WoW previews new Dragonflight talent system with Priest reveal

Blizzard Entertainment has given a preview for the overhauling of the talent system in the new World of Warcraft expansion, Dragonflight, first showing off the Priest class.

On April 19, Blizzard finally revealed the long-awaited next expansion for World of Warcraft, titled Dragonflight. The expansion is set to take players to the Dragon Isles for the very first time, along with a brand new class, race, and much more.

One of the biggest changes coming in the next expansion is the overhauling of the talent system, reverting it to pre-Mists of Pandaria in a move that brings back the talent tree.

Now, Blizzard has shown off what they have so far, starting with Priest.

Activision Blizzard

WoW’s Dragonflight expansion arrives in late 2022.

WoW shows off new Dragonflight talent system

Blizzard shared a blog post on July 1 that detailed what the company is aiming for with the reworked talent system, and gave a look at the Preist class’ talent tree.

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In the post they said, “Dragonflight talent trees have some significant differences from previous versions of talent trees in . First, you have not one tree, but two. This is due to the combined importance of class-wide and specialization-specific themes for current WoW characters.”

They also explained why there will be two talent trees within each spec instead of one, “This is due to the combined importance of class-wide and specialization-specific themes for current WoW characters. The class tree contains a core set of abilities available to all specs in a class and has a higher proportion of utility choices.”

WoW Dragonflight Priest talent and ability changes

For Priest specifically, Blizzard noted: “The core tree presents new choices that weren’t previously available for some specializations, such as: Shadowfiend, Shadowflame Prism, Holy Nova, Twins of the Sun Priestess, and more. On the specialization side of things, we’ve remixed some old and new spells that should reward and emphasize the choices you made throughout level-up.”

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Blizz also made a special note for Shadow Priest with the removal of the Dark Thoughts spell. The developers said the spell was removed due to its “large emphasis” on Mind Flay, making it feel “mandatory” to keep it always channeled in order to proc it.

Now, a new spell will take its place called Vampiric Insight, located in Shadow Row 4. Its effect reads: Vampiric Touch periodic damage has a chance to reset the remaining cooldown on Mind Blast and cause your next Mind Blast to be instant.

Blizzard Entertainment

A mockup of the new talent tree for Shadow Priest.

Everything previewed by Blizzard is still in the testing phase and could change before the launch of Dragonflight.

The expansion is slated to launch sometime in late 2022.