Priest

Classes
Class races	Death Knight	Demon Hunter	Druid	Ev	Hunter	Mage	Monk	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior
Quests	Death Knight	Demon Hunter	Druid	Evuid	Hunter	Mage	Monk	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior
Abilities	Death Knight	Demon Hunter	Druid	Evuid	Hunter	Mage	Monk	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior
Trainers	Death Knight	Demon Hunter	Druid	-	Hunter	Mage	Monk	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior
Armor sets	Death Knight	Demon Hunter	Druid	Evuid	Hunter	Mage	Monk	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior
Useful macros	Death Knight	Demon Hunter	Druid	-	Hunter	Mage	Monk	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior
Class Halls	Death Knight	Demon Hunter	Druid	-	Hunter	Mage	Monk	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior

For the Warcraft III unit, see Priest (Warcraft III).

The priest is the master of healing and preservation, restoring his wounded allies, shielding them in battle and even resurrecting his fallen comrades from death. While he has a variety of protective and enhancement spells to bolster his allies, the priest can also wreak terrible vengeance on his enemies, using the grand powers of the Holy Light to smite and purge them or the devastating powers of the shadow to decimate their minds. The priest is a diverse and powerful class, highly desirable in any group and capable of fulfilling multiple roles.

The priest is perhaps the best healing class in the game with a surprisingly strong damage potential as well (should the player choose to enhance this aspect of the class). Their ability to heal and buff allies, avoid aggro, dispel buffs on enemies, dispel debuffs on their allies, and resurrect fallen comrades makes them an important member of any group, whether it's PvP or PvE. Due to this, priests are one of the most highly sought after classes for any group.

Background

Priests practice a complex, organized form of spirituality built around moral philosophy, the worship of a particular deity (such as Elune) in some cases, and/or idol worship, rather than around the reverence of the elements that shamans practice, or the close divine connection with animals and the wilderness that druids maintain. Priests serve not only as influential religious figures in their respective societies, but also as powerful practitioners of divine magic, which they use to heal and protect, or harm and weaken.

Devotion to the faiths of Azeroth leads many priests to the paths of courage and heroism. In dark times, priests carry the Light of faith with them as a reminder of the powerful forces at work beyond the comprehension of the peoples who walk the land. Powerful healers with an intimate connection to the divine, priests are empowered with abilities that aid them in times of dire need.^[1]

Priests comprise quite a varied group in Azeroth. A female priest is called a "priestess". Many are followers, in some manner, of the Holy Light. Some priests choose to be pyremasters or High Priest, while some of the most experienced become epic priests. There are also racial restrictions to some titles, such as witch doctor for trolls and Priestess of the Moon for night elf females.

History

VelenCardgameArt — Prophet Velen, a draenei priest.

The Clerics of Northshire were human priests who served the kingdom of Stormwind during the First War. The clerics served as healers on the battlefield, but were ill-prepared for the hazards of combat, and thus suffered heavy casualties. This order was largely destroyed, and the Second War saw fragile priests replaced on the battlefield by armored paladins, the Knights of the Silver Hand — established by the clerics' leader Archbishop Alonsus Faol and his apprentice Uther the Lightbringer.

During events of the Third War, despite the high elves' official departure from the Alliance, some elves still remained true to their former human and dwarven allies. The altruistic priests of Quel'Thalas refused to abandon their roles as healers and agreed to remain in Lordaeron despite the edicts from their reclusive masters in Silvermoon. The high elven priests used their Light-given powers to heal the wounded and bolster the spirits of Lordaeron’s fighting elite. A holy field medic, these padres roam the battlefield curing the wounds of fallen comrades.

Forsaken priests

Forsaken who once followed the tenets of the Holy Light altered their philosophy upon their transformation. Forsaken have abandoned religion, just as they believe it abandoned them. Lost and hurt, these priests founded a new religion based on a self-centered version of their former faith. Dubbed the Forgotten Shadow, this philosophy centers around self-empowerment and a desire to balance life with death. While they can no longer use the Holy Light, and have since learned how to use the shadow; the priests teach that there must be a balance between light and shadow, and members must learn the Light as well, but never forget they were born from the shadow.

