Welcome to the Devastation Evoker Raid guide for the World of Warcraft patch 11.0! 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!
Overview
Devastation Evoker
Devastation EvokerRaid
Hero Talents
Devastation Evoker
- Scalecommander is significantly stronger to a degree that you always want to spec into it instead of Flameshaper.
Scalecommander
Flameshaper
Scalecommander hero talents mostly revolve around the two key spells: Mass Disintegrate and Deep Breath.
Mass Disintegrate
- Fire Breath and Eternity Surge change your next Disintegrate cast into a Mass Disintegrate which either hits up to 3 targets or deals increased damage to less targets.
- Bombardments
- Is another Scalecommander talent that is tied to Mass Disintegrate.
- Places a debuff on your target which triggers bombardments as you and your allies attack it.
- Further improved by Wingleader and Extended Battle.
Deep Breath
- The other ability that is heavily enhanced by the Scalecommander talent tree.
- Melt Armor
- Deep Breath now causes enemies to take 20% increased damage from Bombardments, Disintegrate and Pyre.
- Slipstream
- Deep Breath resets the cooldown of both stacks of Hover. This is a massive mobility boost as you use Deep Breath approximately every 40 seconds.
- Maneuverability
- Deep Breath can now be steered and canceled mid-flight and it inflicts an additional 12 second damage over time effect.
Flameshaper has a new unique spell: Engulf which is the main focus of this hero talent tree.
Engulf
- Damages or heals your target, effectiveness is increased by 50% for each of your periodic effects on the target.
- Burning Adrenaline
- Engulf reduces cast time of your next spell by 30%.
- Red Hot
- Engulf gains 1 additional charge and deals more damage or healing.
- Fan the Flames
- Engulf doubles the remaining damage of your Enkindle debuff on the target.
- Traveling Flame
- Engulf increases the duration of your Fire Breath debuff on the target by 8 seconds and causes it to spread to another target within 25 yards.
- Consume Flame
- Engulf decreases the duration of your Fire Breath debuff on the target by up to 4 seconds and damages nearby enemies.
Other noteworthy talents
- Enkindle
- Disintegrate and Pyre deal an additional 20% of their damage over 8 seconds.
- Trailblazer
- Hover and Deep Breath travel 40% faster, Hover additionally travels 40% further.
- Titanic Precision
- Azure Strike and Living Flame have an extra chance to proc Essence Burst when they critical strike.
- Lifecinders
- Renewing Blaze also applies to your target or a nearby ally at 50% effectiveness, this can potentially get great value when used on a tank.
- Draconic Instincts
- A small chance of getting healed by 30% of damage taken.
Talents
Devastation Evoker
Scalecommander Single Target
Scalecommander Cleave
Scalecommander All-rounder
When to use this Spec
Use this spec when there is only one target throughout the whole fight.
Gameplay Altering Talents
Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look check out the Rotation and Deep Dive sections below.
Spec Tree
- Pyre
- Your AoE essence spender, its essence is cost reduced by Dense Energy.
- Eternity Surge
- Your spec-specific Empower spell, enhanced by Eternity's Span.
- This has additional cleave synergy with Scintillation.
- Dragonrage
- Your main DPS cooldown that is enhanced by Animosity and Tyranny.
- Shattering Star
- Increases your damage done to the target for a short duration, enhanced by Arcane Vigor.
- Burnout
- Fire Breath damage ticks have a chance to make your next Living Flame instant cast. Especially useful for optimizing damage while moving.
- Onyx Legacy
- Reduces the cooldown of your Deep Breath by 1 minute, has great synergy with Melt Armor.
- Causality
- Makes Disintegrate and Pyre reduce the cooldown of your Empower spells.
Class Tree
- Source of Magic
- Provides mana restoration for the buffed healer, in addition to buffing them with Potent Mana.
- Cauterizing Flame
- An ability unique to Evokers that allows you to dispel Bleed debuffs in addition to other types.
- Scarlet Adaptation
- Often picked for a small DPS increase, stacks up from passive healing, and active off-healing. You can use your healing spells during downtime to gain some damage.
- Unravel
- A very powerful damaging spell only usable against absorb shields, you want to use it as often as possible in those situations.
- Twin Guardian
- Alters your Rescue into a very powerful defensive tool, placing a big absorb shield on both you and your target, this has a short 1 minute cooldown. Sometimes using this as a defensive cooldown can conflict with using Rescue as a mobility tool and vice versa.
