July 29, 2022

Dragonflight Evoker New Class Overview

Evoker is one of the symbols and brands of the World of Warcraft Dragonflight. Unlike the past two expansions, the new one brings a new class to the game. Unique game start and specific mechanics make developers and players call it heroic, placing it in a row with the hero class of WotLK Death Knight and the Legion’s hero class Demon Hunter. A short Evoker overview will tell what’s so unique and heroic about it.

Dracthyr Evoker

No one except the Dracthyr can be created as Evokers. As the new class is aimed to represent the whole expansion — as Death Knights represented the thematic of the Wrath of the Lich King — its mechanics are strongly connected with the lore of the new race and class. As Deckard Cain would say, Stay awhile and listen!

The Great Sundering that occurred at the end of the War of Ancients has deprived the Dragon Isles of the powers they had before. That made dragons abandon them, hoping that one day these lands will recover. For a long time, the legendary Isles have been hidden from the eyes of mortals with powerful magic. Suddenly, right after the end of Shadowlands expansion, the power returned to the continent and one of its guardians dispelled the hiding magic. Dragons returned home and found there… other dragons. Humanoid dragonkin Dracthyr.

Their creator was Neltharion, the leader of the Black Dragonflight, who was scared of the threat of Legion at those times. His kin is known for experimenting with their own relatives throughout many expansions of the game. But the results of these Neltharion’s experiments seem to be the most positive, as they finally bring a new class to the WoW — not only new threats. (Although it’s hard to imagine a Draconic threat that would overcome those you’ve seen in Shadowlands, especially if you don’t hesitate to order new WoW services.)

Surprisingly, Neltharion’s plan works the way he planned. He wasn’t very mad at those times and wanted to create an army of mighty defenders for Azeroth. It’s ironic: Dracthyr Evokers don’t have a tank spec for that task, but at least they can defend the planet by healing allies. Preservation spec will be responsible for that, while Devastation — for dealing mid-ranged damage to the enemies.
The unique mechanics make a fresh class stand out even among other WoW Hero Classes. Evoker’s WoW lore has significantly affected its skills, as the Dracthyr bear the magic powers of all the other classic dragonflights. For instance, the Red and Blue Dragonflight skills are offensive, like Unravel and Deep Breath.

Unravel

Deep Breath

The effects of skills like Living Flame will change depending on the current spec of an Evoker. Though it doesn’t mean that damage-dealing Evokers is the first spec in WoW without anything to heal itself. For example, they will have a good saving ability Rescue.

Living Flame

Rescue

In turn, the Preservation Evoker won’t be deprived of damage-dealing class spells. Magic heritage of the Red and Blue dragons will help dragonkin healers stand for themselves with the help of Azure Strike and Fire Breath.

Azure Strike

Fire Breath

The most interesting class mechanic that’s going to be tested on Evokers in WoW Dragonflight is the Empowered Abilities. The arsenals of both specs will have a few such spells. The power of these skills changes depending on how long the key of the certain spell has been held. That power is counted in levels and the special indication bar will show on which level you’re at the process of channeling the Evoker’s class ability.

Spiritbloom (Preservation spec)

Eternity Surge (Devastation spec)

Both Evoker specs in WoW have two types of resources: Mana and Essence. The second one is displayed as little globes right below the mana bar. Every single unit of essence recovers for 5 seconds. Currently, its maximum number is also 5.

There will be some ways to speed up the Essence cooldown, like with the talent Power Swell in the case of Devastation Evoker. That talent increases regeneration of Essence for 2 seconds after reaching each level of any empowered skills. Such interdependence of various Evoker’s class mechanics makes them even more complicated and may force players to think twice about the spell rotation.

You may have been missing information on the Black and Bronze Dragonflight magic in many of the Evoker’s guides. Like the magic of other dragons, they’re not tied to certain specs too. These spells are much more often aimed not to directly damage or to heal, but to immobilize enemies and help your ally or yourself in a more originally.

For example, the Black skills. Obsidian Scales is a class talent that will maintain the self-protection of Evoker of any spec, and the Landslide talent will root enemies in a very druidic way, although with stones instead of the actual roots.

Obsidian Scales

Landslide

Finally, even though Evokers are not tanking class in WoW Dragonflight, they still can roar at the packs of mobs to extend the duration of any crowd control skills they are affected by. The Oppressing Roar is really an unfamiliar type of roar for the game.

Then comes the Bronze Magic. Nozdormu’s children are the experts in taming the time — a feature that is gonna be especially useful in raids and dungeons. A class talent Time Spiral helps the members of the party or a raid with the cooldown of the movement abilities, taking it off for the next 10 seconds. The Blessing of the Bronze is also targeted at that kind of spell, giving the party a buff that reduces its cooldown.

Time Spiral

The Blessing of the Bronze

Two more Bronze supporting abilities are the Tip the Scales and Time Dilation. The first one is another class talent that affects the Empowered mechanic, helping to cast one of the Empowered spells at its maximum level at the cost of a long cooldown. The second is a Preservation talent that postpones 50% of the damage dealt to the target for the next few seconds. Quite an old mechanic, which is attractively connected to time in the case of Evoker.

Tip the Scales

Time Dilation

Finally, regardless of the spec, the Bronze magic is responsible for the Dracthyr Evoker’s class ability to bring allies back to life! Now you see how carefully the new class is worked out in terms of both time-worn and fresh game mechanics, and how lore accurate it is. Hopefully, this can also be said about many other features of WoW, with which you can get familiar by reading some of the WoW Shadowlands Guides.