[2022] Feedback: Priests

Please use this thread to post feedback on the Priest class, once you’ve tested it in the Dragonflight Alpha.

Thank you!

Hello Priests!

Thank you for your feedback on our recent changes to Evangelism. Discipline healing scales faster than other healing specializations, as target count increases, which makes it challenging for us to tune the spec to be competitive in both small-scale and large-scale content.

To address this, we’re changing Sins of the Many to a low-level passive and increasing its effectiveness. Discipline is currently overperforming our tuning targets in raids in Dragonflight, so we’re doing this alongside several changes to decrease the specialization’s overall power.

You’ll see the following changes as hotfixes to the Dragonflight Beta over the coming days.

Discipline

• Sins of the Many is now a passive learned at level 12.
  • Increases damage by 30% (was 12%).
  • Damage increase diminishes above 5 Atonement applications (was 1).
• In the talent tree, Sins of the Many has been replaced with Blaze of Light.
• Blaze of Light increases the damage of your Smite and Penance by 8%/15% and Penance increases or decreases your target’s movement speed by 25%/50% for 2 seconds.
• Blaze of Light is no longer a PvP Talent.
• Evangelism once again has a 1.5 minute cooldown (was 3 minutes).
• Spell damage heals all targets affected by Atonement for 40% of damage done (was 50%).
• Power Word: Radiance now applies Atonement for 60% of its normal duration (was 50%).
• Schism increases spell damage to the target by 15% (was 25%).
• Malicious Intent increases the duration of Schism by 6 seconds (was 3 seconds).
• Harsh Discipline has been redesigned.
  • Every 10 / 5 casts of Smite, your next Penance is free and fires an additional 3 bolts. (Was: When Atonement has healed a total of 200 / 100 times, your next Penance is free and fires 3 additional bolts).

Please note: these changes will not be applied all together to the Dragonflight Beta. We expect to deploy them for testing separately over the next few days.

Thanks again for all of your feedback.

In this thread, please discuss ongoing changes to the Priest class in the Guardians of the Dream PTR.

Changes are coming in Guardians of the Dream that will have an impact on Haste in group play. Power Infusion grants you and another target 25% bonus Haste for 20 seconds, with a 2-minute cooldown. This injection of Haste significantly amplifies a few specs by a large amount when combined with their own personal cooldowns. We don’t want to take away the noticeable gameplay feel of Power Infusion, but we feel that we should reduce the value and duration of it slightly.

A few specs can stack multiple cooldowns and bonuses that really increase their damage during cooldown windows, and they also scale very well with Haste. We’re making changes to Demonology Warlocks and Unholy Death Knight talents and cooldowns to lessen the combined value of stacking everything together. This should reduce the peaks of damage output during cooldown windows, and should increase their sustained damage over the duration of a fight.

• Power Infusion Haste reduced to 20% (was 25%) and duration reduced to 15 seconds (was 20 seconds).
• Shadow Word: Death now deals 8% of the Priest’s maximum health in damage when it fails to kill a target instead of the backlash damage being based on damage dealt.
• Tithe Evasion now reduces Shadow Word: Death damage dealt to the Priest by 50% (was 75%).
• Shadow Word: Death backlash damage is now reduced by damage reduction effects.
• Mass Dispel cooldown is now 2 minutes (was 45 seconds).
  • Developers’ note: We’re reducing the frequency that Priests have access to Mass Dispel as the value of the spell is exceeding the value of other utility at its current power level and cooldown. We’re looking to allow for more situations where magic debuffs are applied to multiple players without having a Priest trivializing the intended difficulty of the mechanics.
• Improved Mass Dispel is now a PvP Talent and reduces the cooldown of Mass Dispel by 60 seconds (was 20 seconds).
• Improved Mass Dispel no longer reduces the cast time of Mass Dispel.
• Improved Mass Dispel has been replaced with Mental Agility in the Priest talent tree.
• New Talent: Mental Agility – Reduces the mana cost of Purify, Purify Disease, and Mass Dispel by 50% and Dispel Magic by 10%.
• Rhapsody now only highlights Holy Nova at max stacks while in combat.

Discipline

The goal of these changes is to simplify Discipline’s damage rotation as well as the number of stacking modifiers used when ramping up for burst healing. This should make it smoother to play by reducing the number of abilities pressed in sequence, allowing players to focus on managing Atonement and triaging their allies instead.