Troll priests

The troll priesthoods are, much like the shamans and the witch doctors of the various troll tribes, spiritual advisers and caretakers. With trolls being naturally superstitious and spiritual, it allows the various troll priests to manipulate the spiritual energy of the world in order to either heal or harm their targets. The various energies that the troll priests draw can come from various sources, be it Loa spirits, voodoo magic or the target itself. Drawing upon these energies, the troll priests either mend or harm, depending on which blessing the spiritual entity bestows. Arguably, in World of Warcraft, troll priests can be considered witch doctors in a cultural perspective, in equal terms with the shamans.

Tauren priests

This article or section includes speculation, observations or opinions possibly supported by lore or by Blizzard officials. It should not be taken as representing official lore.

In Cataclysm, the Tauren will have the ability to become priests. It is possible that they use the light of the Sun in their spells, as opposed to the Holy Light. This is similar to how the Night Elves use the power of the Moon, their goddess Elune, instead of the Holy Light. Tahu Sagewind became a priest trainer for the tauren. It is possible that he founded the group of tauren priests due to his conversation with Aponi Brightmane before Cataclysm.

Gnome priests

This article or section includes speculation, observations or opinions possibly supported by lore or by Blizzard officials. It should not be taken as representing official lore.

With the announcement of the Cataclysm expansion, Gnome healers will finally become playable. Gnome priest NPCs (such as the Holdout Medic in Gnomeregan and the North Fleet Medic in Howling Fjord) have existed in Azeroth for some time, but the destruction brought on by Deathwing will most likely inspire many more Gnomes to turn to their allies and adopt devotion to The Light.

Notable priests

Main article: List of priests

Name	Role	Status	Location
Anduin Wrynn	Prince of Stormwind	Alive	Stormwind Keep,Stormwind City
Turalyon	High General of the Alliance Expedition	Missing in action	Unknown
Archbishop Benedictus	Leader of the Church of the Holy Light	Alive	Cathedral of Light, Stormwind City
Archbishop Alonsus Faol	Leader of the Church of Light	Deceased	Faol's Rest, Tirisfal Glades
Zabra Hexx	Priest	Alive	Unknown
Iridi	Priestess	Deceased	Buried in Outland
High Priestess Ishanah	Leader of the Aldor	Alive	Shrine of Unending Light, Shattrath City
Rastakhan	King of all living trolls on Azeroth	Alive	Zuldazar
Sen'jin	Former leader of the Darkspear tribe	Deceased	Unknown
Velen	Leader of the Draenei	Alive	Vault of Lights, The Exodar
Vol'jin	Leader of the Darkspear tribe	Alive	Valley of Wisdom, Orgrimmar
Tyrande Whisperwind	High priestess of Elune	Alive	Temple of the Moon, Darnassus

Overview

Abilities

Main article: Priest abilities

Healing: single target heals, group heals, heals over time, [Resurrection].
Holy magic: Power Words, buffs, dispels and cures, direct damage.
Shadow magic: Shadow Words, direct damage, damage over time, mana drains, aggro control, [Mind Control].
Miscellaneous: limited crowd control.

Stats, weapons, and armor

The most important stats for a priest are (depending on the chosen talents): intellect, spirit, stamina, spell haste and spell crit.
The priest can wield staffs, one-handed maces, wands, and daggers.
The priest can only wear cloth armor. For details on set items that are useful for priests, see priest sets and healing equipment.
- For end-game healing equipment go to BC healing equipment (cloth).
- For end-game DPS equipment go to BC Caster DPS cloth.
- For end-game healing equipment go to Wrath healing equipment (cloth).
- For end-game DPS equipment go to Wrath casting equipment (cloth).
Priest recommended enchantments

Races

Main article: Priest races

The priest class can be played by the following races:

	Strength	Agility	Stamina	Intellect	Spirit	Armor	Health	Mana
Draenei	21	17	20	22	25	34	52	160
Dwarf	25	16	21	21	22	32	62	145
Gnome	15	23	19	25	23	51	51	205
Human	20	20	20	22	23	40	52	160
Night elf	16	24	20	22	23	48	52	160
Worgen	23	22	20	18	22	46	52	128
Blood elf	17	22	20	25	21	44	52	205
Undead	19	18	20	20	28	38	52	130
Goblin	17	22	20	25	21	?	52	205
Tauren	25	15	22	17	25	35	72	127
Troll	21	22	20	18	24	44	52	128

Talents

Aelthalyste resides in the War Quarter of Undercity ready to train priests of all capabilities.

