In an effort to further balance the game, Koraa levitated over to the
Priest Beta forums to
drop the bomb that Blizzard was canning all Priest racial abilities in an upcoming Beta build. This comes long after
Fear Ward, formerly a Dwarf racial ability for Priests, was made baseline and trainable at Level 20. However, Koraa makes a few important points, the most notable being that
Desperate Prayer, the Human and Dwarf Priest racial ability, will become the 11-point talent for Holy.
Holy Nova, on the other hand, will become baseline. Desperate Prayer will likely be retuned to better fit an 11-point talent (it currently has a 10 minute cooldown).
Koraa adds that the formerly Undead Priest racial
Devouring Plague will also become a baseline spell, with a reduced cooldown of 30 seconds (down from 3 minutes) and
"greatly reduced" mana cost. The Draenei racial ability
Symbol of Hope will be renamed Hymn of Hope and also become a baseline ability, now restoring 5% of total mana every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to the priest's party members. All other racial abilities, from
Starshards to
Shadowguard, will be removed from the game. Enjoy them now before
Patch 3.0 hits!
Tags: Desperate-Prayer, Devouring-Plague, Holy-Nova, Hymn-of-Hope, Koraa, Patch-3.0, Priest, Priest-Racials, Racial-Abilities, Symbol-of-Hope, Wrath, Wrath-Beta, Wrath-of-the-Lich-King
Filed under: Priest, Talents, Wrath of the Lich King, Forums
Sep 15th 2008 at 9:10PM 
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Expiration Sep 15th 2008 9:21PM
what about hex of weakness?
Zach Sep 15th 2008 9:21PM
Gone, my friend. Gone like the wind.
slb Sep 16th 2008 2:17AM
Days after I started a troll priest to have fun with Shadowguard + Blackout. Well, so much for that.
Jane Gray Sep 17th 2008 4:56AM
I'm going to miss chastise/fear as my only CC in BGs.
theRaptor Sep 15th 2008 9:20PM
Yaaah for more blandness.
Manatank Sep 15th 2008 11:41PM
Wouldn't bland also relate to a game without change?
Arioch Sep 16th 2008 2:12AM
When the "changes" are to make all races (and, to a lesser extent, all classes) more identical, they only make the game more bland.
rofo Sep 16th 2008 9:06AM
Just keep making the game easier and everyone more the same and it sucks the life out of it. Bland would be no changes in content. What's next we're going to see that attack power and spell power become the same stat? Maybe everyone should be able to duel wield, oh and give the priests a shield so they can tank
buman Sep 15th 2008 9:22PM
Lets just make everyone exactly the same regardless of faction, race, class, skill, time to play. Everyone has exactly the same character with exactly the same gear. Also, whenever anyone else gets a new piece of loot everyone else in the game can have it too.
Eternauta Sep 15th 2008 9:35PM
Sucker.
xeno Sep 15th 2008 10:31PM
"Also, whenever anyone else gets a new piece of loot everyone else in the game can have it too."
Good, I'm sick of waiting for my glaives.
Heilig Sep 15th 2008 10:40PM
When your shadow priest loses to my shadow priest because I have an extra DoT that also heals me just because I decided to roll undead, you'll change your tune.
jbodar Sep 15th 2008 11:09PM
Hate to burst your little bubble there, but this encourages people to play different races, by reducing racial min/maxing. That means more people rolling priests using the other races, which is less homogenization by definition. Also, you seem to be lumping this in with other issues. So QYB.
Faar Sep 15th 2008 11:09PM
Hah, fact is right now everybody DOES have exactly the same gear... Gladiator welfares in every god damn slot. You see druids out of form, chances are near 100% they have those bits of bent driftwood shoulderpads sticking out on either side.
I'll be sad to see starshards go. Just when they made it not suck... Then again, desperate prayer, devouring plague and symbol of hope were the really good ones after they made fear ward baseline so it's not a TERRIBLE loss.
I bet making DP a baseline ability is why they removed healing from dispersion. Guess they feared it would be OP to pop both at once or something...
Azza Sep 15th 2008 9:22PM
I always thought it was silly how only priests had this unique racial skills system but not any other classes.
Guess this brings things in line just like pallys for horde and shammys for alliance.
Kastirin Sep 16th 2008 4:03AM
It was originally intended to make up for the lack of priest quests. (Priests have a quest at level 4 and level 50. There was also Benediction/Anathema, of course, to supplement the racials.)
kabshiel Sep 16th 2008 10:34AM
Actually, Blizzard was originally planning on giving every class race-specific abilities. Then they ran out of time before release. Then they saw what a mess the priest racials were. So they tried to balance the priest racials. Then they added in paladin racials. Then they saw what a mess paladin racials were. And what a mess the priest racials still were.
So I think they did the smart thing and just tossed the whole idea. Now they just need to keep working on the real racial abilities...
James Sep 15th 2008 9:24PM
While I like the idea of getting plague, I think it sucks that priests no longer get racials. I rolled a dwarf because of fear ward. :(
I guess it's all for the better though. Plague has always been something really cool that I've wanted.
Saelorn Sep 15th 2008 9:30PM
I knew Starshards was too good to last. Anything free is kind of unbalanced.
Mindaer Sep 16th 2008 10:41AM
... I cant believe how annoyed I am by this, but only for the simple reason that the priest racials kindof justified their races. Devouring Plague seems like something a undead priest would cast, while Starshards a nigh elf. Anyone else irritated by the idea of your honorable and pious Holy Night Elf Priest casting Devouring Plague, or is it just me?