How much better, if at all - would dps be with 40 yards?

Classes Evoker
1

I find myself from time to time out of range of doing anything and being fully unable to even throw out an azure strike … I mean anything at all, at a range that feels very strange to be.

I run a dungeon and see dps doing only slightly better than me and I wonder, the part where I was completely and totally out of range for literally anything - how much more dps would I do if I had 15 extra yards like they do?

Sure evoker isnt broken at 25 yards but there are times (and… lets be honest, often) where that 25 yards feels extremely extremely extremely limiting.

2

ive been healing with preservation for the last 2 weeks since i felt like doing it after so many years so what i say might not be worth much but with our range i hate having any range dps in a group in keys. everyone wants to be 40 yds from the boss and never within 30 yds of another so i gotta pick who dies and who lives. i will die on the hill that i think the class as a whole should get 40 yds since no other class has this range limitation. i tend to stand next to the evoker when i play on my ret pally since we got pretty much the same range.

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3

Nymue would no longer make me want to rip my hair out for starters.

4

Range/direction restrictions range from annoying to infuriating. There’s a disconnect with class design and actual encounter environments. Even in older smaller dungeons that are ‘rooms’ you end up where you’re out of range. Raids are even worse where half the time you can’t heal someone because of range. Hover is a poor gapstop even when available; with 10+ size raid, gui itself has no actual indication in which direction you need to go. You start wasting time looking at minimap trying to figure out wtf players are. Setting range to 40 yards at least brings it up to what every other healer is at.

5

As DPS in a dungeon, there’s no point where your range gives you a disadvantage vs other ranged unless you’re just not staying with the pulls.

There’s one fight in the entire expansion that’s remotely limiting by design, and that’s nymue.

What other times are you “often” experiencing that you’re range limits your ability to do damage?

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6

Sarkareth also felt pretty limiting. To the extent that my raid leader had me be the benchmark for how far away the other ranged could stand for the bomb mechanic in P1.

7

To be fair, it was a strat issue if sark felt limiting though.

Yeah but if that works than it’s not really limiting. There are many fights where one ranged or melee gets marked for people to group on.

We just used the edge of the circle and I never had a problem.

Even so, if we said there were 4 or 5 fights that sucked for the range (there aren’t), that would still be less fights in the expansion than fights that sucked for melee. It’s to be expected that a handful of encounters every expansion won’t be ideal for specific specs.

If anything were to be done, coding us as melee for mechanics would actually be better QoL than extending our range, since they wouldn’t have to adjust our DPS or mobility to compensate (which they would if giving more range).

8

I feel like that would open a different can of worms where mechanics targeting us would either be hugely nothing or force us to stand even closer so that we can be stacked with the melee, which would necessitate more mobility to keep up.

I’d just take like 5 more yards to bring everyone to pres range (also so that pres didn’t have the weird situation of blue spells being 25 yard while everything else is 30). Give a little extra comfort room.

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9
  • When you get the bomb on Echo of Doragosa in Algethar Academy you can be forced farther away than you can reach to dps
  • When Decatriarch Wratheye summons totems it’s significantly harder to stay in dps range and avoid the rotating bad zone than it is for other range dps.
  • Watcher Irideus in Halls of Infusion, if bombs are dropped less than perfectly other dps don’t really suffer but Evoker do.
  • Khajin the Unyielding in Hallf of Infusion, if your tank is bad and positions poorly, you have to make up for it by not dps’ing and getting to safe zones and losing dps.
  • Warlord Sargha in Neltharus, when you go to pick up cursed treasures you cannot continue to dps as long as other range dps can while they run to grab treasure.
  • Kyrakka and Erkhart in Ruby Life Pools, there are plenty times even normal range dps get pushed away (trying to avoid getting nuked by mechanics) so it’s double hard for evoker.
  • Umbrelskul in Azure Vaults, other dps can kill shards much more easily than evoker can.
  • Granyth in The Nokhud Offensive, if you’re the only ranged dps you can dps while grabbing ballista less than a normal range dps could. Yes the ballista are out of range for all ranged dps, but not for as long or as much.
  • Teera and Maruuk in The Nokhud Offensive, any time Teera leaps away she goes plenty out of range of normal dps which is much worse for evoker.
  • Balakar Khan in The Nokhud Offensive, if you’re made to deal with spears you can continue dps’ing for less time/range than other range dps can.
  • Chrono Lord Deios in Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr, if the sand pools end up in bad spots and the room is made really tiny (not uncommon on higher keys) other range can deal with it much better and for longer than evoker can.
  • Chronikar in Dawn of the Infinite, dropping sand almost always means going out of range for at least a while, most other range dps don’t have to deal with this as much or ever.
  • Blight of Galakrond in Dawn of the Infinite, even normal ranged sometimes have to move out of range to avoid mechanics, worse for evoker.
  • Morchie in Dawn of the Infinite, all range end up with range issues on this fight, any range issue for any range dps is just worse for evoker.
  • Chrono Lord Deios in Dawn of the Infinite, this is a huge area with tons of movement. Probably the single worst dungeon for evoker range. Other dps can have range issues avoiding mechanics sometimes but again any range issue for normal range is worse for evokers.

