3v3 Arena -- State of Devastation Evoker

PVP Arenas
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Hello, quick introduction I’m a 3v3 Arena first spell caster player, that has gotten 2550 in 3v3 on Elemental Shaman and 2450 on Destruction Warlock, so I’d like to think I have a decent background in spell casters in arena.

Moving on with today’s focus, the state of Devastation Evoker in 3v3. After playing much Solo Shuffle on the Beta, and many Arena Skirmishes on live, I feel Evoker is quite fun and addicting to play. The level of complexity to a brand new class is quite refreshing, and major kudos to the team behind them!

Meat & Potatoes Starts Here:
With that said, I do feel that since today’s changes (And before them) Devastation is underperforming relative to many other casters in the game at the moment. The Fire Breath burst reduction, was certainly a step in the right direction (was very obviously hitting way too hard) and I do like the Disintegrate buff to compensate.

However, I do feel Devastation is still massively underperforming in “Constant damage / pressure” and I feel the globals seem very empty when Fire Breath and Eternity Surge are on CD.

The Best constant damage spell is obviously Disintegrate which is tied to our resource. I feel there are many “empty globals” when essences are regenerating and fire breath and eternity surge are on CD. It feels like I just use my heals and support like spells to fill in these empty globals, and what should be the obvious filler Living Flame is much too long of a cast time for the damage it deals. If you are ridden by Melee, good luck landing a 1.9 second cast Living Flame that will only hit for around 17,000 Damage (Roughly 5% of the HP Bar of a fully geared player). This creates many empty globals, where I feel Living Flame is hitting way too low for the long 1.9 second cast time attached to it. It feels like a weaker filler spell like fireball on fire mage or lightning bolt on ele shaman, to use until your next “setup window”.

Proposed Change for Living Flame

There is a great talent in the Evoker tree called “Ancient Flame” which reduces the cast time of your next Living Flame by 40% if it used on yourself to heal, bringing the cast time down to 1.2 seconds.

An option would be to allow “Ancient Flame” to give you a 20% cast time reduction if used consecutively on the same target (Say you cast a living flame on a warlock, next cast is reduced by 20%, and will reapply this buff, if living flame is cast on the same target again). The reason I say 20% rather than 40% is 1.2 seconds would likely feel a little powerful, and I feel around 1.4 - 1.5 seconds would be a nice sweet spot to incentivize using living flame. Right now I find minimal opportunities where casting living flames at enemies feels actually effective.

I think this is a big reason for many of the Top PVP Arena Streamers on Twitch, putting Devastation in say their “C” Tier (Of S Tier, A Tier, B Tier, C Tier, etc.) is because constant damage lacks, and really that is mainly because Living Flame is relatively ineffective. I feel Disintegrate feels great, just the times you do not have essence for it, you lack pressure and are better off just retreating.

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One More Recommendation to Increase Constant Pressure from Devastation in Arenas

With the Fire Breath 30% damage reduction now live, attention switches to potentially a 1 level empowerment fire breath for higher damage output (Fire Breath does 30% more as a 1 empowerment rather than a 4 empowerment). I was wondering if Fire Breaths 2 second dot damage got buffed 30% (Since the spells reads a flat 42,171 fire damage on tooltip regardless of empowerment level) but after much testing, this does not appear to be the case.

I must say it feels a little wrong, that in PvP arena, you are rewarded with more damage for only empowering it by 1. I believe shifting some more damage into the 2 second dot at 4 empowerment, so it is not a DPS loss in arena, the more you empower your spells. It almost feels a little backwards.

However, should the desired design concept be to play around the Dot Effect of Fire Breath I feel much must change to make this effective in arena. First problem is the dot is 20 seconds long, but just an ordinary magic effect that is easily dispellable with no punishment to the healer for diseplling it. With Fire Breath being a 30 second cooldown this is a HUGE problem. Feels really bad to have an 8 second cooldown dispell remove your highest damaging ability in 1 instant cast / global cooldown.

Everburning Flame seems like an awesome talent for PvP Arena with a very high skill cap, but with how easy it is to dispell fire breath, I do not see this talent getting much use, with fire breath on a 30 second CD.

My suggestion: In the PvP Talent “Scouring Flame” which causes fire breath to dispell 1 magical effect, to ALSO add a dispell protection effect similar to elemental shamans flame shock dispell protection, where large damage is dealt on dispell with a volcano knock up effect seems quite appropriate, and makes the PvP talent competitive to others (Doesnt seem very competitive of a talent in Arena because the 30 second cooldoown, when compared to say Nullifying Shroud, Time Stop, or Obsidian Mettle which are all incredibly strong, and arguably, must have talents).

