Devastation Evoker DPS Guide — The War Within (11.1.5)

Evokers are a highly mobile ranged DPS with a couple unique aspects. Firstly, we are limited to a 25 yard range, but this rarely becomes an issue due to having the ability to move while casting with Hover. Secondly, Evokers have access to the new and unique spell type, Empowered spells; these can be channeled for an additional period of time before releasing in order to alter what they do.

Strengths

• Can specialize for specific damage profiles and perform well for their chosen type.
• Very mobile.
• Can save team members with Rescue.
• High Single-Target sustained damage across long fights.
• Can remove a wide array of effects on players with Expunge to remove Poisons and Cauterizing Flame to remove Bleeds, Poisons, Curses, and Diseases.

Weaknesses

• 25 yard range takes some getting used to.
• Can die easily due to low HP.
• Two defensives which must be used proactively in order to survive.
• Very mediocre AoE sustained damage outside of 2 minute Dragonrage cooldown window.

Leveling as a Devastation Evoker is a very quick and comfortable experience, you have short cooldown high burst abilities like Fire Breath and Deep Breath coupled with your major cooldown Dragonrage doing uncapped AoE, you can very safely pull large groups of enemies with next to no risk.

On top of this we have very powerful defensives whilst leveling and a very solid amount of self healing, if you find yourself in dangerous situations, using Obsidian Scales or Renewing Blaze once you're high enough level will keep you safe in nearly every circumstance, or failing that you can always kite your enemies whilst casting spells when using Hover

For help with the leveling process including the best talents to choose at any given time, head on over to our leveling page.

The Devastation Evoker playstyle is very fluid, and you will always be casting something that interacts with your next cast. Some examples are listed below:

1. Casting Blue Spells with Charged Blast talented will increase the damage of your next Pyre;
2. Casting Empowered spells during Dragonrage with Animosity talented will extend its duration;
3. Casting Fire Breath with Leaping Flames talented will make your next Living Flame hit additional targets (based on the Empower level);
4. Healing other players with Scarlet Adaptation will increase the damage of your next Living Flame;
5. the cooldown of your empowered spells is reduced when you spend Essence with the Causality talent.

As you can see, there is a good amount of depth in your combat rotation from just a few of these interactions, making this a more involved and interesting DPS specialization to play.

For those of you just getting started on your Evoker journey we recommend checking out our easy mode guide to help get the basics sorted.

For those of you who are already quite familiar with the spec the talents and rotation pages will give a more in depth guide on how to improve.

Your talent choices dictate how well Devastation Evoker plays in different scenarios. However, when you pick a talent build that is not ideally suited to the combat scenario, your DPS will be much lower, such as, for example, using a single-target raid build in Mythic+. Having multiple talent trees set up will prevent this from happening.

Evokers do not have high health or base mitigation but come with very powerful defensives, which will prevent death in the majority of situations when used appropriately; they are also a very mobile class, making avoiding abilities quite easy to do once you get more familiar.

We bring multiple different forms of utility to both a Mythic+ and raid environment.

1. Blessing of the Bronze will reduce the cooldown of the movement abilities of all raid members, such as Hover.
2. Time Spiral will grant everyone in your raid one free usage for of movement ability, regardless of whether it is currently on cooldown.
3. Spatial Paradox lets you and a healer of your choice cast while moving and drastically increase your range during its uptime; this was added to the Evoker class tree in the The War Within pre-patch.
4. Rescue lets you pick up a target and carry them to a location of your choice; this can also be talented with Twin Guardian to provide both you and your target an absorb shield for 30% of your maximum health.
5. Zephyr grants you and your 4 closest allies a 20% reduction to damage taken from AoE abilities for a short duration; this shines in Mythic+ as it is a full group cooldown.

1. Wing Buffet will knock enemies in front of you backward over a short distance; it is good for interrupting casts and helping to reposition mobs when necessary.
2. Tail Swipe will knock enemies straight up and down in an area around you; useful as an interrupt or an AoE stop ability.
3. Deep Breath by itself does not have any crowd control, but when talented into Terror of the Skies will inflict a 3-second stun on any enemy hit; this can be very useful as it can cover an enormous area.
4. Oppressing Roar situationally very useful, this roars in a cone in front of you and applies a debuff on every enemy hit that will increase the duration of CC effects by 50%, this is particularly powerful when paired with stuns or silences from other sources.
5. Landslide a long-range root that covers a very large distance, very helpful for controlling enemies that are approaching slowly or accidentally pulled.

Critical Strike is your most important secondary stat as a Devastation Evoker. However, Intellect will give twice as much DPS on average per point than any secondary stat. As a result, you are much more drawn to item level than optimal stats, with the exception of trinkets and specific pieces of gear that may be significantly stronger than the alternatives.

We maintain a page with gearing advice for the current patch, including Best in Slot alternatives from different content sources. You can find a link to this below:

Once you have started to gear, you will need to make sure that you have the appropriate consumables, gems, enchants, and more. We have a dedicated page for exactly this, as shown below, as well as the stats page, where you can find more information on the possibility of a changing stat priority and the necessary changes you may need to make for consumables.

Once you have reached the max level, you will want to work on optimizing your damage output. Fortunately, we also maintain a set of pages containing tips, tricks, and strategies for all end-game content: