Shadow Priest talents in Dragonflight will let you worship one of the four Old Gods

The World of Warcraft team recently unveiled a preview of the Priest talent trees for the upcoming Dragonflight expansion, and with it came a really cool surprise. Shadow Priest players will finally get to pledge themselves to one of the four Old Gods of Azeroth! You’ll be able to decide — through a set of choices that blend gameplay and fantasy — if you’re a servant of N’Zoth, Y’Shaarj, C’Thun, or Yogg-Saron.

This choice comes in the form of four talents, each pertaining to an Old God, that are grouped up as two talent nodes located at the bottom of the Shadow tree. You only have enough talent points to reach one of those two nodes, and since each node asks you to pick from one of two Old God talents, in the end you’ll only get to worship one of the four Old Gods — which is probably for the best.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what are the benefits gained from worshiping each Old God, so that you may choose wisely, right? Well, here is what the talents themselves do:

• Idol of N’Zoth: Damage dealt by Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Devouring Plague has a 20% chance to apply Echoing Void. Each time Echoing Void is applied, it has a chance to collapse, dealing Shadow damage to all nearby enemies until no stacks remain.
• Idol of Y’Shaarj: Shadowfiend causes you to gain a benefit based on your target’s current emotional state.
• Idol of C’Thun: Mind Flay and Mind Sear have a chance to spawn a Void Tendril or Void Lasher that channels at your target for 15 sec, generating 3 insanity every 1 sec.
• Idol of Yogg-Saron: After conjuring 50 Shadowy Apparitions, you summon a Thing from Beyond that serves you for 20 sec. The Thing from Beyond blasts enemies for Shadow damage.

In the case of Y’Shaarj, there’s also been a blue post further clarifying what exactly they mean by “your target’s current emotional state.”

Overall, I think this is a really neat development for Shadow Priests. I’m sure that min/max-oriented players might end up having an “optimal” choice for each situation, but I’m also sure that many players will be thrilled to pick based on their own personal preferences, whether from the gameplay or fantasy side of things.

For me, personally, Yogg-Saron sounds like a lot of fun — both thematically and in the idea of picking talents that let me cast as many Shadowy Apparitions as possible, having an army of shadowy clones blasting my enemy as quickly as possible, and summoning a Thing from Beyond to serve me every once in a while. Pew pew.

Praise Yogg.