Main articles: Priest talents and Priest builds.

Discipline

The Discipline tree primarily focuses on damage mitigation through [Power Word: Shield], [Divine Aegis], and [Power Word: Barrier], with the mastery bonus improving these abilities. The priest receives [Penance] when choosing Discipline as their specialization, which is one of the most efficient single target heal spells in the game, with the bonus of being able to damage foes. The tree has strong cooldowns for emergency situations: [Pain Suppression] and [Power Infusion]. Discipline is the preferred spec for PvP, with the many absorption abilities giving the priest some "breathing room" when under attack. Discipline priests also have the unique ability to heal through the damaging spell [Smite], if the talents [Evangelism], [Archangel] and [Atonement] are chosen (a glyph to keep in mind when doing this is Divine Accuracy, as healing gear doesn't have any hit on it).

Holy

Holy priests are one the most versatile healers, with a variety of tools to sustain their group. In comparison to the Discipline priest, the Holy priest focuses almost exclusively on reactive healing rather than damage prevention, with their mastery giving healed targets a heal over time effect based on the initial heal. The priest receives [Holy Word: Chastise] when choosing Holy as their specialization. Holy priests have a strong and instant area of effect heal, [Circle of Healing], as well as bonuses to [Prayer of Healing] and [Renew]. [Guardian Spirit] is a very strong cooldown, being able to save someone from certain death. Chakra is what gives Holy priests their incredible versatility, enabling the priest to enter a specific healing state. [Revelations] morphs Holy Word: Chastise into a different spell to compliment the state the user is in. Holy priests can even heal from beyond the grave with [Spirit of Redemption] - for a limited time.

Shadow

Undeadpriest — A Forsaken priest in shadowform.

Shadow talents primarily enhance a priest's damage and gives the ability to enter [Shadowform], which makes the user purple and transparent. The priest receives [Mind Flay] when choosing Shadow as their specialization, a channeled spell that causes damage and slows the target to 50% of its movement speed. Shadow priests focus on using damage over time spells on their target, much like an Affliction warlock, and once the target is below 25% [Shadow Word: Death] functions like an execute. The mastery bonus causes gives you a chance to receive shadow orbs when dealing damage through [Shadow Word: Pain] or Mind Flay and they increase the damage caused by your next [Mind Blast] or [Mind Spike]. [Vampiric Embrace] heals the priest and his group for a percentage of damage done. Apart from this heal, the priest will give other useful buffs to the raid, with [Vampiric Touch] providing [Replenishment] and Shadowform giving raid members a 5% haste increase. Between [Dispersion] and [Shadowfiend], Shadow priests have very good mana throughput, with the former doubling as a defensive cooldown and the latter as an offensive one. The PvP talents in the Shadow tree, such as [Silence], [Paralysis], [Improved Psychic Scream] and [Psychic Horror] increase survivability and crowd control capability.

See also common leveling and end game priest builds.

Tactics

Main article: Priest tactics

Priests are generally regarded as a tough class to play in PvP, but they are highly desired in groups as the best healer in the game and as a great utility class. They are very dependent on how their talent points are spent. A priest that spends most of his talent points in the discipline tree will be better off in PvP, while holy and shadow priests are highly desired for instancing and raiding. While the discipline and holy talent trees focus on making very strong healers, the shadow tree focuses on damage dealing, while restoring the party's health and mana at the same time.

Many players regard healing priests as being the jack-of-all-trades healing class due to the great diversity of healing spells at their disposal. This includes direct healing, healing over time, area of effect healing, and the ability to shield targets from damage. Due to this great diversity, a healing priest can heal any encounter, while the other healing classes may find it more difficult.

Healing priest tactics generally involve conserving mana while deciding the ideal time to heal. The player must decide which spell to use and at what time. While [Flash Heal] and [Power Word: Shield] may be very mana intensive, they are excellent methods to bring someone close to death back up quickly. Many priests use a tactic known as stopcasting. In this method, the priest will constantly use Greater Heal; however, if in the 2.5-second cast time the target never takes sufficient damage, the priest will cancel the heal before it goes off and begin recasting.

