Preservation Evoker Guide for The War Within

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Preservation Evoker. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about the Preservation Evoker spec in the forthcoming The War Within expansion, including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the state of the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regular changes expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to be a launch guide for Preservation Evoker, but instead serves as a resource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, and what you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Preservation Evoker has received significant changes to the Talent Tree that will change how builds look moving forward. Most notably Lifespark has been added as a new capstone. This functions similar to our previous tier set, causing Reversion healing to have a chance to make Living Flame instant cast. While this may not be overly impactful for standard Echo builds, it offers new competitive talent choices for Emerald Blossom and Mythic+ focused builds.

While nothing changed for Preservation Evoker's core features, The War Within still has major implications for all specs thanks to the Hero Talent Tree system, new tier sets, and the natural reduction in secondary stats when entering a new expansion.

Preservation Evoker gets to choose between the Chronowarden and Flameshaper Hero Talent Trees. In sections below, we will talk more deeply about the implications of these Hero Talent Trees for the spec, and some thoughts on what looks strong and weak ahead of launch.

Chronowarden adds a ton of largely passive but extremely interesting passive effects. Double Time will greatly increase the healing output provided from Dream Breath while also adding a bit of extra damage. Warp offers a unique change to Hover, giving us the ability to blink similarly to a mage rather than just fly along the ground. One of our old tier sets returns in the form of Reverberations, giving Spiritbloom a heal over time effect. While all of these talents are interesting by themselves, the two key components of Chronowarden come from: Chrono Flame and Temporal Burst.

Chrono Flame massively increases both the damage and healing of standard Living Flame casts, making a relatively boring aspect of the kit much more exciting. Afterimage takes this a step furhter by causing Empower abilities to shoot out up to 3 Chrono Flames. The other interesting passive comes in the form of Temporal Burst which gives you a massive amount of haste, movement speed, and cooldown reduction after pressing Tip the Scales. While it is unfortunate that Tip the Scales now becomes an ability you need to press on CD rather than emergencies, this is extremely powerful and fun to play with. The impact of this talent is also amplified thanks to Threads of Fate which causes Empower abilities cast during Temporal Burst to buff a nearby ally, causing them to have a chance to echo their damage or healing spells.

Chronowarden has so many interesting and powerful talent nodes that it is hard to imagine a world where it is not at the very least a competitive and viable Hero Talent Tree. It primarily amplifies core parts of the kit, making them more exciting and powerful, and allows this Hero Talent Tree to excel in any form of content. Whether you want to deal a ton of damage for a tight DPS check or have extra healing for very tense moments, this Hero Talent Tree can do that.

While Chronowarden focused on passive talents that amplified core elements of the kit, Flameshaper instead adds a new ability to the Preservation Evoker kit: Engulf. This ability will allow you to deal damage or healing to an ally/enemy and it has an increased effect based on the number of periodic effects on a target. When talking about Engulf it is also important to mention the end node for this Hero Talent Tree: Consume Flame. This passive causes Engulf to consume 4 seconds of Dream Breath from the target and detonate it to heal nearby targest for 300% of the amount consumed. Many of the other talents in Flameshaper also interact with Dream Breath and are worth understanding. Traveling Flame will increase the duration of Fire Breath or Dream Breath by 8 seconds and also spread it to a nearby target. Expanded Lungs increases the damage and healing over time by both Dream Breath and Fire Breath.

To this point it is clear that Flameshaper places a heavy emphasis on both Dream Breath and Fire Breath, and that continues to be the case with other nodes not mentioned so far. Enkindle will cause essence abilities to deal additional healing/damage over time, but also interacts with the choice node Fan the Flames. This causes active Enkindles to have their remaining damage/healing over time effects increased by 100% after casting Engulf. The remaining nodes don't directly involve the two mentioned breaths, but are still interesting in their own right. Lifecinders will allow you to apply Renewing Blaze to you and an ally of your choice. This can add an insanely high amount of healing when used on a tank or someone who recently suffered very high damage. Red Hot adds an extra charge of Engulf, allowing you to pull off some crazy combos. And Burning Adrenaline causes Engulf to reduce the cast time of your next spell.

Flameshaper is a great Hero Talent Tree offering both power and fun effects. The largest downside of this build is that it lacks strong synergy with Echo focused builds compared to that of Emerald Blossom. Thanks to Titanic Precision which can offer a ton of extra Essence Bursts on top of the effects from Engulf. This will make it the likely the best Hero Talent choice for Emerald Blossom builds. In terms of Mythic+ viability, much is still be determined.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Preservation Evoker in The War Within. After the wording of the bonus, you will find a brief note/commentary that is italicized.

• Evoker Preservation 11.0 Class Set 2pc — Reversion and Emerald Blossom heal an injured ally within 30 yards for 10% of any amount healed. The strongest benefit of this tier set is the flexibility. Previous tier sets have pigeonholded Preservation into one build or the other, this feels like a conscious effort by Blizzard to allow us to play whichever build we desire and have the tier set be useful in every form of content. That being said, its overall power isn't that impactful.
• Evoker Preservation 11.0 Class Set 2pc — Causes Verdant Embrace to increase the healing of your next Reversion by 300%. Bad news is that this is one of the worst if not the worst 4pc bonus out of any spec in the game. Good news is that it has a very high chance of be reworked in some way before the expansion goes live. In the current state, it is extremely weak and adds almost no value outside of very specific niche situations.

Preservation Evoker has one of the weakest tier sets out of any spec in the game. The 2pc has some flexibility to be useful in every form of the content, but unfortunately, the 4pc power is very weak not only number-wise but design-wise as well. Hopefully, it will receive some attention before the expansion release.

Strengths

• Two competitive Hero Talent Trees that will be swapped depending on content.
• Multiple viable builds in raid.
• No major gameplay changes but overall made significantly more interesting due to Hero Talent Trees.
• Added utility to help viability from Spatial Paradox.

Weaknesses

• Extremely weak and uninteresting tier set.
• Lower range than other healers which can make spread healing very difficult.
• Offers very little utility in large group sizes.
• Weak single target healing.