- Leaping Flames
- Allows you to shoot an additional Living Flame per Empower rank after every Fire Breath cast for free cleave damage. These additional Living Flames can also proc Essence Burst from automatically healing your allies if there are not enough enemies to hit while also potentially getting Scarlet Adaptation value.
Hero Talents
- Hardened Scales
- The default pick as Menacing Presence is not very useful in group content.
- Extended Battle
- A much stronger choice for Devastation over Diverted Power as you are already overcapping on Essence at times.
- Slipstream
- The only real choice node, as this is such a big boost to your mobility it should be picked unless Nimble Flyer is absolutely needed for survivability or the extra mobility is not necessary.
When to use this Spec
Use this spec when the fight has a permanent or an occasional additional target to cleave.
Talent Adjustments
Listing all the changes within Class and Spec tree compared to the default build.
Spec Tree
- Added
- Eternity's Span
- Makes Rank 1 Eternity Surge hit 2 targets.
- Has additional cleave synergy with Scintillation.
- Eternity's Span
- Removed
- Honed Aggression
- A very minor single-target damage loss in favor of getting free cleave damage.
- Honed Aggression
When to use this Spec
Use this spec when the fight is a mix of Single-Target and (relevant) AoE.
Talent Adjustments
Listing all the changes within Class and Spec tree compared to the default build.
Spec Tree
- Added
- Volatility
- Huge damage increase when using Pyre.
- Volatility
- Removed
- Power Nexus and Engulfing Blaze
- A minor single-target damage loss in favor of a lot more AoE damage.
- Power Nexus and Engulfing Blaze
Rotation
Devastation Evoker
Tier Set
- 2-Set: Disintegrate and Pyre increased by 10%.
- 4-Set: Eternity Surge cooldown decreased by 5 seconds and it now grants Essence Burst.
Single-Target
Scalecommander
Opener Rotation
- The goal of the opener is to maximize your Dragonrage window and extend it 4 times with Animosity while trying to avoid overcapping on Essence or Essence Burst.
- Use Tip the Scales with your 2nd Fire Breath of the Dragonrage window.
- Check below for the Dragonrage window priority after the initial opener.
Dragonrage Priority List
This is a general priority for your Dragonrage window.
- Cast Deep Breath as long as you do not miss out on an extension.
- Cast Fire Breath - Rank 1.
- Cast Eternity Surge - Rank 1.
- Cast Shattering Star - Cast when at 1 or less Essence Burst.
- Cast Disintegrate until you are not capped on Essence.
- Cast Living Flame to proc Essence Burst if you have either Burnout, Iridescence: Red, Iridescence: Blue or Leaping Flames.
- Cast Disintegrate until you have no more Essence to cast it.
- Cast Azure Strike to proc Essence Burst.
Priority List
This is a general priority you aim to maintain throughout the fight.
- Cast Deep Breath.
- Cast Fire Breath
- Cast Eternity Surge.
- Cast Shattering Star - Cast when at 1 or less Essence Burst.
- Cast Disintegrate - Cast with Essence Burst.
- Cast Living Flame if you have 2 stacks of Burnout or a single one that is about to run out.
- Cast Disintegrate until you have no more Essence to cast it.
- Cast Living Flame until you have enough Essence to cast Disintegrate.
Multi-Target
Scalecommander
2 Target Opener
- The goal of the opener is to maximize your Dragonrage window and extend it 4 times with Animosity while trying to avoid overcapping on Essence or Essence Burst.
- On 2 targets as a Scalecommander, the only difference from single-target is that in the opener you should choose different targets with each of the two consecutive Disintegrates following your first two empower spells to apply Bombardments to both. This way you get more value out of Extended Battle as it extends both bombardments.
3+ Targets Opener
- Below you can see an example of how an opener might look with Volatility talented.
- This can vary with target count because of Causality.
- Always use Mass Disintegrate after Empower spells even if you are fighting higher target counts.
3+ Target Priority List
- Cast Deep Breath.
- Cast Fire Breath - Empower according to target count.
- Cast Eternity Surge - Empower according to target count.
- Cast Shattering Star if you have 1 or no Essence Burst.
- Cast Pyre as Essence spender on 3+ Targets with Volatility talented, start using Pyre on 4+ Targets without it.
