Preservation Evoker Beginner's Guide

This is intended to be a simple guide to the basic rotation and dynamics of the spec that gets you up and running without requiring more advanced optimization.

Information on hero talents will be coming soon, but in general know that overall they add a minor layer on top of how each spec plays, and most of what’s here should be applicable regardless.

Talent Build #

This is a simplified talent build designed to avoid complex interactions and skip unnecessary abilities. While not optimal in all cases, it should be a great way to get started learning the spec and should work reasonably well in world content, delves, dungeons, and raids. Abilities and talents not chosen in this build are not described here, and the rotation information assumes you’ll be using the build.

For healer specs like Preservation, the recommended talent build is designed to be workable for beginning delve, dungeon, and raid content. It’s going to be a bit rough for levelling, questing, and outdoor content - for that you’ll either want to tinker with the build to drop group-focused effects and emphasize damage, or use a DPS spec instead.

Copy the text below to import the recommended build:
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Wowhead Link

Resources #

Essence – Evoker’s primary resource. You’ll start with 6 points of essence that will regenerate automatically. You’ll spend essence on Echo to duplicate your healing spells, and on Disintegrate for damage.

Mana – As with all healers mana is an important consideration for Preservation Evokers. The best way to preserve your mana is to prefer using Echo with Essence Burst instead of by itself, to fit in Disintegrate whenever you can, and to use Emerald Communion anytime you’re running low.

Empowered Spells #

All Evokers have access to Empowered spells. For Preservation this includes Dream Breath and Spiritbloom for healing, and Fire Breath for damage. These spells can be “charged up” by holding their key, then activated at four different levels of power. These charging levels often involve tradeoffs rather than just getting stronger, so you’ll need to consider the best level to target based on the situation. You can also use Tip the Scales if you want to quickly cast an empowered spell at its maximum level.

Healing Abilities #

Echo – The signature ability for preservation evokers, spends 2 essence to apply a buff on the target that will replicate your next healing spell. Can be applied to multiple allies to replicate a spell onto several at once. Try to use it with Essence Burst active to save on mana and let you get more out before running out of essence. Has many possible uses, see notes on abilities below.

Reversion - Applies a moderate heal over time effect to the target, and does a small amount of initial healing. 7s cooldown with 2 charges. While active other healing done to the target will be increased. Can proc Essence Burst to remove the mana and essence cost of your next Echo or Disintegrate. This is a core ability that should be spread liberally on any targets that need healing. The more you have out the more likely you are to get Essence Burst.

  • Can be used in two ways with Echo. If cast on a recently-echo’d target will double the HoT effect, which is helpful for tanks you need to pump more healing into. Alternatively, if you have one or more echoes spread to the group and then target someone new with Reversion, all of those targets will get the Reversion effect. This can be an effective way to spread out healing and gather essence burst procs quickly. If not sure what else to do with Echo then Reversion is a solid default choice.

Verdant Embrace – Fly to the target and heal them for a substantial amount. With Lifebind applies a 5s buff to the target that will replicate a portion of healing done to you, or visa versa.

  • Great to use with Echo to either do a huge instant heal to one target, or with a few echoes spread to line up a substantial group heal.

Living Flame – Can be used as either a healing or a damage ability. See the damage section for that aspect of the spell. Healing-wise it’s a short cast to do minor healing to the target. Can proc Essence Burst to remove the mana and essence cost of your next Echo or Disintegrate. Should be used as a filler to do top-off healing and to try and generate more Essence Burst if you don’t have other more urgent tasks.

  • Generally a low-value use for Echo

Healing Cooldowns #

Dream Breath – 30s cooldown. An empowered spell, heals allies in a cone in front of you and applies a heal-over-time as well. Starts out doing mostly healing over time with a small initial heal, but shifts towards dealing substantial upfront healing as you fully charge it. A powerful and efficient heal that should be used close to on cooldown if there’s any healing to be done. The lower-empowered version works perfectly fine if people aren’t in imminent danger of dying, but the higher-empowered versions can be used in an emergency, especially if you can reduce the charge time with Tip the Scales or stacks of Temporal Compression.

Spiritbloom – 30s cooldown. Also an empowered spell, does substantial instant healing to one target initially, then on additional targets as it gets further empowered. With Empath also speeds up essence regeneration for a short while. It’s absolutely fine to use the quick version if you just need single target healing. If you need group healing try to line up the empower level with the actual number of targets needed as best you can. As above remember that Tip the Scales or stacks of Temporal Compression can reduce the time to empower if you need to use the group version.

Time Dilation – 1m cooldown. Spreads out damage done to the target over 10s. This damage will still require healing, but it’ll be easier to do so without it all happening at once. Should be used on at-risk targets that you’re worried you won’t have a chance to fully heal soon.

Rewind – 4m cooldown. Undoes a portion of damage done to all allies over the last 5s. If you time this to be used after heavy damage is an extremely powerful ability. Use it wisely but don’t hold it for so long that you’re not using it at all.

Tip the Scales – 2m cooldown. Makes your next empowered ability cast instantly at full charge. Helpful when you need the fully-charged version of Dream Breath or Spiritbloom, but remember that there’s cases where the short-charge versions of those abilities are all you need so don’t use it indiscriminately.

Emerald Communion – 3m cooldown. Channel for 4s to restore your health and mana. After you’re fully healed additional healing will instead go to injured allies. Probably most useful to restore mana, but also helpful if you need an emergency self-heal.

