The essentials
Blizzard has released the deep dive for Priest and Warrior in World of Warcraft: Forever. The goal is to keep the spirit of the original WoW while giving characters more ways to feel their own.
- Talents start at level 10. The familiar structure with milestone talents at 11, 21 and 31 points gains a new milestone at 16 points.
- You change talents, including Legacy talents, at a class trainer in a major city.
- Dual Specialization becomes available at level 40.
- Abilities and talents may still change during the Beta.
Priest: baseline abilities
The Priest remains the versatile Light and Shadow caster but gains more tools.
- Fear Ward and Devouring Plague are available to all Priests at level 20, regardless of race.
- Divine Spirit is baseline at level 30, Shadow Word: Death at level 32 (15 second cooldown; if the target survives, the Priest loses 10% of max health).
- Fade doubles its threat reduction, and Renew can now be active from multiple Priests on the same target.
- Prayer of Healing now heals the target's party and their pets instead of the Priest's own party.
- Racial abilities were re-evaluated. Gnomes get Confounding Flash (level 10, confuses up to 5 enemies for 3 seconds) and Contingency Plan (level 20, absorb shield and heal over time below 35% health). Dwarves get Chastise, Humans Divine Grace, Night Elves reworked Starshards and Elune's Grace, Undead Dark Sacrifice.
Priest: talents
Discipline
- New talents: Power in Light, Twin Disciplines, Soul Warding (16-point talent, reduces cooldown and mana cost of Power Word: Shield) and Penance (21 points, 2 second channel that damages enemies or heals allies).
- Renewed Hope and Divine Aegis are also new.
- Removed or merged: Unbreakable Will, Force of Will; Improved Power Word: Fortitude and Divine Spirit are now baseline.
Holy
- New: Binding Heal (16 points, heals the Priest and their target, 1.5 second cast) and Prayer of Mending (31 points, jumps up to five times between party or raid members).
- Reworked: Searing Light, Twilight Focus (formerly Healing Focus), Inspiration and Blessed Recovery.
- Removed: Improved Prayer of Healing, Lightwell.
Shadow
- New: Improved Mind Flay, Devouring Contagion (makes Devouring Plague jump when the target dies) and Early Demise.
- Vampiric Embrace is now a 16-point talent; Shadowform allows all non-healing spells, halves the mana cost of Shadow spells and adds 100% to their crit damage bonus.
- Shadow Weaving now benefits only the Priest. Improved Vampiric Embrace was removed.
Blizzard sees the Priest as still the most versatile healer, combining HoTs, direct heals and damage absorption, yet also a vulnerable class in cloth with few escapes. As Shadow it deals strong damage over time but lacks the utility of a class like the Warlock.
Warrior: Rage and baseline abilities
Blizzard first acknowledges Rage generation bugs in the Beta, which may take a couple of weeks to track down.
- Rage from taking damage ignores Armor, as if you always had 50% damage reduction, and also ignores absorb effects such as Power Word: Shield.
- Rage from dealing damage is normalized and based on weapon speed. Critical strikes give 75% more Rage again.
- Tactical Mastery (level 14) keeps 10 Rage when changing Stances; Victory Rush (level 20) is a 30 second cooldown attack that heals 10% of max health.
- Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall no longer share a cooldown; Retaliation and Shield Wall are down to 15 minutes.
- Rend and Thunder Clap scale strongly with Attack Power; Thunder Clap is now usable in Defensive Stance.
- Battle Shout has less Attack Power, with Improved Battle Shout baked in. Sunder Armor works even against a stronger Expose Armor.
Warrior: talents
Arms
- New: Spearing Strike (16 points, instant attack for 15 Rage that dismounts targets) and Bloodthrill.
- Weaponmaster combines all weapon specialization talents into one; the individual specializations are removed.
- Improved Slam moved from Fury to Arms and was redesigned.
Fury
- New: Raging Blows (16 points, Whirlwind hits with both weapons), Boundless Rage and Precision.
- Enrage is redesigned and can trigger from any damage taken; Bloodthirst no longer heals but grants 10% movement speed for 10 seconds.
- Flurry gives 5% less attack speed.
Protection
- New: Vanguard (16 points, Charge in Defensive Stance), Master of Defense, Bastion and Focused Rage.
- Shield Specialization grants 5 Rage on Blocks instead of 1; Improved Shield Wall cuts the cooldown by a large amount.
- Improved Shield Block and Improved Taunt are now baseline, One-Handed Weapon Specialization is removed.
Blizzard describes the Warrior as the master of melee combat with unique sustained damage against multiple targets, but with few ways to recover from heavy damage. The team will keep reviewing how this plays in dungeons, PvP and the open world and asks for feedback.
With each class update, the goal is to keep the spirit of original World of Warcraft in mind while giving players more ways to make their character feel their own. For Priests and Warriors, that work takes shape in two very different combat identities: one built around Light, Shadow, healing, and protection, and the other around weapons, Rage, stances, and battlefield momentum.
Original report: Wowhead