Evoker Wish List - Overall / Aug-Dev-Pres

Classes Evoker
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Evoker Class Adjustments & QoL Suggestions

I’ve been thinking about various improvements for Evoker gameplay, particularly across Visage form functionality, ability range, and class specializations. Below are my thoughts on necessary changes and quality-of-life updates.

1. Visage Form Improvements

Evokers should have a Visage Option that better integrates with gameplay, similar to how the addition of the Dracthyr class combination occurred.

  • Hover Initial Force: Add either the animation or Fel Rush Dash animation for “visage form” Hover activation.
  • Sustained Floating Animation: Use the levitation animation to maintain the floating effect while hovering.
  • Spellcasting Animations:
    • Shatter Star / Disintegrate / Upheaval / Pyre → These should visually cast from our hands to complement the Visage form.
    • Dream Breath / Fire Breath / Verdant Embrace → Either make us shift in and out of dragon form automatically or allow the spells to cast from our hands, similar to how Wild Charge works for Druids in human form.
    • Dream Flight / Deep Breath / Breath of Aeons → These should automatically shift us to Evoker form when cast and return us to Visage form afterward.

2. Range Issues & Ability Adjustments

The limited range on key abilities remains frustrating and needs improvement:

  • Temporal Anomaly / Dream Flight / Fire Breath / Dream Breath → The length and width of these abilities should be increased, especially Fire Breath / Dream Breath.
  • Eternity Surge → Needs an option to function like Fire Breath. Currently, its interaction with near-death mobs is inconsistent, causing it to disappear into the void.
  • Temporal Anomaly → Forces an unfun playstyle by making healing dependent on range. It should work more like Holy Radiance (Disc Priest), Wild Growth (Resto Druid), or Chain Heal (Resto Shaman), where the spell automatically seeks out targets.
  • Dream Flight / Deep Breath / Breath of Aeons → These should have a wider path to make hitting stragglers easier, especially Dream Flight due to its healing nature.
  • Dream Flight → Also, the name is hideous. Breath of Dreams sounds 100% cooler.
  • Baseline 25-30 yd range → Annoying at best. This should be looked at.
  • Ruby Embers should be baseline in all of the Evokers Living Flame.

3. Preservation Evoker

The identity of Preservation is all over the place. The spec has undergone constant changes, from infinite shields and HoTs to burst healing and back again. The constant reworks make it frustrating to play long-term.

  • Mastery feels like a Resto Shaman ripoff.
  • Reversion feels like a weaker Rejuvenation due to its cooldown and lack of smart application, making Echo necessary to apply, which is frustrating.
  • Verdant Embrace is useful for repositioning but still frustrating to work around.
  • Lifebinder adds an unnecessary layer of complexity on top of the already complicated Echo mechanic, which gets nerfed or tuned weirdly every patch.
  • Living Flame was fun with infinite HoTs and instant-cast bolts, but now it feels lackluster.
  • Blossom Builds got nerfed, are mana-hungry, and have no real filler.
  • Essence abilities to extend essence counts and empowerment in the spec tree feel like a slap in the face.
  • Flameshaper is irrelevant.

Preservation just feels jumbled. I loved the shield + HoT build in DF Season 1, then infinite HoTs, then Blossom builds—all of which got gutted.

I wish Preservation had a healing beam and did away with Echo. A more streamlined approach would be:

  • Echo incorporated into Temporal Anomaly instead of being its own button.
  • Mastery could work like Elemental Shaman’s Elemental Mastery, but for healing. This would replace the Echo ability or just make echo a mana cost ability.
  • Essence Spender: A Disintegrate Heal Beam for single-target healing.
  • Emerald Blossom as the dedicated AoE heal.
  • Reversion has no cooldown and can be double applied without the need for echo acting like Germination from Rdruid. (But remove the 5% time reversal dmg and add initial heal.) or perhaps keep it and state casting Echo or having Echo triggers this effect.

4. Devastation Evoker

Feels much better now that Augmentation isn’t overshadowing it, but there are still some issues:

  • Eternity Surge → Should function like Fire Breath, ensuring all targets in the area are hit.
  • Pyre Explosion Radius → Needs to be way larger.
  • Pyre 30% Reignite → Should be baseline. This effect makes or breaks the spec in both AoE and single-target.
  • Firestorm → Still missing the mark. Pyre should generate charges that cause it to ignite in a Fury of Elune-style firestorm following hostile targets.
  • Pyre Spamming Hurts Your Hand → There should be a talent for a Greater Pyre that costs 6 essence and fires 3 bolts over 2-3 seconds instead of constant spamming.
  • Disintegrate & Hover → Casting Hover shouldn’t cancel Disintegrate—this is one of the clunkiest issues in Evoker history.
  • Feed the Flames & Scorching Embers → These could be way better. Scorching Embers should instead make Fire Breath increase fire damage by 40% for X seconds. That way it is a personal buff on you the player not gatekeeping you to make Fire Breath an Empowerment lvl 1 to actually make use of the talent.
  • Imminent Destruction → Forcing Deep Breath modifiers is weird and unhealthy design.
  • Living Flame - such a long cast time, I dread it. Pupil of Alexstraza from Augmentation would make this better.

