Talent Builds
Raid
CEcBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAwMLjtZmZGLDmZWmBzYmNAAAAAwAAgZGAYMTNjZmBAAAAzYmtxMzyYmBGbzAjZzCLkBmhhGYBzA
For raiding content the class tree is a bit simpler than for Mythic+. Most of the bosses don’t require a bunch of dispels or CC so you don’t need to worry about it too much. There still are some bosses where certain talents can be very useful so i’ll explain them to you in an easy way to follow along.
Option 1 - If there is a shield that has to be removed from an hostile target you can drop the point in Protracted Talons and swap it over to unravel, Same goes for Oppressing Roar if you want some extra CC duration on specific adds. It’s important to keep Leaping Flames talented even in single target, since the Living Flames coming from Leaping Flames will heal allies if there is no other enemy and so have a chance to proc Essence Burst which will help you with keeping ebon might up.
Option 2 - If you want to get an extra Talent somewhere in the tree the first points you drop are the ones in Innate Magic and/or Ancient Flame. This allows you to talent into Cauterizing Flame or the choice node of Heavy Wingbeats / Clobbering Sweep while not losing too much throughput or defensive strength.
For the spec tree there are again a few points that are flexible and can be moved around.
Starting with the Regenerative Chiting and Molten Blood choice node. Molten Blood has some flat value from providing a shield everytime you cast Blistering Scales which sounds very nice on paper. Although when taking into account that Blistering Scales is most of the time being casted on a tank, a shield that provides up to ~160k absorb isn't that big of a bonus for them.
There is the option of using it on a DPS or healer before a big hit of dmg but since it will stay on that target until it’s ready again it will most likely only give them some extra armor and the damage proc from being hit by a melee attack is not used at all during that cooldown.
Regenerative Chiting on the other hand misses out on the shield value on your tank but by adding a scale with each Eruption cast Regenerative Chiting will save you a lot of globals that you can spend on your general rotation which makes managing buffs and extending them easier.
It's a back and forth between these two. The important thing is to take the points listed above into consideration and make a decision based on what you think your team needs.
Bestow Weyrnstone is a talent that can’t be evaluated in the form of numbers but can make a big difference when it comes into play. You pick one ally by casting the spell on them. On completing the cast both of you get the Item Weyrnstone directly into your bags, which I highly suggest you to keybind so it’s easier to use during combat. Either of you can now use the Weyrnstone to teleport to the other player with a 1.5 seconds cast on a 2 minute cooldown. Definitely not a default pick when playing with Pugs but Weyrnstone can come in clutch when playing with your guild or friends. To access Weyrnstone you want to drop Regenerative Chiting / Molten Blood or Pupil of Alexstrasza.
Mythic+
CEcBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAwMLjtZmZGLDmZWmBzYmNAAAAAAAAMzADGjZqhZmBAAAAzYmtxMzyYmxwYzAjZzCLkBmhhGYBzA
For Mythic+ the class tree is a huge toolbox allowing you to pick exactly what you need for each dungeon and affix. The import string gives you a great baseline to work with and below is some information on how you can change things up.
First off some questions you should always ask yourself before starting a key. Being stuck in a dungeon, knowing you could make it easier by just having that one talent is a situation you want to avoid so make sure you adjust your tree according to your groups needs.
- Do I need to soothe specific enemies and so should spec into Overawe?
- Could my comp need some extra CC? Clobbering sweep could be a good fit.
- Is it an incorporeal week? Sleep Walk should definitely be picked to assist on CCing
Now it’s time to get an idea of what talents you can drop to access that extra utility.
If you want to talent into Overawe: Drop one point in Innate Magic.
If you want to talent into Sleep Walk: Drop one point in Innate Magic.
If you want to talent into Heavy Wingbeats/Clobbering Sweep: Drop Scarlet Adaption.
If you want to talent into even more utility. Both of the following talents are viable options to drop but missing out on them is a bit worse than just losing a small portion of damage and could end up in missing important defensive value when playing higher key levels. So make sure to only swap away from defensive talents if you’re sure that you don't need them and the utility is absolutely needed.
Twin Guardian: Makes Rescue a movement only ability.
Fire Within: Gives up 30 second cooldown reduction on Renewing Blaze.
Maybe there even is a Devastation evoker in your group so one of you can drop Source of Magic and Potent Mana.
The spec tree is more straightforward and requires less swapping around.
Similar to the raiding build, the same pros and cons apply to the Regenerative Chiting / Molten Blood choice node. Read about those above.
Imposing Presence is key to having more interrupts and will always be talented.
Bestow Weyrnstone enables you to pull off some nice tricks by teleporting to an ally or them teleporting to you. You can access it by dropping either Pupil of Alexstrasza. This gives you the choice of dropping damage to access great utility. So only go for Bestow Weyrnstone if you have a specific idea on how you will use it during the key. Otherwise it can turn out to be useless and a wasted talent point.
Class Talents
The Class Tree remains quite similar to what we’re familiar with from Dragonflight. Some nodes changed places in the tree. For example Source of Magic and Potent Mana swapped places with Renewing Blaze and the choice node between Foci of Life and Fire Within.