Season 3

  • Priestess Alun’za in Atal’dazar, other dps can keep dps’ing while grabbing blood orbs, and if you snipe closer ones you can too, but ifyour group is full melee you might have to get the farther ones which are completely out of range of dps, other range wont suffer this as much.
  • Yazma in Ata’dazar, evokers are expected to stack with everyone else, which typically is much farther out of their range than other dps, and thus lose out on dps.
  • Archdruid Glaidalis in Darkheart Thicket, ive had him “snap” my disintegrate plenty of times from leashing it.

Season 2

  • Asaad, Caliph of Zephyrs in Vortex Pinnacle, if he creates the cage far away normal range dps can still hit him while evokers cannot.
  • Harlan Sweete in Freehold, if you get targetted with bombs, moving away means stopping dps, other range can still dps for longer.

Season 1

  • Bonemaw in Shadowmoon Burial Ground, this one is a perfect example of other range being 100% responsible for screwing you other. If they are max range and spit gets dropped on them, when you have to go stack on it to not get sucked, you are SoL while they can continue normally.

Raids

  • Sennarth in Vault of the Incarnates, most range dps can stick to the middle or back of the path, evokers basically have to stack in melee to be able to hit, adding more pools/webs for actual melee to deal with.
  • Dathea Ascended in Vault of the Incarnates, other range have more room/time to dps while she’s doing her suck
  • Kazzara, the Hellforged in Aberrus, running out bombs and lasers requires evokers move much more to get out and back into range.
  • The Forgotten Experiments in Aberrus, pretty much any boss that requires you to run out of range is going to punish evokers more. But another specific mechanic is the deep breath. Most other range dps can still hit him while he’s flying, for evokers you have to flirt pretty hard with the max range to still be able to. Risking dying when other range can comfortably stay out of range.
  • Assault of the Zaqali in Aberrus, other range dps can pretty much hit all of their platform from roughly the middle, losing little or no dps uptime, evokers cannot.
  • Rahok the Elder in Aberrus, another boss where if you have to run a bomb out you suffer more than other range dps.
  • Zskarn in Aberrus, when she does the full map fire zones other range can dps much longer while running away than evoker can.
  • Echo of Neltharion in Aberrus, all other range can dps echo while he’s doing the big aoe in p1 from safely out of range, evokers have to get so close you could easily accidentally get hit.
  • Sarkareth in Aberrus, in p3 when a ton of mechanics are going off all around you’re made to move out of range a LOT. All range suffer this but again any time all range suffer range issues, evokers suffer more.
  • Gnarlroot & Igira in Amirdrassil, both have abilities that force you out that other range don’t suffer nearly as much dealing with as evokers do.
  • Council of Dreams in Amirdrassil, no explanation needed I hope. For context after the opener balance druids can 2 button this fight and be one of the if not top dps.
  • Tindrall in Amirdrassil, again any time you have to move out because of mechanics evokers suffer more from having to do this.

Before you reply just remember that you asked for examples of when dps is affected by lack of range. Reduced range means reduced positioning versatility that other range dps have, your choices for when and where to move are fewer and inferior.

This isn’t to say evokers can’t do just fine in raids and dungeons, I feel like I do just fine myself. Keep in mind this thread wasn’t made to lobby for longer range, this thread is simply asking would evokers be stronger (or even too strong?) if we had 40 yard like most other range dps do.

6 Likes
10

Yeah I mean I respect all this being typed out and recognize that not your experience is not my own.

Many of the mechanics you listed in this have the same effect for any class regardless of range, and affect melee far more than us. Most of these are avoided/have their impact minimized by proactive and clever use of our mobility.

Also, Irideus is probably the most annoying in that list and has had that mechanic fixed going into this season and it felt so much better on PTR when I did it. That fight sucks more because of our mastery than our range though, lol.

Not having 100% uptime because of mechanics is not a sign that the range doesn’t work, though. We performed comparatively well through all three seasons, and were top 50th percentile DPS in most, if not all of it.

I agree most with your sentiment that we have reduced versatility, but that is really the true skill expression of the DPS specs. Using the kit to position and eliminate/minimize the effects of a lot of the situations you’ve put time into compiling are the difference between an okay evoker DPS and a great one.