5. Augmentation Evoker

The way Augmentation was gutted felt unnecessary and harsh.

  • Ebon Might → Should function as an aura that passively buffs allies and flares up when using Empower spells. This would prevent awkward DPS losses when solo or in small groups. Not force us to gate the cast in windows and just flow naturally like a regular DPS.

Then when were solo our damage is basically nearly the same as a normal DPS. Adding a fun component giving us the support option but capable of being independent. Which we lose when DPS are with us. Something that is controlled. :smiley:

  • Prescience → Shouldn’t be a 2-charge spell. It should be a spell that buffs the player caster us and a tank and a healer. 3 people total. That has a chance to do 15% echo chance but only after the Empowerment spell usage.
  • Blistering Scales → Should apply to **both the tank and the Evoker. Like a Earth Shield double effect. **
  • Temporal Breath → Should be a Shield Breath that slows enemies. The initial cast could start as a small stacking shield, gradually building up. The longer you hold it, the bigger the shield. Enemies would also receive a stacking slow, maxing out if fully charged.
  • Upheaval → Should slow enemies after being hit.

These changes would make Augmentation less gated by Ebon Might uptime and allow for a more natural rotation, improving Eruption cast times and making room for a potential real gameplay changes.

6. General Quality-of-Life Fixes

Many talents should shift into the base tree.

  • Essence capacity should start at 6 move to the base tree.

  • Empowerment levels should increase should move to the base tree.

  • QoL Talents that should be baseline:

    • Hover extra charge / speed / duration
    • Rescue + Shield
    • Wing Buffet should not be tied to Obsidian Scales.
    • Improved Landslide is completely random and should be reworked.
    • Bountiful Bloom is oddly placed.

A lot of talent choices just feel weirdly structured and don’t add meaningful variety.

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  1. No, let’s not have mage 2.0. It’s removing everything unique about the class just to placate people who hate the theme.
  2. You realize Temporal Anomaly has like a 100 yard range? Range isn’t an issue there.

Most of these suggestions are bad.

For pres: I want a more involved dps rotation. Spamming living flame and minimally using fire breath / deep breath is not engaging. There is far too much downtime.

Sir, we call this mark of the wild. Just delete the spec.

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Saying Evoker is becoming “Mage 2.0” is just hyperbole. Augmentation, Preservation, and Devastation all still have unique mechanics that set them apart. The goal isn’t to erase the identity of the class but to refine it so it actually feels better to play in a wider variety of situations.

“Temporal Anomaly has a 100-yard range, so range isn’t an issue.”

That’s not the whole picture. Long-range ≠ practical usability. TA can be slow, easily intercepted, and clunky when reacting to burst damage. Evokers still suffer from range limitations compared to traditional casters, especially when positioning matters.

Coupled with TA cast time and the requirement for people to all be in a line to be hit. As well as our short range.

“Most of these suggestions are bad.”

That’s just dismissive without substance. If you want to critique changes, give a reason why. The current gameplay has room for improvement, and it’s valid to ask for QoL fixes.

For Preservation: “I want a more involved DPS rotation.”

Agreed. Spamming Living Flame does feel shallow.

Ebon Might being a passive ability that activates upon empowered spell is a net positive because it allows Augmentation Evokers to be proactive and adaptive rather than just existing around a specific cooldown timer and having a specific kit that is tailored to long cast times and empowerment spells to extend the buff rather to be flexible is unsatifying.

When Ebon Might was locked behind a long cooldown, it created frustrating gaps in pulls, forcing Aug Evokers to wait for the perfect moment instead of smoothly transitioning between fights. This led to unnecessary downtime where they couldn’t contribute meaningfully between windows.

By removing the long CD requirement and allowing Ebon Might to flow dynamically, Aug Evokers now have:

Consistent uptime: No more forced breaks between pulls just to “reset” for the next Ebon Might window.
More skill expression: Good players can weave Ebon Might optimally, reacting to
burst phases and priority damage/support windows instead of being locked into a rigid cooldown cycle.

