So…BM are a 40y class because their main weapons are bows and guns, and with the exception of the revamped SV, have historically been ranged. I propose that a BM having a 40y range makes as little sense as a spellcasting dragon locked at 25y. BM damage comes from their pets- which they give commands. Unless we’re saying BM hunters are telepathically linked to their pets, or have operatic vocalizations, I’d say 40y in a combat scenario is a stretch. Meanwhile, Blizz says it makes sense for devokers to be 25y because we’re dragonkin. No real plausible reasoning otherwise, and despite the magical nature of the dragons; they still need to stop, build energy, cross fingers the skill doesn’t bug out, and hard cast. Seems like BM should be the 25y class to me.
This as a start.
blizzard should have took other specs and made them 25yds also if they wanted to make a mid range. i will always call this a dragon tax until evokers can be any other race because thats what this will always feel like. its just blizzards way of saying since you have been asking to play as a dragon for almost 20 years we will give it to you but your gonna have the shortest range for casters be squishy and have almost no mobility
I honestly believe devastation should have been a melee spec. Preservation feels thought out. It has it’s own gimmicks that gives it it’s identity among other healers.
Instead of ‘mobile midrange caster’, they should have went with the magical melee user where you used melee abilities to build up to big spells you can use a resource on. We don’t really have a melee magic user in the game beside enhancement shamans.
I leveled my Evoker to 70 and realized that the class just isn’t fun. The spells aren’t fun, the standing still isn’t fun, channeling “big” spells isn’t fun. None of it is. The only cool thing Devastation does is the Deep Breath.
I got a Marksmanship Hunter to level 63 and…wow. This class has everything you could ever want in a “mobile” class. Amazing damage, so much flavor and utility, tons of instant casts and synergies. Just feels so much better to play. I’m flying around the world while casting at will.
I do hope Blizzard listens and removes Hover as a requirement to cast certain spells while moving.
A ranged tax is also a damage tax and a vulnerability tax. For damage that’s middle of the road and highly situational burst windows that may fail due to bugs.
I hope too.
Honestly if hunters could heal i would play one. But preservation is so fun. Trying to find another class that i can enjoy the healing as much, but the other specs too. And this class is not druid either.
Tring paly
Ha, I was feral (and resto) from BC through whenever I dropped off WOW seriously. It was a badge of honor to pull off John effing Madden in wotlk (it wasn’t actually all that bad once you set up your UI). Agreed, good feel is the key.
Right. Probably best to call it an uptime tax rather than a range tax. We’ve been through these issues with melee in the past (less uptime means more damage at 100% uptime), and the solution has been to give melee tools to keep uptime.
And quite frankly it’s a design tax as evokers are classified as ranged for mechanics, which restricts encounter design (or should).
I have played monk previously, and so for me my perception of mobility comes from that place. That said:
I feel like Evoker is a mobile class, but its feels very conditional. Yes you can move across the raid, but you don’t exactly use Dream Flight for that. Yes, you can Rescue or even Verdant Embrace but you already have to be relatively close or use Hover to gain range access to use another mobility spell.
I think this is not as well received (such as in this case) because in contrast with this game we do not associate mobility with too many button presses; Monks use Roll or Transcendence and it’s done, Druids use Sprint and that’s it, Demon Hunters are well, DH. Evoker Mobility can at times be a little more work because our mobility radius is for the most part smaller than everyone elses.
Is this bad? I’m not sure. I feel strong when I am within radius of my raid, but at this point its also feeling similar to the Paladin mastery play style. My only gripe with it is that I’m surprised we went with mid range; Evokers were created by a dragon aspect and can tap into each respective source of magic for small periods of time. Would Neltharion would have really made them all mid range battlers?
For me, I think a small way to address this would be to make Hover at base have 2 charges. Take my opinion with a grain of salt.
all of this… its like pally healing without the increase in healing for being close
i hate pally mastery. i miss being a ranged healer with a pally. i dont like having to be inside the tank to make sure im maximizing my mastery to heal him
Isnt yhere like 2 ways to play holy? Range or melee? Never played one since vanilla but it’s what i read
Sadly their mastery increases their healing the closer they are to their target
Aw i see. So if you want to play range you focus on haste and crit. Still viable, but looks like they wanted you to be melee healer
So, I’ve played some Prevoker, and I’ll say it feels fine (Besides Living Flame) in regards to mobility. It’s especially fun to use skills like Rescue to save my teammates from certain death, or literally pull them through the closed gate in Brackenhide if they somehow missed it.