Damage Abilities #

Living Flame – Can be used as either a healing or a damage ability. See the healing section for that aspect of the spell. Damage-wise it’s a short cast to do minor damage to the target. Can proc Essence Burst to remove the mana and essence cost of your next Echo or Disintegrate. Used as a dps filler in single target.

Fire Breath – 30s cooldown. Empowered spell that does initial damage and applies a damage-over-time effect in a cone in front of you. Starts out with most of the damage done over time, but front-loads more into the initial damage as the empower level increases. Unless you’re really trying to pump damage just use it at level 1 on cooldown.

Azure Strike - Does instant damage to 3 targets. Used as filler for AoE damage.

Disintegrate – Spends essence to channel for 3s doing substantial damage to the target. With Energy Loop also restores some mana. If you’re low on mana this is actually a good use of essence to try and restore yourself. Otherwise it’s a powerful damage ability, but you’ll want to be careful not to deplete your essence right before you urgently need it for an Echo cast.

Deep Breath – 2m cooldown. Fly to the targeted location doing substantial damage to all enemies along the way. Try to use it if you don’t urgently need to heal and there’s a clump of enemies that can be targeted.

Effects #

These are some of the more notable effects, interactions, and passive talents that you should be aware of. It’s not covering effects (even if they’re very strong) that provide flat bonuses or that don’t require much thought to use, and it only includes those used in our recommended build.

Mastery: Life-Binder – Does extra healing when the target’s health percentage is lower than yours, increasing with more Mastery points. As long as you keep yourself high on health, this should give a mostly passive bonus.

Temporal Compression – Using Bronze spells, mainly Reversion and Echo, will give you up to 4 stacks of Temporal Compression. These will reduce the time your next empowered spell takes to charge. See the descriptions of Dream Breath and Spiritbloom for notes on usage.

Time of Need – Once a minute, if an ally falls low on health, summon a copy of yourself to automatically heal them for 8s. This is a passive/automatic effect that shouldn’t require much active thought.

Rotation Overview #

This is an overview of the core rotation. It’s not a strict priority order but rather an outline of how the different abilities interact and are used. It assumes you’re using the recommended talent build above.

Many of the below items will mention how to use Echo with different abilities. Implicit in all of them is that you should prefer using it with Essence Burst to offset the mana and essence cost.

Maintenance

Healing

  • Use Verdant Embrace on targets that quickly need healing - and with Echo if they need a lot of healing quickly
  • Use Echo on one or more targets that need healing but that aren’t imminently going to die, then follow up with Reversion to spread multiple heal-over-time effects
  • Apply Time Dilation to slow down damage to an at-risk target
  • Living Flame for minor spot healing and to try for Essence Burst

Emergency

  • Alternate between Dream Breath and Spiritbloom to quickly recover from significant damage. Try to space it out so that one of the two is available in a pinch.
  • Use Rewind if you’ve just taken significant party-wide damage

Damage

  • Use a level 1 Fire Breath to keep the damage-over-time effect on enemies
  • Deep Breath on cooldown as long as you’ll hit multiple targets
  • If you’ve got spare essence and don’t think you’ll need it soon, use Disintegrate for substantial single target damage
  • Living Flame as filler in single target
  • Azure Strike as filler in AoE

Defensives #

Obsidian Scales - Reduces damage to yourself by 30% for 12s. 2 charges with a 1.5m cooldown. Use this actively anytime you’re taking damage or expecting to take damage soon.

Crowd Control #

Quell - Ranged interrupt on a 40s cooldown.

Tail Swipe - Knocks upward and interrupts enemies in a short area around you. 1.5m cooldown.

Wing Buffet – Knocks away and interrupts enemies in front of you. 1.5m cooldown.

Mobility #

Hover - Launch forward and hover with increased movement speed for 10s. While active you can cast (non-empowered) spells while moving. 2 charges with a 35s cooldown. With the short cooldown and two charges you can have this active a lot of the time, so don’t hesitate to use it to speed up movement and keep up with healing while on the go.

Utility #

Cleanse Naturalize – Cleanses harmful magic and poison effects from an ally on a short cooldown.

Blessing of the Bronze – Group buff that reduces the cooldown on everyone’s primary movement abilities by 15%. Keep this active on yourself and your group at all times in all content.

Cauterizing Flame – Removes all bleed, poison, curse, and disease effects from the target and does minor healing. 1m cooldown. This is a powerful way to clear some difficult-to-remove effects so look for opportunities to use it.

Fury of the Aspects – Bloodlust-alike.

Renewing Blaze – Heals back all damage taken for 8s but spread out over the duration. This means that damage sufficient to kill you outright won’t be stopped, but otherwise a very powerful self-heal on a 1.5m cooldown.

Return – Out-of-combat single-target resurrect.

Glide – Use your jump key while midair to slow your fall and glide forward. Limited combat utility but wonderful for getting around the world and effectively lets you avoid all fall damage.

Mass Return – Out-of-combat resurrect for your whole party or raid.

Quality of Life #

Soar – Lets you act as your own skyriding mount. Same 1.5s cast as mounting up and works identically once you’re in the air, so this is really just an aesthetic/flavor ability.

Visage – Toggle between your dragon and human forms. While in human form you get a boost to out-of-combat health regeneration. Enabling Chosen Identity will automatically swap you to human form when you leave combat, which you’ll want to do for the health recovery bonus.

Not Used #

Emerald Blossom – While this is an important part of Perservation Evoker’s overall toolkit, with the build used here and for beginners purposes I don’t think it’s worth worrying about.

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