primarily boost PersonalDamage or Augmentations Breath of Eons window by giving you moreresources.
• Sadly, the new Motes of Possibility remains lackluster and unlikelyto be played.

• Spatial Paradox had its cooldown changed from 2 minutes to 3minutes and was moved from the Augmentation Evoker tree into the Class Treeas a choice node with Time Spiral.
  This change is both good and bad for Augmentation. Spatial Paradox beingmoved out of the Specialisation tree frees up a talent point there at the costof another point in the Class tree. With the changes done to other talents, thevalue of Specialisation talents has increased, so this change is a nicepositive.
  However, Augmentation has lost the ability to bring both Time Spiraland Spatial Paradox to an encounter which was very strong.
  Finally, since the other Evoker Specialisations can now bring Spatial Paradox to a raid the individual value of an AugmentationEvoker has decreased slightly as this was a very common reason people playedit before, even if the class was not tuned as highly as Devastation.
• Renewing Blaze and Source of Magic (and their upgrade nodesbelow them) have swapped places. Overall, this does not change much as youalways used to talent both anyway, but in scenarios where you do not need Source of Magic you can save three points now by dropping Source of Magic, Potent Mana and Panacea.
• Panacea had its healing halved but it now triggers on both Verdant Embrace and Emerald Blossom instead of just Emerald Blossom. This is a minor change that does not really changemuch for Augmentation.
• Overawe now only reduces the cooldown of Oppressing Roarby 30 seconds instead of 20 seconds per debuff dispelled. This is a nerfprimarily aimed at keys since Evokers made Raging weeks significantlyeasier.
• Landslide now only roots for 15 seconds instead of 30 seconds.All mass roots had their duration reduced in The War Within.

• Echoing Strike now also provides 15% increased Azure Strikedamage in addition to its previous effect of making Azure Strikehave a chance to echo. This is a nice buff to this talent, and it might seeplay for Scalecommander Augmentation Evokers. Chronowarden will still haveto play Pupil of Alexstrasza because of its synergy with Chrono Flame.
• Geomancy has been removed with Timelessness taking itsplace. Geomancy being removed is not a loss, as the talent was notvery powerful nor used. The new location for Timelessness makes ita bit easier to take as you must take one of Stretch Time, Timelessness or Bestow Weyrnstone to get Prescience.
• Seismic Slam was made into a single point for the full 4-secondstun and moved to where Timelessness was. This being a single-pointmay make this see some fringe use as an AOE stun in some content, althoughunlikely because it still requires the midair to get stunned, and not allmonsters can be knocked up. Typically, if you need to stop a cast then theknock up alone is sufficient.
• Power Nexus was moved to where Seismic Slam used to be.This change is good because it means we can now avoid talenting this node. Power Nexus is incredibly weak and contributes what can only bedescribed as a rounding error worth of DPS.
• Arcane Reach was added where Power Nexus used to be. Thisnew talent increases the range of your beneficial abilities (e.g. yourbuffs) by 5 yds. This talent is a very nice piece of QoL that can help easesome of the issues Augmentation has on some raid encounters where playersare forced to spread out. Unfortunately, because there are more DPS talentsin the tree now, there are fewer spare utility points going around, and youhave to sacrifice something else to get this talent.
• Prescience was moved to where Spatial Paradox used to be.This change is a big DPS increase as it frees up a point in the bottom 3rows for another DPS increasing talent.
• Fate Mirror was moved into a new space below Presciencesnew location. This is another big DPS increase as it frees up another pointin the bottom 3 rows.
• Anachronism has been moved to where Prescience used tobe. You still always take this talent, so nothing has changed here.
• Inferno's Blessing has been moved to the location where Anachronism used to be at. This does not affect any talentviability by being moved, and this is still a potent choice.
• Font of Magic was moved into a new space below Accretion. This talent was a slight DPS increase before but willno longer be taken due to competing with significantly stronger talents inthe bottom three rows.
• Momentum Shift was moved to where Font of Magic used to be. Momentum Shift is significantly better than Font of Magic sothis is another dps increase.
• Reactive Hide was buffed to 15% per stack from 10%. This talent isstill too weak compared to other talents in the bottom 3 rows becauseBlistering Scales baseline is not very powerful and this talent only beinguseful in environments where the stacks rarely drop off.
• Accretion was moved to where Momentum Shift used tobe. This talent and Hoarded Power (one of the nodes leading to Accretion) are still always taken so this movement does notchange anything.
• Motes of Possibility and moved to where Accretion usedto be and was reworked. Eruption now has a 15% chance to summona mote. The mote now provides a random buff - providing either Shifting Sands, Inferno's Blessing, Symbiotic Bloomor nothing. We assume it providing nothing is a bug and it is meant toprovide something like Prescience or Ebon Might. Theball spawned will travel towards a nearby player so they can no longer getstuck in monsters out of reach, which is a great change.
  Despite the changes to this talent, it is still terrible because it has alow chance to proc and the chance to receive a valuable buff( Shifting Sands) is low due to the very weak buffs( Symbiotic Bloom and Inferno's Blessing) polluting the buffpool. Inferno's Blessing is weak because it is tuned around receivingfive of them per Fire Breath cast not a single buff. Hypothetically, ifyou received a single Inferno's Blessing per cast of Eruptionthis would only be approximately a 10% increase to Eruptionsdamage.
  Overall, this means there is a very low chance you get anything useful eachtime this procs, which is why it still remains a do not pick talent.
• Overlord now also spawns a Motes of Possibility orb whenit creates an Eruption. This is a small buff to the talent thathelps improve the power a little. However, because it is placed behind Motes of Possibility on the tree, it will not see any play until Motes of Possibility is buffed at a minimum.
• Rumbling Earth is a new talent that causes Upheaval torepeat itself two times at half damage at its original location. Theserepeats do not trigger Shifting Sands nor extend Ebon Might but they do trigger Chronowardens Primacy oneach hit, letting it cap on Single Target. This talent is where Motes of Possibility used to be and is incredibly strong and feelsvery satisfying to use as the Upheaval repeating provides veryvisceral feedback to the damage. This node doubles the damage of Upheaval making it do a significant portion of your damage,especially on AoE. This node is likely going to be always taken.
• Molten Embers is a new talent in the spot where Fate Mirror used to be. Molten Embers causes enemies to take20% more damage from your Black Spells ( Upheaval, Eruption and, Bombardments) while affected by Fire Breath. With all the damage boosts to Upheaval and Eruption from the tierset and the talent tree this talent alsoends up being a pretty decent DPS gain.
  With this talent, we will only use R1 Fire Breath to have as high uptimeon the dot as possible and use Tip the Scales on Upheavalonly.
• Imminent Destruction reduces the essence cost by 1 and increasesthe damage by 10% of Eruption for 12 seconds after you land from Breath of Eons. This talent synergizes well with both Hero Talenttrees by leaning into a stronger cooldown window by buffing Breath of Eons to do more things with each cast.

