Devastation is practically unviable in M+

Classes Evoker
1

If the poor performance of Devastation is a learn-to-play issue, then most people don’t know how to play.

I’ve mained Devastation since Dragonflight S1. Used to successfully PuG M+24, M+25. Since the start of The War Within, I’ve timed most +11.

At the end of each pull, Devastation feels like I’m playing with broken gear. I’m doing less damage on big pulls with my 2-minute cooldown, than Retribution makes every pull with their 1-minute CD.

At the end of the key, I’m routinely 20-30% total damage below the other two DPS. That’s after accounting for the wonderful “Bombardments”, which Details helpfully credits to other players.

If I just don’t know how to play, others are worse. I usually play with my wife, but when she does M+ without me, she sometimes takes a good-looking Devastation. The poor Dev ends up doing 40% less than the other 2 DPS, while being the most geared.

Last night I checked, there were 29 Devastation Evokers that have timed a 13+ key. There were zero (0) who have timed a +14.

There was one single Devastation with a rating above 3k. I don’t know how he does it. He must be the Bobby Fischer of WoW.

Meanwhile, Augmentation rules the charts. Out of 39 timed M+16 runs, only 4 didn’t have an Aug. Those were by about 7-8 different core groups. Only one of them runs without Aug.

How is this OK?

It seems like the introduction of Augmentation ruined Devastation. I was hoping there would be improvements next week; nada.

I guess the current crop of developers just want to delete Devastation from the game? It feels like Devastation is being treated like a mistake. Augmentation is what they really wanted to do, and now Devastation is like a useless appendix?

11 Likes
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Devastation is better than Aug in 99% of content in the game.

While I agree dev could use some love in m+, saying that dev is being driven out of the game then it’s better in the vast majority of content is a bit dramatic.

Maybe in details because bombardments don’t apply to dev, but I’m generally keeping up with other classes when I look at my logs and I’m absolutely not even close to 40% behind.

6 Likes
3

Basically, there is no or little overlap between what Devastation is good at, and what M+ dungeons are. The Venn diagram consists of two separate circles.

Devastation is decent in raids, it’s decent in PvP, it’s decent for walking around the world and digging up dirts. It’s just trash for M+.

Too bad that M+ is what some of us want to play, eh?

1 Like
4

I mean, I’d love for dev to be better in higher keys, but every spec with multiple DPS options runs into this same problem–it’s kinda just how metas traditionally affect multiple DPS classes.

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It seems the thinking is, “Well, you have another DPS spec you can play,” but Aug is not a standalone DPS spec. I play solo content a fair bit, and I wouldn’t want to play Aug there.

6

I think the idea that one spec should be amazing in all forms of content is bit irrational, though.

I enjoy playing both specs in the content they excel in.

2 Likes
7

I feel If dev could do more or bring more it could have its own spot. But people will still takes Aug in higher keys. Even more in actual groups instead of random pugs.

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It doesn’t need to be amazing. It needs to carry its weight. Devastation doesn’t. And it’s the Evoker’s only pure DPS spec.

Today I did a +12 attempt on Siege of Boralus where I was topping damage. Of course, we didn’t time it. I was doing well because the pulls were long enough to suit my damage profile. But if the pulls are long enough for Devastation to work, you can’t time.

If you want to actually time the dungeon, the pulls must be short enough that I’m competing for damage with melees 10 item levels below me. As long as they’re not Retribution. A Ret that’s 10 item levels below me reliably outdps-es me by about 20%.

It’s not like this in ONE dungeon. It’s like this across ALL M+. If you want to play a pure DPS spec, you can’t play Evoker. Go Aug, or be carried and content with low keys.

This sort of “balance” used to be acceptable in Classic. You had Shadow and Retribution and Feral and Balance doing 50% of a real DPS. We were supposed to have moved on from that. Spec variations are supposed to be within about 5%. Devastation is at -20%, when played well. People who don’t know how to predict movement are at -40%.

The reason for this, BTW, are the “Hero” talents. I get Hero talents that maximize my damage output when the mobs are dead. Another guy gets Hero talents that maximize his DPS upfront. Then the M+ timers are such that you need the upfront burst guy. You can’t just do higher keys to have longer pulls - you won’t time it.

