Preservation Evoker Healing Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (Season 1)
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 — The War Within (Season 1).
Preservation Evoker Rotation Guide for The War Within
Welcome to our Rotation page for Preservation Evokers. On this page, you will find everything you need to know about actually playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.
Preservation Evoker Rotations
Each of the sections below explain the rotation for Preservation Evoker depending on the build you choose and the content you are doing.
Preservation Evoker Rotation
The buttons below can be used to select between curated Raiding and Mythic+ loadouts. You can also use the switches below to add or remove individual talents you may also be using:
Talent Selections, etc. | ||
---|---|---|
Resonating Sphere | Nozdormu's Teachings | Energy Loop |
Dream Flight | Stasis | Cycle of Life |
Spark of Insight | Ouroboros | Life-Giver's Flame |
Grace Period | Lifespark | Titan's Gift |
Spell Priority for Preservation Evoker
Preservation Evoker has two very distinct ways to play. One focuses on spending essence on Echo; the other focuses on spending essence on Emerald Blossom. Deciding which of these abilities you will want to cast largely depends on the talents you take. Echo builds head towards Time Lord, giving them extra healing output from Echo casts, whereas Emerald Blossom builds select Fluttering Seedlings, Field of Dreams, and Cycle of Life to amplify their output from each Emerald Blossom cast.
While in Mythic+ Echo builds remain the way to go, the best raid build often changes patch to patch, but overall, both remain competitive. Being able to play both unique builds is a valuable skill, as there is a good chance you may need to use both throughout a raiding tier.
Preservation Evoker - Echo Raid Build
Echo Raid Build Rotation
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:
- Verdant Embrace offers you very high burst potential, and overall the highest HPS output assuming that you are playing into the Lifebind effect. Because Lifebind shares healing that you deal to yourself with any players having the buff, you will want to follow each Verdant Embrace cast with a Spiritbloom cast on yourself, that way you transfer additional healing to all allies with Lifebind. Outside of this you can perform powerful combos every 3 minutes with Emerald Communion.
- Spiritbloom will offer you a nice amount of burst healing as well as additional HoT healing through Reverberations. In general this will fall behind Verdant Embrace and Lifebind combos but it can be much easier to pull off and is decent at healing longer duration damage windows.
- Dream Breath is a fairly strong choice thanks to Double-time but often falls behind Spiritbloom and Lifebind. That being said, it can be efficient to use when facing very heavy rot damage where the burst healing from the other spells may not be as useful. Keep in mind it will be more difficult to pull off since Verdant Embrace will consume the Echos when you attempt to proc Call of Ysera before casting Dream Breath.
- Reversion is a fairly weak Echo choice that will also require you to talent into Grace Period. 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.
The overall rotation for an Echo build will look like this:
- Keep Stasis on cooldown as much as possible and avoid putting weak spells (think Echo) within the Stasis. More info about Stasis can be found below.
- Aim to have 4 stacks of Temporal Compression before each empower cast. This can be done through casting any bronze spell (most of the time Echo or Chrono Flame).
- Use Tip the Scales as often as possible and ideally right as you are about to do large healing to get max effectiveness from Temporal Burst.
- Cast Temporal Anomaly as mana allows to generate Echos through Resonating Sphere.
- Do not overcap on Essence or waste Essence Burst procs (Cast Echo as much as possible).
- Consume active Echos with Verdant Embrace to deal with heavy burst damage and when your raid is low health.
- Cast Spiritbloom on yourself and before the Lifebind buff falls off. This will allow you to deal a massive amount of extra healing to your raid following a Verdant Embrace cast. Generally you will use Rank 2/3 to ensure that the cast finishes before Lifebind falls off.
- Generate stacks of Temporal Compression and cast Dream Breath at Rank 1 before you lose the Call of Ysera buff triggered by casting Verdant Embrace.
- When facing heavy rot damage and in a situation where Spiritbloom or Lifebind will overheal; you can instead consume Echos with Dream Breath. You would then follow a rotation of using Verdant Embrace, followed by getting Echos out, then consuming with Dream Breath.
