Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Gaidax]

That's pretty clear so far. So what's the central class mechanic?

1) Essence - spender skills require essence to cast which is a resource on timer, you can speed up essence generation with Empower skills and occasionally get a free essence skill use via filler spells. There are 3 general spender skills as DPS - main AoE spam spell, ST channel spell with big dam and ST instant nuke on CD.

2) Empower Skills increase essence regeneration and decrease cooldown of your DPS CDs - Dragonrage and Deep Breath.

3) Dragonrage and Deep Breath allow you to use 100% of your mastery value and provide big AoE nuke and/or Essence Burst procs from fillers guaranteed.


It works pretty damn smooth.

The gameplay would be to cast Empower Skills on CD (but paced at 8 seconds gap of each other because of Power Swell talent to maximize uptime on essence regeneration buff), then use spenders when you proc burst or capped or need to pump ST or AoE and finally use either of two fillers when you have nothing else depending on spec and circumstance.

You want to fit as many Empower Skills as you can with various CDR talents, so your Dragonrage and Deep Breath CD gets reduced and you can use it again sooner. Then of course you don't want to waste essence/burst charges by sitting on them capped

It's like a mix of Fire Mage and Destrolock.

[Nyel]

While Empower seems to be the core standout for Evokers, it's universally rated as the weak point of the class as of now because it's clunky and there are some questionable design choices (making a single target skill an AoE when it's empowered for example, which is worthless in a ST fight; usually lacking a strong empower ST skill in general etc.) - this is the case for both Preservation and Devastation and has been criticized by quite a lot of Alpha testers already.

I too like the concept of Evoker and how they play, especially Preservation, but they really need to improve or change Empower skills. They have time to do so, though.

[Gaidax]

making a single target skill an AoE when it's empowered for example, which is worthless in a ST fight

This is what clueless people say.

You would want to channel ES for full even ST because doing so gives you 8 seconds of Power Swell and -8 seconds CD on Dragonrage and Deep Breath.

So it is assuredly a DPS increase even ST. The bonus is that you can cut it early and fuck off from incoming boss ability early and still get the damage.

The other empower ability is nobrainer - more channel = longer DoT.

[Nyel]

This is what clueless people say.

You would want to channel ES for full even ST because doing so gives you 8 seconds of Power Swell and -8 seconds CD on Dragonrage and Deep Breath.

So it is assuredly a DPS increase even ST. The bonus is that you can cut it early and fuck off from incoming boss ability early and still get the damage.

The other empower ability is nobrainer - more channel = longer DoT.

Has nothing to do with clueless when it's been universally criticized by testers. That your fully charged empower gives you bonuses due to traits doesn't change the fact that's it's bad design or an oversight that a single target skill gets an AoE component without making it stronger for single target fights. Fact is, Empower single target skills are lacking at the moment, for both specs.

[Makorus]

Has nothing to do with clueless when it's been universally criticized by testers. That your fully charged empower gives you bonuses due to traits doesn't change the fact that's it's bad design or an oversight that a single target skill gets an AoE component without making it stronger for single target fights. Fact is, Empower single target skills are lacking at the moment, for both specs.

Right, so I was a bit stupid earlier and now that I looked at the whole tree/abilities it makes more sense (WoWheads formatting in their post about Evokers is atrocious and makes it incredibly confusing).

I don't see how a talent making a spell viable in ST is bad design?

[Gaidax]

Has nothing to do with clueless when it's been universally criticized by testers. That your fully charged empower gives you bonuses due to traits doesn't change the fact that's it's bad design or an oversight that a single target skill gets an AoE component without making it stronger for single target fights. Fact is, Empower single target skills are lacking at the moment, for both specs.

"universally"

okbruh

You literally bitch about one total 30s cd spell and quite frankly - ok, lets give it to you, fine by me - make it do 10% more damage per charge on top of more targets.

That was your big Evoker issue?

lol

- - - Updated - - -

If you want to raise some issues try this.

• Mastery losing power the further you are in boss fight.
• No essential utility. Nothing like lust, battle shout, intellect and so on.

But bottom line - it's what's alpha/beta for. If things will be bad (or OP) they will be changed and tuned as usual.

[Nyel]

I don't see how a talent making a spell viable in ST is bad design?

It does not, which is the problem. All Empower spells add a cleave or AoE component (or are AoE / cleave skills to begin with) while doing nothing for single target. That's the case for Devastation and Preservation which makes empowering spells in a single target situation feel bad because you just do it for a passive buff. Whereas in AoE / cleave situations you always benefit from empowering skills (due to the skill itself being stronger and offering the passive buff).

- - - Updated - - -

But bottom line - it's what's alpha/beta for. If things will be bad (or OP) they will be changed and tuned as usual.

That's what I said? And I'm not bitching, I'm pointing out the most glaring Evoker issue at the moment which is Empower skills - and yes, universally, because basically every Evoker gameplay review I've seen and read is talking about Empower skills being the only weak point of how they feel and that they don't even do anything in certain scenarios. I think top tier players that judge this have a point. If you don't see the issue, that's fine. Doesn't change anything though.

[Makorus]

It does not, which is the problem. All Empower spells add a cleave or AoE component (or are AoE / cleave skills to begin with) while doing nothing for single target. That's the case for Devastation and Preservation which makes empowering spells feel bad because you just do it for a passive buff. Whereas in AoE / cleave situations you always benefit from empowering skills.

In ST, you can either cast it longer and reduce the cooldown on your big abilities, or cast it quicker without that benefit.

[Gaidax]

In ST, you can either cast it longer and reduce the cooldown on your big abilities, or cast it quicker without that benefit.

You also get 50% class resource regeneration buff for 2 seconds for each level of Empowerment you do on top of it (8s at max). So you'd want to empower it to max anyway.

Red build would take ES too, simply because of the buffs it gives alongside being a pretty powerful nuke.

[Nyel]

I don't know how to explain it better, you both just seem to not understand the problem of Empower skills in single target scenarios. There they are significantly weaker than in AoE scenarios which is the problem.

[huth]

I don't know how to explain it better, you both just seem to not understand the problem of Empower skills in single target scenarios. There they are significantly weaker than in AoE scenarios which is the problem.

Because it really isn't an actual problem, just something you personally dislike.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I see that Varx and TheFirstOnes have snuck in here from their account ban and account abandonment, respectively.

[Revamp Man]

In ST, you can either cast it longer and reduce the cooldown on your big abilities, or cast it quicker without that benefit.

Stop making sense

[Makorus]

I don't know how to explain it better, you both just seem to not understand the problem of Empower skills in single target scenarios. There they are significantly weaker than in AoE scenarios which is the problem.

I mean, there are a lot of spells that are significantly weaker in ST compared to AOE.

[Revamp Man]

From my limited messing with the trees
Red build seems like more aoe
Blue build is quicker and cleave with more procs
Middle is big CD and using empowered buffs to our advantage while also making mastery more useful

[Makorus]

tbh, I like the mastery.

There are enough execute mechanics in the game already anyway, so it's nice to have a reverse-execute. Plus, there's the fact that there's a lot of abilities that make it do full damage anyway.

[draugril]

Do we know what shows up on the Evoker from the tier sets in dracthyr form?

We do not. All we know is that Zion said that they can “do more” than just shoulders and belts with Evoker-specific gear.

[MightyWarrior]

Only warriors should get execute mechanics

[Tsamane]

So when will this topic be replaced with 10.X Patches & 11.0 Speculation Thread?

[Raetary]

Looking through all the creature models, there seems to be some issues with art style consistency.