WoW players debate future of meta after emergence of support specs like Augmentation Evoker

It’s pretty obvious that the World of Warcraft meta has changed ever since the introduction of the game’s latest specialization, Augmentation Evoker. The new spec has transformed PvE content via the emergence of a new role, Support, and in many instances, Augmentation is mandatory to bring along in groups that want to compete at the highest level. 

In a thread posted to the WoW subreddit earlier today, players debated how the meta could evolve further after the emergence of Augmentation Evoker, and what Blizzard should do in order to get other classes up to speed with the sudden prominence of the Support role. 

The answer was obvious across the board: the game’s current classes need more specs. 

By turning efforts away from developing new classes and instead putting those efforts into making more specs for the classes that are already in the game, Blizzard will be able to have more of a chance to diversify the meta and build upon what’s already there. The sudden emergence of a new class (Evoker), a new spec (Augmentation), and a new role (Support) all at once has left the other classes in the game needing some tools to catch up. 

One player in the comments of the Reddit thread suggested a change in the way five-player dungeons are structured. Since the dawn of time, WoW’s dungeons have existed with a 1/1/3 format, with one Tank, one Healer, and three DPS players making up a team composition. Should more classes get their own support specs, though, we could see the traditional comp format move to replace one of those DPS slots with a dedicated place for a Support. 

Another player suggested that dungeons become six-player content, but was quickly shot down by another WoW fan who raised a point about historical content: “Can you imagine the number of mechanics in 18 years of dungeons you’d need to change to adapt to 6 players,” they asked. 

Regardless of how Blizzard approaches this issue, though, it’s clear that the Support role is one that has a future in WoW, especially after how heavy its influence has here in the middle stages of Dragonflight. With another expansion announcement likely coming within the next few months, we’d expect the Support role to get officially cemented in that future update. It’s likely that WoW’s meta will continue to evolve around the role, and more classes getting the option to fill in as a Support will only be healthy for the game’s meta, as it will allow for players who have been pigeonholed into playing Augmentation a chance to experiment with something else.