How popular will the Dracthyr Evoker be?

[Gaidax]

Evoker will be pretty popular for sure.

It has absolutely insane level of customizations, starts high level and has cool casual perks like base dragonriding everywhere.

It will, the very least be Mid Tier IMO.

[Toby451]

I dont think it will be very popular. Its quite complicated compared to most classes, many will avoid due to this.

[Teriz]

The real question is, what classes/specs will the Evoker pull mains from? How many people prefer to role ranged DPS and healing specs? Shaman maybe, since they have both a healing and ranged DPS spec. To answer the original question, I think low tier as the Evoker only has two specs and I don't see a lot of people moving from their old mains to this class.

Shaman/Druid main here. Switching to Dracthyr.

I can imagine quite a few Mages and Priests switching over tbh.

[Snowfunk]

Low to Mid tier.
It has access to some solid raid buffs, so most guilds will want to bring one. That will definitely help the class/race a lot.

Aside from how "common" the class/race will be, there's a good chance it will get a bad reputation in the community.
The people populating it, will be split between people playing it for gameplay utility, and the fetishists, who may or not be low tier players.

[Theangryone]

Pretty popular until the first nerfs.

[Gestopft]

I'm an altoholic so I'll definitely play one.

[McNeil]

On release I expect them to be very popular due to only being able to play them as a Dracthyr so ofcourse people will want to try them out. For end game its prolly gonna plummet to monk level or even worse due to being more complicated and the lack of a tank spec. It also depends if the class is meta or not.

[Icelin]

I don't care about charts. So it is very low on the list for me. Probably on par with monk. Really disappointed that the first hero caster class is having a bunch of issues. I have never hurried to create a new hero class. 2 out of 3 of them it took many, many years for me to even bat an eye at and try them out. As the class didn't speak to me.

The third one I did try within the same expansion was DH. Mostly cause they let women have cute outfits. That's it folks. That's not what people are going to want to hear but it's the truth.

It's been really disheartening the first hero caster class is so incredibly unappealing to me. I been hoping they might listen and fix things up. I want to be excited about a new caster class. Not sad.

[Rawrajishxc]

I dont think it will be very popular. Its quite complicated compared to most classes, many will avoid due to this.

It's no more complicated than any other class. Not to mention has fewer abilities, most of which are from talents as well and hardly any single target abilities for red as of now.

[sunxsera]

Due to being range i guess it'll be very popular.

[Chilela]

I'm guessing it will open as mid-tier, due to being OP by design for the first good while. Once it comes back down to Earth, however, I expect it to sort of fall to lower-tier, though in fairly high demand due to group utility reasons. But sort of like tanks, not a whole lot of people interested in playing them.

[kranur]

Think it will be largely dependant on how OP it will be.

[Teriz]

Low to Mid tier.
It has access to some solid raid buffs, so most guilds will want to bring one. That will definitely help the class/race a lot.

Aside from how "common" the class/race will be, there's a good chance it will get a bad reputation in the community.
The people populating it, will be split between people playing it for gameplay utility, and the fetishists, who may or not be low tier players.

What about fans of draconic characters like Alexstraza, Chromie, or Wrathion? What about players that like dragons? You don't think those groups will also influence DE numbers?

[Saltysquidoon]

They look boring as shit. They've very much playing the DH card of hiding very basic uninteractive, uninspired gameplay (devastation is very much an ungabunga blaster who essentially casts 'hit' with dragon names) under a lot of flashy movement abilities. I think on launch they'll be pretty popular but once the sheen goes they'll definitely drop below DK/DH.
One race, nothing particularly novel gameplay wise and no strong connection to established lore figures (that normies actually care about) is not a recipe for staying power, you'll probably want one for the utility though.

That's not getting into my personal gripe of how down the spec lines each flight's abilities are or a class made by Deathwing having two black dragon flight-associated abilities.

[onesBronson]

Its a new race coupled together with a new class, adding in a new healer and caster dps. Totally nothing fundamental from what we already have, since demon hunters added in a new tank and melee dps.

[Angrie]

I think EVERYONE will have one, but as a main I'm going to guess low tier:

1. 25 yard range is a challenge in itself. If this remains, it will be one of the key factors keeping people from playing the class. Imagine not being able to heal someone because you are missing 15 yards of range. Getting kicked from M+ groups because you keep letting people die who are out of range. Missing out of range interrupts.

