Preservation Evoker Healing Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.0.7)
On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Preservation Evoker, depending on the type of damage your group is receiving. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to minmax your healing output and your mana efficiency. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.0.7).
Preservation Evoker Rotation Guide for The War Within
Welcome to our Rotation page for Preservation Evokers. On this page, you will find everything you need to know about actually playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.
Each of the sections below explain the rotation for Preservation Evoker depending on the build you choose and the content you are doing.
Preservation Evoker Rotation
The buttons below can be used to select between curated Raiding and Mythic+ loadouts. You can also use the switches below to add or remove individual talents you may also be using:
Talent Selections, etc. | ||
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Spell Priority for Preservation Evoker
Preservation Evoker has two very distinct ways to play. One focuses on spending
essence on Echo; the other focuses on spending essence on
Emerald Blossom.
Deciding which of these abilities you will want to cast largely depends on the talents you
take. Echo builds head towards
Time Lord, giving them extra healing output from Echo
casts, whereas Emerald Blossom builds select
Fluttering Seedlings,
Field of Dreams,
and
Cycle of Life to amplify their output from each Emerald Blossom cast.
While in Mythic+ Echo builds remain the way to go, the best raid build often
changes patch to patch, but overall, both remain competitive. Being able to play both unique
builds is a valuable skill, as there is a good chance you may need to use both throughout a raiding tier.
Preservation Evoker - Echo Raid Build
Echo Raid Build Rotation
Your goal is to generate as many Echos as possible through both spending
essence and casting
Temporal Anomaly with
Resonating Sphere.
Once you have your
Echos out, you will then consume them with one of the four
following spells:
Spiritbloom,
Dream Breath,
Verdant Embrace
and
Reversion. Here is how you can decide which spell to use:
Verdant Embrace offers you very high burst potential, and overall the highest HPS output assuming that you are playing into the
Lifebind effect. Because Lifebind shares healing that you deal to yourself with any players having the buff, you will want to follow each
Verdant Embrace cast with a
Spiritbloom cast on yourself, that way you transfer additional healing to all allies with
Lifebind. Outside of this you can perform powerful combos every 3 minutes with
Emerald Communion.
Spiritbloom will offer you a nice amount of burst healing as well as additional HoT healing through
Reverberations. In general this will fall behind
Verdant Embrace and
Lifebind combos but it can be much easier to pull off and is decent at healing longer duration damage windows.
Dream Breath is a fairly strong choice thanks to
Double-time but often falls behind
Spiritbloom and
Lifebind. That being said, it can be efficient to use when facing very heavy rot damage where the burst healing from the other spells may not be as useful. Keep in mind it will be more difficult to pull off since
Verdant Embrace will consume the
Echos when you attempt to proc
Call of Ysera before casting Dream Breath.
Reversion is a fairly weak
Echo choice that will also require you to talent into
Grace Period. Even without high critical strike, it is relatively easy for the duration to be extended to the max, and it also gives you
Grace Period value and extra
Essence Bursts.
The overall rotation for an Echo build will look like this:
- Keep
Stasis on cooldown as much as possible and avoid putting weak spells (think
Echo) within the Stasis. More info about Stasis can be found below.
- Aim to have 4 stacks of
Temporal Compression before each empower cast. This can be done through casting any bronze spell (most of the time
Echo or
Chrono Flame).
- Use
Tip the Scales as often as possible and ideally right as you are about to do large healing to get max effectiveness from
Temporal Burst.
- Cast
Temporal Anomaly as mana allows to generate
Echos through
Resonating Sphere.
- Do not overcap on Essence or waste
Essence Burst procs (Cast
Echo as much as possible).
- Consume active
Echos with
Verdant Embrace to deal with heavy burst damage and when your raid is low health.
- Cast
Spiritbloom on yourself and before the
Lifebind buff falls off. This will allow you to deal a massive amount of extra healing to your raid following a
Verdant Embrace cast. Generally you will use Rank 2/3 to ensure that the cast finishes before Lifebind falls off.
- Generate stacks of
Temporal Compression and cast
Dream Breath at Rank 1 before you lose the
Call of Ysera buff triggered by casting
Verdant Embrace.
- When facing heavy rot damage and in a situation where
Spiritbloom or
Lifebind will overheal; you can instead consume
Echos with
Dream Breath. You would then follow a rotation of using
Verdant Embrace, followed by getting
Echos out, then consuming with
Dream Breath.
- Cast
Fire Breath at max rank to trigger
Leaping Flames, follow this cast by using
Living Flame to generate
Essence Burst.
