WoW Forever Priest and Warrior: Blizzard Deep Dive

Second installment of the WoW Forever « Class Deep Dives » (detailed class breakdowns): after the Hunter and the Druid, Blizzard covers the Warrior and the WoW Forever Priest in an article published on the official World of Warcraft website. On one side, the Light, the Shadow, healing and shields. On the other, weapons, rage and stances. Here is every announced change, with the official in-game names and their tooltip on hover.

The Priest mainly gains access: spells once reserved for certain races or for a talent become common to the whole class. The Warrior sees its rage overhauled to be more reliable, and part of its toolkit is now learned without a talent.

The talent framework is the same for every class: unlocked at level 10, single-point talents at tiers 11, 21 and 31, plus a new tier at 16 points. Talents are changed with a class trainer in a capital city, dual specialization is available from level 40, and everything may still change during the beta. Our WoW Forever talent calculator lets you build these trees right now.

WoW Forever Priest: more flexibility to heal, protect and strike from the Shadow

In the official Blizzard Class Deep Dive, the WoW Forever Priest keeps its role as a versatile caster, fueled by the Light and the Shadow. The changes widen the toolbox of Discipline, Holy and Shadow without touching what defines the class: healing, protecting, wielding the Holy and the Dark.

On the baseline side, Fear Ward and Devouring Plague are available to every Priest from level 20, Divine Spirit becomes baseline at level 30 and Shadow Word: Death joins the class at level 32. The racial spells are all reassessed, with two additions for Gnome priests.

The talent trees receive brand-new gold-tier talents: Penance for Discipline, Binding Heal and Prayer of Mending for Holy, a Shadowform entirely reworked for Shadow.

Baseline Abilities

Several spells previously reserved for one race or one talent become tools shared by all priests. The WoW Forever Spellbook lets you browse each of these spells.

• BaselineFear Ward Available to all priests from level 20, regardless of race.
• BaselineDevouring Plague Available to all priests from level 20, regardless of race.
• BaselineDivine Spirit Becomes a baseline ability for all priests, learned at level 30.
• NewShadow Word: Death Baseline ability for all priests at level 32. Deals instant Shadow damage to the target. If it is not killed by the spell, the Priest loses 10% of their maximum health. 15 second cooldown.
• ChangedFade The threat reduction effect is doubled.
• ChangedPrayer of Healing No longer heals the Priest’s party: the spell heals every member of the target’s party, pets included.
• ChangedRenew Can now be active several times on the same target, cast by different priests.

Racial Spells

Each Priest race has two spells of its own. Blizzard reassessed all of them and added new spells for Gnome priests.

• NewGnome: Confounding Flash Learned at level 10. Disorients up to 5 nearby enemies for 3 seconds, with the effect ending as soon as they take damage. 0.5 second cast, 2 minute cooldown.
• NewGnome: Contingency Plan Learned at level 20. Places a 30 second protection on an ally. If their health drops below 35%, they instantly receive an absorption shield and a heal over time (HoT). Both effects stack with Renew and Power Word: Shield. Instant cast, 5 minute cooldown.
• UnchangedDwarf: Desperate Prayer This racial spell is unchanged.
• NewDwarf: Chastise Racial spell Chastise, learned at level 20. Damages and immobilizes the target for 2 seconds, humanoids only. Instant cast, 2 minute cooldown.
• NewHuman: Divine Grace Learned at level 10. Instantly heals an ally below 50% health and removes Weakened Soul from them. Cannot be cast on yourself. 5 minute cooldown.
• UnchangedHuman: Feedback This racial spell is unchanged.
• ChangedNight Elf: Starshards Still learned at level 10. Damage increases significantly, but the spell now has a 30 second cooldown.
• ChangedNight Elf: Elune’s Grace Still learned at level 20. Now reduces the chance of being hit by melee and ranged attacks by 50% for 15 seconds, or until 3 attacks have missed. 5 minute cooldown.
• UnchangedTroll: Hex of Weakness This racial spell is unchanged.
• UnchangedTroll: Shadowguard This racial spell is unchanged.
• UnchangedUndead: Touch of Weakness This racial spell is unchanged.
• NewUndead: Dark Sacrifice Learned at level 20. The Priest sacrifices part of their own health to regain mana over time. Mana gained scales with Spirit.

Discipline

Discipline leans even more on absorption shields: Improved Power Word: Shield improves slightly more per point, a new 16-point tier talent reduces its cooldown and cost, and Penance adds a spell that heals as much as it hurts. Several offensive and mana talents are also boosted.

