Priest guide for WoW Forever

The priest is the cloth healer by definition and, as Shadow, a very solid periodic-damage caster. It uses mana, wears cloth and has two tools no other class matches: Power Word: Shield and the widest variety of heals in the game. In return it is fragile and slow at killing outside Shadow. In Forever, on top of that, every priest race has its own spells, and several of them have changed during the beta.

Discipline (healer)

The mana and shields tree: Meditation regenerates mana while casting and Mental Strength raises intellect. It is the most comfortable healer spec for leveling in a group and the one that tolerates long dungeons best. In the beta's early levels, much of the leveling is done by wanding with Discipline talents.

Holy (healer)

The pure healing tree: Spiritual Guidance turns spirit into healing, and Inspiration makes crit matter too. It is the raid and group healer with the most healing per mana once you have gear.

Shadow (damage)

Shadowform, Shadow Word: Pain and Spirit Tap, which refunds mana on kills. DoTs scale with spell power and do not miss twice. It is the solo leveling tree and the damage tree for dungeons when there is another healer.

On September 30 Blizzard published its Forever class deep dive for the priest and the warrior. These are the changes you will notice most as a priest, in our own words. Blizzard warned that everything could keep changing during the beta.

• Fear Ward and Devouring Plague no longer depend on race: every priest learns them at level 20. Divine Spirit stops being a talent and becomes a baseline ability at level 30.
• Shadow Word: Death arrives as a baseline ability at level 32: instant Shadow damage on a 15-second cooldown, but if the target does not die you lose 30% of your maximum health (if the spell misses, you lose nothing).
• Racials reworked: every race has two spells of its own. Gnomes debut Confounding Flash (level 10) and Contingency Plan (level 20); humans get Divine Grace, an instant heal on an ally below 50% health that also removes Weakened Soul; dwarves get Chastise (humanoids only); the night elf's Starshards hits much harder but now has a 30-second cooldown, and the undead get Dark Sacrifice, which turns health into mana and scales with spirit.
• Prayer of Healing no longer heals your own party but the target's party, pets included. Renew from several priests now stacks on the same target and Fade removes twice as much threat.
• Discipline: Penance is the 21-point milestone talent (a 2-second channel that damages an enemy or heals an ally every second, on a 12-second cooldown); Soul Warding, the 16-point one, lowers Power Word: Shield's cooldown and cost, and Divine Aegis leaves an absorb shield after every critical heal. Meditation gives considerably more mana from spirit.
• Holy Precision raises hit with Holy spells by up to 18%: Blizzard designed it so a healing priest does not have to look for hit on gear.
• Holy: Holy Binding (in the slot of Binding Heal, which is removed) makes 50% of what you heal another player for with Flash Heal also heal you, generating no threat; Prayer of Mending (31-point milestone) jumps from ally to ally until it has healed 5 times, and Litany of Light refunds part of the mana when you alternate between different healing spells.
• Shadow: Shadowform lets you cast any non-healing spell, halves the mana cost of Shadow spells and doubles their crit damage bonus, although its damage increase is smaller. Shadow Weaving now only benefits you (and, since October 1, can no longer fail to apply), and Devouring Contagion (your Devouring Plague jumps to a nearby enemy when the target dies, unless it is a critter) and Early Demise (more Shadow Word: Death crit against targets below 20% health) are new.

Blizzard describes the priest as the most versatile healer, the only one that combines direct heals, heals over time and absorb shields, at the cost of being fragile and having few ways to escape. Talents, Legacy talents included, are changed at your class trainer in a capital city, and dual specialization arrives at level 40. Read our summary of the deep dive or Blizzard's official article.

Build 1.60.1.70170, from October 1, mostly fixes Shadow and Discipline bugs. Devouring Plague, which every priest learns at level 20, can now crit; Shadow Weaving can no longer fail to apply, and Shadow Word: Death stops always benefiting from the Early Demise talent, which should only count against targets at 20% health or less. In Discipline, Inner Focus no longer applies its crit increase to periodic effects. And if you play a gnome priest, Eureka no longer affects any periodic effect (channeled spells do not count as periodic).

In the previous build, 1.60.1.70009, there were six documented changes, all general, and two of them touch the healer's foundation. Renew can now crit, which gives crit value on a spell that had none in Classic. And Power Word: Shield can overwrite an existing shield on targets without Weakened Soul: in Classic you had to wait for the shield to drop, in Forever you can refresh it before it breaks. For a dungeon healer, this changes the rhythm of every pull.

