WoW Legion Priest class preview

Priests are next up for Blizzard’s Legion class previews. The roles of each are going to be more distinct with bigger heals for Holy, a greater Shadowform for Shadow Priests, and Discipline is going to be a balance of the two with a slight nerf to their absorption shields. Let’s dive in.

Holy

The Chakra system is out and is being replaced by Holy Words. In addition to the large number of normal heals the Holy Priest will have access to (Heal, Flash Heal, Prayer of Mending, Renew, etc), these Holy Words spells have big, miraculous effects balanced by large cooldowns. The new passive Serendipity will cause basic heals to lower the cooldown timer on Holy Words. No exact numbers on the healing of Holy Words, but the single target Holy Word: Serenity will heal for “an absolutely massive amount” and the AE heal Holy Word: Sanctify will heal for “a huge amount.”

Holy Priests are also getting a talent, Apotheosis, that puts them in a state of pure light for 30 seconds and increases the effectiveness of Serendipity. They will no longer have access to Shadow Priests spells at all and just use Smite, Holy Fire and Holy Word: Chastise for damage.

Shadow

Shadow Priests will now use their damage and damage over time spells to build up Insanity points. When they have 100 Insanity they will transform from Shadowform to Voidform and have access to new, more powerful spells as well as increased Haste. As they use spells, they lose Insanity points and when there is no more, they transform back to Shadowform. However, the Shadow Priest can extend the duration of Voidform with certain spells and also have a talent that sets their Insanity to 100 instantly. Also, just like Holy gets no more Shadow spells, Shadow will get no Holy spells and will have to rely on Power Word: Shield and Shadow Mend for healing.

Discipline

The devs feel that absorption shields are too powerful so they are going to scale those back a bit. In return they are going to give the Discipline Priest a powerful set of damage spells and other healing tools. The key ability here is a passive called Atonement. It’s placed on an ally when you heal them and then every time you damage an opponent, the allies with Atonement get healed for 50% of the damage done. The healing isn’t split among all those with the Atonement buff. Each gets the full heal amount.

For a more detailed explanation of each of the new roles, check out Blizzard’s official Priest class preview.