Classes

Priest

Priests guide the spiritual destiny of their people. Through their unique insight into the mind, they are able to shape an individual's beliefs, whether to inspire or terrify, soothe or dominate, heal or harm. Just as the heart can hold both darkness and light, priests wield powers of creation and devastation by channeling the potent forces underlying faith.

Priest abilities Priest Talent Calculator

Resource: Mana
Specializations: Discipline · Holy · Shadow Magic
Races: 6

What's changed in WoW Forever

A summary of Blizzard's Class Deep Dive articles. They were published during the beta, so numbers and talents may differ in the live game.

Priests keep their role as versatile spellcasters while Discipline, Holy and Shadow become more flexible. Key tools are available to every Priest, and refreshed racial abilities and talents add new options for support, healing and damage.[1]

Priest as the developers describe it

Priests are the most versatile healers: they use both heal-over-time and direct heals and can also cast damage-absorbing shields. But cloth armor and few ways to escape mean they rely on their allies for protection.

Baseline abilities

Fear Ward and Devouring Plague are available to all Priests at level 20, regardless of race.
Divine Spirit is now baseline, learned at level 30.
Shadow Word: Death is learned at level 32. It deals instant Shadow damage, and if the target survives, you take damage equal to 10% of your maximum health.
Every race's Priest racial spells have been re-evaluated. Gnome Priests get new ones: Confounding Flash and Contingency Plan.
Prayer of Healing now heals all members of the target's party and their pets instead of your own party.
Renew can now be active from multiple Priests on the same target.

Discipline talents

Soul Warding (16-point gold medal): reduces the cooldown and mana cost of Power Word: Shield.
Penance (21-point gold medal): channeled over 2 seconds with a 12-second cooldown. It damages an enemy or heals an ally every second.
Divine Aegis: critical heals put an absorb shield on the target for 12 seconds, based on the amount healed.
Holy Precision: up to 18% more hit chance with Holy spells, so healing Priests don't need gear with hit chance.

Holy talents

Binding Heal (16-point gold medal): a new spell that heals you and your current target. 1.5-second cast, no cooldown.
Prayer of Mending (31-point gold medal): heals the target the next time they take damage or receive a direct heal, then jumps to a nearby party or raid member, healing 5 times in total.
Litany of Light: casting a heal with a different name from your previous heal refunds part of its mana cost.
Improved Prayer of Healing and Lightwell have been removed.

Shadow Magic talents

Vampiric Embrace moves up to the 16-point gold medal. It now lasts 30 seconds with a 1-minute cooldown.
Shadowform now lets you cast all non-healing spells and reduces the mana cost of all Shadow spells by 50%.
Devouring Contagion (new row 5 talent): when a target dies with Devouring Plague on it, the Plague jumps to a new enemy within 5 yards. It also lowers the Plague's mana cost.
Early Demise (new row 6 talent): increases the critical strike chance of Shadow Word: Death on targets below 20% health.

For all classes

Talents start at level 10 and keep the familiar tree structure: one-point milestone talents at 11, 21 and 31 points, now joined by a new 16-point milestone.[1][2][3][4][5]
Key class buffs that used to come from talents, such as Blessing of Kings and Improved Mark of the Wild, are now baseline for their classes.[2][5]
To change talents, including Legacy talents, visit a class trainer in a major city. Dual Specialization becomes available at level 40.[1][2][3][4][5]
These summaries are based on articles published during the beta, so numbers and talents may differ in the live game. This site's talent calculator uses the official live data.[1][2][3][4][5]

Specializations and key talents

For each tree, the talents you actively use (talents with a use effect) and the final-row talent. See the full trees in the talent calculator.

Discipline

18 talents · up to 51 points

Inner FocusRow 3
When activated, reduces the Mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is a non-periodic spell and capable of a critical effect.
PenanceRow 5
Launches a volley of holy light at the target, causing 81 Holy damage to an enemy, or 232 healing to an ally, instantly and every 1 sec for 2 sec.
Power InfusionRow 7
Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell damage and healing done by 20% for 15 sec.

See the full Discipline tree

Holy

17 talents · up to 48 points

Holy NovaRow 3
Causes an explosion of holy light around the caster, causing 45 to 51 Holy damage to all enemy targets within 10 yards and healing all party members within 10 yards for 106 to 115. These effects cause no threat.
Prayer of MendingRow 7
Places a spell on the target that heals them for 395 the next time they take damage or receive non-periodic healing. When the heal occurs, Prayer of Mending jumps to a party or raid member within 20 yards. Jumps up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec after each jump. This spell can only be placed on one target at a time per caster.

See the full Holy tree

Shadow Magic

17 talents · up to 49 points

Mind FlayRow 3
Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 159 Shadow damage over 3 sec and slowing their movement speed by 50%.
Vampiric EmbraceRow 4
Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 20% of any Shadow spell damage you deal for 30 sec.
SilenceRow 5
Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for 5 sec and interrupting their spellcasts for 3 sec.
ShadowformRow 7
Assume Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 10%, reducing the Mana cost of all Shadow spells by 50%, increasing the critical strike damage bonus of your Shadow spells by 100%, and reducing Physical damage taken by you by 15%. However, you may not cast healing spells while in this form.