Raid

Welcome to the Season 1 Midnight raid guide for Preservation Evoker. Preservation Evoker underwent a large amount of pruning coming into Midnight which you can read about here Evoker | Midnight, What Has Changed?. That being said, our gameplay still has its fair amount of decision making and the ramp-like burst style that we are accustomed to. We will start to incorporate more spells such as Emerald Blossoms into our toolkit along with much more Reversion due to Merithra's Blessing.

Brief Summary

Before we start talking about how preservation evoker plays, first we need to briefly talk about what was lost and what was gained coming into season one.

To start with what was lost, Spiritbloom and Engulf have both been removed. Lifebind has been buffed, but it no longer can be Echo'd. Emerald Communion has been moved to a pvp talent, and lastly Stasis and Dream Flight are on a choice node.

Noteable reworks are as follows: Consume Flame no longer is an AoE raidwide heal, but rather is a small heal triggered by Verdant Embrace and Emerald Blossom on those with Dream Breath. Call of Ysera has been decoupled from Verdant Embrace and is now completely passive with a small nerf. Renewing Blaze is now attached to your Obsidian Scales. Lastly, Tempo Charged is now a generic bronze spell buff.

For what was gained, all talents that affect Spiritbloom now affect Dream Breath instead. Emerald Blossom saw massive healing buffs along with removing the RNG element of Field of Dreams. Emerald Blossom also saw a new core mechanic added with Twin Echoes. Verdant Embrace had its healing increased and a new choice node to support it with Wings of Liberty vs Dream Simulacrum. Our Tierset and our Apex talent Merithra's Blessing will talk about just below. Preservation had many other changes as well, but most arent as impactful as the ones listed here!

Merithra's Blessing

To really understand how Preservation plays, we have to talk about our apex Merithra's Blessing and all that it does.

Point 1 gives us access to Merithra's Blessing, giving us a 20% chance on every cast of Echo, Emerald Blossom, or Disintegrate to override our reversion with Merithra's Blessing. Merithra's Blessing heals the ally, and then shoots 4 bolts from them to other nearby allies, along with acting like a normal reversion cast, proccing affects like Golden Hour and Grace Period. This affect is completely Echoable!

Point 2 and 3 makes it so our reversion reduces that damage that the target takes if they have Reversion active on them AS WELL AS healing them for a % of damage taken. At 3/4 points into Merithra's Blessing, a target that gets hit for 100 damage will get 2 damage reduced, and healed for 2, for a 4% damage swing. This is DOUBLED if the target as both a Reversion and Echo'd Reversion on them for an almost 8% damage swing.

Point 4 makes it so our Dream Breath has a 100% chance to grant Merithra's Blessing along with increasing the instant healing of Dream Breath. Do note that the 125% increase to Dream Breath does not include upranked Dream Breaths.

All of this to say that Reversion is back to be an extremely strong cast, and will be center to a lot of what we do.

Tierset

Our tierset is very straightforward,

2 set: Verdant Embrace now heals for 20% more and has its cooldown reduced by 2 seconds.

4 set: Verdant Embrace grows an Emerald Blossom on the target at 100% effectiveness.

Quick note, the 4 set cannot be Echo'd, only the initial target you casted Verdant Embrace on will have an Emerald Blossom casted on them. This Emerald Blossom acts as a normal cast and procs talents like Twin Echoes, Fluttering Seedlings, and Field of Dreams.

Gameplay

Our gameplay is raid is pretty straightforward with a few things you can do to maximize your output. A large portion of what we will be doing is recognizing when damage is going to happen, and building as many echoes we can on the group through casts of Echo and Temporal Anomaly. When the damage happens we can spend those Echoes on either Merithra's Blessing, Verdant Embrace, or Reversion if we dont have a Merithra's Blessing proc.

