Evokers gain the powers from the essences of the 5 Dragonflights imbued into them at their creation. Their abilities come directly from that power, which is why they have abilities that span each one. Of course, there’s a significant underrepresentation of Black Dragonflight abilities which easily would be evened out by granting Evokers a tank spec.
I never said that the lore implies Evokers have a tank spec, I said that the lore allows one to exist. There is justification in the lore to allow it to happen.
Evokers are proven to be capable of tapping into the Earth given powers of the Black Dragonflight. They use that power to reinforce their scales to make them tougher, and they use it to control the earth around them to stop enemies in their place and even to uplift the ground to form walls of rock.
Just because those are the only spells they have doesn’t mean they can’t do other things. New spells have been added to classes/specs many times (most recently with the Dragonflight talent revamp). Those spells were always possible within the lore, they just weren’t available because of gameplay limitations (you simply can’t give a class every possible thing because they’d have an endless number of spells and not enough bars for them to go).
Nothing in the lore stops an Evoker from using more Earth based abilities rooted in the Black Dragonflight essence contained within them to tank.
Additionally, you don’t need the tank spec to be mid-ranged like their other 2 specs nor would them getting a tank spec make them OP.
Multiple classes have more than 1 play style.
Hunters and Shaman for example both have a spec that is ranged and another that is melee.
And just because right now channeling a spell isn’t ideal for a tank because it has negative consequences, you can simply make a passive that negates that to make it more viable. Alternatively, it can simply be worked around by making the tank spec not used casts/channels in the first place.
There will very likely never be another Dragonflight themed class, so having a Dragonflight tank spec is only possible through the use of Evoker. The lore supports Evokers getting a tank spec through what is possible with their Dragonflight magics within them.
It doesn’t matter if we’ve already gotten new tanks from the previous new classes. Realistically, it should be the norm for all new classes to get access to all 3 roles. Additionally, it should be a priority of the developers to add new specs to the previous classes so that they too can have access to the roles they’re missing.
If I want to play a certain role, I shouldn’t be required to change classes to do so. A lot of people have their favorites, and they don’t want to stop playing that favorite. There are plenty of missing fantasies (Void based tank for example [Warlock] and Arcane based tank as another example [Mage]) that can be manifested into new specs in ways that comply with the lore. Magic can be used in limitless ways as we’ve seen time and time again.
By giving more people access to tank (and healer) for their mains, it offers to these individuals the chance to try the roles they’ve previously never had access to and potentially learn that they love it. It would absolutely increase the number of tanks because it would offer them a spec that matches the fantasy they already love rather than making them have to switch off of that fantasy and onto something else they wouldn’t like as much or at all.
