Have you considered just playing another class, rather than begging to have Evoker fundamentally altered? You have to be aware by this point that Blizzard cannot and will not just hand the entire class 40yd range without some sort of impact on the class as a whole.
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They gave rogues crimson vial and a free 30% aoe DR in feint without impacting the class(a class with historically no self healing and the most defensive cd’s in the game on top a passive cheat death), and then gave mages mass barrier and even more universal CC. They then gave retribution paladins 20% stamina and 10% armor in one talent, a BR, lowered the CD of divine shield, gave them a big absorb shield and for good measure a 30% DR ability on top, and then 2 charges of divine steed to a historically immobile class. Then they gave them a choice of auras with revamped universal benefits on top.
And nothing was taken from them.
Cool, I guess?
Yes, point being that your assertion that something has to be taken is bullcrap.
You can make the claim the range issue isn’t meaningful enough to merit change without pushing the verifiably false idea that the change must be accompanied by a removal.
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Almost all of the things you’re mentioning came with complete reworks or new expansions. Power is completely rebalanced in those situations.
Point being you literally have no idea what was taken from behind the scenes. Adjustments don’t always happen as a function of something being removed from the game.
And in many of those cases, it was to help them when they were falling behind. Evoker is not falling behind.
Also, none of those things is close to a sixty percent range increase.
The only actual thing you can compare this to was when survival hunter lost a bunch of range and became melee.
Did they lose anything then?
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I said nothing about outright removal. Impact in the form of adjustments to the overall kit, and potentially reductions? Yeah, not impossible.
Crimson Vial replaced Recuperate, and Feint used to actually be a HIGHER damage reduction to AoE than it currently is. They’ve also increased the energy cost of it.
Oh, and Feint has done AoE DR for a long, long time.
More universal CC (I’m presuming you’re referring to Dragon’s Breath and Blast Wave) and Mass Barrier, given how many other spec-specific abilities also went into the universal class trees with Dragonflight, makes sense. Arcane and Frost stood to benefit from this far more than Fire did.
I don’t know how much you played of 10.0 Retribution, or how much you actually saw it, but it was an absolutely squishy mess of a spec in 10.0. Retribution was lacking, and it got adjusted upwards as it needed to be. The only comparable change we could or should be comparing in the Retribution changes to Evoker suddenly gaining 15yds is the Jurisdiction talent, which basically enables some midrange gameplay, similar to Unholy DK. Note that it is not complete midrange gameplay, as the spec is still heavily incentivized to get into melee range.
The rest of the changes Retribution got centered on bringing its defensives and utility up to par.
-Auras were middling and often better provided by a Holy Paladin.
-Divine Steed has had two charges as a talent for a LOOOOOOONG time. That happened at the end of Legion (or earlier? I’m drawing a blank, but I know it was there in Legion). Divine Steed still doesn’t make it an exceptionally mobile class, it just gives the spec bursts of movement.
-“Gave them a big absorb shield” in what, exactly? Shield of Vengeance? They’d had this since, again, Legion.
-Lowered CD of Divine Shield has been a thing since Pandaria. It still has a baseline 5min CD, which is lowered by Unbreakable Spirit. That’s been a talent for a good long time now. (Technically was a CDR before that, but the talent existing as it does now started in MoP I believe.)
-Their brez was given due to a lack of other meaningful party utility. It’s helped give them a better place, but isn’t really a defining reason to bring one.
So, the main changes Retribution saw aside from actual raw rotational/ability changes were some increased range on specific abilities, an increase to baseline durability, and replacing or upgrading some nearly meaningless abilities.
If you’re going to pretend to speak to what a class or spec has or has not gained, please at least know what you’re talking about.
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Whether it happened in Legion, SL, of DF, it directly contradicts your assertion that giving something to a spec means it will be followed by being tuned down or pruned of other things. Recuperate came with an opportunity cost, crimson vial didn’t. Feint was made more accessible by tweaking the energy cost.
