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DEVASTATION EVOKER FUNDAMENTALS COURSE
DEVASTATION EVOKER PLAYSTYLE
Hello and welcome to the skill-capped Devastation Evoker damage guide for The War Within. In this course, we're going to be covering everything that you're going to need to know to kick some ass in the arena on that Devastation Dragon, starting with its playstyle.
So first things first, Devastation Evoker is a caster, however, not necessarily in the traditional sense.
Now this is because it only has a 25-yard range on all of its abilities, and it also comes with these kind of weird empower spells where you hold down the button and then release it for some big skillshot damage, which, needless to say, is easier to hit the closer that you are.
Now because of these range restrictions, unlike other ranged specs, you're going to be very much in the fight regardless of what composition that you face, and as a result of this, Devastation Evokers brings a very aggressive playstyle compared to other casters, as otherwise you're just not going to get really anything done for your team.
And before you think about letting people just walk all over you, just remember that playing from the back foot is always going to be harder as you end up stacking on your healer and getting cross-cc'd or cleaved down.
Now although Devastation does have a very aggressive playstyle, that doesn't necessarily just forego kiting, however, as you're going to be looking to move around the map with your hover to avoid both melees and casters as much as possible.
However, you are always going to be dealing damage while doing this, as you can and should always be casting Disintegrate while hovering, so there's really no defensive downtime as Devastation.
And since we're on the topic of defense here, Devastation Evokers are technically a hybrid, but out of the box, they're going to be one and a half minute rescue cooldown.
You're not really going to be looking to heal too much, or you're just simply going to fall behind on damage, so if you're thinking the hybrid role may be a little bit overwhelming here, there's really very little to it.
So, you'll mostly just be looking out for yourself, which couldn't be easier, as you have two strong walls with obsidian scales, and the temporal effect of Renewing Blaze.
And although you don't really have a panic per se, obsidian scales and rescue rotate often enough for this to not be too problematic, as you're going to generally always have something available.
Now, as for crowd control, Devastation does have access to Sleepwalk and its Deep Breath stun, although landing sleeps is far from mandatory to win a game. In fact, you're often going to win games through raw damage alone with your second Dragon's Rage, as it's one of the highest DP's you can get.
So, if you're going to play this game with a lot of damage, you're going to want to play it with a lot of damage, as it's one of the highest DP's you can get.
So, if you're going to play this game with a lot of damage, you're going to want to play this game with a lot of damage, as it's one of the highest DP's you can get. So, if you're going to play this game with a lot of damage, you're going to want to play this game with 2-minute cooldowns in the entire game.
Or, you're going to be making use of your Deep Breath, which you can now actually steer to hit multiple members of the enemy team, making it a far more reliable stun than in the past.
So, if you're looking to play a caster that's a little bit different from the rest, but it deals ridiculously high damage without a huge emphasis on crowd control, then Devastation might just be the spec for you. So, in our next video, we're going to be going over the goals of Devastation Evokers in Arena.
So stay tuned.
DEVASTATION EVOKER GOALS
Welcome back! This video is going to be all about the goals of Devastation Evokers in the Arena.
Think of this as kind of like a checklist of what you should be looking to achieve in each and every game that you play. So, let's get started.
For our first goal, you're going to need to make sure you are never capped on Essence. This is because Essence is the most important resource for Devastation as it allows us to use our Disintegrate ability, which is by far and away our hardest-hitting spell with a cost of 3 Essence per use.
And since Essence regenerates passively pretty quickly, which is further quickened by the Power Swell talent boosting it's rate by 100%, every time we use an empowered ability, we're not exactly going to be starving for Essence anytime soon.
So, for these reasons, we're going to make sure that we're always using Disintegrate and consuming Essence as often as possible. possible, or we're just going to be wasting a ton of potential damage and pressure.
So for our second goal, we're also going to be making sure that we're using our procs as often as possible as well. As devastation, we're going to be passively gaining two huge damage procs from dealing our rotation.
These are burnout, which makes our fire breath dot give us a chance for a free living flame, as well as essence burst, which makes our azure strike and living flame give us a chance to make our disintegrate free of cost while also buffing its damage by 15%.
