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Devastation Evoker: Early Hands-on Review of the New Ranged DPS in Dragonflight
巨龙时代
由
Preheat
发表于
2022/07/16,17:00
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.
燃尽
and
噬体光焰
pair very nicely to give Red a ton of single target after using
火焰吐息
, but it's recommend you spend all essence before going into your burn.
火焰风暴
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:
法力值
and
精华
.
法力值
is something you are probably already familiar with and is used for healing spells.
精华
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
精华
but the
能量汹涌
talent provides a buff that speeds it up. Spender spells typically cost 2 or 3
精华
.
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
碧蓝打击
- Instant cast cleave damaging filler. The
延展利爪
talent gives it an additional target to cleave.
活化烈焰
- 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.
深呼吸
- 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
回归
talent you can travel back to where you came from within 3 seconds.
裂解
- Single target essence spender with a slow that can be further improved with
蚀骨之寒
. Without talents, it's not too impressive but for the Blue build it becomes far more powerful.
火焰吐息
- 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
活化烈焰
- As mentioned before, this heals if cast on allies.
翡翠之花
- 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
青铜龙的祝福
- 15% cooldown reduction on your primary movement ability. To see which abilities get reduced, see the preview below.
Blessing of the Bronze Buff Preview
悬空
- This spell is essentially
灵魂行者的恩赐
with the
恩赐之魂
talent. Can also be used as a dash with the
顺风之力
talent. This spell is essential for a ranged class with such a short range (25 yards).
长期飞行
and
飞行掌握
in the class talent tree increase the duration and give a second charge.
山崩
- Instant cast frontal root with a long cooldown. Improved by the
山脉塑造者
talent.
生还
- Standard resurrection ability
精通:巨人杀手
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
狂龙之怒
with
残暴
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:
欢欣之吼
- Provides an incentive to interrupt with
镇压
. Successful interrupts return one essence.
扭转天平
- Essentially
气定神闲
, this spell makes your next
火焰吐息
or
永恒之涌
instant cast. This ability also makes it so the spell is also off the Global Cooldown, which is interesting.
延展利爪
- Brings
碧蓝打击
to 3 target cleave baseline. Keep in mind that
永恒跨距
on the Devastation side doubles this number into 6 if also talented.
飞扑烈焰
- In theory this makes
火焰吐息
increase targets hit by your next
活化烈焰
by up to 4 (or 5 with
魔法之泉
). Currently it is bugged and does nothing.
拆解
- 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:
虹吸屏障
on
道茜歌妮
or
烈焰披风
on
凯尔萨斯·逐日者
.
Utility and Healing Talents
黑曜鳞片
- Physical (via armor) and magic reduction on a long cooldown that can be shortened by
黑曜壁垒
.
青翠之拥
- Huge instant single target heal that moves you to the target. This is fantastic for movement and saving friends at low health.
灼烧之焰
- 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
静谧之瓶
on a 1 minute cooldown. Absolutely busted.
微风
- 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.
时间螺旋
- A raid-wide cooldown that allows all players to activate their major movement ability for free.
时间螺旋
uses the same list of abilities as
青铜龙的祝福
. The list can be found
here
.
魔力之源
- Similar to
专注魔法
but for healers. Grants minor mana restoration to a friendly healer for every Empower ability you cast.
营救
- 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
双生护卫
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.
压迫怒吼
&
震魂摄魄
- Increase the duration of crowd control such as
扫堂腿
. 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
暴怒
Mythic+ weeks.
新生光焰
- similar to the heal effect of
操控时间
, but the healing is over time.
梦游
- 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:
葬火
- AoE essence spender that lobs a ball of flame at the target and nearby enemies.
密集能量
makes it cost less essence,
动燃
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.
碧蓝精华迸发
&
红玉精华迸发
- Two sides of the same coin, these talents give you a chance to gain
精华迸发
, from filler spells, which is essentially
节能施法
but for
精华
(it even has the same spell overlay alert ingame).
狂龙之怒
- This is our main damage cooldown. Casting this spell incurs a global cooldown but it also fires off 3
葬火
s, so the idle time doesn't feel bad at all. This buff makes it so spells that have a chance to grant
精华迸发
always grant it for the duration. With
残暴
also talented, it makes it so you also get the full benefit of your
精通:巨人杀手
regardless of boss health.
能量汹涌
- As mentioned before, the only way to speed up
精华
regeneration reliably is with this talent.
能量汹涌
makes it so empowering
永恒之涌
and
火焰吐息
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.
永燃烈焰
- Strong AoE talent, since it makes your
火焰吐息
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.
织法者统御
- This talent provides cooldown reduction for your biggest cooldowns,
狂龙之怒
and
深呼吸
by 1 second per empowerment level. This talent seems best paired with
永恒之涌
, since this spell can also be empowered.
魔法之泉
also has synergy since more empowerment levels means more cooldown reduction. Like
能量汹涌
, this talent incentivizes always fully empowering spells.
能量闪烁
- Extremely strong single target and cleave talent. This makes it so each tick of
裂解
has a chance to automatically fire a free
永恒之涌
. The reason why this talent helps in cleave is because
永恒跨距
causes
永恒之涌
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
火上浇油
being bugged, its hard to say if
裂解
or
葬火
is preferred in Single Target.
燃尽
is very strong for Single Target especially with
噬体光焰
. It seems like spamming
活化烈焰
after
火焰吐息
is strong.
Blue Single Target / Cleave Build
View on Dragonflight Talent Tree
This build focuses on amping
裂解
with talents like
能量闪烁
. As this build you use
碎裂星辰
on cooldown while maintaining the
聚焦虹膜
debuff.
裂解
is the main spender.
火焰吐息
and
永恒之涌
should always be used at max empower (despite it being single target) since you are running
能量汹涌
and
织法者统御
.
For the cleave version, swap a point into
永恒跨距
.
永恒跨距
makes the
永恒之涌
proc from
能量闪烁
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
永燃烈焰
and the damage over time of
火焰吐息
to create an AoE build even better than the Red build. Not taking
能量闪烁
and other
裂解
talents is going to drastically lower your single target, however. Not picking
残暴
feels really bad, so I could see swapping that in.
Empowerment and Incentives to Always Max Out
能量汹涌
,
魔法之泉
, and
织法者统御
add considerable incentive to always max out Empowerment casts. For
织法者统御
, this isn't a big deal since it is totally expected for a capstone talent to redefine your playstyle.
Alternatively,
魔法之泉
and
especially
能量汹涌
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
永恒之涌
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
能量汹涌
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
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Body Type, Pronouns, & Voices
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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
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Warrior Tier Appearance
UNHIDE AS NECESSARY
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