What do you think of the new Augmentation Evoker spec? How else can (or should) Blizz implement “support”-style specs?

Dragonflight patch 10.1.5 arrived this week, and with it, the Evoker class received its third spec, Augmentation — Auggie for short. As someone who only leveled their Evoker begrudgingly (and mostly via Honoring/Desecrating the Flames at Midsummer while aided by the 50% XP buff) just to see the Dracthyr-only quests and lore and for the one-in-a-million chance to get the Legendary drop in LFR, I was intrigued by the possibility that I might enjoy the class more with a different spec.

It’s been two days and I wish Auggie had been in the game from the start because I am enjoying it so much. Not enough to to make it my main, of course, but I no longer look at the character in my select screen and think, “Eh, maybe tomorrow I’ll play her”.

For one, I’m a huge fan of the idea of support specs making their way into the game. My dream, of course, is Bard — or if my biggest dream playable Vrykul ever happens, Skald — so this experiment is one I’m watching closely. But more than that, the Auggie playstyle just syncs better with my own than Devastation does. There’s also the ego boost of knowing that you’re buffing nearby players, and the new Time Rift events in patch 10.1.5 provide a great opportunity to flex for others (although it would be nice if I got to share the tag credit of someone I’m buffing — near as I can tell that’s not the case).

Granted the jury is still out on whether support specs are viable — I suspect it’ll take the rest of the expansion to make that determination — but even if it fails to find a toehold in Mythic raiding or MDI meta I’m content to keep leveraging the powers of the black and bronze Dragonflights on my Evoker.

What about you? Have you given the Augmentation spec a try yet? If so, why did you like about it, and what are your issues with it? Do you think we’ll get more support specs in the future, or will this just end up a curious one-off? And would you have been happier if it had been available at release?