Devastation Evoker Gearing and Stat Priority

Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.2, this section covers the latest gearing options and secondary stat priority for Devastation Evoker, along with detailed background, examples, and analysis!

This is a general recommended stat priority based on simulations performed with predominately best-in-slot gear for Season 3. Simulating your individual character’s gear is always preferable to gearing based on generic priorities.

Critical Strike > Haste = Versatility = Mastery

The most significant change to Devastation in Patch 10.2 is the change to Mastery: Giantkiller, which further reduces the effectiveness of Mastery under ideal conditions, but introduces a floor at 30% enemy health, below which the value of Mastery remains unchanged. The consequences of this change are a slightly flatter damage profile over the course of a fight, and also an overall nerf to the value of Mastery for the spec in general.

In Patch 10.2, Devastation has a slight preference for Critical Strike, and then seeks a balance of Haste, Versatility, and Mastery in roughly equal parts, depending slightly on your current gear. Because of this highly flexible stat priority, it is entirely possible for most drops to be potential upgrades for Devastation, and I recommend frequently checking Raidbots for potential upgrades using the site’s Top Gear and Droptimizer tools.

Season 3 also brought with it a variety of embellishment nerfs, and in practice there are only a few popular viable options that I would recommend considering.

The Adaptive Dracothyst Armguards crafted mail bracers remain a popular overall choice for Devastation for all PvE content, providing valuable secondary stats with reasonable uptime. I would strongly recommend using this embellishment as one of your two choices.

When it comes to group content, Allied Legguards of Sansok Khan provide a modest benefit to both yourself and your teammates in the form of a Versatility buff, and are actually a competitive option in terms of overall throughput. The only caveat is that this effect is somewhat difficult to measure, as the extra damage gained by allies does not clearly appear in your combat log. If you’re not particularly concerned with maximizing your personal damage parse, or are looking for an embellishment option that also works nicely for Augmentation, this is a great pickup.

Acidic Hailstone Treads remain the other reasonably popular option in Season 3, particularly as an alternative to Allied Legguards of Sansok Khan. While they still carry the permanent 10% movement speed reduction, they deal effective single target damage, and as a result are still a top pick for many players looking for a straightforward damage option.

There are quite a number of viable trinket options to choose from in Season 3; I will highlight what I consider to be the optimal trinket pairing for the season, as well as some strong alternatives.

Nymue’s Unraveling Spindle is my top pick when it comes to on-use stat buffing trinkets in Season 3, and takes one of the top two spots for “best-in-slot” options this season. The 3-second channel time can make this trinket a bit inconvenient to use, but its strong direct damage coupled with the Mastery gained on full channel pairs well with Devastation’s damage profile.

Belor’relos, the Suncaller is the other top trinket choice for Devastation in Season 3, dealing massive damage in an area around you. While unconventional to prefer to run two on-use trinkets, the on-use effect of Belor’relos, the Suncaller is strictly damage and does not buff stats in any way, meaning it can be used rather flexibly in the rotation in order to achieve best results. Just be mindful that this trinket again only deals damage in a small area around you, and also damages you in addition to your enemies.

For on-use stat buffing trinkets, Balefire Branch is a reasonable option which can be farmed in mythic plus and provides a strong Intellect buff that can be paired with Dragonrage. That said, certain raid encounters this tier have frequent or ticking raid damage events which can quickly burn through charges, making this trinket’s value somewhat dependent on the situation.

Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows is another sensible on-use stat option which is also readily farmable in mythic plus. The only major downside to this one is that it is a 3-minute trinket on a class with 2-minute cooldowns, meaning that its value is inherently situational and will vary based on fight timers.

Devastation scales particularly well with secondary stats, and so passive trinkets which provide additional stats are almost always preferable to trinkets with direct damage procs. Strong passive trinket options in Season 3 include Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge, Coagulated Genesaur Blood, and Sea Star.

Be sure to also keep an eye out for trinkets available from the various Timewalking events, especially while early in the gearing process. These items are likely to be upgradable making them valuable contenders for trinket slots, especially early on.