However, I did notice that a lot of people complain about mobility for Devoker specifically. Prevoker is fine, and Devoker needs work. So, why not we just give Devoker the mobility it deserves?
Wings of War - Replaces Hover
Launch yourself a medium distance.
Passive: When in combat, float above the ground. Allows evoker spells to be cast while moving, including channeled spells. Does not affect empowered spells.
(Undocumented: Medium Distance refers to a 50% Range increase)
This would allow spells with cast times and channeled spells (Disintegrate) to be castable while on the move. You sacrifice the movement speed boost, but it will not be missed since no longer will you drop Disintegrates because of a random swirly. You can still use Hover for dodges and movement, as now the dodge distance is increased to 150% to make the dodge more usable for quick relocation (or catching up to the group). Of course, the dual Hover talent will likely not be as useful of a talent to pick for Devoker, but that doesn’t mean Prevoker can’t pick it.
To make sure Prevoker can’t use Wings of War though, it will have to be in the Devoker tree. There are a few ways that could be used to go about placing it, but with how integral it could be to the class it should be in the middle of the tree so it’s easily accessible.
At first, I was thinking it could slot in the middle of Row 9 between Scintillation and Imminent Destruction, but without arrows being able to cross over it’s be almost a requirement to take Onyx Legacy, and that’s no fun.
My next thought was “Why not make Onyx Legacy baseline for Deep Breath and replace it with Wings of War, moving it down to Row 9 so Tyrrany, Spellweaver’s Dominance, and Font of Magic can all path into it?” It would be a buff to Devastation overall, so it is a possibility. This, personally, is my favorite idea since it’s not too much of a buff and doesn’t have players picking something they don’t want like Onyx Legacy. However, it could be a problem that it’s so late in the tree for such an influential talent while not QUITE being a Capstone.
The last idea I had was to take the idea for Wings of War and smush it in with Tyranny, melding the talent into Tyrant’s Wing. Since Tyranny affects Deep Breath and Dragonrage already, it wouldn’t be entirely out of the question to have a mobile, rampaging tyrant. My problem with this idea is Talent Bloat, as the talent would start to do quite a lot. While not every build picks Tyranny now, if it had Wings of War added in it would be too strong of a talent to not pass up on.
Out of all of this, Devoker gets the mobility it so desperately needs to compete and Prevoker is unchanged so it doesn’t get even stronger than it already is. Any thoughts on all of this?
Instant cast spells don’t mean your mobile. Alot of the prevoker spells are simply instant cast which gives the illusion of it being more mobile than devoker. Both need some spells cast on the move to make up for the shorter range the class has right now. The “tax” we currently pay for standing still casting makes 0 since. Yes we have bursts of movement but so do druids if you want to compare and druids have full range as well as survival while evokers only have obsidian scales and let’s be honest it’s not great. It’s better than beta yes but still not the best survival tool out there.
Evoker mobility is incredible as long as you know the fights well enough to position. It feels worse in prog fights but feels incredible when you’ve gotten the dance down and know what to expect. Renewing blaze is amazing and obsidian scales feels decent, but what we really need is a passive that gives a static magic dmg reduction and tempered scales needs to be like doubled for it to feel impactful.
I still say Living Flame needs to be cast on the move, and rather than disintegrate being cast on the move I think it would be better if it used more essence as it ticked on in time. That way if you are forced to move instantly your not wasting 3 essence. I am almost always the last one dead when I am playing my Evoker but I still say its more positional movement rather than true mobility with a freedom of movement like you get when you play hunter. Just personal opinion on the state of Evoker.
I leveled my Hunter to 70 First flipping between both BM and MM,the specs are mobile have tons of utility and good range.
I decided to level a Devastation Evoker.The Range is a huge downfall we are no where near as mobile as hunters,monks and even mages to a degree.
The 25 yards range on spells is Terrible,and the Emwpowered Casting is Buggy as hell.The fantasy of the class is good but the bugs,range issues makes me likely too shelve it until they do some work on it.
I can do decent damage on a Hunter have my range and utility and not worry about skills that bug when you cast them.