[PRESERVATION] Build and Talent Discussion

[Nyel]

It's not, because it should balanced by the damage you do in the beginning. And in the beginning: it lines up with cooldowns, plus you are alive (which you might not be closer to the fight's end). So in theory, it doesn't matter that you do less damage close to enrage, because thanks to the extra damage you did in the beginning the boss should have less %. It would be a lot worse if they did it the other way around (your damage increases with lower boss %), because then it would NOT line up with CDs, and there's greater risk of dying the longer the fight goes on, so overall, the gain would be smaller.

Sorry, but in reality this makes not so much sense. There is no need for pressure early on in a fight, therefore you can't balance it out with damage. You use trinkets and CDs early on that you can use them a second time later without wasting them being off CD. Bosses above 50% are usually never problematic, it's always the second half of a fight that matters most. Every boss gets more difficult and complex towards the end of a fight, getting more skills, deadlier skills etc. Phase 1 or 2 out of 3, 4 or 5 phases in boss fights barely matter. And that's why this mastery makes zero sense for harder content (high mythic keys and heroic / mythic raids). Indeed an execute mastery would be way better than this, because fights get more tense the longer they go on.

[Rageonit]

Its not about balancing damage, its surely possible to make Devastation do roughly the same damage as other classes over an entire encounter, but damage during the first 80% of a boss is not as valuable as damage during the last 20%. For bosses with different phases the later phases are generally more dangerous, and if the boss has an actual enrage it becomes even more pronounced. Less time spend in the more dangerous 0-X% hp is more valuable then less time spend in the less dangerous 100-X% hp.

That is why execute mechanics are so valued, they give damage increases during the most dangerous and generally important part of the encounter.

I suppose it depends on the nature of the fight. If it's a multiple phase fight with phases activating on a certain boss HP% (see Sylvanas), then indeed the damage is more valuable in later phases. There is no benefit to doing Sylvanas p1 faster, and not having the bonus damage in p3 is bad.

If the phases activate at a certain time, then I'd argue it's quite valuable to have the bonus damage up front, as you get more out of it (by lining it up with CDs and generally being alive). In that case, by doing more damage up front, you should enter those later stages with lower boss HP%, also allowing those executes to be used earlier.

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Sorry, but in reality this makes not so much sense. There is no need for pressure early on in a fight, therefore you can't balance it out with damage. You use trinkets and CDs early on that you can use them a second time later without wasting them being off CD. Bosses above 50% are usually never problematic, it's always the second half of a fight that matters most. Every boss gets more difficult and complex towards the end of a fight, getting more skills, deadlier skills etc. Phase 1 or 2 out of 3, 4 or 5 phases in boss fights barely matter. And that's why this mastery makes zero sense for harder content (high mythic keys and heroic / mythic raids). Indeed an execute mastery would be way better than this, because fights get more tense the longer they go on.

Many bosses work on strict timers with certain mechanics overlapping more and more (see, dunno Dasausage or Lords of Dread). There is a benefit in having the bonus damage up front, because it's easier to DPS uninterrupted early in the fight. So yes, on fights like Dasausage or Lords, you want to pressure early as much as you can, simply to shave off as much HP% as possible before the "rought" phases start, where it might be more difficult to DPS uninterrupted.

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(For the same reason in every fight where things happen at a certain time [and not boss HP%], you use BL on pull, not in the last phase - as you simply get more benefit out of it by lining it with CDs and effectively shortening the later part of the fight, where frequent overlaps happen.)

[shammypie]

I suppose it depends on the nature of the fight. If it's a multiple phase fight with phases activating on a certain boss HP% (see Sylvanas), then indeed the damage is more valuable in later phases. There is no benefit to doing Sylvanas p1 faster, and not having the bonus damage in p3 is bad.

If the phases activate at a certain time, then I'd argue it's quite valuable to have the bonus damage up front, as you get more out of it (by lining it up with CDs and generally being alive). In that case, by doing more damage up front, you should enter those later stages with lower boss HP%, also allowing those executes to be used earlier.

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Many bosses work on strict timers with certain mechanics overlapping more and more (see, dunno Dasausage or Lords of Dread). There is a benefit in having the bonus damage up front, because it's easier to DPS uninterrupted early in the fight. So yes, on fights like Dasausage or Lords, you want to pressure early as much as you can, simply to shave off as much HP% as possible before the "rought" phases start, where it might be more difficult to DPS uninterrupted.

