Hi!
I wanted to start off saying how great I think Scalecommander is. The overall fantasy of being a military leader, marking targets, and calling in air troops is very cool. Also, this hero spec fixed one of the biggest issues with Deep Breath: maneuverability.
From the moment the Evoker class hit alpha, it was clear that Deep Breath was our coolest ability, from a visual and class fantasy standpoint. What screams dragon more than flying over your enemies breathing down fiery destruction?
It was our lamest ability. For Devastation, Deep Breath was a near forgettable ability, having a long cooldown and lacking damage unless talented into certain points on the tree that still didn’t make the ability powerful enough to be worthwhile. For Preservation, Deep Breath itself was an extra AOE damage tool that was fun to press during down time, but the healing equivalent Dream Breath was really cool in raid, but not useable enough for dungeon content.
Finally, Deep Breath was our most detrimental ability. I just said it was underwhelming for Devastation. Well, it was also fatal to cast most of the time. If you cast it at the wrong moment or made a mistake with targeting (more on that later), you would get hit by stuff on the ground; pools of bad, swirlies, etc. In Mythic+, it would be better to avoid casting it, because it didn’t do enough damage to be worth it, and dying would deplete the key at higher levels and that ability came a higher than normal chance to kill you.
With the release of Augmentation, some things about the ability were improved. Upon picking the specialization, an evoker’s baseline Deep Breath ability was replaced by Breath of Eons. This ability fixed the “lameness” problem by being integral to Augmentation’s game plan. Instead of a mediocre two minute ability you press when you have nothing better to do, Breath of Eons is Augmentation’s big cooldown, interacting with its kit, and doing more of what it wants to do: buff damage.
Blizzard also put a bandaid on the ability’s biggest issue, its fatality, by allowing Augmentation Evokers to select a talent that gives them damage reduction while casting Breath of Eons.
The result? A workable version of the visually coolest ability in the Evoker spell book, limited to the new spec only for the rest of the expansion. Not ideal.
New Expansion time. Enter Hero Talents.
Scalecommander specifically.
A hero talent tree for both Devastation and Augmentation, Scalecommander offers a much to both specs, but especially Devastation.
I main Devastation, and as far as I understand, Scalecommander has issues with Augmentation right now. Therefore much of the following is about Devastation specifically, things that apply to both are still true for Augmentation, obviously.
Focusing on the subject of this post, Deep Breath, Scalecommander fixes several issues for Devastation, the spec that had the least to gain by this type of ability last expansion (Dream Breath and Breath of Eons suffered less from Deep Breath’s issues, as I established earlier).
- Scalecommander talents crank up Deep Breath’s damage and helps lower its cooldown.
- The buff to its damage incentivizes use of talents in the Devastation tree, such as Onyx Legacy, that further increase damage, lower the cooldown, and increases interplay between it and other abilities in the Evoker Tree.
- Maneuverability increases usability of the spell by allowing the direction of travel to be adjusted mid cast and allowing the cast to be cancelled instead of locking the Evoker into a deadly path. It also makes it possible to hit mobs that are not lined up in a circle. Oh, and it’s fun as hell to use.
The result? For the first time since Evokers were introduced, Deep Breath is now a major damage button for Devastation. It is a centerpiece ability, getting priority in the rotation instead of being something you use when you have nothing else to use. It is also much safer due to maneuverability and also much more fantasy forward.
Scalecommander fixes Deep Breath.
But should it?
Before you come at me with your pitchforks, I’m not saying that Deep Breath shouldn’t be fixed.
I’m saying it shouldn’t be fixed by Scalecommander.
Let me explain.
Of all the points I listed above, which do you think actually meaningfully fixes Deep Breath?
Point 1 mentions talents in Scalecommander’s tree that buff Deep Breath’s damage and lower the cooldown. While those are nice, and push Deep Breath into the spotlight for the spec, they aren’t something Devastation didn’t already have access to in some form. See Point 2.
There are plenty of other classes that have cool abilities that aren’t central to their spec at any given time. Much of the time the coolest talents aren’t taken because they are weak. At some point they get buffed, either by balancing or by something like a tier set, to give them some time in the spotlight. So the cycle goes.
Scalecommander’s purpose is to emphasize Deep Breath in the devastation rotation.
And it isn’t like the ability doesn’t have its uses for, say, Flameshaper Devastation or Preservation. In mythic+ and delves, it’s quite useful as a stun.
If you don’t die while casting it.
And here we hit the crux of my argument, and the crux of my post.
Maneuverability fixes Deep Breath. (And Breath of Eons)
And it shouldn’t be a talent.
It should be baseline for the class.
That’s the way the ability should always work now. They fixed it.
And then bundled it with a hero talent tree as a “feature”.
Thanks Blizzard.
And you know the most ironic part? The specialization that has the most of this type of ability doesn’t even get access to it. Breath of Eons replaces Deep Breath for Augmentation Evoker, but Dream Breath is its own ability.
And that’s what sparked this post. I played Preservation in raid and mythic+ after playing with Maneuverability for over a month and realized:
This sucks to use.
Like really, really sucks.
Maneuverability should be removed from the Scalecommander tree and made baseline.
“But Prytia, this will make the ability broken!”
No. It won’t.
Remember how I called the ability lame earlier? That’s because it does very little damage in its base state. All making the quality of life feature baseline will do is make the ability safer. Being able to hit more targets reliably is a slight buff to an underwhelming ability. I doubt that will move the needle. The other talents in Scalecommander gives the ability the oomph it needs to be powerful. The base version isn’t.
“But Prytia, what would they give to Scalecommander instead?”
I don’t know? Does it matter? I have a few ideas, such as immunity to ground effects or some damage reduction while using the ability. This would make Scalecommander the best user of the ability and make it double as a meaningful and unique movement and defensive option that would add strategy to when you press it in certain encounters. But that could break the class and game balance more than I might fathom (defensive bloat is real).
The spirit behind this request wouldn’t be to turn Deep Breath into a defensive so much as to make it less punishing to use. But Maneuverability itself does much of the heavy lifting there already. There are other knobs that could be turned here.
For the good of the class, remove maneuverability and make it just the way those Deep Breath-type abilities work. I beg you.
If you agree with me, please make this post relatively popular. Also, if you like my ideas for the class, I have a few others I could make other posts about as well if people seem to like this. (Flameshaper redesign, Deep Breath redesign, creative solutions to the 25yd range problem).
Also… give Augmentation Deep Breath. I don’t know why Breath of Eons replaced it. That spec is sorely lacking damage buttons and it would help. Like seriously.
TL;DR Scalecommander Maneuverability fixes problems that affect the entire class, and should be the way those abilities (Deep Breath, Breath of Eons, Dream Breath) work by default. I’m sure a creative replacement to the talent could be made.
As a Scalecommander Devastation main, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. For the good of evokers everywhere.