Priest and Warrior class deep dives detail new baselines

Priests and Warriors come next in Blizzard’s class deep dives. Every Priest can now learn Fear Ward and Devouring Plague at level 20, whatever their race, and Divine Spirit is baseline at 30. Shadow Word: Death is new to the class at level 32, an instant Shadow attack that costs the Priest 10% of their maximum health when the target survives. Every race’s pair of Priest racials was reviewed, and Gnome Priests get two new ones, Confounding Flash and Contingency Plan.

New gold medal talents fill out the trees. Discipline gets Soul Warding at 16 points and Penance at 21, Holy gets Binding Heal at 16 and Prayer of Mending at 31, and Shadow’s Vampiric Embrace moves into the 16-point slot.

For Warriors, Rage from damage taken now ignores Armor and absorbs such as Power Word: Shield, and Rage from damage dealt is fully normalized to weapon speed. Tactical Mastery becomes baseline at level 14, keeping 10 Rage through a stance change. Victory Rush arrives at level 20, an instant attack that heals for 10% of maximum health, open for 20 seconds after each non-trivial kill. Blizzard is still chasing reported Rage bugs, which may take a couple of weeks.

Why it matters: any Priest race can now take Fear Ward and Devouring Plague, and a Warrior’s Rage no longer shrinks as their Armor improves.