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(For the same reason in every fight where things happen at a certain time [and not boss HP%], you use BL on pull, not in the last phase - as you simply get more benefit out of it by lining it with CDs and effectively shortening the later part of the fight, where frequent overlaps happen.)

one thing that i have been noticing recently as I get back into classic wow and see the evolution of raids is how short the fights actually are. Part of it is getting older and my perception of time slowing down and part of it is due to the lack of mechanics in old wow that make your concentrate on full for an entire 5 minutes. While i agree it's usually the last half of the fight that wipes i disagree that it has anything to do with damage. If your dps is too low it's because you messed something else mostly unrelated (stood in fire/adds/etc). you also spend less time in this phase raiding than you do in any other phase. Executes are pretty terrible and usually done horribly by the average player. I think i would get maybe 1 or 2 channels of drain soul as lock or a couple soul reapers as a death knight. The last 25% of boss health absolutely melts away.

So adding in extra damage in the front is good game balance. It works for m+ pretty well. Only a few fights are hard gated by % health. Usually pushing phase 1 faster means you spend less time in phase 2 as time is the #1 mechanic used in fights. all things considered the mastery for evoker isn't bad

also as for preservation's mastery if you ain't keeping yourself alive with all the self healing what are you doing mate?

[Rageonit]

Preservation feedback after some initial raid testing.
Final thoughts?

Blizzard envision a mid range, mobile healer that can quickly move around an encounter and deliver healing where it's needed. This tends to be a mismatch with modern fight design that emphasizes precise, coordinated movement. Creating sufficient upside to balance out such a severe downside introduces it's own balance problems where the spec wavers from overly strong on fights where the raid is stacked to overly weak on high movement or very spread fights. It's good for spec strength to differ on a fight by fight basis but this would be too extreme a case. Even unlimited mobility is also a limited solution on some fights due to fixed positions and in the inability to be constantly on the move. A 30 yard range was a great step in the right direction, and it's more than fine for Evoker to do more healing within a 30 yard radius but it should be able to reach 40 for it to compete as a healer.

Not surprised at all, waiting for more opinions like this being voiced when more people test it/play the actual release.

[Nyel]

Preservation feedback after some initial raid testing.
Final thoughts?

Not surprised at all, waiting for more opinions like this being voiced when more people test it/play the actual release.

I mean there are basically 3 takeaways from Evoker beta feedback that are shared almost universally:

1. Empower skills are clunky to use, the cast time is too long and there is too much risk for too little reward.

2. Evoker is too squishy and lacks in defensives and survivavbility.

3. The concept of a mid-range caster does not work because there is no payoff for that; range should be adjusted accordingly.

The only thing Blizzard has half-heartedly agreed with is 3., by increasing Preservation range to 30y while their damage spells are still at 25y (which is terrible in its own right).

Right now I dread the release of Dragonflight because it seems impossible for them to fix the many issues Evokers right now still have.

[Rageonit]

I think it's also worth noting that it's a misconception that only by reducing Evoker's range you can "force" him into a heavy movement gameplay. Even with the current toolkit, Evoker would want to reposition a lot, because his bread and butter raid abilities are either directional or involve movement: Dream Breath, Temporal Anomaly, Dream Flight, Verdant Embrace (old Resuce). So even if Evoker had 40 yd range in its current form, you'd still move a lot to either direct your powerful abilities efficiently (Dream Breath, Temporal Anomaly) or because the ability itself requires movement and repositioning afterwards (Dream Flight, Verdant Embrace). But at least you wouldn't feel as much gimped when raid is spread and movement is prohibited.

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I mean there are basically 3 takeaways from Evoker beta feedback that are shared almost universally:

1. Empower skills are clunky to use, the cast time is too long and there is too much risk for too little reward.
2. Evoker is too squishy and lacks in defensives and survivavbility.
3. The concept of a mid-range caster does not work because there is no payoff for that; range should be adjusted accordingly.

The only thing Blizzard has half-heartedly agreed with is 3., by increasing Preservation range to 30y while their damage spells are still at 25y (which is terrible in its own right).

