Talent Builds
Single Target
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This build is focused around pure single target. If there is any form of cleave in the content you want to do with your talent tree make sure to swap over to one of the cleave builds.
Raid Cleave
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While still having great single target dps this build is a bit more about cleaving efficiently onto additional targets. Eternity’s Span is the perfect talent for that. Easy accessible and a 1-pointer. When playing this make sure to change the empower levels of your Eternity Surges so you charge the spell only as long as you have to.
Raid AoE
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In comparison to the cleave build this tree comes with Charged blast instead of Power Nexus.
Mythic+
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On the Devastation side of the tree this one is identical to the Raid AoE build. Although there are some changes on the Class side heavily focusing around utility that you can make use of in Dungeons.
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.
Notable Talents
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.
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 Furnace: 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 Catalyze from the Spec Tree making it even more powerful.
Source of Magic & Potent 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 8-9% 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 context on the builds provided above.
Lay Waste: Increases the damage of your Deep breath. This on its own isn’t too valuable but taking into account that Onyx Legacy immediately doubles its value and the hero tree Scalecommander also brings deep breath cooldown reduction lets you make use of it way more often.
Animosity: The bread and butter of devastation. Extending Dragonrage is key to excelling in DPS. Right now this is capped at 4 extensions, making it a total of 40 seconds of Dragonrage.
Charged Blast: Great for AoE, especially when bursting since all pyres casted by your Dragonrage are affected by charged blast. This synergizes extremely well with Mass Disintegrate, which makes stacking Charged Blast very efficient and fast.
Tyranny: A mandatory talent in every scenario. Having maximum benefit of your mastery during Dragonrage is crucial, especially when targets start dropping to lower hp.
Causality: Synergizes with almost our whole kit. Reducing empowered spells cooldown brings tons of benefits to so many aspects and talents of Devastation. Notable ones are Power Swell, Iridescence, Animosity and Dragonrage itself.
Hero Talents
As of now, Scalecommander outperforms Flameshaper by a good amount. The only case where Flameshaper pulls out ahead is at bursting, since Engulf brings huge single target and AoE burst potential. Although sacrificing overall DPS is not worth it, unless you really need that 2 minute burst.
In this section I will give you some more insights into both trees, mentioning talents that stand out.
Scalecommander
Mass Disintegrate: gives you access to a cleave profile, without speccing into any additional cleave in your spec tree. This is usually great for Raiding and Mythic+ since you want to keep your single target dps high even when there is cleave or AoE to be done. It synergizes well with a lot of the talents available in the spec tree and so makes a great foundation of the Hero Tree.
Bombardments & Extended Battle / Diverted Power: These talents come into play as soon as you use an empowered spell and cast Mass Disintegrate. 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 Deep Breath 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.
Flameshaper
Flameshaper heavily focuses around Engulf and bursting every 2 minutes combined with Dragonrage. Every periodic effect (Fire Breath, Enkindle and even Ruby Embers in the Devastation tree) increases the damage Engulf deals. So make sure all available dot effects are applied before using Engulf charges. One more notable thing about Engulf is that it can be used as a heal on allies and yourself. This results in a huge DPS loss but if you don’t have any alternative defensives it is definitely worth using instead of dying with a charge up!
Enkindle: Since this is one of the periodic effects that increase Engulf damage you adapt your opener. As covered in the picture below the opener sequence is a bit different to Scalecommander. Mentioning enkindle you can see that there is a Disintegrate squeezed in before casting both Engulfs. Living Flame is identical to the Scalecommander opener precasted of course.
Draconic Instincts / Life Cinders choice node: Draconic Instincts works passively and especially with the increased proc chance on attacks that heal high damage provides a lot of self healing. Lifecinders on the other hand is used more deliberately. For example on allies with a ticking dot. Also worth noting is that Life Cinders generate extremely high numbers on tanks since they take the most damage and so can be used to support them when needed.