The goal of a shadow priest is to keep a series of spells with unique cool-downs and durations going constantly. A shadow priest must cycle through several direct damage, channeled, and damage over time spells. A shadow priest is unique in that [Vampiric Embrace] restores health to the priest's entire party, which is based upon the damage the priest deals. They can also help restore mana to up to 10 party or raid members through [Replenishment], which they trigger by using [Vampiric Touch] in conjunction with [Mind Blast]. A shadow priest, if talented, will also increase the effectiveness of all spell casters attacking the same target as the priest. These abilities make the shadow priest a great utility class while in instances and in raids.

End-game expectations

Though many priests found themselves originally pigeonholed into a single role in classic World of Warcraft, many are experiencing greater freedom in a post-Burning Crusade raiding environment. Priests are capable of filling both healing and damage dealing roles, depending on the priest's spec and the need of the raid. This flexibility is further aided by the increased debuff cap making it easier to allow multiple shadow priests to contribute without being detrimental to a raid.

End game healing

Healing priests are valued by many as proficient and skilled healers, capable of utilizing a variety of heals and numerous buffs that benefit raiders such as [Power Word: Fortitude], [Divine Spirit], [Shadow Protection] and [Power Word: Shield]. These buffs can be further improved by spending points in the discipline tree for [Improved Power Word: Fortitude] and [Improved Power Word: Shield]. While sometimes considered by some to be mana inefficient when compared with other healing classes, the introduction of the [Shadowfiend] in the Burning Crusade allows a healing priest to regain a significant amount of mana used to continue healing while providing negligible damage against one target. The use of the talent [Lightwell] can allow raiders to regain health by accessing the conjured well, while [Spirit of Redemption] allows priests specced deep in the holy tree to continue casting healing spells on a raid for 15seconds beyond death with no expense to mana. When speaking of end-game priests at level 80 there are two types of priests to consider:

Deep holy specced priests
Deep discipline specced priests

For priests deeply specced in the discipline tree, their strength lies in preventing damage. They cannot put out as much raw healing as holy priests can, however the strategy for discipline priests is quite different; they prefer instead to strengthen allies and prevent damage from happening by shielding others. Discipline priests are capable of healing multiple targets, but in a large group their role will usually be to keep the main tank alive. Their tree focuses on protection using [Power Word: Shield] and [Flash Heal]. While healing priests do not possess the raid healing out put of a druid or the tank healing capabilities of a holy paladin priests are incredibly proficient at both of theses roles earning them the name "The jack of all trades master none".

While holy priests collect spirit and haste stats, many discipline priests focus on high spell critical as well as haste.

End-game damage dealing

The strength and versatility of a shadow-specced priest has been recognized as an invaluable asset in both five mans and raids. A shadow priest is capable of contributing significant damage as well as providing a variety of buffs and debuffs that benefit the group as a whole. A shadow priest's Misery is a debuff that increases the chance to hit the target by 1/2/3% and increases the damage of a shadow priest's Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Mind Sear spells by an amount equal to 5/10/15% of their spellpower. It should be noted, however, that a single shadow priest can easily keep the Misery debuff active and additional effects from other shadow priests will not stack on the same target. The [Vampiric Embrace] talent gives a portion of the shadow priest's single-target shadow damage as a group-wide heal that can aid in keeping the health of group members up; this can be especially helpful when grouped with a tank and warlocks who [Life Tap] frequently, as well as rogues and Feral druids performing melee damage.

Most importantly, [Vampiric Touch] benefits a caster or healer group by providing mana over the course of the fight. This is the primary reason to have a shadow priest in raids; to either provide the mana to healers during a healing-intensive fight, or to damage dealing casters in fights which focus on burst or constant area of effect damage, as well as to Paladin tanks who must use mana for their threat generating abilities.