Needless to say, using these procs is imperative to your overall DPS, as wasting burnouts means you have less chances to gain essence burst, and wasting essence burst means you have far less disintegrate damage.
So moving on, your third goal should be to always use your empower abilities of fire breath and eternity surge on combat. So moving on, your third goal should be to always use your empower abilities of fire breath and eternity surge on combat.
So moving on, your third goal should be to always use your empower abilities of fire breath and eternity surge on combat. So moving on, your third goal should be to always use your empower abilities of fire breath and eternity surge on combat.
Your empower abilities are going to have their cooldowns reduced by pressing disintegrate through the casualty talent, so not using them frequently is going to make this powerful talent go to waste, meaning far less burnout procs, and therefore far less essence burst.
Using our empower spells also will buff our next two spells of the same color afterwards due to the iridescence talent, so we definitely want to make sure we're getting those eternity surges off to get some massive disintegrates afterwards.
Lastly, they also extend our dragon rage window thanks to animosity, allowing it to last a ridiculously long time when it's done right. So for our final goal, we have to make sure that we're making the most of our hover.
As devastation evokers, we can kite pretty well while still dealing damage with the combination of our hover and unburdened flight pvp talent, making us totally immune to snares. Now because of these abilities, we're very, very slippery and can move around the map while still melting the other team.
However, with great mobility comes great responsibility. You only have two baseline charges of hover, and when you run out, well, you're going to be a bit stuck in the mud and really easy to take down.
So instead of just pressing hover whenever you're using abilities for the sheer thrill of being a flapping dragon, use it to counter enemy mobility tools and you're going to have a lot of fun. There's no reason to press hover if you're not the target or the enemy isn't dealing that much damage to you.
Standing and casting like all the other wizards in the game can be just fine. Want to learn which buttons to press to deal the most damage in the arena though?
Then join us in our next video as we're going to be going over the devastation sustained damage priority system.
DEVASTATION EVOKER DAMAGE PRIORITY
In this video we're going to be covering how to deal damage as a Devastation Evoker. However, we can't really give you a set rotation, well this is PvP after all.
So instead, we've created a sustained damage priority system so you can know which abilities to value over the other abilities. So to kick things off we're going to be placing Fire Breath at number one rank.
This is because it's going to allow us to generate those Burnout procs that give us instant Living Flames and therefore give us Essence Bursts.
When using Fire Breath outside of our Burst window, we're going to be looking to use it on one Empowerment as it's going to make the dot tick for longer and give us more chances at getting Burnout procs.
Now in the same line of thinking, you should also be looking to get this on as many targets as possible for more proc potential. Finally, we want to be using Essence Bursts to get more Essence Bursts and to get more Essence Bursts.
This is because Essence Bursts are a very powerful ability that can be used to get more Essence Bursts. Next up we then have Shattering Star which buffs our next four seconds of damage by 20%.
We're going to want to be using this ability as frequently as possible when we know we can cast Disintegrate afterwards to benefit from the damage increase, as this is by far our hardest hitting global.
Now if you're playing with the Arcane Vigor talent, make sure you only have one stack or less pressing this or you're going to be wasting one of your procs.
So moving on, we then have Eternity Surge which, while hitting hard in its own right, will also buff our next two Disintegrates by 20% thanks to the Iridescence talent. We'll want to generally be using this on one Empower as it's going to follow our main target regardless of how many pets or players are in the way.
Now much like Fire Breath, we want to be using this on cooldown for Essence Regeneration. Following this, we'll then be placing Disintegrate with or without Essence Burst.
Apart from being our hardest hitting ability, and proccing random Eternity Surges of its own with the Scintillation talent, Disintegrate is going to reduce the cooldown of our empowered abilities, so make sure to use this as frequently as possible, and never waste any charges of Essence Burst as this is where over 50% of our overall damage should be coming from.
Next we then are going to be consuming our Burnout procs, although we should be doing this if we're not at maximum essence or we don't have any essence burst procs.
This is because burnout is a great way of fishing for essence burst, so using them on max essence or when we have two essence burst procs is completely redundant as we're only going to be over capping.