EDIT
I apologize I intended the above ^ to be
More Rotation Efficient instead of More skill expression:
Ebon Might locked and baked into empowerment would allow for more fluid rotation and flow. Giving the opportunity to weave different aspects into Augmentation. Allowing for burst phases and priority windows to flow rather than be locked into a rigid cooldown cycle saving the buff for certain packs.

Better group synergy: Instead of being a “one-and-done” buff on a long timer, Augmentation can continuously adjust to fight pacing and team needs.

“Sir, we call this Mark of the Wild. Just delete the spec.”

At the end of the day, refining mechanics isn’t the same as deleting a spec that is well-loved by many. Instead of just writing the spec/class off, it’s better to advocate for adjustments that make the gameplay smoother, more engaging, and rewarding.

It’s totally fine to have different opinions on how Evoker should play, but if you haven’t played Evoker since Season 2 of Dragonflight and we’re now in Season 2 of The War Within, a lot has changed. The class has evolved significantly, and the problems it had back then.

‘https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/character/us/stormrage/fauxstrasza/’

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How is it more skill expression if aug evokers can just spam spells because of your revamp? It’s significantly less.

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Simply because its tied to empowerments as a passive effect. Allowing you to react to burst phases.

Instead of oh I need to save this for this pack. It just follows suit to your rotation.

Complimenting burst phases and priority.

Since Empowerments are usually One and Done. The player doesn’t have to focus on a gatekept rotation to extend the Ebon Might buff.

Allowing you to do side mechanics such as kicking the ball mines into the first boss of Motherlode.

or preparing for burst utilizing Rescue, Emerald Blossom.

It also leaves more room of flexibility for more support oriented rotation spells and a more streamline DPS rotation.

The revamp would delete the expression to upkeep the buff Ebon Might but allow for a different path for the class to be healthier and engaging.

Rather than the current situation where its over nerfed and unviable.

I apologize for my words “More Skill Expression” after rereading I meant “More rotation Efficient” English isn’t my first language I’m European.

2 Likes
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… so less skill, and more mindless.

Delete spec.

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I stopped reading at use your hands to use disintegrate. Yeah, let’s take the cool mouth beam and put it to our hands like we’re a shadow priest. Boring.

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I read your whole post. It’s highly opinionated. You’re asking a lot of things that would just change class identity. Like remove echo entirely, and put it on temporal anomaly? I don’t even take temporal anomaly, I think it’s a noob trap. I got a 90 heal parse last week (as flame shaper, but I guess I’m irrelevant huh?), and I made a mistake by forgetting a Stasis so that can be higher. So I personally don’t like the spell, but for those that do it needs a heavy buff because its healing is garbage and its mana cost is high.

In my opinion: on pres I’d like a bit more essence bursts or generation of essence per unit time. And maybe if I got more haste I’ll be able to fulfill that myself, but sometimes the really smooth gameplay just gets interrupted by having to hard cast living flames to try and get a proc. I tried out mistweaver and on that toon I feel like I have infinite resources - when mana gets low I just drink tea. I guess the hard cast proc fishing doesn’t have the same feeling. Maybe emerald communion can generate essences or bursts? Or Rewind? It’s definitely not mana tea, but some more essence after big cooldown can cut down on proc fishing.

4 Likes
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I disagree. Dracthyr are core to the identity of Evoker as a class. The Visage, at least currently, is not a combat option for Evoker under ordinary circumstances, and that is by design.

Evoker is built around its range, and the relative power of its kit is adjusted for its range. It is not intended to be a full range class and has options to compensate for its range with mobility or temporary extensions. This seems like your opinion being passed as something that should just be accepted.

Gonna be a no from me, chief.

Restoration Shaman’s Mastery heals the target more at lower health.

Preservation Evoker’s Mastery causes you to heal targets that are currently below your health % for more.

I don’t see how you see this as a ripoff.

… Lack of smart application? It’s a direct single target HoT with effects that ride on it. It’s not intended to do excellent healing by itself.

How? You can target yourself, and Lifebind is an incredible setup ability via VE.

How is it unnecessary or overly complex?

You can still get plenty of instant bolts, though? It still does respectable healing as well in an Echo chain.

Good.

… What?

Flameshaper is actually really good for raid healing if you can play to it properly. I don’t play it because it’s not my cup of tea, but it has definitely become valuable for raiding this patch.

Why does Echo need to go? It’s a unique healing control distribution ability.

Hell to the nah.

This is boring as hell. No.

