Devastation Evoker DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Season 4

The rotation for Evoker plays largely in 30-second cycles around your empowered spells ( Fire Breath and Eternity Surge). Between these cycles, you want to ensure that you spend your Essence and have minimal downtime between casts.

Every two minutes, you can use Dragonrage, and you want to have both empowered spells available to extend the duration (interaction with the Animosity talent).

If the rotations below seem overwhelming, you can visit our Easy Mode page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.

You can take a lot of this information with you when you run Mythic+ dungeons, however, the Mythic+ page is more dedicated to situations you constantly encounter in such instances.

Use the buttons below to select your talents to see how that changes the rotation:

Single-target talent options are selected by default. If you wish to see rotation changes in AoE select talents related to that (such as Volatility).

Active Talents	Passive Talents
Eternity's Span
Shattering Star	Burnout
Firestorm	Charged Blast
Kharnalex, The First Light	Font of Magic
	Snapfire
	Volatility
	Power Swell
	Iridescence
	Raging Inferno
	Protracted Talons

New talents being used in this patch are Power Swell and Iridescence. They bring some new rotational nuance which has been detailed in the rotations below. Outlined in this section will be a quick read on what they do and why they matter in the rotation.

After using an empowered spell, your essence regeneration will be increased. During these windows, you will want to use all of your Essence and Essence Burst procs to gain the most out of this buff window and to prevent overcapping on Essence.

Your next two spells of the same color are buffed after using an empowered spell. Fortunately, the rotational priorities are the same regardless of which buff is triggered.

After Fire Breath, your next 2 red spells are buffed. On 3+ Targets (with Volatility) this will be spent on Pyre, otherwise it will be consumed by Living Flame.

After Eternity Surge, your next 2 blue spells will be buffed. Avoid casting Azure Strike as you will gain more DPS by using this on Disintegrate.

The priority system for Devastation Evoker is simple as a whole, as you are focusing on two or three short cooldown abilities and filling the gaps with Living Flame. However, when you delay any of your empowered abilities, everything starts to become desynchronized, and this will be noticeable in your overall damage.

1. Cast Fire Breath at empower level 1. If Dragonrage is available soon, skip this step as you will need to save it.
2. Use Kharnalex, The First Light.
3. If the targets will not live for the full duration of the Fire Breath DoT then cast Fire Breath at a higher empowerment to not lose any DPS.
4. Cast Shattering Star.
5. Cast Eternity Surge at empower level 1. If Dragonrage is available soon, skip this step as you will need to save it.
6. Aim to have 1 Essence Burst stack for when Shattering Star comes off cooldown to have your Disintegrates deal even more damage.
7. Cast Living Flame to consume Burnout procs.
8. Spend all of your Essence on Disintegrate.
9. Cast Disintegrate.
10. Cast Living Flame to consume Burnout procs.
11. Cast Living Flame as a filler ability until you have enough Essence for Disintegrate.
12. Avoid using Azure Strike whilst the Iridescence Blue buff is up to ensure that Disintegrate is empowered.
13. If you need to move while casting, use Hover. If you have no charges of Hover left, then use Azure Strike.

You will notice that all empowered spells are listed as being used at Empower level 1, and this is intentional.

• Fire Breath at Rank 1 gives you the longest DoT, which is used to trigger Burnout procs.
• Going beyond Rank 1 on Eternity Surge will not gain you any more damage on single-target as all it does is add additional targets.

When you are in your Dragonrage window, you want to ensure that you are not wasting any potential damage, as this is your highest burst DPS period.

1. If this is your Dragonrage cast on the pull, pre-cast Living Flame so it lands as the boss engages.
2. Use Kharnalex, The First Light.
3. Cast Dragonrage.
4. Cast Fire Breath at empower level 1.
5. Cast Shattering Star.
6. Spend all of your Essence on Disintegrate.
7. Use Living Flame as your filler ability, as it will deal increased damage with the Iridescence buff. Do not use Azure Strike.
8. Cast Eternity Surge.
9. Spend all of your Essence on Disintegrate.
10. Use Living Flame as your filler spell when the Iridescence buff is active to ensure that Disintegrate is buffed.
11. When you run out of Essence cast Living Flame for two Essence Burst procs and cast Disintegrate with these.
12. Consume your Burnout procs with Living Flame casts and generate Essence Burst.
13. Cast Azure Strike to generate Essence Burst procs.
14. Cast Disintegrate with to spend Essence and consume Essence Burst procs.
15. Cast Living Flame to generate Essence Burst stacks.
16. When Fire Breath is available repeat the rotation from that point onwards in the list above.
17. Your second cast of Fire Breath should be paired with Tip the Scales then once Shattering Star becomes available repeat the standard rotation.

