I tested a Dractyr and my god...

[Ihazpaws]

Ah I see the dark ranger fans are beginning to get to the anger stage of there grief.

Sums up OPs post very well.

[Nyel]

Devastation is a terrible spec, Preservation is great.

After spending half an hour in the character creation I achieved to design a great looking Dracthyr - at least in my opinion. But it took tons of work to pull it of to get a "Dragon" instead of an ugly lizard.

Overall the class still needs a ton of work. A ton. Empower skills are absolutely terrible to use and the limited range is completely unnecessary for both specs. Besides that, there is a good class, but it's not there yet. Preservation could be the coolest healing spec overall, but Devastation is outright awful.

[Rageonit]

Devastation is a terrible spec, Preservation is great.

After spending half an hour in the character creation I achieved to design a great looking Dracthyr - at least in my opinion. But it took tons of work to pull it of to get a "Dragon" instead of an ugly lizard.

Overall the class still needs a ton of work. A ton. Empower skills are absolutely terrible to use and the limited range is completely unnecessary for both specs. Besides that, there is a good class, but it's not there yet. Preservation could be the coolest healing spec overall, but Devastation is outright awful.

Go play something else then? All of the people who actually invested some hours into playing Evoker love Empower abilities (me included). And Blizzard did amazing job at making sure all empower levels are valuable in different situations, which is true for both Devastation and Preservation. I absolutely adore the Empower abilities being Evoker's "thing" and I'd rather have more of them than less.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Devastation is a terrible spec, Preservation is great.

After spending half an hour in the character creation I achieved to design a great looking Dracthyr - at least in my opinion. But it took tons of work to pull it of to get a "Dragon" instead of an ugly lizard.

Overall the class still needs a ton of work. A ton. Empower skills are absolutely terrible to use and the limited range is completely unnecessary for both specs. Besides that, there is a good class, but it's not there yet. Preservation could be the coolest healing spec overall, but Devastation is outright awful.

Have to agree there mostly. I also took quite a while to find a face that doesn't look like ass (there was never much hope for saving the dragthyr form, but I can live with the visage now at least). Whoever put the nose drop-down menu on another page than the face deserves to be bitch-slapped 24/7. Still running around as the lizard looks just dumb. How that running animation passed QC is a miracle to me.

The spec plays.. well, in case of the OP he never had a chance, because no other ranged spec plays like BM. BM was made as an easy mode and works like a melee but with 35+ yards range. That was always completely broken and is essentially there as a training wheels thing. For a caster their mobility is not stellar, but sufficient for most applications. The gameplay itself is awful for devastation though. While the non-shit connection to the servers on live has been a major improvment over the beta in regards to charged spells, the actual combat is still at best "meh". You have pretty much 2 filler spells, 2 spenders, 2 charge spells and that's about it. That is a rather boring set up for your core rotation and your big "badass" spell is the breath-dive thing which looks mostly comical imho. It's just unsatisfying as a dragon and as a caster. Besides that, as I mentioned before on MMO-C, I take issue with yet another fire caster; so fucking booooring...

I think the thing Evoker shine in most right now, even as DPS, is their healing. Essentially you can easily make a dragthyr have some high synergy with your healers (and general group support), but unless you can substitute an actual healer with a deva-evoker (remains to be seen) the only use for that would be helping out some really bad healers in most group content instead. I'm not sure that is even viable at the gimp level I'm playing at.

[Rageonit]

I think the thing Evoker shine in most right now, even as DPS, is their healing. Essentially you can easily make a dragthyr have some high synergy with your healers (and general group support), but unless you can substitute an actual healer with a deva-evoker (remains to be seen) the only use for that would be helping out some really bad healers in most group content instead. I'm not sure that is even viable at the gimp level I'm playing at.

The thing that the Devoker actually shine at - for anyone who's been testing it in beta or at least followed people who tested them extensively during beta - is add swaping, because Devoker is, by far, the best class in the game to dispatch adds spawning during the encounter. And that's due to their Mastery. It's actually the first DPS class in the game that doesn't have to be begged by raid leaders to switch to adds, because it's so good on targets with high health that any Devoker worth their salt will play around CDs being always available for adds.

[ClassicPeon]

Devastation is an odd spec imo. We got these new mechanics with the empower spells but the main focus of the spec is on Disintegrate which is basically mind flay. The spells dont really seem to have any proper interaction and Azure strike is just plain odd. Deep breath looks decent but has no interaction with anything else in the spec - its basically just a fire and forget spell. It also seems like spell queueing doesnt work sometimes with empowered spells leaving you just standing there for a second or so - its really bad as a dps. The mastery is one of the worst masteries in the game imo. It does the exact opposite of what you want in a raid enviroment.

