Priest & Destruction Warlock Class Changes in Patch 9.1 PTR Build 38312 - Guide Writer Analysis and Feedback

PTR Posted 2021/04/17 at 9:52 AM by Jaydaa

9.1 PTR build 38312Spirit ShellSymbol of HopeVoid BoltDissonant EchoesChaos Bolt

Our Guide Writers have given their thoughts on the Patch 9.1 PTR Class Changes for Build 38312. Check out their opinions below!

Balance Druid Changes - Guide Writer ThoughtsAffliction Warlock - Guide Writer Thoughts

Fire Mage - Guide Writer ThoughtsPriest and Destruction Warlock - Guide Writer Thoughts

Discipline Priest

Talents (1)

Spirit Shell For 10 sec, Penance, Power Word: Radiance, and Atonement create absorb shields for 80% of their value, instead of healing.
Cooldown changed from 1 min cooldown to 1.5 min cooldown

Discipline Priest Guide Writer PerspectiveHistory repeats itself, this is especially true for Discipline who another nerf to Spirit Shell reminiscent of the nerf Evangelism received in 8.1 increasing its cooldown. Now Spirit Shell goes from a 60 sec cooldown to 90 seconds and there is a lot of panic about what this will mean for the spec. It is well known how dominant Spirit Shell is for Castle Nathria and this is nerf follows the previous nerf of lower Atonement to shielding rate in Spirit Shell from 100% to 80%. Despite that nerf, Spirit Shell continues to see heavy representation in raiding and I believe that this cooldown change will still see Spirit Shell on top as mass absorbs are extremely hard to balance "fairly".

As a result, I believe its likely that Disc will bounce between two ramps, one shielding and one healing thanks to the low cooldown of Mindgames which can be present for each of these. Instead of one Power Word: Radiance charge to be used in between each Spirit Shell you could now use two and still have two available for Spirit Shell. Fight timers and mechanics of course can have an impact on this theory and will be something to look for as Sanctum raid testing progresses.
Holy Priest

Specialization (1)

Symbol of Hope Bolster the morale of all healers in your party or raid within 40 yards, restoring 2%raid members within 40 yds. They each recover 60 sec of cooldown of a major defensive ability, and regain 12% of their missing mana, immediately and every 1 sec for 5 sec.over 5 sec.

Holy Priest Guide Writer PerspectiveSymbol of Hope will now reduce personal defensive cooldowns in addition to granting mana return to all healers. The abilities from testing thusfar do not include immunities but rather defensives like Exhilaration or Mirror Image. This is a solid buff to the spell but one that is very similar to the recent Divine Hymn healing bonus. It increases Holy's utility but it has a much more significant effect in a 5 man environment rather than a raiding environment. While the utility is much needed, it is still too conservative of a move I fear to allow Holy to breakout into that upper-echelon of utility rich healers like Paladin/Shaman/Disc.

The cooldown reduction for tanks in particular is very powerful, especially in a dungeon environment where multiple uses of Symbol of Hope will be possible. I would like to see some damage reduction get rolled into the channel in lieu of the mana gains, so that the interests of both functions of the ability are more in line. While players are using their own personals, or have them on cooldown, symbol could reduce their damage taken for a given mechanic and swiftly bring their defensives back for the next wave.
Shadow Priest

Soulbind Conduits (1)

Dissonant Echoes (Potency Conduit) Void Bolt deals 35% more damage.20% more damage.
While not in Void Form, dealing damage with Mind Flay has a 3.1% chance to allow you to cast Void Bolt.
While in Void Form, Void Bolt has a 3.1% chance to reset the cooldown on Void Bolt.

Shadow Priest Guide Writer Perspective
Changes which impact Shadow Priest PvE in 9.1:

Dissonant Echoes now increases the damage of Void Bolt by 20%, down from 35%

The changes announced for Shadow only have a minor impact on PvE in 9.1. The nerf to Dissonant Echoes is, while substantial to the conduit itself, only a very small hit to Shadow's overall damage and won't impact our performance in Mythic+ or the upcoming raid. As for why this change has been made I'm personally unsure, perhaps Blizzard are aiming to curb the strength of Shadow's damage during Voidform, or just considered the conduit's ouput above the range for a standard potency conduit.

Shadow's PvE strength, though it's only early days, seems to still be sustained single target and priority target damage. On live Shadow is currently one of the top specs for these encounters, as well as a strong choice for Mythic Sire Denathrius due to the importance of his final phase. With nothing substantial in 9.1 so far, I've no reason to expect that to change.

The negative of Shadow receiving very little so far in 9.1 is that the areas Shadow struggles in will continue to be poor. Weak dots and an awkward, mostly talent driven AoE rotation have been issues for players in dungeons this expansion, despite ample damage potential, and representation within the MDI. Hopefully some of the new toys in 9.1, as well as potential changes further down the line, can alleviate this.