The Dragonrage rotation changes slightly in AoE.

1. Cast Fire Breath at empower level 1.
2. If the targets will not live for the full duration of the Fire Breath DoT then cast Fire Breath at a higher empowerment to not lose any DPS.
3. Cast Shattering Star.
4. Cast Eternity Surge at higher empower levels, depending on your target count.
5. Cast Azure Strike to generate Essence Burst procs.
6. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 3 targets with otherwise cast Disintegrate.
7. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 3 targets with 15+ stacks of Charged Blast, otherwise cast Disintegrate.
8. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 3 targets.
9. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 4 targets.
10. Cast Firestorm.
11. Cast Living Flame to consume the Burnout procs to try and get a Snapfire proc.
12. Cast Shattering Star when it comes off cooldown.

1. Cast Fire Breath at empower level 1.
2. If the targets will not live for the full duration of the Fire Breath DoT then cast Fire Breath at a higher empowerment to not lose any DPS.
3. Spend all of your Essence on Disintegrate.
4. Use Living Flame as your filler ability, as it will deal increased damage with the Iridescence buff. Do not use Azure Strike.
5. Cast Shattering Star.
6. Cast Eternity Surge at empower level 1.
7. Cast Eternity Surge at empower level 2.
8. Aim to have 1-2 Essence Burst stacks for when Shattering Star comes off cooldown to have your Disintegrate's deal even more damage.
9. Spend all of your Essence on Disintegrate.
10. Use Living Flame as your filler spell when the Iridescence buff is active to ensure that Disintegrate is buffed.
11. Cast Disintegrate.
12. Cast Deep Breath.
13. Cast Living Flame to consume the Burnout procs.
14. Cast Living Flame as a filler ability until you have enough Essence for Disintegrate.
15. If you need to move while casting, use Hover. If you have no charges of Hover left, then use Azure Strike.

Against two targets, your rotation stays the same as in single-target; the only key difference is that Eternity Surge is changed. However, if you have picked the Eternity's Span talent, then you will double the number of targets, so you will keep using this at empower level 1.

1. Cast Fire Breath at empower level 2/3.
2. If the targets will not live for the full duration of the Fire Breath DoT then cast Fire Breath at a higher empowerment to not lose any DPS.
3. Cast Shattering Star.
4. Cast Eternity Surge at empower level 2.
5. Cast Eternity Surge at empower level 3.
6. Cast Eternity Surge at empower level 4.
7. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 3+ targets..
8. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 3 targets with 10+ stacks of Charged Blast, otherwise cast Disintegrate.
9. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 3 targets.
10. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 4 targets.
11. Cast Firestorm.
12. Cast Living Flame to consume the Burnout procs to try and get a Snapfire proc.
13. Cast Deep Breath.
15. Cast Azure Strike as a filler ability until you have enough Essence for your spender.

Against three or four targets, the rotation changes slightly. Eternity Surge is always cast at empower rank 2 (or empower rank 3 if you have not picked Eternity's Span), and Azure Strike starts to creep its way into the rotation if you have picked Eternity's Span.

1. Cast Fire Breath at empower level 2/3.
2. If the targets will not live for the full duration of the Fire Breath DoT then cast Fire Breath at a higher empowerment to not lose any DPS.
3. Cast Shattering Star.
4. Cast Eternity Surge at empower level 2 (for 2 targets), level 3 (for 3 targets).
5. Cast Eternity Surge at empower level 2 (for 4 targets), level 3 (for 6 targets).
6. Cast Eternity Surge at empower level 2 (for 4 targets), level 3 (for 6 targets), level 4 (for 8 targets).
7. Cast Eternity Surge at level 2 (for 2 targets), level 3 (for 3 targets), level 4 (for 4 targets).
8. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 3+ targets..
9. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 3 targets with 10+ stacks of Charged Blast, otherwise cast Disintegrate.
10. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 3 targets.
11. Cast Pyre as your Essence spender on 4 targets.
12. Cast Firestorm.
13. Cast Living Flame to consume the Burnout procs to try and get a Snapfire proc.
14. Cast Deep Breath.
16. Cast Azure Strike as a filler ability until you have enough Essence for your spender.