So we have essence burst which is fine - its basically the only thing that makes any spells interact with eachother - besides that the only interaction is Leaping flames which is in the class tree and one that healers get aswell for a bit more burst aoe damage.

The healer spec has some of the same issues imo with spells not interacting enough - that being said its not as important as a healer and the spells are disctinct enough from other classes and from eachother to feel usefull and unique imo. The healer spec is pretty well made. I'l never play the class unless the dps spec gets a complete over haul tho. What a mess.

And about the movement thats an absurd statement. You have resque, Verdant embrace and hover + lower cd on movement abilities + Zephyr + time spiral if you want it. You also have the ability to jump into a hover which is increased passive movement speed.
It does require a bit more brain then a DH or monk does, but it does have a shitton of movement.

[Teriz]

Devastation is an odd spec imo. We got these new mechanics with the empower spells but the main focus of the spec is on Disintegrate which is basically mind flay. The spells dont really seem to have any proper interaction and Azure strike is just plain odd. Deep breath looks decent but has no interaction with anything else in the spec - its basically just a fire and forget spell. It also seems like spell queueing doesnt work sometimes with empowered spells leaving you just standing there for a second or so - its really bad as a dps. The mastery is one of the worst masteries in the game imo. It does the exact opposite of what you want in a raid enviroment.

So we have essence burst which is fine - its basically the only thing that makes any spells interact with eachother - besides that the only interaction is Leaping flames which is in the class tree and one that healers get aswell for a bit more burst aoe damage.

A strange argument to make, considering that we can't utilize all the talents yet. A lot of the interaction abilities you're talking about are at the bottom of the Devastation talent tree. That said, there are abilities like Charge Blast, Animosity, and Catalyze, which have interactivity between spell schools.

[Nyel]

Go play something else then? All of the people who actually invested some hours into playing Evoker love Empower abilities (me included). And Blizzard did amazing job at making sure all empower levels are valuable in different situations, which is true for both Devastation and Preservation. I absolutely adore the Empower abilities being Evoker's "thing" and I'd rather have more of them than less.

I've yet to see the overwhelming positive reaction to Empower skills that you are painting lol. They are said to be a staple for the class yet there are only 4 of them - and only two of them have an Empower effect that makes sense (both breath abilities). For Eternity Surge and Spirit Bloom to just increase targets hit while doing nothing else is completely unnecessary when your breath abilities already cover the AoE part for your Empower skills. But whatever, they made all empower levels valuable... no, they didn't. But that's not the point. Channeling a skill for 3 seconds more or less on a "mobile" class is just awful game design. I agree though, there should be more empower skills. Why does Preservation not have a bronze empower and two green? Makes no sense either.

And what's up with this nonsense answer "go play something else"? Just because I think Empower skills are terrible I still can enjoy the class.

- - - Updated - - -

Have to agree there mostly. I also took quite a while to find a face that doesn't look like ass (there was never much hope for saving the dragthyr form, but I can live with the visage now at least). Whoever put the nose drop-down menu on another page than the face deserves to be bitch-slapped 24/7. Still running around as the lizard looks just dumb. How that running animation passed QC is a miracle to me.

The spec plays.. well, in case of the OP he never had a chance, because no other ranged spec plays like BM. BM was made as an easy mode and works like a melee but with 35+ yards range. That was always completely broken and is essentially there as a training wheels thing. For a caster their mobility is not stellar, but sufficient for most applications. The gameplay itself is awful for devastation though. While the non-shit connection to the servers on live has been a major improvment over the beta in regards to charged spells, the actual combat is still at best "meh". You have pretty much 2 filler spells, 2 spenders, 2 charge spells and that's about it. That is a rather boring set up for your core rotation and your big "badass" spell is the breath-dive thing which looks mostly comical imho. It's just unsatisfying as a dragon and as a caster. Besides that, as I mentioned before on MMO-C, I take issue with yet another fire caster; so fucking booooring...

I think the thing Evoker shine in most right now, even as DPS, is their healing. Essentially you can easily make a dragthyr have some high synergy with your healers (and general group support), but unless you can substitute an actual healer with a deva-evoker (remains to be seen) the only use for that would be helping out some really bad healers in most group content instead. I'm not sure that is even viable at the gimp level I'm playing at.

You just clearly see that Devastation as a spec was an afterthought because it's so bare bones and boring while at the same time you have to play a tedious numbers game to get the most out of it - only matters for min-maxers though (the wowhead guide to Devastation is just ridiculous).