- Cast
Living Flame to generate
Essence Burst procs and
Temporal Compression stacks when you have nothing else to do or don't want to consume
Echos yet. These living flames should be cast on an enemy in order to save mana and not consume the Echos.
Additional information on Lifebind and how to use it effectively can be found further down
the page.
When it comes to Stasis usage, it is important to keep in mind
that the order in which you store spells will be the order in which they are cast when
you end up reactivating Stasis. For that reason, you will generally want
to use
Temporal Anomaly at the end of your Stasis in order to not
have the
Echos instantly consumed by a spell you did not want.
Prior to casting the Temporal Anomaly, you can use powerful abilities such
as
Spiritbloom and
Dream Breath. It is also worth considering
that every other use of Stasis will line up with the cooldown of
Emerald Communion.
This means that you can get extra
Echos out for a large
Lifebind
combo by having a Temporal Anomaly at the end of your Stasis.
Preservation Evoker - Emerald Blossom Raid Build
This build focuses on casting Emerald Blossom as much as possible
and generating a ton of
Essence Bursts in order to save mana and increase
your overall output. While an Echo build will occasionally cast Emerald Blossom thanks
to
Ouroboros, this build will never make use of
Echo. You will simply
spend every bit of essence you generate on Emerald Blossom.
- Keep
Stasis on cooldown as much as possible and avoid putting weak spells (think
Echo) within the Stasis. More info about Stasis can be found below.
- NEVER cap on essence or waste an
Essence Burst proc. Always press
Emerald Blossom whenever you are close to capping or have a proc, regardless of what else is happening.
- Aim to have 4 stacks of
Temporal Compression before each empower cast. This can be done by casting any bronze spell (mainly
Chrono Flame).
- Use
Tip the Scales as often as possible and ideally right as you are about to do large healing to get max effectiveness from
Temporal Burst.
- Use
Verdant Embrace before casting
Dream Breath in order to get the bonus healing increase from
Call of Ysera. You will only be casting this at Rank 1 the majority of the time.
- Cast
Fire Breath at max rank to trigger
Leaping Flames, follow this cast by using
Living Flame to generate
Essence Bursts.
- Cast
Emerald Blossom when possible.
- Cast
Temporal Anomaly as mana allows to generate
Echos through
Resonating Sphere.
- After casting Temporal Anomaly, you will want to follow with a
Living Flame; this will allow you to generate
Essence Burst procs reliably.
- Cast
Living Flame to generate
Essence Burst procs when you have nothing else to do.
To really minmax the Emerald Blossom rotation, you will ideally
want to rotate between casting
Emerald Blossom and
Living Flame.
By doing this, you will be able to make full use of
Ancient Flame, reducing
the cast time of Living Flame by 40%, allowing you to generate quicker
Essence Bursts.
When facing heavy damage, it may be better to just fully spend essence as soon as you
get it rather than rotating between the two casts.
In addition to the rotation listed above, there are a few mechanics you will want to keep
in mind in order to maximize your performance, the most important of which involves pooling
(not spending) your essence for heavy damage windows. If your raid group is healthy and
nothing is happening; there is no real reason to press Emerald Blossom. In these
situations, you can break the rule of never wasting essence or a proc and instead focus
on generating
Essence Bursts so that when the damage does come out, you can press
multiple
Emerald Blossoms back to back to back, which will give you a ton of healing
while also feeding into the next mechanic that will be discussed:
Cycle of Life.
In most cases, you won't need to overly concern yourself with Cycle of Life,
but you should be thinking about it when you plan on using cooldowns. You are able to have
multiple procs of this ability out at once, each feeding into the next one. The healing
done by
Rewind and
Dream Flight also transfers into active Cycle of Lifes.
This means that before pressing a major cooldown, you will want to pool your essence
so that you can quickly cast multiple
Emerald Blossoms as damage hits, giving
you anywhere from 1-3
Cycle of Lifes, followed by your healing cooldown. When you are
able to pull this off properly, it can result in millions of extra healing.
Finally, you will want to consider what spells to place inside of your Stasis.
The general goal is to avoid ever having weak spells within the Stasis, such as
Echo,
Living Flame, etc. Powerful spells such as
Temporal Anomaly,
Emerald Blossom
and any of your empowers. When playing this build, you can also simply opt into casting 3x
Emerald Blossom to guarantee a
Cycle of Life proc. Keep in mind that when
you reactivate Stasis, the spells will be cast in the order you stored them, meaning if
you want to include
Temporal Anomaly into your Stasis, you should do so at the end of your
Stasis so the
Echos won't be consumed by a spell that won't
generate
Essence Bursts.