- Cast Fire Breath at max rank to trigger Leaping Flames, follow this cast by using Living Flame to generate Essence Burst.
- Cast Living Flame to generate Essence Burst procs and Temporal Compression stacks when you have nothing else to do or don't want to consume Echos yet. These living flames should be cast on an enemy in order to save mana and not consume the Echos.
Additional information on Lifebind and how to use it effectively can be found further down the page.
When it comes to Stasis usage, it is important to keep in mind that the order in which you store spells will be the order in which they are cast when you end up reactivating Stasis. For that reason, you will generally want to use Temporal Anomaly at the end of your Stasis in order to not have the Echos instantly consumed by a spell you did not want. Prior to casting the Temporal Anomaly, you can use powerful abilities such as Spiritbloom and Dream Breath. It is also worth considering that every other use of Stasis will line up with the cooldown of Emerald Communion. This means that you can get extra Echos out for a large Lifebind combo by having a Temporal Anomaly at the end of your Stasis.
Preservation Evoker - Emerald Blossom Raid Build
This build focuses on casting Emerald Blossom as much as possible and generating a ton of Essence Bursts in order to save mana and increase your overall output. While an Echo build will occasionally cast Emerald Blossom thanks to Ouroboros, this build will never make use of Echo. You will simply spend every bit of essence you generate on Emerald Blossom.
- Keep Stasis on cooldown as much as possible and avoid putting weak spells (think Echo) within the Stasis. More info about Stasis can be found below.
- NEVER cap on essence or waste an Essence Burst proc. Always press Emerald Blossom whenever you are close to capping or have a proc, regardless of what else is happening.
- Aim to have 4 stacks of Temporal Compression before each empower cast. This can be done by casting any bronze spell (mainly Chrono Flame).
- Use Tip the Scales as often as possible and ideally right as you are about to do large healing to get max effectiveness from Temporal Burst.
- Use Verdant Embrace before casting Dream Breath in order to get the bonus healing increase from Call of Ysera. You will only be casting this at Rank 1 the majority of the time.
- Cast Fire Breath at max rank to trigger Leaping Flames, follow this cast by using Living Flame to generate Essence Bursts.
- Cast Emerald Blossom when possible.
- Cast Temporal Anomaly as mana allows to generate Echos through Resonating Sphere.
- After casting Temporal Anomaly, you will want to follow with a Living Flame; this will allow you to generate Essence Burst procs reliably.
- Cast Living Flame to generate Essence Burst procs when you have nothing else to do.
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.
In addition to the rotation listed above, there are a few mechanics you will want to keep in mind in order to maximize your performance, the most important of which involves pooling (not spending) your essence for heavy damage windows. If your raid group is healthy and nothing is happening; there is no real reason to press Emerald Blossom. In these situations, you can break the rule of never wasting essence or a proc and instead focus on generating Essence Bursts so that when the damage does come out, you can press multiple Emerald Blossoms back to back to back, which will give you a ton of healing while also feeding into the next mechanic that will be discussed: Cycle of Life.
In most cases, you won't need to overly concern yourself with Cycle of Life, but you should be thinking about it when you plan on using cooldowns. You are able to have multiple procs of this ability out at once, each feeding into the next one. The healing done by Rewind and Dream Flight also transfers into active Cycle of Lifes. This means that before pressing a major cooldown, you will want to pool your essence so that you can quickly cast multiple Emerald Blossoms as damage hits, giving you anywhere from 1-3 Cycle of Lifes, followed by your healing cooldown. When you are able to pull this off properly, it can result in millions of extra healing.
Finally, you will want to consider what spells to place inside of your Stasis. The general goal is to avoid ever having weak spells within the Stasis, such as Echo, Living Flame, etc. Powerful spells such as Temporal Anomaly, Emerald Blossom and any of your empowers. When playing this build, you can also simply opt into casting 3x Emerald Blossom to guarantee a Cycle of Life proc. Keep in mind that when you reactivate Stasis, the spells will be cast in the order you stored them, meaning if you want to include Temporal Anomaly into your Stasis, you should do so at the end of your Stasis so the Echos won't be consumed by a spell that won't generate Essence Bursts.