• NewPower in Light New row 1 talent. Increases the damage of Smite and Penance on targets hit by your Holy Fire.
• ChangedWand Specialization Now requires only two talent points for the same bonus.
• NewTwin Disciplines New row 1 talent. Increases the damage and healing of instant spells.
• ChangedSilent Resolve Also reduces the duration of stuns, fears and silences applied to you.
• NewHoly Precision Increases the chance to hit with Holy spells by up to 18%. Blizzard wants to remove the need for hit rating for healing priests, who are not supposed to wear gear that provides it.
• ChangedImproved Power Word: Shield The gain per talent point is slightly higher.
• ChangedMental Agility Moves up from row 4 to row 3 and now costs only 3 talent points for the same effect. Now also benefits Smite and Holy Fire.
• ChangedMeditation The mana bonus from Spirit increases significantly.
• ChangedImproved Inner Fire The armor bonus increases, and the talent now adds charges.
• ChangedMental Strength Now increases Intelligence by a higher percentage, instead of increasing mana by a percentage.
• NewSoul Warding 16-point tier talent. Reduces the cooldown and mana cost of Power Word: Shield. Requires Improved Power Word: Shield.
• ChangedImproved Mana Burn The cast time reduction of Mana Burn is greater.
• NewPenance 21-point tier talent. Spell channeled for 2 seconds, with a 12 second cooldown. On an enemy, it deals damage every second; on an ally, it heals every second.
• NewRenewed Hope Requires Soul Warding. Increases the critical strike chance of Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Lesser Heal, Heal, Greater Heal and Penance on targets afflicted with Weakened Soul. Each of these spells also reduces the duration of Weakened Soul on the target with every heal.
• NewDivine Aegis A critical heal creates a 12 second absorption shield on the target, calculated as a percentage of the healing done. The effect does not stack.
• RemovedRemoved or merged talents Unbreakable Will is merged into Silent Resolve. Improved Power Word: Fortitude and Divine Spirit become baseline abilities. Force of Will is removed.

Holy

Holy gains direct heals and mana tools. Binding Heal arrives at the 16-point tier and Prayer of Mending at the 31-point tier, while Lightwell leaves the tree.

• ChangedTwilight Focus Formerly Healing Focus. Now protects against interruption on all spells, but costs 3 talent points instead of 2.
• ChangedBlessed Recovery Also triggers after any attack that deals more than 30% of your maximum health in a single hit.
• ChangedInspiration Now triggers on all non-periodic critical heals.
• ChangedImproved Healing Also reduces the mana cost of Penance and Prayer of Mending.
• ChangedSearing Light Reworked talent. Increases all Holy damage, but by a lower percentage. Damage from Holy Fire also gives a chance that your next Holy Nova costs no mana.
• NewBinding Heal 16-point tier talent. New spell with no cooldown and a 1.5 second cast, which heals the Priest and their current target. Blizzard tuned it to be worth Flash Heal, even if the Priest does not need healing.
• NewLitany of Light Each healing spell cast refunds part of its mana cost if the spell differs from the previous healing spell cast.
• ChangedSpiritual Guidance The spell damage bonus drops to about one third of the healing bonus.
• ChangedSpiritual Healing Now requires only 3 talent points for the same bonus.
• NewPrayer of Mending 31-point tier talent, which requires Spirit of Redemption. 10 second cooldown. Places a 30 second spell on the target that heals them the next time they take damage or receive non-periodic healing, consuming a charge. The spell then jumps to another party or raid member within 20 yards, up to 5 heals in total. A target can only carry one Prayer of Mending.
• RemovedRemoved talents Improved Prayer of Healing and Lightwell are removed.

Shadow

In Shadow, Shadowform now allows all non-healing spells. Devouring Contagion makes Devouring Plague jump from a dead target to the next, and Early Demise gives a finisher role to the new Shadow Word: Death.

• ChangedShadow Focus Moves from row 2 to row 1. Instead of reducing the target’s chance to resist, the talent increases the chance for your Shadow spells to hit.
• ChangedShadow Affinity The threat reduction of Shadow spells increases slightly.
• ChangedShadow Reach Moves from row 4 to row 2 and now requires only 2 talent points for the same effect.
• ChangedImproved Psychic Scream Blackout becomes a prerequisite.
• NewImproved Mind Flay New row 3 talent, which requires Mind Flay. Increases the spell’s damage and range, but reduces its slowing effect.
• ChangedVampiric Embrace Moves to row 3 as a 16-point tier talent. The effect now lasts 30 seconds, with a 1 minute cooldown.
• ChangedShadow Weaving Now only benefits the Priest casting the spell, no longer other party or raid members. The damage increase is moderately reduced.
• ChangedSilence No longer requires Improved Psychic Scream as a prerequisite.
• NewDevouring Contagion New row 5 talent. Reduces the mana cost of Devouring Plague. When a target dies under this effect, the Plague jumps to a new enemy within 5 yards, with the same remaining duration.
• NewEarly Demise New row 6 talent. Increases the critical strike chance of Shadow Word: Death on targets below 20% health.
• ChangedShadowform Now allows all non-healing spells in Shadowform, reduces the mana cost of all Shadow spells by 50% and increases the critical strike damage bonus of Shadow spells by 100%. The bonus to Shadow damage dealt is reduced.
• RemovedRemoved talent Improved Vampiric Embrace is removed.

