At the 2020 Hearthstone Summit, the state of the Priest Class was something Blizzard was keen to address. Alec Dawson (Game Designer) said that “As we’ve made improvements to Class identity, we’ve found that Priest’s Basic and Classic sets don’t really reflect our goals for what Priest should be able to do.”
In Year of the Phoenix, Blizzard is making big changes to Priest in the hopes that it will excel at control and fighting for the board. Six old cards will be replaced by brand-new ones.
Those old cards will be rotated to make way for the new ones, which should improve Priest’s Class identity and utility.
Hearthstone Priest
Those cards being rotated out are;
- Northshire Cleric
- Divine Spirit
- Auchenai Soulpriest
- Holy Fire
- Shadowform
- Prophet Velen
Dawson said that rotating these cards gives Priest a more clear identity and sense of belonging in the game. In the gallery above, you can see the new cards that will be added to Hearthstone as well as some updated and modified Priest cards as well. The six cards that have been rotated out will still be playable in Wild.
The changes to existing cards are buffs designed to improve the Priest’s basic toolbox and to provide a foundation for players to create Priest decks for the foreseeable future.
Dean Ayala (Lead Designer) told me that the team hasn’t really made “as robust changes to a Class’ base set” as they are with these changes to Priest.
If it’s not really working out well, we’re probably just looking to change those things as soon as possible.
We want to collect enough data obviously and give it some time to breathe, but we have to keep iterating on stuff.
Dean Ayala – Lead Designer
The changes to Priest will go live once the Year of the Phoenix commences.
Leo Stevenson travelled to Irvine, California as a guest of Blizzard. Travel, accommodation and meals were provided by Blizzard.