- Keep Stasis on cooldown as much as possible and avoid putting weak spells (think Echo) within the Stasis. More info about Stasis can be found below.
- Aim to have 4 stacks of Temporal Compression before each empower cast. This can be done by casting any bronze spell. It is very important you do this before casting Dream Breath.
- Use Verdant Embrace before casting Dream Breath in order to get the bonus healing increase from Call of Ysera. You will only be casting this at Rank 1 the majority of the time.
- Use Engulf on an ally who has a non- Echo version of the Dream Breath HoT. If the raid is still in need of healing you can repeat this.
- Cast Renewing Blaze when possible and on an ally during heavy damage to maximize Lifecinders healing. Use as much as possible.
- Cast Spiritbloom when heavy damage is occurring, and you do not have Engulf available.
- During downtime, aim to get Echos out and consume them ideally with Dream Breath or with Verdant Embrace to trigger Lifebind.
- Cast Fire Breath at max rank to trigger Leaping Flames, follow this cast by using Living Flame to generate Essence Bursts.
- After casting Temporal Anomaly, you will want to follow with a Living Flame; this will allow you to generate Essence Burst procs reliably.
- Cast Living Flame to generate Essence Burst procs when you have nothing else to do.
Preservation Evoker - Flameshaper Raid Build
The Flameshaper build focuses on maximizing Consume Flame healing through Dream Breath and Engulf. The key interaction to keep in mind is that the healing done by Consume Flame is increased by the healing your Dream Breath does. With that in mind, it is extremely important that you are playing into and maximizing all potential interactions.
Call of Ysera is the first obvious interaction and simply requires you to ensure you are pressing Verdant Embrace before each cast of Dream Breath. This will provide a significant bonus to your Dream Breath Healing, but keep in mind that it will not apply to Dream Breaths applied by Echo.
Evoker Preservation Season 1 4pc is the other key interaction. Each stack of Temporal Compression increases the healing of your next Empower ability. In order to again maximize our overall Dream Breath healing, it is important that we are only casting it with 4 stacks of Temporal Compression. You will want to make sure that you are tracking the stacks of this buff and also ensuring that you are building to max stacks during downtime. Similar to Call of Ysera, this effect will not apply to Dream Breaths that are applied by Echo.
These two buffs play a very large role in the build, not only from the healing increases they provide but also from the fact that Echo Dream Breaths do not gain the same effects. Because of that, it is extremely vital that you never use Engulf on Dream Breaths that have been applied via Echo. Doing so would result in a massive healing loss and completely kill off any viability that the build has. Thankfully, Dream Breath casts have different Spell IDs than Echo Dream Breaths. This means you can easily track both on your raid frame to help you differentiate between the two and ensure you are casting correctly.
With all this in mind, you will simply be using Engulf as high damage is occurring to create a large burst of healing. If the damage is so high that one Engulf is not enough to cover it, you can choose to also use your second charge of Engulf. For the heaviest damage, you will want to prepare a Stasis and ensure that you have anywhere from 1-2 Engulf casts within it. Keep in mind that once Stasis is reactivated, it will recast abilities on the same target you cast them on originally to store them in Stasis. This means you should be casting the Engulfs you aim to store on targets who you can also ensure will have an original Dream Breath buff on them. Your extra Stasis cast beyond the Engulfs does not matter much; generally, any filler spell can be appropriate, Temporal Anomaly is never a bad choice in order to conserve mana.
If you do decide to consume Echos with Verdant Embrace to trigger Lifebind, keep in mind that you will want to be playing into the Lifebind, meaning that you heal yourself during the duration. This can be done by simply using a Rank 1 Spiritbloom on yourself during the Lifebind window or even Living Flame on yourself. Any healing you can do to yourself will greatly increase how much the Lifebind does, and you will want to maximize it anytime you choose to Lifebind. More information can be found below.
Preservation Evoker - Mythic+ Build
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 opt to talent into Renewing Breath for a bit extra output. Certain talents in the class tree can also be swapped out depending on the weekly affixes and dungeons you are doing.
