In WoW Shadowlands, the developers are once again trying to learn from their mistakes from the previous expansion and implement player feedback to some extent, so that the three playstyles of the priest are made as interesting as possible. We take a look at the alpha phase to see if they succeeded.

Table of Contents1

. General changes for the priest in Shadowlands2. The Shadow Priest in Shadowlands2.1. The new descent into madness3. The Holy Priest in Shadowlands3.1. New PvP talent steals abilities4. The Discipline Priest in Shadowlands4.1. No leniency

General changes for the Priest in Shadowlands

.

  • Diszi" and "Holy" get some shadow spells
  • Every playstyle gets Desperate Prayer and Soul of Power
  • Power Word: Soul Strength now only buffs five percent stamina (previously ten percent)

In Shadowlands, many classes gain access to some abilities from other specs. For the Priest, Shadow Word: Death, Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Pain, Soul of Power, and Mind Soothing return for all playstyles. The Shadow gets another damage cooldown with this, healers get the option to be a bit higher in the damage meter in return if they want. The highlight of this change is, of course, Soul of Power.

This spell allows you to cast not only on yourself, but also on others, increasing the target's speed by 25 percent for 20 seconds every two minutes. Coupled with other cooldowns like Shadow Spirit, this is a very strong damage cooldown or support ability that many damage classes in Shadowlands will adore you for as a healer.

The Shadow Priest in Shadowlands

  • Descent into Madness will be reworked again
  • Desperate Prayer , Soul of Power, and Shadow Word: Death become standard abilities
  • New talent Death and Madness

Not too much has been done to the Shadow in the alpha yet. There are signs in the game files that Void Lightning can now supposedly be cast during the duration of Mind Flay or that the channeling spell will not be canceled, but that is not the case yet. On the defensive side, Shadow Heal now restores more health, but also costs a bit more mana. Instead of four shadow heals, we can only cast three at a time.
WoW Shadowlands: Soul of Power for all! What awaits the priest (4) Source: buffed Much more significant is the implementation of Desperate Prayer for the Shadow, which grants you a second strong defensive cooldown in addition to Dispersion. The biggest change for the Shadow, however, is the return of Shadow Word: Death as a standard ability. Every 13 seconds, you can use it to deal some damage to an enemy and gain 15 points of insanity. If the target is not defeated by this, you will also be dealt the damage caused. Shadow Word: Death is replaced in the talent tree with the matching Death and Madness talent.

If a target dies within six seconds of using Shadow Word: Death, you gain 40 madness over the course of four seconds and the Shadow Word: Death cooldown is completed

.

In dungeons and boss fights with adds, this gives Promising Spirits some competition. The talent is likely to be deprecated, especially at the beginning of the expansion.

The new Descent

into Madness

After being far too strong at the beginning of Legion, Descent into Madness had to be toned down significantly as a result. Since then, Descent into Madness has not been touched by Shadow Priests. In Shadowlands, the developers are trying to make the damage cooldown that can punish the Shadow with death playable again. The tooltip on the alpha server reads as follows: You immediately gain 100 Madness and cast Void Eruption on the target. For the next 25 seconds, your abilities generate 100 percent more insanity and you can cast spells while moving.

If the target does not die within 25 seconds, you die (two minute cooldown). Instead of losing 90 percent of our health after the effect expires, if the target we targeted at the beginning of Descent into Madness doesn't die within the 25 seconds, our character will die. This is still risky, but it's a lot better than the effect in BfA

,

so you should only ever use the cooldown if you know the target is going to die, can't heal, and you're not in danger of being controlled by enemies during the runtime. However, we doubt whether Descent into Madness can stand up to Legacy of the Void and Dark Ascension in this series. Legacy of the Void has always been set in the past.

The Holy Priest in Shadowlands

WoW Shadowlands: Soul of Power for all! What awaits the priest (1) Source: buffed

  • Circle of Healing becomes a standard ability
  • New PvP talent steals spells
  • Small buff for beyond

Table of Contents1

. General changes for the priest in Shadowlands2. The Shadow Priest in Shadowlands2.1 The new Descent into Madness3. The Holy Priest in Shadowlands3.1. New PvP talent steals abilities4. The Discipline Priest in Shadowlands4.1. No IndulgenceThe Holy

Priest has a few small but nice updates awaiting him in Shadowlands. For example, the unpopular talent Beyond in BfA now also increases the range of your heals by 30 percent, and Holy Fire gets a casting time of 1.3 seconds, but also does more damage.

The

best change concerns

Circle of Healing, which will be

part of the standard "Holys" repertoire in the upcoming expansion. Since Circle of Healing needs to be followed by a talent in the 75 range, Circle of Prayer has been designed. Circle of Prayer causes the casting time of your Prayer of Healing spell to be reduced by 30 percent for eight seconds after using Circle of Healing. Along with Woge of Light and Binding Healing, Circle of Prayer is a very good choice for battles that require a lot of group healing in a short amount of time.

New PvP Talent Steals Abilities

Thanks to Great Healing, the Holy Priest is a blast to play, especially in the 2v2 arena, and in Shadowlands, Priests will find the Holy playstyle even more palatable for PvP. The new PvP talent Mind Steal lets you sneak into the mind of an enemy target and steal a spell. This spell cannot be used by your victim for 20 seconds. However, Mind Steal can only be used on humanoids with mana. If you do not find a spell, the cooldown of Mind Steal will be completed immediately and you will get another try.

The Discipline Priest in Shadowlands

  • Strong buff for Shadow Covenant
  • New talent replaces Forbearance

The Diszi gains more ways to support his party in damage with the damage spells of the Shadow playstyle. The Discipline playstyle even gets the area spell Mind Explosion to do some damage to larger groups.
WoW Shadowlands: Soul of Power for everyone! What awaits the priest (2) Source: buffed More group healing is provided by the revision of Shadow Covenant. The talent is currently only used in BfA when a lot of group damage is hitting the raid and the preacher combo is not enough. To make the spell more attractive, in addition to healing on five targets, it causes your damage done to increase by 25 percent for seven seconds after casting. However, you cannot cast heals during this period. Apology heals, however, still restore health to your teammates, which is the point of the damage buff.

This allows you to

get even higher healing spikes when you cast Abbitte in combination with Preacher, and your burst healing is no longer dependent on Shadow Spirit

.

However, with all the new damage spells that the Shadow playstyle has given you, you have to keep in mind that they don't trigger Abbitte healing.

No Ind

ulgence

Indulgence says goodbye to the last talent line

.

The passive skill was one of those no-brainer skills that you always used outside of the raid. From the developers' point of view, that wasn't satisfactory. To make the talent lineup a little more exciting, a new talent called Caress of Light is taking its place. With it, Power Word: Barrier gains an additional passive ability: once allies enter your protective bubble, they are healed by 1,000 health. If they are still in the area of effect when the dome expires, 1,000 health is restored again. This is a nice effect for dungeons, but in the raid, Preacher continues to come out on top.

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