I don't agree with 1), agree with 2) and I'm conflicted on 3).
For 1), opinions differ. Have a look at this video. The guy's very experienced healer (all classes) and I agree with his sentiment that Empower abilities give a lot of value, but have to be used in a smart way, like pre-casting even before the damage happens. Whether or not it's possible will depend on the fight and ability cadence, but it's something you usually CAN do. There is a high skill cap for that and I'm pretty sure plenty of people giving opinions on Empower abilities are not super experienced healers. But yeah, sure, you can always argue shorter cast is better, that's a no brainer for any class.

For 2), it's just painfully obvious. Things like Obsidian Scales CD boggle my mind, if you compare it to a 1 minute Astral Shift (or other healer defensives).

For 3), it's not true that it doesn't work at all, that's an exaggeration. It simply puts you at a disadvantage, and only on certain type of fights. There are some spells I'd like to see getting icreased range (dispel, Echo, Living Flame would be the most obvious picks), because when movement is prohibited and the raid spreaded, you're fucked. Being able to cast 40 yd Echos would help alleviate the issue at least partially. But the way Evoker works, even with 40 yd you hate spread (cause of Dream Breath, Temporal Anomaly, Dream Flight etc.).

[Nyel]

For 3), it's not true that it doesn't work at all, that's an exaggeration. It simply puts you at a disadvantage, and only on certain type of fights. There are some spells I'd like to see getting icreased range (dispel, Echo, Living Flame would be the most obvious picks), because when movement is prohibited and the raid spreaded, you're fucked. Being able to cast 40 yd Echos would help alleviate the issue at least partially. But the way Evoker works, even with 40 yd you hate spread (cause of Dream Breath, Temporal Anomaly, Dream Flight etc.).

I think I should have worded 3. better. Does it work? Yeah. Is it good to play with? No. Would you ever put your group at a disadvantage by bringing an Evoker healer (or even DPS, although they can always play in melee range) into a dungeon or a raid? No.

The main problem regarding the range issue is the lack of reward. There's just no positive side to this, nothing that makes Evoker unique or shine, there is no justification for the limited range. If they can fix this, the short range can work as a class concept. But in the last months they haven't made one attempt to do this. As it stands, there are only downsides to bring an Evoker (either Devastation or Preservation) to your group. And that just cannot be it.

And just to state this again: no matter what, I'm going to main a Preservation Evoker at launch. But I can already see how hard of a nosedive this class will take in popularity right after launch and I doubt it can ever recover.

[Scrysis]

Blizzard are going to be stubborn about it and not do anything until first raid. Raid representation has to be abysmal before they do anything.

[Rageonit]

Blizzard are going to be stubborn about it and not do anything until first raid. Raid representation has to be abysmal before they do anything.

That's not true. They might not scrap the idea of a mid-range caster and just give Evoker max range on every spell, but they did already increase it from 25 to 30, so they are far from being stubborn. Also, I don't think you NEED max range on all your spells for the Evoker to feel fun and impactful. There are some situations where certain skills feel bad with a shorter range, but you can tackle that in many ways: with talents/abilities that increase your range at least temporarily for the spread phases etc. etc.

@Nyel, I don't know, it's sometimes difficult to balance risk/downsides & rewards in ways that feel super obvious. Sadly, they can't balance it with numbers only (make Evoker spells more powerful in general), because that'd make them op on stacked fights. Personally I feel things like Stasis or Echo can be seen as the reward for shorter range, because Evoker's ramp up is INSANE in some situations, and no healer can compete (and they are quite unique in that regard). Question is though: how often do you need that ramp up? Can you, as an Evoker, solo CD certain damage phases with your ramp up, allowing other healers more CD flexibility? If the answer is yes, than having an Evoker in the raid can be really rewarding for the whole group.

[Scrysis]

That's not true. They might not scrap the idea of a mid-range caster and just give Evoker max range on every spell, but they did already increase it from 25 to 30, so they are far from being stubborn. Also, I don't think you NEED max range on all your spells for the Evoker to feel fun and impactful. There are some situations where certain skills feel bad with a shorter range, but you can tackle that in many ways: with talents/abilities that increase your range at least temporarily for the spread phases etc. etc.

