Augmentation Evoker Best Augmentation Evoker Buff Targets — The War Within (11.0.7)
A guide for everything you need to know about what specs to buff as Augmentation Evoker, and when to buff them, both for Raiding and Mythic+.
Please refer to our Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities for more information regarding the general Augmentation Evoker Rotation.
How Augmentation Evokers Buffs Work
This page contains more in-depth information on how Augmentations Buffs work as well as information on who to buff. Almost all of Augmentation Evokers buffs stack fully with other Augmentation Evokers. Assume it stacks unless it is specified otherwise.
Prescience
Prescience increases an allies Critical Strike Chance by 3%.
- There can be at most two
Prescience's on a player from any source at any one time. You may still only have a single prescience on each player. You will be unable to cast Prescience on a player who already has two.
- The
Fate Mirror talent enhances
Prescience and grants allies with Prescience 10% chance to deal 15% of the damage of the triggering ability.
Prescience and
Fate Mirror works on non class damage like trinkets and embellishments.
Prescience works fully with Pets and Guardians.
Prescience will automatically target the nearest DPS player if cast on an enemy.
Ebon Might will prefer to go on allies with
Prescience letting you more easily fine-tune who you buff. This is the main way you control who gets your buffs.
- If
Sense Power is active
Prescience will prefer players with the buff active.
Golden Opportunity has a 20% chance to grant a buff that makes
Prescience last 100% longer.
Ebon Might
Ebon Might has two main effects, granting 6.5% of your primary stat to your allies and increasing your own damage by 20%.
- Just like with
Prescience,
Ebon Might has a maximum cap of 2 buffs on a player at any time from any source, including yourself, other raid members or even other players in the open world.
Evoker Augmentation Season 1 4pc makes
Ebon Might increases primary stats by an additional 0.4% of your own every 2 seconds it remains active, up to 2%. This bonus will reset whenever you recast
Ebon Might.
Ebon Might prefers to go on DPS with
Prescience.
Mastery: Timewalker prefers to give
Shifting Sands to allies with your
Ebon Might.
Ebon Might does not snapshot and updates every second.
Ebon Might will extend the duration of all currently active Ebon Mights if cast while it is still active.
Ebon Might will pandemic letting you cast Ebon Might with 30% or less of the base duration remaining and not lose any uptime.
- The Primary Stat provided by
Ebon Might does not increase the size of another Augmentation Evokers Ebon Might. This is why buffing another Augmentation Evoker is highly not recommended.
Ebon Might Auto Targeting Priority Order
Ebon Might will always extend any currently active Ebon Mights overbuffing new targets.
Ebon Might prefers to go on the nearest DPS with
Prescience, as long as they have less than two Ebon Mights from any source.
Ebon Might prefers to go on nearest Tanks / Healers with
Prescience, as long as they have less than two Ebon Mights from any source.
Ebon Might prefers to go on the nearest DPS without any
Ebon Might, even other peoples.
Ebon Might prefers to go on the nearest Tanks and Healers without any
Ebon Might, even other peoples.
Ebon Might prefers to go on the nearest DPS as long as they have less than two Ebon Mights from any source.
Ebon Might prefers to go on the nearest Tanks and Healers as long as they have less than two Ebon Mights from any source.
- If
Ebon Might failed to find a valid target following the above priority, any extra targets do not happen.
Shifting Sands
-
Shifting Sands is a Versatility Buff based on your Mastery,
Mastery: Timewalker, and is triggered by casting empower spells.
-
Shifting Sands does not snapshot Mastery and instead update the Versatility buff provided to your current Mastery Percent every second.
-
Shifting Sands prefers to go on the closest nearby DPS player with
Ebon Might that does not already have Shifting Sands from any Evoker, including other players. If every player with your Ebon Might already has a Shifting Sands, it will go onto the nearest DPS Player.
Shifting Sands Auto Targeting Priority Order
Shifting Sands prefers to go on the nearest DPS with
Ebon Might and without any
Shifting Sands.
Shifting Sands prefers to go on nearest Tanks / Healers with
Ebon Might and without any
Shifting Sands.
Shifting Sands prefers to go on the nearest DPS without any
Shifting Sands.
Ebon Might prefers to go on the nearest Tanks and Healers without any
Shifting Sands.
