Dear Blizzard Team,
As a long-time World of Warcraft player, having joined during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, I’ve been excited to embrace the Evoker class and Dracthyr race since their release. As someone who greatly resonates with the dragon-themed fantasy, it’s been a journey of both enjoyment and, admittedly, frustration. I’d like to address a few key concerns regarding the current state of the Dracthyr/Evoker experience, which I feel have been largely overlooked, and offer constructive feedback in the hope of improvements in future updates.
1. Transmog Limitations
When they were first announced, and we were told we would only have belts and shoulders for transmog, that didn’t mean too much. Because there was a lot of customizability to the Dragon for themselves. But overtime it’s restricted to a lot of people who want to play the race. Even as an Evoker themselves, we are supposed to be fine with the pre-made armor colors for Dracthyr. But our own tier sets that are ONLY for Dracthyr… don’t color match the premade armor? I don’t get it? Why not even make the Tier sets visible in Dragon form, or unlock a ‘armor’ style in the barbershop when you’ve completed a set? It feels weird to have a race that has that restriction of Transmog, when Transmog is so important to players. If the fault of this is because you gave them 4 ‘body shapes’ I’m sure a lot of players would have rather just had one medium shape, just so we could mog. The only thing I can understand about us not being able to mog is back, because of our wings of course. It feels weird to have such a restriction on a race in this day and age. The concept art of the Dracthyr in different armor and robes looked very cool!
2. Voicelessness of Evokers in Dragon Form
Speaking of weird things to happen to the race. Over 8 months ago now, back when Dracthyr were added to the other classes, Dracthyr lost their voice lines in game. Now eventually they fixed it, and the new class/race combos for Dracthyr are now fixed. [for awhile the females in dragon form had the male voices] but to this day, the Evokers are still voiceless in their Dragon forms. No lines, no error messages, you can see the thread of the bug report here: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/dracthyr-evoker-emotes-are-missing-voicelines/2030215/75
Why are we being left behind in such a way? Is something as simple as voices we don’t have anymore?
3. Missing Animations
More on the race side of things, Dracthyr are still missing many race animations that all the default races have, in a world that they want every race to be every class [aside from Hero classes] why haven’t they been given the animations to do so? All the classes have a ‘sprint’ animation when they reach a certain speed, for Drachyr simply speed up their regular run animation, which looks odd and unpolished. Given the significant push for race-class inclusivity in the game, why hasn’t Dracthyr received the full set of animations that all other races have?
4. Augmentation Fiasco
When Evokers were first made, everyone requested a new tanking spec for them. Everyone wanted to tank as an Evoker, as a Dragon! We were told in interviews that any new spec for them would come after they had been available for a bit. Then the leaks started happening, Earth based spells, like an Earth Warder?! Then we got the first of its kind, a Support style DPS spec. Problem being that it was the only spec of its style, which made it mandatory to the point that it’s now been nerfed into the ground in terms of support, and offers low damage. If this thought process had instead been put into a Tank spec, it probably would have been just as successful, and imagining a Tank that did less damage, but buffed other’s… even maybe adding that extra damage to it’s threat to compensate, would have been such a cool twist.
I do enjoy Augmentation, don’t get me wrong, I just wish it could have been more.
5. The Challenges of Range Mechanics
We know the devs wanted to try something out with this ‘mid’ range caster. But we still get targeted for Range mechanics and a lot of time we have to move out of our optimal range for these mechanics. Sure we are very mobile compared to other ranged classes, but that mobility means nothing if we have to be out of range. It’s the same for PvP when you’re up against another range, you have to play like a melee, else the opponent can just out range you. I’ve gotten used to it after playing it since Dragonflight’s Beta, but I would be lying if I said I was 100% happy with the range. When you’re able to use spatial paradox and have that 100% range feels fun! Not able to hover when in the middle of a cast like Disintigrate where we would lose damage cause we use our essence upfront, sucks. When a mage can just blink, or a warlock just use a portal.
6. Dracthyr/Evoker Inclusion in Content
Again it feels like Dracthyr are the odd ones out in terms of being included in things. When the plunderstorm came around the first time… there was no Dracthyr for some reason? So people who loved the race had to pick something else to be. The second time around they were included thankfully, but it shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place whether a race is included or not? Dratchyr still can’t be picked when you use theAtomic Recalibrator toy that allows you to change into any of the playable races? Dracthyr aren’t available for that, whether in Visage or Dragon form. Gleeful glamors that allow you to specifically look like any of the playable races… are also lacking with Dracthyr in both forms. Yet in this patch we got Etherials as a new option for the recipes.
Evokers have no glyphs, not a single one. When there could be many that just change the flavour of spells, there could be many that are made. But this is an issue with I think all the classes as they barely seem to add new glyphs nowadays.
7. The Legion Remix Opportunity
And the thread that broke this Dragon’s back to make this all happen, Legion Remix. When Evoker was first made, we were given just the bare minimum to be able to participate in the content, which made sense. Why would you do a full on campaign for an expansion that was so far back now? But when the rumors of a Legion Remix coming started, the Evoker forums were abuzz with the potential! But they all were pretty unified in one thing. We didn’t expect a complete order hall with a full campaign, but we wished for SOMETHING so we could be included. Not a lot of work would be needed, just give us a couple of infinite related artifacts, the reason for us being there? Well some Dratchyr wanted to go back and experience the history instead of reading about it. So we do what Bronze dragons do and insert yourself into the past.
I’ve seen some people say, well that’s a lot of work for a limited time event, why would they do that? But if they did put the work into doing that? It could be put straight into the main game, so new Evokers could get to experience the Legion feeling years later after Legion Remix is done. Especially when they’ve put a lot of work and added NEW things into this remix event, like the world tiers and new M+ stuff, this doesn’t seem like easy things they added, so why couldn’t they put in the work to make the last class feel included? This could also set the example for any future classes, have them be added in any Legion Remixs that come after, something to make people look forward to replays of the event if they do come back.
Now I know what you’re thinking, Toasty… if you seem to have so many problems with the Dracthyr and Evokers… why not play something else? But that’s just it, Evoker and Dracthyr as a whole are the most fun and connected I’ve felt as a player since I first set foot on Azeroth all those years ago. The flavor and aesthetics of being a Dragon using Dragon magic are amazing. It’s because of that, that when I see the sadness when a new tier is announced, and we have to see them on our Dragon forms with just the belt and shoulders that don’t match our armor colors… or when we have to debate… will we be included in X event or Y event? In the end I just wanted to vent about everything, thank you for reading! I hope we get some more love and attention soon enough!
-Toastragosa