WoW Forever: Blizzard details priest and warrior changes

Blizzard published a written class deep dive for World of Warcraft: Forever on 30 September, covering the priest and the warrior. It says the aim is to keep the spirit of the original game while giving players more ways to make a character their own: priests get wider access to important tools and new talent options, and warriors get changes that make Rage more reliable and turn some utility into baseline abilities. Talents start at level 10 and keep the familiar structure, with one-point milestone talents at 11, 21 and 31 points, now joined by a new 16-point milestone. Talents, including Legacy talents, are changed at a class trainer in a major city, and Dual Specialization becomes available at level 40. Blizzard adds that class abilities and talents may keep changing during the beta test.

Several priest spells stop depending on race. Fear Ward and Devouring Plague are now available to all priests at level 20 whatever their race, Divine Spirit is baseline at level 30, and Shadow Word: Death joins the class as a baseline ability at level 32: it deals instant Shadow damage, and if it does not kill the target the priest takes 10% of their own maximum health, on a 15 second cooldown. Prayer of Healing now heals every member of the target's party and their pets instead of the priest's own party, and Renew can be active from more than one priest on the same target. Each race of priest still has 2 spells of its own, all of them re-examined, and gnome priests get their first 2: Confounding Flash, which confuses up to 5 nearby enemies for 3 seconds, and Contingency Plan, a ward on a friendly target that shields and heals them when their health falls below 35%. Blizzard has already set out which races can play each class.

The priest talent trees add new milestone talents. Discipline gets Penance at 21 points, channelled over 2 seconds on a 12 second cooldown, which damages an enemy or heals an ally every second, and Soul Warding at 16 points, which cuts the cooldown and the Mana cost of Power Word: Shield; Divine Aegis turns critical heals into an absorb shield that lasts 12 seconds. Holy gets Binding Heal at 16 points, a spell with a 1.5 second cast and no cooldown that heals the priest and their current target, and Prayer of Mending at 31 points, which heals a target the next time they take damage and then jumps to another party or raid member within 20 yards until it has healed 5 times. Shadowform is reworked: all spells except healing spells can be cast in it, Shadow spells cost 50% less Mana and their critical strike damage bonus goes up by 100%, while the flat bonus to Shadow damage goes down. Lightwell and Improved Prayer of Healing are gone.

For warriors, Blizzard sets out how Rage works now and admits a problem with it. Rage from taking damage keeps the original formula but ignores Armor: heavier armour no longer cuts the Rage gained, and the formula works as if the warrior always had 50% damage reduction from Armor. It also ignores damage absorption, so a priest's Power Word: Shield no longer lowers the Rage a warrior builds, and critical strikes now give 75% more Rage than ordinary hits, which the launch beta did not do at all. Protection warriors gain Rage faster too: Shield Specialization gives 5 Rage on a block instead of 1, and a new talent called Master of Defense can give 5 Rage on a dodge or a parry while a shield is equipped. Blizzard says it knows players are running into bugs with Rage generation in the beta, that its engineers are trying to find the cause and that this may take a couple of weeks, a problem beta testers have already been arguing about.

Two warrior abilities become baseline: Tactical Mastery at level 14, which keeps 10 Rage through a change of stance, and Victory Rush at level 20, an instant attack on a 30 second cooldown that heals the warrior for 10% of maximum health and stays usable for 20 seconds after each kill of a non-trivial enemy. Retaliation and Shield Wall now have a 15 minute cooldown, Bloodthirst no longer heals and raises movement speed by 10% for 10 seconds instead, Death Wish increases all damage taken while it is active rather than lowering armour and resistances, and Battle Shout gives less attack power because both factions now have shaman and paladin buffs. Changes already shown in the class video Blizzard put out the same day, such as Rage from weapon speed, Thunder Clap in Defensive Stance and the Vanguard, Weaponmaster and Spearing Strike talents, are in the article as well, and Blizzard's own page has the full list of every ability and talent. The beta runs until 21 October, and WoW Forever launches at 23:00 UK time on 4 November, which is midnight on 5 November in Central Europe.