Ebon Might prefers to go on the nearest DPS.
Ebon Might prefers to go on the nearest Tanks and Healers.
Blistering Scales
Blistering Scales is a buff that grants 20% of your armor to an ally, as well as stacks of scales that explode for uncapped AoE damage when they receive auto attacks. You can only have one Blistering Scales at any time.
Blistering Scales has a 2s icd on proccing the damage effect when receiving an auto attack.
Blistering Scales scales entirely with the Augmentations stats. For example, the damage done is based on your Intellect, Versatility, and Critical Strike Chance despite the damage being sourced from the target.
- If you cast
Blistering Scales on an enemy, it automatically targets their target, which helps smooth out gameplay. This means you do not need to swap off the boss in raid to cast this.
Breath of Eons
-
Breath of Eons is an ability that applies a debuff to enemies hit that will store 10% of the damage dealt to them by your allies with Ebon might and then explode at the end of the duration for the stored amount.
-
Breath of Eons often has a cooldown less than 2 minutes from talents like
Time Skip or
Interwoven Threads reducing the cooldown, but you still always want to use it every two minutes paired with DPS player cooldowns. Breath of Eons is a short-duration damage multiplier, so stacking it with other cooldowns is how to get the most effect.
-
Breath of Eons only stores damage from class abilities and auto attacks and does not amplify damage from Trinkets, Enchantments, Embellishments, Consumables, or Gear Procs.
Breath of Eons works fully with pets and guardians with their damage counting as if it were dealt by their owner directly.
-
Breath of Eons always critically strikes but gains no damage from doing so.
-
Breath of Eons does not gain damage from other Breath of Eons going off from other Augmentation Evokers nor
Fate Mirror procs from yourself or others.
-
Breath of Eons will apply
Ebon Might if it is not currently active obeying normal targeting rules. The duration of this Ebon Might is always 5 seconds and is not increased by Mastery, nor can be increased by
Sands of Time. However, if Ebon Might was already active then it extends it by 5 seconds, and this is affected by Sands of Time. This is one of the main reasons why it is suggested to cast Breath of Eons while Ebon Might is already up.
Bombardments
-
Bombardments scale with your own stats and not with the stats of the players that trigger them.
-
Bombardments have a 30% chance to trigger from each hit and a 2 second shared ICD between all players triggering them. This means that more players or more frequent hits will proc this closer, on average, to its cooldown resulting in very slightly more DPS. Despite this, there is not a significant difference in proc rate between M+ and Raids.
- The buff for
Mass Eruption stacks to 2 and the
Bombardments debuff gets fully extended whenever you re-apply to a target that already has the debuff.
- The ICD on
Bombardments is reset whenever you re-apply
Bombardments so you do not miss any procs if you re-apply it to the same target.
Threads of Fate
-
Threads of Fate work similar to
Fate Mirror and have a chance to replicate a percentage of all damage or healing done by the player with the buff.
-
Threads of Fate last 10 seconds baseline and currently has a 33% chance to replicate 15% of the damage done, effectively being ~5% DPS increase during the effect.
-
Threads of Fate prefers to go on the closest DPS player to you with
Ebon Might if that is up, else just the closest DPS player. This is loosely the same priority that
Shifting Sands follows so it should go on the same player guaranteeing maximum effect. The only time it would not go on the same target as your
Shifting Sands is if you are running more than one Augmentation Evoker, in which case it will likely be on the target with the other Augmentations
Shifting Sands and thus still receive the benefits of stacking multipliers onto one target.
Threads of Fate can be extended if you play the talent
Master of Destiny. This lets your Essence spells extend all active
Threads of Fate by 1 second per cast.
Spatial Paradox
-
Spatial Paradox is an external buff for healers, giving you and them the ability to cast while moving with double range.
-
Spatial Paradox if cast on an enemy, will default to the nearest healer.
-
Spatial Paradox does not stack.
Draconic Attunements
-
Draconic Attunements is a talent that gives you the two stances
Bronze Attunement and
Black Attunement. Bronze Attunement gives you a 10% increased movement speed, while Black Attunement gives you 2% increased maximum health.
-
The auras from
Draconic Attunements apply to you and your 4 nearest allies.
-
Draconic Attunements does not stack.
