Penance

Penance is a common priest spell card, from the Saviors of Uldum set.

Strategy
As a 3-damage, 2-mana spell in the same vein as Frostbolt and Darkbomb which also heals your hero like Holy Fire, Penance is an efficient removal card for its cost. This card gives Priests an option for dealing with early-game aggression, removing small minions while healing off early face damage with the Lifesteal effect. It can be used in place of Shadow Word: Pain in this niche, or alongside it so that you can save Shadow Word: Pain for high-health, low-attack minions.

Prophet Velen doubles the damage and then doubles the Lifesteal healing, causing it to deal 6 damage and heal for 12.

Lore
is a channeled Discipline priest ability which launches a volley of holy energy at a target, dealing damage if it's an enemy or healing if it's an ally. It interacts positively with the Discipline priest Atonement buff, which causes damage dealt to heal all allies with Atonement.

Trivia

 * Penance's effect is nearly identical to the priest spell of the same name that was removed during the Hearthstone alpha.
 * Penance used to be strictly better than the Warlock spell Drain Soul, but with the introduction of the 2021 Core Set, Drain Soul was buffed to deal the same damage as Penance.

Patch changes

 * Holy spell school added.
 * Added.