Devastation Evoker Suggestions

Classes Evoker
1

I have recently started playing Dev evoker and I am absolutely loving it. I really like how its abilities work, especially the empowers, its mobility, defensives and the overall feel of the class. Here are some things I have seen people put forward that I would be very happy to see in the future:

Mastery
Though the general vibe seems to be that the changes were an improvement, a lot of people seem to want a mastery rework.

Dragonrage
Emphasis taken away from dragonrage. The current tier set is fun but can be very punishing and creates a ā€˜rampā€™ spec which very often feels bad in more complex raid fights and in m+. I know some cooldowns with buff duration extension can feel rewarding to some people, but with the tier set currently, all I get is a sense of relief if nothing breaks my ramp and itā€™s incredibly punishing and frustrating if something happens to break it, whether that be a mechanic or waiting for the group in m+. Maybe make it less powerful and a 1m cooldown.

Empowers
A lot of people talk about how good the Aberrus set was, especially for varied content like m+. It would be great to see empowers do just that - empower us more. Perhaps provide a buff like the Aberrus set, or by granting us dragonrage for 6 seconds like magesā€™ Sunkingā€™s Blessing.

Range
Iā€™ve heard very solid arguments from both points of view and there are other posts entirely devoted to this so Iā€™ll let it be discussed in more depth there. I understand the need for spells like fire breath to have a range limitation (unless you wish to pull 5 extra packs of trash). It would be nice, however, to be able to extend the range of at least one ability for times when itā€™s not possible to remain within 25 yards.

Firestorm
Ground-based AoE is manageable, usually when it has a short duration. Longer duration ground-based AoE will rarely ever see its full value due to how much movement there is in the game these days. Even with a huge buff to the effective damage, the way the spell works mechanically makes it difficult to justify taking. Perhaps it could empower your essence spenders, creating a firestorm around the target of your next casts of pyre or disintegrate. It could work slightly differently for both spells, so disintegrate becomes a stronger 1-3 target cleave spell if the targets are stacked, dealing increasing damage to fewer targets (so itā€™s not useless for single target) and pyre a boosted AoE spell. Balanced correctly, I would imagine it should be still good for single target but not quite as good as the right hand tree, but better than the right hand tree for AoE.

Complexity
Please donā€™t feel the need to add additional layers of complexity to the rotation, like has happened with other specs with their revamps. There are enough piano-keyboard specs in the game already - please let us keep the few more simple specs that remain.

Deep Breath
This spell can be really frustrating when there are issues with ā€˜line of sightā€™ or no path to the target.ā€™ In the midst of combat, it can feel clunky. Maybe an option to let us turret cast the breath in front of us with a channel (monk fists of fury but with dragon breath) or giving us air control when channelling the spell would really help. Itā€™s also sadly often not used these days due to needing tuning or modifying slightly.

Something for the Dev Evoker?
Iā€™ve heard a lot of people talking about how pres and aug get interesting extra spells whereas dev have very little in addition to the core evoker abilities. Aug are known to be squishy, so perhaps an extra defensive would do the trick. Perhaps a shield that protects against magic damage? That would fit with the blue dragonflight fantasy.

If anyone has additiona points or suggestions for changes, let me know and Iā€™ll update this post.

ps. Iā€™ve been chatting with other dev evokers on the class discord and I came here looking for a comprehensive feedback thread but canā€™t seem to find one. Please point me in the right direction if it exists! I made this post on the EU forums but was told that hardly anyone looks at it, and was recommended to post on the US forums instead.

2

I want it to have a hook to give people good enough reason to consider bringing one over an aug. I maintain it should just have unlimited mobility like a lite version of BM. Wouldnā€™t be as good as BM for handling mechanics while on the move with the reduced range and cast times, but would be sufficient in a pinch

It would also justify the 25 yard range. At least with aug you can say ā€œwell this is a new kind of spec and itā€™s very powerful to have so reduced range is the payoff for supportā€. And for pres, you can kind of justify it with itā€™s potent group healing, many instant casts, and powerful cooldowns. Meanwhile Dev is just a normal caster with not really any justification for the shortened range.

