World of Warcraft: Legion will restructure the classes significantly – we take a look at the new playstyles of the Priest.
Three Times Faithful, Three Times Different
With the upcoming expansion “Legion” for World of Warcraft, Blizzard will significantly change the various classes of the game. They want to counter the homogenization of recent years and ensure that all classes feel special and unique again. The “fantasy” behind the various specializations should be clearly defined and more consistent. We get an initial impression of these changes through the Priest, whose three playstyles we will briefly illuminate here.
Holy – Radiant Pillars of Light
Holy Priests were already in a pretty solid position with WoD, but they are supposed to become a bit more “pure”. Because the lore demands it, Holy Priests will lose all shadow spells – because this simply cannot be reconciled with a pure follower of the Light. Also removed will be the cumbersome Chakra system, where only certain spells could reach their full potential. This was more cumbersome and annoying than truly challenging.
Healing Assistance – Holy Priests continue to heal even when they should be dying.
The repertoire of holy priests will be supplemented by powerful blessing words that should feel like real miracles. Although they have a high cooldown of one minute, they can heal gigantic amounts of damage and, above all, can be cast spontaneously. The mastery rating still ensures that heals leave a residual HoT on the target.
Discipline – The End Justifies the Means
Discipline Priests have always had a difficult position in WoW. Their primary healing was through shields that simply prevented damage. This caused other healers in raid groups to get bored. For this reason, Discipline is being revamped so that healing occurs when the Priest deals damage. This will work as follows:
Healing through Damage – Discipline Priests clean up at the front themselves.
Some healing spells (like Power Word: Shield) additionally apply the effect “Atonement” to players for 15 seconds. This causes affected players to receive 50% of the damage dealt by the Discipline Priest as healing. The more players affected by Atonement, the greater the effect.
Thus, Discipline is truly a hybrid specialization, as the damage should be significant (after all, it has to be enough to heal at the same time!). Especially “Shadow Word: Pain” is therefore not only a DoT but also a HoT on all party members currently benefiting from Atonement.
Shadow – Consumed by Madness
Shadow Priests will finally live up to their name and completely abandon all Holy spells. Previously, most spells were focused on mind control and causing psychic pain; this theme will now be deepened. Story-wise, Shadow Priests draw on the Void and the madness of the Old Gods, using them to wear down the minds of their enemies.
The Descent into Madness – Shadow Priests embrace the teachings of the Old Gods.
In addition to renouncing Holy spells, Shadow followers also forsake Mana. Instead, they gain the new resource “Insanity.” This is built up over time, with the player’s Shadow form becoming increasingly dark and slowly growing black tentacles. When Insanity reaches its maximum, the Priest shifts into Void Form, increasing their damage dealt by 30% and continually increasing their haste rating every second. However, Insanity rapidly decreases, and once it reaches 0, they are back at the beginning of their rotation.
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