It isn’t fun to feel like you’re handicapped because of the class you chose. Every other caster gets a full 40 yard range while Evoker is stuck at 30
It would kind of make sense if Evokers were a melee / caster hybrid, maybe something like an unholy DK, where you’re mostly melee but can be ranged when needed.
But being a full caster who has short range because reasons just isn’t fun. It sucks. They need full range, there’s no reason for them not to have it.
Keeping a class at a disadvantage to keep them unique just shows no better or more creative ideas were had to begin with.
Every class has pros and cons, imho. With a handful of exceptions, there’s pretty much always something your class will struggle with.
Evokers (with the exception of Preservation) are limited to 25 yards, not 30. Insofar as how that limitation interacts with the game, it generally isn’t as much of an issue provided that content is designed with evokers in mind. Both Vault and Aberrus were fine. Dungeons are similarly fine. Season 3 of Dragonflight, namely Amirdrassil, is debatably the first instance where encounter design has actively and significantly outpaced Evokers’ reduced range.
Mind you, I more or less agree with the notion that Evokers should get a range buff, but less because there’s no reason not to (reduced range is presumably a large part of the reason why Evokers have a lot of mobility, for example) and more because it feels like the whole ‘breath fantasy’ aspect of evoker is currently a tad at odds with the direction Blizzard seems to be going.
But we’re not, though. As I said above, Evokers are among the most (if not a strong contender for the most) mobile classes in the game. Hover, Verdant Embrace, Rescue, Time Spiral, etc. Sure, we’ve a more restrictive range bracket than any other caster or ranged class, but we also have more than enough tools to position and reposition quickly and cleanly. Pro, being high mobility and con, being vastly reduced casting range. The only reason current content (again, mainly raid) feels as rough as it does is because boss arenas are titanic and mechanics force movement to ranges just slightly out of Evokers’ reach.
Also as I posted above, I do agree that the 25 yard range needs to be reconsidered. I just don’t agree with the notion that it was done or remains part of the class for no reason. There was a reason, and it did bring us some positives. It just isn’t aging well (and even then, you could argue that Amirdrassil is an extreme example, seeing as evokers were not only fine but had a very strong presence in both Vault and Aberrus).
They’ve got Ice Floes and Slipstream. One is a three charge cooldown that allows the mage to cast one spell while moving, and the other applies to arcane missiles with a proc and evocation.
Neither compares to Hover. It’s not simply having mobility, it’s having 20 seconds of on-demand movement while casting in addition to blink (or more aptly, fel rush) level movement and two jumps.
The general argument for keeping the shorter range is, “well, it works” and they would continue to argue that even if the range was reduced to 10 yards without ever acknowledging how unfair it is that this range class alone must suffer from shorter range while no other does. Still worse, they’ll say it’s because evoker are the most mobile ranged even though they aren’t, hunters are since they can move constantly without losing much or any dps while standing at max range.
My brother in Azeroth, that is not what anyone is saying.
Ignoring how ridiculously ad-hominem that 10 yards argument is, I’ll address the rest as one of the ‘theys’.
At no point did I ever say ‘well, it works’, or argue for keeping the current range bracket. I’ve said that I agree with the idea of blizzard reconsidering our range twice now in this thread alone. What I am and have been saying is that evokers weren’t given their limitations for no reason. We were given the mobility we have as an offset to having the shortest range bracket of any ranged class in the game. The broader implication of that statement is that increasing our range might mean having to give up or adjust some of that mobility, because having the toolkit we do now with 40 yards would be crazy strong.
Fair enough. Hunters have almost no abilities that require them to remain static, save maybe aimed shot. That doesn’t mean they have mobility anywhere near the level that Evoker does, nor does it make hunters casters.
I’ve played evoker, primarily Dev, as my main since season 1, and I can tell you that I personally haven’t experienced anything near the level of suffering you seem to think evoker players have been enduring until I started progging the middle bosses of Amirdrassil. But hey, don’t take me or my word for it. I doubt you read much of what I said at all to begin with.
If seeing the same general counter points frustrates you, maybe you ought to consider the validity of what you’re saying.
Hover is great, but it’s no more an offset than blink is except we can cast a whole 3 abilities while using it.
How on earth would being able to take ten or so steps further back make evoker “stronger”?
Of course hunters are more mobile. Simple question: can a hunter run in literal circles around a raid boss without stopping with 40 yards of space to work with while using speed boosts like cheetah and disengage and without losing dps? Can evoker do the same? Who is ultimately more mobile? Have a nice day.
Also, why even bother differentiating physical range from magic range apart from purely aesthetic reasons? At the end of the day, it’s still an avatar standing outside melee range delivering damage. Sorry to kill your immersion.
You can actually fit more into a single use of hover, but I’m being nitpicky. It’s not the volume of spells being cast, but which spells you’re able to cast while moving.
Re-read what I said. ‘The broader implication of that statement is that increasing our range might mean having to give up or adjust some of that mobility, because having the toolkit we do now with 40 yards would be crazy strong.’
Both can, actually. In fact, that’s been the case since Vault. I don’t… really understand what you’re arguing here. Thank you in any case. I’ll sure try. Edit: Correction – Evoker can’t stand at 40 yards, but otherwise both are plenty capable of ‘running rings around the boss while using movement steroids and disengages without sacrificing much if any dps’. Still trying to have a good day.
And, I differentiate them because the game differentiates them. That’s not an immersion thing, that’s a game mechanics thing.
Pretty sure we can all chalk the shorter range up to hunters existing. They proved that a rotational ability being an indiscriminate 40y cone (Barrage) causes a lot of problems and if they made Fire Breath a 40 yard cone, might have more evokers but it will also kill more evokers.
I agree with this. I think some things would make sense keeping a shorter range. Like rescue, having a 40 yard range friendly charge that can then be used to reposition 40 yards away is a lot.
However I don’t think having damaging spells and healing spells at 40 yards would be too much or have any serious impact on the class