@Nyel, I don't know, it's sometimes difficult to balance risk/downsides & rewards in ways that feel super obvious. Sadly, they can't balance it with numbers only (make Evoker spells more powerful in general), because that'd make them op on stacked fights. Personally I feel things like Stasis or Echo can be seen as the reward for shorter range, because Evoker's ramp up is INSANE in some situations, and no healer can compete (and they are quite unique in that regard). Question is though: how often do you need that ramp up? Can you, as an Evoker, solo CD certain damage phases with your ramp up, allowing other healers more CD flexibility? If the answer is yes, than having an Evoker in the raid can be really rewarding for the whole group.

Okay, they did budge a little. They still didn't address a bunch of problems that preservation has, such as weak single-target healing, spread healing, and dying and taking damage on a bunch of your critical spells, such as Verdant Embrace and Dream Walk (How many other healers need to die in order to heal their targets?). Evokers are still playing with a handicap, but without any return for it, which means that other healers will be favored. And adding on 5 yards onto 25 yards is nowhere near enough. They do have a few options to deal with it, but I haven't heard of Blizzard even thinking of any of them. They could make Echo only use 1 essence, which would allow you to spread heal more. They could allow echo to once again replicate Blossom, which would increase coverage and reward clever play. Haven't heard anything on that either. Or how about the unintended consequence of being murdered by mechanics as a direct consequence of using your spells? That should have been fixed ASAP, considering how you're animation locked while doing them, and they're not designed as a crazy mechanic, such as Surrender to Madness. They could allow empowered spells to be cast during hover, which might actually give them more mobility, which would be suitable considering that they're a "mobility class" and druids & monks have more. Given how this class is new, they should have had a lot more iteration and blue-post feedback on it, which hasn't happened. So I HAVE to conclude that Blizzard is being stubborn. You're right, they don't have to make 40 yards a requirement now that they have 30 yards. But they haven't done anything else or addressed any of the other concerns that preservation has or done anything other than give preservation evokers 5 more yards and extend the cooldown on empowered spells.

Will I play one? Hell, yes, I'm an absolute dragon nut, and I think the empower spells will help with my repetitive strain issues. And after playing Holy Priest for well over a decade, I have the patience to be the underdog (Not going to lie, the end of this xpac has been amazing. I can see why people roll FOTM now.). But do I think they'll be in a good spot on release? From what I've seen, no. I think they'll be undertuned, problematic, and complicated to use and work with. I anticipate that we'll have a bunch of people try them out, then go back to one of the other established classes. And Blizzard will wait for after the World First Race to buff them and make the alterations they require. But with their history with healers, IF they make the adjustments and alterations before the end of the expansion, I'll be genuinely surprised and delighted. Blizzard usually ignores healer balance unless it is actually gamebreakingly bad in either direction. Even if they wait until after the world first race, I'd be really, REALLY happy to see adjustments before the second raid is announced.

[Rageonit]

But they haven't done anything else or addressed any of the other concerns that preservation has or done anything other than give preservation evokers 5 more yards and extend the cooldown on empowered spells.

They've just started raid testing (not even Mythic yet), and it's already doom and gloom (frankly, I've seen doom and gloom posts since weeks now). Yet there are experienced healers having fun with the spec even as we speak, as evidenced by the MadSkillzz video I've posted. Lets at least wait for some Mythic raid testing and first round of balance changes to see how much Blizz is still ready to budge, shall we? I am aware of the issues Evoker has, but going by your post, it seems like you'd want it all. Like, say, ST healing. Coming from a Priest, you may have a skewed vision of the issue, but on my resto shaman, ST healing was Riptide + HW/HS spam since years now. Even now Evoker has a better toolkit than that.

Evoker's range is going to cause problems in spreaded fights, that one is obvious. It's also obvious Blizzard won't change a thing before the real tests happen, so I see no reason to call them stubborn just yet.

[Scrysis]

They've just started raid testing (not even Mythic yet), and it's already doom and gloom (frankly, I've seen doom and gloom posts since weeks now). Yet there are experienced healers having fun with the spec even as we speak, as evidenced by the MadSkillzz video I've posted. Lets at least wait for some Mythic raid testing and first round of balance changes to see how much Blizz is still ready to budge, shall we? I am aware of the issues Evoker has, but going by your post, it seems like you'd want it all. Like, say, ST healing. Coming from a Priest, you may have a skewed vision of the issue, but on my resto shaman, ST healing was Riptide + HW/HS spam since years now. Even now Evoker has a better toolkit than that.

