Forever class deep dive: what changes for Priests and Warriors
· ForeverDB
Blizzard's Priest and Warrior deep dive gives every Priest tools like Shadow Word: Death, adds new Gnome racial spells, and reworks how Warriors build Rage and switch stances, with talent changes across all six specs.
On September 30 Blizzard published the next entry in its World of Warcraft: Forever class deep dives, covering Priests and Warriors. You can read the full article on the official site. Below are the main points, kept close to Blizzard's own wording.
Priests and Warriors are next in our World of Warcraft: Forever class deep dives, with updates that build on the roles, rhythms, and class-defining tools players know. Blizzard Entertainment, Forever class deep dive
These are changes Blizzard describes in its deep dive. It is a beta, and anything here can still change before launch. We have not yet confirmed each one against the current beta client build.
Priest: tools every Priest gets
Several abilities that used to depend on your race, or that you did not have at all, become baseline:
- Fear Ward and Devouring Plague are now available to all Priests at level 20, regardless of race.
- Divine Spirit is baseline to all Priests, learned at level 30.
- Shadow Word: Death is added as a baseline ability at level 32.
- Fade's threat reduction effect is doubled.
- Prayer of Healing now heals all the members of the target's party and their pets, instead of the Priest's own party.
- Renew can now be active from multiple Priests on the same target.
Shadow Word: Death: Added as a baseline ability to all Priests at level 32. Deals instant Shadow damage to the target but if the target is not killed by this spell, the Priest takes 10% of their max health in damage. 15 second cooldown. Blizzard Entertainment, Forever class deep dive
Priest: racial spells
Each Priest race still has two spells unique to it. Blizzard says they have all been re-evaluated, and new ones were added for Gnome Priests:
- Confounding Flash (Gnome, learned at level 10): confuses up to 5 nearby enemies for 3 seconds, broken by taking damage. 0.5 second cast, 2 minute cooldown.
- Contingency Plan (Gnome, learned at level 20): places a ward on a friendly target for 30 seconds that triggers when their health drops below 35%.
Priest: talent changes
The post lists new and moved talents across all three specs. A few that stand out:
- Discipline: Penance is a new 21-point talent, channeled over 2 seconds with a 12 second cooldown, that can damage an enemy or heal an ally each second. Power in Light is a new row 1 talent, and Renewed Hope is a new talent that requires Soul Warding.
- Holy: Binding Heal is a new 16-point talent, a no-cooldown spell that heals the Priest and their current target. Prayer of Mending is a new 31-point talent that jumps between targets as it heals.
- Shadow: Vampiric Embrace moves to a 16-point talent, now lasting 30 seconds with a 1 minute cooldown. Shadowform is redesigned to allow all non-healing spells to be cast in the form, to cut Shadow spell Mana cost by 50% and to raise Shadow critical strike damage by 100%, while its bonus to Shadow damage dealt is reduced.
Warrior: how Rage works
The biggest Warrior change is to Rage generation. Wearing armour no longer costs you Rage, and absorbs no longer eat into it:
Rage gain from damage is calculated by ignoring Armor. So, wearing Armor will no longer reduce the Rage you gain. We are using the old formula as if you always had 50% damage reduction from Armor. Rage gain also ignores all damage absorption effects, so Power Word: Shield will no longer decrease Rage gained. Blizzard Entertainment, Forever class deep dive
Rage from dealing damage is also fully normalised: it is now based on the speed of the weapon that dealt the hit, and critical strikes give 75% more Rage than non-critical strikes.
Warrior: stances and baseline abilities
- Tactical Mastery is learned at level 14 and lets you keep 10 Rage when changing stances.
- Victory Rush is learned at level 20. It is a 30 second cooldown instant attack that deals damage and heals for 10% of maximum health, and it stays active for 20 seconds after you kill a non-trivial enemy.
- Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall no longer share a cooldown. Retaliation and Shield Wall both drop to a 15 minute cooldown.
- Rend and Thunder Clap now gain significant damage scaling from Attack Power. Thunder Clap is usable in Defensive Stance, with its cooldown raised to 6 seconds and its threat rebalanced.
- Battle Shout's Attack Power bonus is reduced.
- Sunder Armor is now usable even if the target already has a stronger Expose Armor effect, and its threat scales with Attack Power.
Warrior: talent changes
- Arms: Improved Tactical Mastery (formerly Tactical Mastery) now adds 3 Rage retained per point when shifting stances, up to a maximum of 25.
- Fury: Bloodthirst no longer heals the Warrior and instead grants 10% movement speed for 10 seconds. Raging Blows is a new 16-point talent that makes Whirlwind hit with both weapons while dual-wielding and cuts the Rage cost of Cleave.
- Protection: Shield Specialization now has a chance on Blocks to generate 5 Rage instead of 1. Vanguard is a new 16-point talent that lets you Charge while in Defensive Stance.
For the full lists, see our Priest and Warrior class pages, and Blizzard's post. Earlier baseline and racial tweaks for both classes are in our September 24 beta notes.