To address this, we would need to lose either DPS or mobility (more likely) if we got 40 yds, because we would be innately stronger with more range.

This is why I’ve said ad nauseum that we should just have a choice node between hover and 40yds. With very few exceptions, evokers that have posted on here that we “need” 40 yds are criminally under-utilizing hover (many less than 10% uptime average), never using rescue, and only self-casting verdant embrace.

If given this choice node, there’d be a few fights that the meta slaves like myself would likely take 40yds, but fit the rest of the encounters hover is almost always going to be better with good play. Those players that want the range and aren’t leaning on hover enough would get what they wanted, too.

1 Like
11

I love hover so much, mine stays on cd lol

also, in fairness - Iridikron.

12

Yeah I mean I’d much rather not have any bosses that don’t follow a traditional health pool when classes are designed around them. Execute classes have the same struggle but opposite.

13

Blankwave, I know you’ve spoken a lot about how evoker would need to give something up if they were to get more range. Just wondering what your thoughts are on the new Sunfury fire mage talents for War Within which give fire mage unparalleled caster mobility, when they have numerous very strong defensives and a cheat death.

14

I mean the thing is, the hover talents that our DPS specs will have access to are beyond insane for TWW. We will have so much more uptime, with strong DR attached.

I don’t think it’s a healthy exercise to try and create/expect parity between classes in this game. It’s great to have different playstyles and advantages across classes.

That said, so much of this comes down to tuning. If Sunfury is also dumpstering us while having more range and safety, that’s a different discussion altogether.

15

Yeah, I’m wondering this too. I’d absolutely love to know how the discussions around balance go at Bliz. With PVE in mind (as I know PvP is a very different kettle of fish when it comes to mobility / toolkit) the difference in class design fascinates me. Is it more about how the class feels to play, and balance is then done to make sure outliers in the logs are brought up / down? Is it more about creating the right sort of ‘fantasy’ for the class? I’d pay to have a good sit down and chat with a dev.

16

What’s even funnier is that those same people also suggest we just be able to cast our entire kit while moving (outside of hover), AND having two charges of hover on top of that

17

Yeah but saying it’s a skill issue brings out the torches and pitch forks on these forums.

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18

Ultimately, Bliz seem to like players needing to make choices about how to best utilise their mobility in encounters and, as a result, decide for specific classes to not allow them good casting uptime with full rotation during movement. Begrudgingly, I recognise that evokers wouldn’t really need to use their mobility toolkit effectively if they had a 40 yard range.

That said, I still don’t understand why some classes seem to get insane mobility, without having to make any sacrifices elsewhere as far as I can see.

19

Just gonna throw my thoughts in on this as well since me and Blankwave seem to share the same opinions, but the balance between mobility and damage should always come with a trade off; the class with low mobility should have stronger output than the class with high mobility due to having lower uptime on the boss, frost dk vs bm hunter type deal. Bm has near 100% uptime while the dk has the wheelchair around mechanics and 90% of their damage comes from melee. Thus when the dk is actually on the boss their obliterates are slamming it, whereas the bm has smaller numbers that are offset by their constant uptime.

I realize this isn’t the exact case for evoker, and that’s because they’re unique in that they can routinely press a button and cast their entire kit while moving, like bm can, but they have shorter range so their numbers are super high, like a melee with short range would. The range, damage, and mobility of evoker all compliment each other in a way that makes it a complete package with a unique positioning requirement that no other class has and that’s primarily because of their range; the class would just not work if this balance were disturbed, and as such something would need to take a hit if they were to be given more of anything, be it mobility, damage, or range. More of anything completely destroys this balance.

As for the hero talents, I am of the opinion that this game has too much mobility as is. Why they’re adding even more is beyond me but I can only imagine it’s going to either make combat into a bigger mess with everybody zipping around like crazy, OR encounters in the next expac are literally going to require very high mobility, hence their choice to give most hero talents a mobility option or two.

Either way, the only way evoker can exist in its current state is because they have tuned the damage/heals around the range and mobility. Giving or taking from any of these means adjustments to the others must be made. Personally this is what makes the class feel rewarding to play, smart use of your mobility to get the maximum value out of your damage despite your short range. In my eyes this mirrors other casters needing to carefully position themselves for fights due to not being able to quickly reposition themselves and possibly losing out on a lot of uptime since they’re walking and not casting.

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20

Although I understand where you are coming from from a principal sort of perspective, this really isn’t how I’ve seen Blizzard tuning classes at all. Otherwise, destro warlock should always sim highest by far and absolutely pump on fights where you can turret, and on those fights they should completely dominate the more mobile classes. Mobile classes should be in the opposite possition. If Bliz are going to tune like this, it seems very reasonable. If they don’t, then using it as an arguement for avoiding quality of life changes seems futile