So following this we can then hard cast living flame if we literally have no higher value spells ready as this is going to be the highest damaging ability we can use to try and generate essence burst.
And then finally in a similar fashion we can use azure strike to fish for essence burst with an instant cast if we're not able to cast and have no other buttons to press due to having no essence or procs available. And that is how you deal damage as a devastation evoker.
In our next video we're going to be going over the hero talent trees that you're going to be playing every single game. We'll see you there.
HERO TALENTS: SCALE COMMANDER
Now it's time to cover our hero talent tree of Scale Commander, which is beating out Flameshaper as it buffs our burst damage and our survivability. So let's find out how.
So to begin with, the keystone talent of Scale Commander is Mass Disintegrate, which causes our empowered spells to make our next Disintegrate hit three targets. Or, if there isn't three in range, it'll just flat out deal more damage.
And since we've learned already in the sustained guide that we want to be using our empowered spells off cooldown for a multitude of reasons, it's really a no-brainer why this is good. It's just flat out either massive cleave damage or it's increased single target damage.
An absolute win-win, no matter how you slice it. So, moving through the tree, we then have some not-so-impressive passives like Might of the Black Dragonflight, which buffs our black spells, which is code for basically just buffing Deep Breath.
As well as another not-so-impressive talent with Onslaught, which is going to give us a burnout proc when we enter combat. Which, while not necessarily game-changing, it can make our opener a tad bit smoother if we get another Essence Burst from the Living Flame.
However, then we move on to Bombardments, which actually does make a pretty hefty amount of damage over the course of a game. Basically, what this does is it's going to mark the targets that we hit with our Mass Disintegrate for 6 seconds.
And then we have a chance at ticking for extra AoE damage whenever we or our partners hit them. Although you don't always notice this buff, the extra damage an offensive healer like Disk gains from this is fairly substantial.
So, moving down the tree once again, we then have Melt Armor, which buffs our burst windows significantly by increasing Empower and Bombardment damage taken by all targets hit by Deep Breath for 12 seconds. This is a pretty good buff for our team.
So, moving down the tree, we then have Melt Armor, which buffs our burst windows significantly by increasing Empower and Bombardment damage taken by all targets hit by Deep Breath for 12 seconds. This is a pretty good buff for our team.
This talent alone makes our in-between burst without Dragon Rage far, far more impactful, even to the point where we just send Deep Breaths into stuns that are already up for the damage amp.
Furthermore, then tied in with the hero talent of Wing Leader, giving us cooldown reduction on Deep Breath whenever our Bombardments deal damage, we can burst far more frequently than ever before, while also being far less predictable at it. On the same row, we then have the massive...
On the same row, we then have the massive... On the same row, we then have the massive... ...passive damage boost of Unrelenting Siege, which buffs our non-empowered damage spells while we're in combat, which you don't really need to play around, as you should always be in combat anyway.
But it's still a good incentive to get in the fight as soon as possible as well.
Following this, we then can pick up a pretty sizable defensive buff with the 10% damage reduction on Obsidian Scales from Hardened Scales, which is significantly better than the weird, knockback damage reduction choice that it offers in exchange.
And then comes the only choice in the tree between extended battle, which increases our bombardment's effects for each disintegrate we use, or diverted power, which makes our bombardments give us essence burst.
Right now, we're going to be leaning towards extended battle when playing with healers that deal damage, like preservations and discs, and then diverted power when we only have our DPS partner hitting into bombardment, therefore it doesn't really get that much value.
After this, we have yet another abysmal choice node, where we either pick between getting some ridiculous mobility by resetting our hover when we deep breath, which allows us to kite and deal more damage in the process, or take 10% reduced AoE damage when we hover instead.
And I don't really think you need us to tell you which one you need to take here.
And then, finally, we have the ability to use our DPS partner to deal damage, which allows us to exchange our deep breath for something out of like Mario Kart, enabling us to steer it kind of in a very awkward, almost keyboard-turning fashion, while also giving it a dot in the process.
This talent, while it's pretty amusing to look at, is actually pretty dang solid, as we don't have to line up our deep breath with landslide anymore, and it makes it basically inactive.