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Last thing, sorry it got wordy, but heres the TL;DR

  • Changes today were a step in the right direction, However it feels weird A level 4 Empowered Fire Breath does less damage in PvP than a level 1 Empowered Fire Breath by 30%. (Less cast time = more damage)

  • Living Flame’s cast time is far too long for the damage it deals, which I believe is largely responsible for Devastation Evokers lack of constant pressure in PvP (1.9 second cast for 17k damage)

  • With Fire Breath doing more damage as a level 1 empower dot centric spell, we need fire breath dispell protection. At a 30 second cooldown, it was to easy to render the fire breath dot useless with a simple dispell from a healer that is instant cast.

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I genuinely can’t comment on Devastation because I don’t understand when I can even interrupt/CC/damage/anything them because 90% of the fight they’re just immune to random things and I suck at this game. Not even being sarcastic, they seem strong, their consistent damage seems lackluster but their burst is pretty solid (even outside the gimmick 1 shot), and they’ve got an insane amount of immunities unless I’m wrong (please educate me if I am).

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your meat and potatoes sums it up nicely. really feels like there’s nothing to do at times. this spec is poorly designed.

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Yea devastation at level 60 when I leveled it up didn’t see all that amazing on playability glad I stuck with my shaman.

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I honestly feel like devastation really needs an extra ability or two to hit. Can potentially set up for chunky disints with catalyze and iridescense (to even get those though you have to give up some really nice things), but with fire breath dot being dispellable, and it having no dispel protection at all, Idk if that would work to well. Would also favor a heavy haste build to. And disint even with the 15% buff feels meh unless it crits, or you get a scint proc.

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Hi Dicon, and thanks for adding your thoughts! With Evokers having the immunity to interrupt, most Evokers run an honor talent that makes it when their defensive cd is up, they are immune to interrupts. They do get 2 charges of their defensive cd with the right talent. Also Deep breath (Fly up and breathe breath down on them) during the animation makes you immune to CC effects.

I agree though, burst even after Fire Breath dmg reduction of 30% feels right / good with fire breath. Though I think it’s awkward that a level 1 empower fire breath does more damage than a longer casted level 4 empower in PvP without considering dispells.

And constant damage being lackluster I totally agree. I also forgot to mention Azure Strike, which just feels stronger to spam as instant spell over casting Living Flame because atleast I get a slow effect, and 2 GCDs of Azure Strike = roughly the same damage as a 1.9 sec cast living flame with no slow.

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Hello Myrtardradys, and thanks for your comment! I agree, there feels like too many globals where there is nothing to press offensively. Rather than casting Living Flame which could fill this void, the cast time being so long and damage output being so minimal, I feel like I mine as well fill these empty globals with utilities for my team, or just spam Azure Strike (Forgot to add in my original post).

Azure Strike instant cast for 2 globals = Same damage as 1.9 sec cast living flame, but spamming 8.9k azure strike does not feel good, despite liking that atleast azure strike slows up to 2 or 3 targets and will land every time without concern for interrupts.

Best approach from here is to either reduce cast time of Living Flame, or buff Living Flame damage.With Living Flame in the hotfixes from today considered, imo much better to reduce cast time of Living Flame. Even if done through a talent like Ancient flame, with a reward for chaining casts of it in the same target.

Also could add a proc chance passive / talent that increase Azure Strike damage by like 300% strike so it feels more rewarding to press and adds to consistent pressure.

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Hello Mesoker, I could also see that adding an extra ability or two. With Catalyze and Iridesence, I like that idea on paper, but in Arena once Evokers are more “figured out” by the community, everyone will be instant dispelling fire breath.

Big concern of mine is fire breath is a 30 second CD, and has no dispell protection, so it can be easily dealt with in 1 instant cast by a healer.

For Dispell Protections I like the idea of tying additional effect to the Scouring Flame Honor Talent:

  • Dispelling causes additional damage and a knock up (similar to elemental shaman flame shock)
  • Dispelling reduces the cool down on fire breath by 15-20 seconds (Like this idea a little less)
  • Counting Fire Breath Dot as a physical effect, so it is no longer dispellable by traditional healer dispells (However BOP and other immunity effects that remove physical dots and like warrior fear could).

Totally agree with you that the Disintegrate buff doesn’t feel like enough to compensate the 30% fire breath nerf (On a Class that was already falling low in many R1 Players tier list), but I must say it is certainly a good start.