Augmentation Evoker Guide
Augmentation is Midnight's premier support DPS — a ranged caster whose own damage is modest but whose ally buffs (Ebon Might, Prescience, Breath of Eons) make the whole group hit harder. It owns arguably the best Apex talents of any DPS and elite, uncapped ally amplification, which is exactly what makes it an S-tier Mythic+ pick where a single Aug can lift a four-player group's output. The skill is in juggling buff uptime and lining up Breath of Eons with the team's cooldowns, not in a personal damage rotation.
As of Patch 12.0.5, the Nebulous Voidcore lets you target gear via Bonus Loot rolls after Season 1 Raid bosses, Mythic+ dungeons, Bountiful Delves, and Nightmare Prey Hunts — the cleanest way to chase Augmentation BiS. A Bonus Roll after a M+ dungeon awards the Great Vault item level for that keystone level, so +10 and above can give 1/6 Myth-track pieces. Augmentation lives and dies on lining up trinkets and Empower power with Breath of Eons, so spend your weekly cores on a strong on-use trinket and on completing your tier set.
Highlighted nodes are taken by a majority of the top players we sampled this patch. Full tree layout & icons from the Blizzard game data.
🚀 Opener
Pre-place Blistering Scales on the main tank and pre-cast a filler so Ebon Might lands on the pull. The goal is to stack Ebon Might + Breath of Eons + Tip the Scales empowers + your team's burst into one window. Slam your potion and on-use trinket with Breath of Eons.
- Pre-pull: Blistering Scales on the main tank
- Pre-pull (~1.5s): pre-cast Living Flame / Chrono Flame
- Ebon Might
- Prescience x2 (onto your best DPS targets)
- Deep Breath
- Breath of Eons (+ DPS potion + on-use trinket here)
- Tip the Scales, then Fire Breath (max rank) for an instant empower
- Upheaval (low rank for AoE coverage)
- Time Skip (resets/advances your empower cooldowns)
- Prescience again as it comes up
- Fire Breath / Upheaval again off the Time Skip reset
- Eruption x3 to spend banked Essence
- Fall into the single-target priority below
⚔️ Single-Target Priority
Everything is built around keeping Ebon Might up 100% of the time and feeding Breath of Eons. Empowers (Fire Breath / Upheaval) and Eruption all extend Ebon Might, so weave them to avoid ever letting it drop. Rank-1 empowers are usually the DPS play in single-target.
- Ebon Might if it has 4s or less remaining (never let it fall off)
- Breath of Eons on cooldown (line up with team burst)
- Deep Breath on cooldown
- Prescience on cooldown — don't overcap charges
- Tip the Scales if Fire Breath is available (free instant empower)
- Fire Breath at its highest useful rank
- Upheaval on cooldown
- Time Skip when both Fire Breath and Upheaval are on cooldown
- Eruption if Ebon Might is active or you're sitting on 2 Essence Burst
- Blistering Scales — re-apply if it has fallen off the tank
- Chrono Flame (Chronowarden) as Essence filler
- Azure Strike (Scalecommander) / Living Flame as the bottom filler
💥 AoE / Multi-Target Priority
Nearly identical to single-target. The key changes: up-rank Upheaval so its impact radius covers the whole pack, and use Living Flame over Azure Strike as filler. Ebon Might now auto-applies to all damaging allies within 100 yds (splitting if more than 2 others), so you almost never hand-target it — only Prescience needs manual targeting.
- Ebon Might if it has 4s or less remaining
- Breath of Eons on cooldown — this is your biggest AoE burst (stores group damage, then erupts)
- Deep Breath on cooldown (strong cleave)
- Prescience on cooldown onto DPS players
- Tip the Scales → Fire Breath for a guaranteed full-rank empower
- Upheaval — UP-RANK so every target is inside the radius
- Fire Breath (it cleaves the pack and refreshes Ebon Might)
- Time Skip when both empowers are down
- Eruption to spend Essence while Ebon Might is up
- Blistering Scales on the tank if it dropped
- Living Flame as the bottom-priority filler
⏱️ Cooldowns
Your job is buff orchestration. Breath of Eons is the payoff; everything else either feeds it or keeps Ebon Might rolling. Communicate your 2-minute Breath of Eons window so the group stacks their burst into it.
💚 Defensive Toolkit
Evoker is a sturdy ranged spec. Obsidian Scales is your bread-and-butter mitigation; Renewing Blaze and Zephyr cover sustained / magic damage, and Defy Fate is a cheat-death safety net.