The Chronowarden Hero Tree Talents are primarily based around improving thepower of your cooldowns, focusing more on the longer cooldowns, whileproviding a replacement filler to Living Flame with Chrono Flame.

Gameplay-wise, this is mostly a passive kit with everything happening fromdoing your normal rotation. The haste from Temporal Burst and Primacy help to make gameplay feel smoother despite the lowersecondary stats we have in the first season of The War Within. The only talentthat needs playing around is Golden Opportunity procs to make sure youcast the Prescience on the correct player, similar to how the S3/S4Dragonflight 2pc works. Double-time passively boosts the value ofCritical Strike chance for Augmentation but can feel bad due to it being asingle roll of an incredibly impactful effect for each cast making it veryswingy.

Power-wise, this is powerful all-round Hero Talent Tree that leaves verylittle weaknesses. This tree doubles down on what Augmentation Evoker bymaking its two minute Breath of Eons window even stronger with Temporal Burst, Threads of Fate and Time Convergencewhile also improving the filler rotation between by buffing both Empowers with Afterimage and Upheaval with Reverberations and Primacy. Double-time is also very powerful instead of Time Convergence with some Critical Strike Chance investment andmakes it a very good stat.

Defensively, this tree is quite powerful due to Temporality givingAugmentation Evoker a strong defensive on a low cooldown. Due to the extremelyshort duration and decaying damage reduction, this requires precise timing andis best suited to mitigate large big hits, like those that are often presentin high-level Mythic+ or Raiding.

The Scalecommander Hero Tree Talents are primarily based around improving thepower of your cooldowns, focusing more on the shorter cooldowns.Scalecommander primarily revolves around Empower spells and the keystone node Mass Eruption and the Bombardments talent as well as boosting Breath of Eons.

Gameplay-wise, this is slightly more involved than Chronowarden because itchanges your rotation slightly. Bombardments makes you want to spaceout your Empowers by a few GCDs to get a higher uptime on the debuff and ifyou are fighting AOE, you can get enough CDR to cast Breath of Eonsevery minute instead of every two.

Power-wise, this tree is relatively well balanced with Bombardmentsbeing primarily focused on single-target damage because it deals split damagebut Wingleader and Maneuverability favour AoE and help sureup the power for M+.

Defensively, this tree is quite strong with Hardened Scales providingan additive 5% DR to Obsidian Scales making it a 35% DR and getting10% reduced area damage taken while hovering from Nimble Flyer.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Augmentation Evoker in The WarWithin. After the wording of the bonus, you will find a brief note/commentarythat is italicized.

• Evoker Augmentation 11.0 Class Set 2pc — Upheavaldeals 30% increased damage and increases the damage of your next 2 Eruption casts by 30%. This is a boost to AugmentationEvokers Personal DPS by improving the value of each Upheavalcast.
• Evoker Augmentation 11.0 Class Set 4pc — Ebon Mightincreases primary stats by an additional 0.4% of your own every 2 seconds itremains active, up to 2.0% This means Ebon Might ramps up over10 seconds from 6.5% of your primary stat to 8.5%. Recasting resets thisbonus.

Both set bonuses are completely passive and are not expected to have anygameplay impact.

The 2pc bonus is fairly weak, but with all of the supporting talents from theHero Trees and the new nodes on the Talent Tree this adds up to a somewhatsizeable amount of damage. The predicted DPS value of this bonus is around~3-3.5% on Single Target, as a very rough estimate. This will be more onAoE because Upheaval is stronger there.

The 4pc bonus is much stronger with Ebon Might being the largestproportion of your damage dealt in The War Within. The predicted DPS valueof this set bonus will be around 6-7% at most. This set bonus has issuesdue to the ramping nature of it and it resetting with each recast. Due to thatand how you ideally swap buffs around in Raid, this is likely to be strongerin Mythic+ where it will be around its maximum of 7%, while raids will becloser to the lower estimate of 6%.

The total expected value of the Tier Set is around 10-11%. This is weakerthan the Dragonflight Season 3/4 that Augmentation currently uses but is stillquite powerful.