- Cast Azure Strike until you have enough Essence for your spender.
Deep Dive
Devastation Evoker
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): This is a passive effect that requires no interaction.
- (4-set): The 5 second cooldown reduction on Eternity Surge in combination with Event Horizon is great for higher Bombardments uptime and more Mass Disintegrate casts. Try to cast Eternity Surge at less than 2 stacks of Essence Burst to not waste the free one you get.
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.
- Make sure you are tracking 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.
Nerub-ar Palace
Devastation Evoker
The following tips are mainly applicable to Heroic Bosses. Mythic tips are released after our progression concludes.
← Scroll for more Bosses →
Ulgrax
Bloodbound Horror
Sikran
Rasha'nan
Broodtwister
Nexus-Princess
Silken Court
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- On Heroic difficulty, you can free yourself from or clear Stalker Netting with Deep Breath
- Make sure to have a Hover up for Carnivorous Contest.
- You can use Cauterizing Flame to cleanse Disembowel from your tank if the stacks get too high.
- Evoker has great mobility for feeding the boss with Chunky Visceras during Ready to Feed.
Offensive Cooldown Usage
If you're assigned to Group 1:
If you're assigned to Group 2:
- Do note that the length of the fight impacts your cooldown usage heavily. If your fight lasts shorter than 6 minutes you use your Dragonrage on pull followed by using it after every Goresplatter.
Defensive Cooldown Usage
If you're assigned to Group 1:
If you're assigned to Group 2:
Boss Tips
- Utilize Glide to prevent touching any Black Blood, especially when moving out of Goresplatter range.
- You should have Hover up for every time you get targeted by Grasp From Beyond to prevent dps loss.
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- Obsidian Scales whenever you are targeted by Decimate or Decimates are about to hit Cosmic Simulacrums.
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- Try to time your Deep Breaths for Infested Spawns as the stun from Terror of the Skies is great against them.
- Use defensive cooldowns when you get targeted by Spinneret's Strands or especially Rolling Acid.
- This fight has a lot of movement so make sure to pick Tailwind and use Hover quite liberally as you always get both charges restored with Slipstream.
- You can help less mobile classes with Rescue when the boss moves to a different spot.
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- Keep in mind that Deep Breath dispels Unstable Web so be careful of accidentally hitting others with Web Eruption.
- Try to stun the Blood Parasites with Terror of the Skies when they are near the boss. You can combo this with Oppressing Roar when available.
- Vile Discharge does quite a bit of damage so make sure to dodge all of them with Hover.
- Use a defensive cooldown when targeted by Experimental Dosage this is also the most crucial mechanic of the fight so make sure you know which eggs you might need to clear before every wave.
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- Use defensive cooldowns for Queensbane, especially as you go out of the raid when the debuff is expiring can be dangerous because you might be outranging some or all of your healers.
- Renewing Blaze gets great value against Queensbane, use it with 7 seconds remaining on the debuff.
- Look out for the positioning of the Nether Rifts, they pull you towards the center point between them all, try to gauge approximately where that is and position yourself so that the path is clear to that area and just let yourself get dragged there.
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Defensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- Expunge the Poison Bolt stacks from your tank as needed.
- Call of the Swarm fixate on the closest target, Evoker is a good target for this so try to be somewhat close to them when they spawn.
- Rescue is perfect for picking up a Binding Webs with an ally, just aim it into or through a Web Bomb.
- In Phase 2 and Phase 3 use defensive cooldowns when you get targeted by Stinging Swarm.
Stat Priority
Devastation Evoker
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.
Higher Item level items are better in most scenarios. For an accurate representation of what item to equip you should use Simcraft! A static "Stat Priority" is just a starting point and can easily shift depending on your individual gear.
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.