Season 3 features a number of weapons with additional damage effects called cantrips which come at no cost to the item’s base stat budget, and as a result are inherently stronger than non-cantrip options at the same item level.

The strongest of these weapons in Season 3 is Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno, which features a strong damage proc, with a caveat that it also damages you at the same time. This is without a doubt the best-in-slot weapon for Devastation in Season 3, but it does drop off of the final boss of the raid, which means that realistically this is either a late-season goal, or completely inaccessible to many players.

The other two noteworthy cantrip weapons in Season 3 are Dreambinder, Loom of the Great Cycle, a “very rare” raid drop, and Iridal, the Earth’s Master, which is available from mythic plus. Both of these weapons have on-use damaging effects which provide additional value and outperform other weapons at the same item level.

Recommended Enchants and Gems

Recommended Consumables

Shadowed Belt Clasp is a permanent belt enchant added in Patch 10.1 that adds additional Stamina. While this can be expensive, additional survivability is always valuable, particularly in Season 3 given the numerous self-damaging effects on gear.

Buzzing Rune provides Critical Strike and is most likely to be your best bet, but depending on your current stat spread, Hissing Rune or Howling Rune can of course be reasonable alternatives. As with secondary stats on gems and enchants, be sure to keep simming!

Lambent Armor Kit was added to the game back in Patch 10.1 and acts as a direct alternative to Frozen Spellthread as a permanent legs enchant. Strictly speaking, this enchant trades some Intellect and Stamina for a small amount of Versatility, and frankly represents a relatively negligible difference with respect to both damage throughput and effective health.

Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage was buffed back in Patch 10.1, with the downside triggering after receiving 400% of your health in damage (up from 100%) and remains a solid option for all content. Nevertheless, if the downside proves to be too much of a liability, Phial of Tepid Versatility remains a reasonable option for both throughput and survivability.

Lastly, Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power was made tradeable had its Primal Chaos cost removed in Patch 10.1, making the best available combat potion much more widely available.

Tier 31 Devastation Set Bonus

The Devastation Tier Set Bonuses for Dragonflight Season 3 are fairly self-explanatory, but do have gameplay and damage profile implications.

First, for clarity, it should be noted that you begin Dragonrage with one stack of Emerald Trance, and achieve the fifth and final stack after 24 seconds have elapsed. Additionally, the lingering effect of Emerald Trance maintains the full value of all stacks gained for the full duration. This means that on full stacks, you retain a 25% damage bonus for 25 seconds after the end of Dragonrage, in addition to the bonus stacks of Essence Burst.

Naturally this set bonus is a bit of a mixed bag. The additional damage buff and Essence Burst following Dragonrage slightly extend Devastation’s “active damage window” and do generally make the spec a bit more enjoyable to play on the whole. You may even need to occasionally “early-chain” Disintegrate outside of Dragonrage given the abundance of resources. However, the ramping nature of this set bonus does mean that the spec takes some time before it gets “fully online”, which does encourage you to delay trinkets and external buffs, and also is not strictly ideal for on-demand burst. That said, as long as you are aware of the set’s limitations and play around it to the best of your ability, it’s still quite powerful on the whole.

In terms of itemization, all item slots are technically viable, so generally choose slots based on the highest item level tier pieces available, or based on your embellishment choices. Simming your character using Raidbots is always a great way to help choose among your current options.

How Devastation Evoker Mastery Works

Mastery: Giantkiller increases the damage of your spells based on the current health of your target, such that higher health targets take more damage. As of Dragonflight Patch 10.2, the base Mastery multiplier is 13.5% (including Evoker racial bonus), increased by 1.5% per 180 Mastery rating at level 70. 

In comparison, 1% of Haste, Critical Strike, and Versatility cost 170, 180, and 205 rating respectively.

As of Patch 10.2, Devastation Mastery scales linearly from 100% to 30% enemy health, at which point Mastery’s value does not continue to diminish any further. The stat is capped at 30% value (outside of Tyranny) when enemies are on low health.

< Previous (Rotation Guide)

Next (Group Utility) >