Here you give all these excuses about how retribution was squishy or lacked utility. Load of crap. Paladin utility was fine; Holy was a meta healer for ages. Whether you want to face it or not, this is a question of power creep. Retribution paladins were no more squishy than enhancement shamans or feral druids, and their offhealing was even better.
Ultimately, when you say something will be removed or tuned down as a side effect to an addition, it is you who is making up some hidden rule you have no idea about. The developers will make these decisions, often it happens haphazardly (warlocks get pruned mobility under the claim of durability, while mages get no such pruning despite being among the most survivable classes in high keys), and you have no way of predicting what they’ll do about class balance or how they’ll do it.
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Blizzard should make evokers melee on April first, and keep it forever after.
I mean, it happened to survival hunter.
I mean… We have had better DPS specs than ret for most of this expansion for the majority of content…
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Yeah, I’m sorry, but no. Nothing was taken from mage survivability behind the scenes. Nothing was taken from their utility kit, nothing was taken from their CC, and certainly nothing has been taken from fire mage throughput in exchange.
Mage has never been behind, it’s historically the strongest caster in the game alongside warlock. Rogue has historically been the top melee alongside warrior.
And since these people are making a request right as the next expansion is in alpha, it is obvious that what they are asking for is more or less of a rework, not a slight tweak.
That comparison to survival is bad. Survival was shifted to an entirely different role, from ranged to melee. In exchange, it gained Harpoon and its kit was reworked almost entirely. A range increase for devastation is not remotely on the same league, it’s still a caster, it still gets targeted by mechanics tagged for casters, it just is often optimal to play it as if it were a melee spec to avoid downtime caused by mechanics.
There being better specs than ret doesn’t mean much, if you have 3 top specs out of 30, then all the others by definition will have better specs than them throughout the expansion. It doesn’t change the fact that when they get some new tools, it’s power creep for them.
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Ah yes, the old DPS to DPS switch–entirely different role!
I forgot that I have to select “ranged” in a role check.
There’s literally nothing wrong with this, lol. Ranged have to go into melee for optimal play all the time.
So it’s power creep, but it’s still less powerful than the spec you think needs buffs?
How would evoker getting 60% more range when it’s already a top DPS spec make even a modicum of sense?
How is that not a much more egregious example of power creep?
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Yes, ranged and melee are distinct roles with different tags for mechanics assignments, I’m not sure what you think you’re accomplishing by being sarcastic about it.
Group formation takes this into account, especially raids. Not only that, the role also tends to determine how frequently you can interrupt as melee almost always have about half to a third of the cd on interrupts relative to casters.
You then ask me why I think the power creep for evoker is not also significant. That’s not my position, you should know it by now because we’ve agreed on different threads that a tag change for mechanics to melee would be sufficient.
My sole point is that power creep is not necessarily accompanied by pruning. And evoker is a top raid spec right now, mostly through a legendary, it hasn’t always been, and it’s an alright spec for M+, upper middle of the pack.
Asking for effective buffs through mechanical changes is something every class player does, and it falls within the purview of the developers to assess and make a decision. What is unproductive is trying to police people’s request by making the false claim that granting classes power creep comes with nerfs or removals when we have clear recent examples where they don’t.
Let the developers sort the wheat from the chaff of player feedback. That’s their job.
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At this point it’s pretty clear what they think the chaff is.
Lol wait, let me get this straight. It’s “unproductive” when anyone disagrees with your opinion (that isn’t based in any factual data whatsoever regarding the specs "needing"range, since the class isn’t struggling)?
Why is it that you can simultaneously say “let’s let blizzard decide what to do” and also try to gaslight people that don’t want extra range into thinking that they’re being unproductive?
This is the typical echo-chamber toxicity of these forums:
There’s no data that shows we need any more range. Encounters have been designed with limitations in mind, and we’ve performed well all expansion.
And yet, the tantruming forum Karens that want extra range simply because they refuse to learn to play the spec as designed try to silence other opinions as “unproductive”, lol.
