Hey everyone, how's it going? Welcome to another video. I hope you're doing well today. In this video, we'll be going over Evoker and I'll provide a mini guide for Mythic Plus. This is something that's been requested on the channel and I thought, "Why not?"
I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and happy holidays. This guide will be released on Christmas Day. I'm looking forward to seeing my family and I wish you all a pleasant holiday.
Devastation Evoker Stats
First things first, in this video we will discuss stats, stat weights, and similar topics. Before we get into that, it's important to simulate your character. Tools like Ask Mr Robot make it easy to determine your best upgrades.
Simulating your character is the best way to understand your stats. But in general, we prioritize Mastery, with haste and crit being about equal.
Haste is slightly better at lower stats, while crit is better at higher stats, but they are roughly equal. Versatility is the worst stat, by a significant margin. You can see that I have a decent amount of versatility at the moment, probably more than I'd like. I would prefer to have more haste, around 400-500 more. My crit is in a good spot and my Mastery is almost 3K.
At this point, haste is starting to outdo damage on Simsum. But for Mythic Plus, I really like high Mastery. I don't have the best gear, with an item level of 379. I do have a nice Mastery trinket, which helps me with the bursty playstyle of Avoca. I also have a high Mastery ring and neck, which also contribute to my high Mastery. So, as you can see, I have a lot of Mastery, which works well for my damage profile.
I did about half a Mythic Plus earlier, and we won't ask questions. My damage is much higher than the 385 PM Hunter, and we are about 5K DPS ahead of him, despite a six item level difference. So, we are doing quite well as Avoca at the moment with these stats.
Devastation Evoker Talent Build
This is my current talent build. I will include it in the description for others to use if desired. I usually tinker with and change this build as needed for different situations. For example, last week I used Pressing Onward because it was great for enrage. This week, I added Tunes in the Dream to help with healing because it's a Grievous week and healing is very intensive. I also have Panacea, Fire Within, and other abilities to assist my healers. On the other side, we have the usual Feed the Flames and catalyze for single target DPS. It's a tyrannical week, so you can make some adjustments if needed. I often see people take uplift, but I'm not a big fan of it. It can be good, but I haven't taken it yet. Rescue can be useful at times if you need a 30% max health shield or to drag someone out of mechanics. Feel free to try out different options.
Devastation Evoker Talent Build Import Link
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Pyre Usage
First things first, let's talk about the use of "Pyre" in AOE (Area of Effect) situations. As I previously mentioned, "Pyre" accounts for around 20-25% of my total damage in a dungeon. It's incredibly effective. "Pyre" benefits from the talent "Volatility," which gives it a 30% chance to deal damage again and charge "Black Charge Blast" stacks. These stacks increase the damage of your next "Pyre" by 5% and can stack up to 20 times, which is significant. "Pyre" should be used on three or more targets at all times, and on two targets, it should only be used with 20 stacks of "Charge Blast." Outside of "Dragon Rage" windows, "Pyre" should always be used on three or more targets. We will discuss "Dragon Rage" burst windows in a minute.
Charge Blast
Something important to mention is the importance of preparing for the next packs in the game. You can build up charge blast stacks at the end of the current pack to increase your damage in the next pack. This is especially useful because our Mastery allows us to do more damage at higher health. You may want to use this ability more than you should at times, but it is not too punishing and does a lot of damage.
For generators, always use your burnout talent, which gives you instant living flames and leaping flames on one additional target per flame. Use the fire breath empowerment on your living flame and the protected talent for empowered spells, fire breath, and eternity surge.
For the fire breath ability, try to fully empower it on packs with three or more mobs. After that, use living flame to get the damage off. If there are fewer than three mobs or they are low health, try to empower fire breath enough to hit every target with living flame. As a general rule, if there are five mobs but only two Elites, try to make sure living flame hits all targets.
