Priest

• Crit. Spell crit and melee crit are one stat. Damage and heals over time can both crit, reversing vanilla. ShadowformShadowformShadow Magic · Max rank 1 · Changed from Classic345 Mana | Instant | 1.5 sec cooldownAssume Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 10%, reducing the Mana cost of all Shadow spells by 50%, increasing the critical strike damage bonus of your Shadow spells by 100%, and reducing Physical damage taken by you by 15%. However, you may not cast healing spells while in this form.Requires 30 points in Shadow Magic · Requires points in Vampiric EmbraceAll ranks read from demo footage. pushes crits to 200% of base instead of 150%. Nobody is sure yet what procs off a damage-over-time crit. Confirmed
• Snapshotting is out. DoTs update dynamically with current buffs and debuffs. The warlock Discord reached the same conclusion, and a gnome tester watched Eureka!‘s damage buff apply only to ticks landing while the buff was up. Confirmed
• Haste exists, mostly through racials rather than clearly on gear, and it currently does nothing for channeled spells, damage-over-time tick speed or the global cooldown. Consensus
• Mana fills smoothly instead of on two-second server ticks, the way it does in retail, so drink-walking is gone. The five-second rule still applies. Confirmed
• Raid buffs shrank. Shadow WeavingShadow WeavingShadow Magic · Max rank 3 · Changed from ClassicYour Shadow damage spells have a 33% chance to increase the Shadow damage you deal by 2% for 15 sec, stacking up to 5 times.Requires 15 points in Shadow MagicMax rank not read from footage; showing rank 1 text., Improved Shadow Bolt and Ignite all read as personal buffs now, the mage fire vulnerability debuff is gone, and Sanctity Aura was cut from the game entirely. There is no buff or debuff limit any more. Consensus
• Area damage was nerfed across the board. Consecration and Blizzard were cut hard, Blizzard talked about a 4 mob area limit in the paladin deep dive, tank area threat is down, and the stated goal is that crowd control matters instead of pulling everything. Blizzard said
• Leveling. Downranking survives, with a show-all-ranks toggle behind the arrow in the top right of the spellbook. Reagents are gone, so no more 80 candles in your bags. Dungeon quest experience is up a lot and dungeon mob experience is down a lot, so running each dungeon once is the plan and spam is not. Blizzard puts average kill time per mob at 15 seconds. Blizzard said
• Structure. Launch is November 4 with three editions at $29.99, $59.99 and $79.99, and the expansion is covered by the base subscription. Raids are one 10-man, one 20-man and one 40-man with no player-count scaling, 13 bosses in the 20 and 8 in the 10, on a pre-Molten Core timeline unlocking about a month after release. World buffs exist but do not work inside raids. Dual spec is in but not from level 1. There are no arenas and no rated PvP at launch. Consensus
• Progression. The Legacy system gives out-of-combat benefits only: earlier talent points, cheaper repairs, extra profession crafts. Blizzard says gear keeps progressing, with tier 2 carrying more stats than tier 1, but slowly, and each raid holds low drop-rate chase items so old raids stay worth returning to. Transmog is locked to your armor type. Blizzard said

Fear Ward and Devouring Plague are baseline for everyone now, and Fear Ward is the TBC version with its duration and cooldown both at 3 minutes, so you can no longer precast it and reapply the moment it is eaten. Wowhead still shows the old tooltip. A racials reference lists the rest, and there is a video going through every priest racial that leans Undead for Discipline and Holy and Troll for Shadow, though the channel has since talked itself out of Troll.

