Class Wishlists for Midnight
Death Knight Wishlist
Demon Hunter Wishlist
Druid Wishlist
Evoker Wishlist
Hunter Wishlist
Mage Wishlist
Monk Wishlist
Paladin Wishlist
Rogue Wishlist
Shaman Wishlist
Warlock Wishlist
Warrior Wishlist
For a brief breakdown of the changes coming to each specialization in Midnight, check out our Midnight Class Survival Guide.
Midnight Class Survival Guide
Priest Wishlists for Midnight
Our Priest Writers, AutomaticJak (Discipline & Holy) and Ellipsis (Shadow), discuss the most significant issues plaguing their specs as well as the must-have changes they'd like to see prior to Midnight's launch in just a few short months.
Discipline Priest Midnight Wishlist
Top 5 Midnight Wishlist
Wishlist
1.
Better Defensive/Mobility Options
2.
Continued Talent Tree Optimizations
3.
More Atonement!
4.
Party/Raid Frame Improvements
5.
Hero Talent Balance
The Kit
Discipline (and Holy) have long been plagued with some of the worst mobility/survivability in the game and they still seem to be in that position going into Midnight. While upgraded shields from your next Apex talent Master the Darkness provide for some stronger shielding they also produce a huge amount of your overall healing which has an interesting side effect of making your Atonement healing feel weaker. Another change in Midnight is where Blizzard is causing all healers to top players off more slowly and for Discipline this makes it feel like your Atonement is relatively weak, especially when a large chunk of your overall healing kit is tied to your apex talent. Potentially taking some power from void shields could mean that more power is put into your Atonement output, making Penance and Smite feel more powerful.
Spec Tree
The spec tree and routing to your desired build has been steadily improving throughout Beta but some major concerns I have are on routing to talents you desire and how expensive it can be to do so. Borrowed Time and Abyssal Reverie "gate" the left and right sides of the bottom of the spec tree both costing 2 points to go further down the tree. The "middle" tier of talents has gotten a lot stronger with Castigation moving up here and flat output increases like Purge the Wicked and Occultist being added in Midnight. This can make it fairly difficult to route to your preferred tree and some end-tier node options also having some issues. Divine Procession for example, gets put on the capstone tier of talents and gates Greater Smite. Other talents just feel fairly undertuned, Shadowfiend for instance, has been changed to be the old "Depth of Shadows" talent from Voidweaver and it feels fairly lackluster for its position.
Hero Talents/Conclusion
Given that Atonement feels weaker it also feels like Voidweaver is undertuned compared to Oracle. Given that healing has slowed down Oracle also has to burn a decent chunk of mana in Mythic+ to keep up with the incoming damage, making mana matter a considerable amount more than it used to in The War Within. A huge positive is the revamp Evangelism massively accelerating your ramp up time from ~16 seconds to basically 5 seconds with the new talent immediately casting a Power Word: Radiance and making your next two instant cast you can incredibly quickly get your ramp rolling in raid, cutting out so much extra time that was spent on applying single Atonements. Raid frames are also a major concern for many Disc players who like to color their entire raid frame when a player has Atonement on them. At present this does not seem possible for the default UI or raid frame addons and it would go quite far in improving raid frame visibility for Disc mains.
Discipline Priest Guide
Holy Priest Midnight Wishlist
Top 5 Midnight Wishlist
Wishlist
1.
Better Defensive/Mobility Options
2.
Continued Mythic+ Talent Iteration
3.
Adjust Apex Talents
4.
Better Defined Builds
5.
Hero Talent Balance
Defensive Toolkit
Holy (and Discipline) have long been plagued with some of the worst mobility/survivability in the game and they still seem to be in that position going into Midnight. Unlike Discipline, Holy does not have the powerful shields that can be self-cast in advance of incoming damage for an additional tool. The class tree has improved the route you take to get all of your output increasing talents quite well but has not done much to make our survivability any better. Mobility is more of a concern in Midnight as the quantity of instant casts is getting reduced with spells like Renew and Premonition being removed. Survivability is a crucial liability for the spec, especially in a Mythic+ environment where Discipline's shields outclass it easily.
