Preservation Evoker Healing Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.2.6

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.

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.

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 and 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 on anyone in significant danger to help make the situation more manageable.

When casting 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.

Your goal is to generate as many Echos as possible through both spending essence and casting Temporal Anomaly with Resonating Sphere. Once you have your Echos out, you will then consume them with one of the four following spells: Spiritbloom, Dream Breath, Verdant Embrace and Reversion. Here is how you can decide which spell to use:

• Reversion is one of the two best options for consuming Echos. Even without high critical strike, it is relatively easy for the duration to be extended to the max, and it also gives you Grace Period value and extra Essence Bursts.
• Verdant Embrace is going to be one of the primary ways you consume Echos. While it may offer slightly less burst healing than Spiritbloom, it will proc Lifebind, which at the very worst can put it on par and, when significantly playing into it, makes it the best choice for echo consumption. Not to mention the potential to combine with Emerald Communion with as many echos as possible for a massive raid cooldown.
• Spiritbloom is a strong choice for quick burst and single-target healing. When you know raid damage is coming and you aren't going to use Verdant Embrace, you can prep many Echos and then time your Spiritbloom to land right as the damage hits.
• Dream Breath is a strong choice when the raid is taking passive damage or isn't in need of the quick burst healing that other choices offer. Generally, it is weaker than using Reversion and also much more difficult to pull off since Verdant Embrace will consume the Echos when you attempt to proc Call of Ysera before casting Dream Breath.

In many cases, the best way to consume Echo depends on the situation. The two most common ways you will be using it are Verdant Embrace and Reversion. You can use Verdant Embrace for heavy damage spikes followed by healing yourself for Lifebind value. Otherwise you will want to get out as many Reversions as possible to keep constant healing on your raid and get the added Grace Period and Essence Burst value.

In general your priority list should look like the following:

• Do not overcap on Essence or waste Essence Burst procs (Cast Echo as much as possible).
• Cast Temporal Anomaly as mana allows to generate Echos through Resonating Sphere, consume these Echos with Reversion in order to gain Grace Period and generate Essence Burst.
• Consume Echos with Verdant Embrace for heavy spike damage or Reversion for more passive damage.
• Use Verdant Embrace before casting Dream Breath in order to get the bonus healing increase from Call of Ysera.
• Cast Dream Breath as frequently as possible and only empower it to Rank 1 (sometimes Rank 2).
• Cast Spiritbloom, Fire Breath and of course Dream Breath as much as possible.
• Cast Living Flame to generate Essence Burst procs.

It is important to consider that Call of Ysera has a 15-second long duration. Even when using Verdant Embrace for Echo, you should have plently of time to still cast Dream Breath. When you are also attempting to play into the Verdant Embrace and Lifebind interaction, there are a few things you should do to maximize your healing output. Generally, casting a few Living Flames on yourself will be the most consistent way to get good value out of Lifebind. However, you can also choose to simply cast Spiritbloom on yourself at Rank 3/4 to transfer all of the healing to your Lifebind targets. If you aren't directly trying to maximize your Lifebind window then it will fall behind to Spiritbloom or Reversion, but with a bit of effort it is extremely powerful. For more information on how this interaction works, you can scroll further down the page to our "Using Lifebind" section.

Normal Temporal Anomaly casts will be consumed with Reversion as this will give you 5 chances at proccing Essence Burst, giving you more total echos to play with, not to mention that it will provide allies with the Grace Period buff. When you are attempting to have a lot of Echos out at one moment for a Emerald Communion or a very spikey damage window, then it makes sense to not consume the Echos after the Temporal Anomaly cast with reversion and instead use them on another ability.

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

• Use Verdant Embrace before casting Dream Breath in order to get the bonus healing increase from Call of Ysera.
• Cast Dream Breath as frequently as possible and only empower it to Rank 1 (sometimes Rank 2).
• Cast Fire Breath on cooldown to proc Leaping Flames.
• Use Spiritbloom on cooldown.
• Use Emerald Blossom as damage demands it and prioritize casting it on clumps of allies to prevent it from healing only one ally.
• Cast Temporal Anomaly as mana permits, consume the Echos with Reversion.
• DPS with Living Flame to generate Essence Bursts that you can then spend on Emerald Blossom.