These debuffs are an addition to the base priest [Power Word: Fortitude], [Shadow Protection], and [Power Word: Shield] buffs and can be improved by delving into the discipline tree for [Improved Power Word: Fortitude] and [Improved Power Word: Shield]. As a result, raiding builds exist that range from the full 61-point shadow build to hybrid builds with points in the discipline tree or even holy tree for greater versatility. In addition to providing significant damage and buffs, shadow priests have the flexibility to drop out of [Shadowform] and provide backup healing if the situation warrants, though they typically suffer from the lack of points spent in the holy tree and reduced bonus healing from damage-oriented gear.

On the other hand, some DPS priests will go more into discipline and put some in either shadow, or holy to increase their damage even more. A DPS priest with discipline and shadow doesn't have the damage potential of a shadow priest with most talents into shadow, however, they will receive the boost to their group buffs, have a threat reducing move for others, and also have the potential to heal slightly to assist the healer when necessary. A DPS priest with discipline and holy is much more versatile than one with shadow, the holy hybrid has a few key moves that can benefit him/herself and even make things a little easier (little in a rather small sense) for the healer. With the talents in holy, usually a priest will have the 5% additional chance to critically hit with holy spells from [Holy Specialization], after that it can vary, but another option would be to get [Spell Warding] to reduce spell damage taken. The best bet however is to put five in [Divine Fury] to reduce cast time of some of your offensive spells and then top that off with [Searing Light] later on down the tree, to increase overall damage. Finally the last talent to pick up should be [Desperate Prayer], because it is low-cost and is an instant heal, which goes good with [Mental Agility] in discipline to reduce the mana cost further. The discipline DPS class isn't for everyone and can take a long time to master, but it is a fun and challenging class to play and some will enjoy it more than others.

Cataclysm changes

General preview

Cataclysm Class Preview: Priest | 2010-04-08 06:57 | Zarhym

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you'll get an early look at some of the changes in store for the priest class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, as well as an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.

New Priest Spells

[Heal] (available at level 16): While priests already have a spell called Heal, the existing version becomes obsolete at higher levels, which is something we intend to change in Cataclysm. Introduced at a low level, the "new" Heal spell will functionally work much like a down-ranked [Greater Heal] did in the past, adding more granularity to your direct-healing arsenal. If you need to heal someone a moderate amount and efficiency is an issue (making [Flash Heal] the incorrect spell for the job), then Heal is what you want to use. Heal is intended to be the priest's go-to direct-healing spell unless they need something bigger (Greater Heal) or faster (Flash Heal). We will be following a similar philosophy with all the healing classes.

[Mind Spike] (level 81): Deals Shadowfrost damage and puts a debuff on the target that improves subsequent Mind Spike damage. The intent of Mind Spike is to fill a niche missing in Shadow DPS, though it may be occasionally useful for healers as well. Mind Spike provides a quick nuke to use in situations where the priest doesn't have time to set up the normal rotation, such as when adds are dying too fast or you have to swap targets a lot. Spamming Mind Spike will do about as much damage as casting [Mind Flay] on a target afflicted with [Shadow Word: Pain]. The idea behind the debuff is that when you cast Mind Spike, we expect you to cast a lot of them; we don't intend you to fit it into an already full Shadow rotation. It also provides Shadow with a spell to cast when locked out of the Shadow school. (School lockouts will no longer affect both schools for multi-school spells.) 1.5-second cast. 30-yard range. No cooldown.

[Inner Will] (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost of instant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with [Inner Fire], meaning you can't have both up at once. Inner Fire provides a spell power and Armor buff; Inner Will should be useful on a more situational basis.

[Leap of Faith] (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or "Life Grip") is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to introducing new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately. Hasted HoTs and DoTs will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks (meaning they will gain extra ticks to fill in the duration as appropriate).
We want to bring back [Shadow Word: Death] as an "execute" -- something you do when the target is at 25% health.
While we want to keep the priest's role as a well-rounded healer, we also want to make sure the class is a viable tank healer, which is something priests moved away from a little in Wrath of the Lich King. Greater Heal will probably be the tank-healing spell of choice, though we've also discussed giving Discipline a second shield so that they have a small shield to cast on lots of different targets, and a big, more expensive shield to cast on a tank or anyone else taking a ton of damage.
[Divine Spirit] and [Prayer of Spirit] will be removed from the game. As Spirit will be the primary mana-regeneration stat, we don't want it to vary as much between solo, small group, and raid play. [Blessing of Kings] and [Mark of the Wild] will not boost Spirit either.
Mana will be a bigger consideration for all healers. We aren't trying to make healing more painful; we're trying to make it more fun. When the cost of a spell isn't an issue, then casting the right spell for the job is less of an issue because you might as well just use your most powerful spell all of the time. We are, however, getting rid of the five-second rule, because we don't want to encourage standing around doing nothing. We're also going to cut back on the benefits of buffs such as Replenishment so priests (and all healers) don't feel as penalized when those buffs aren't available.