Evoker's range is going to cause problems in spreaded fights, that one is obvious. It's also obvious Blizzard won't change a thing before the real tests happen, so I see no reason to call them stubborn just yet.

I've been playing since Vanilla. This isn't doom and gloom; it's tempering my expectations. And re-read what I wrote! I said I would be actually happy if they changed it before the second raid. If they fix glaring issues before it goes live, then great! I'll be thrilled! If they don't, then I'll be patient!

If you think that coming from a Holy Priest gives me a skewed idea of single target issue, please allow me to reiterate that I've been playing the class and spec since VANILLA. Actually being good and desired in groups is actually an anomaly for the majority of this game's history; other than Vanilla, and maybe BC, Disc has been largely the preferred of the two specs by a large margin. And raids, holy was very frequently dead last. In Legion, Holy Priests could not heal keys beyond a relatively low level because their single target healing at the time was too low. THAT is my fear. Sustained tank damage. I actually want to heal decently high keys next xpac. I really don't want the same thing that happened in Legion to happen again. That was absolutely soul-crushing.

You might think that Blizzard is going to fix everything prior to release. In which case, I would be ecstatic and cheering right along side of you. As it stands, they're doing tuning right now, and I think that some of the problems are going to require mechanics changes or even the addition of a few more spells to fix. Gross changes aren't numbers tuning, so by definition, they won't be completed during the numbers tuning pass. THAT is why I think we'll have to wait to see the necessary changes; not doom & gloom. I anticipate that they'll tweak some numbers around, and then release. Then they'll have actual testing when people get into the first raid. They'll see the trends and players will find the broken spell combinations. They'll nerf the over-powered stuff, especially with relation to DPS and tanks. From the current designs, I anticipate that groups looking to optimize are going to take a holy pally, Disc priest, and then the next two are up for grabs.

Please, don't mistake my attitude for doom and gloom. If I thought the situation was hopeless, I wouldn't be speaking on these forums. I wouldn't be preparing stuff for when prepatch happens. I just have my anticipation tempered by years of experience. I'll be happy to be wrong in this case, but we have yet to see it.

[Nymrohd]

It's not, because it should balanced by the damage you do in the beginning. And in the beginning: it lines up with cooldowns, plus you are alive (which you might not be closer to the fight's end). So in theory, it doesn't matter that you do less damage close to enrage, because thanks to the extra damage you did in the beginning the boss should have less %. It would be a lot worse if they did it the other way around (your damage increases with lower boss %), because then it would NOT line up with CDs, and there's greater risk of dying the longer the fight goes on, so overall, the gain would be smaller.

Plus it's not really rare to have encounters that end before 0% health and then their mastery would be useless. Much less common to have bosses that start below 100%.

[Nyel]

It's also obvious Blizzard won't change a thing before the real tests happen, so I see no reason to call them stubborn just yet.

I see a reason, and it's not Preservation, it's Devastation. The entire talent tree is dreadful and they have ignored basically all of the valid criticism. Preservation is a little better, but let's not act them increasing the range from 25y to 30y is "listening to feedback", especially not when damage spells are still 25y range for Prevokers.

It's not about having fun in this case, most players that tested Evoker say that Preservation is fun. Yes, it is, it's fresh, new and has a lot of cool ideas. But we play a competitive game and in that regard Evoker falls short to all of its competitors. It doesn't do anything better than any of its healing counterparts. Neither is its single target healing, group healing, survivability, utility nor mobility better than that of Paladin, Priest, Monk, Shaman or Druid. In no area it outshines the other classes. Can it still be fun to heal with Evoker? Sure! But that's simply not enough for all the shortcomings.

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Plus it's not really rare to have encounters that end before 0% health and then their mastery would be useless. Much less common to have bosses that start below 100%.

No class should get weaker over the course of a fight. That's the main issue with Devoker mastery. It just feels terrible in long and hard fights when you see your damage getting lower by 10-20%. They should rather have something like "while your enemy is above 80% and below 20% of health, you deal x% more damage to them".

[Nymrohd]

Would you ever put your group at a disadvantage by bringing an Evoker healer (or even DPS, although they can always play in melee range) into a dungeon or a raid? No.

