I think that is not the direction the dev wants. They seems to want Priest as a ‘intellectual’ class messing with minds of opponents and minions. They also want Priest as a spell strong class.
If referring to MSoG: Mage, Priest, Warlock falls under spell class. As such we can see mage gets weaker minions(for trading) and relies more on spells/synergy.
Warlock deviates because of zoo, where it relies heavily on the neutral set.
In future, the dev might change. But, should not be soon.
Yeah, I’ve come to that realization now after this expansion. I’ll likely be going full time Rogue/Warrior or possibly Warlock after this.
At the start of your turn, draw a MURLOC does not constitute card draw!
All hope is not lost.
Dev had acknowledge the design problem with priest, and some recent designs seems to have shifted away from before.
If we look at DH, it falls under the same design problem. (But purposely designed OP to push the class) DH will also need time to break away from it’s design restrictions.
where did you see that? any link? I want to watch lol
Come cast some REAL spells and play Mage. We’re finally doing non-random things again, and it’s glorious.
This would enhance the Hearthstone experience tenfold!
Perhaps, the rewards for reaching ranks below legend should be increased, too, to further incentivize raising rank.
Do you guys think this is referencing any deck(s) in particular?
Mage was my first reason for playing Hearthstone. I dunno man, Mage seems busted right now coming out of this xpac haha I don’t want to play something busted…
…slips off to play Rogue…
Ben Lee, Game Director, January 2020: “Some of the classes are much tighter on vision and on class mechanics and class identity. Personally I’ve felt that way always as a player, and the team felt pretty passionately that Priest was maybe in the worst spot of all the classes on this front…
“Generally as a team we do think there’s more work to do on Basic and Classic… for now, for this rotation, we’re doing the things that we think we absolutely have to do to get it in a space where we can take some more time to really look at and potentially do a bigger re-factor if that’s the way we choose to go. But basically we want this package to come off as positive for players. We really are trying to make Priest’s core set more synergistic, more powerful and also, just more useful.
“We’re also thinking about the Divine Spirit/Inner Fire combo – that’s something that’s been around for a long time, and it honestly just doesn’t feel super healthy… Hopefully Priest players will be trying out some new things – some different things.”
Shadowpriest:
One of the problem priest has is powerful and situational cards. Forbidden word, Condemn allow flexibility on different situations unlike previous designs that have a more restricted application.
Priest will still be a class strong with spells and weak with minions, but I do see the slow subtle changes. (but not confident they will stick with the same design philosophy or changes in future)
p.s. YOU made me worked to do the above… grumble grumble…
Yeah…
Uh huh…
I don’t know if it seems totally busted personally, as I see some tempo gaps in the hero power archetype and don’t believe Freeze is ready to be a thing yet, but I’m pretty certain it’ll be quite playable. Already getting my theorycrafts going in my head while at work lol
But isn’t all of that actually proving that they are doing badly?
They said a year ago they wanted to fix Priests, and they didn’t. They said shadow priest support and we really didn’t get any. The core set speak for itself. I mean, I’m looking at it, and I don’t see it lol
I’m sorry Reaver =(
I’m just looking at doing a 30 damage hero power meme in wild for mage…I already know how to get there. One hero power for 30 damage, POW right in the kisser.
I feel like they started Shadow Priest, but will likely be fleshing it out as the year moves on.
At least that’s what I’m hoping.
I’d like to see both Shadow Priest and a “holy” archetype focused on supporting minions and weaponizing healing effects.
Pfft, only 30 damage hero power???
500+ or bust!
The problem with the Dev is that (sometimes) they leave open ended communications and let players build different expectations.
Unless an item is a priority, it can take a long time.
Discard in warlock got support near the end of the shelf-life in standard.
To rework priest, it may take even longer.
But I want it NOW. 
You will play Discipline Priest and YOU WILL LIKE IT!!!
This is the most recent comment they’ve made about their plans for some sort of Shadow Priest archetype:
So, apparently it will be sometime this year.
But not just yet.
(Given a lot of the hopes that Priest players expressed before reveals, it probably would have been better to do this “setting expectations” bit somewhat earlier instead of waiting until after the full card reveal.)
Ah, thanks. That explains a lot.
My luck is I start playing some Mage (damn you, Wardrum) and get really involved only for Shadow Priest archetype to come out and it absolutely destroys my Mage I’ve worked so hard on and makes me hate Priest. It’s Wardrum’s secret plan to make me conform to the rest of the player base, I just know it.
I love how they used all the design space they opened up by taking away basically everything decent from priest, and then never giving them anything good to make up for it.
Also, the new core set really shows the direction. Straight down hill with no survivors.
As for “identity”, maybe just maybe if they hadn’t taken the whole “healing” aspect from the class that literally has a healing hero power and given it to Paladin instead then Priest might have at least one thing left. They’ve been stripping Priest of it’s identity by giving those things to other classes.
What Priest is left with is, mostly being annoying. By having a bunch of super reactive stuff that draws games out and just frustrates people.
@Wardrum, the problem is. They’ve been saying this stuff for a long time. And they’ve not been doing anything with it whatsoever. They took away inner fire because it was “limiting design space”, then never filled it. They stripped Priest of it’s card draw to an absurd degree. And now they’re printing worse versions of old cards for priest, while simultaneously handing cards priest could’ve used to mage and co.
@Aegon, that Celestalon post is hilarious now that we have the full set. What other ways? Bore people to death and hope they leave?