Does anyone else feel that the Devastation spec is lacking in the identity area? Currently dev doesn’t really have many unique abilities for its spec. Most of its talents just revamp the baseline. Preservation, however, has many unique abilities that make it seem like that spec got preferential treatment during design.
Personally I’d very much like fire breath to be spec specific (with an improved animation that isn’t the red sparkle smoke) along with deep breath. Give us more black df magma abilities.
I love the class concept but feel my spec is just lacking. Evoker feels like it could have been given more love overall during development.
3 Likes
Eternity Surge is Dev’s unique showstopper. Pres would have Spirit bloom ( think thats whats it called) - aug has eruption. What Dev lacks is a unique deep breath attack. I would love a red or blue themed deep breath.
I agree with this and honestly, you could say the same for deeper class theme/identity across the board.
Like Tea said, Dev could have a Blue Breath attack as an example. However, it seems that creativity is falling a bit by the wayside when it comes to really creating distinct abilities and specs. I think Hero Talents are a way to dive deeper into that but when they have talents that only “Increase/Decrease” this number it’s really boring.
I think one of the most bland abilities in the game is a Hunter’s Multi-Shot. It’s like you’re only shooting out 3 4th of July Sparklers and that’s it. Since Multi Shot activates Beast Cleave, just get rid of Multi Shot and let the ability be Beast Cleave and make a cool visual for it. Maybe have large tear/scratch marks happen across the target to make it pretty noticable and cool.
Blizz seems to have a hard time leaning into class fantasy vs making the spreadsheet gods happy.
And talents don’t even need to buff abilities - it could just change how they look. Course, I suppose Glyphs help the aesthetic side of things, but you get what I mean. I, as I’m sure many others, really enjoy what my character does and what they look like when use their abilities.
I’ m not sure what you mean, because Devastation’s identity feels pretty well defined. The spec is about weaving red and blue magic, and you use both types plenty.
Just because some of the spells it uses are baseline for the class doesn’t mean it’s not doing its own thing. Dev has a lot of passives that shape the way you play, rather than a bunch of different random abilities. Fewer buttons with a more deliberate playstyle, and that’s why i like it.
TBH they should give preservation a different essence dps spender, so each spec has a different one. Something to do with acid breath because that’s something green dragons do that we do not.
It’s not really weaving but just proccing essence burst and keeping Disintegration going for as long as you can while ignoring Burnout procs half of the time because living flame is only good for movement.
All of your damage comes from Disintegration alone and there isn’t any indication that they’re going to reiterate on Firestorm and the ‘red’ side of the tree after Aberrus or the newest coming patch.
LASER DRAGON STAR THROWING FIRE BREATHING LIGHT SHOW!
The spec devastation feels most like to me is ele shaman (lightning build). It’s a visual wonder, try looking away from your UI for a bit. 
Mechanically, the identity is “excels at hitting new targets”, I think it does a pretty good job at hitting that fantasy. There’s the mastery, and also the tendency to rip aggro off the tank (which I’m guilty of feeling proud of lmao).
Kind of interesting to read this considering that it was posted BEFORE the introduction of Augmentation.
That said, I love my laser dragon! I think Disintegration is my favorite Evoker ability.
The asthetic is to just “Muh Laser” your enemy to death.
It is hardly a draconic feeling class identity.
You just feel like some wierd variation of a traditional mage
Take some of Sarkareth’s phase one toolkit and drop it on evoker. Make a glittering surge iteration of deep breath or something
I think the biggest lack of the spec is disintegrate is virtually the entire spec. It’s hard to explore more of what dev is supposed to be when you spend almost all your time shooting a tiny blue stream out of your mouth. Honestly, doesn’t look intimidating either, i wouldn’t think it could disintegrate anything if you didn’t tell me it was supposed to.
It needs more breath related abilities. It needs to utilize red/blue spells and weave them more. I honestly say it needs to be redesigned entirely, as of now blue and red are virtually identical.
Their approach works for preservation because brown and green are legitimately separate fantasies and act very differently. Bronze’s fantasy of delaying damage and storing spells in a time loop works perfectly and green’s fantasy of restoring life to people both directly and over time as well as “growing” blossoms also just works. Dev is just: red do damage and blue also do damage.
Red should’ve been instant, hard hitting damage and burns and blue be a more mystical and magic way of fighting, possibly buffing your spells, debuffing enemies, creating zones of power etc. Like preservation, you should be able to favor either side and do pretty close dps with either, but no matter what choice you made you should still have a core that rotates between red and blue.
2 Likes
Imo, Devastation feels great to play, but it’s true that compared to the other specs, it lacks a more defined identity.
The red spells could have been the spells you use from afar to blow up enemies while the blue spells are used to self buff and deal some huge strikes up close before backing up.
Like Glittering Surge could have been a jump similar to Sarkareth. You jump up after a short cast and hold down the button, the more you hold the button, the less damage it will do when you come crashing down with your blue spell.
As for Fire Breath, imo, it should probably have been a channeled spell affecting the dot and direct damage similar to how it does now, but instead you breathe fire constantly while channeling it and you can stop the channel midway. (I think the reason they did the sneeze instead of this, is because of how visually noisy it would have been in a fight with multiple evokers doing it)
One other thing that could have been nice with Evoker with some melee attacks is that they can only be one race, which means they could’ve gone all out with animations that only work if you have wings/tail/claws in melee range.
Overall I can’t complain too much as I love Evoker as a class, both Pres and Dev, but it can always be improved. I’m curious to see what the hero talents will bring to Dev and where they bring the class as a whole in the next expansion.
