State of Devastation Evoker – 10.0.7 PvP

Classes Evoker
1

Hey everyone, wanted to give my thoughts and ideas for Devastation Evoker moving forward from now in 10.0.7 and recommendations going forward!

Background, I’ve been 2900+ in Solo Shuffle on Devastation Evoker this season, and have multi classed many different classes 2.5+ throughout the WoW Expansions (Ele Shaman and Destro were my main characters before Evoker, which I will compare below).

I’ll get more into detail in the reply below but will start with the TL;DR. This will be broken down by “The Good”, “The Bad”, and “My Recommendations”.

Good: CC abilities on both Evoker specs feel great, between sleep walk, landslide root, and deep breath stun. Hover walk and cast creates a “Duck and Cover” playstyle which feels unique and fun (Read this segment below for a description on this). I think the class lacks defensively, but still feel this makes for a great and unique playstyle. Dev Evoker consistent damage (Outside of cooldowns) feels like it’s in a great spot.

Bad: You are easily kite-able as a Wizard class which feels awkward, by Frost Mages, Hunters, and oddly enough cannot escape Ret Paladin with their range increase. Marks Hunter emphasizes heavy burst damage like Dev Evoker, with near 2x the range on abilities (Good luck fellow Dev Evokers). Pair a class like Rogue or Ret that can stun and setup with a Hunter or Frost Mage, and your defensive kit is checkmated. Despite the fun “Duck and Cover” playstyle, Dev Evoker is obviously lacking from a Defensive toolkit standpoint, and if more of them played in general for statistics, I think many would clearly see Devastation is “Squishier” than even Ret Paladin Pre-today’s buff. Dev Evoker damage inside of cooldowns is also too high, but the 10.1 Crit nerf addresses this well, and without this offensive strength, you have no win conditions being so fragile defensively.

Recommendation: Add passive damage mitigation (Some baseline passive defensive strength) such as reduced damage taken by 10% - 15%. Increase non-empower spells to a 40 yard range, so you aren’t awkwardly kited by other ranged classes / wizards. Evoker was introduced to bring a new ranged caster DPS into this game, and it feels noticeably weaker that they are only “Half ranged” compared to most other classes, which is one of their most exploitable weaknesses.

3 Likes
2

More Detail on the Good, Bad, and Recommendations:

The Good:

  • CC - Contrary to what others might say, between Sleep Walk, Deep Breath Stun, and Landslide I feel the Evoker CC Kit (For Both Dev and Pres) is in an excellent spot.
  • Hover walk and cast interaction feels really good especially with Devastation Evoker being especially squishy (We’ll get further into that below). This allows for what I coined as the “Duck and Cover” strategy, where I can use Deep Breath / Eternity Surge / Fire Breath, and use walk and cast Hover to Living Flame heal yourself behind pillar before the next go. This makes for a more “Set-up” based playstyle that is actually quite fun (Despite Devastation Evoker being WAY too weak defensively).
    • Disintegrate - For Arena matches, I feel Disinitegrate is finally in a good spot damage wise, where Dev Evoker damage outside of cooldowns still needs to be respected. Feels good here after the last few hotfixes increasing Disintegrate damage.

The Bad:

  • Defensive Comparison - I want to start by saying this. It is quite clear Ret Paladin’s recent hotfixes are way too powerful, but I understand after a rework things take time. Ret’s defensive kit was buffed substantially due to the data showing a high kill rate on them. If people actually played Devastation Evoker, I’d dare say the data would confirm it is more vulnerable than Pre-buff Ret paladin. Also a factor to this, is many players don’t know what Devastation Evokers do since the participation rate is at record lows for a new class in Arena (Compared to DK, Monk, and DH at release). Therefore inexperienced players in arena may not attack them because they are unaware of everything in their kit.
  • Defensive Cooldowns - While I do like the Renewing Blaze adjustment in 10.0.7 and think it’s a step in the right direction… It is quite clear that Devastation has the weakest survivability of any DPS spec in WoW Arena. I know its hard to say “No bias” in this argument, but I am a multi classer and have played just about every class in this game at 2K+, and a lot of them above 2.4. I do like 2x Obsidian Scales and Renewing Blaze, HOWEVER, the problem is that Evoker is extremely vulnerable in stuns and does not have comparable answers to other specs for defensive options while stunned. I understand it is better to have to “pre-emptively” activate cooldowns before CC, but the problem is that Ret’s have several buttons to activate in defensives, mages have ice block and blink in stun, warlock 3 specs unending resolve, shadow priests have dispersion in stun, warriors can ride defensive stance, elemental shaman can astral shift in silence atleast and thunderstorm stuns, druids barkskin, etc. This makes Evokers a standout appealing target to stun, and it is very easy to 100-0 an Evoker in a stun as a Sub Rogue or Ret Paladin. You trinket the first set up to activate 1x Obsidian Scale or it is guaranteed death, then the Rogue or Ret retreat to the pillar to reset stun DR, and kill you in the second stun no problem. This section is getting lengthy so I will wrap this up here: Devastation is especially vulnerable in stuns compared to other classes (Mostly to melee), and does not have a Shield in off hand for passive damage mitigation as a mail armor wizard class, like Elemental Shaman does (Which also airs on the squishy side).
  • Dead Zone / “The Kite-able” Wizard - When playing against casters (Mainly Frost Mage and Marks Hunter) one of the most frustrating elements to Devastation Evoker is because every spell has a 25 yard max range, you can be kited as if you are melee, by classes with slows and high burst damage like Frost Mage and Marks Hunter. I know this is not a favored word around here, but for lack of a better 1, this design feels clunky to be kited as a Wizard Class and have no response. I know when designed, 25 yard range was a core design around Evoker, however, I think for rotational abilities that are not empowered (Mainly just Living Flame and Disintegrate) could largely benefit from a 40 yard range, so you have something to respond with to alleviate pressure when a marks hunter or frost mage sits 40 yards back while a rogue stuns you and rips you apart. Feels like there is nothing you can do in response, and you just have to take those blows against Rogue/Mage/Healer or Rogue/Hunter/Healer. You cannot defend yourself vs the ranged class at 40 yards, and you are way too vulnerable against Rogue stun chain, so you can only live 1 set up with your trinket, until they inevitably finish you in the next setup.

My Recommendations:

  • Increase Living Flame and Disintegrate Range (Possibly Azure Strike too) to a 40 yard range - I like the 25 yard range idea for the core hard hitting Evoker abilities (come to 25 yard range for Eternity Surge and Fire Breath, which also feels good because they are aoe abilities anyways). This allows us to counter pressure mages and hunters that kite us as a wizard class (Which feels just awkward). Now even Ret Paladins can out range us, and our only defensive strength is our mobility, but if Ret Paladins, Frost Mages, and Hunters can either kite us or outrange us, this defensive strength of mobility is rendered unhelpful.
  • More Passive Defensive Mitigation - Mail armor wizards, Elemental shaman atleast has earth shield and a physical shield in off hand to help mitigate constant pressure from melee classes (on top of great mobility like Evoker). Couple that with wind shear, tremor totem, and grounding totem, and Elemental also has excellent passive defensive mitigation. Couple that with the fact Elemental Shaman cannot be kited by other range classes like Dev Evoker can. While Dev Evoker has powerful hybrid healing and mobility, it only has 3 moderately defensive cooldowns, none of which can be activated in CC like most other classes that are thriving. I think something like a 10% passive damage reduction could be beneficial (OR a Different Idea would be for 8 seconds after using Verdant’s Embrace, you take 10%-15% reduced damage). That way you still need to pre-emptively activate a defensive answer, but with VE on a shorter cooldown, you aren’t punished as hard as activating Obsidian scales too early.
4 Likes
3

I’ll leave my thoughts here as well. 3300 Devastation in Solo Shuffle.