• Gnome. Confounding Flash is an 8 yard area disorient for 3 seconds, centred on you like Fear, and people expect it to share diminishing returns with Scatter Shot. Contingency Plan is the WotLK Guardian Spirit without the healing increase: 10 seconds of protection that heals instead of letting a killing blow land, on a long cooldown and easy to waste. Eureka! cuts the cost of your next 3 spells and adds 10% damage or healing; the datamine trimmed the mana half and left the damage alone. Escape Artist is instant and off the global cooldown, and the meld is the in-combat WotLK version. “Gnome is by far the strongest priest race” is the channel’s line, though one estimate puts the 10% damage at 2 to 5 DPS, so the value is in the mana. Consensus
• Undead. Cannibalize works in combat on a 2 minute cooldown for 35% health and mana. Dark Sacrifice trades health for mana on a 10 minute cooldown, datamined at 1,640 for 1,640, which is a Dark Rune you always have. Touch of the Grave is reported at a 10% proc for casters with a 1 second internal cooldown and a cap somewhere around 250, and beta testers say it does not seem to proc in PvE at all. Will of the Forsaken removes charm, fear and sleep with no immunity window. Consensus
• Night Elf. Starshards is a 6 second channel on a 30 second cooldown for no mana, with roughly double Mind FlayMind FlayShadow Magic · Max rank 1 · Changed from Classic45 Mana | 20 yd range | ChanneledAssault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 104 Shadow damage over 3 sec and slowing their movement speed by 50%.Requires 10 points in Shadow MagicAll ranks read from demo footage.’s base damage. It is Arcane, so shadow modifiers do nothing for it and a shadow lockout does not stop it, and its backloaded damage makes it poor in PvP. Testers found in-combat Shadowmeld works like a second Fade that drops threat and costs no mana. Elune’s Grace gives 50% dodge against melee and ranged, capped at 3 hits. Night Elves also run 2% faster and carry 2% crit. Confirmed
• Human. Divine Grace removes Weakened Soul from a target and heals them on a 10 minute cooldown, which the channel reads as an immediate second shield on one player, and it reportedly cannot be used on yourself. The tooltip heal was seen around 1,200 to 1,500 at higher level, a weaker Lay on Hands. Feedback is unchanged from vanilla and still has a cooldown. Priests cannot use swords, so the weapon skill racial does nothing at all. Consensus
• Dwarf. Chastise on a 2 minute cooldown with a 2 second root, and Desperate Prayer on 10 minutes. Mace Specialization is 1% crit, not 2%. One person’s math puts that slightly ahead of Night Elf’s activated crit racial on paper, while preferring Night Elf anyway because an on-use stacks with trinkets. Consensus
• Troll. Hex of Weakness and Shadowguard, with the new racial being a channel that restores 50% of health over 6 seconds and breaks on any damage. Hex of Weakness went from flat damage reduction to attack power reduction and is thought to match Demoralizing Shout exactly, which would let a priest supply that debuff for a paladin-tank group. Berserking is a flat 10% haste with no health scaling. Consensus

• New tailoring patterns give a low-level set worth 58 shadow spell damage by level 25, with Stamina and Intellect but no Spirit, and it wants a lot of Shadowgems. Tailors get extra cloth per drop, and roughly 600 new trade skill recipes went in. Consensus
• Cloth with holy damage on it is in the tailoring lists, which several people take as Blizzard signalling that Smite is meant to work. In vanilla the only holy damage cloth piece was Nature’s Embrace. Consensus
• A priest can learn Enchanting at level 1 and craft a wand from two vendor mats at 10 copper each plus a Runed Copper Rod for 1s18c. It hits for 4 to 8 and crits for about 11. The level 5 wand carries healing and damage and is around 11.2 DPS. Those two crafted wands and the Blackfathom Deeps wand outrun their level requirements badly and can carry you to about 30. Confirmed
• Wand SpecializationWand SpecializationDiscipline · Max rank 2 · Changed from ClassicIncreases your damage with Wands by 13%.Max rank not read from footage; showing rank 1 text. costs 2 points now. The expectation is that it falls off somewhere around 20 to 30 once weapon spell power arrives, rather than carrying the whole climb. Blizzard’s deep dive also mentioned more quest reward wands, including a master hunter wand off the Nesingwary line. One person
• A level 30 quest green in Stranglethorn shows 30 spell damage in the demo where the live version has none, and a one-hander from the Stranglethorn dungeon was reported around 36. On that curve one person expects 80 spell power by level 35 and 120 to 150 shadow damage with gear, which would push Shadow Word: Pain past 500 damage per cast. One person