-
Swapping stances between
Bronze Attunement and
Black Attunement is off GCD, letting you do it any time, but it It has a 3-second lockout after swapping.
Identifying who to target with buffs
Augmentation provides multiple temporary short-duration buffs and is
therefore incentivized to cast those buffs on burstier classes to maximize
the effect of its own buff windows. This is because a burstier class will be
able to pack more damage into the short windows offered by talents like
Breath of Eons.
Augmentation Evoker has five DPS buffs:
Ebon Might - A Primary Stat Amplifier.
Shifting Sands - Augmentations Mastery, Versatility Percent.
Prescience - A Critical Strike Chance buff.
Fate Mirror - A general damage amplifier.
Breath of Eons - Which acts as a cooldown DPS multiplier.
A common misconception people have is that because Augmentation provides Crit and Versatility buffs that classes that invest in Crit and Versatility will like the Augmentation buffs. This, for the most part, is not true.
The more Versatility a class has, the smaller the increase provided by Mastery is. Say you provide 25% Versatility with your Mastery, going from 0% to 25% (25% More DPS). Versatility is a much bigger DPS increase than going from 25% to 50% (20% More DPS).
This means that classes that invest in Versatility by necessity are usually inferior choices for buffing. This is because they do not have any other good stats and are therefore forced to use Versatility to scale their damage and usually have a significant amount. This includes classes like Windwalker Monk and Outlaw Rogue, to name a few.
It is also worth considering that your main way to target Ebon Might
onto specific players is via
Prescience, and Critical Strike chance
has virtually no value for some specializations, which makes targeting them
with Prescience inefficient compared to trying to buff them via proximity.
Classes with poor Critical Strike Chance scaling include Frost Mages (Unless
they gear around receiving Prescience) and Fire Mages. You do not
wish to give Prescience to these DPS classes if you can avoid it.
On the other hand, some specializations also perform better with Critical
Strike Chance than expected, such as Frost Death Knight and Devastation
Evoker. This increases the value of giving them Ebon Might as well
as they usually come as a combined package deal.
Buff Target Ranking For Opener
These rankings are based off of Season 1 Simulations. All of these rankings are based on Augmentation using its own Season 1 set as well as the DPS being buffed using their Season 1 sets. These are still subject to change as tuning occurs and as more information becomes apparent and will be updated accordingly to maintain as high accuracy as possible.
This section is currently only based off of sims for The War Within and Raid Logs. These Simulations are not guaranteed to be bug free so Raid Data is used to help make informed decisions in their placement.
This ranking is not absolute. Player skill and gear have a large impact on
how good classes are; use your own judgment in combination with the list to
work out who you wish to receive. Classes receiving Power Infusion
gain significant value.
This ranking includes the Prescience to force the buffs onto that
class. Classes that mention weak or no Critical Strike scaling gain
significantly if buffed via proximity (by standing near them as
Ebon Might
targets nearby allies).
Class | Brief Explanation |
---|---|
Enhancement Shaman |
|
Survival Hunter |
|
Frost Deathknight |
|
Feral Druid |
|
Assassination Rogue |
|
Subtlety Rogue |
|
Havoc Demon Hunter (Fel-Scarred) |
|
Unholy Death Knight |
|
Frost Mage |
|
Fire Mage |
|
Arcane Mage |
|
Shadow Priest |
|
Windwalker Monk |
|
Beast Mastery Hunter |
|
Balance Druid |
|
Elemental Shaman |
|
Devastation Evoker (Scalecommander) |
|
Arms Warrior |
|
Retribution Paladin |
|
Destruction Warlock |
|
Affliction Warlock |
|
Outlaw Rogue |
|
Fury Warrior |
|
Marksmanship Hunter |
|
Demonology Warlock |
|
Devastation Evoker (Flameshaper) |
|
Good Targets After Opener
These rankings are based off of Season 1 Simulations. All of these rankings are based on Augmentation using its own Season 1 set as well as the DPS being buffed using their Season 1 sets. These are still subject to change as tuning occurs and as more information becomes apparent and will be updated accordingly to maintain as high accuracy as possible.
This section is currently only based off of sims for The War Within and Raid Logs. These Simulations are not guaranteed to be bug free so Raid Data is used to help make informed decisions in their placement.