Eternity Surge
Eternity Surge should be used on cooldown and with the eternity span talent to hit double the number of mobs. To ensure that it effectively hits every mob, you should empower it to at least level three if there are five mobs, even though one target may be wasted. On single targets, both Eternity Surge and fire breath should be used slightly differently. Fire breath should be used on cooldown to keep the debuff up as much as possible, but this may change depending on the boss's burst or ADD phases. Attorney search should be used on cooldown and ideally with shattering star if you are running it on tyrannical weeks.
Disintegrate
Disintegrate" should only be used during "Shatter." While "Firebreath" is active, its ticks are 100% quicker due to "Catalyze," which increases the damage of "Firebreath." Use "Disintegrate" to spend "Essence" personal procs or stack a little bit of "Essence" up for "Essence" burst procs if you are using "Shattering Star" to burst on two targets. "Disintegrate" is more effective than "Pyre" and is a great way to build up "Charge." At the end of a pack when you have one or two mobs left, use "Disintegrate" to finish them off. This will result in 10 to 15 "Charge" stacks, which is efficient and high in damage. Then, move on to the next pack and immediately use "Pyre.
Burst Cooldowns
Now, let's discuss your burst cooldowns: "Dragon Rage," "Tilt the Scales," and "Deep Breath." In an AOE situation, I usually use "Dragon Rage" and "Tilt the Scales" together and keep them synchronized. This seems to work best for me, although I can't guarantee that this is the best advice available. I can only share my personal experience. With this combination, I've been able to burst nearly 200k on five target packs. The amount of damage you can output during these burst windows is impressive. You want to get as many uses as possible during the dungeon. It's important to use every single one, as losing a usage could result in a loss of 1,000 overall DPS. It may sound extreme, but it's true.
Opener Rotation
I like to start a pack with a Firebreath, then use Dragon Rage and Tilt the Scales followed by Eternity Surge, Talent Strikes, and Power Players. After that, you can use Deep Breath. If you're running the stun cooldown in my talent build, this combination deals a good amount of damage and has utility that shouldn't be ignored. It's best to use this combo as late as possible in the pack while still hitting as many mobs as possible. Keep in mind that it's always affected by your Mastery, so it can be a very effective finisher for a pack.
In single target situations, use Dragon Major, Tilt the Scales, and if you have the lust buff on pull, use your cooldowns. If you don't have lust on pull, try to save your cooldowns as late as possible without losing a usage. It's a balancing act, so I usually use them a little earlier rather than later to make sure I'm getting the most out of them. Experienced evokers will be able to use their cooldowns as late as possible to get the most uses throughout the dungeon.
During these windows, use a level 1 Fire Breath empowerment before using any cooldowns, use Eternity Surge with Tilt the Scales, and hold Shattering Star if you have that talent. If you have Shattering Star, save it for when you have Eternity Surge and two or three Disintegrate windows, as it provides a big burst in a small, isolated window
Dungeons
A couple of other things to keep in mind: some dungeons are better suited for small, safer pulls or they have lots of single mobs or big single Elites or mini-bosses, while others allow you to have five to six targets every pack. Not CAD Offensive is a great example of this, as you can pretty much pull five mobs in every pack.
Every single pack in Not CAD Offensive is ideal for an Evoker, while a dungeon like Court of Stars has a lot of mini-bosses, high health single mobs, constructs, and sentries that need to be burst down and don't really suit big AOE pulls.
Another factor to consider is whether your group prefers to go big or go slow. If your group is pulling big packs together, like in Old Man or Algathar Academy, that works great for you if you're pulling around your cooldowns and doing big bursty pulls. But if other groups prefer to go slow and steady, pulling one or two groups at a time, your damage profile will be significantly different.
Group composition also plays a role. If you have low AOE DPS and packs are taking forever to die, your damage is centered around hitting them hard at 80 to 100 health and having them die quickly after that. You don't want to spend long periods of time at low health because that's counter-intuitive to what you want as an Evoker.
Conclusion
There are many factors that contribute to performing well as an Evoker, and some are within your control while others are not. These are the steps I'm taking to try and maximize my DPS. I hope you enjoyed this video and have a great Christmas. If there's anything else you'd like to know or have any questions that I haven't covered, please let me know in the comments. Thank you for watching, and catch you later. Goodbye!