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Devastation Evoker: Early Hands-on Review of the New Ranged DPS in Dragonflight
Dragonflight
Pubblicato
16/07/2022 alle 17:00
da
Preheat
Dragonflight
Alpha is upon us! Dragonflight Alpha testers can play the new class, Evoker, which has a healer and ranged dps specialization. This class brings a lot of new utility spells to the table, in addition to its unique playstyle. Devastation is best summarized as a mid-range cleave specialist with consistent damage, short cooldowns, and a sizable arsenal of utility. Since Alpha released this Thursday I've enjoyed a lot of time playing Devastation, and am now happy to break down everything I've learned, including my first impressions. Let's get into what makes Devastation so interesting and fun to play!
About the Author
This guide is written and maintained by Preheat, previously a World First raider and founding member of
Liquid
. Preheat plays Evoker and Mage and has participated in the MDI and multiple Race to World First events over the years. He has also commentated multiple community events such as the
Keystone Masters
, numerous charity events, and the
Team Liquid
Race to World First. For all things Evoker and Mage, you can find him in his
Discord
, on
Twitter
, posting videos to
YouTube
, and streaming on
Twitch
.
Introduction: Initial Expectations & Class Fantasy
This is the first time we have ever seen an expansion release a new class that has ranged specialization. As a ranged enjoyer, this is extremely exciting! I had some concerns about how the class would play, but now that Devastation is playable, a lot of mysteries about the playstyle have been revealed.
Disclaimer: the information in this writeup is based on
EARLY ALPHA
. Impressions are based off of this version of Devastation. Playtesting was conducted by spending hours at the target dummies and by leveling in the new zone. It's very likely that changes will be made, so please keep this in consideration while looking over this initial review. Thank you!
Evoker Customization Preview
Devastation seems to mostly have two
flavors
depending on what talents you pick. Red seems to be more AoE oriented while Blue seems to focus more on Single Target and cleave. Regardless of which build you pick, Devastation is easy to pick up but has an underlying complexity that adds quite a bit of depth. Abilities all feel really good to use, cooldowns feel very powerful, and you have tools for pretty much any situation. The decreased range (25 yard standard) is extremely noticeable however, but with familiarity it becomes less of an issue. Devastation is surprisingly polished, but there are still a few bugs. The most notable at the moment is that Devastation's baseline UI for tracking Essence is very inconsistent and frequently shows an incorrect amount of essence. Because of this there are some instances where the game tells you that you can spend Essence on an ability, but pressing it does nothing. I think it's unlikely this bug sticks around so I won't dwell on it too much!
Empowering abilities feels a little weird at first but it eventually clicks. Empowered abilities have a cast time
and a GCD at the end for some reason
. By default, you empower abilities by holding the button down until you have reached the desired input, but there is also the option to "press and tap" the ability as well. If you have a habit of rapidly pressing a key as an ability is about to be off cooldown, you will likely have to adjust for empowerments since doing this cancels the spell and incurs a delay on reactivating the spell as punishment for your mistake. The whole idea of empowering abilities is neat in theory, but personally I find it to be the weakest aspect of the class. This is tolerable at least, and the rest of Evoker more than makes up it!
Edit: it looks like overnight the GCD at the end of empowered abilities was removed. This goes a long way to improve this casting mechanic.
Devastation Evokers use an assortment of abilities, but mainly focus on Red, Blue, and even Black dragonflight spells. Bronze and Green spells are mainly reserved for utility or healing.
Red vs Blue
The aim of this writeup is to focus on the design, and not focus too much on tuning. After more playtesting, it seems that both builds do competitive single target, cleave, and AoE. The design of the Red talents slants heavily to AoE and Blue slants more cleave. The cleave capabilities for Blue spells are spectacular, and you give up very little boss damage to gain a ton of free AoE. That being said, both seem to have the right tools to cover both areas.
Surriscaldamento
and
Fiammata Avvolgente
pair very nicely to give Red a ton of single target after using
Soffio di Fuoco
, but it's recommend you spend all essence before going into your burn.
Tempesta di Fuoco
is the only ability I've found that seems undertuned, but it's possible it's only meant to be used in huge AoE situations.
Resources for Devastation Evoker: Essence
Devastation Evokers have 2 resources that you'll be primarily using:
Mana
and
Essenza
.
Mana
is something you are probably already familiar with and is used for healing spells.
Essenza
is the class specific resource for Evokers that naturally regenerates over time. At a baseline, you get 1 essence every 5s. You can't build
Essenza
but the
Ondata di Potenza
talent provides a buff that speeds it up. Spender spells typically cost 2 or 3
Essenza
.
Baseline Toolkit for Devastation Evoker
The baseline toolkit for Devastation has a bit of variety but is heavily propped up by talents. This shouldn't be an issue, however, since Evoker starts at level 58.
