WoW: Forever
Priest
Priest is the archetypal healer and always wanted for groups. The biggest change in Forever is that Mind Flay is now a talent rather than a trained spell, gated on 10 points in the Shadow tree — so in practice a Holy or Discipline Priest does not have it.
Which spec?
| Spec | Role | Levelling | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discipline | Healer | Weak — rated 2.5/5 | Mana efficiency and prevention rather than repair |
| Holy | Healer | Weakest — rated 2.0/5 | The strongest raw healing, and the slowest solo experience |
| Shadow | Ranged DPS | The only real choice | Mind Flay, and it is now talent-only |
Level Shadow, then respec to heal. The published levelling ratings are blunt: Discipline 2.5 out of 5, Holy 2.0. There is a hard mechanical reason behind it — Mind Flay is no longer a trained spell in Forever. It is a talent, gated behind 10 points in the Shadow tree, so no published Holy or Discipline build reaches it at all. A Priest without Mind Flay has Smite and a wand.
This is not a permanent commitment. Respeccing to Holy or Discipline once you want to heal dungeons is the normal path.
Is Priest for you?
Play Priest if you want to be the person keeping everyone alive, and you are happy watching health bars rather than the fight.
Levelling milestones
| Level | What you get |
|---|---|
| 1 | Smite, Lesser Heal, Power Word: Fortitude — now 1 hour. Wand and mace skill are default |
| 4 | Shadow Word: Pain |
| 6 | Power Word: Shield, and the 15-second Weakened Soul lockout |
| 8 | Renew, Fade |
| 10 | Mind Blast, first talent point, first racial Priest spell |
| 12 | Inner Fire |
| 14 | Psychic Scream |
| 16 | Heal |
| 20 | Holy Fire, Flash Heal, Fear Ward is now baseline for every race (though cut from 10 minutes to 3), Devouring Plague is now available to every race, second racial spell |
| 30 | Divine Spirit is now trained (was a talent), Prayer of Healing — now 40 yards and heals the target's party |
| 32 | Shadow Word: Death, new — with 10% max-health backlash if it does not kill |
| 40 | Greater Heal, Lightwell is now trained (it was the Holy capstone), mount |
| 48–60 | Prayer of Fortitude, Shadow Protection and Spirit all become raid-wide |
The change that matters most: Mind Flay is no longer a trainer spell. It comes with the talent point and nothing else teaches it, so a Holy or Discipline Priest never gets Mind Flay in Forever.
Which race
Kill the vanilla answer first: you used to pick Dwarf for Fear Ward, and Fear Ward is now baseline for everyone. That reason is gone.
Alliance — Gnome, a brand-new Priest combination, for Contingency Plan and Confounding Flash — an area confuse on up to five enemies, which is the best panic button any Priest race has. Dwarf is the stronger pure leveller, though: Desperate Prayer at level 10 is a full instant self-heal nothing else on Alliance has that early, and Mace Specialization is the only weapon-crit racial a Priest can actually use — Human's larger sword racial is dead weight on a class that cannot equip swords.
Horde — Undead, for Cannibalize and Touch of the Grave. One correction worth carrying: Dark Sacrifice is on a ten-minute cooldown, so it is an emergency mana button, not a repeatable trade.
Skyborne cannot be a Priest.
Quality of life
- The wand is the levelling mechanic. Wand skill is default, so a wand works the moment you loot one, and
Wand Specializationis now two points instead of five. Get one early. - Re-drag your action bars, or use macros. Before level 20 nearly every even level brings a new rank of Smite, Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Pain or Power Word: Shield, and bars do not update themselves. A
/cast Spell Namemacro always fires the highest rank you know. - Tailoring and Enchanting, and note the good Forever crafted pieces are bind-on-pickup, so you can only make them for yourself.
What changed from Classic
| Change | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Mind Flay is talent-only | Holy and Discipline never get it |
| Fear Ward baseline for all races | But cut from 10 minutes to 3 |
| Devouring Plague available to all races | It was Undead-only |
| Divine Spirit and Lightwell now trained | Both were talents |
Wand Specialization is 2 ranks, not 5 | Same bonus for three fewer points |
Meditation returns up to 50% regen while casting | Was 15%. Spirit is a far better stat now |
| Shadow Word: Death added at 32 | With health backlash if it fails to kill |
| Desperate Prayer is Dwarf-only now | A Human Priest loses the self-heal it had in Classic |
At level 60
Unknown. No source publishes a Priest build past 30, and much of the detailed Priest material circulating comes from a pre-beta demo build that nobody has re-verified. Raids open 9 December.