Since the 1.18 Turtle NPC Buff, Priest in Hardcore Solo Feels Terrible and Needs a Buff Meant Exclusively For Solo Play
Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2026 1:11 pm
So in 1.18, there was a relatively big changer to NPCs in the world that seemed to completely fly under the radar:
""Increased the HP and damage of some creatures on Azeroth by 10–15% to bring them more in line with current gameplay balance."
One can quite easily see the potential problems with such a blanket buff; not every class will be receiving the same amount of buffs that can be applied to solo play, and I think the Priest is by far the biggest class affected by this change. As someone who has gotten the class into the 30s exclusively through solo play in Hardcore over the past 5 or so days and as someone who has gotten multiple Priests to 60 on Turtle HC prior to 1.18, I can safely say that the experience feels a LOT worse to the point of being unfun, especially during levels 15-40.
This is largely due to two main reasons.
1. Priest's damage/survivability was not buffed 10-15% since Class Change 2 was implemented
This is pretty self-explanatory; Priest has indeed received quite a few QOL changes pertaining to its group utility and its healing, but a lot of its solo tools (PWS, SWP, etc) have gone relatively untouched. Yeah, Smite spec has become a viable damage dealing spec, but it has not been buffed since it became viable and it is hard to really quantify how much better it is than Shadow, if at all. Alongside this, Shadow has not really been buffed at all and Quite frankly feels awful to play in Hardcore solo.
Lots of specs were indeed buffed and re-worked to be better versions of themselves, but very little of Priest's new kit is relevant to its solo power level.
2. Buffing Enemy HP by 10-15% affects Priests more than the percentage would suggest
There are quite a few classes that have a steady, consistent damage profile; if it can kill a 1000 HP mob in 10 seconds it can kill a 2000 HP mob in 20-22 seconds, for example without it being a huge detriment to its resources or requiring immense downtime.
Priest is not one of these classes.
The optimal way to grind Priest solo is often misunderstood and involves three phases: pulling a mob with a hardcast, unleashing the maximum number of damaging spells while taking into consideration the desire for mana to not run out during a continuous grind, and finishing a mob with wanding/melee weaving. This ensuring your mp5 regeneration time is maximized and you can methodically move from one mob to the next without ever taking a break.
When mob health is increased, it increases the amount of time a Priest spends wanding, which significantly increases how long it takes for them to kill mobs and adds up to major frustration during a prolonged period of time.
Yes, I know the memes about Priest being the wand spec class, but it was never really true to those who took the time and effort to optimize them...but with the NPC boost, I sometimes feel like I am living the meme when taking on equal-level mobs.
How to fix this
Fixing a class for solo play is a slippery slope, since you do not want such a fix to affect its group in a group dynamic. Fortunately, Priest has a really important solo talent that provides very little group benefit at the same time, Spirit Tap. If one simple tweak is made to it that actually has historical precedent, it would allow Priests to cast more versus mobs while on a continuous grind and allow its sustained damage to get back on track. Taken from the WOTLK version of the talent:
"Gives you a 100% chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target that yields experience or honor. For the duration, your mana will regenerate at a 83% rate while casting. Lasts 15 sec."
If the 50% while casting were changed to 83%, I believe it would fix a lot of the current problems with this class's solo play. It could still be a 5/5 talent, and the 83% would combine nicely with Meditation's 15% without any real other modifications.
But most importantly, this change would not significantly affect Priest's group play at all, allowing it to fix a problem without any un intended side effects.
But I will be clear, something definitely needs to change, as I am probably the biggest "solo Priest HC theorycrafter" that I know...and when I am not having fun grinding it, I can only imagine that others feel similarly.
""Increased the HP and damage of some creatures on Azeroth by 10–15% to bring them more in line with current gameplay balance."
One can quite easily see the potential problems with such a blanket buff; not every class will be receiving the same amount of buffs that can be applied to solo play, and I think the Priest is by far the biggest class affected by this change. As someone who has gotten the class into the 30s exclusively through solo play in Hardcore over the past 5 or so days and as someone who has gotten multiple Priests to 60 on Turtle HC prior to 1.18, I can safely say that the experience feels a LOT worse to the point of being unfun, especially during levels 15-40.
This is largely due to two main reasons.
1. Priest's damage/survivability was not buffed 10-15% since Class Change 2 was implemented
This is pretty self-explanatory; Priest has indeed received quite a few QOL changes pertaining to its group utility and its healing, but a lot of its solo tools (PWS, SWP, etc) have gone relatively untouched. Yeah, Smite spec has become a viable damage dealing spec, but it has not been buffed since it became viable and it is hard to really quantify how much better it is than Shadow, if at all. Alongside this, Shadow has not really been buffed at all and Quite frankly feels awful to play in Hardcore solo.
Lots of specs were indeed buffed and re-worked to be better versions of themselves, but very little of Priest's new kit is relevant to its solo power level.
2. Buffing Enemy HP by 10-15% affects Priests more than the percentage would suggest
There are quite a few classes that have a steady, consistent damage profile; if it can kill a 1000 HP mob in 10 seconds it can kill a 2000 HP mob in 20-22 seconds, for example without it being a huge detriment to its resources or requiring immense downtime.
Priest is not one of these classes.
The optimal way to grind Priest solo is often misunderstood and involves three phases: pulling a mob with a hardcast, unleashing the maximum number of damaging spells while taking into consideration the desire for mana to not run out during a continuous grind, and finishing a mob with wanding/melee weaving. This ensuring your mp5 regeneration time is maximized and you can methodically move from one mob to the next without ever taking a break.
When mob health is increased, it increases the amount of time a Priest spends wanding, which significantly increases how long it takes for them to kill mobs and adds up to major frustration during a prolonged period of time.
Yes, I know the memes about Priest being the wand spec class, but it was never really true to those who took the time and effort to optimize them...but with the NPC boost, I sometimes feel like I am living the meme when taking on equal-level mobs.
How to fix this
Fixing a class for solo play is a slippery slope, since you do not want such a fix to affect its group in a group dynamic. Fortunately, Priest has a really important solo talent that provides very little group benefit at the same time, Spirit Tap. If one simple tweak is made to it that actually has historical precedent, it would allow Priests to cast more versus mobs while on a continuous grind and allow its sustained damage to get back on track. Taken from the WOTLK version of the talent:
"Gives you a 100% chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target that yields experience or honor. For the duration, your mana will regenerate at a 83% rate while casting. Lasts 15 sec."
If the 50% while casting were changed to 83%, I believe it would fix a lot of the current problems with this class's solo play. It could still be a 5/5 talent, and the 83% would combine nicely with Meditation's 15% without any real other modifications.
But most importantly, this change would not significantly affect Priest's group play at all, allowing it to fix a problem without any un intended side effects.
But I will be clear, something definitely needs to change, as I am probably the biggest "solo Priest HC theorycrafter" that I know...and when I am not having fun grinding it, I can only imagine that others feel similarly.