So, if we're going to be playing with a DPS partner, we're going to have to be very careful with our DPS partner, as we can hunt people down with it, resulting in our setups being basically foolproof.
DEVASTATION EVOKER BURST SEQUENCE: WITH DRAGONRAGE
Okay, so let's now jump into our burst rotation so we can start dealing some real damage. Now in this first sequence, we're going to be covering how you use Dragon Rage to its absolute max full potential.
So to begin with, we're simply going to press Dragon Rage, which is going to make our Giant Stalker mastery have full effect regardless of the enemy's HP, increasing our damage an absolute ton while also giving us an increased chance of Essence Burst procs in the process.
From here, we'll then use Shattering Star to buff all of our damage to the target for the next 4 seconds, as well as giving us an Essence Burst proc if we play with the Arcane Vigor talent.
Following this, we'll then have one tick of an Eternity Surge for the huge damage that it provides, while also buffing our next two Disintegrates by 20%. After, we'll then use our Tip the Scales buff to make our next Empower ability instant and cast at its max rank, which we'll then consume with Fire Breath.
Next up, we'll then Deep Breath our kill target to benefit from the additional damage on Disintegrate through our hero talent Melt Armor, as well as applying Bombardments to the enemy for everyone on our team.
Following this, we'll then use two Disintegrates, which is still going to be buffed for the next 2 seconds, as well as our Essence Burst.
And then, to finish off, we'll look to consume any Burnout procs we have on Living Flame, and then we're going to dive back into our sustained damage rotation by hammering out more Disintegrates until our Empowered abilities come back off cooldown.
DEVASTATION EVOKER BURST SEQUENCE: WITHOUT DRAGONRAGE
Alright, we know the Dragon Rage burst rotation, so let's learn about the setup in between for when we don't have cooldowns available. So to start the non-Dragon Rage burst sequence, we're going to begin with a Shattering Star to buff our damage and gain an Essence Burst proc.
Next up, we'll then chain this with an Eternity Surge to buff our next two Disintegrates. Following this, we'll then look to stun our target with a Deep Breath, which will further buff our Disintegrates on the target while also applying Bombardments to them.
Lastly, we'll simply send as many Disintegrates as we possibly can into the target, as they will all be doing huge damage thanks to our previous modifiers of Essence Burst, Iridescence, and Melt Armor. This rotation may seem a little bit simple, but really, that's all you need to generate maximum damage.
You can also use a passive pressure with your Deep Breath window. In our next video, we're going to be going over how to play out the opener as a Devastation Evoker so you can get some real-time experience.
We'll see you there.
DEVASTATION EVOKER OPENER
All right, that's enough with all the theory crafting. Now we're going to put together all the pieces of the puzzle and show you what the opener should look like when you are in your own games.
So to begin with, we're of course going to do the obvious and buff our Blessing of the Bronze for that sweet movement ability cooldown reduction for our entire team. And also make sure that we're mounted up so we can get into the fight as soon as possible.
Remember, we only have a 25 yard range and we want to stack our Hero Talent damage boost of Relenting Siege for our burst window. Following this, we'll then use a hover so that we can move while casting.
And don't worry about wasting this first initial charge as you're going to get a refund on Deep Breath. Next up, we should get to work on spending our Essence, as you see Froth doing here as he casts a Disintegrate instantly.
From here, his next goal is to counter the enemy cooldowns so he can begin his own setup so he uses his Obsidian Scales for the Aura Mastery and damage reduction while also knocking the Warrior away.
And then enters his Dragon Rage burst window with an Eternity Surge, a Shattering Star, and tip the Scales Fire Breath to purge all the hots off both the Warrior and the Shotgun.
Moving on, he then looks to continue his burst sequence with the Deep Breath, allowing him to get some control over the game and grab that hover reset.
However, when the Deep Breath lands on both targets, he immediately cancels it to begin hammering out those buff Disintegrates, a play you should also look to make in all your games. After this, he then uses another charge of hover once the Warrior reconnects on him with charge.
And then gets rescued by his teammate once the Warrior connects again. It's important you notice that throughout this video, Froth only uses hover when the Warrior uses a movement ability, allowing him to kite him as much as possible.