• Priests get no themed dungeon set until Scholomance. Blizzard is hiding endgame item stats on purpose and has said several times it will plant misleading data to confuse datamining, so raid itemization is genuinely unknown. Blizzard said
• Datamined priest tier bonuses so far: mana back when you cast a healing spell that differs from your last one, 15% more Smite and PenancePenanceDiscipline · Max rank 1 · New in Forever100 Mana | Enemy: 36 yd range / Friendly: 40 yd range | Channeled | 12 sec cooldownLaunches a volley of holy light at the target, causing 96 Holy damage to an enemy, or 233 healing to an ally. Instantly and every 1 sec for 2 sec.Requires 20 points in DisciplineAll ranks read from demo footage. damage on a Holy Fire target, a second off Prayer of MendingPrayer of MendingHoly · Max rank 1 · New in Forever210 Mana | 40 yd range | Instant | 10 sec cooldownPlaces a spell on the target that heals them for 247 the next time they take damage or receive non-periodic healing. When the heal occurs, Prayer of Mending jumps to a party or raid member within 20 yards. Jumps up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec after each jump. This spell can only be placed on one target at a time per caster.Requires 30 points in Holy · Requires points in Spirit of RedemptionAll ranks read from demo footage. and PenancePenanceDiscipline · Max rank 1 · New in Forever100 Mana | Enemy: 36 yd range / Friendly: 40 yd range | Channeled | 12 sec cooldownLaunches a volley of holy light at the target, causing 96 Holy damage to an enemy, or 233 healing to an ally. Instantly and every 1 sec for 2 sec.Requires 20 points in DisciplineAll ranks read from demo footage., and a 5 piece that removes Devouring Plague’s cooldown. The set models are out too. One person
• The beta datamine lives at daybreakforever, checked against Classic Era, TBC Anniversary and Mists Classic. A video walking every priest talent is the best single overview of the trees. One person

• Beta realms are in the central United States only, so European players sit at 100 to 200 ms and Oceanic players around 200. Sharding is off. The PvP realm is faction locked at character creation, and one person could not make a Horde character because of faction balance. Confirmed
• Launch day was rough: the queue dropped people at the top of the line, and several testers reached only level 5 to 10 in hours. One tester found that relogging once you are 400 to 500 yards from a capital city clears the lag, which comes back when you walk into a big city. Confirmed
• Launch the client from the executable in the Classic beta directory. One person could not get the account selector to list their Forever-enabled account even after editing the config file. Confirmed
• The interface is built on the retail client and there is no official WeakAuras support. Ordinary addon functions like a buff reminder should still work; what breaks is encounter-specific automation, and the new API removes debuff whitelisting, which makes healing addons worse. The DBM developer’s video covers what is and is not allowed. Consensus
• The Classic team opened a public GitHub repository for Forever bug reports and asked that feedback go to the official forums instead. Blizzard said
• Small things: /cast !shoot no longer works, characters have two names and you can hide the second, and Berserking shows the wrong tooltip on the character selection screen. Confirmed

• Shadow WeavingShadow WeavingShadow Magic · Max rank 3 · Changed from ClassicYour Shadow damage spells have a 33% chance to increase the Shadow damage you deal by 2% for 15 sec, stacking up to 5 times.Requires 15 points in Shadow MagicMax rank not read from footage; showing rank 1 text.. The beta talent tooltip says your own spells; the Wowhead spell data still reads as a target debuff. If it stays a debuff, DoTs pick up the stacks as they go and there is no reason to pre-stack before applying them.
• Haste. Current sentiment is that it does nothing for DoTs, Mind FlayMind FlayShadow Magic · Max rank 1 · Changed from Classic45 Mana | 20 yd range | ChanneledAssault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 104 Shadow damage over 3 sec and slowing their movement speed by 50%.Requires 10 points in Shadow MagicAll ranks read from demo footage. or the global cooldown, and one report has Mind FlayMind FlayShadow Magic · Max rank 1 · Changed from Classic45 Mana | 20 yd range | ChanneledAssault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 104 Shadow damage over 3 sec and slowing their movement speed by 50%.Requires 10 points in Shadow MagicAll ranks read from demo footage. tested with Berserking and not scaling. Haste is definitely in the game, mostly through racials, and nobody is sure it appears on gear at all.
