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World of Warcraft: Dragonflight just released, and with its release, we got a lot of new features, including a new class, Evoker. Evokers are a dragon-themed class, and the only race that can be Evoker is Dracthyr. Dracthyr are a specific race that is exclusive to Evokers.
Do you like dragons? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly above your enemies while spitting fire all over the battlefield? Would you enjoy a caster that sometimes needs to get into melee range to get full value out of his spells? If yes, Evoker might be the class for you.
This class falls under the "Hero Class" category, which means that it has its starting zone and starts at a high level. In Evoker's case, starting level is 58. Their starting zone, The Forbidden Reach has a series of quests to introduce you to the class and takes around one to two hours to complete. Upon completion, you will be able to join other races in Azeroth.
Armor type that Evokers use is mail. They can equip Daggers, Staves, Fist Weapons, One-Handed Swords, One-Handed Axes, and One-Handed Maces. They can also use offhands, but cannot dual wield. Keep in mind that Evokers have only a twenty five yards range on spells, instead of the usual forty as other casters.
- The core mechanics of this class are Empowered spells. This is a new casting system exclusive to Evokers. Not every spell can be empowered, just a specific few. How does this work? There are three ranks of empowerment, and the longer you cast the spell the stronger the spell will be. So, if you hold the cast bar up to full, a spell can have different effects (for example, the spell becomes a big instant heal instead of heal over time) or do a lot more damage, heal multiple allies instead of one, and so on! From my experience, this is a very fun thing to experiment with.
- Evoker has two specializations: Devastation (Damage) and Preservation (Healer). Let's take a closer look:
Devastation
- As we all had a chance to test this specialization in Pre-patch, it is very important to note that this specialization was missing some crucial talents that we can unlock when we hit the max level cap in Dragonflight. So, if you were not having that much fun playing Devastation in Pre-patch, make sure to try it out at max level, it is a lot different!
When we look at the stats priority for Devastation, we have to take a closer look at their mastery. The tooltip for Devastation's mastery is the following: "Increases the damage of your spells by up to 20.0%, based on the current health of your target. Higher health targets take more damage." It is a high-health execute. According to this, we can see the Mastery being Devastation's main stat, followed by haste and crit.
Devastation Evokers use Essence to cast spells, similar to Rogue's Combo points or Paladin's Holy power system. The main ideology of this specialization is to maintain Fire Breath's damage over time on the enemy while spending Essence on spells like Disintegrate and Pyre. Disintegrate is one of the main Single Target abilities, while Pyre is Area of Effect focused. Devastation AoE is great but it is not flexible, for it to have full effect mobs must be stacked and stationary, which isn't that common nowadays.
Preservation
- It has been a long time since we got a new healing specialization added to the game, and Blizzard did a phenomenal job with this one. Rewinding time to heal injured players, flying with Verdant Embrace to players to heal them, storing spells, and communing with players that are near you are just a few of the things you can do as Preservation Evoker.
Preservation's single target healing is alright but nothing spectacular in terms of power, but their AoE healing is very good. I can confidently say that it is even the best in the game.
Using your Dream Breath on cooldown with empower level one will put a decent heal-over-time effect on all party members. Combine this with Verdant Embraces and the many Reversions you will have on your teammates and you will have constant control of their health bars.
Spiritbloom is one of the spells you can empower, and it is also one of your emergency healing buttons on a thirty second cooldown. Try to fully empower it to get a big AoE healing going out.
If you are playing with a group of melees you can try healing them with Emerald Blossom. This spell provides good healing but because of a lot of movement going on in end-game content, this is not an ideal spell to spend your essence on. If you are in a situation where everybody is stacked, this should be your go-to Essence spending ability.
Rewind is Preservation's biggest cooldown, but in my opinion, it is not as good as Stasis. Rewind heals teammates for 50% of all damage taken in the last 5 seconds, try to not be too greedy with this.
Stasis, in my opinion, is one of the best-designed spells in the game. Stasis replicates the next three spells that you use and stores them for thirty seconds for you to use them again in that time gap. The best way of using this is to store your big heals in this, like a Verdant Embrace, singly empowered Dream Breath, and a fully empowered Spiritbloom. Mastering this combo should be your first goal when playing Preservation.
As for DPS rotation, it is pretty straightforward. Use your Fire Breath on cooldown, and in between cast as many living flames as you can. Deep Breath is a two-minute cooldown that you can use on stacked packs of mobs to get a full value of it.
Overall, I think that both Devastation and Preservation are well-designed and fun to play. Devastation feels like a very active spec with not so much complexity. Preservation offers you a bit more complexity but also a lot of activity. Nonetheless, both specializations are offering unique experiences regarding the gameplay, and I am encouraging you to try and play both at max level!