Greetings, evokers! Just wanted to share my thoughts about Preservation, the issues that I’ve come across having played it as a main since Dragonflight launched, and why I’m rerolling.
To start off, I want to iterate that I do like the spec a lot. But there are some extremely frustrating aspects to it that have become dealbreakers for me personally. I also don’t love the direction they’re taking the spec in 10.2.
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Positional Heals
The reliance on positional heals for major parts of the toolkit are very frustrating. Dream Breath, our biggest heal over the course of a dungeon/raid, requires everyone to stand in a neat little cone for heals. Temporal Anomaly requires everyone to be lined up. Emerald Blossom requires people to not only stack, but linger long enough for the blossom to go off. I often in pugs spend more time trying to position well to hit everyone with my spells than actually pressing my buttons to contribute damage or healing.
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30 yard range for heals
This is such an unnecessary limitation for the spec considering point #1. In any debate about best healers I feel like Preservation is already coming into the conversation gimped/nerfed because of this fact. And it doesn’t even really have anything to make up for it. It’s a con without a pro. There’s several boss arenas in m+ where it’s very easy for one or multiple players to get stuck outside your range of heals that other healers would have zero problem with. It’s unnecessarily stressful and once again I find myself in a situation where I’m traversing the arena trying to get someone that’s moved out of range than actually healing or damaging the boss.
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10.2 class changes
With each patch the team keeps nerfing the interesting interactions and spells. Echo and Lifebind builds are constantly being nerfed. Temporal Anomaly goes from 5 to 3 targets, which not only feels awful in m+ but seriously impacts any meaningful ramp in raid. Emerald Blossom is seemingly the only way to go, and it’s not a particularly fun button to press (especially in M+). The echo/gold spells are what make the class unique from other healers, but unfortunately each patch cycle these spells see nerf after nerf. Reversion is basically not worth pressing without the S1 tier, for instance.
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Spell design
The spells that are getting buffs are all spells we actively spent 2 patches not using, but the fundamental flaws with each spell remain.
Living Flame: This spell feels terrible to hard cast. It was fun in Season 1 when we had procs that made it instant. In Season 3 it’s looking good only because the tier set procs it for free. It still isn’t fun to hard cast this spell.
Verdant Embrace: This spell fundamentally feels flawed to me. This is intended to be our ST nuke heal, but using it usually puts us in more danger than it’s worth. The player that often needs a strong ST nuke heal stood where they shouldn’t, and when we use it it more often than not puts us in danger. It’d be nice if it could be used as a meaningful ST heal without having to echo first and self-use it or use it for mobility, but it has too many drawbacks currently.
- Mog limitations
This is purely cosmetic, but the mog limitations with this class are not fun. Trying to find a cohesive look that works with visage and dracthyr form is such a pain. The dracthyr armor in the barber shop is incredibly limiting in terms of availability and color options. We spend all this time looking at our characters, and it’s disappointing not being happy with the way it looks.
All in all, these are the reasons why I’m rerolling. I would love to come back to Preservation at some point, but I think it will take some core mechanical changes to the kit to bring me back. That doesn’t even begin to cover the issue of competing with Augmentation for a spot in m+…
16 Likes
I just want emergency single target healing that doesn’t rely on Golden Hour and doesn’t have a cooldown. Something mana inefficient for me to spam when someone’s health is tanking and i have nothing else.
Living flame could be this if it cast faster on friendlies.
5 Likes
That’s the thing, living flame just kinda feels awful to actually cast. It’s great if it’s instant or a proc…
I think it boils down to the devs keep nerfing the proactive side of preservation’s toolkit and are funneling the spec into reactive healing. The problem is the reactive spells all aren’t really fun to press and have issues.
6 Likes
This is the reason I canceled my subscription.
I was Preservation Main but now I Mod BG3 which is in fact more fun then mess with Blizzards poorly designed Balance
5 Likes
I will say, it feels straight up awful in pvp at this point.
1 Like
Throughput seems weak compared to the heavy hitters. The lower range is hard to play around with our main spot heal throwing us into danger every time we use it. If you look in every arena bracket we’re the least played healer in the game and there’s good reason for that.
1 Like
I’ve felt that throughput is very strong until 50% dampening. If you feel like your throughput is weak, you probably aren’t using echo.
we’re the least played class in the game, and class/spec strength isn’t the reason.
I am, for sure. I would be interested to know what you think the reason is then? The arena community has a tendency to hop on whatever is strong at the moment.
1 Like
Representation is not solely dictated by spec strength. Evoker probably didn’t click with a lot of people from the initial selling point of ranged class but with half the range. Preservation is rather strong in organized 3s. Solo shuffle less so because the apes get off the leash and don’t understand your range limitations.
1 Like
Maybe that’s my problem. I mostly play ss and it feels so much worse than every other healer I play there.
1 Like
There’s actually a pretty decent ring around you that it affects too. I run with a warlock who loves to stand behind me and he still gets hit, usually.
It’s the simple fact it’s the one class without working transmog. You’re stuck with overlapping shoulders and belts, and that’s how it’s going to be because Blizzard can’t be bothered to make a class exclusive tier set show on your dragon form.
Druids before Legion used to suffer from this. But now they have several customizations.
3 Likes
I try to be good at being a Preservation Evoker. However, I think I fall short in a lot of ways. One thing I keep doing is pulling mobs trying to get in a better position to use dream breath/fire breath. But I find when I ask the group to try to keep in range, the reasonable players usually find it good strategy and cooperate. Communication is key and I really do suck at that lol.
1 Like
The new TA is really really bad.
I’m sure it will feel somewhat better with the 2pc bonus but the mana cost is still massive.
1 Like
I agree, 3 target TA just feels bad. I imagine it will feel a lot better with the new 2pc, but healers shouldn’t feel completed by their tier set bonuses.
At this point I also hate that resonating sphere is a choice node. I want to try Nozdormu but resonating is still so good. It almost seems like resonating should be baseline or something…
At least Living Flame actually heals for a lot and doesn’t feel terrible to cast.
1 Like
This is all the more important in S3 with tank busters and big hitters like that heal absorb in Throne of Tides for the entire players health while also ticking for 20% of their HP… I panic when there’s big single target damage on a player and not having a good spammable like every other one of my healers has. Living Flame hits for 55k - a Paladin’s Holy Light which they can spam does 110k. #feelsbad
1 Like
Single target isn’t great, but my LF hits for 97k non-crit, no echo. It feels a lot better this patch and I imagine it only gets better with the new tier.
I see myself coming back to Preservation. After giving Disc a go and a Resto Druid. Maybe it’s the burst healing or maybe I just like how my Evoker looks.
Meanwhile I’m working on catching my Disc priest up with io before reset…
I did a DOTI as preservation and two ranged classes and for some bosses/encounters trying to get everyone with dream breath was just an absolute nightmare. The positional requirements for this spec depending on comp is just a nightmare to traverse, especially in pug scenarios.