3 Likes
9

I agree, this season playing Dev is absolutely unbearable. We used to be great in both AoE and Single Target before our hero talents messed everything up. Also the fact that they kept buffing Disintegrate during tuning for TWW S1 but never touched Pyre really hurt us. Being forced to use Disintegrate in AoE feels like crap. It was fine when I could use Pyre to annihilate packs then use Dis at the end to help clean up the last few stragglers in a pack while my tank grabbed the next one but now I’m using Dis all the time even on packs of 10 or more and I rarely ever use Pyre. Not only does that make the packs feel like they take longer to kill it increases the likelyhood of dying to some swirly on the ground because I don’t have a hover charge and I’m in the middle of a Disintegrate so either I move and cancel my Dis and lose damage or I stand there and eat the swirly and die and lose damage. We had way more maneuverability when pumping Pyre was the playstyle instead of using our single target for AoE. If they had made Scalecommander so that Empower spells make it so that either your Pyre or Disintegrate mark targets for bombardments as well as turning Dis to Mass Dis after Empower spells so that you had the choice of if the pack only had 3 targets or less use Mass Dis if it has more than 3 targets use Pyre that would have been much better. Then make it so that in Flameshaper Engulf was an automatic proc that happened after say 12 seconds after you used Firebreath or every 9th red spell it would have worked better than adding even more buttons to our already bloated cast bars. I’m pretty sure they completely gave up on doing anything at all for Devastation when they introduced Aug in 10.2.5 which is a shame becuase Dev is so much cooler/fun to play than Aug. Even the idea of what Aug is and what its supposed to do is lame compared to Dev. If they had made Aug a tank spec instead I guarantee we wouldn’t be having any of these issues. I wish we could go back to how Dev was in DF S3 becuase we were perfect then. That was the strongest we’ve ever been and I’m afraid it’s the strongest we’ll ever be if things keep going the way they have been.

8 Likes
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If you want every class to feel exactly the same go to FFXIV that’s how it is over there.

This is WoW. Your class might have been #1 for a few months but things change here.

Ask any class/spec, they go up and down through the expansions and patches. From 1 season to another.

Nobody is ever happy unless their chosen class/spec is #1 in logs.

Stop chasing the meta and stop treating WoW like actual competitive gaming. It’s a casual MMO and always has been. M+ and numerical rankings for it should never have been implemented.

The truth is that 5% of players do M+ and 1% do M+9 and higher. So nobody cares about M+ but 1% to 5% of players. There are actual balanced competitive games out there. WoW players in general couldn’t care less about M+

If you want to play WoW you just have to cope with balance issues. It’s how it is and how it will always be.

Stop QQ’ing in forum posts. We don’t care, the devs don’t care. I wouldn’t expect a lot of developer time and energy spent fixing classes for M+ simply because 95% of players are doing everything but M+.

11

I would say that I really enjoyed playing dev in m+ in dragonflight and I really liked the rotation. Quick setup, high mobility, great pyre aoe blasting fun.

I do like the breath is now impactful, with manuvering (though I still think a toggle option to blast it like DK breath would be nice). However, I agree with Talths - I am really not a fan of adding disintigrate casts, especially as frequent as they are, into the aoe rotation.

Make pyre great again!

3 Likes
12

For Dev, and any caster really, to keep up with melee specs like Enhance, Ret or Frost in high M+ they have to be redesigned fundamentally…with low downtime AoE.

Either that or M+ trash needs to be reduced or entirely redesigned

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Try being any other healer than a resto shaman… Is what it is dude.

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I’m sorry, what?

Evoker has its problems, but button bloat sure as hell isn’t one of them.

Devoker also got a ton of dmg buffs the first few weeks of the season.

Again, Evoker has its problems, but lack of attention from the developers isn’t one. Or, at least, we’re not any worse off than anyone else, and we’re definitely better off than some others.

Y’all really got to let that go. And I’d put money that someone on these forums would be whining about it.

Dev isn’t drastically under tuned, and certain specs are over tuned. And, regardless, different damage profiles suit different content.

Those specs clean up trash better than I can, sure. Just call 'em Danny DeVito. But on bosses?

Oh, and

Also this lol. If y’all are 40% behind I’d recommend analyzing your passes and practicing your rotation some.

1 Like
15

You clearly underestimate the M+ aspect of the game, M+ cannot possibly be 1%.

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12+ keys are absolutely 1% (if not less), and that’s where Aug takes over in power.

Even if you assumed 10+, it’s still a small percentage of keys being run.

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Yeah, as much as I wish that dev had a better deal for high end m+, I agree with Blankwave on this occasion. In my experience, dev is usually better until you start pumping 10+, and only in 10s if your other two dps are cranking.

That said, please buff pyre, Bliz! I enjoyed dev so much more in m+ in dragonflight. ;_;

1 Like
18

Several of the Devastation talents need to be baseline for the spec.

Pyre should always have a chance to bounce. Quell should have a 20sec CD. Living flame should apply a dot/hot.

Add a talent that lets consuming essence burst reduce dragon rage CD and for the love let hover be casted during a cast and it NOT interrupt yourself.

They also need to give Dev more self healing or at a minimum let Obsidian scales make them immune to stuns and Hover immunity to slows and snare.

This is the only mid range caster in the game they need to have the best of both worlds not the gimps of both. No reason a DK, Pally, Enchantment Sham gets more ranged instant casts while at the same time getting much more CC and survivability. Not to mention B-Rezz / Self Rezz.

5 Likes
19

True.

I wouldn’t mind an extra 5 yards.

Good idea, I think it’s stupid to further strengthen Disintegration, it already deals 30 - 40% damage in total, maybe it makes sense to strengthen our periodic damage and maybe damage from Empowered spells.

2 Likes
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PLEASE NO! No more mechanics that exponentially punish downtime on a class that may need to go out of range. Also sucks for m+.