While blue, red and black are all rather barren, red and black will get hero trees themed after them (Flameshaper and Scalecommander) while blue just gets nothing. In fact both devastation hero specs lean either into red or into black. Blue seems entirely forgotten about, just like the blue dragonflight themselves.
I’m really hoping they develop the blue subtree of devastation a little more in TWW and please at least give it one more situational nuke or arcane magey utility, shield spell, just ANYTHING please.
Less shared how? 5/7 blue spells and 4/7 red spells are accessible by other specs. Black is chiefly Augmentation’s territory but even so it has far more toys than Devastation has in blue.
Which is two extra nukes.
That’s literally the whole difference between Dev and Pres using blue magic. Two nukes with 20s cd each.
The only list that’s significantly longer is bronze and that’s literally because of Aug, which uses three of those blue spells, very rarely casting any of them at (unravel and azure strike are almost never used except when activating hover/ moving without hover, and you press the other button once per hour).
Pres has the same minimal interaction with blue spells, and don’t even have SoM outside of raid.
Naturally, if only one of the three specs actually really uses blue abilities, it will accumulate less of them total. Blue spells overall make less sense for the other specs, and they already make up ~70% of dev’s DMG. Adding another spell just for more blue spells on an Excel sheet seems unnecessary.
Plus, we get the meme beam cleave dream next expansion.
Devastation is just not really on par with the other specs in terms of development. I’m not even talking about their damage profile. This is about flavour and identity. The supposed blue magic spec only knows two more blue spells than the green/bronze spec.
More than that, it doesn’t come close to what actual blue dragons can do in the game. They can teleport, create illusions and shield barriers, conjure ice, make explosions, “bathe the area in spellfrost” etc.
Mass disintegrate is indeed very cool, but by itself doesn’t really make you feel like a blue dragon.
Why does it matter how many buttons there are if you’re pressing blue spells far more frequently than the other specs? Bloat for the sake of bloat accomplishes zero.
I don’t see why a cohesive and smooth spec needs another button for RP reasons.
If you went to logs and compared blue spell casts vs other spells for all three specs, you can very much see the blue identity of dev.
Devastation has plenty of spec identity.
We’re not blue dragons by any stretch of the imagination.
Doing something for Scalecommander like making deep breath have blue flair instead of black would be cool, but we certainly don’t need extra buttons just for a tally on a spreadsheet.
I wouldn’t mind some more passive abilities that can be oriented towards blue that don’t even involve combat, like shapeshift options for different races, or having another class that can summon, or conjuration of some sort. There’s a lot they can do to add to class flavor that they haven’t so far.
Because I care about class fantasy? It’s not “bloat for the sake of bloat.”
Also from a purely gameplay perspective, giving utility spells to a spec starved for utility that competes with Augmentation but all it has is dumb raw damage is not a bad idea either.
I don’t see why a cohesive and smooth spec needs another button for RP reasons.
All it has over the other evoker specs is just damage. Pyre = just damage, Surge = just damage, Star = damage, Firestorm = just… damage (barely). No extra cc, defensives, utility, support, or anything other than just pew pew. Maybe it’s smooth but definitely not cohesive.
Couldn’t agree more, but the spells we need already exist. Timelessness, spatial paradox, defy fate, stretch time will do an insane amount for the spec. We don’t need extra utility to be blue just cause it’s got less of a spell count.
It’s easily one of the most cohesive DPS specs right now imo, but that’s largely subjective so there’s no point in endlessly debating that.
But those are Augmentation spells. They can’t simply be made available to all specs because 1) it steps on (tramples really) Aug’s turf and 2) makes other specs more generic.
Instead of Timelessness, Devastation can get a passive threat reduction for itself only. Rather than Defy Fate, Dev should just get a Blue absorb shield that can be cast on self/allies.
Stretch Time can be a choice node with Recall (the talent that returns you to your starting point when you do a flyover). That one I can agree with.
Spatial Paradox has absolutely no business outside of Aug’s kit. A support spec should have unique utility like this and Timelessness, it’s the whole point.
It really would be a relief if they added those super useful abilities to the main tree rather than the stuff we have currently which should honestly be base spellbook abilities and not flippin’ talents.
Spatial Paradox, that mega immunity self-heal (I don’t heal much if it wasn’t obvious…), time spiral and zephyr should be abilities available to all specs without a talent point cost.
This is a completely cooked take. Spatial Paradox has too many moments, especially in prog, where it unlocks phases for you in a way that playing dev isn’t an option.
These spells are all critical to dev being able to compete with aug on very high end content.
I’m less worried with how many spells of each color we have (because lore/fantasy doesnt matter for balance) and more concerned with what will create an equitable situation for devastation.
I assume you’re talking about emerald communion, and I absolutely don’t want it. Once you’re at full HP it gives healing to others–we would 100% be stopping dps to use this during key moments in fights and that would feel awful. It’s also not an immunity in any way, shape, or form. Rush of Vitality makes it increase your hp for 15 seconds, but there’s no damage immunity attached.
You’re missing the point. You wouldn’t be using this to avoid death, it would be an assigned cd for the raid in any decently led raid group.
Standing still as a dps to channel a healing cooldown is beyond stupid. You’d get more value out of using a DR, leeching through dps, and getting healed by your actual healers, VE, rescue shield, any of the above.
Weren’t you the guy who someone mentioned dying to gnarlroot mythic without even using renewing blaze? If you won’t even use a 1-GCD healing defensive, why would I believe you’d channel an entire EC?
If it were an actual DR, immunity (no idea where you decided it was an immunity) it would be a totally different story.
I do wish devastation had more blue spells and that some of those blue spells were pure arcane rather than spellfrost to emphasize the offensive power blasting nature of a devastation evoker. It’s nice for class fantasy and it even makes sense because malygos was his best friend so it seems like he’d have incoporated more of teh spellweaver’s magic into his creations.
Not wanting better self-heals to use in an emergency, or better yet to save yourself in solo content or PvP is what’s stupid. Most classes have some sort of reset ability or big defensive skill, but not devastation, so it would make sense. And it’s not like having overheals go to other players would be a bad thing either. A raid defensive ability would be great. Zephyr is ok, but pretty weak compared to something like darkness or AMZ.
Doesn’t Devastation get the most blue spells out of everyone, such as Shattering Star and Eternity Surge? With our entire damage kit focused around Disintegrate, a blue spell?
Zephyr is meh, but it’s certainly better than nothing. The only problem is that there ISN’T anything else. It’s not like we get to pick an option, that’s all we get. The above mentioned abilities, AMZ and Darkness are main abilities. Incredibly strong and free of charge. Not a capstone choice…
And really it would be best for PvP. I don’t think I’ve even seen it used outside of PvP.