This sounds boring and would very likely be tuned fairly poorly. Echo is the intended vehicle for spending Essence to heal and is multifunctional.

No. It has a cooldown to functionally limit procs it generates for the spec and to limit the Death Strike effect it gains from a talent. Prevoker doesn’t need Reversion turned into another boring HoT. If I want to slam HoTs into people, I can go play Resto Druid instead.

Okay, be ready for its damage to go down.

Eh, disagree.

Probably one of the few things you’ve said that I agree with, hilariously enough.

The rest of your suggestions are just borderline nonsense though.

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Without responding to everything specifically, I like a lot of these suggestions. I main pres and I kinda liked you’re idea to make disintegrate a healing ability. To add to that idea, implement interaction with lifebind where the disintegrate(heal) will split and heal anyone with lifebind active. Kind of like mass disintegrate but on allies. We all know the combo, ta>ve>spiritbloom, but you generally still have a few seconds of lifebind after that combo and the damage is still slapping. An additional aoe heal to follow up that will shore up some of the lack of healing throughput we seems to be lacking in a lot of situations this season in m+. This could also open up hover>disintegrate movement tech healing options which is another pain point for preservation in my opinion. EDIT: The beam could also be a beautiful green/jade color :smiley:

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You seriously have folks arguing over cosmetics (visage) in a game where you can become a Lightforged Warlock and Death Knight.

I swear to God…

You can’t make this stuff up!

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I know it is certainly strange.

But everyone has their own opinion so that’s fine.

I’m all for open customization and play how you want. : )

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Visage stuff:
Having spells that specifically say you’re exhaling magic come from your hands instead makes no sense. Also, wild charge has different interactions based on what form they are in, it doesn’t change their form to do something, wild charge in cat form is different than wild charge in human form.

Range stuff:
Aiming Fire Breath/Dream Breath is a small thing to do, and considering it hits things that aren’t in combat with you (as you can use it to pull) making them bigger creates the Hunter Barrage problem of unintentionally pulling.
Eternity Surge is fine as it is, it hits as many targets as you charge it for and the recent changes allowing it to hit anything in range of you instead of only things near your current target was a change we weren’t expecting but greatly appreciated.
If you think Dream Flight should be called Breath of Dreams when Dream Breath exists, redundancy makes it look dumb.
Baseline range is fine and encourages better positioning in PvE, even if it is more punishing to play against longer-range in PvP, frequently end up running around the same pillars or zerging forward most the times anyways.
Ruby Embers being baseline would mean it would be balanced around having it and a lot of people won’t be comfortable with juggling a 3-stack DoT on each target.

Don’t play Pres, so no comment.

Devastation stuff:
As stated previously, Eternity Surge is fine as-is.
It is incredibly rare to be casting Pyre and not hit all the targets, unless you’re targeting a ranged mob that isn’t with the clump for some reason.
Getting a talent made baseline often means a shift or losing power somewhere else.
Still don’t like Firestorm, just because manual ground-targeting breaks up the flow of the spec that could otherwise be played with one hand, there have been dozens of proposed methods to make it better but not really leaning one way or another on this one.
Hitting a button every GCD is always going to do that, doesn’t matter what the button is, ignoring the fact that we don’t have 6 essence by default and the whole deal of essence burst, that concept doesn’t reduce how often you’d push buttons, you’d just be replacing pyre with azure strike or instant living flames before hitting pyre again. Disintegrate channeling puts us at one of the lowest APM classes that’s easiest on the wrist, you might want to just improve your own binds/setup to be more comfortable.
Hover, then disintegrate. Interrupting your cast is the cost of making a positional mistake.
Scorching Embers rework, for the most part, has been worse, considering the scaling being weaker at level 1 and strongest when the buff lasts for less than two GCDs for Flameshaper, and considering Flameshaper being the only one that makes use of it with abilities that require Fire Breath to be on the target, making it a personal buff changes pretty much nothing without completely changing how Engulf and Consume Flame work with Fire Breath.
Imminent Destruction goes with Scale Commander’s inherent use of Deep Breath as a rotational ability well, even if there weren’t enough talent points to make use of it. Only real reason it’s getting use over Iridescence is if you’re using the new 4pc.
Living Flame is instant most of the time you cast it as Devastation and the time you are hard-casting it, it isn’t that slow unless you’re in a pure ST build.

Don’t play Aug, so no comment there.

