Highlights

  • A healing bug for the Devouring Plague spell in World of Warcraft boosts the Shadow Priest's survivability by 133% in Awakened Raids.
  • Shadow Priests in Dragonflight Season 4 are nearly invincible due to the unintentional bug.
  • Blizzard has not yet released a fix for the Devouring Plague healing issue in World of Warcraft. It's unclear when one will come.

In the wake of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Season 4, some players reported a bug in Awakened raids that made the Shadow Priest's Devouring Plague spell heal for over four times the percentage it usually does, which makes the dark spell casters nearly invincible. Despite the mounting evidence, World of Warcraft has not released a fix for this issue at the time of writing.

In World of Warcraft, the Priest class is mostly known for being a reliable healer between the Holy and Discipline specializations. However, players who choose to be the Shadow specialization are considered a caster DPS. Using a special Shadowform to take on a dark visage, the Shadow Priest uses spells such as Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Devouring Plague that deal damage over time. Coupled with cooldowns, such as Vampiric Embrace and Mindbender, that can convert some damage done into healing, a Shadow Priest can sustain themselves and their party members during critical moments. While the Shadow Priest is notorious for undergoing significant changes in each expansion, they are expected to have an interesting role in The War Within expansion's story.

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With Dragonflight's fourth season underway, the Shadow Priest has been put in the spotlight for an unintended reason. According to Wowhead, the Shadow Priest's self-healing in Awakened Raids is bugged to their benefit and has essentially made them resistant to any damage done to them. The affected spell is Devouring Plague, a core part of the Shadow Priest's spell rotation. While Devouring Plague's healing portion is usually set to 30% of the damage done, this bug has increased it to 133%, over four times the norm. Devouring Plague's healing returns to normal outside the Awakened Raids. At the time of writing, the current Awakened Raid is Dragonflight's first raid, the Vault of the Incarnates.

World of Warcraft's Shadow Priest Bug Makes It Too Sustainable

  • Devouring Plague's self-healing has unintentionally increased to 133% instead of 30%
  • The bug only affects Shadow Priests in Awakened Raids, introduced in Dragonflight Season 4.
  • It is not known when a fix for this bug will be issued.

In short, Awakened Raids allow bosses to become more powerful and drop better loot, with a weekly rotation between World of Warcraft: Dragonflight's three raids. In addition to the Shadow Priest issue, the Awakened Raids also introduced another bug that affected the damage output of some classes. Players also reported that Monks, Devastation Evokers, and Assassination Rogues are dealing less damage than intended, which makes the Shadow Priest's beneficial bug more perplexing.

It is currently unknown when Blizzard will release a bug fix for these outstanding issues. With World of Warcraft's Patch 10.2.7 set for release on May 7, only time will tell if the developers will issue a fix before then.