At this point, Froth's Dragon Rage is over, so he dives back into a sustained damage rotation with his empowered abilities and mass Disintegrates, giving him massive cooldown reduction for his next Deep Breath. So, that's it for this video.
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Bye! The main takeaways of this opener are that Froth used his offensives early.
He also wasn't afraid to use his Obsidian Scales at high health to counter the enemy cooldowns so he could get pressure of his own. And finally, and most importantly, he only used his hovers when he needed to, and each one allowed him to kite the Warrior as he constantly matched their mobility with his own.
And as a comparison, here's Frothsy versus another evoker who doesn't fight the Warrior. He doesn't follow the opener we've just given you.
So, to begin the game this time, Frothsy starts with a hover into a Nullifying Shroud, preventing any incoming crowd control on himself. He then once again uses a Disintegrate to get kicks out of the way and uses up some Essence.
And then he enters his burst window as soon as possible on whatever target is in his line of sight. Following this, he then gets a massive team-wide stun with his Deep Breath.
Shutting down the enemy team, while also increasing his own damage. And then sends out as many Disintegrates as humanly possible until the other team simply just falls over to the pressure.
Meanwhile, the evoker on the enemy team isn't even doing enough damage to be on details as they didn't pop early enough to match Froth's tempo. As a Devastation evoker, you always want to pop early.
Or risk being ran over.
DEVASTATION EVOKER WIN CONDITION
Welcome back! In this installment, we're going to be covering Devastation Evoker's win condition by once again following Frofzy as he takes down two different teams in two different ways.
So let's take a look. So for our first win condition, we have the more traditional crowd control win condition, where Frofzy utilizes his sleepwalk combined with his damage to finish the game.
So to begin this win condition, Frofzy's teammate has landed a sleep on the healer, forcing their trinket. This one play shifts the entire dynamic of the game and it opens up a crowd control win condition for later on in the match.
Now what should Frofzy do here? Should he run away with his hovers and wait until his sleep is off diminishing return, or should he stay and deal damage?
If you answered to stay and deal damage, well then good job, you've been paying attention. Devastation Evoker is all about that raw output, and therefore spamming damage is always going to be your go-to.
The crowd control is just the icing on the cake here. Knowing this, Frofzy continues to hammer his DPS rotation, even going for a half sleep on the healer to try and further force the enemy low with his next fire breath.
After this, he then follows up with a diminishing returned deep breath, not just for the micro stun, but for the full damage. So that's the first win condition.
But mainly for that damage boost from Melt Armor. And then dives back into a disintegrate, which sadly gets kicked, forcing him to cast Living Flame to try and fish for an essence burst while he's locked on Spell Frost.
After this, he then continues his mini burst with Shattering Star, more disintegrates, and Eternity Surge to keep his target low and the pressure high, all while his sleep is still on diminishing return. At this point, the melee then reconnects to him.
So knowing the warrior has used charge, he commits hover to match the mobility and escape, and then continues with even more disintegrates to keep up the sustain. Finally, the diminishing return falls off the shaman, and Frofzy ceases the opportunity by landing a full sleep on him.
And then he seals the deal with his fire breath and burnout procs, combined with his warrior's slaughterhouse effect.
As you see, in this win condition, even though it did revolve around crowd control, Frofzy made sure to continue dealing damage at all points to prevent the enemy having any breathing room to go on the offensive.
Crowd control isn't always necessary though to win, as in the majority of games, you can simply win by dealing absurd amounts of DPS. Here is a great example of this where Frofzy is facing a restoration druid.
He begins his win condition by entering the tower. He then enters his dragon rage and attempts to cast eternity surge.
However, this is then locked, so he simply pushes in, tries to get a sleepwalk, which then gets lined, and just decided to win with damage instead. He does this by using tip the scales on fire breath to purge all the druid's hots with scouring flames.
And then just deals unhealable, unrecoverable damage with his eternity surge and disintegrates. Despite not even being in line, Frofzy manages to kill the shaman through the pillar on the channel.
This win condition is a classic one in shuffle and honestly is going to be how you win most of your games. So make sure to study up on those burst sequence videos from earlier on in the course.