• Schism has been redesigned to be a passive talent – Now causes Mind Blast to fracture the enemy’s mind, increasing your spell damage to the target by 10% for 9 seconds.
• Shadow Covenant has been redesigned to be a passive talent – Shadowfiend or Mindbender enters you into a shadowy pact, transforming Halo, Divine Star, and Penance into Shadow spells and increasing the damage and healing of your Shadow spells by 25% for 15 seconds (7 seconds with Mindbender).
  • Developers’ note: Shadow Covenant is another ability that must be sequenced correctly and is usually stacked with other damage modifiers. By merging this effect with Shadowfiend, we can streamline the damage rotation and make Shadowfiend a more exciting cooldown at the same time.
• Mind Blast now has a 24 second cooldown (was 9 seconds).
• Mind Blast damage has been increased by 30%.
• Dark Indulgence no longer grants an additional charge of Mind Blast. Instead, Mind Blast has a 100% chance to grant Power of the Dark Side.
• Inescapable Torment damage increased by 60%.
• Inescapable Torment now triggers from Penance in addition to Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death.
• Inescapable Torment is now a 1-point talent (was 2).
• Power Word: Solace has been removed.
  • Developers’ note: Power Word: Solace has a long history, but it was another example of a short cooldown damage button that cramped the rotation, so we’re removing it.
• Harsh Discipline no longer triggers after 4 spell casts of Smite, Mind Blast, or Power Word: Solace. Instead, Power Word: Radiance has a 30/60% chance to cause your next Penance to be free and fire 3 extra bolts.
  • Developers’ note: While Harsh Discipline was fun to play with, it added another thing you had to do before paying off on your Atonements. By triggering from Power Word: Radiance, this will now automatically happen after applying your Atonements. This will also reduce the frequency of Harsh Discipline procs, and allow regular Penance to deal more damage and healing.
• New Talent: Sanctuary – Smite prevents the next 80% damage dealt by the enemy.
• New Talent: Ultimate Penitence – Ascend into the air and unleash a massive barrage of Penance bolts, causing Holy damage to enemies or healing to allies over 6 seconds. While ascended, gain a shield for 50% of your health. In addition, you are unaffected by knockbacks or crowd control effects.
• New Talent: Heaven’s Wrath – Each Penance bolt you fire reduces the cooldown of Ultimate Penitence by 2 seconds.
• New Talent: Overloaded with Light – Ultimate Penitence emits an explosion of light, healing up to 10 allies around you and applying Atonement at 50% of normal duration.
• Penance damage increased by 15%.
• Penance healing increased by 30%.
• Power Word: Barrier now reduces 20% of all damage taken (was 25%).
• Atonement now heals for 32% of damage done (was 40%).
• Atonement healing is now increased by 50% when not in a raid.
• Flash Heal healing increased by 40%.
• Power Word: Shield absorption increased by 10%.
• Divine Aegis is now a 1-point talent (was 2).
• Light’s Wrath, Resplendent Light, Wrath Unleashed, and Make Amends have been removed.

Holy

• Holy Word: Serenity healing increased by 30%.
• Flash Heal healing increased by 40%.
• Holy Word: Salvation’s cooldown is now reduced by 15 seconds (was 30 seconds) by Holy Word: Serenity and Holy Word: Sanctify.
• Symbol of Hope now restores 10% of missing mana (was 15%).
• Symbol of Hope recovers 40 seconds of cooldown for a major defensive ability (was 60 seconds).
• Holy Word: Sanctify now heals up to 5 allies (was 6).
• Divine Star healing decreased by 25%.
• Halo healing decreased by 15%.

Shadow

• Shadow Crash damage is now reduced beyond 5 targets.
• Surge of Insanity now triggers from every 3 casts of Devouring Plague instead of every cast of Devouring Plague.
  • Developers’ note: The rotation has a lot going on and much of that is due to the frequency that Mind Flay: Insanity and Mind Spike: Insanity are available, so we’re adjusting the frequency of the effect.
• Mind Flay damage increased by 10%.
• Mind Flay: Insanity damage increased by 30%.
• Mind Spike: Insanity damage increased by 20%.

In this thread, we’ll be testing and talking about Priests in The War Within. Look here for posts from the development team as adjustments and bugfixes are made throughout the testing period.

Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.

The War Within Beta

All classes’ Hero Talent trees are available for testing. Please keep in mind that this is a Beta environment:

• There may be UI elements on the talent panel that are placeholder, including things like talent icons, text, or final UI art.
• Some talents may not be functioning yet, or may be marked as not yet implemented (NYI).
• Some new spell visuals and audio may still be a work in progress.
• There are some talents that are not fully tuned yet. This is expected, and we will implement tuning adjustments throughout testing.

The combat design team has two big areas of focus at this time:

• Finish work on changes to talents, especially wherever Hero Talents still need adjustments.
• Fix bugs that are blocking testing of new talents.

Working from Feedback

Alpha feedback thus far has been of great benefit to us.