Gonna have to disagree with you on this one. Part of the reason the class feels so fragile, imo, is a lack of control. I also think it’s unhealthy for our stun to be tied to Deep Breath, which can also easily do half of a player’s health.

Yes and no. I think Disintegrate is in a good place, but it still feels very much like a Scintillation slot machine as to whether or not the damage is impactful. One good crit ES proc can easily double the overall damage dealt.

Interestingly, Elemental Shaman looks to be getting a new major defensive via honor talents with 10.1. We arguably have something similar (Time Stop) but unfortunately, Time Stop requires such perfect timing that it’s often a curse as much as a blessing… I’ve seen healers trinket and waste major defensives into it, for example, which has put me off of the talent in most situations. The level of coordination needed to compensate for its downsides are just unrealistic outside of being in voice.

Anyway, I think we could definitely stand to be more passively tanky. We shouldn’t have weak defensives AND a short range.

You mentioned the Ret rework, and I think that’s a good example of providing reliable passive tankiness in the toolkit. Was it a little overkill? Yeah, I think so, but only because there are so many talents that were added for this purpose.

Adding 1-2 meaningful passive mitigation talents to Devastation would make a huge difference.

4 Likes
4

I honestly think that the evoker as a midrange has its charm, so I am not in favor of increasing its range more than it already has, the defensive on the other hand, I am in favor of improving them, this is a race-class based on dragons, I don’t understand how it is so fragile, it should be a sturdy one.

1 Like
5

Thanks for sharing your experience Shamblewing, im a bit of a forum noob so I’ll just copy and paste replies below:

Shamblewing: Gonna have to disagree with you on this one. Part of the reason the class feels so fragile, imo, is a lack of control. I also think it’s unhealthy for our stun to be tied to Deep Breath, which can also easily do half of a player’s health.

My response: I actually feel our CC toolkit is pretty well set, mage and lock air on the side of too much cc with no cd on poly or fear. I feel like we are basically elemental shaman, we have a sleep walk = hex on 15 sec cd, landslide root on 1.5min cd (maybe too long of a cd) and deep breath stun on 1 min cd similar to lightning lasso (Elemental has to channel lasso damage and cannot use its other abilities during the stun, similar to Deep Breath and its stun).

In regards to Deep Breath stun, I feel like Landslide and Deep Breath stun could trade places. It is strange the landslide root has a longer CD than Deep Breath damage + stun. I think making Landslide a “skill shot” stun and making Deep Breath the root with the talent could make things more interesting and allow us to land deep breath in arena easier with pre stunning them with landslide.

Shamblewing: Yes and no. I think Disintegrate is in a good place, but it still feels very much like a Scintillation slot machine as to whether or not the damage is impactful. One good crit ES proc can easily double the overall damage dealt.

My response: I agree that Disintegrate damage is only good because of Scintallion slot machine. Its a non-negotiable / must have talent for every Dev Evoker. Because that is the case, it could be good to bake this effect into the spell passively, and replace the talent with something more optional.

Shamblewing: Interestingly, Elemental Shaman looks to be getting a new major defensive via honor talents with 10.1. We arguably have something similar (Time Stop) but unfortunately, Time Stop requires such perfect timing that it’s often a curse as much as a blessing… I’ve seen healers trinket and waste major defensives into it, for example, which has put me off of the talent in most situations. The level of coordination needed to compensate for its downsides are just unrealistic outside of being in voice.

Anyway, I think we could definitely stand to be more passively tanky. We shouldn’t have weak defensives AND a short range.

My response: I totally agree with Time Stop. It’s an okay spell at best, but with so much emphasis on No Voice Solo Shuffle, this spell can be horrible. If a healer wastes a cooldown like “MW Monk Revival” into time stop, the spell just yielded you a net negative. Just a worse Ice block / aspect of the turtle, for an already fragile class. Passive tankyness is probably the best solution here. Only makes sense being that we are suppose to be a big scaly dragon class.

