Preservation Evoker Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — Season 4

This specific build focuses on using Echo as much as possible and consuming the echos with Reversion. While other spells such as Verdant Embrace and Spiritbloom still remain viable choices, they will fall behind compared to Reversion due to the Preservation Evoker 2pc returning. Not to mention Reversion being much easier to execute and more consistent overall.

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Due to the return of Preservation Evoker 2pc, Emerald Blossom builds have fallen out of the meta and likely won't be used in any setting. That being said, for those who love the playstyle and want to continue to play it in Season 4, you can do so with the following build, though you will struggle to compete with other evokers in most cases.

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This Mythic+ build takes more damage, crowd control abilities, and some utility options in the class tree that will help it to excel. This build aims to give you a default talent tree that you can take into any key and be successful. Still, there is debate about potential swaps that can be made depending on the dungeon and affixes. For example, if you find yourself needing a lot of healing, you can sacrifice Life-Giver's Flame and Lifeforce Mender to get points to put into something like Spiritual Clarity. Working towards Renewing Breath is another choice you can make if you find it very difficult to keep your party alive, but you will generally have to sacrifice damage talents to do so.

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!

Note that we do not explain EVERY Talent in the tree on this page. We only explain Talents that are part of our optimal builds or may be confusing to use. For full details and explanations of every Talent, please visit our Spells page via the button below.

Scarlet Adaptation	This ability stores 20% of your effective healing, causing your next Living Flame to consume the stored healing. This is a passive DPS increase that you do not need to actively think about.
Obsidian Bulwark	With this Talent, Evoker becomes one of the tankier classes in the game, having two charges of powerful defensive ability.
Cauterizing Flame	While not being impactful in every situation, it is a necessity in order to unlock healing increases. It is also the only dispel in the game that can remove bleed effects, making it incredibly powerful to have as a healer.
Quell	When fighting a boss with a lot of interrupts, or in Mythic+, having an extra interrupt can be very strong. If your group could ever benefit from it, it is quite easy to take based on its location in the class tree.
Landslide	Most raid encounters will not be made easier by having a root in your toolkit, but there are some rare situations where it can be useful and is always worth considering that it is easy to select a location.

Tip the Scales	Selecting this talent provides you with a decent cooldown. Preservation struggles primarily with getting long casts off; this cooldown helps with that issue by allowing you to get off empower casts instantly.
Extended Flight	While Evoker generally does not struggle with mobility, having the ability to cast while moving for a long duration can help make tough situations much more manageable.
Potent Mana	Increases your targets healing and damage by 3%, making it mandatory in raid.
Bountiful Bloom	Any Emerald Blossom build will want to select this Talent, as hitting extra targets is always beneficial. That being said, when you are not casting this ability, then Bountiful Bloom will lose a lot of value, and you can get better value out of other talents.
Ancient Flame	When playing an Emerald Blossom build, this will give you the ability to cast Living Flame much quicker, leading to faster Essence Bursts.

Rescue	Despite being a utility option, this talent can save lives whenever someone is in a bad position. Think of it similar to Leap of Faith, where you have the ability to save an ally.
Aerial Mastery	Having an extra charge of Hover is extremely important as this ability not only allows you to cast while moving, but it is also your main form of mobility, allowing you to move around quickly and reposition. Having two charges just further increases your overall mobility.
Leaping Flames	Arguably your most important Talent in these rows, this will turn Fire Breath into a mini cooldown. It can be used for both healing or damage, and you will almost always generate a Essence Burst proc whenever consuming the leaping flames buff. When playing Echo builds, it can sometimes accidentally consume the buffs on living flames, which is not ideal; if this is happening, then you can decide to take another talent instead.
Zephyr	Despite only hitting 5 targets, being able to reduce the damage you and your allies take is incredibly useful in most situations. Just keep in mind this does not reduce all your damage taken, only area-of-effect damage.
Terror of the Skies	While not always useful, there are plenty of situations where having a stun can be useful; this Talent will add a stun onto Deep Breath.
Overawe	This ability enhances Oppressing Roar, causing it to remove enrage effects from enemies. Using it on raging weeks or during a boss that has enrages can be very helpful to your group.
Time Spiral	Most classes will not ever need an extra movement speed cooldown, even those who are very slow. There are plenty of ways to increase movement speed, and you will rarely ever take this Talent unless your group is lacking druids who can provide Stampeding Roar. In those rare situations, this ability can function as a budget roar.
Twin Guardian	This talent gives you and your target of Rescue a very strong shield. That being said, you do not often cast Rescue, making the value of the Talent fairly low outside of situations you are making frequent use of Rescue.

Essence Attunement

Allows you to stack Essence Burst to stack to 2, making it much easier to avoid wasting procs.

Temporal Anomaly	This ability combined with Resonating Sphere is extremely powerful. In a vacuum, these two talents would make up your highest potential HPS combination. That being said, temporal anomaly costs are very high, so you may need to watch your mana more than usual.
Emerald Communion	Preservation Evoker struggles a lot with mana, being able to regen some of it through this ability can help a lot when facing long encounters. It also allows for some crazy combinations with Lifebind.
Call of Ysera	One of the most important procs in the evoker kit, this provides a huge buff to Dream Breath and Living Flame. You will ideally want always to have this buff active before casting dream breath. It is less important to have it up for living flame casts.
Field of Dreams	This Talent, as well as the one above it, Fluttering Seedlings, increase the strength of Emerald Blossom, which is the main way you will be spending your essence in emerald blossom builds. Echo builds will not take this Talent, making it niche.
Life-Giver's Flame	This ability, combined with the talent node under it, Lifeforce Mender will provide you with the largest DPS increase out of any talent. That being said, it is often difficult to fit them into your build as you are stretched for talent points. If you do find yourself having extra points lying around or wanting to deal more damage, this is your way to go.
Time Lord	The strength of time lord depends on what type of build you are playing. When playing a Echo build, these points become mandatory. When you are instead playing a Emerald Blossom build, you will want to take Field of Dreams and Fluttering Seedlings.
Flow State	This ability is not quite simple to understand as the tooltip is not great at explaining what it does. In most cases, it is a decent DPS increase and slight hps increase, but often not impactful enough to be considered. If you were interested in a full DPS build, you would, however, want to put 2 points into this talent.

Dream Flight	This end talent changes the least. Where other talents may require certain damage patterns or fights to be strong in, this Talent will almost always get the same value. That being said, it can struggle in very spread fights.
Spark of Insight	Whenever you are casting a lot of bronze spells such as Echo and Reversion, you will gain a lot of benefits from Temporal Compression, making this Talent fairly high value.
Stasis	As said previously, in situations where Cycle of Life is getting low value, you will want to Talent into this instead. When using stasis, you will want to fill up the stasis with your strongest abilities.
Power Nexus	While not being very powerful on its own, it can gain strength when playing Emerald Blossom builds, as it allows you to fit the cost of 2 emerald blossoms within your essence pool.
Cycle of Life	This talent's value solely depends on your build. When playing Emerald Blossom, you will want to take this Talent. Otherwise, you will want to ignore it completely.
Font of Magic	In every form of content you can often benefit from an extra rank for your empower abilities. Dream Breath is the only one unlikely to benefit much.
Energy Loop	While mana is a concern, this Talent does not provide enough to really consider using. However, the extra damage can be very useful when you are in Mythic+ or aiming to deal more damage.