I wanted to give my thoughts on the changes and what they could mean. I do both PVE and PVP. Currently I am 7/8m, 3020io as Dev/Aug, and have multiple 2500+ rated Evokers in 3v3 arena. The following are just my first glance thoughts as obviously I have done no testing yet
TALENT CHANGES
" Rescue now clears movement impairing effects from you and your target."
-This is clearly a pvp change mainly as there are a ton of roots in this game and having them be able to prevent us from using our best defensive for our team is a massive counter. I do also feel as if this change may be potentially be a bit too strong, but I do not know what could be different. Possibly a way to program it so the root does not break but you can still rescue them
" Sleep Walk now has a 1.7 second cast time (was 1.5 seconds)."
-Another PvP change and an excellent one. It never made sense why sleep walk had a cd at all. However the .2 second increase also does not make sense. Dream Catcher had that it this also made no sense. That is faster than most people can even comprehend. I just do not get the point.
" New Talent: Azure Celerity – Disintegrate ticks 1 additional time, but deals 8% less damage."
-I assume this talent is going to be where “Hoarded Power” was. Now I am not really use how much of an impact Hoarded really had but I dislike this new talent overall.
*PVE
In pve I assume this talent wont be bad overall. That last tick probably does do more
than 8% regular dmg.
*PVP
I think this is a HUGE nerf in pvp just taking this talent. With all the micro cc and interupts, it is pretty difficult to cast a full Disintegrate sometimes. This means you are passively just nuking your damage by 8%. However "Scintillation" is below where Horded was. If this is where this new talent will go, it will almost be required to get. This means that unless you cast a full disen (which is not an easy thing to do) you will always do 8% less dmg.
“Scorching Embers damage increase now scales with empower level, up to a maximum of 40%, similar to Molten Embers for Augmentation”
-Overall mainly a pve change (I doubt a fire build will ever be better than a Spellfrost
build in PVP) but a good one. This was a very weak talent before and
with the flameshaper re work this will probably be a good choice for AOE encounters.
" Firestorm damage increased by 50% and duration reduced to 6 seconds (was 10 seconds)."
-Again another PVE main change and most likely a good one. Firestorm has been
awful for as long as I can remember so this may make it more viable. It is a cool looking spell too
“Eternity Surge now targets enemies within a 25 yard radius around the Evoker (was a 12 yard radius around the target)”
-I like this change and feel this will be a net buff to us. It is a buff to both PVP and PVE as long as you like to stay in the thick of it
“Hoarded Power has been removed”
-Again if this is where “Azure Celerity” will be going I very much dislike this change overall. If the 8% damage decrease was gone this would be a good move. There is no real issue with this 8% dmg getting removed anyway. Dev through this season has been mediocre at best in PVE. In pvp, it is not often you will get to full cast a Disen without an aura mastery or a lot of outplay. This would mean that 8% nerf is a huge hit in pvp
PVP TALENTS
“Sleep Walk no longer has a cooldown”
-Again great change
“Crippling Force has been removed (POSSIBLY)”
-I saw some datamined notes with this in it. If this is true, I do think overall it is a good change for the game. However this is 2 of our honor talents gone and the rest are IMO terrible or required.
I run Unburdened Flight almost every single game because without it, our range is very hard to deal with. Time Stop is basically our strongest talent and is to useful to not run. This leaves the purge, aura mastery, and null shroud to choose from mainly.
Swoop Up - CD is to long and just not that useful. Cool but not that useful
Chrono Loop - Solid idea, but is hard to get value with and more often than not just is
not more valuable than the others
Dream Walker’s Embrace - This is a good cd but again just not more valuable than
other talents
Divide and Conquer - This talent is way more useful in BGs than Arena.
To be honest I would love to see Dev get Blistering Scales. This will make them a way better partner in 3v3 arena and keys. Right now Dev is not great on caster cleave setups and this will help them have more comp options.
Overall I think these are mostly solid changes to Dev. I dislike the new talent in its current form.