Baseline Damage Abilities for Devastation Evoker
Assalto Azzurro
- Instant cast cleave damaging filler. The
Artigli Protratti
talent gives it an additional target to cleave.
Fiamma Vivente
- Filler spell with a cast time. Many talents change how this spell works but at a baseline it deals damage or heals (at the cost of mana) after a moderate cast time.
Alito del Drago
- AoE damage cooldown that moves your character while providing CC immunity. This spell has an interesting reticle but seems to have a lot of issues with pathing currently. It also has a minimum range, which feels a bit cramped with the 25 yard max range of Evoker. With the
Richiamo
talent you can travel back to where you came from within 3 seconds.
Disintegrazione
- Single target essence spender with a slow that can be further improved with
Gelo Permanente
. Without talents, it's not too impressive but for the Blue build it becomes far more powerful.
Soffio di Fuoco
- AoE Empower ability with a short 30s cooldown. Small upfront damage, but the damage over time is strong. Capped at 5 targets. The Red build primarily works by extending the damage over time it provides.
Baseline Healing Abilities for Devastation Evoker
Fiamma Vivente
- As mentioned before, this heals if cast on allies.
Bocciolo di Smeraldo
- Delayed heal with a short cooldown that you place on the target. After 2 seconds, heals 3 targets.
Baseline Utility & Mobility Abilities for Devastation Evoker
Benedizione del Bronzo
- 15% cooldown reduction on your primary movement ability. To see which abilities get reduced, see the preview below.
Blessing of the Bronze Buff Preview
Volo Sospeso
- This spell is essentially
Grazia dello Spiritista
with the
Spirito Leggiadro
talent. Can also be used as a dash with the
Vento a Favore
talent. This spell is essential for a ranged class with such a short range (25 yards).
Volo Esteso
and
Maestria Aerea
in the class talent tree increase the duration and give a second charge.
Smottamento
- Instant cast frontal root with a long cooldown. Improved by the
Forgiatore delle Montagne
talent.
Ritorno
- Standard resurrection ability
Maestria: Ammazzagiganti
for Devastation Evokers
The Mastery for Devastation is straightforward. You deal more damage to high health targets, decreasing as the target loses health. The talent
Rabbia del Drago
with
Tirannia
causes you to get the full effect of your mastery for its duration.
Notable Class Talents for Devastation Evoker
Evoker has a lot of interesting talents but today I will be focusing on the more notable ones, starting with class talents.
View on Dragonflight Talent Tree Calculator
Class Damage Talents
There are a few talents on the class side of the talent tree that directly affect damage. Most of them either speed up essence regeneration, slightly boost damage for abilities, speed up cast times, or increase targets affected by damage spells. The most notable examples are listed below:
Ruggito dell'Euforia
- Provides an incentive to interrupt with
Sedazione
. Successful interrupts return one essence.
Ago della Bilancia
- Essentially
Prontezza di Spirito
, this spell makes your next
Soffio di Fuoco
or
Impeto dell'Eternità
instant cast. This ability also makes it so the spell is also off the Global Cooldown, which is interesting.
Artigli Protratti
- Brings
Assalto Azzurro
to 3 target cleave baseline. Keep in mind that
Vastità dell'Eternità
on the Devastation side doubles this number into 6 if also talented.
Fiamme Imprevedibili
- In theory this makes
Soffio di Fuoco
increase targets hit by your next
Fiamma Vivente
by up to 4 (or 5 with
Fonte di Magia
). Currently it is bugged and does nothing.
Disvelamento
- Instant cast ability that deals huge damage, but only affects absorb shields. The short cooldown means it could be used more than once per shield mechanic. Example:
Barriera Aspirata
on
Dausegne
or
Mantello delle Fiamme
on
Kael'thas Solealto
.
Utility and Healing Talents
Scaglie d'Ossidiana
- Physical (via armor) and magic reduction on a long cooldown that can be shortened by
Baluardo d'Ossidiana
.
Abbraccio Lussureggiante
- Huge instant single target heal that moves you to the target. This is fantastic for movement and saving friends at low health.
Fiamma Cauterizzante
- Powerful dispel that can be used on yourself or allies. Removes all bleeds, curses, poisons, and diseases on a target and heals them as well. This is essentially a targeted
Fiala della Serenità
on a 1 minute cooldown. Absolutely busted.
Zefiro
- Defensive cooldown that reduces damage taken from Area-of-Effect and provides a bit of movespeed. This does not affect the whole raid, just your own party.
Spirale Temporale
- A raid-wide cooldown that allows all players to activate their major movement ability for free.
Spirale Temporale
uses the same list of abilities as
Benedizione del Bronzo
. The list can be found
here
.
