Why every healer will be making an Evoker in Dragonflight

Hello, friends! This is Growl. And in this video, I’m going to show you a preview of the new evoker preservation spec and why I think it’s going to be one of the most powerful and fun healers to play.

I was lucky enough to get alpha access to Dragonflight and honestly, I have so many more topics I want to cover like the dragonriding and the new UI overhaul. So don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to be notified of future videos.

My goal is to put out at least a few a week leading up to Dragonflight launch and hopefully reach 100,000 subscribers. Anyway, let’s jump right in.

The best way I can explain evoker is that it’s a demon hunter mixed with a druid except for no heal over time. Yeah, it’s definitely different. I think they did a great job with creating a new type of class that isn’t really much like anything else in the game.

The biggest strengths of preservation evoker are its movement and utility. This class has by far some of the most movement of any healer that I’ve played. Whenever I pick a class in a game, the way it moves is a big part of my decision.

It’s part of the reason why I fell in love with resto druids during BFA. The best example of this movement is Hover. Hover shoots you forward on a short 30 second cooldown. After using it, you can cast while moving and you also gain movement speed.

Being able to quickly dash out of danger or rush to an ally definitely hits the dragon healer class fantasy I think. The utility of the healer is also crazy strong. The racials alone give you a knock up and a pushback that can be used to interrupt casts or just give you some space.

Preservation evoker also gets an interrupt although it is on a 40 second cooldown, so it’s not quite as powerful as a shaman's Wind Shear. Fly With Me, another insanely fun ability allows you to grab an ally and jump to a location.

There’s definitely going to be a lot of nonsense that’s going to happen with this ability. We ended up using it to ferry our entire team over a wall in Mists when we couldn’t pull a pack through.

The biggest downside of preservation evoker is its range. Having a 25-year

Having a 25-yard range on every spell is actually pretty jarring. You really have to pay much more attention to your positioning in order to be able to reach melee and range at the same time.

It is only day one so I don't want to make too strong of a judgment but I do think evoker may end up being the highest skill cap healer, just based off of how important positioning movement and utility are all going to be for the class.

Before we jump into the rotation I need to introduce you to a few new systems. Essences is a resource that you have alongside your mana. They regenerate slowly over time sort of like DK runes. It wasn't a big part of the gameplay as only a few spells use essences and they still cost mana so you do need to worry about that too.

The second new mechanic is empowered spells. Empowered spells are a long channel that still have some effect even if you decide to cut the channel early. They can feel a bit clunky to play but they aren't a big part of your toolkit. There's mainly just a couple empowered AOE heals and then one DPS button.

The healing rotation is pretty typical for World of Warcraft healers. You have your mana-efficient delayed heal over time, a mana-efficient single target heal, a spender single target heal and some AOE heals.

Living Flame is your main casted ability and can synergize with Echo which adds to the healing of the next healing spell on that target. For AOE healing, you can choose to either spend essences or channel an empowered spell. Emerald Blossom is an instant cast spell that costs three essences.

After two seconds, allies around your target are healed for a small to medium amount. Spirit Bloom and Dream Breath are empowered spells that don't cost essences. I'm sure there will be lots of tuning and different talent builds so I'm not going to go in depth about when to use what spells just yet.

The DPS rotation is pretty simple but it does have some finesse to it. Your single target damage spell is Living Flame, yeah, the same one that you heal with. The cool thing about this ability is that as you do healing, it charges up your next Living Flame to do bonus damage.

This definitely incentivizes you to weave in a bit of damage in between your healing. It felt really fun for leveling because I can heal up from a pack and then just rip a big Living Flame on the next mob that I fight.

You also have an AOE charge up, Fire Breath. This spell was a little annoying for leveling because I just have mobs beating on me the whole time but I think it'll be pretty strong in dungeon scenarios. Holding the empower longer simply makes it deal more damage.

There's also an essence spender for DPS but it didn't seem too powerful, maybe my talent build was wrong but I'd never really found myself ever using essences for DPS. I'd kind of like to see an AOE DPS essence spender to make you think a little bit more about whether or not you use essences for healing or damage.

I want to quickly cover a few topics that I'm sure all the healers are wondering as well. Evoker dispel covers poison and magic only. However, there is another spell that can be used to remove all other status effects, including bleed. However, it's on a longer cooldown.

Its mastery increases your healing to targets that are lower health than you, sort of like shaman mastery but not really. Its raid CD is called Rewind, it rewinds 50% of the damage taken in the last 5 seconds by all allies within 40 yards. This could potentially be a full heal to your entire raid in a situation where you're taking large amounts of damage.

The effect is doubled in mythic plus, so I think it'll be pretty useful there too even if you're only using it to save one ally. Its tank external defensive is one of the strongest in the game right now and I expect it to get tuned at some point.

With some help from talents, it lasts 14 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown. 70% of the damage taken is instead delayed into a damage over time effect over the next 14 seconds. You're essentially turning whoever you put it on into a brewmaster. This ability, Time Dilation, is going to be completely nuts with high self-healing tanks like blood DK or vengeance DH.

Oh and lastly, you do have an instant cast DPS ability that you can use to kill explosives. It just doesn't do too much damage so I didn't mention it earlier.

That covers my initial first impressions and rundown of the preservation evoker. I think it's going to be an incredibly high skill cap class with the ability to have a huge impact in five man content.

Do you think you'd be able to heal with a spec that only has 25 yard range? It was tough for me. Let me know in the comments below. Anyway, thanks for watching and happy keying friends.

Chill on this boss. This is a no go for me, dog.

How come I got a reversion also? Okay, nice. Good job, Scalelord.

Over here, bud, on the adds.

Is there a setting to zoom out more? I feel so… I think we need to reposition. After this happens, I'll take Dorky back to the middle.

Alright, nice.

Oh, that was so sick.

I'm sure your tank really doesn't… You just pick them up and put them somewhere else.

Oh, this class.

Okay, I've been carried up here.

Dude…

Yeah.

Giving you Innervate.

Holy. Bear innovate? That's sick.

Okay I'm carried up here again.