Devastation Evoker Raid Guide

Welcome to the Devastation Evoker Raid guide for the World of Warcraft patch 11.1! This guide covers everything you need to know to understand your character! Are you starting out and leveling up from 70? Check out the leveling guide!

Devastation EvokerRaid

Single-Target

Weak

AoE

Average

Utility

Strong

Survivability

Strong

Mobility

Excellent

• Scalecommander is significantly stronger in all situations apart from pure single target damage when compared to Flameshaper.

Tier Set

• 2-Set: Your damaging spells have a chance to proc Jackpot! and cast Shattering Star at up to 3 nearby enemies, activating Dragonrage always triggers this effect.
• 4-Set: Casting a Shattering Star manually or proccing the 2-set effect gives you Jackpot! which stacks up to 2 and increases the damage of your next empower spell by 20%

Single-Target

Multi-Target

Empower spells

Fire Breath

• Used mostly with Rank 1 Empower on single target as you want to have the DoT effect up all the time for Burnout procs and Catalyze synergy.
• Using Fire Breath with a higher Empower rank shortens the damage over time effect in favor of more direct damage, you want to utilize this when your target isn't going to live much longer.
• Ranking up Fire Breath more in AoE situations is also generally recommended as Causality shortens the cooldown of the spell much more with Pyre spam and you would be overwriting your pre-existing DoT effect and wasting damage otherwise. In addition, you get better value from Leaping Flames.

Eternity Surge

• Deciding what rank to use Eternity Surge on is very straightforward as it only increases the targets hit by 1 for each rank (or 2 with Eternity's Span).
• Rank 1-4: 1/2/3/4 or 2/4/6/8 withEternity's Span targets hit.

In general, you should hold both Empower spells when Dragonrage is about to come off cooldown for proper Animosity extensions.

Playing around the current tier set bonus

• (2-set): You can do small optimizations in utilizing the Shattering Star windows, this is more relevant with Flameshaper and Engulf casts.
• (4-set): Your aim is to use as many Jackpot! stacks on Fire Breath casts as possible, it is worth to hold Eternity Surge sometimes to make this happen and you often end up casting Shattering Star before a Fire Breath and/or after a Eternity Surge.

Disintegrate Mechanics

• Baseline Disintegrate has a cast duration of two global cooldowns and four damage ticks occur within this time frame.
• Utilizing the Pandemic mechanic you can start a new cast of Disintegrate after the 3rd damage tick has occurred which transfers the remaining duration and 4th damage tick of the previous cast to the next one.
• This is how you spell queue Disintegrates, minimizing downtime and enabling you to use up Essence slightly faster to prevent overcapping.
• All of this means that it is crucial to have a cast bar with Disintegrate ticks shown on it so you can re-cast at proper timings, one such cast bar is featured in the WeakAuras section further down the guide.

Using Rescue

• Rescue is a great part of your toolkit as an Evoker, using it optimally requires fight awareness, especially in raids it can often save your less mobile allies from sticky situations.
• When you don't need Rescue for its movement, you should be looking to use it for the very potent defensive effect Twin Guardian as often as possible.

Using Hover

• Managing and timing your Hover casts correctly in combat to get more casts in while dealing with mechanics is where you see the biggest difference in your DPS as the actual rotational optimization is not that complex for Devastation Evoker.
• Starting a cast of a spell such as Disintegrate at the very end of a Hover buff still lets you finish that specific cast while moving even if the buff runs out during the cast, keep this in mind to get more benefit from each use of Hover!
• A minor optimization is activating Hover during a global cooldown from an instant skill such as Living Flame with an Burnout proc.
• Track your uptime and charges of Hover well on your UI and get really comfortable with utilizing this ability as it is the most significant unique strength of an Evoker.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

← Scroll for more Bosses →

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid boss fights as a Devastation Evoker. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. Makes playing certain mechanics a lot easier.

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to our recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the raid boss.

Keep in mind using Best-in-Slots puts active trinkets on a 20-second cooldown and vice versa! Devastation Evoker can still make use of both as Dragonrage windows are 38 seconds long but if you have this weapon you can definitely run two passive trinkets as well.

In raids Eye of Kezan is such a big outlier that getting it should be your first priority!

Active Trinket alternatives

• Signet of the Priory
  • Strong farmable alternative to House of Cards, becomes slightly stronger with multiple users in party.
• Funhouse Lens
  • A delve trinket that is a good on-use alternative until you get a better Myth track item to replace it.

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Mug's Moxie Jug
  • Great passive trinket that procs Critical Strike rating.
• Suspicious Energy Drink
  • A passive delve trinket with a Mastery proc, very strong at equal item levels but falls of ever so slightly against 678 trinkets.
• Reverb Radio
  • A solid alternative trinket that has a ramping Haste proc.
• Entropic Skardyn Core
  • Farmable mythic+ trinket that spawns 30-second duration orbs in the ground that need to be picked up to gain a buff, this might make it annoying to use especially during more mechanically heavy encounters.

Embellishments

If you have Best-in-Slots:

• 2x Dawnthread Lining
  • Provides you with Critical Strike rating while above 80% health.
  • Ideally crafted on the smallest stat budget slots: Cloak and Wrist but Belt and Boots are not bad options either.

Alternatively:

• Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension
  • Procs random secondary stats, only craftable on weapon and off-hand.

and

• Writhing Armor Banding
  • Doubles the effect of Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension.

Remaining Sparks

• Crafted items are 675 item level and regular items are 678 on max item level, therefore, it is not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• Phials
  • Flask of Alchemical Chaos -- maximum DPS, best option because this makes your Tempered Potion proc all secondary stats.
  • Flask of Tempered Versatility -- less DPS but more survivability.
• Food
  • Feast of the Divine Day
  • Feast of the Midnight Masquerade
• Combat Potion
  • Tempered Potion
• Health Potion
  • Algari Healing Potion -- a big burst of healing
• Weapon Oil
  • Algari Mana Oil
• Augment Rune
  • Crystallized Augment Rune
• Sockets
  • Quick Ruby
  • Culminating Blasphemite -- Unique, use one of each gem color to enhance your Culminating Blasphemite.
    • Deadly Sapphire
    • Deadly Emerald
    • Deadly Onyx

Enchantments

Discover recommended macros for Devastation Evokers during Raid encounters and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

Cursor Macros

Deep Breath -- Allows you to cast Deep Breath with one button press, aimed at your cursor, instead of first aiming it with the ground template and then activating it. When playing Scalecommander you won't need this anymore because of Maneuverability!

#showtooltip 
/cast [@cursor] Deep Breath

Firestorm -- Allows you to cast Firestorm with one button press, aimed at your cursor, instead of first aiming it with the ground template and then activating it.

#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Firestorm

Mouseover Macros

Rescue Macros

Utility Macros

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Devastation Evoker, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Raids to make your life easier.

Addons

WeakAuras

Patch 11.1

FAQ

Q: Why do I feel so squishy even though you rated Devastation 4/5 on Survivability?

Credits

Written By: fraggo

Reviewed By: Saltad