Sorgente della Magia
- Similar to
Magia Concentrata
but for healers. Grants minor mana restoration to a friendly healer for every Empower ability you cast.
Salvataggio
- Fly to a targeted ally, pick them up, then land at a reticle targeted location. You can pick up someone 30 yards from you and place them 30 yards in the opposite direction. With the
Guardiano Gemello
talent, you also give you and your ally a shield. This ability is extremely powerful,
but with great power comes great opportunity to grief your friends.
This ability is surprisingly flexible when it comes to pathing and can be used to grab people midair, or place people on top of buildings.
Ruggito Opprimente
&
Stupore
- Increase the duration of crowd control such as
Calcio a Spazzata
. I could see this being very useful on fights where you CC adds. With the additional talent it is also an AoE Enrage dispel, perfect for
Rabbia
Mythic+ weeks.
Fiammata Curativa
- similar to the heal effect of
Alterazione Temporale
, but the healing is over time.
Sonnambulismo
- Crowd control that breaks on damage. Targets slowly approach you.
Notable Devastation Talents for Devastation Evoker
All Evokers have access to everything above, but the following talents are only for Devastation Evokers.
View on Dragonflight Talent Tree Calculator
General damage toolkit
As mentioned before, there are at least two main playstyles for Devastation, Red and Blue. These playstyles are dependent on your talent choices but to me the following talents are core to any Devastation playstyle:
Pira
- AoE essence spender that lobs a ball of flame at the target and nearby enemies.
Energia Densa
makes it cost less essence,
Volatilità
gives it more AoE damage. There are other talents that also affect it, but I won't be listing them all. This is the main spender for the Red build, and is also used to AoE with the Blue build.
Detonazione dell'Essenza Azzurra
&
Detonazione dell'Essenza di Rubino
- Two sides of the same coin, these talents give you a chance to gain
Detonazione dell'Essenza
, from filler spells, which is essentially
Lancio Istintivo
but for
Essenza
(it even has the same spell overlay alert ingame).
Rabbia del Drago
- This is our main damage cooldown. Casting this spell incurs a global cooldown but it also fires off 3
Pira
s, so the idle time doesn't feel bad at all. This buff makes it so spells that have a chance to grant
Detonazione dell'Essenza
always grant it for the duration. With
Tirannia
also talented, it makes it so you also get the full benefit of your
Maestria: Ammazzagiganti
regardless of boss health.
Ondata di Potenza
- As mentioned before, the only way to speed up
Essenza
regeneration reliably is with this talent.
Ondata di Potenza
makes it so empowering
Impeto dell'Eternità
and
Soffio di Fuoco
grants a buff that speeds up essence regen, based on empowerment level. This talent seems very good but I am a bit concerned about how it may affect gameplay. More info on that later.
Capstone Talents of the Devastation Evoker Tree
Capstone talents are the talents at the end of the tree that provide the foundation for various playstyles.
Fiamma Eterna
- Strong AoE talent, since it makes your
Soffio di Fuoco
damage over time essentially a permanent debuff. This is a must have for the Red build, and is also extremely powerful for Hybrid AoE builds.
Supremazia del Plasmamagia
- This talent provides cooldown reduction for your biggest cooldowns,
Rabbia del Drago
and
Alito del Drago
by 1 second per empowerment level. This talent seems best paired with
Impeto dell'Eternità
, since this spell can also be empowered.
Fonte di Magia
also has synergy since more empowerment levels means more cooldown reduction. Like
Ondata di Potenza
, this talent incentivizes always fully empowering spells.
Scintillio
- Extremely strong single target and cleave talent. This makes it so each tick of
Disintegrazione
has a chance to automatically fire a free
Impeto dell'Eternità
. The reason why this talent helps in cleave is because
Vastità dell'Eternità
causes
Impeto dell'Eternità
to always hit at least 2 enemies. This is a must have for the Blue build, and any hybrid build that has a focus on boss damage.
Sample Talent Tree & Skill Combos for Devastation Evoker
The following are sample builds based on my own experience playing:
Red Build
View on Dragonflight Talent Tree
The above build focuses heavily in Red spells and is a strong AoE setup. With
Alimentare le Fiamme
being bugged, its hard to say if
Disintegrazione
or
Pira
is preferred in Single Target.
Surriscaldamento
is very strong for Single Target especially with
Fiammata Avvolgente
. It seems like spamming
Fiamma Vivente
after
Soffio di Fuoco
is strong.
Blue Single Target / Cleave Build
View on Dragonflight Talent Tree
This build focuses on amping
Disintegrazione
with talents like
Scintillio
. As this build you use
Stella Frantumante
on cooldown while maintaining the
Iride Focalizzante
debuff.
Disintegrazione
is the main spender.
