If you’re curious where to get started in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight with the new Hero Class Dracthyr Evoker then allow Esports.gg to be your guide. Released this week as part of the Dragonflight pre-expansion event, the Dracthyr race and the Evoker class will allow players to channel their inner Onyxia, Alexstrasza, and other favorite dragons from the popular MMORPG.
A new class is daunting, even before taking into account WoW’s new and intimidating talent tree system. So, join us for a deep dive into Dracthyr lore, the mechanics of the Evoker class, what role you can expect to serve while playing as an Evoker and more.
Wings up, there are clear skies ahead. Let’s fly.
Dragonflight Dracthyr Evoker Guide Basics
A bronze-tinged Dracthyr above Orgrimmar.
The Evoker is a Hero Class that begins at level 58, with its only applicable race being the Dracthyr and vice versa. Similar to the Death Knight and Demon Hunter Hero Classes, an Evoker may only be made on a server where the player already has a character at level 50 or above. In addition, you’re only allowed one Evoker per server. The Dracthyr starting zone is the Forbidden Reach of the Dragon Isles, found northwest of the Eastern Kingdoms. This area will be a zone available in Dragonflight proper.
Our new dragon friends are spellcasters that wear mail, able to use staves, axes, swords, maces, daggers and fist weapons. In addition, other racial traits include:
Glide: An instant-cast activated by holding down the jump key that reduces fall speed.Tail Swipe: An instant-cast that knocks enemies into the air on a 1.5 minute cooldown.Wing Buffet: An instant-cast that knocks enemies away on a 45 second cooldown.Awakened: A passive that increases Mastery by 2.5%.Discerning Eye: A passive that increases Perception by 2%. Perception is a new skill stat in Dragonflight that increases your ability to spot rare reagents while gathering. Soar: A 1.5 second cast ability on a three minute cooldown that allows the player to launch into the air and fly, using momentum to stay afloat.Familiar Skies: A passive that reduces the cooldown of Soar on fully explored continents.
Dracthyr can also transform between a draconic and human form, similar to the Worgen. This includes a toggleable ability that will return the player to their human form when exiting combat or soaring mode.
What makes an Evoker?
A look at the Evoker and Devastation talent trees.
The Evoker is a spellcasting class that features spells from all five of the primary dragon aspects: Earth, fire, life, arcane, and time. As such, the spells are a mix of instant-cast abilities that do AOE damage, channeled spells and a new mechanic called empowered spells. During the charging process, a meter appears that changes the effect of the spell. For instance, the ability Fire Breath deals more damage and damage over time the longer it is charged, while the empowered spell Eternity Surge hits more targets the longer it is charged.
Evokers also possess a unique energy source called Essence, which acts similarly to the Death Knight’s rune system. Essence energy will replenish over time, with the Evoker starting with five charges. This allows the use of spells such as Disintegrate.
Evoker combat style
To help ease the burden of long casting times and empowered spells the Evoker has a number of enemy displacement abilities. In addition to the aforementioned Wing Buffet and Tail Swipe, they also have Landslide available on the first tier of the Evoker skill tree. This 1.5 minute cooldown spell roots all enemies hit by shifting stone for 30 seconds. While this means the Evoker will spend a lot of its combat time with enemies in its face, passives such as Tempered Scales will help increase durability.
Another benefit of the Evoker is its ability to self-heal with a number of spells. The Evoker’s cornerstone spell Living Flame shares similarities with Death Coil in that it’s a damage or healing spell, as well as self-castable.
With a mixed bag of spells available in Dragonflight, the Evoker possesses a number of quirky spells meant to help guide your party to victory. This includes the Bloodlust-adjacent Fury of the Aspects, the AOE instant cast heal Emerald Blossom, an out-of-combat resurrection spell and an instant cast ability that reduces the cooldown of your party’s major movement abilities for an hour.
Now we’ll take a look at the two specializations for the Evoker.
Devastation and Preservation in tandem
The Preservation Evoker spec at work.
Devastation and Preservation are Evoker’s two talent specializations, focusing on DPS and healing, respectively. Devastation centers on red and blue magic while Preservation utilizes green and bronze. This sticks with the theme built around the dragon aspects’ colors,
As with all of the new talent trees in the Dragonflight pre-patch, the Evoker’s talents are a bit intimidating at first. In regards to the Devastation spec, the player has a few different directions to focus on. The first is towards red spells, either by selecting talents that buff the Essence Burst passive, or by putting points into Deep Breath. This ability will be familiar to anyone that’s fought the black dragon Onyxia, as your Dracthyr soars across the battlefield and breathes fire down below. This left side of the tree also provides buffs to Living Flame and gives access to Firestorm, Firestorm, an AOE ability similar to the mage’s Blizzard.
Meanwhile, the right side of the tree has a dual-focus on buffing your Disintegrate, as well as providing some power to your empowered spells.
A Devastation tree with a focus on buffing Deep Breath and Pyre.
Talents from the Bronze Flight that ally buffs come from the Preservation side of specializations. Similar to how discipline priests play, skills like Rewind and Time Dilation provide immediate healing and protection on short cooldowns. The green-side of the ability spectrum is all about AOE heals such as Dream Flight and Spiritbloom, sharing some common DNA with restoration druids. Emerald Communion is also a potent spell with its ability to heal the player while also providing health and mana to nearby party members.
A Preservation tree with a focus on Dream Flight.
The sky’s the limit
Early reports show that the Evoker is outperforming in both DPS and healing numbers, in some cases doing more than double the amount of the next highest player. These numbers will change in the coming weeks when Dragonflight launches on November 28. Until then: Get out there, fiddle around with some talent trees and spend hours upon hours customizing your new dragon pal! Remember: Our Dragonflight Evoker guide is always here to help!
And remember: Stay tuned to esports.gg for any and all World of Warcraft updates!
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