So Let’s start off with answering the title. What is my problem with the Devstation Evoker?
Simply: Too simple.
Personally, I love Augmentation and Preservation. If you asked me, I would say they are the best parts of the class. Checking this forum that is… clearly an unpopular opinion but I stand by it. You have the choices between a simple healer and a complex manipulator of damage, or a DPS who’s gameplay revolves around maintaining the buff you grant for as long as possible and an off healer who gives out a buff as a bonus, with similar aspects to it’s counterpart. It’s encouraging to see the variety. Love it to death.
With Devastation, however, Your choices are:
- Single Target Damage focusing around Disintergrate! And you get to occasionally press Eternity Surge, a button that a descent amount of bunch of damage to one target, or can hit a couple targets if you hold it longer. And a quick button press in Shattering star to increase the damage the enemy takes, with a flat % chance to proc another Surge hitting. If you like, some rotating damage with Pyre. But only a little. Because that’s saved for!
- AOE in Firestorm! A mediocre AoE with a weak appearance and a weak loop! Because your pyres and your living flames have a Flat 15% chance to proc it as instant cast and deal twice the damage! Just pray your Tank doesn’t kite the mob away from it because of mechanics.Oh, and Pyre might maybe possibly jump, if you like. As a treat, once every 75 Pyres.
Toss in the occasional Deep breath and Hey! You’re a full blown dragon! Just like Onyxia or Nefarian! Right?
No. We all know that isn’t the truth. But let’s also all be fair and reasonable. It isn’t awful. It’s just barren. There’s no flare or theme. No moment that grabs you by the heart and makes you feel Awesome! Not like a well executed window in Arcane, burning through charge after charge until you Evocate to get all your spent mana back. Or the chains of Pyroblasts you’re throwing. Or legions of minions you rip from the nether like a Warlock, or the divine purpose of a priest saving allies or driving your opponents so far into the madness their brains pop and seep out their skulls. And not even like hitting Rewind as a Preservation, LITERALLY undoing the damage done to your whole party in a couple of seconds! Or breathing the emerald life across a hurting party of people, only to {Rescue} them from a mechanic. Or Keeping that Ebon Might up through flames, and rolling earth, and the Sands of Time weaving around your foes only to mimic the damage you inflict as you bellow out a roar that inspires, for only a few moments, greater Ferocity in your party!
Devastation needs something to bring it in line. A few abilities that feel good to press that aren’t utility. Because they do have some damn good utility.
So let’s come up with a hypothetical moment that a Devoker builds towards. What should they do? What would make them feel like they’re the true, condensed power of Dragon Kind?
Honestly, it’s tough. But I think I have a good hypothetical for both Blue and Red Dracthyr.
Before reading beyond this point, it bears mentioning I am NOT a Mythic raider, a Mythic Dungeoneer, or a Tier 11 Delver. I am what I will dub myself a softcore player. I like to dabble in a variety of things, especially now that I have the ability to get to a reasonable point to do so. But I am aware that NONE of this considers High Level play. This is purely designed around feel and fantasy, like what I think a Blizzard Dev does. If you disagree about X Y or Z thing, by all means! You are entitled to your opinion! I just dislike having a problem with something without having a solution, so I wanted to take a stab. Right now this is all experimental. There’s room for proper refinement later, because right now is the time for bold ideas brought BACK into Alignment. It’s always to dial back the volume than it is to turn it up.
Still here? Sweet.
Firstly, let’s make some changes to some talents. No more flat freaking percentages on any of this. 15% is nonsense for how minor the effects are. If I wanna build crit, I’ll build crit to make it happen. SO that’s what we’re gonna do! On a critical strike, Pyre and Snapfire proc. So now if you want to let chaos reign and have bouncing balls of fire leaping through AOE situations, you can. Which leads me to my next point:
(Note: Crit is NOT the only solution to this issue, and likely not even the best. But its the obvious one.)
Devastate : Dragonrage’s duration is halved. However, your Pyre’s Always bounce from their first target, with subsequent bounces being tied to your crit like before. As they do, you begin to brim with exceptionally hot spellfire, until at the end of Dragonrage you DETONATE, Dealing a percentage of the damage dealt to all enemies around you.
If Dragonrage lets your launch Pyres, let it reward you for lasting through the risk of being in the thick of it by becoming a bomb of living magic. Hell if you like, let it throw you into the air, letting you glide down to where you want.
This would keep Red Devo as the simple side. You build crit, get procs, go nuts. But in a way that’s unique from Fire mage. Mostly
Optionally, add a talent that makes it so Firestorm hovers on a target instead of being placed, dealing AoE around them. Maybe you could even let it target allies. Look at that. Immolation Aura on allies, only it deals its damage more occasionally. Cool idea.
So now for Blue. If Red is the explosive AoE, then Blue is the Surgical Single Target elimination.
Let’s star with Shattering Star. Seriously, what is this? Deal damage and let the enemy take extra damage, maybe cause an essence burst. Big Whoop. Okay, maybe statistically its fun. But it doesn’t feel fun. Instead, let’s let it do something that feels fun.
When you cast it, it doesn’t do any damage right away and doesn’t trigger the GCD. Instead you focus your attacks through it. When you deal damage to an enemy via disintegrate or pyre, you crack the star a little. The more damage you do over its duration, the more cracked the star becomes. At the end of the duration, you push the star forward with your wings as it implodes, dealing damage based on the amount you ‘dealt to the star’ over its duration. Its effectively similar to Devistate, only the duration would be shorter. A small minigame you’re playing. Storing damage and then smacking it into your enemies.
I don’t really have an issue with Eternity surge, though it has room for interest. Perhaps it should be inverted. Instead of spreading out with empowering, it should focus. From dozens of small stars into a singular focused comet that slams from the heavens into your opponent. Which may well lead me to my last idea.
Focusing Iris: This is an empowered ability. Like the hypothetical rework of Eternity surge, this ability starts off as an ability that spreads its damage across multiple enemies before dealing big damage to one. But this isn’t just small stars. I’ll leave you to wonder as to my inspiration, but as you empower the ability the cone in front of you narrows further and further, until it’s a ‘thin’ line in front of you. As you release the button at its climax, you unleash a beam of concentrated Spellfrost so cold it rimes your wings and tail. If you time it right with Shatterstar, you’re not just disintegrating your enemies on repeat for minutes on end. You are Erasing them from this place, Along with almost anything directly behind or in front of them.
With the changes to Pyre and the other abilities, I think it’s in a good spot. Leave Deep Breath as a good, thematic ability, and I think Devistation would be a lot more fun to play.
Finally, I like the idea of juggling Spellfrost and Flame. Let’s add one last Talent for Deep Breath. Keristraza’s Fury. Half Deep Breath’s upfront damage. After you land, you gain a buff. For each Blue Spell, your next applies Keristraza’s Fury stacks of a dot called Crystalline Agony. For each Red Spell, gain a buff called Lifebinder’s Mercy, granting temporary health for the duration. When the buff ends, you can recast Deep Breath, though the spell is changed to the talent’s name.
These are my ideas. As I said before with the Pyre Changes, is this Balanced? Elune No. This whole concept is flawed to hell and back. But the idea is what im hoping is seen and taken and inspires a better version of the class. Where do these talents go? How do you get them? How do they interact with Hero talents? Who Knows!? It needs considering, but the considerations needs a place to root and grow from. The damn thing just needs Pizazz and I wanted a place to start.
TL;DR, I think Devistation needs to lean harder into the Aspects of Fire being Aoe Damage and Spellfrost being Single Target, while also opening room to juggle those aspects in an interesting way.
PS. You’re awesome for reading this far. Have a good day.