• Twin DisciplinesTwin DisciplinesDiscipline · Max rank 5 · New in ForeverIncreases the damage and healing of your instant cast spells by 1%.Max rank not read from footage; showing rank 1 text.. Channeled spells normally count as casts, which would exclude PenancePenanceDiscipline · Max rank 1 · New in Forever100 Mana | Enemy: 36 yd range / Friendly: 40 yd range | Channeled | 12 sec cooldownLaunches a volley of holy light at the target, causing 96 Holy damage to an enemy, or 233 healing to an ally. Instantly and every 1 sec for 2 sec.Requires 20 points in DisciplineAll ranks read from demo footage. and Mind FlayMind FlayShadow Magic · Max rank 1 · Changed from Classic45 Mana | 20 yd range | ChanneledAssault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 104 Shadow damage over 3 sec and slowing their movement speed by 50%.Requires 10 points in Shadow MagicAll ranks read from demo footage., except the Wrath version of the talent listed both as modified. Nobody has a beta dummy to measure a 5% difference on.
• Fear Ward and ShadowformShadowformShadow Magic · Max rank 1 · Changed from Classic345 Mana | Instant | 1.5 sec cooldownAssume Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 10%, reducing the Mana cost of all Shadow spells by 50%, increasing the critical strike damage bonus of your Shadow spells by 100%, and reducing Physical damage taken by you by 15%. However, you may not cast healing spells while in this form.Requires 30 points in Shadow Magic · Requires points in Vampiric EmbraceAll ranks read from demo footage.. The demo drops you out of form on Fear Ward even though the new tooltip only blocks healing spells. Fear Ward is the TBC version but kept the Classic holy spellbook category, which may be the whole explanation. The ShadowformShadowformShadow Magic · Max rank 1 · Changed from Classic345 Mana | Instant | 1.5 sec cooldownAssume Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 10%, reducing the Mana cost of all Shadow spells by 50%, increasing the critical strike damage bonus of your Shadow spells by 100%, and reducing Physical damage taken by you by 15%. However, you may not cast healing spells while in this form.Requires 30 points in Shadow Magic · Requires points in Vampiric EmbraceAll ranks read from demo footage. script runs server-side, so settling it needs a level 40 character.
• MeditationMeditationDiscipline · Max rank 3 · Changed from ClassicAllows 17% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.Requires 10 points in DisciplineMax rank not read from footage; showing rank 1 text.. The tree read 50% while casting, a datamined tooltip screenshot suggests the priest number is lower than the 50% other classes get, and one person says 33%.
• Touch of the Grave. Beta testers say it does not proc in PvE, while some hunters report it working in PvP. Its cap, internal cooldown and whether it scales with spell power are all unknown. On retail it has no internal cooldown but a procs-per-minute formula that makes back-to-back procs unlikely.
• Spirit TapSpirit TapShadow Magic · Max rank 5 · Changed from ClassicGives you a 20% chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit for 15 sec after killing a non-trivial target. For the duration, your Mana will regenerate at a 50% of normal rate while casting.Max rank not read from footage; showing rank 1 text.. It picked up a trivial-target modifier, which casts doubt on whether it still carries leveling. Vampiric EmbraceVampiric EmbraceShadow Magic · Max rank 1 · Changed from Classic40 Mana | 30 yd range | Instant | 1 min cooldownAfflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 20% of any Shadow spell damage you deal for 30 sec. Vampiric Embrace also grants a chance for your Spirit Tap talent to trigger when enemies afflicted by it die.Requires 15 points in Shadow MagicAll ranks read from demo footage. can proc it, possibly at the same chance as your rank in the talent.
• Level 60 forever. There is no level cap increase announced, so how priests gain anything new over time is open. One person guesses tier sets granting abilities as a way to change playstyle without raising damage.