Now that we are entering Beta, our focus on Hero Talent trees is shifting away from reworks and design changes and towards tuning and refining. We want to thank you so much for all the forum posts, videos, and discussions all over the internet. Your feedback and impressions have been invaluable for bringing their identities to life and making them fit into what you love about the classes you play.

We are looking forward to hearing from more of you as you get a chance to try Hero Talents for yourself. We are specifically interested in feedback or impressions on these topics:

• Hero Talents that you feel are “required” for your spec in a type of content, such as raiding or Mythic+, or that push you towards picking a specific tree. This could be due to damage profile, utility, defensives, or something else.
• Hero Talent trees that you feel are either too strong or too weak in power level compared to other options.
• Hero Talents whose functionality is confusing, unclear, or difficult to track during gameplay.
• Hero Talent choice nodes that you feel could offer more meaningful choices.

Again, Thank You

Feedback throughout the Alpha test was highly impactful on our design of the game, and we look forward to refining every class with you in the Beta. Thank you!

– The World of Warcraft Combat Design Team

We’d like to call your attention to adjustments we’re making in the next Beta build.

• PRIEST
  • Healing done from Void Shift to the Priest’s ally is now capped at twice the Priest’s Health.
  • From Darkness Comes Light now increases the healing of Flash Heal by 3% (was 1%), and stacks up to 20 times (was 50).
  • Cauterizing Shadows healing increased by 60%.
  • Resolved an issue causing Holy Nova to not benefit from Phantom Reach.
  • Resolved an issue causing Halo to damage enemies out of combat.
  • Updated the visuals and animations for Void Shift.
  • Fixed an issue causing Divine Image’s teleport to fail on transports.
  • The following talents are now 1 point:
    • Manipulation
    • Surge of Light
  • Hero Talents
    • Archon (Holy/Shadow)
      • Shadow
        • Empowered Surges increases Mind Spike: Insanity and Mind: Flay Insanity damage by 60% (was 25%).
        • Empowered Surges increase to Mind Spike: Insanity and Mind Flay: Insanity damage is now reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
        • Perfected Form now increases damage during Voidform by 20% (was 15%) and damage during Dark Ascension by 12% (was 10%).
    • Oracle (Holy/Discipline)
      • Fixed an issue causing Energy Cycle to not benefit from Apotheosis.
      • Fixed an issue causing Premonition of Insight to lose multiple stacks when Purify dispels multiple debuffs.
      • Discipline
        • Resolved an issue causing Preemptive Care to increase the duration of Atonement for longer than intended.
        • Preventive Measures now increases Penance, Smite, and Holy Nova damage by 40% (was 25%).
      • Holy
        • Preventive Measures now increases Smite, Holy Fire, and Holy Nova damage by 25% (was 15%).
    • Voidweaver (Discipline/Shadow)
      • Shadow
        • Void Blast damage reduced by 18%.
  • Discipline
    • All damage increased by 5%.
    • Holy Nova healing increased by 23%.
    • Power Word: Shield absorption increased by 30%.
    • Power Word: Radiance cooldown reduced to 18 seconds (was 20 seconds).
    • Bright Pupil now reduces the cooldown of Power Word Radiance by 3 seconds (was 5 seconds).
    • Abyssal Reverie now increases Atonement healing from Shadow spells by 5%/10% (was 10%/20%).
    • Fixed an issue causing Indemnity to not increase Atonement duration by its intended amount.
    • Fixed an issue where Atonement healing was only being increased by 50% outside raid instead of the intended 70%.
    • The following talents are now 1 point:
      • Contrition
      • Heaven’s Wrath
  • Holy
    • All damage increased by 10%.
    • Prayer of Healing healing increased by 30%.
    • Circle of Healing healing increased by 30%.
    • Healing Chorus now increases the healing done by Circle of Healing by 3% (was 5%).
    • Lightweaver now increases Heal healing by 25% (was 15%).
    • Fixed an issue causing the values for the Gales of Song talent to be incorrect.
    • Trail of Light is now a 1-point talent.
  • Shadow
    • All damage increased by 3%.
    • Dark Ascension now increases non-periodic damage dealt by 20% (was 25%).
    • Mind Flay: Insanity now channels the same amount of damage over 1.5 seconds (was 2 seconds).
    • Mind Spike: Insanity now generates 12 Insanity (was 8).
    • Mind Melt now stacks up to 3 times (was 2).
    • Mind Melt now increases the critical strike chance of Mind Blast by 30% (was 20%).
    • Mind Flay and Mind Sear from Idol of C’Thun now deals damage 10 times over their channel’s duration (was 15).
    • Mind Flay and Mind Sear damage from Idol of C’Thun increased by 50%.
    • Fixed an issue causing Psychic Link to not always hit when near the max range of its effect.
    • Fixed an issue causing the targeted version of Shadow Crash to not follow a moving target.