Preservation Evoker Healing Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.1

Last updated on May 01, 2023 at 21:40 by Mytholxgy 16 comments
General Information

On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Preservation Evoker, depending on the type of damage your group is receiving. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to minmax your healing output and your mana efficiency. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.1.

1.

Foreword

Welcome to our Rotation page for Preservation Evokers. On this page, you will find everything you need to know about playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

1.1.

Easy Mode

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

2.

Rotation / Playstyle for Preservation Evokers

Healing as an Evoker will take a lot of practice no matter which type of content you find yourself doing. While other classes have powerful abilities that can help you the moment a situation turns dire, Evoker lacks these, making it really suffer when things get tough. The key to this class is to stay ahead of these moments by having a plan for every major damage event that your party or raid will encounter. This will allow you to save your few emergency abilities, such as Verdant Embrace Icon Verdant Embrace and Rewind Icon Rewind for the moments you did not anticipate.

Evoker has a lack of strong single-target spells as well as emergency buttons, making it difficult to actively keep individual targets alive during moments of danger. You must rotate through your cooldown abilities as much as possible to help ease this pain and make active use of Time Dilation Icon Time Dilation on anyone in significant danger to help make the situation more manageable.

When casting Dream Breath Icon Dream Breath, you would naturally assume that a higher empower means more healing, but this is not the case. This ability always does the same amount of total healing, regardless of empower level. What changes depending on the empower level is how much of that healing is upfront vs. how much comes in the form of a HoT. Higher upfront healing can result in more overhealing, meaning that you will benefit more from the high-duration HoT provided by Rank 1. Rank 2 is a nice balance between upfront healing and the HoT effect that could be good situationally.

2.1.

Reversion Build Rotation

With the Preservation Evoker 2pc Icon Preservation Evoker 2pc, casting Echo Icon Echo followed by Reversion Icon Reversion is the dominant way to play Preservation Evoker. Once you get access to the new Evoker Preservation 10.1 Class Set 2pc Icon Evoker Preservation 10.1 Class Set 2pc, the best build will change to either Emerald Blossom or Spiritbloom, but you will be stuck playing the Reversion build until then. The rotation is as follows:

The goal of the Reversion build is to generate as many Echo Icon Echos as possible before consuming them with Reversion Icon Reversion, allowing you to have a lot of HoTs out on your raid group. For that reason, it is important that you never waste Essence, and cast as many Temporal Anomaly Icon Temporal Anomalys as possible to help increase the amount of Reversions you are able to get out.

2.2.

Spiritbloom Build Rotation

Once you have access to the new Evoker Preservation 10.1 Class Set 2pc Icon Evoker Preservation 10.1 Class Set 2pc, the Spiritbloom Icon Spiritbloom build becomes the best raiding build for Preservation Evoker. In general, you will be playing it similar to the previously dominant Reversion build. Your goal is to generate as many Echo Icon Echos as possible through both spending essence and casting Temporal Anomaly Icon Temporal Anomaly with Resonating Sphere Icon Resonating Sphere. Once you have your Echo Icon Echos out, you will then consume them with Spiritbloom Icon Spiritbloom. The overall rotation will look something like this:

While this build is very powerful, you will need to time your Spiritbloom Icon Spiritblooms well by casting it as damage is going out. That doesn't mean you should let it sit off cooldown for 30+ seconds at a time; you still want to maximize casts; just attempt to line it up with dangerous moments when possible. In some cases, you may also get better performance from the Emerald Blossom Icon Emerald Blossom build, especially once you get full access to the Evoker Preservation 10.1 Class Set 4pc Icon Evoker Preservation 10.1 Class Set 4pc, but it is likely to be dependent on the fight.

2.3.

Emerald Blossom Build Rotation

The key to the Emerald Blossom Icon Emerald Blossom build is generating as much Essence Burst Icon Essence Bursts as possible. It is important that you are making an effort to cast Living Flame Icon Living Flame as well as Fire Breath Icon Fire Breath in order to help generate more procs. This will not only increase your overall output but also help your mana costs.

When using Fire Breath Icon Fire Breath, we want to cast it at max rank in order to generate the max possible Living Flame Icon Living Flames from Leaping Flames Icon Leaping Flames. It does not matter if you then consume the Living Flames for damage or healing; we only care about having extra chances to generate Essence Burst Icon Essence Bursts.

2.4.

5-Man Healing

5-man healing can be quite difficult as an Evoker. In general, you should be trying to heal through the hardest moments by rotating casts of Dream Breath Icon Dream Breath and Spiritbloom Icon Spiritbloom at max rank. Between these two cooldowns, you will want to ensure your allies have Reversion Icon Reversion on them so they are constantly being healed. Given there is no rotation you can follow in M+, it is important that you understand how you can fully use your abilities to their max effectiveness in Mythic+. Your overall priority will look somewhat like this:

  • Cast Echo Icon Echo to prepare for damage.
  • Keep Reversion Icon Reversion on your party members when damage is going out.
  • Cast Dream Breath Icon Dream Breath at either Rank 1 (small passive healing) or max rank (large burst healing) depending on what the situation demands.
  • Cast Spiritbloom Icon Spiritbloom at max rank during difficult moments.
  • Use Verdant Embrace Icon Verdant Embrace to deal with single-target damage.

In order to further understand the Mythic+ rotation, you should also understand the three main ways that you will be consuming Echo Icon Echo:

  • Reversion Icon Reversion -- This will be your most used ability to consume Echo Icon Echo. Keeping the passive healing on your will make every pack more manageable, as well as providing the Grace Period Icon Grace Period buff.
  • Verdant Embrace Icon Verdant Embrace -- Using this ability to consume your Echo Icon Echo will allow you to do quick burst healing, as well as give you and everyone with the echo buff Lifebind Icon Lifebind, which then gives you the option to press Emerald Communion Icon Emerald Communion during very dangerous moments, making your group nearly invincible.
  • Dream Breath Icon Dream Breath -- Out of all your options for consuming echo, this will be one of the least frequent choices. When facing heavy tank damage, it can be beneficial to apply 2x Reversion Icon Reversions and 2x Dream Breath Icon Dream Breath, just to ensure that the tanks have as much healing as possible.