New Talents and Talent Changes

We want to improve Discipline's single-target healing capacity. One key is to make sure shielding isn't always a more attractive option than healing.
We want to improve Holy for PvP healing. One way to do this is to make sure that Heal's throughput is similar between both specs.
We want to improve Shadow for short fights and reduce its susceptibility to school lockouts.
Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.
We want to make Holy a little bit more interesting to play. One new talent will push the Holy priest into an improved healing state when he or she casts Prayer of Healing, Heal, or Renew three times in a row. The empowered state varies depending on the heals cast.
Since the Shadow tree has a lot of passive damage-boosting abilities -- something we're trying to avoid in Cataclysm -- we will need to replace several of the tree's talents. One idea is to play off of the new Shadow Orbs mechanic (see Mastery section below), possibly allowing you to consume an orb to increase damage from Mind Blast or reduce Mind Spike's cast time.
Misery will no longer affect spell Hit chance. We want players to be able to gear themselves around a Hit cap that isn't variable depending on group composition.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Discipline

Healing
Meditation
Absorption: Improves the strength of shields such as Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis, and Power Word: Barrier.

Holy

Healing
Meditation
Radiance: Your direct heals add a small heal-over-time component to the target.

Shadow

Spell damage
Spell Crit
Shadow Orbs: Casting spells grants a chance for Shadow Orbs to be created that fly around you and increase your shadow damage. This will help lower-level characters feel more like "Shadow priests" before they obtain Shadowform.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

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Clarifications

Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Priest | 2010-04-08 07:30 | Ghostcrawler

A few quick clarifications:

Neither [Inner Fire] nor [Inner Will] has charges. The decision is on which armor you want up at the time.

Preventing dot clipping is something we want to do in general. It obviously benefits Shadow priests just as much as warlocks.

The idea behind [Mind Spike] is that you can't always settle into your normal, and high-ramp up rotation. It's also useful when you have to move or get school locked.

The closest analogue to [PW:B] is the DK [Anti-Magic Zone], but it has some important differences, such as a way to counter it in PvP (since it absorbs all damage, not just magical damage).

The idea behind the Holy "cast three in a row" talent (it's called "Chakra") is that we've always positioned Holy as a versatile healer. This talent lets you shift into different modes. If you need to be a tank healer, cast three single target heals and your single-target healing is now better. Cast three area heals, and you can be a temporarily specialized group healer. We're going to try to play this mechanic up with a cool UI to try to get that "I'm almost in the zone" feel. We'll let it apply to as many types of spells as we can, perhaps even Smite for those times when nobody's taking damage.

We pulled Misery because we are pulling every group benefit that improves hit. It's annoying to have to swap your gear in and out depending on who shows up for your group. In general we're going to push even harder in Cataclysm for bringing people you like to play with, not bringing people who have awesome buffs. The answer to almost every question of "But why would they bring me?" should be "Because you know what the hell you're doing."

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Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Priest | 2010-04-08 19:03 | Zarhym

A few points of clarification:

We've seen some confusion about Mind Spike. The intention is that you can’t always get your full DoTs up on a target in time before it’s dead. Shadow priests sometimes aren’t sure what to do on, for example, a fight where a boss suddenly spawns an add that you’re supposed to quickly burn down and then go back to the main boss. Mind Spike is what you do to that add. As a rule of thumb, if it’s going to die in under 15 seconds, then go with Mind Spike. Otherwise get your DoTs up and go into your longer rotation.
The movement speed from Inner Will stacks with the boot speed bonus. It won’t stack with some movement buffs like say Body and Soul.
We know a lot of people are looking for answers about Lightwell. We're reviewing the talent and spell functionality, but do not have any details to share as of yet regarding its future.

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