- Keep
Stasis on cooldown as much as possible and avoid putting weak spells (think
Echo) within the Stasis. More info about Stasis can be found below.
- Aim to have 4 stacks of
Temporal Compression before each empower cast. This can be done by casting any bronze spell. It is very important you do this before casting
Dream Breath.
- Use
Verdant Embrace before casting
Dream Breath in order to get the bonus healing increase from
Call of Ysera. You will only be casting this at Rank 1 the majority of the time.
- Use
Engulf on an ally who has a non-
Echo version of the
Dream Breath HoT. If the raid is still in need of healing you can repeat this.
- Cast
Renewing Blaze when possible and on an ally during heavy damage to maximize
Lifecinders healing. Use as much as possible.
- Cast
Spiritbloom when heavy damage is occurring, and you do not have
Engulf available.
- During downtime, aim to get
Echos out and consume them ideally with
Dream Breath or with
Verdant Embrace to trigger
Lifebind.
- Cast
Fire Breath at max rank to trigger
Leaping Flames, follow this cast by using
Living Flame to generate
Essence Bursts.
- After casting Temporal Anomaly, you will want to follow with a
Living Flame; this will allow you to generate
Essence Burst procs reliably.
- Cast
Living Flame to generate
Essence Burst procs when you have nothing else to do.
Preservation Evoker - Flameshaper Raid Build
The Flameshaper build focuses on maximizing
Consume Flame healing through
Dream Breath and
Engulf. The key interaction to keep in mind is that the healing
done by
Consume Flame is increased by the healing your
Dream Breath does. With that
in mind, it is extremely important that you are playing into and maximizing all potential interactions.
Call of Ysera is the first obvious interaction and simply requires you to ensure you are pressing
Verdant Embrace before each cast of Dream Breath. This will provide a significant bonus to your
Dream Breath Healing, but keep in mind that it will not apply to
Dream Breaths applied by
Echo.
Evoker Preservation Season 1 4pc is the other key interaction. Each stack of
Temporal Compression increases the healing of your next Empower ability. In order to again
maximize our overall
Dream Breath healing, it is important that we are only casting it
with 4 stacks of
Temporal Compression. You will want to make sure that you are tracking
the stacks of this buff and also ensuring that you are building to max stacks during downtime.
Similar to
Call of Ysera, this effect will not apply to
Dream Breaths that are
applied by
Echo.
These two buffs play a very large role in the build, not only from the healing increases they
provide but also from the fact that Echo
Dream Breaths do not gain the same effects.
Because of that, it is extremely vital that you never use
Engulf on
Dream Breaths that
have been applied via
Echo. Doing so would result in a massive healing loss and completely
kill off any viability that the build has. Thankfully,
Dream Breath casts have different Spell IDs
than
Echo
Dream Breaths. This means you can easily track both on your raid frame to help
you differentiate between the two and ensure you are casting correctly.
With all this in mind, you will simply be using Engulf as high damage is occurring
to create a large burst of healing. If the damage is so high that one Engulf is not enough
to cover it, you can choose to also use your second charge of Engulf. For the heaviest damage,
you will want to prepare a
Stasis and ensure that you have anywhere from 1-2
Engulf
casts within it. Keep in mind that once Stasis is reactivated, it will recast abilities on the
same target you cast them on originally to store them in Stasis. This means you should be casting
the Engulfs you aim to store on targets who you can also ensure will have an original Dream Breath
buff on them. Your extra Stasis cast beyond the
Engulfs does not matter much; generally,
any filler spell can be appropriate,
Temporal Anomaly is never a bad choice in order
to conserve mana.
If you do decide to consume Echos with
Verdant Embrace to trigger
Lifebind,
keep in mind that you will want to be playing into the Lifebind, meaning that you heal yourself
during the duration. This can be done by simply using a Rank 1
Spiritbloom on yourself
during the Lifebind window or even
Living Flame on yourself. Any healing you can do to yourself
will greatly increase how much the Lifebind does, and you will want to maximize it anytime you choose
to Lifebind. More information can be found below.
Preservation Evoker - Mythic+ Build
This Mythic+ build takes more damage, crowd control abilities, and some
utility options in the class tree that will help it to excel. This build aims
to give you a default talent tree that you can take into any key and be successful.
Still, there is debate about potential swaps that can be made depending on the
dungeon and affixes. For example, if you find yourself needing a lot of healing,
you can opt to talent into Renewing Breath for a bit extra output.
Certain talents in the class tree can also be swapped out depending on the weekly
affixes and dungeons you are doing.