- Cast Echo to prepare for damage.
- Keep Reversion on your party members when damage is going out to gain extra healing through Grace Period.
- 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.
- Make frequent use of Fire Breath for not only damage purposes but to also generate extra Essence Bursts, proc Afterimage, and proc Life-Giver's Flame. All of these additional effects transform what is normally a damage cooldown into something that can be used to heal your party up quickly.
- Cast Living Flame to generate extra Essence Bursts and to deal damage.
- If you ever find your group extremely stacked and you are limited on what abilities you have available, Emerald Blossom can be effective.
In order to further understand the Mythic+ rotation, you should also understand the four 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. Thanks to Golden Hour, it can be very powerful in terms of overall healing and also dealing with burst damage.
- Dream Breath -- Thanks to Double-time, this becomes a very powerful way to heal in Mythic+ settings. The duration of Dream Breath lasts so long that you can nearly always have uptime on your party from the HoT, and when combined with Reversion gives you a ton of passive healing, giving you more opportunity to deal damage and focus on mechanics.
- 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.
- Spiritbloom -- Echoing Spiritbloom in Mythic+ settings can often be overkill as the healing it offers is so high compared to what is often needed. If you do find yourself facing very, very heavy damage or you simply have time to prep before the damage goes out, then using Spiritbloom with Echo is guaranteed to top your party's health instantly.
As far as Stasis goes, the general rule of thumb in Mythic+ is always to have at least 1 max rank empower. This can mean either a max rank Spiritbloom or a Dream Breath. This will allow you to reactivate it during emergencies and is guaranteed to heal your party for a very high amount. Generally, the preference will be Spiritbloom, but it is not always possible, which is why a max-rank Dream Breath can also be acceptable. You can always put both into your Stasis, but casting them back to back can put you a bit vulnerable to burst damage until they come off cooldown. Temporal Anomaly is another fine choice to include, and Emerald Blossom can even be really good at offering burst healing and quickly filling your Stasis. Keep in mind that the Emerald Blossom will be recast on the player you initially cast it on, meaning that you should try to aim it at a player who is well-stacked when you do find yourself filling Stasis with a cast of it.
Using Lifebind
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 okay 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.
Using Essence Burst
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, it may seem natural to want to cast Disintegrate, but with Scarlet Adaptation and Lifeforce Mender talented, it will never be worth it. Even without these two abilities talented, it would require you to have Energy Loop and Natural Convergence talented.
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 is a powerful cooldown located in the spec tree. With only a two-minute cooldown, you will want to make 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, but it also procs Temporal Burst when you are a Chronowarden Evoker. 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. Given that it also provides you with a large power increase, you will want to aim to use it as much as possible when there is a large healing requirement.
- 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. However, 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.
Simplified Preservation Evoker Rotation for Beginners
If the rotations above seem overwhelming to you, you might benefit from visiting our Easy Mode page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.
PvP
The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.
Addons for Preservation Evoker Rotation
Check out our Addons page below for some recommended Addons to get the most out of your Preservation Evoker!
Macros for Preservation Evoker Rotation
Check out our Macros page below for some recommended Macros to get the most out of your Preservation Evoker!
Mythic+ Tips and Tricks for Preservation Evoker
For information about Mythic+ as a Preservation Evoker, please refer to our Mythic+ page.
Questions for the Author
Thanks for reading my Rotation Guide for Preservation Evoker. If you have any questions about it that you would like to ask me directly, feel free to contact me (Mytholxgy)on Discord through either the Paladin Discord or through direct messages: mytholxgy.
Changelog
- 07 Oct. 2024: Updated Rotation for Chronowarden Echo builds.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Page Reviewed and Updated for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Page Updated for War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Page updated for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 16 Jan. 2024: Rotation changes.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Rotations updated for 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 08 Aug. 2023: Extra information added for Emerald Blossom rotations.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 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.
More Evoker Guides
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This guide has been written by Mytholxgy, who plays healer in Liquid. He is a Templar in the Paladin class discord. You can reach him on Twitter and watch him stream on Twitch.
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