1. Use Temporal Anomaly on cooldown as much as possible. This puts out the most amount of our Echo buff and is center to all we do.
2. Use Dream Breath as much as possible without consuming our Echoes. Dream Breath is still a very powerful heal for its mana cost and has a 100% chance to proc Merithra's Blessing which can be used to guarantee our Echo ramp is consumed with Merithra's Blessing. This will also help with Essence Burst generation due to After image with an added bonus of some more healing!
3. Use Essence Bursts on Emerald Blossoms and essence on Echo. We use Essence Bursts on Emerald Blossoms to save on the large mana cost, but also to proc Twin Echoes. This makes it so we gain additional healing while we are ramping without losing out on Echo count. Twin Echoes casts will always prioritize the lowest HP target that does not have an Echo buff on them.
4. Use Fire Breath during your ramps, or on cooldown, at max rank. This not only does damage, but has a chance to proc Essence Burst from After image. Fire Breath is also casted at max rank for Leaping Flames which makes your next cast of Chrono Flame to hit additional targets for free. These extra Chrono Flames all have a chance to proc Essence Burst while doing extra damage and healing.
5. Consume your Echoes with Merithra's Blessing whenever damage happens. This can be either be right as you proc a Merithra's Blessing or can be when a large raid mechanic hits, It really depends on the fight. If Merithra's Blessing is not up, you can choose to consume your Echoes with Verdant Embrace.
6. Use Verdant Embrace as much as possible while prioritizing Echoes being consumed with Merithra's Blessing. We want to be using Verdant Embrace as much as possible for a few reasons. Firstly, it interacts with our tierset by dropping a free Emerald Blossom that procs Twin Echoes that we can use to start building our ramp. Secondly, it does a decent amount of healing and provides us with the buff Primacy. Primacy stacks to 3 for a total of 9% haste and a single cast can refresh 3 stacks.
7. Cast Chrono Flame at the boss. This will be your filler and your last resort, Chrono Flame provides a small amount of damage, but is a source of Essence Burst which is very important to us.

Dream Flight

Dreamflight will be chosen if you need another large 2 minute CD and your group will be stacked at that time. Dream Flight gains a large amount of power from Inner Flame while also giving you a 100% HP shield to keep you safe during your flight. Do note that the shield fades when you land. Dream Flight is less flexible in its choices in how you use it, but it is one of the strongest cooldowns in the game.

Stasis

Stasis is still a very powerful cooldown that has a lot of flexibility in how you use it. You can ramp during a Stasis build, and use that Stasis build to release into another immediate ramp. This helps keep you ahead of the damage with good planning and execution. You can also just use it for more immediate healing by storing and immediately releasing. That being said there will always be default spells that you will look to store into your Stasis, powerful spells like Temporal Anomaly and Merithra's Blessing.

Chronowarden will default to a Temporal Anomaly > Merithra's Blessing > Temporal Anomaly. This Stasis for example allows you to both finish a ramp with a Temporal Anomaly into Merithra's Blessing while also following it up with another Temporal Anomaly to start your next ramp or allow you to immediately consume those extra Echoes with Verdant Embrace or even another Merithra's Blessing cast for even more healing.

Flameshaper will default to a Dream Breath > Temporal Anomaly > Merithra's Blessing sequence. Unlike Chronowarden we are unable to realistically wait for that second cast of Temporal Anomaly as we don't have Nozdormu's Adept to help reduce the CD of Temporal Anomaly. Furthermore, our Dream Breath as Flameshaper is significantly stronger and pushes it up the list on powerful spells to throw into Stasis.

Niche Raid wide Echo. Sometimes you need that raidwide Echo ramp as you can't use Dream Flight at this time. Specifically as Chonowarden you can Stasis Temporal Anomaly > Echo OR Emerald Blossom > Temporal Anomaly. The Echo or Emerald Blossom cast is always 2nd and specifically is there to not consume the Echoes you had just spread onto the raid. You will build this Stasis and immediately release it to get 20 Echoes out onto the raid and ideally consume it with Merithra's Blessing.

Rewind

The iconic Preservation spell, the BEST throughput cooldown in a prog setting. You will look to use Rewind in the most damage heavy points in the fight as frequently as possible. Just note that you have to use Rewind AFTER the damage happens otherwise you will get no value from it.

Conclusion

Preservation Evoker is as strong as ever in raids. We have a unique niche of scaling directly with the damage taken with Merithra's Blessing Reversion, Golden Hour, and Rewind which makes exceptionally strong in a progression environment. Our Apex helped simplify our gameplay at face value while keeping Preservation evoker ramp and Echo focused. Talents like Twin Echoes help integrate our entire kit into what we do and it makes Preservation a very satisfying, fulfilling, and rewarding spec to play!