Strengths and Limitations

According to Blizzard, the WoW Forever Priest remains the most versatile healer in WoW, and that is its greatest strength: where other healers focus on heals over time (HoT) or on direct heals, it can do both, and it is the only one to provide absorption shields that reduce damage taken. In Discipline, the talents around Power Word: Shield push that strength even further.

The class remains fragile: it is limited to cloth and has few ways to escape. It relies on its allies for tanking and crowd control, which it reinforces with buffs and heals. In Shadow, the Priest deals heavy damage over time, without offering all the utility of a class like the Warlock. If you are building a WoW Forever Priest, our wand leveling Priest guide shows another approach to the class.

WoW Forever Warrior: an overhauled rage and three reworked trees

In its official Class Deep Dive, Blizzard presents the WoW Forever Warrior as a durable, hard-hitting front-line fighter, with more room for each specialization to stand on its own. The most structural change affects the class resource: rage is now generated differently, whether you gain it by taking or by dealing damage.

On the abilities side, Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall no longer share a cooldown, and several baseline spells gain attack power in their damage or threat. On the tree side, Arms gets a talent that groups the weapon specializations, Fury gains a rework of several enrage talents, and Protection gets a way to generate rage with its shield.

For the full detail on the resource, our article on Warrior rage in WoW Forever goes further. The changed spells and talents are also gathered in this dedicated page.

La rage

Blizzard first acknowledges that rage generation bugs affect the beta. The teams are looking for the cause, and the work may take a few weeks, as the engineers have other projects running in parallel.

For rage gained from taking damage, the original formula is kept with one major change: the calculation ignores armor. Wearing armor therefore no longer reduces the rage obtained. Blizzard applies the old formula as if the Warrior always had 50% armor-based damage reduction. Absorption effects are ignored too: Power Word: Shield no longer reduces the rage gained.

Rage gained from dealing damage is now fully normalized. It depends on the speed of the weapon that dealt the damage. The launch beta granted no extra rage on critical strikes, and Blizzard is bringing it back: a critical strike gives 75% more rage than a normal hit.

Baseline Abilities

The Warrior gains two new baseline tools and several spells are rebalanced, with attack power now factored into their damage or threat. The cooldowns of Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall are no longer linked.

• BaselineTactical Mastery Acquired at level 14. The Warrior keeps 10 rage when switching stances. Arms talents can improve it.
• NewVictory Rush Acquired at level 20. Instant attack with a 30 second cooldown, whose damage scales with attack power, and which restores 10% of the Warrior’s maximum health. It becomes usable for 20 seconds each time a non-trivial enemy is killed.
• ChangedRecklessness No longer shares its cooldown with Shield Wall and Retaliation.
• ChangedRetaliation No longer shares its cooldown with Recklessness and Shield Wall. Cooldown reduced to 15 minutes.
• ChangedShield Wall No longer shares its cooldown with Recklessness and Retaliation. Cooldown reduced to 15 minutes.
• ChangedRend Gains a significant damage bonus tied to attack power.
• ChangedThunder Clap Gains a significant damage bonus tied to attack power and becomes usable in Defensive Stance. Cooldown increased to 6 seconds. Threat is reduced to account for this use in Defensive Stance.
• ChangedBattle Shout The attack power bonus is lowered, since both factions now have the Shaman and Paladin buffs. The benefit of the Improved Battle Shout talent is built in as baseline.
• ChangedSunder Armor Usable even if the target is affected by a stronger Expose Armor effect. The threat generated now depends on attack power.

Arms

Arms folds its weapon specializations into a single talent and gains two new tools, including a 16-point tier talent that dismounts. Improved Slam also comes over from Fury, completely redesigned.

