At first glance, The War Within has changed every class and specialization beyond recognition. However, this is not quite true. The talent trees, that were revamped previously, are still in use, and tier set bonuses still work as they used to. But some aspects of Priests are different now. Let’s take a closer look at the new “old” class in our The War Within Priest Guide. And if you want to improve your Priest gameplay, read our TWW Best Addons Guide.
The War Within Priest Overview
From time immemorial, a Priest could devote himself to the powers of Light as a Holy Priest, to Darkness as a Shadow Priest, or use both of these powers without swearing to any of them – Discipline. It was rare to see a Shadow Priest cast Holy spells or a Holy Priest cast Shadow spells (with rare exceptions). But you could and still can see, how Discipline spec converts damage into healing. Impressive, right?
In The War Within expansion, Priest has two parallel development trees: the general tree for the class (which includes spells from all schools inherent in the Priest) and the chosen specialization. In addition to that, a new Hero Talent Tree was added, so the game seems to be more and more exciting.
Priest Strengths and Weaknesses
Priests are pretty cool, but everyone has their stronger and weaker sides. Let’s outline what strengths and weaknesses can be found in each Priests’ spec.
| Holy | Shadow | Discipline | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strengths | ✅ Best reactive and group healing; ✅ Group utility with Dispel Magic, Mass Dispel, Mind Soothe, Power Infusion; ✅ Сan now resurrects in battle with Restitution talent. | ✅ Huge cleave damage; ✅ Power Infusion that you can share with talent; ✅ Amazing self-healing; ✅ High damage from DoTs. | ✅ Indispensable healer in the raid with Power Word: Barrier and ✅ Atonement; ✅ Huge damage for the healer; ✅ Interesting playstyle. |
| Weaknesses | ⛔️ Low AoE damage; ⛔️ Poor survival; ⛔️ No interrupt. | ⛔️ Poor survival; ⛔️ Hard DoT management (but new Shadow Crash can fix it); ⛔️ Need to plan out movement specifically. | ⛔️ Poor survival; ⛔️ Poor mobility options; ⛔️ Hard to master, easy to make a mistake. |
The War Within Priest Changes
There are several changes to consider when playing Priest in The War Within PvE Environments. The changes affected shared class talent balance, damage tuning, and implementation of the new Hero Spec talent trees. Mindgames was moved to the PvP section, and the related talents were removed. New Phantom Reach was added, Divine Hymn and Power Word: Life buffed.
Speaking of changes, we should also mention Warbands — the newest feature, which allows more interactions and management for you and your alts. Unlock the Warband Bank with our team, which knows how to do it fast, and start exploring the convenient system of resource distribution.
The War Within Priest Abilities
Priests’ abilities and talents are the source of ultimate power and massive DPS. While playing TWW Priest, you’ll utilize both class talent tree and spec talents potential, for example:
- Shadowfiend — summoner spell to call for a Shadowy Fiend, attacking your target for 15 sec;
- Dispel Magic — one of the best dispelling abilities in-game;
- Mass Dispel — and this one is truly the best ability in-game, allowing to dispel magic and remove all harmful effects from friendly targets;
- Phantom Reach — increases your spell range by 15%, pretty useful to avoid standing too close to the bosses or moving between farming camps.
Now, even more options via Hero Talents are available. Though they are mostly passive, they still enhance some of the baseline talents.
The War Within Priest Rotation
There will be no major rotation changes for the Holy Priest, as the encore legendary power of Lightweaver remains with us. And the Voice of Harmony talent became an alternative to the set bonus.
Shadow always wants to maintain his DoT effects on as many opponents as possible. With the Shadow Crash choice node, this is much easier and faster to do, however, now you should plan your timings better.
For Disco Priest, Light’s Wrath is back and with it the ability to reactively compensate for high group damage. The core mechanics remain the same: you must maintain Atonement with Renew, Flash Heal, and Power Word: Shield and deal damage that converts into healing.
The War Within Priest Leveling
For effective leveling, the best spec would be Shadow. This is the only DPS specialization a Priest has, and it’s much more convenient to have damaging abilities and kill mobs. You can choose to level in dungeons or complete Legion and Draenor quests to level up effectively.
However, low mobility of the class, low save abilities in DPS spec, and the inability to avoid a fight if it has already started, it is quite difficult for a Priest to level in an open world. If you do not want to waste time on this routine, you can always use our Power Leveling.
Yet, if you still want to do it by yourself, you can check our The War Within Leveling Guide.
The War Within Priest BiS Items
In WoW The War Within, Reshii Wraps provides Priests with a nicely balanced blend of intelligence and survival, not typically on cloaks. Both Holy and Shadow benefit from the flowing stat distribution, and Discipline Priests can utilize its regen bonus on long fights. It’s a change that’s a must-have for any serious healer or caster. Check out our complete Reshii Wraps guide here.