For more information on how the class changes both rotationally and talent wise in Mythic+, please visit our dedicated page below:

2.5.

DPS Rotation

Dealing with damage as a Preservation Evoker is extremely simple. The only major change comes from Energy Loop Icon Energy Loop and Disintegrate Icon Disintegrate. With these two talents, you will be casting Disintegrate Icon Disintegrate; without these two ,abilities you will not be. Assuming you are taking these talents, your rotation will look like:

3.

Using Lifebind

Despite nerfs to the Lifebind Icon Lifebind talent, it still remains an exceptionally strong talent that can be used as a mini-raid cooldown. That being said, it will require you to be talented into Temporal Anomaly Icon Temporal Anomaly and Resonating Sphere Icon Resonating Sphere. Of course, it will also require Lifebind Icon Lifebind and Emerald Communion Icon Emerald Communion. To do this combination, you will want to get Echo Icon Echos on your raid members by applying it manually and through Temporal Anomaly Icon Temporal Anomaly. Once these echos are applied to ideally 12+ allies, you will want to Verdant Embrace Icon Verdant Embrace an ally without an echo buff and then immediately cast Emerald Communion Icon Emerald Communion. This will cause all the healing done to transfer to your targets with the lifebind buff, resulting in a massive amount of healing. In many cases, you can also cast 2 Temporal Anomaly Icon Temporal Anomalys or use Stasis Icon Stasis to get many echos out and do miniature lifebind ramps that do not include emerald communion but still do large healing when combined with Spiritbloom Icon Spiritbloom. How often you can do these miniramps is largely dictated by how much mana you have and the type of damage patterns.

4.

Using Essence Burst

Essence Burst Icon Essence Burst should be used on the best Essence-spending ability for your content type and your build. In situations where absolutely no one could benefit from healing, you can instead choose to use Essence Burst on Disintegrate Icon Disintegrate. This will increase your damage output by a small margin. That being said, in many raiding situations, you will want to sit on your Essence Burst buff for when damage is coming out.

5.

Cooldown Usage for Preservation Evokers

One of the largest differences between a strong healer and a weaker one is how cooldowns are used and managed. Preservation Evoker has many options available through both the spec tree and class tree.

  • Dream Flight Icon Dream Flight is a powerful cooldown located in the spec tree. With only a two-minute cooldown, you will want to be making use of this ability frequently and you will want to hit as many allies as possible with it. You should aim to use this as soon as damage comes out and, ideally when the HoT effect will have good value.
  • Stasis Icon Stasis is a very strong ability, allowing you to essentially store three heals for later use. Only on a 1:30 cooldown this ability should be used often, especially when you consider that once you collect 3 heals, they will stay with you for the next 30 seconds. You should prioritize powerful heals in your stasis such as Dream Breath Icon Dream Breath, Spiritbloom Icon Spiritbloom, and Temporal Anomaly Icon Temporal Anomaly. If you need to get three spells into it quickly, it is also acceptable to use a Emerald Blossom Icon Emerald Blossom in the stasis just to fill it up quickly, allowing you to return to casting weaker healing spells without them taking up space in your stasis.
  • Rewind Icon Rewind should be used after an extremely heavy damage window. Its healing is determined by how much damage you have taken in the last 5 seconds, meaning the more that your raid or party took, the more it will heal. This cooldown is one of the few true emergency buttons that Preservation Evokers have; you should use it as best you can in truly dire situations.
  • Tip the Scales Icon Tip the Scales is the other emergency button for Preservation Evokers. In most cases, you should save this cooldown for when your party takes damage that you did not anticipate. Once this happens, you can easily press this button followed by Spiritbloom Icon Spiritbloom or Dream Breath Icon Dream Breath to get a quick but powerful heal off to save your party members or raid's life.
  • Zephyr Icon Zephyr causes you and your 4 closet allies to take 20% reduced Area-of-Effect damage for 8 seconds. Given that this only targets your 4 closet allies, it will be easier to use in Mythic+ than raid, but you will still want to make active use of it when you know that you are going to take a large AoE hit in the next few seconds. Not every damage event is considered AoE, so you must have a good understanding of what type of damage you will be taking to ensure you do not waste the effects of the ability.
  • Emerald Communion Icon Emerald Communion is a great way to regenerate mana, and for that reason, you will want to cast it as much as possible. There are some things you can do with Lifebind Icon Lifebind, but they require you to talent into some choices that you may not normally. If you do end up talenting into those options, then you will want to pair this cooldown with the full combination every time you can to maximize your healing. Otherwise, using it on cooldown to maximize your mana return will be your best decision.

Where Evoker struggles in consistent healing, it makes up for in cooldowns. Every ability listed, as well as Spiritbloom Icon Spiritbloom and Dream Breath Icon Dream Breath are very powerful in helping you manage difficult and dangerous situations. The biggest mistake you can ever make on Evoker is not rotating through these cooldowns appropriately and trying to save them for too long. Use them as you feel the need to help ease some of the weaknesses in Evoker's healing kit.

6.

Changelog

  • 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.
  • 20 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
  • 24 Jan. 2023: Rotation updated for 10.0.5.
  • 28 Dec. 2022: Rotation updated to include differences between emerald blossom and reversion builds.
  • 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
  • 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
  • 15 Nov. 2022: Page added.
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