To gain slightly more DPS from Disintegrate casts when casting it back to back, you can carry over up to 1 tick of damage from it to your next cast.

The ticks of damage from Disintegrate work as follows. There is always a tick of damage at the cast's start and end, with 2 ticks in between. If you cast your next Disintegrate as the 3rd tick of damage happens, the final tick of damage will carry over into the next cast, making it have 5 ticks in total. This increases your damage output, as there will be no downtime between casts.

A WeakAura to help with this has been linked below, which will show when each tick of damage from Disintegrate will happen.

• Evoker Disintegrate Ticks WeakAura

Additionally, during Dragonrage, it can be worthwhile to cut the cast of Disintegrate off at the 3rd tick of damage to get cooldown reduction from Causality. This will be a DPS loss from Disintegrate, but you will have a higher time spent in Dragonrage due to being able to have more empowered casts. Only do this if you know it is necessary. Otherwise you will lose DPS.

In the table below, I will detail when you should use Pyre during your rotation, as it does change based on talents and target count.

Targets	Charged Blast stacks with Volatility	Charged Blast stacks without Volatility
2	Never use	Never use
3	Any amount	15+
4+	Any amount	Any amount

The tier set primarily impacts your play outside of your Dragonrage window as the 4pc bonus is active through the full duration of it, outside of your cooldowns you will be aiming to space your empowered spells 5 seconds apart in order to get the maximum uptime on your 4pc bonus

Empowered Spells are a considerable portion of your damage; however, going all the way to the maximum empowerment level is only sometimes the best thing to do. Below we will detail when you use each empower level for each spell.

Note: If you have the Catalyze talent the DoT component from Fire Breath has more of an impact on your total damage dealt by the spell, as when you cast Disintegrate, the tick rate of the DoT is increased. Without Catalyze, the total damage dealt remains the same at any rank (assuming the target lives for the full duration).

• Level 1. This will be your most common cast level. This has the longest DoT, which means more chances to trigger Burnout.
• Level 2. This can be used if playing with Feed the Flames as you can get the cooldown of Fire Breath low enough to not miss out on uptime with good rotational play.
• Level 3. This should only be used if the target is on low health and needs to die quickly or if it is the end of a trash pack in Mythic+ and you have some time until you begin the next trash pack.
• Level 4 (with Font of Magic talent only). Same as Level 3.

Additionally, when fighting against multiple targets, the benefits of Catalyze is reduced, and the total damage impact of the DoT and the upfront damage need to be considered together. The below table will illustrate when it is best to use each Level of Fire Breath. This assumes that the targets will live for the entire duration of the DoT component.

Targets	Fire Breath Level
2	1
3	2
4	3
5	3/4
20+	1

You will see that the value of the levels scale somewhat linearly up until substantial AoE scenarios where it goes back to using Level 1; this is because the upfront damage is divided by the number of targets hit at this Level but the DoT component is not, so you will gain more damage by having a stronger DoT on this many targets.

Eternity Surge is a bit simpler to gauge when you use each level, as the only thing that changes with the spell is the number of targets it hits.

It is important to note that the amount of targets hit is doubled if you have the Eternity's Span talent.

• Level 1. Against 1 target (or 1/2 targets with Eternity's Span).
• Level 2. Against 2 targets (or 3/4 targets with Eternity's Span).
• Level 3. Against 3 targets (or 5/6 targets with Eternity's Span).
• Level 4 (with Font of Magic talent only). Against 4 targets (or 7/8 targets with Eternity's Span).

While Devastation Evoker does not have many spells to use, using them correctly is key to not wasting any potential damage uptime.

• Dragonrage should be used with Bloodlust (or similar spells) or delayed until your second empowered cast cycle if you are not using Bloodlust on the pull to gain the most from the Mastery benefits.
• Tip the Scales should be used with Eternity Surge for AoE scenarios, or on your second Fire Breath in ST as you will be able to maintain your Fire Breath debuff long enough to last until your third cast (in Dragonrage ideally).
• Deep Breath should be used after you have spent your Essence and are fighting against more than 1 enemy. It can, however, be used to cover short distances. Still, it should ideally hit enemies simultaneously to be effective. You should aim to use Deep Breath at the shortest distance, as the longer the line, the more time you are locked out from using other spells. It is inevitable if you need to move further, but you will lose some potential damage.
• Hover should be used when you know you need to move, and it can also be used as a mid-air dash.