Soffio di Fuoco
and
Impeto dell'Eternità
should always be used at max empower (despite it being single target) since you are running
Ondata di Potenza
and
Supremazia del Plasmamagia
.
For the cleave version, swap a point into
Vastità dell'Eternità
.
Vastità dell'Eternità
makes the
Impeto dell'Eternità
proc from
Scintillio
cleave, adding considerable damage while focusing on single target.
Hybrid AoE Build
View on Dragonflight Talent Tree
The idea with this build is to take the excellent cleave of the Blue build and combine it with
Fiamma Eterna
and the damage over time of
Soffio di Fuoco
to create an AoE build even better than the Red build. Not taking
Scintillio
and other
Disintegrazione
talents is going to drastically lower your single target, however. Not picking
Tirannia
feels really bad, so I could see swapping that in.
Empowerment and Incentives to Always Max Out
Ondata di Potenza
,
Fonte di Magia
, and
Supremazia del Plasmamagia
add considerable incentive to always max out Empowerment casts. For
Supremazia del Plasmamagia
, this isn't a big deal since it is totally expected for a capstone talent to redefine your playstyle.
Alternatively,
Fonte di Magia
and
especially
Ondata di Potenza
are staple talents you want in pretty much every scenario. Because of this, the whole concept of choosing how much to empower casts goes out the window in favor of
always maxing out casts
. For a spell like
Impeto dell'Eternità
this feels especially awkward in single target, since charging does not affect the damage.
This is a bit concerning but there is a really easy fix: Make
Ondata di Potenza
provide a standard duration for the buff, regardless of empowerment level. This would allow us to use the empowerment system as intended, to charge spells only as much as we want to.
Video Review with Gameplay
The Verdict So Far...
In conclusion, the Evoker is looking like a lot of fun. Devastation has some really awesome abilities and the talents feel solid as well. I'm extremely happy to see a new ranged spec that feels fresh and uniquely different while also somewhat familiar. The playstyle is approachable and fun without being too complex, but has a good amount of complexity beneath the surface. As an Evoker, you also get amazing utility skills to assist or troll your allies. I have some concerns about the current design, but it is still very early. What do you think? What Devastation build looks the most exciting to you? Let me know in the comments below and stay tuned for more Dragonflight news!
Dragonflight Alpha News
Power Infusion on Warcraft Logs
Lessons Learned from Sepulcher
Talent Calculator Available
Crendor Interview - More Patches
Taliesin Interview - 2022 Release
Group Interview with Ion Hazzikostas
Battle Pet Clarifications
Dragonflight Loading Screens
Minimap Exploration
Alpha Zone Maps
Dragonflight Alpha Begins Jul 14
Features & Updates
Raid Trinkets & Effects
Vault of the Incarnates Raid
Group Loot Returning in Raid Content
Dungeon Bosses of Dragonflight
Jade Serpent & Court of Stars Mythic+
Hemet Nesingwary, Retired
Turalyon Reaction to Dracthyr
Azure Span Questline
Azure Span Zone Preview
Sindragosa in Dragonflight
500 Mount Reward to Change
New Collection Achievements
Dragonriding Features & Impressions
Professions Preview
Alchemy & Blacksmithing
New Crafting Recipes
New Bags from Tailoring
Fun Alchemy Effects
Combat Potions in Dragonflight
Phials Replace Flasks in Dragonflight
Models & Customization
Body Type, Pronouns, & Voices
Dracthyr Male Visage Customizations
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Dracthyr Dragon Form Customizations
Raid Weapon Models
Dungeon Weapon Models
Quest Weapon Models
Updated World Assets
Titan Watcher Models
Dragon Aspect Models
Tuskarr Tribes in Dragonflight
Ducks in Dragonflight
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Centaur Clans in Dragonflight
Gnoll Model Updates Including Hogger
New Mount Models
New Creature Models
New Dragon Creature Models
Evoker & Class Changes
Dracthyr Racials
Evoker Zenith Tier Token
Evoker Talent Trees
Group Utility - Time Spiral & Zephyr
Blessing of the Bronze Raid Buff
Devestation Review
Preservation Review
Preservation Evoker Gameplay
Devastation Evoker Gameplay
Unholy DK Bluepost
Hunter Bluepost
DH & Warlock Talent Speculation
Mage Talent Speculation
Monk Talent Speculation
Paladin Talent Speculation
Shaman Talent Speculation
Warrior Talent Speculation
Death Knight Tier Apperance
Demon Hunter Tier Apperance
Druid Tier Apperance
Evoker Tier Apperance
Hunter Tier Appearance
Mage Tier Appearance
Monk Tier Appearance
Paladin Tier Appearance
Priest Tier Appearance
Rogue Tier Appearance
Shaman Tier Appearance
Warlock Tier Appearance
Warrior Tier Appearance
UNHIDE AS NECESSARY
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