- Cast
Echo to prepare for damage.
- Keep
Reversion on your party members when damage is going out to gain extra healing through
Grace Period.
- Cast
Dream Breath at either Rank 1 (small passive healing) or max rank (large burst healing), depending on what the situation demands.
- Cast
Spiritbloom at max rank during difficult moments.
- Use
Verdant Embrace to deal with single-target damage.
- Make frequent use of
Fire Breath for not only damage purposes but to also generate extra
Essence Bursts, proc
Afterimage, and proc
Life-Giver's Flame. All of these additional effects transform what is normally a damage cooldown into something that can be used to heal your party up quickly.
- Cast
Living Flame to generate extra
Essence Bursts and to deal damage.
- If you ever find your group extremely stacked and you are limited
on what abilities you have available,
Emerald Blossom can be effective.
In order to further understand the Mythic+ rotation, you should also understand
the four main ways that you will be consuming Echo:
Reversion -- This will be your most used ability to consume
Echo. Keeping the passive healing on your will make every pack more manageable, as well as providing the
Grace Period buff. Thanks to
Golden Hour, it can be very powerful in terms of overall healing and also dealing with burst damage.
Dream Breath -- Thanks to
Double-time, this becomes a very powerful way to heal in Mythic+ settings. The duration of Dream Breath lasts so long that you can nearly always have uptime on your party from the HoT, and when combined with
Reversion gives you a ton of passive healing, giving you more opportunity to deal damage and focus on mechanics.
Verdant Embrace -- Using this ability to consume your
Echo will allow you to do quick burst healing, as well as give you and everyone with the echo buff
Lifebind, which then gives you the option to press
Emerald Communion during very dangerous moments, making your group nearly invincible.
Spiritbloom -- Echoing Spiritbloom in Mythic+ settings can often be overkill as the healing it offers is so high compared to what is often needed. If you do find yourself facing very, very heavy damage or you simply have time to prep before the damage goes out, then using Spiritbloom with Echo is guaranteed to top your party's health instantly.
As far as Stasis goes, the general rule of thumb in Mythic+ is always to have
at least 1 max rank empower. This can mean either a max rank
Spiritbloom or a
Dream Breath.
This will allow you to reactivate it during emergencies and is guaranteed to heal your
party for a very high amount. Generally, the preference will be Spiritbloom, but it is not
always possible, which is why a max-rank Dream Breath can also be acceptable. You can always
put both into your Stasis, but casting them back to back can put you a bit vulnerable to
burst damage until they come off cooldown.
Temporal Anomaly is another fine choice
to include, and
Emerald Blossom can even be really good at offering burst healing and
quickly filling your Stasis. Keep in mind that the Emerald Blossom will be recast on the player
you initially cast it on, meaning that you should try to aim it at a player who is well-stacked
when you do find yourself filling Stasis with a cast of it.
Using Lifebind
Lifebind is an extremely powerful tool in the Evoker kit. Whenever
you cast
Verdant Embrace on an ally, you both will gain the Lifebind
buff. When you have a lot of
Echos out, every player with an Echo will
also get a Lifebind buff. There are two main ways to abuse this for massive healing.
The very first involves
Emerald Communion. This cooldown causes you to heal
for 20% of your health per tick, but it also transfers healing to every player
we had
Lifebind on. This means that every 3 minutes, we should aim
to get as many
Echos out as possible, cast
Verdant Embrace
and then cast
Emerald Communion. This will provide you with a massive
amount of healing over the 5-second window and should be treated as a major
raid cooldown as long as you can execute it properly. Outside of this,
Lifebind
serves as a large part of our rotational healing. In order to maximize the healing
it does during a fight, you will obviously want to cast
Verdant Embrace right
after large damage spikes (with as many
Echos out as possible), followed
by one of two abilities:
Living Flame or
Spiritbloom. When
possible, you can cast
Spiritbloom on yourself at Rank 3/4 for quick
healing that fits within the Lifebind duration, followed by a
Living Flame
cast. Given the long cast time of Spiritbloom, you should always ensure the cast
finishes before your Lifebind ends; otherwise, it is okay to cast it at a lower rank
just to ensure it fits within the window. When Spiritbloom is on cooldown, you can
simply spam heal yourself with
Living Flame until the Lifebind buff falls off.
Both will result in very powerful healing as long as you are able to get
Echos
out beforehand.