Gear
Devastation Evoker
Best in Slot
Farmable Alternatives
| Slot | Item | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Horns of the Destroyer | Tier / Catalyst |
| Neck | Sureki Zealot's Insignia | Sikran, Captain of the Sureki |
| Shoulder | Fumaroles of the Destroyer | Tier / Catalyst |
| Cloak | Wings of Shattered Sorrow | Rasha'nan |
| Chest | Scales of the Destroyer | Tier / Catalyst |
| Wrist | Glyph-Etched Vambraces | Crafting |
| Gloves | Rippers of the Destroyer | Tier / Catalyst |
| Belt | Accelerated Ascension Coil | Broodtwister Ovi'nax |
| Legs | Liquified Defector's Leggings | Queen Ansurek |
| Boots | Rasha'nan's Grotesque Talons | Rasha'nan |
| Ring 1 | Seal of the Poisoned Pact | Queen Ansurek |
| Ring 2 | Devout Zealot's Ring | The Dawnbreaker |
| Trinket 1 | Ara-Kara Sacbrood | Ara-Kara, City of Echoes |
| Trinket 2 | Spymaster's Web | The Silken Court |
| Weapon | Flawless Phase Blade | Sikran, Captain of the Sureki |
| Off-hand | Vagabond's Torch | Crafting |
Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.
| Slot | Item | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Wildhammer Riding Helm | Grim Batol |
| Neck | Elder's Hemolymphal Periapt | City of Threads |
| Shoulder | Courier's Dragonriding Spaulders | Grim Batol |
| Cloak | Troggstitched Drape | Grim Batol |
| Chest | Goliath's Chitinous Chainmail | The Dawnbreaker |
| Wrist | Penumbral Rimeguards | City of Threads |
| Gloves | Corpseleecher Grips | The Stonevault |
| Belt | Anchor Chain Girdle | Siege of Boralus |
| Legs | Entwined Chimeric Legguards | City of Threads |
| Boots | Red Scale Boots | Grim Batol |
| Ring 1 | Devout Zealot's Ring | The Dawnbreaker |
| Ring 2 | Band of the Ancient Dredger | Siege of Boralus |
| Trinket 1 | Ara-Kara Sacbrood | Ara-Kara, City of Echoes |
| Trinket 2 | Hadal's Nautilus | Siege of Boralus |
| Weapon | Wardbreaker of the Fractured | The Stonevault |
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.
Active Trinket alternatives
- Treacherous Transmitter
- A decent alternative active trinket but doesn't line up as nicely with 2 minute cooldowns.
- Has a small "mini-game" when activated to receive the buff, which can be annoying.
Passive Trinket alternatives
- Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg
- A solid passive trinket which shifts stats from main to secondary stats with movement.
- Aberrant Spellforge
- Mostly functions as a passive trinket, works especially well with Disintegrate.
- Empowering Crystal of Anub'ikkaj
- A secondary stat proc passive trinket, side-grade BiS but more difficult to get at 639 item level.
- Unbound Changeling
- Solid alternative secondary stat proc trinket.
- Satchel of Misbegotten Minions
- A slightly worse passive trinket alternative.
Embellishments
It's recommended to hold your Spark of Omens craft and wait for further tuning.
- 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 636 item level and regular items are 639 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.
Consumables
Devastation Evoker
- Phials
- Flask of Tempered Aggression -- maximum DPS.
- 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 -- default
- Oil of Deep Toxins
- Augment Rune
- Crystallized Augment Rune
- Sockets
- Versatile Ruby
- Culminating Blasphemite -- Unique, use one of each gem color to enhance your Culminating Blasphemite.
- Deadly Sapphire
- Deadly Emerald
- Deadly Onyx
Enchantments
| Head | Nerubian Gemweaver |
| Neck | Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Cloak | Enchant Cloak - Chant of Winged Grace |
| Chest | Enchant Chest - Crystalline Radiance |
| Wrist | Enchant Bracer - Chant of Armored Avoidance Nerubian Gemweaver |
| Waist | Nerubian Gemweaver |
| Legs | Sunset Spellthread |
| Boots | Enchant Boots - Scout's March |
| Ring 1 | Enchant Ring - Radiant Critical Strike Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Ring 2 | Enchant Ring - Radiant Critical Strike Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Weapon | Enchant Weapon - Authority of the Depths |
You buy Nerubian Gemweaver from the Great Vault Vendor to add sockets to your Helm, Wrists & Waist.
Macros
Devastation Evoker
Discover recommended macros for Devastation Evokers during Raid encounters and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.
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.
#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Deep BreathFirestorm -- 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] FirestormMouseover Macros
Rescue Macros
Utility Macros
Addons
Devastation Evoker
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
Changes this Patch
Devastation Evoker
Patch 11.0.2
Patch 11.0
FAQ
Q: Why do I feel so squishy even though you rated Devastation 4/5 on Survivability?
Credits
Written By: fraggo
Reviewed By: Saltad