Shamblewing: You mentioned the Ret rework, and I think that’s a good example of providing reliable passive tankiness in the toolkit. Was it a little overkill? Yeah, I think so, but only because there are so many talents that were added for this purpose.

Adding 1-2 meaningful passive mitigation talents to Devastation would make a huge difference.

My response: I agree Ret rework was overkill buffing them, its a good foundation for them, but clearly way overtuned. The passive tankyness they gained makes sense for Evoker as a scaly dragon hero class. You would think a dragon to be a difficult to take down enemy. Back in Mists of Pandaria, Elemental Shaman got a glyph that made lightning shield reduce damage taken by 10%. Being that Devastation is also a mail armor wizard (That cannot wear a shield in OH like Ele Shaman) a solution like 10% passive damage reduction could be a huge step in the right direction.

Thanks for adding your input as a high rated Dev Evoker Shamblewing, I think we agree more than we disagree.

To conclude, I’m curious, what your thoughts are on increasing the range of non-empower spells (Say Living Flame and Disintegrate, and MAYBE Azure Strike) to 40 yards so we cannot be kited so easily by other ranged DPS. Not sure if you feel the same way, but feels very weird to be kited as a ranged wizard spec. Atleast charging up a big Living Flame with offhealing can help us fend off frost mages and hunter max ranging at 40 yards with a melee keeping us at bay.

2 Likes
6

I think having too many separate range differentiators (25 yd Azure Strike, 30 yd Fire Breath cone, 40 yd Disintegrate / LF, 50 yd Landslide / Deep Breath) might end up feeling chaotic and unintuitive.

The 25 yd thing can be frustrating, but it does create a unique gameplay style. My biggest gripe is that unique doesn’t mean much when all you get out of the bargain is downsides… our mobility isn’t sufficient to kite many melee, our spells are slow casts or channeled, and our defensives are weak.

In my mind, the solution is to double down on 25 yards while actively compensating the spec for this unique downside or increasing all spells to a 40yd range.

3 Likes
7

I agree the varying range may feel weird, I just think its equally as weird to have a new ranged DPS class that is kite-able by other ranged specs. Like on Devastation it feels absolutely hopeless vs Rogue/Mage and Rogue/Hunter (Or replace Rogue with Ret in either scenario). Having a melee that can stun and pin you down, while another wizard can hit you 40 yards away, but you cannot exchange blows just feels wrong. I think it’s why Devastation was so weak in the Rogue/Mage meta prior to these Ret buffs. According to most the “Arena Tier Lists” out there by the Pros/Streamers, everyone unanimously has Devastation as the weakest overall spec in the game (Excluding tanks, which you could make a case that BM Monk and Prot Pala are stronger in Rated 3s).

With Devastation Evoker being towards the bottom in overall spec strength / arena viability, I got to think a strong correlation to their underperformance is their limited range. There are rumors of a 3rd Evoker spec in 10.1 or the patch after… I can only hope it will be a 40 yard range wizard DPS spec. That way the 25 yard flavor of Devastation could stay, and we have a backup spec if Devastation is just fundamentally weak in PvP due to this range limitation.

The best solution moving forward is to make the class tankier with that said. I think if we start there, then we can start honing in on the other issues with the spec.

8

Wanted to add this here for a better explanation regarding the fundamental flaw of a 25 yard range limit, for a short ranged DPS wizard:

If you play Devastation to decently high rating in Arena its obvious we are countered by: All 3 rogue specs, Rets (Only since their 10.0.7 changes, and that includes post nerf), Feral druids, unholy death knights, marksman and beast mastery hunters, all 3 warlock specializations, elemental shaman, and frost mage.