Augmentations opener lasts for approximately a minute unless you
intentionally avoid refreshing your first Ebon Might by holding
your Ebon Might cast until it falls off (typically around 32-34 seconds into
the fight, this is common practice at high levels of optimization where you
use tools like WoWAnalyzer to optimize each segment individually). You have
opportunities to retarget your Ebon Might whenever it drops and it is a
noticeable Single Target gain to do so, although not required to enjoy the
specialization. Below are intervals into the fight for which classes
cooldowns come back up to help you judge who to buff.
Cooldowns shown below are the cooldown required to be active or nearly ready for the class to be valuable to buff. Any class without a cooldown shown is always a good target, regardless of whatever cooldowns they have.
Specs Good Per Time Interval
Specs Good Every 180s
Class | Cooldowns |
---|---|
Elemental Shaman | ![]() |
Specs Good Every 120s
Class | Cooldowns |
---|---|
Enhancement Shaman | ![]() |
Frost Death Knight | ![]() ![]() |
Survival Hunter | ![]() |
Assassination Rogue | ![]() |
Feral Druid | ![]() ![]() |
Windwalker Monk | ![]() ![]() |
Beast Mastery Hunter | ![]() |
Havoc Demon Hunter (![]() |
![]() |
Shadow Priest | ![]() ![]() |
Balance Druid | ![]() ![]() |
Frost Mage | ![]() |
Affliction Warlock | ![]() |
Havoc Demon Hunter (![]() |
![]() |
Destruction Warlock | ![]() |
Devastation Evoker | ![]() |
Marksmanship Hunter | ![]() ![]() |
Specs Good Every 90s
Class | Cooldowns |
---|---|
Subletly Rogue | ![]() ![]() |
Arcane Mage | ![]() |
Unholy Death Knight | ![]() |
Arms Warrior | ![]() |
Fury Warrior | ![]() ![]() |
Specs Good Every 60s
Class | Cooldowns |
---|---|
Frost Death Knight | ![]() ![]() |
Affliction Warlock (![]() |
![]() |
Demonology Warlock | ![]() |
Assassination Rogue | ![]() |
Shadow Priest (![]() |
![]() |
Fire Mage | ![]() |
Strong Fallback Specs
Class | Cooldowns |
---|---|
Arms Warrior | Boss HP <35%. |
Frost Death Knight | ![]() |
Devastion Evoker (![]() |
- |
Elemental Shaman | - |
Destruction Warlock | - |
Beast Mastery Hunter | - |
Retribution Paladin | ![]() |
Outlaw Rogue | - |
Havoc Demon Hunter | - |
Arms Warrior | -- |
Marksmanship Hunter | 3t+ |
Fire Mage | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Changelog
- 15 Dec. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.7
- 05 Dec. 2024: Updated for latest tuning during Patch 11.0.5
- 21 Oct. 2024: Added disclaimer for Patch 11.0.5
- 17 Sep. 2024: Update buffs page for a better snapshot of Mythic week launch.
- 11 Sep. 2024: Correct another typo
- 11 Sep. 2024: Correct a typo
- 10 Sep. 2024: Preliminary update of Buff Targets for The War Within Season 1.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: All buff mechanics were updated for The War Within Launch. Best Buff section temporarily removed.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Disclaimer added for The War Within Prepatch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed and updated for Dragonflight Season 4
- 19 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6
- 08 Mar. 2024: Rewording and typo fixes
- 15 Jan. 2024: Update Buff Targets with latest Priorities.
- 22 Nov. 2023: Update Buffs Page - BM Now Attributes
- 13 Nov. 2023: Update Buff Targets after Latest Hotfixes and Tuning
- 09 Nov. 2023: Update Buff Targets Slightly
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 09 Aug. 2023: Update information on Buffs for recent Changes.
- 15 Jul. 2023: Redo Priority List for recent Eons Changes.
- 13 Jul. 2023: Change note for Elemental Shaman Opener Priority.
- 12 Jul. 2023: Buff Priority Adjusted for Feral.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Page added.
More Evoker Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Saeldur, an Evoker Theorycrafter since the class came out in Dragonflight. He is an accomplished high end player with top parses on multiple specs, an Expert on the Evoker Discord, and has a deep understanding of many other classes, and how they interact with Augmentation Evoker.
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