QoL stuff:
Things that are in the general talent tree are there as benefits to pick up as you level. If every QoL thing was baseline, we wouldn’t have a general talent tree.
Wing buffet is not tied to Obsidian Scales. If worried about talent pathing for the second charge? It’s at the very start of the general tree, it’s more or less free.
Bountiful bloom isn’t really oddly placed, it’s on the right side, between all the other healing talents in the general tree.

2 Likes
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This:
:100:
Agree, always… better to have it here in WoW than having to look for it elsewhere like in like WoW Turtle, Project Ascension or some other games.
Btw don’t get me wrong these places of Modded/reimagined WoW are really cool and interesting in their own right, certainly a great place to RPG with so many interesting options available that one could have only dream or speculated on how it could work in WoW universe, but I rather for now play Retail WoW. (IMO)

Well that why classic exist for folks who feel that way about change to well… anything really lol, as I understand it WoW retail will continue to change and evolve… But to be fair… players who are against it, not all are trolls their just passionate about the game and honestly this type of opinions exist on all types of games not just MMO or WoW… some people don’t like change in what they consider its fine the way it is.
Ultimately its Blizz decision in the end… whether we like the changes or not.

TL;DR: Example, my friend is an example similar to these type of players opinions but he just decided to just stay in Classic and we both enjoy WoW differently and it literally has no effect on our socialization or engagement with the game in its different versions.

I have a close friend that will be having a roleplay session this Thursday in his home with this wife and brother in law we been preparing the papers and rules for this NEW RPG setting…We both love WoW, however he HATES retail, the story, the new lore, the new or old NPC leaders leading the story, almost every direction the game has took and all the new changes… but where he is happy playing WoW where things are the way they were? Classic… he has been playing there all this time, he like things to stay restrictive and simple, he like the nuance on both Alliance and Horde in Classic, so he stay there and pop up in retail to check in retail from time to time if any story bits interest him…right now he just waiting on Midnight were most believe the story should pick up. He tries to convince me to play Classic and its more traditional conservative way of gameplay/story/lore and I try to convince him to come to Retail again that is constantly adding new, evolving and changing gameplay/story/lore, but in the end we both enjoy WoW differently and that’s completely fine, as long as we don’t feel pressure to play something we don’t like, since we do have a choice in the matter, if we didn’t he and myself would not be playing WoW at all in this point in time with so many other great options out there that give us what we like but are not in the WoW setting we grown old to love. (IMO)

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I love that idea!

Exactly—I found it a bit odd as well.

Augmentation Essence Spender

  • Eruption functions as both AoE and single target, making it less of a strict formality in terms of function.
  • Emerald Blossom is another Essence spender option, but it doesn’t interact well with the kit, making it fairly unviable.

Preservation Essence Spender

  • Echo is meant for single-target but relies on another ability. It’s the only Essence spender that isn’t a true spender—more like a support for one. That’s why I suggested either removing it, integrating it into the mastery as a new mechanic, or tying it to Temporal Anomaly, or changing it from essence to a mana-based spell.
  • The healing beam from Disintegrate was inspired by the Spirit of Preservation Azerite Essence (from https://www.wowhead.com/azerite-essence-power/spirit-of-preservation-91), which I always thought was cool but underused back then.
  • I love the suggestion to make it a mass Disintegrate effect triggered off Verdant Embrace or empowered spell usage.
    That would be amazing!

Devastation Essence Spender

  • Pyre – AoE
  • Disintegrate – Single Target

While I appreciate class diversity in playstyle, most specs maintain a similar foundational structure. In Evoker’s case, I feel like that structure is lacking.

Essence is our primary resource—our equivalent of combo points. However, Preservation’s spenders feel disconnected from this system. Devastation and Augmentation both have clear, staple playstyles, but Preservation is highly customizable—perhaps beyond what the developers envisioned—because it feels so ungrounded and unstructured.

Much of this comes down to its spenders, and Lifebind is also part of the issue.

I just wanted to offer a suggestion because, over the years, the only Evoker spec that has remained consistent and improved is Devastation. Augmentation was gutted, and Preservation is constantly being reworked to the point of being unrecognizable from patch to patch.

Thank you for your time : D

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I’ve been playing Prevoker since S1 of Dragonflight to some extent each season, and I’m not sure what you mean by this.

A bulk of the spec is functionally the same. The choices you make within its talents shift from season to season depending on the flavor of the provided tier set and some tuning, but the core of how it plays hasn’t changed so massively as to be unrecognizable. Functionally the main difference is that Blossom builds are no longer overbearingly strong and are reliant on clumping, which they should be. They’re the ez-mode builds of Evoker.

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content being so easy in m+, makes it fine to spam anyway.

Content needs to be harder for it to maybe matter.