Cosmic Ripple and Direct Healing
Cosmic Ripple is a major focus with our Apex talents in the Midnight expansion. This effect is a "puff" of healing, spread out over 5 targets at levels barely perceptible on the raid frames. Blizzard has already nerfed this effect and buffed direct healing to compensate once and I think they should continue this path on putting more power into direct healing. Apex talents like Benediction where your Flash Heal produces a Ripple are exactly what I would want redesigned as you're not even seeing or "feeling" the ripple that your Flash Heal produces but instead you're more focused on the target of your heal, producing these extra "puffs" is not satisfying gameplay.
I would rather that talents like Benediction where your Divine Hymn is producing ripples would be more powerful and the Flash Heal ones less powerful. When you are channeling Divine Hymn it will simply have the effect of you feeling more powerful while channeling your major healing cooldown which I think is an ideal way to make an apex talent feel special for healers. Producing more ripples during Apotheosis on the other hand just does not feel as satisfying since you're focusing on Flash Heals to produce those ripples which means you're getting more Holy Word: Serenitys and focusing on more single-target healing so you will know on the meters that getting those Ripples is good for HPS but you don't "feel" those Ripples affecting health bars in the spells you are casting, you "feel" the buffed Flash Heal (which was unfortunately bugged in December and doing LESS healing than it was supposed to).
Hero Talents
Hero Talents and the spec tree feel like they should have some better ways to differentiate your healing output and "feel". In Midnight it seems like the angle is to make Prayer of Healing more of a focus with spells like Spiritwell. Unfortunately the Apex talents encouraging Flash Heals during Apotheosis and a lack of focus in the spec tree take away from the potential for Archon and Oracle to feel like more distinct sub-specs. Oracle places a bit more emphasis on Prayer of Mending/passive output and Archon on Halo and somewhat on direct healing output. Halo was also nerfed recently and Empowered Surges was nerfed making your direct healing from Archon slightly less noticeable.
I believe they should work to make each Hero Talent more distinct in their healing sources, like adding some life to the Prayer of Healing supporting talents to encourage them more for Archon. What does feel good are cross-synergies where Ultimate Serenity's cleave healing works with Lasting Words to spread Renews to all allies in Mythic+ content. This grants a healing taken buff from Renewed Faith and while slight, is noticeable. There is certainly a fine line on having too many of these potential stacking modifiers as we saw in The War Within so I think encouraging different modifiers for different Hero Talents could be an interesting way to produce more unique builds.
Holy Priest Guide
Shadow Priest Midnight Wishlist
Top 5 Midnight Wishlist
Wishlist
1.
Voidform Damage Bonus
2.
Archon Gameplay Improvements
3.
Less Niche Utility
4.
Fix Tentacle Slam Bugs
5.
Stronger Shadow Word: Death
Voidorm Damage Bonus
Voidform has a problem. On paper it provides a 10% damage bonus when it is active but this damage bonus is counteracted by the fact that Voidform replaces Shadowform. Currently the value of talenting into and using Shadow's defining major cooldown is roughly 3%. Voidform needs something, be that a direct damage bonus, or more indirect value to increase its strength and make it feel like a real damage cooldown (Even if it doesn't need to be an especially strong one).
Archon Gameplay Improvements
While Voidweaver has largely seen improvements with the changes Shadow has gotten in Midnight, Archon feels lacking. The loss of Void Bolt has left its rotation feeling stagnant and having a hero talent based on Voidform doesn't land when its such a weak part of the spec. Focused Outburst, a new talent for Archon, tries to bring back some of the feel of TWW Archon Shadow but needs to reduce the cooldown of Void Volley much more.
Less Niche Utility
Shadow has utility in Mass Dispel, Leap of Faith, and Vampiric Embrace but encounter design has heavily downplayed them in recent years. Shackle Horror being changed to include abberations is a small thing, but it'd be nice to see Shadow get to a place where we're brought for more than just damage.
Fix Tentacle Slam Bugs
Shadow's new AoE spell Tentacle Slam has a number of irritating bugs, chief among which being that it won't always DoT your primary target if there are more than 6 targets hit. It's extremely disappointing to see Tentacle Slam be this buggy, as the spell it's replacing was largely disliked because of the number of bugs associated with it. The spec needs a thorough bug fixing pass before it reaches live servers.
Stronger Shadow Word: Death
Shadow has a number of spells that feel disproportionately weak within its overall damage breakdown, but the one that feels worst is Shadow Word: Death. The spell needs some oomph behind it as its currently only barely worth using in execute, even with the new Shadowfiend and Mindbender.
Shadow Priest Guide
