What made the weapons better (other than the raid die dmg) was they had a set bonus!
Sure you can still put a Augment set in, but then you are sacrificing a Red/Orange/Purple augment slot.
They were also made of bone - so no druid oath breaky.
Having an effect specialized for certain classes isn't a bad thing. In fact some raid items
should specialize to make certain builds or abilities cooler. I'm not sure if you are talking about Shield Bashing or
Spell Augmentation here, but I think you meant the Augmentation neck*.
Augmentation is quite buggy and has been for years but augmentation items don't
exclude whole class spell lists, only specific spells.
Thanks to
@Underflow for testing out this recently
- If you have a Arcane Augmentation item and a Divine Augmentation item on at the same time they can cancel each other out. I think Arcane takes preference and disables Divine.
- Bard's Song of Arcane Might doesn't stack with Augmentation items. Probably not intentional.
- Many spells cannot be affected by Augmentation at all and are (probably unintentionally) tagged wrong. Even if they appear on the Cleric or Wizard spell list or is an elemental spell.
- e.g. Ki Explosion is affected by Arcane Augmentation but not Divine, despite being a Sacred Fist spell. See this pic for proof.
Ki Bolt is not affected by any Augmentation but Incinerating Wave is affected by Fire.... ???
- Divine Augmentation doesn't apply to all Cleric/FvS/Paladin spells, only the ones seen here (list may not be complete). If these spells exist on other spell lists they are also affected by Divine Augmentation.
i.e. Divine aug will affect Bard heals but not Druid Vigor spells etc.
- Despite spells like Break Enchantment being on Paladin or Cleric spell lists, they aren't a Divine spell.
Break Enchantment is only affected by Arcane Augmentation.
- Arcane Augmentation applies to most Wizard/Sorcerer/Alchemist spells. See here for list.
Again, as long as the spell generally exists on the Sorc/Wiz spell list, Arcane Augmentation will also affect Warlock or Bard spells. Unique warlock spells such as Edvard's Tentacles have no Augmentation.
- Elemental Augmentation is generally what you want to use for druid or sorc elemental damaging spells. It's why I think Cold of Night was actually a great addition (it also doesn't break oath).
In summary: this effect should have a major overhaul or a dev should comb over the whole spell list and fix the tags.
There is also the problem of Caster Level caps, so Augmentation items in Epics/Legendary would not do anything anyway.
If it upped the max CL by 1 as well (for example), this would be a much more enticing effect!
Correcting you about the Augmentation cancelling: It doesn't have priority based on type, it's the
last source of Augmentation that takes priority.
There's effectively only a single slot for Spell Augmentation effects, and it only remembers the last effect you gain access to. Removing that item will recalculate your items, but the specific order you equip items seems to make a difference.
It's confusing as heck, but in summary, only equip
one Spell Augmentation item. It's not worth the headache using multiple.
Equipping any sort of augmentation will disable all other forms of it and replace it with your current one. Logging on with multiple Augmentation items on leads to wonky results, because equipment is initialized in a specific order. It's always a good idea to unequip and re-equip your Augmentation items upon logging in.
That's why the Signet Ring from Planar Eyes is bugged: It resolves the Arcane Augmentation first, then the Divine Augmentation (as Divine is lower on the effect list), therefore only providing Divine Augmentation.
As for the arbitrary effects of Augmentation: I have no idea. My summary from what I've seen so far:
Wizard/Sorcerer Spells: Arcane, 99% of the time
Cleric/Fvs Spells: Offensive and healing spells are Divine, everything else is either Arcane or nothing. Certain "Holy" spells are Divine but not all of them (Prayer is Divine Aug, but Recitation is not)
Druid Spells: No Augmentation, ever, except for spells on other spell lists
Alchemist Spells: Buffs and healing/inflict admixtures are Arcane, but other damaging spells are nothing.
Basically, Divine Augmentation is
really not that impressive, as the big things it hits are buff spells or healing. It
does hit the Divine damaging spells, but considering how those ones run into MCL caps relatively easily anyway, they don't
need bonus MCL.
Meanwhile Arcane tremendously boosts the damage of almost all Wizard/Sorcerer spells during levelling (Save for Thunderstroke/Iceberg), making the affix far more powerful. During epics though, it loses its use for everything
except Negative Alchemist, or very, very rarely for the few spells without Caster Level caps (Cold Light of the Moon is the only example I can think of)