Best Priest Cartel Chip Items
In fact, the Turbo Boost event is another source of the best gear for Priests. Here’s a list of the best Priest Cartel Chip purchases:
| Spec | Best Cartel Chip Purchases |
|---|---|
| Discipline Priest | |
| Holy Priest | |
| Shadow Priest |
The War Within Priest Stats
Here’s the list of all important Priest stats which can help you to make your performances much shinier:
- Intellect — increases Spell Power;
- Haste — reduces Global Cooldown, increases the number of spells you can cast at the unit of time;
- Critical Strike — increases the chance to deal additional damage;
- Versatility — decreases damage taken, increases damage dealt;
- Mastery — increases the effectiveness of healing and absorption spells.
| Holy | Shadow | Discipline |
|---|---|---|
| Intellect; Mastery; Critical Strike; Versatility; Haste. | Intellect; Haste; Mastery; Critical Strike; Versatility. | Intellect ; Haste; Critical Strike; Versatility; Mastery. |
The War Within Priest Consumables
The best way to empower your character in the endgame is to use consumables. Flasks, flasks, and potions can buff you up, and you’ll notice an increase in performance right away.
Priest Flasks in The War Within
Priest Combat Potions in The War Within
Priest Health Potions in The War Within
Priest Weapon Buff in The War Within
Best Priest Food in The War Within
Best Priest Gems in The War Within
Priest Best Enchants in The War Within
The War Within Priest Best Race
In The War Within, all races can be Priests, however, each faction has several races that are most advantageous. Let’s see, which choice will be the most beneficial.
Horde
Playing for Horde, you can choose Troll, as this race brings some sweet buffs:
- Berserking — your own mini BL;
- Regeneration— sometimes even 1 extra HP can save a life.
The second option is Goblin with its Rocket Jump to compensate for poor mobility.
Alliance
The best races for the Alliance players are not obvious. Among them, Void Elves, bringing the following racials:
- Preternatural Calm — what could be better when you are not prevented from casting a spell;
- Entropic Embrace — additional 5% to your damage and healing.
Then, you can choose Dark Iron Dwarves, as they have Fireblood — one of the best racial abilities in the game, which removes poisons, disease, curses, and so on.
The third option is the Mechagnome race. They also have some powerful abilities:
- Combat Analysis — increase your primary stat by 50, stacking up to 8 times;
- Rearm — a little cheat death.
But we want to draw your attention to the fact that these races are allied, and you need to complete specific questlines and overcome a few challenges in order to benefit from your race choice. If you want to enjoy the race but don’t want to spend your spare time unlocking them, ask our pro team for Allied Race Unlock, and we’ll do it for you.
The War Within Priest PvP
Priest can be a good class for players who enjoy PvP. The strongest traits of Priests are their powerful defensive and damage mitigation capabilities, including personal defenses.
If playing a Discipline spec, you can provide your party with excellent additional damage and healing. Also, Priests are insanely useful when dispels are needed due to their Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel abilities.
Playing PvP usually implies aiming to get the highest reward and rank. This is really time-consuming and requires a lot of training. If you want to achieve the Gladiator Title, but you are not sure that you are capable of this, our team of professional PvP players is ready to help.
The War Within Priest Best Professions
Professions in The War Within have been reworked and are now an important aspect of your character’s power. We talked more about professions in our The War Within Professions guide.
Tailoring, Engineering, and Jewelcrafting are the most suitable profs for a Priest:
- Tailoring — you will be able to craft cloth armor up to Mythic raid item levels or bags for selling on AH;
- Engineering — grants access to battle res, invisibility, and jet packs which will improve your mobility;
- Jewelcrafting — will allow you to earn gold, as well as make the best unique gems in the game.
The War Within Priest Macros
Using macros while playing Priest is a very good idea. It allows you to execute complex actions with a single keypress. Macros also help to manage abilities, pets, and items more effectively, so your Priest will be the best in the group in any situation.
Priest Macros
- Angelic Feather Macro. This macro always casts Angelic Feather at your feet.
#showtooltip
/cast [@player] Angelic Feather - Angelic Feather + Body and Soul Macro. This macro combines Angelic Feather and Power Word: Shield, using Shift to cast Angelic Feather on yourself.
#showtooltip
/cast [known:121536,mod:shift,@player] Angelic Feather; Power Word: Shield - Angelic Feather Sequence Macro. This macro cycles through Power Word: Shield and Angelic Feather, starting with Power Word: Shield.
#showtooltip
/castsequence [known:121536,@mouseover,help,nodead][known:121536,@player] reset=6 Power Word: Shield, Angelic Feather, Angelic Feather, Angelic Feather; Power Word: Shield - Power Infusion Macro. Cast Power Infusion on a specific player or yourself if the player is out of range.
#showtooltip
/cast [@INSERTPLAYERNAMEHERE,help,nodead][] Power Infusion
/cast [@player] Power Infusion - All-in-One Dispel Macro. Handles all dispel needs across Priest specs with Alt for Mass Dispel, and context-based dispels.
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt,known:32375] !Mass Dispel; [spec:3,@mouseover,help,nodead] Purify Disease; [@mouseover,help,nodead] Purify; [@mouseover,harm,nodead] [harm] Dispel Magic; [spec:3] Purify Disease; Purify - Simple Mouseover Dispel Macro. A straightforward mouseover macro for Purify Disease.
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][] Purify Disease - Mass Dispel Cursor Macro. Casts Mass Dispel at your cursor location.
#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Mass Dispel
Priests are an excellent and magnetic class, and The War Within is another expansion, where you can show your skill. We hope that our guide will help you to achieve even better results, and you’ll enjoy the game just as our professional team does. For more information, read other comprehensive guides on our platform.