The other four are priest racials, the part of the class where Forever moves furthest from Classic. Gnomes, who could not be priests in Classic, debut Contingency Plan (now able to crit) and Confounding Flash (with a cast visual and a Holy orientation). Starshards, the night elf racial, gains spell pushback resistance through Twilight Focus. And Dark Sacrifice, the new undead racial, no longer breaks crowd control on damage, and its tooltip shows the mana gained scales with spirit.

Off the class list but important: wands no longer gain spell power, which affects the priest more than anyone because in the early levels much of the damage is wand. And the Cooldown Manager tracked every priest spell by default, which was listed among that build's known issues; since October 1, at least, it no longer repeats an entry for every rank.

Recommendation: Shadow from 10 to 60 solo; Discipline if you will level by healing dungeons. Shadow is the only priest tree that kills at a reasonable pace: Spirit Tap refunds mana on every kill and DoTs work while you walk away. Holy for leveling is slow and mana-hungry; leave it for when you have a fixed group or raid.

Recommended talent order, broadly:

• From 10 to 20, the first Shadow talents that raise Shadow Word: Pain damage and refund mana. In the early levels the wand does much of the work, and in Forever it no longer gains spell power, so pick the best wand by DPS.
• The 16-point milestone arrives around 25-26; if you would rather not think, Forever ships two class presets.
• From 40, with Shadowform, there is no debate: every remaining point in Shadow until 60.
• If you heal dungeons, level as Discipline for Meditation and Mental Strength: it is the tree that runs out of mana the least. A reset cost 1 silver in the beta, so switching with what you did that day was cheap; at launch, check what it costs at your trainer.

Pacing:

• No level scaling: the priest is fragile against orange mobs: shield, DoT, wand, and never two mobs at once without Weakened Soul available. You can now refresh the shield before it drops; use it.
• Water: you do not conjure it. Buy plenty or ask a mage; the campsite sets up vendors if you run dry.
• The three one-hour campsite buffs before Shadowfang Keep or, closer to 30, Gnomeregan, Razorfen Kraul and the Scarlet Monastery make up for the damage you lack.
• Dungeon quests: since October 1 they give half the extra experience they used to give on top of a normal quest. Go in for the loot and the mobs, not just the quests.
• Legacy Points: each character spends them across three trees (Professions, Adventure and Resourcefulness). The only perk shown so far is Well Rested, more rested experience; we will not guess what the rest do.

For both healing trees, healing and spell power are worth the same and come first; then mana per 5 s and spirit, which for Holy also adds healing through Spiritual Guidance and for Discipline feeds Meditation. Intellect gives total mana and some crit, and spell crit has gained value in Forever because Renew now crits. For Shadow, spell power (or specific Shadow damage) ahead of everything, then hit, with crit behind. In Classic the spell hit cap against bosses was 16%; Blizzard has not said what it is in Forever, where hit is one stat for spells, melee and ranged, and so is crit (Blizzard's Deep Dive Panel Recap). On top of that, Shadow Focus now grants hit with Shadow spells. The wand scores in the ranged slot for all three trees: while leveling it is real damage.

At level 30, the beta's last cap, the priest is still the class most dependent on Tailoring: all three trees equip five recipes, mostly pristine pieces for Discipline and Holy and shadow pieces for Shadow. All three share Scorn's Icy Choker and the Necrotic Wand from the Scarlet Monastery and the Spidertank Oilrag from Gnomeregan. The healers also carry the Death Speaker Scepter from Razorfen Kraul with an Enchanting orb, plus the Ghostly Mantle, a reward from a Horde-only quest in Shadowfang Keep; Shadow carries the Staff of the Shade from Razorfen Kraul and the Bloodmage Mantle from the Monastery. The cloak, a ring and the trinkets (and, for Shadow, the belt too) come from the battleground supply officers; our list mixes both factions' versions, so get the one for yours.

On the way, at level 20, Discipline and Holy equipped six Tailoring recipes and the Mindthrust Bracers from Shadowfang Keep, and Shadow added the Necrology Robes and Witching Stave from the same dungeon and Ghamoo-ra's Bind from Blackfathom Deeps.