I have no idea how they could make Preservation so great and make Devastation such a terrible spec. It's beyond me. The entire gameplay loop of Disintegrating as much as possible on a limited range is so awkward. And Deva's big CDs are terrible as well. Deep Breath is just outright me and Dragonrage just results in Disintegrating as much as possible - zZZZzzzZZ.

I love how my Dracthyr looks now though, I didn't think I would enjoy it that much from the preview.

[Rageonit]

I've yet to see the overwhelming positive reaction to Empower skills that you are painting lol. They are said to be a staple for the class yet there are only 4 of them - and only two of them have an Empower effect that makes sense (both breath abilities). For Eternity Surge and Spirit Bloom to just increase targets hit while doing nothing else is completely unnecessary when your breath abilities already cover the AoE part for your Empower skills. But whatever, they made all empower levels valuable... no, they didn't. But that's not the point. Channeling a skill for 3 seconds more or less on a "mobile" class is just awful game design. I agree though, there should be more empower skills. Why does Preservation not have a bronze empower and two green? Makes no sense either.

And what's up with this nonsense answer "go play something else"? Just because I think Empower skills are terrible I still can enjoy the class.

Once again, you show mediocre knowledge of both the class and the game (weren't you one the people criticising Devoker's Mastery for being "bad" and later baiting from the thread when it actually turned out to be great?). No, the breaths don't "cover" anything at all, not for the niche Devoker is designed for. The way the Empower skills work is tied to the way its Mastery works, and creates a very specific damage profile you can take advantage of. Devoker has zero ramp up time for its AoE; that's why it's so powerful on add swaps - because it can dish out all of the damage up front, when the mobs are still high on health and when the Mastery still kicks in.

Yes, you do use Fire Breath's all Empower levels (go watch Preheat's vids if you don't understand why). Yes, you do use Eternity Surge on all Empower levels. Fire Breath 1 is so valuable, because it gets buffed by Mastery without doing the damage immediatelly, so you can follow up with Eternity Surge for big deepz. Then again, if the adds don't live long enough, you might want to use FB 2/3 (though it's more nuanced than that by how the acutal damage scales). You DO NOT channel Empower skills for 3 seconds all that often; and if you have to, just be prepared for it? Like, learn the fight to know when it's safe? Such an idiotic argument, "hurr durr it's not mobile if you have to channel for 3 secs now and then!!1". The point is being able to move quickly when it counts, and Evoker can do that really well, not only with Hover - once again, if you at least take some time to learn the fights. If your idea of a "mobile class" is "I can have escape ability for every situation I fuck up positioning", than yeah, Evoker is not that. But if you play smartly, Devoker has quick escape tools that let him DPS on the move while repositioning.

[Nyel]

Once again, you show mediocre knowledge of both the class and the game (weren't you one the people criticising Devoker's Mastery for being "bad" and later baiting from the thread when it actually turned out to be great?). No, the breaths don't "cover" anything at all, not for the niche Devoker is designed for. The way the Empower skills work is tied to the way its Mastery works, and creates a very specific damage profile you can take advantage of. Devoker has zero ramp up time for its AoE; that's why it's so powerful on add swaps - because it can dish out all of the damage up front, when the mobs are still high on health and when the Mastery still kicks in.

Yes, you do use Fire Breath's all Empower levels (go watch Preheat's vids if you don't understand why). Yes, you do use Eternity Surge on all Empower levels. Fire Breath 1 is so valuable, because it gets buffed by Mastery without doing the damage immediatelly, so you can follow up with Eternity Surge for big deepz. Then again, if the adds don't live long enough, you might want to use FB 2/3 (though it's more nuanced than that by how the acutal damage scales). You DO NOT channel Empower skills for 3 seconds all that often; and if you have to, just be prepared for it? Like, learn the fight to know when it's safe? Such an idiotic argument, "hurr durr it's not mobile if you have to channel for 3 secs now and then!!1". The point is being able to move quickly when it counts, and Evoker can do that really well, not only with Hover - once again, if you at least take some time to learn the fights. If your idea of a "mobile class" is "I can have escape ability for every situation I fuck up positioning", than yeah, Evoker is not that. But if you play smartly, Devoker has quick escape tools that let him DPS on the move while repositioning.

Good example of reading my comment, yet understanding nothing and replying to something I didn't even mention. Have fun.

[Rageonit]

Good example of reading my comment, yet understanding nothing and replying to something I never even said. Have fun.

Good example of backing off (again) as soon as you encounter someone who actually knows a bit about the class and plays it.

[NatePsy]

Only downside I can see of Dracthyr is the soar like you mentioned. Other than that I just want more body sizes.