Your red herring arguments about other specs’ changes have literally zero implications on increasing a spec’s range by 60%.
You can compare apples to oranges all you want.
If you think they’re going to give 15 extra yards to the top performing DPS spec in the raid just because bad players can’t use the kit well, you’re beyond delusional.
Everyone has an equal right to share their opinion on these forums. The fact that those that want range have literally no data to show that range is needed isn’t a reason to try to silence them.
It’s not “policing” to ask you to support your argument for a range buff with data that proves it’s needed (you can’t).
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That’s well-said and historically accurate.
What’s funny (and sad) is how hard some fight against greater range when it has been requested by SO MANY before and during this the class’s first expansion. It really is like fighting the tide.
“No, get back you!” shovels more water
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Data isn’t needed to request a mechanical change to a class to improve its gameplay or how it feels to play. If a class or spec is numerically on par with its peers but it feels like garbage to play then its playerbase can (and oftentimes will) advocate for improvements to the design of their class.
Sometimes the devs choose to implement the ideas, sometimes they don’t. They’ve flat out acknowledged that the range of Evoker has been noted as an issue. While they have attempted to address this in other ways, it’s not like this concern materialized out of nothing.
The devs have backtracked and have redesigned so many classes and specs over the years, so it’s not like they’re all-knowing or make the best design choices, either. You think you do but you don’t has been a mindset that has repeatedly caught flak across all specs and classes over the years, where they’ve had to walk-back many of their decisions and changes because they were unpopular or made a class/spec worse for no reason.
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Except this is subjective, lol.
It doesn’t feel like garbage to play for many.
I didn’t say people couldn’t ask for a change, in fact I said the opposite–that’s what the forums are here for.
But if you think “cause it feels yucky for some people even though it’s very good” is going to move the needle on its own, that’s laughable.
Best of luck, though!
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Of course it’s subjective. This is true for all specs and classes. Go to the mage forum and you’ll find discourse over the years about how some people love and some people hate Sun King’s Blessing, with people advocating for both.
You’d be hard pressed to argue the counterpoint, that having less range would make the class feel better, though. 
which I think has to count for something.
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I don’t want extra range. I’ve said tagging us as melee is sufficient. Feel free to continue shaking your fist at some made up position you’ve assigned me. Not gonna continue with this.
Except you either haven’t actually read any of this, or you’re deliberately misquoting the counterpoint. Obviously no one is asking for less range.
The counterpoint is that anyone with the slightest clue how balancing works knows what a massive buff getting 60% more range is. I don’t think you’d find a single person that would say no to more range with zero concessions, but that’s not realistic.
The counterpoint is that we would have to give up mobility or damage to gain range that would only be afforded because some people struggle to perform as constructed, and that’s not a healthy tradeoff for the game.
We are the number one spec in mythic this week. If you think blizz would buff the range of that spec by 15 yards and keep the mobility and/or damage profile as it is, you’re either trolling or clueless.
Hence why a choice node between hover and 40 yds is the best solution. If you want that much extra range and refuse to give anything up for it, there’s no point in having this discussion.
I’m not against people coming up with realistic solutions to get what they want. Thinking there shouldn’t be a trade-off is asinine.
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The argument is that increasing range would improve how the spec mechanically feels to play.
By advocating that the range remain the same, you are inherently making the counterargument that it is actually better mechanically to keep the range reduced. Effectively arguing that the reduced range is in fact superior, which is what seems asinine.
I for one would love to see the data for the class should they level the ranged playing field. What would the actual DPS increase be if they increased the range by 60%? Maybe the second Hover charge can remain but the CD for it is extended by 5 or 10 seconds. Maybe the damage output increases by 10%, in which case I think many would gladly take a 10% aura nerf if it meant a 60% increase in range. We don’t actually know what balance changes would be needed since it’s not really something we can quantify without actual testing.
It’s no question that throughput would increase along with creating parity with range, but by how much is very much in the air. It would be fun to test it out and see. Range has not been a tuning or balancing knob between specs or classes before.
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