Okay, okay, yes, I am a Demon Hunter, yes, I have fewer buttons than other classes, lets get that out of the way. 
This isn’t a complaint post, I’m asking for some help.
I started playing Preservation today while leveling in dungeons and I’m having trouble fitting everything on my bars. There’s like several reduction/healing CDs and it feels a bit overwhelming. I’m having trouble fitting everything on my keybinds.
Time Dilation, Rewind, Emerald Communion, Zephyr, Expunge… Rewind and Zephyr seem like big CDs to heal everyone or reduce the damage they take. Emerald Communion is a… personal CD? That also heals other people if you’re full hp? So I guess I shouldn’t count that as a raid CD. Time Dilation seems like it would be used much the same way as I use Blessing of Sacrifice as on my Holy Paladin. Dream Flight is I guess another raid heal?
Stasis and Time Spiral… Time Spiral seems obvious when to use but Stasis I’m not sure how to best use it. Tip the Scales I guess would be good for dealing with rapid, unplanned damage with either Spirit Bloom or Dream Breath.
Is there a way to get the cooldowns on Quell lower for Preservation? Seems to be a lot longer than Rebuke or Wind Shear.
Any advice on when and how to best use the abilities would be greatly appreciated!
Addons are helpful, personally use Vuhdo. But can also be done via macros and Keybinds. Look into creating Macros with Modifiers so that if you press Shift or Alt it does something different then just pressing it normally would do. Combine spells that make sense to you. Like you Could Combine Flame Breath and Dream Breath into one button.
When you link Everyone via Lifebind, Emerald Communion becomes like a Raid CD.
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If you need addons to play properly it means there is a design error in the game.
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Hello Mefara
Preservation can certain seem daunting at first but soon as you get a feel for the flow of it I hope you’ll find it more enjoyable! Here are some things that might help out.
Verdant Embrace is one of your best ST heals (or group wide heals when you ensure everyone has echo on them). However it can also put you in a bad spot mechanic wise. So I usually echo my entire team and then just use a macro to use it on myself. This keeps you safe and keeps your health up to make best use of your mastery (increased healing if your health is higher than your target’s).
Macro example:
#showtooltip Verdant Embrace(Green)
/cast [@Draikia] Verdant Embrace(Green)
Cooldown wise:
Time Dilation- great for tanks soaking a mechanic or the “oh sh!t that person is about to die button” gives you time to get them topped up.
Rewind- Group/Raid wide damage- be sure to use it within 5 seconds after that big damage occurring. I like to plan it out ahead of time- like on X boss mechanic I plan to use rewind and nothing else to get the team through.
Emerald Communion- Can very much be used as a group wide / raid wide CD. Use temporal orb to get out as many echos as you can. Use verdant embrace then immediately use Emerald Communion- this will keep your party/raid very healthy for whatever mechanic you need to get through because of lifebind.
Zephyr- Nice little group wide 20% DR. Use it early and often.
Stasis- The most complex spell to wrap your mind around as a newer Pres evoker but one of the best skills in the game imo. I use this constantly- it should almost always be on CD as you prepare for the next big mechanic. For M+ i’ll usually put 1x Temporal Anomaly, 1x R1 Dream Breath, 1x max rank spirit bloom into this. Then before I use it i’ll send out another TA to get echo on everyone and then VE (giving both the lifebind increase & the buff to my next dream breath on everyone through Call of Ysera) this will almost certainly get you through the next big mechanic and top your group quickly.
During raid pre-pull i’ll store 2x TAs, on pull cast the 3rd TA. Then use these 3 orbs to coat the entire raid in echoes. Once that first big damage mechanic of the boss hits VE into Emerald Communion for one of the highest hps throughput cds in the game.
I go into more detail about healing in this previous post and while its a bit older most of the information is still accurate: The honeymoon is over, Evokers - #19 by Draikia-zuljin
TLDR:
Try this build: BwbB9HUZ/a8TRPCT7X7rHDONyhAlIRIClkkESjWSSSIBAAAAAEJtQCEISSSSSEJCA
Use VE on yourself, put out as many echos as possible and keep up a R1 Dream Breath on your party.
Hope this helps. If you ever have questions feel free to hit me up. I’m by no means an expert but i’ll do my best to assist ^^
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Preservation has a lot of buttons compared to devastation, but overall, I don’t think it’s too bad, especially when compared to my resto shaman or my hunter with all my pet macros.
Try healing on a priest….
So many buttons.
And you are supposed to actually use them all.
Thank you all for the replies, I’m still figuring out the tips and tricks with Echo, seems like a very cool mechanic. Had no idea about using Verdant Embrace and Echo together to trigger Lifebind on a bunch of people, that’s incredible.
I do, I player healers more than any other role, I’ve played every healer in the game to at least 1800, I’ve played priest to almost 2100, both holy and discipline, and they don’t have more buttons than my resto shaman.
As someone who has played every single healer in the game - I have to disagree.
Priests have the most number of spells / buttons you have to press off CD.
The only way you’ll have more buttons to press than something like a resto shaman is if you’re throwing toys and potions on your toolbar. Just out of curiosity, if you type “which healer has the most buttons to press in world of warcraft dragonflight,” the first two posts automatically list priest as the healer with the fewest buttons, rofl.
Uh… maybe several years ago?
If you Google now - the top results for fewest buttons are evokers and Druids.
Yep, evoker is one of them, but the posts that I saw were both from 2023, specifically discipline, holy does have a couple more buttons.
TLDR: priest is the EASIEST healer.
Doesn’t change the fact that it has the most keybinds required.
Most posts will confirm this.
Did a little more research, you’re correct, holy is one the easiest healers, but it is one of more heavy keybind oriented classes, apologies. Me personally, I’ve never had a problem with it, I prefer discipline anyways, you get to do damage to heal.
Yea. It’s not necessarily a problem.
99% of the keybinds are pressed on CD - making it super easy.
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What makes evoker more challenging - your keybinds are used in combo.
So you have less key binds - but the order and when you push them is more.
If that makes sense?
Less key binds - but you are pressing them more often in combo with other abilities
I use in-game macros to use my normal keybinds with ctrl/shift to be something else. Triples my keyboard space.
I hate addons like vuhdo personally
Are you mad no one fell for your troll?
You don’t need add-ons like vuhdo or heal bot to heal but they certainly streamline the process. You can set up click casting through keybinds now do I personally just use that and elvui. The “you don’t need add ons” crowd is right, you don’t, but they certainly make my UI cleaner and my personal experience better. Don’t like add-ons? Fine, stop advocating for their removal, customizability helps keep games alive. This game would not be half as populated if you remove add ons.
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