Destruction Warlock

Specialization (1)

Chaos Bolt Unleashes a devastating blast of chaos, dealing a critical strike for 146%160% of Spell power)] Chaos damage. Damage is further increased by your critical strike chance.
Effect #1 Effect #1 School Damage
Value: 0 (SP mod: 1.461.6)
(Pvp Multiplier: 1.151.4)

Destruction Warlock Guide Writer PerspectiveDestruction received a minor 10% buff to Chaos Bolt. Buffing the damage of this ability is very powerful for Destruction, as this is the hard hitting ability we play around in order to deal major damage. Further, this is empowered through clever Havoc usage.

In patch 9.0.5 Destruction is, in general, lacking a few % of damage output to compete with a lot of the other ranged dps specs. The niche we have always had is very large on-demand priority target burst dps, and this buff further enforces this.

These buffs alongside the nerfs to Affliction means, currently Destruction looks like a very strong contender for both raiding, and mythic+ going into patch 9.1.

Comment by DivaLuluWL - Finally <3Comment by TaftvalueDestruction go!

No more Assfliction.Comment by MrBrettimusI still think shadows aoe through Searing Nightmares should apply Vampiric Touch, not Shadow Word: Pain. This will allow free procs of Mind Blast to hit all targets with Shadowy Apparitions, increasing the aoe potential of shadow. Also, MAKE PI A PERSONAL CD!Comment by rossyysI still think shadows aoe through Searing Nightmares should apply Vampiric Touch, not Shadow Word: Pain. This will allow free procs of Mind Blast to hit all targets with Shadowy Apparitions, increasing the aoe potential of shadow. Also, MAKE PI A PERSONAL CD!Comment by jpc2212PI is a personal CD for Shadow priests as PI'ing someone else is a general DPS loss.Only Healer Priests should PI other people.Comment by ZabsterI like how they call CB a hard hitting spell when my CB fully buffed in raid (with trinkets and orc racial) at 225 ilvl hits for 17k at best, while warrior's condemn hits for 25k and my Malefic rapture which is half the cast time and half the shard cost hits for 32k.

Chaos Bolt is the weakest "strong" spell this expansion, even with another 10% buff.

Hell holy paladins hit harder xDComment by jheanwizardWhy always f****** warlocks get buffs manComment by moneymikeyshadowpriest dots are a jokeComment by ValestriIts my understanding you can get oneshot by a Chaos Bolt in pvp, so buffing it even more, just make it seem like the wow team is out of touch with whats going on.Comment by OldburyNot sure Destruction will see any use in meaningful M+ still - they're still too harmed by the tank kiting meta we exist in.Comment by beatlikebossimproved MD is the biggest joke i've ever hear of lol

all new PvP talents do at least something decent, but wtf is this? totally useless for disc/holy

i was hoping to see spectral guise back again, rip to my dream :(Comment by BaratheusI still think shadows aoe through Searing Nightmares should apply Vampiric Touch, not Shadow Word: Pain. This will allow free procs of Mind Blast to hit all targets with Shadowy Apparitions, increasing the aoe potential of shadow. Also, MAKE PI A PERSONAL CD!Comment by seijulalaPI is a personal CD for Shadow priests as PI'ing someone else is a general DPS loss.Only Healer Priests should PI other people.Comment by amadheusThats very accurate. Warlock being desinged by ppl who have 0 idea about this class. While affi was somehow into meta with ability to deal dmg out of mobs position - destru will be never able to do so. They are buffig destru while nerfing affi, which basicly means we will see more destruction wrls, but less of warlock on higher kyes. At the moment they are very low % of those, will be even less. The thing is: destru can be realy powerfull but whole team needs to play around destru. If they doesnt - it's nothing. And not even 50% dmg buff will change that - positioning is everything for destruction.Comment by AnolIts my understanding you can get oneshot by a Chaos Bolt in pvp, so buffing it even more, just make it seem like the wow team is out of touch with whats going on.Comment by ShadockIts my understanding you can get oneshot by a Chaos Bolt in pvp, so buffing it even more, just make it seem like the wow team is out of touch with whats going on.Comment by ZabsterNot sure Destruction will see any use in meaningful M+ still - they're still too harmed by the tank kiting meta we exist in.Comment by reijatsuPI is a personal CD for Shadow priests as PI'ing someone else is a general DPS loss.Only Healer Priests should PI other people.Comment by KkuraI hope Blizz never balance classes based on Wowhead, because this Automaticjak guy is always the "this is fine" meme of a doggo drinking coffee while the house is on fire. So it's completely okay to nerf Spirit Shell for the 3rd time when the spec is tuned around it. Evang is a undertuned joke right now due to pre-SL nerfs. This guy doesn't even play Disc anymore and should be replaced with someone who is a REALLY Disc expert.
This "you'll need absorbs because that's broken" argument is only valid for World First guilds. When the average player reaches X/Y boss, which has a damage mechanic like Sludgefist, it'll probably be nerfed so it doesn't one-shot people.
Let's kill the spec because Blizz had the brilliant idea of giving back significant raid-wide absorbs. Why would I play a totally nerfed spec like Disc which requires IQ if I can play a degenerate healer like Holy Priest?Comment by ShalkWhy would I play a totally nerfed spec like Disc which requires IQ if I can play a degenerate healer like Holy Priest?