One big change in the Class Tree is about Time Spiral. This talent now is converted into a choice node with Spatial Paradox. Spatial Paradox is great to support healers during movement heavy parts of fight. Also it can be used for yourself, since it increases the range of your spells by 100%, which can solve the range struggles we sometimes encounter.
Cauterizing Flame: A 4 in one dispel talent that lets you dispel all Bleed, Poison, Curse and Disease effects. Depending on the Boss / Dungeon you’re playing Cauterizing Flame can bring massive value. Especially removing bleed effects is quite rare and gives Evoker a great niche.
Notable Talents
Tip the Scales: By making your next empowered spell cast instantly and at its maximum empower level Tip the Scales is a must pick in every scenario. Also it eases out reaching Inherent Resistance and Extended Flight with only 1 point needed to open the path.
Blast Furnance: Extends the duration of Fire Breath by 4 seconds. A nice dps increase in the Class Tree is always nice to have. Additionally this talent synergizes With Molten Embers from the Spec Tree making it even more powerful.
Source of Magic & Poten Mana: Source of Magic lets you buff a healer of your choice that gains mana when you’re casting empowered spells. With some calculations this provides about 7-8% Mana for every 5 minutes of combat, of course depending on uptime. Potent Mana follows up with a 3% damage and healing increase to the buffed healer.
Rescue: Is one of the signature spells Evoker brings. Help your allies out on moving a far distance or fly them out of a deadly mechanic. Rescue has uncountable use cases and has the potential to save a pull or dungeon on its own. In combination with Twin Guardian it can also be used as a defensive cooldown, shielding an ally of choice and yourself.
Unravel: Very niche but really strong when usable. This ability only deals damage to absorb shields. With no essence cost bound to it and only a 9 seconds cooldown Unravel is worth speccing into if there are absorb shields to deal with. For example the last 2 bosses of Nerub-ar Palace both have absorb shields that need to be damaged off the boss.
Oppressing Roar: Extending the duration of crowd control effects can be really powerful. Combined with any CC ability, Oppressing Roar makes handling different types of mobs way easier. Directly under Oppressing Roar the 1 pointer Overawe gives you access to an aoe soothe, making evoker unique in that scenario.
Spec Talents
In this section I will be discussing notable talents of the talents in the spec tree, where you would want to use them and how they synergize with each other. This gives some more context on the builds provided above.
Defy Fate: A cheat death effect that is only accessible for Augmentation Evokers. The value of this spell can’t be calculated in numbers but it’s a no brainer to always go with this talent.
Chrono Ward: Gives your allies buffed by Ebon Might an absorb shield when they hit targets affected by Breath of Eons. The 30% max health cap is calculated by enemy so if there are multiple targets the shield can excel up to absurd amounts.
Draconic Attunements: Although Draconic Attunements and Aspect’s Favor have been nerfed several times since the release of Augmentation, Draconic Attunements still brings some great value to the table and shouldn’t be missed out on.
Molten Embers: Changes our rotation by a tiny bit. You want to cast rank 1 Fire Breaths to gain the benefits on your black spells as long as possible.
Rumbling Earth: Leaving an aftershock at the target's location is a neat boost to our dps. This synergizes especially well with Molten Embers.
Hero Talents
In this section I will give you some more insights into both trees, mentioning talents that stand out and explaining their strengths and weaknesses.
Chronowarden
Chrono Flames: itself is a neat upgrade to Living Flame. Its real value comes into play as soon as you hit level 80 and spec into Afterimage. These two synergize very well with each other.
Warp: Makes Hover turn into a blink, similar to the Mage ability. This enables a lot of playmaking and makes crossing deadly puddles/areas way easier. Combined with the damage reduction you get from Temporality Hover can also be used as a defensive cooldown.
Golden Opportunity: Can be compared with Dragonflights Season 3&4 set bonus. In general it's great to have increased Prescience duration. Although it can mess around with your plan of who you want to buff at what point. Make sure you’re aware when Golden Opportunity procs so you can cast the extended Prescience deliberately.
Temporal Burst: Lets you enter god mode after consuming Tip the Scales. Feels very rewarding and overall a well rounded talent. There is one big problem with this. Since you’re specced into Molten Embers for all kinds of content you always want to use rank 1 Fire Breaths. Having this said, it's a dps increase to activate Tip the Scales and cancelaura it instead of using it on Fire Breath, since you don’t want a max rank Fire Breath that only lasts 12 seconds. This feels really off and unintuitive. Alternatively you can use Tip The Scales for Upheaval of course.
Scalecommander
Scalecommander shifts a bit more in the direction of dealing damage yourself, instead of providing buffs for your allies. But of course you still have your baseline Augmentation idea of buffing allies!
Bombardments & Extended Battle / Diverted Power: These talents come into play as soon as you use an empowered spell and cast Mass Eruption. Bombardments by itself make up for a good amount of our overall damage. Extended Battle and Diverted Power add a neat side effect during Bombardments with Extended Battle pulling out ahead right now.
Wingleader: Reduces Breath of Eons cooldown when hitting targets that are marked with Bombardments. This can also be procced by your group so Deep Breath’s cooldown will be reduced more often when playing in bigger groups. This can enable new burst windows and different buffing strategies. Although having Breath of Eons desynced from the usual 2 minute profile forces you into thinking a bit more about your allies damage profiles and so be quite situational.