Do you notice a theme? We are countered by stun based melee with good uptime (Melee spec Ret Paladin has more range than Devastation on most of their spells even…) we are also countered by Durable ranged DPS classes and Ranged DPS classes that can just run in our “Deadzone” (Which is between 26-40 yards) and kite and slow us, where we cannot defend ourselves at all. Think Hunters in Wotlk when they inevitably knew, the dead zone must be removed. Take a Marksmanship Hunter and Sub Rogue in an Arena vs a Devastation Evoker for example. Rogue uses kidney into cheap shot, hunter sits 40 yards back nuking us. What do we do? Trinket 1 set up to maybe hold on and die in the next kidney shot? If we trinket kidney bomb, we just died in kidney shadowy duel because we are not powerful enough defensively to live setups.

The biggest problem = Other specializations (Underrepresented or not, such as warlock) are continuing to improve, and Devastation Evoker continues to receive minimal work in a very weak spot. Causing the spec to fall further and further behind in terms of competitiveness in Arena

2 Likes
9

Minimal work? I think you mean consistent nerfs. We’ve done nothing but get hammered down time and again.

Remind me of any positive changes to devastation in PvP. I can’t seem to recall any.
You’re sugar-coating steaming garbage.

1 Like
10

Minimal work and I stand by that. I’d say the theme of the Dragonflight patch notes, hotfix, and class tuning sections would be a blank Devastation section, and oftentimes an outright blank section for the Evoker class all together.

Only positive change I’ve seen thus far was a few tunings to Disintegrate, it helps, but like putting lipstick on a pig as far as solving the greater problem at hand.

Only other positive change would be the return of Divide and Conqueror PvP Talent in 10.1.

Making us even more of a 1 trick Deep Breath spec does not solve anything, with that said.

1 Like
11

I don’t count the disintegrate buff as positive at ALL since it was meant to compensate for the nerf to fire breath, but fails at that since disintegrate is still far too reliant on eternity surge procs and far too easy to interrupt, critically halting devastation dps. It was a nerf, plain and simple.

As for next patch, at this point I have little faith that any positive changes will not be combined with other, unasked for alterations that will negate any good they do.

2 Likes
12

Unless more utility is brought to the class soon, the only stopgap measure I can think of would be to give Devastation a Mortal Strike effect. That would at least open up more comp options that synergize with our high damage, low control playstyle.

13

From my short time, and more casual experience playing the class, they need something to help them deal with stuns. The class plays in too close a range to things to not have some sort of defensive measure in that regard. Mobility means nothing when every melee has gap closers.

3 Likes
14

Yeah, that would definitely be helpful. The broader problem with Devastation, however, is that it has no win condition besides randomly one-shotting with burst. It doesn’t have CC. Its sustained damage is only exceptional when it can freely cleave 2-3 players.

Even if you live for 5 minutes, you don’t have a reliable method for ending an arena match versus competent players.

1 Like
15

An execute that uses 100% health-based mastery would help a lot. So would a bubble.

2 Likes
16

Yeah. They would help.

But to reiterate, we need more ways to create win conditions that aren’t just “do more damage” or “don’t die.” Even if we can keep the game going, we have 1 very weak CC to lock down healers (which can be broken with Tremor Totem, Will of the Forsaken, etc.) and essentially nothing to lock down the kill target (Terror of the Skies is our only stun).

In high MMR lobbies, players rarely die within these windows. Especially in the current Ret meta, with Blessing of Spellwarding and other powerful anti-caster defensives.

4 Likes
17

This exactly! While I think sleep walk is a decent CC for the 15 second CD (And somewhat comparable to Ele Shaman Hex) our win condition is to 100-0 something quickly because that’s how our mastery forces us to operate. Deep Breath being our offensive stun is far from ideal (Imo make Landslide the stun, and Deep Breath talent a root, makes sense with landslide on a 1.5min cd and deep breath 1min cd)

An execute could definitely be helpful for Devastation. Awkwardly enough, the lower HP % my target, the lower probability I will finish the target. I’m better off hoping for a 100-0 Eternity Surge insta living flame combo or huge deep breath and tip the scales fire breath combo. If my target lingers at 30% hp, very low probability i can finish because my mastery just essentially nerfs my damage at that %.