On the way up, Shadowfang Keep and the Scarlet Monastery hold three BiS pieces each for the class, and Razorfen Kraul, Razorfen Downs and Blackrock Depths two each; the Death Speaker Scepter is the healers' only dungeon main hand in the BiS, from 30 to 50. Uldaman adds the Beacon of Hope for Discipline and Holy. Forever's new dungeons that are already playable (Hall of Thanes, Ruins of Lordaeron and Excavation Site) have no BiS-marked loot for the priest in our data yet. Full list per level on the priest BiS page.

What it can wield. In Classic the priest uses daggers, one-handed maces, staves and wands, with an off-hand item next to a one-hander; no swords, no shield, and no ranged weapon other than the wand. Blizzard has not announced any change to this for Forever. As in Classic, every weapon type has its own skill, which rises with use up to 5 points per character level, and that includes the wand: use it rarely and its skill falls behind, so you miss more with it.

What our lists score. The types our priest lists score are one-handed maces, daggers, staves and wands. All three trees compare a one-hander plus an off-hand item against a staff, and the ranged slot is always a wand, scored by its DPS and weighted more for Shadow. The weapon skill points some items carry add nothing to our score.

What changes in Forever. According to Blizzard's Deep Dive Panel Recap, weapon skill works as it always has, but items that grant it give less per piece. The real change for you is that caster weapons now grant spell damage and healing, so your mace or staff becomes an upgrade you chase while leveling again. Wands no longer gain spell power in the beta, as in Classic: compare them by DPS. And according to Blizzard's class deep dive, Discipline's Wand Specialization now needs only two points for the same benefit; in the game client that is two ranks for up to 25% more wand damage, against five ranks in Classic.

Racials. The weapon racial that helps you is the dwarves': Mace Specialization, new in Forever, gives 1% critical strike chance with all spells and attacks while you have a one- or two-handed mace equipped. A dwarf priest with a one-handed caster mace gets that crit on heals and in Shadow. Humans lose their Classic Mace Specialization, which only gave mace skill, and their Sword Specialization does nothing for you because priests do not use swords; night elves, gnomes, undead and trolls have no weapon racial. The full comparison is in the best race for a priest.

The priest is the class with the most racial weight in Forever, because every race has its own spells and build 1.60.1.70009 changed four of them. The new combination is the gnome priest, with Contingency Plan and Confounding Flash as racials, and on top of that Eureka, which on a priest makes your next 3 non-periodic damaging or healing abilities cost 10% less mana and deal 10% more damage or healing; since October 1 it does not affect any periodic effect, so it does not boost Renew or your DoTs. Night elves keep Starshards (now with pushback resistance) and the undead have Dark Sacrifice. Humans and dwarves for the Alliance, trolls for the Horde. There is no Skyborne priest. If racials matter to you, check each one's detail in the changes section; if not, every race levels the same.

Tailoring + Enchanting, no debate: six of the healers' level-20 BiS pieces and five of the level-30 ones, in all three trees, are Tailoring recipes; Enchanting crafts the healers' off-hand orb and uses the leftover cloth, and neither profession needs gathering. Forever adds more than 600 new recipes and a passive bonus per profession, so Tailoring performs better than in Classic.

For gold, Herbalism + Alchemy: mana potions you will need yourself. Cooking for the small experience bonus of crafted food, and First Aid even if you heal, because bandages cost no mana. Each profession's leveling path is in the profession guides.

• Leveling as Holy. It is slow and mana-hungry. Shadow solo, Discipline to heal dungeons.
• Waiting for the shield to drop. In Forever you can overwrite it when Weakened Soul is absent; refresh it before it breaks.
• Hunting wands with spell power. They no longer gain it. Compare wands by DPS: while leveling they are your finisher.
• Ignoring crit as a healer. Renew now crits in Forever; crit has gained some value.
• Using Inner Focus on a periodic spell. Since October 1 its crit increase only counts for non-periodic spells: save it for a direct heal or hit.
• Fighting orange mobs. Without level scaling, a cloth priest against a mob three levels above is a corpse. Yellow.
• Going without water. You do not conjure it: buy plenty, ask a mage or use the campsite vendors.
• Picking a race without reading the racials. It is the class where they matter most; four of build 70009's six changes were racials.
• Trusting the Cooldown Manager's list. By default it tracks every priest spell; trim it or switch it off.