Using Essence Burst
Essence Burst should be used on the best Essence-spending ability
for your content type and your build. In situations where absolutely no one
could benefit from healing, it may seem natural to want to cast
Disintegrate,
but with
Scarlet Adaptation and
Lifeforce Mender talented, it will
never be worth it. Even without these two abilities talented, it would require
you to have
Energy Loop and
Natural Convergence talented.
Cooldown Usage for Preservation Evokers
One of the largest differences between a strong healer and a weaker one is how cooldowns are used and managed. Preservation Evoker has many options available through both the spec tree and class tree.
Dream Flight is a powerful cooldown located in the spec tree. With only a two-minute cooldown, you will want to make use of this ability frequently and you will want to hit as many allies as possible with it. You should aim to use this as soon as damage comes out and, ideally, when the HoT effect will have good value.
Stasis is a very strong ability, allowing you to essentially store three heals for later use. Only on a 1:30 cooldown, this ability should be used often, especially when you consider that once you collect 3 heals, they will stay with you for the next 30 seconds. You should prioritize powerful heals in your stasis such as
Dream Breath,
Spiritbloom, and
Temporal Anomaly. If you need to get three spells into it quickly, it is also acceptable to use a
Emerald Blossom in the Stasis just to fill it up quickly, allowing you to return to casting weaker healing spells without them taking up space in your stasis.
Rewind should be used after an extremely heavy damage window. Its healing is determined by how much damage you have taken in the last 5 seconds, meaning the more that your raid or party took, the more it will heal. This cooldown is one of the few true emergency buttons that Preservation Evokers have; you should use it as best you can in truly dire situations.
Tip the Scales is the other emergency button for Preservation Evokers, but it also procs
Temporal Burst when you are a
Chronowarden Evoker. In most cases, you should save this cooldown for when your party takes damage that you did not anticipate. Once this happens, you can easily press this button followed by
Spiritbloom or
Dream Breath to get a quick but powerful heal off to save your party members or raid's life. Given that it also provides you with a large power increase, you will want to aim to use it as much as possible when there is a large healing requirement.
Zephyr causes you and your 4 closet allies to take 20% reduced Area-of-Effect damage for 8 seconds. Given that this only targets your 4 closest allies, it will be easier to use in Mythic+ than raid. However, you will still want to make active use of it when you know that you are going to take a large AoE hit in the next few seconds. Not every damage event is considered AoE, so you must have a good understanding of what type of damage you will be taking to ensure you do not waste the effects of the ability.
Emerald Communion is a great way to regenerate mana, and for that reason, you will want to cast it as much as possible. There are some things you can do with
Lifebind, but they require you to talent into some choices that you may not normally. If you do end up talenting into those options, then you will want to pair this cooldown with the full combination every time you can to maximize your healing. Otherwise, using it on cooldown to maximize your mana return will be your best decision.
Where Evoker struggles in consistent healing, it makes up for in
cooldowns.
Every ability listed, as well as Spiritbloom and
Dream Breath
are very powerful in helping you manage difficult and dangerous situations.
The biggest mistake you can ever make on Evoker is not rotating
through these
cooldowns appropriately and trying to save them for too long. Use them as you
feel the need to help ease some of the weaknesses in Evoker's healing
kit.
Simplified Preservation Evoker Rotation for Beginners
If the rotations above seem overwhelming to you, you might benefit from visiting our Easy Mode page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.
PvP
The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.
Addons for Preservation Evoker Rotation
Check out our Addons page below for some recommended Addons to get the most out of your Preservation Evoker!
Macros for Preservation Evoker Rotation
Check out our Macros page below for some recommended Macros to get the most out of your Preservation Evoker!
Mythic+ Tips and Tricks for Preservation Evoker
For information about Mythic+ as a Preservation Evoker, please refer to our Mythic+ page.
Questions for the Author
Thanks for reading my Rotation Guide for Preservation Evoker. If you have any questions about it that you would like to ask me directly, feel free to contact me (Mytholxgy)on Discord through either the Paladin Discord or through direct messages: mytholxgy.
Changelog
- 15 Dec. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.7.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 07 Oct. 2024: Updated Rotation for Chronowarden Echo builds.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Page Reviewed and Updated for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Page Updated for War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Page updated for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 16 Jan. 2024: Rotation changes.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Rotations updated for 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 08 Aug. 2023: Extra information added for Emerald Blossom rotations.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Rotation updated for 10.0.5.
- 28 Dec. 2022: Rotation updated to include differences between emerald blossom and reversion builds.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 15 Nov. 2022: Page added.
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This guide has been written by Mytholxgy, who plays healer in Liquid. He is a Templar in the Paladin class discord. You can reach him on Twitter and watch him stream on Twitch.
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