Dragonflight will be giving us WoW's 13th class, which is also limited to the new playable race, the Dracthyr, and, in a far more unusual move, the Dracthyr will only be able to play as Evokers. One of the odd upshots of this is that the line between "racial ability" and "class ability" is seriously blurred. Blizzard has floated the idea that Dracthyr might have access to other classes in the future, but it's not confirmed.
Evokers have two specs - presumably following the logic of the Demon Hunter, where there's just a spec per role. Devastation will be the Dracthyr DPS spec, which makes them a ranged spellcasting damage dealer... though their range is not what you typically see.
Typically, at least in the past several expansions, ranged classes have been able to fight from 40 yards away from their targets, with Marksmanship Hunters gaining a little extra range thanks to their Mastery. Evokers, however, at it looks like this is true for both damage and healing spells, tend to have a 25-yard range.
This means they have to get significantly closer to their targets to affect them. Indeed, it can be a little misleading if you think purely in terms of distance - one of the major benefits of being at range means that you have a much larger area of targets you can hit (or, alternatively, a much larger area for you to be able to stand and still hit a target). Using some Middle School math, a 40-yard range means that you are covering a 5,027 square-yard circle. If your range drops to 25 yards, the area you can hit drops to 1,963 square yards, meaning you've got less than half the area you could cover before.
Range can be very important to allow you to stay on targets and not have to move (ranged classes are also typically forced to stand still more thanks to casting times and channeled abilities). The larger the area you can stand in, the easier it is for you to find a safe spot to be.
Thus, this is clearly a challenge being built into the Evoker - you're ranged, but positioning will be a more significant challenge for you than, say, a Warlock.
However, I also think that some of the design is being built with this in mind. Right now, I only have lists of spells and abilities, and don't have a great sense of what the "rotation" looks like, but it appears that Devastation will, like many classes, have a mechanic revolving around building up and spending resources.
That resource is Essence - you'll have spells like Azure Strike, which is an instant-cast spell with, I believe, no cooldown, that deals Spellfrost damage to a target and another nearby one. This is likely a filler ability, and I believe will help to build up Essence.
Then there are a smaller number of spells that spend Essence to do larger amounts of damage.
Only a handful of Devastation abilities actually have cast times - many have relatively short cooldowns and might cost Essence.
A few abilities, though, have a new mechanic - these are special channeled spells that allow you to either hold down the button or press it once to start charging and again to shoot it off (not being able to play I can't tell you which - though my instinct is that the latter would be somewhat more lag friendly) and will have varied effects based on how long you charge - like DoTs that last longer, cleave abilities that hit more targets, or just generally things doing more damage.
Deep Breath appears to be a big damage ability that also functions as a movement ability - you pick a direction and a distance, and then you fly over the area breathing fire on the region and land at your destination.
One thing of note is that it seems that the spells and abilities you have are often categorized by which dragonflight they're attached to. Devastation abilities have a number of Blue and Black spells, along with some Red, while I think that the Preservation Evoker - the healing spec - focuses more on Green and Bronze, along with, I'd assume, Red.
As with any expansion that brings a new class, I'm very eager to try it out. After my paladin main, my Death Knight and Demon Hunter are my next-most-played classes, and I think new classes can breathe a lot of fresh air into the game.
The Evoker looks like it should feel new and different, which is always welcome.
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