I’ve played a decent amount since the post 10.0.7 Ret Nerfs, and I can confidently say Devastation feels horrible, like low C Tier to D Tier. Still stand by that Prot Paladin and Brewmaster monk are actually stronger in Rated 3s.

We use to counter most melees like Ret, but now Ret has more range and 10x the defensive strength we do. They now counter us, feel very confident in saying that. Against a competent rogue, you’d be lucky to live 2-3 kidney shot setups. DK buffs which we now also struggle with immensely, feral counters us because they have 100% up time. Even enhance is hard because their Ascendance outranges us and they can use grounding, tremor and shear to be disruptive.

Not sure exactly what Devastation Evoker thrives against, it use to be Ret, but Ret clearly outclasses us now

2 Likes
18

Summary of My Recommendations:

1. Devastation needs an execute: Our mastery essentially nerfs our damage the lower health % our target is. Making it extremely difficult to finish a target at say 30% HP. You have a higher probability of 100-0ing something very quickly, making it extremely difficult to land kills outside of Dragonrage. An execute ability (Maybe that scales inversely to your mastery) could certainly help to remedy this.

2. Devastation needs some love defensively: This spec is easily the “Squishiest” DPS spec in Arena, as you are hindered by a limited range and no defensive abilities or passive that can help you during stuns. We NEED some passive defensives / passive tankiness, as a scaly Dragon it only makes sense, and similar to the attention Ret got during it’s rework. Currently, it is very easy for a Rogue/Mage/Healer or Rogue/Hunter/Healer to kill you within 2-3 kidney shot set ups. Because you are limited to 25 yards, a hunter or mage can sit 40 yards back while a Rogue stuns you, and you cannot defend yourself against the Ranged class, and you only have 1 trinket to activate to save yourself in stun. You will be checkmated within 1-2 kidney shots on the next setup.

3. Range Limitation a Huge Fundamental Design Flaw: Going off of the last point, being limited to 25 yard range has proven to be a huge issue for Devastation in an Arena PvP scenario. You can be kited by ranged classes which is very awkward, Melee Spec Ret Paladin has more range on it’s rotational abilities than we do and 10x the defensive strength, making them now a hard counter to us (We use to counter them). When you are defenseless against Ranged DPS Classes that can kite you, and highly susceptible to death in every stun, you know there is a fundamental flaw with the defensive strength. Last point here: Just about every Ranged DPS is viable and performing atleast decently well in Arenas except Devastation Evoker. I suspect a correlation to Devastation being the only ranged class limited to no more than 25 yards on their abilities.

BONUS - Attention to CC: By in large I think our CC is in a good spot despite many other Evokers feeling differently. Sleep Walk is in a great spot. However, I feel making Landslide a 4 second AOE Stun, and switching the Deep Breath stun talent to a root, makes a great deal of sense, and allows us to be “Less scripted / predictable” by not tying our Stun directly into our largest damage dealing ability.

1 Like
19

defying common sense and logic, 2 day after controversial patch release, this guy already had a clear picture of the whole new meta and specifically devoker spec state
and everything is fine according to survivorship bias

and this oneshot prenerf mastery abuser has a very inspiring “devoker can enjoy haste like every other class, git gut” message but didn’t queue his main since 2022 and couldn’t even keep his 2400 alt rating for long

this all perfectly sums up the surreal state of the devoker pvp community
people were silent about spec state and abused prenerf mastery oneshots
then just went to play alts or something else

20

Very few people were playing Devastation at a high level (that’s still true). Those that did were primarily arguing that one-shot burst is all the class brought to the table.

I think a consistent criticism of the spec has been that it’s a a memey noobstomper that lacks the ability to create win conditions outside of randomly blowing people up.

The folks defending the one shots were largely inexperienced players, because big dam is basically how you win at low rating.

1 Like