Blizzard’s September 24 beta update changes the Priest in seven lines: two for every Priest and five for the Gnome, Night Elf and Undead racial spells.
Renew can now land critical hits, which Blizzard files as a corrected issue, and 
Power Word: Shield can always overwrite an existing shield on a target that does not have 
Weakened Soul (September 24 development notes). The racial lines: the Gnome spell 
Contingency Plan can crit and 
Confounding Flash gets a cast visual, Night Elf 
Starshards now gains spell pushback resistance from the 
Twilight Focus talent, and Undead 
Dark Sacrifice no longer breaks crowd control that breaks on damage. When this post was written, our spell pages and the Priest talent trees were on build 1.60.1.69913.
What to do: a Priest of any race can put a fresh Power Word: Shield on a target whose Weakened Soul has run out, without waiting for the old shield to fall off. Undead Priests can use Dark Sacrifice without breaking damage-sensitive crowd control, and its tooltip now says the Mana gained scales with Spirit. Gnome Priests get a Holy cast visual and new sounds on Confounding Flash.
The changes at a glance
- Renew: can now land critical hits; Blizzard files it as a corrected issue.
- Power Word: Shield: can always overwrite an existing Power Word: Shield on a target without Weakened Soul.
- Contingency Plan (Gnome): can now land critical hits.
- Confounding Flash (Gnome): now has a cast visual, more Holy than Arcane, with matching sounds.
- Starshards (Night Elf): now correctly gains resistance to spell pushback from Twilight Focus.
- Dark Sacrifice (Undead): no longer breaks crowd control that breaks on damage.
- Dark Sacrifice: tooltip now says the Mana gained scales with Spirit.
Related on this site
- Priest talents
- Priest
- Renew (spell)
- Power Word: Shield (spell)
- Weakened Soul (spell)
- Gnome (race)
- Contingency Plan (spell)
- Confounding Flash (spell)