There have been raid encounters that require for the raid to be spread all over a very large room with healers effectively having to be split ahead of time in different spots on the map so they could reach everyone. An evoker would very much be useless in such a situation.

[Rageonit]

It's not about having fun in this case, most players that tested Evoker say that Preservation is fun. Yes, it is, it's fresh, new and has a lot of cool ideas. But we play a competitive game and in that regard Evoker falls short to all of its competitors. It doesn't do anything better than any of its healing counterparts. Neither is its single target healing, group healing, survivability, utility nor mobility better than that of Paladin, Priest, Monk, Shaman or Druid. In no area it outshines the other classes.

Falls short where? Where are the parses, where are the rankings? Oh, right, nowhere, because we didn't even test it properly both in raid & m+ environment, and Blizzard didn't even do the first round of tweaking the numbers. This is typical knee-jerking; right now, nobody has the slightest clue about the relative power of Prevoker, because all the heroic raid tests we've seen were grossly overhealed.

All that we know for sure is that with the current toolkit & spell range, spread will be miserable for Prevoker. And that's it.

[Nyel]

Falls short where? Where are the parses, where are the rankings? Oh, right, nowhere, because we didn't even test it properly both in raid & m+ environment, and Blizzard didn't even do the first round of tweaking the numbers. This is typical knee-jerking; right now, nobody has the slightest clue about the relative power of Prevoker, because all the heroic raid tests we've seen were grossly overhealed.

All that we know for sure is that with the current toolkit & spell range, spread will be miserable for Prevoker. And that's it.

I mean sure, you can see it like that. You can ignore all the downsides and shortcomings that are blatantly obvious (reduced range, subpar toolkit, lack of uniqueness and utility etc.) until we have the first parses that show exactly what has been criticized - but do we really need to wait for that? You can compare Evoker to other healers. And simply by doing that you see that it just isn't capable of competing with the others besides some very niche stacked fight scenarios - where Shamans will still outperform them due to their better toolkit for such fights. There's not one single scenario where you would say "hey, we need an Evoker now". Stacked fights? Take a Monk or a Shaman. Spread fights? Take a Druid or a Monk. Heavy tank healing? Take a Paladin. Damage while healing? Disc. The one niche for stacked fights is already occupied by Shamans and I cannot see how Evoker could ever outshine them. RShaman has better mobility, the better toolkit and the better mastery.

[Rageonit]

(reduced range, subpar toolkit, lack of uniqueness and utility etc.)

True, false, false.

No other healer has comparable ramp up. Nothing beats a well prepared Stasis (that's 3x any castable spell as instant, with zero cost and no CD induction). Rewind is a monster of a CD. No other class has anything akin to Echo/Stasis interaction. No other healer can combo spells in such an efficient and interesting manner. No other class is so reliant on understanding the encounter and preparing in advance (Disc Priest to an extent, but in a much simplier manner). Evoker is unique in all those regards. Rescue is a unique spell that can be used both proactively and as a life saver. Time Spiral and Zephyr can be valuable on high movement fights/phases (and we had plenty of those in 9.x, think Soulrender, Funsmith etc.).

There are reaons to bring an Evoker to the raid. Sorry, I'm not playing your "sky is falling" game.

[Nymrohd]

I mean in the majority of encounters, hero is used at the pull. I would not even be surprised if players keep a high mastery/low mastery set depending on encounter specifics exactly for that reason. If Hero at pull or encounter ends well above 0% (Sylvanas) then go high mastery. If hero is saved for a burn phase at the end or middle of encounter or some weird encounter were the boss starts wounded? Low mastery.

[Rageonit]

I mean in the majority of encounters, hero is used at the pull. I would not even be surprised if players keep a high mastery/low mastery set depending on encounter specifics exactly for that reason. If Hero at pull or encounter ends well above 0% (Sylvanas) then go high mastery. If hero is saved for a burn phase at the end or middle of encounter or some weird encounter were the boss starts wounded? Low mastery.

Sylvanas is bad for Devastation mastery, because she phases on a certain % - so in the last phase you're always at a disadvantage (and doing phase 1 faster does nothing for the fight). Devastation mastery is great on fights where you phase on a certain timer, because with more damage up front, you phase the boss on lower HP%.