[Rageonit]

Dragonrage just results in Disintegrating as much as possible - zZZZzzzZZ

Again, shows how little you know of the actual gameplay. Dragonrage is much more meaningful than that, because it's used with Tyranny talent (that gives you 100% of your Mastery bonus during Dragonrage no matter the targets health). So the point is to: maximize your DPS while trying to have as much Dragonrage uptime as possible by trying to squeeze as many Empower abilities in it as possible - and that has nothing to do with just spamming Disintegrate. So yeah, zZZZzzzZZZ are mostly those uniformed, outright bad comments.

[Aydinx2]

I'm curious what my Rogue will be like at lvl 70. The talents look great to me. Then. I returned to play... and consequently to give an opinion on things.

And you thought your opinion held enough merit to warrant a thread, because?

[enigma77]

The spell animations really do look kinda silly. Why can't it just be fire instead of whatever sparkly happiness they fire at enemies?

Imo the art direction has overall changed for the worse over the last couple of years in some ways, things look cuter and less menacing than before. Must be the influence of female artists I guess. I prefer the older, heavy metal like style.

[ClownPrincess]

Dracthyr player: "haha i'm going to use deep breath on that rogue busy fighting someone else, here comes the badass ass kicking"
Me: "do a small side step"

[Mokuna]

I haven't tested devastation but the preservation spec is terrible design tbh, your most powerful spells are 4+ seconds channels you pretty much use on cd so you spend half your time just channeling, even basic things like Reversion need a 2 buttons combo to do anything, having 2 dispells just feel like button bloat for no reason. Some spells create an animation lock for over a second that's gonna get you killed for sure, Emerald blossom having to target a player just feels terrible compared to something like efflorescence or healing rain you can place without thinking about your raid positionning.


The spec feels like it's gonna perform well overall but be very unenjoyable to play

[Aydinx2]

Dracthyr player: "haha i'm going to use deep breath on that rogue busy fighting someone else, here comes the badass ass kicking"
Me: "do a small side step"

That's the same kind of missplay as when someone drops a an AoE in the wrong spot.
Has nothing to do with the ability or class design. Player issue.

- - - Updated - - -

I haven't tested devastation but the preservation spec is terrible design tbh, your most powerful spells are 4+ seconds channels you pretty much use on cd so you spend half your time just channeling, even basic things like Reversion need a 2 buttons combo to do anything, having 2 dispells just feel like button bloat for no reason. Some spells create an animation lock for over a second that's gonna get you killed for sure, Emerald blossom having to target a player just feels terrible compared to something like efflorescence or healing rain you can place without thinking about your raid positionning.


The spec feels like it's gonna perform well overall but be very unenjoyable to play

Just don't go to the max rank? For the most part it's just moving power from instant to HoT and vice-versa.
It's literally the exact same as just casting a heal. The only difference is that if you cancel mid-cast, it still does the effect.

[Rageonit]

I haven't tested devastation but the preservation spec is terrible design tbh, your most powerful spells are 4+ seconds channels you pretty much use on cd so you spend half your time just channeling, even basic things like Reversion need a 2 buttons combo to do anything, having 2 dispells just feel like button bloat for no reason. Some spells create an animation lock for over a second that's gonna get you killed for sure, Emerald blossom having to target a player just feels terrible compared to something like efflorescence or healing rain you can place without thinking about your raid positionning.


The spec feels like it's gonna perform well overall but be very unenjoyable to play

If you always cast to max rank, you're doing it wrong. Also, it's impossible to spend half the time doing Empower spells, because CDs, so that's gross exaggeration.
Reversion is double the healing of Rejuv and more than Renew; what else is it supposed to do as an instant cast HoT?
2 dispells, cause one of them is the best dispell in the game that can dispell anything, on a 1 min CD. The other dispell is just a standard one: Magic + (in case of Evoker) Poison.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, checked it on my alt healers. Priests (245 ilvl) Renew is 3683 per 15s; Reversion (266 ilvl) is 9236 per 15s. Talk about Reversion doing nothing. Where do you people get your info?

[Healerme]

Evoker is a weird one, a lot of people seem to go into the class with a desire to dislike it. But realistically the empower spells have been very well designed, most people feared they'd just be an always channel for as long as possible which is not the case.

People complaining about having to be grounded for 2 casts every 30 seconds make me think they've either never played casters before or are simply wanting to dislike the class. The mobility potential is huge, and the skill differentiators of min maxing Devastation mastery and Preservation's pre-emptive healing and echo/lifebind interactions are huge.

People not knowing or understanding a new class, which realistically is more complicated than many others, doesn't make it bad. So I hope people do give it a proper chance.