2. Low CC. The only CCs brought by evokers are their racial passives (knock up and knock back) aoe root and sleepwalk if talented. The racials don't stop instant cast spells, and in pvp won't stop melee cleaves. AoE root is ok in concept but won't get that much value. Sleepwalk is the only CC they have that is good, it's a paralysis that brings the target to you. So caster mobs can be brought into a pull. However, Sleepwalk is a 25yard range spell, so using it prior to a pull is next to impossible due to aggro.

3. No group utility for Preservation. Preservation is a AOE Heal throughput spec with decent damage. Why bring it over a druid who can brez? Why over a priest that can help skip packs? Why over monk that can RoP, para, leg sweep and provide 5% more physical damage? All the Evoker brings is a 40s interrupt, a long CD enrage cleanse tied to its best ability of increasing CC duration, and a raid CD that is only good if your party sucks. Bursting weeks will be HELL for Evoker because of the range of spells and positional requirements - imagine empowering Dream Breath and 2 people move out of it and die.

4. No group utility for Devastation. Why bring this class over a rogue or WW? Both bring a better kit to M+. Comparing to casters, Boomkin brings Brez. Ele has heroism. Mage intellect heroism good CCs. Warlock, healthstones brez gate. Devastation like Preservation brings very little for the group.

4. PvP will suck with empowered spells. Lets face it, empowered spells will fail HARD in pvp. Both positionally and the cast time will make them impossible to use. Unless pvp talents are given to make them better, this part of the kit won't be used. 25 yard range, while casting spells will get outranged constantly. This will annoy players and they will drop the class. Imagine being an Evoker "caster" in large scale pvp matches - lets use Southshore v Tarren Mill as example. What as a Devastation Evoker are you going to do? If you move up, you will get death gripped and instant killed. You have no escape if pulled in as Rescue is a 25 yard spell and Fly with Me is 30y. If you don't get gripped you will be focused as your will stand in "no man's land" as an obvious target. As a Preservation Evoker, you have the same range limitations, so you can only safely heal the ranged players. All melee will die and you will likely get whispers about how you suck at healing.

5. Fantasy will destroy your potential. Streamers keep using words like "red build" or "blue build" then stack their hotbars with only the pertinent color spells. They for some reason do not understand that the evoker is meant to use all schools of magic and to use the talents to adjust how spells are used in your rotation. For example the "blue build" should still cast Living Flames, but should take the talent Ruby Embers to use the spell as a dot/maintain spell. I see "red builds" spamming Living Flames in aoe instead of using Azure Strikes. They fail to see that Pyre in the red build provides 5 sec of Fire Breath reduction and Azure Essence Burst being the catalyst to Pyre spammability. Living Flames should only be used just after a Fire Breath due to Leaping Flames Class talent. Sorry to kill your fantasy, but you're less mage like and more shaman/boomkin like.

These are just a few reasons i see the class not being mained. I think it will be a POPULAR class - everyone will definitely have one. However once reality sets in and the shortcomings come into light most players will return to their easier FotM classes.

[Gaidax]

*snip*

For what it's worth I also think that Evokers have a lot of minor utility, but nothing that would make M+ groups be like "holy shit we need evoker" unless it lucks out and will have busted damage.

For raid I could see 2, simply because group DR/speed and innervate-like ability they got. Their team mobility cooldown can potentially be key for some encounters (something like Time Spiral would be busted for fight like Ghuun).

But of course it's nowhere near the infamous 5% or other stuff you can't really live without.


I do think however that fantasy shmantasy - nobody will give a damn about once the specs are mathed out. It's really nothing unique there, people will do meta build and meta build is not something based on feels.

[Teriz]

/snip

I believe their ridiculous mobility will mitigate their limited range.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I personally will only be taking full Evoker groups to my dungeon content. 3 Devestation Evoker DPS, 1 Preservation Evoker healer (me), 1 _____ tank.

[kenn9530]

All I know is that for the first year I'll be declining every evoker that applies to any of my groups >.<

You want to decline what will likely be the meta class the whole expansion, every time a class is released that expansion its usually one of the best classes throughout.