When using Fire Breath, we want to cast it at max rank in order to generate the max possible Living Flames from 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 Bursts. It is also important that you are rotating casts of Emerald Blossom and Living Flame. By rotating casts, you will be able to make use of the Ancient Flame talent, giving you quicker casts of Living Flame.

To really minmax the Emerald Blossom rotation, you will ideally want to rotate between casting Emerald Blossom and Living Flame. By doing this, you will be able to make full use of Ancient Flame, reducing the cast time of Living Flame by 40%, allowing you to generate quicker Essence Bursts. When facing heavy damage, it may be better to just fully spend essence as soon as you get it rather than rotating between the two casts.

Cycle of Life will transfer ALL healing. This includes both Rewind and Dream Flight. For that reason, you will want to make sure that you have an active Cycle of Life buff before casting either of your cooldowns, that way you can transfer the healing your cooldowns do to the entire group.

Choosing to consume the Temporal Anomaly Echos with Reversion will not only give you multiple chances to proc Essence Burst, but will also allow you to gain the Grace Period healing bonus.

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 and Spiritbloom at max rank. Between these two cooldowns, you will want to ensure your allies have 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 to prepare for damage.
• Keep Reversion on your party members when damage is going out.
• Cast Dream Breath at either Rank 1 (small passive healing) or max rank (large burst healing) depending on what the situation demands.
• Cast Spiritbloom at max rank during difficult moments.
• Use 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:

• Reversion -- This will be your most used ability to consume Echo. Keeping the passive healing on your will make every pack more manageable, as well as providing the Grace Period buff.
• Verdant Embrace -- Using this ability to consume your Echo will allow you to do quick burst healing, as well as give you and everyone with the echo buff Lifebind, which then gives you the option to press Emerald Communion during very dangerous moments, making your group nearly invincible.
• 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 Reversions and 2x 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:

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

• Cast Fire Breath on cooldown and at max rank.
• Consume the Leaping Flames buff by casting Living Flame.
• Cast Azure Strike on 3+ targets.
• Spend Essence on Disintegrate.
• Cast Living Flame.

Lifebind is an extremely powerful tool in the Evoker kit. Whenever you cast Verdant Embrace on an ally, you both will gain the Lifebind buff. When you have a lot of Echos out, every player with an Echo will also get a Lifebind buff. There are two main ways to abuse this for massive healing. The very first involves Emerald Communion. This cooldown causes you to heal for 20% of your health per tick, but it also transfers healing to every player we had Lifebind on. This means that every 3 minutes we should aim to get as many Echos out as possible, cast Verdant Embrace and then cast Emerald Communion. This will provide you with a massive amount of healing over the 5-second window and should be treated as a major raid cooldown as long as you can execute it properly. Outside of this, Lifebind serves as a large part of our rotational healing. In order to maximize the healing it does during a fight you will obviously want to cast Verdant Embrace right after large damage spikes (with as many Echos out as possible), followed by one of two abilities: Living Flame or Spiritbloom. When possible, you can cast Spiritbloom on yourself at Rank 3/4 for quick healing that fits within the Lifebind duration, followed by a Living Flame cast. Given the long cast time of Spiritbloom, you should always ensure the cast finishes before your Lifebind ends, otherwise it is ok to cast it at a lower rank just to ensure it fits within the window. When Spiritbloom is on cooldown, you can simply spam heal yourself with Living Flame until the Lifebind buff falls off. Both will result in very powerful healing as long as you are able to get Echos out beforehand.

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. 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.

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 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 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, Spiritbloom, and Temporal Anomaly. If you need to get three spells into it quickly, it is also acceptable to use a 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 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 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 or Dream Breath to get a quick but powerful heal off to save your party members or raid's life.
• 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 closest 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 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, 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 and 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.