🧰 Utility & Crowd Control
| Ability | Use |
|---|---|
| Quell | Interrupt (kick), baseline in the Aug tree now. Use a mouseover/focus macro. |
| Sleep Walk | Hard single-target CC — excellent for dungeon skips and priority control. Talent it by dropping Ancient Flame. |
| Tail Swipe / Wing Buffet | Knockbacks for displacement and disrupting casts on a pack. |
| Landslide | Roots a line of enemies — utility CC / kiting. |
| Rescue | Signature spell — fly an ally out of a deadly mechanic or pull them to safety. Can save a pull single-handedly. |
| Source of Magic | Buff a healer to restore their mana while you cast empowers; Potent Mana adds ~3% healer dmg/heal. |
| Blessing of the Bronze / Time Spiral | Raid mobility — remove slows / grant an extra movement charge to allies. |
| Cauterizing Flame | Removes a Bleed/Poison/Curse/Disease debuff (every ~1 min). Dispel for affixes. |
| Hover | Cast most spells while moving + a short dash. Core mobility — bank a charge for mechanics. |
📊 Stat Priority
Stat priority: Item Level > Critical Strike ≈ Haste > Mastery > Versatility. Crit and Haste are Augmentation's two best stats and are roughly co-equal — Crit increases your buff/empower payoff and Haste lets you cast more empowers per Ebon Might cycle.
- Critical Strike - amplifies your damage and your Breath of Eons / Ebon Might value. A safe stack target.
- Haste - more empowers and Eruptions per cycle = smoother Ebon Might uptime. Pairs near-evenly with Crit.
- Mastery / Versatility - tertiary; Versatility adds a little personal survivability but is the dump stat.
🎁 Tier Set, Trinkets & Consumables
Tier set (via Catalyst): 2pc — Eruption deals more damage and grants an extra Ebon Might application, tightening your buff uptime. 4pc — faster Empower cycling and bonus empower damage during an Ebon Might window. Both bonuses were tuned down from earlier numbers but the 2pc Ebon-Might consistency is the bigger gameplay swing.
- Top trinkets - Shadow of the Empyrean Requiem (best passive) · Vaelgor's Final Stare (big Mastery on-use, line up with Breath of Eons) · Locus-Walker's Ribbon (passive alternative) · Emberwing Feather (M+ on-use Haste burst).
- Gems - one Indecipherable Eversong Diamond (most primary stat) + Flawless Quick Garnet in remaining sockets (Crit/Haste).
- Enchants - Weapon Jan'alai's Precision (or Acuity of the Ren'dorei) + Thalassian Phoenix Oil · Chest Mark of the Worldsoul · Legs Sunfire Silk Spellthread · Ring Nature's Fury · Boots Farstrider's Hunt · Shoulder Akil'zon's Swiftness · Helm Empowered Blessing of Speed.
- Consumables - Flask of the Shattered Sun · Potion Light's Potential · Food Silvermoon Parade feast (or Royal Roast) · Void-Touched Augment Rune (~1% in hard content).
🗝️ Mythic+ Tips
- You're carried by your buffs, not your damage meter — keep Ebon Might at ~100% uptime and Prescience rolling on the highest-output player (often a Devastation Evoker, Mage, or Hunter).
- Call your Breath of Eons window in voice/chat so the group dumps cooldowns into it — a coordinated 2-min window can be a third of a pull's damage.
- Scalecommander is the M+ default: more personal AoE (Mass Disintegrate / Bombardments) and fire-and-forget, so you can focus on routing and mechanics.
- Rescue is a key/run saver — yank a low ally out of a swirl or fly the tank past a bad pull. Practice the reverse (Rescue yourself toward an ally is not possible; use Hover/Verdant Embrace for your own escapes).
- Sleep Walk enables skips and locks down a dangerous add; Quell + Tail Swipe/Wing Buffet cover interrupts and pack displacement.
- Blistering Scales on the tank is free mitigation — keep it applied; re-cast when it falls off during downtime.
- Source of Magic on the healer in long pulls keeps their mana healthy on draining keys.
⌨️ Macros & Addons
WeakAuras is unavailable in Midnight (12.0) — use Blizzard's built-in Cooldown Manager (import configs from Wago.io). Addons: ElvUI, DBM/BigWigs, Cell or Grid2 with click-casting for Prescience/Rescue/Source of Magic targeting, OmniCD for ally cooldown tracking (helps time Breath of Eons).
#showtooltip Quell /cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][@focus,exists,harm,nodead][] Quell
#showtooltip Prescience /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][] Prescience
#showtooltip Rescue /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][@focus,help,nodead] Rescue
#showtooltip Blistering Scales /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][@focus,help,nodead] Blistering Scales
#showtooltip Fire Breath /cast Tip the Scales /cast Fire Breath
🚫 Common Mistakes
- Letting Ebon Might drop — it's your single biggest damage source. Refresh at <=4s and weave empowers/Eruption so it never falls off.
- Firing Breath of Eons solo — without the group's cooldowns and your Ebon Might targets active, the recorded-damage payoff is a fraction of its potential. Coordinate the window.
- Buffing the wrong players with Prescience — put it on the genuinely highest-output DPS, not whoever's closest. Watching the meter mid-pull helps.
- Overcapping Prescience charges — a wasted charge is wasted group damage. Press it on cooldown.
- Hand-targeting Ebon Might — it auto-applies to all damaging allies in 100 yds now; only Prescience needs manual targeting.
- Up-ranking empowers in single-target — rank-1 Fire Breath is usually the throughput play; only up-rank Upheaval for AoE radius coverage.
- Hoarding Rescue/Hover — these win pulls. Holding them 'just in case' all key long is wasted utility; use them on the mechanics you can see coming.