• ChangedImproved Tactical Mastery Formerly Tactical Mastery. Each point increases the rage kept when switching stances by 3, up to a maximum of 25.
• ChangedImproved Overpower Moves from row 3 to row 2 of the tree.
• ChangedAnger Management The tooltip is clarified, with no change in how it works.
• NewSpearing Strike 16-point tier talent. Instant attack costing 15 rage with a 20 second cooldown, which deals a percentage of weapon damage and dismounts the target. Damage is doubled if the target is mounted, or if it is a dragon or a giant.
• NewBloodthrill New row 5 talent. Your main-hand attacks against an enemy affected by Rend have a chance to activate Overpower for 6 seconds.
• NewWeaponmaster New row 5 talent that combines the benefits of all weapon specializations. The bonus depends on the equipped weapon: axes and polearms increase critical strike chance, maces and staves ignore part of the target’s armor, swords have a chance to get an extra melee auto attack.
• ChangedImproved Slam Leaves Fury for row 6 of Arms and is redesigned, with only 2 points. It reduces the cooldown, the global cooldown and the cast time of Slam, and Slam no longer delays or interrupts the swing timer of your melee auto attacks.
• RemovedAxe Specialization, Mace Specialization, Sword Specialization and Polearm Specialization are removed. Their effects are now built into the Weaponmaster talent.

Fury

Fury reworks its enrage talents, gains a 16-point tier talent for dual wielding and strengthens its link with rage. Improved Slam leaves the tree for Arms.

• ChangedBooming Voice No longer changes the duration of shouts: that change becomes a baseline part of the class.
• ChangedIron Will Blizzard lists it in the Fury section of its article, while announcing it as moved from Protection to row 2 of Arms. It now reduces the duration of stuns instead of increasing resistance to them.
• ChangedUnbridled Wrath The proc chance increases. The talent now grants 2 rage if the equipped weapon is two-handed. Blizzard’s article calls it Unbridled Rage.
• ChangedImproved Cleave Now reduces the rage cost of Cleave instead of increasing its bonus damage.
• ChangedBlood Craze Also triggers on attacks that deal more than 20% of your maximum health in a single hit, and when hitting a target with Bloodthirst.
• NewBoundless Rage New row 3 talent. Increases your maximum rage.
• ChangedDual Wield Specialization Also increases the chance to hit with off-hand weapons.
• NewRaging Blows 16-point tier talent. When dual wielding, your Whirlwind hits with both weapons, and the rage cost of Cleave is reduced.
• ChangedEnrage Redesigned: can now trigger when taking any damage.
• NewPrecision New row 5 talent. Increases chance to hit.
• ChangedDeath Wish Slight rework: it increases all damage taken while active, instead of reducing armor and resistances.
• ChangedFlurry The total attack speed increase is reduced by 5%.
• ChangedBloodthirst Slight rework: no longer heals the Warrior, but increases their movement speed by 10% for 10 seconds. Damage gets a base value and depends less on attack power.
• RemovedImproved Demoralizing Shout and Improved Battle Shout are removed and become baseline class abilities.

Protection

Protection focuses on rage gained by blocking, dodging or parrying with a shield, and on better threat tools. The 16-point tier talent is Vanguard, which makes Charge usable in Defensive Stance.

• ChangedShield Specialization A chance on blocks to generate 5 rage instead of 1.
• ChangedAnticipation Grants twice as much defense rating per talent point.
• ChangedImproved Bloodrage Now increases both the initial rage and the rage gained over time, instead of the initial rage only.
• NewMaster of Defense New row 3 talent, which requires Shield Specialization. Gives a chance to gain 5 rage when the Warrior dodges or parries with a shield equipped.
• ChangedImproved Revenge Redesigned: increases the damage of Revenge instead of giving a chance to stun the target.
• ChangedDefiance Now requires an equipped shield to increase threat in Defensive Stance.
• ChangedImproved Disarm Now reduces the cooldown of Disarm instead of increasing its duration.
• NewVanguard 16-point tier talent. Charge becomes usable in Defensive Stance.
• ChangedImproved Shield Wall Redesigned: greatly reduces the cooldown of Shield Wall.
• NewBastion New row 5 talent. Increases all damage dealt while a shield is equipped.
• NewFocused Rage New row 6 talent. Reduces the rage cost of all offensive abilities.
• ChangedShield Slam The damage bonus tied to block value increases.
• RemovedImproved Shield Block and Improved Taunt become baseline abilities. One-Handed Weapon Specialization is removed.

Strengths and Limitations

Blizzard describes the Warrior as the master of melee combat: it deals melee damage while reducing the damage it takes. Its own strength: dealing sustained damage to several targets in melee, which no other melee class can do. It also brings buffs and debuffs that only it can provide.

Its toolkit answers almost every problem, but it lacks ways to easily recover from taking too much damage. Any party or raid is happy to welcome a Warrior, as a tank or as a damage dealer.