Other dps specs have a lot of instant casts or tankiness while dev spends most of its time channeling.

3 Likes
3

Firestorm just needs to follow the target you cast it on, and the talent is instantly viable.

Itā€™s currently better to bring a dev than an aug in anything where the aug doesnā€™t enable survivability breakpoints, so thatā€™s almost all content for most people.

I donā€™t disagree that something to make it at least competitive in high keys would be nice, though.

IMO, Defy Fate needs to move to the class tree, and the talent point for it should have it give the group a shield when aug procs it, heal when pres procs it, and proc a big aoe burst when dev procs it to stay on theme.

4

I agree with his statement of either giving dev more mobility in exchange for lack of range or just give them normal caster range. I keep trying to think on what we get for the lower range and I come up with nothing.

5

Then youā€™re not thinking hard enough. Our mobility kit combined with 40%+ cast while moving uptime is amazing compared to what any ranged spec not called BM hunter has.

6

So technically we should perform better than BM hunter damage wise but not at the moment

7

We do perform better than BM at the moment.

And for what itā€™s worth, everyone should always perform better than BM hunter for how easy it is imo.

8

Anyone got any good ideas for an alternative to our giantkiller mastery?

Mastery = increased speed of essence generation?
Works like season 2 tier, with empowers providing a damage boost?
Damage dealt with essence spenders increases the dmg of your next empower cast?
Generic damage buff to spells? And maybe a bonus to leech?

9

Our mastery should just be the tier from last season and call it a day.

Just have more mastery=higher percentage of the damage added to shards.

10

brother sure hover is very nice, but ele sham as a example can do majority of its rotation while moving as well and its at 40 yards so the little bit more mobility we have is it really worth the trade off? especially as you mentioned bm hunter has 100% mobility at 40 yards as wellā€¦ I dont think its a stretch to ask for more range on AT LEAST devastation. If you think its fine have at it champ

11

Devastation needs the range less than either of the two other specs. Both other specs require casting on friendlies which is far less difficult to do at less range and devastation can also abuse the range with good use of disintegrate channels during hover.

Elemental shaman has far worse defensives and way less mobility than we do, and still significantly less uptime on casting while moving. They are also far less strong than either of our DPS specs.

12

Though I like that tier set overall, I donā€™t like the fact that it means you have to hold off on casting empowers. Iā€™d prefer it if multiple empower casts extended the shard buff duration rather than just resetting it.

13

I liked the extra wrinkle in the playstyle but they could definitely easily make it stack.

I think if it became the mastery it would likely need to just be the two set anyways.

14

Orā€¦ They can just treat it like Fire Mage ignite and have our Essence spenders innately do x% damage as a DoT while not being tied to maintaining a buff from Empowered spells or Dragonrage.

Since they seem focused on buffing our spenders to be our main source of damage as is the norm for most classes, would make Fire/Deep Breath and Eternity Surge weaker by the function of not having a mastery boosting it which would hurt some of the PvP burst potential but will functionally be strong at all stages of a fight with the most coming in during Dragonrage from the guaranteed essence bursts.

15

what then why there are plenty BM in mythic+ and mythic raid but almost 0 devastation in high end content?

16

For the same reason ret pally is like third to last overall in raid and has something like the third highest overall spec population.

Or the same reason marksman hunters have 52,000 less mythic parses than BM despite being the current third overall damage (BM is ninth).

Spec representation isnā€™t always the indicator of how good it is, some specs historically have higher player bases, especially some of the easier ones.

Aug being as strong as it is doesnā€™t help, either.

17

I forget firestorm even existsā€¦ there is no build/ time that it is ever worth takingā€¦ EVER ā€¦ Never ever ā€¦ if you take it your nerfing your DPS flat out.

Mastery ā€¦ what is this? it has been nerfed to the point that it is our WORST stat to take ā€¦ bad enough that even VERS is worth more than mastery for me right now and I have very little mastery compared to anything else. Its not a ā€œspecialā€ stat anymore and has lost basically everything it was used for.

Dragonrage I actually like having a meaningful cooldown. Its a shorter recharge and very useful in burst situations. I love the S3 set bonus for extending the damage window.