WoW Priest
The Priest is a World of Warcraft class that possesses the power to cast incredible holy restorative spells as well as powerful destructive shadow spells to obliterate those who oppose them. The Priest is also capable of casting protective buffs and shields which protect him or herself and group members from enemy damage. The Priest has three main areas of spell focus: shadow (which primarily focuses on damage), holy (which primarily focuses on healing), and discipline (which consists of shields, buffs, and other miscellaneous magical spells). Priests are most sought after by guilds, groups, and raids for their healing and resurrection abilities.
The following guide provides a brief overview of the Priest class. This Priest Guide provides far more helpful information.
What Races Can a Priest Be?
Horde: Blood Elf, Troll, and Undead
Alliance: Draenei, Night Elf, Human, Dwarf
If you are looking to become a Priest you'll have to choose from one of the following races if you want to be Horde: Blood Elf, Troll, Undead; and if you want to be Alliance you'll have to choose from: Draenei, Night Elf, Human, and Dwarf. Any race will work but if you want to get the most benefit from being a particular race look at the racial bonuses each receives. Here are the racial bonuses beneficial to the Priest class: Humans have increased spirit and Draenei have increased chance to hit with spells. Also, when considering the race to choose keep in mind that Priests receive one to two racial specific spells.
What Kind of Gear Can a Priest Use?
Armor: Cloth
Weapons: Daggers, One-handed Maces, Staves, and Wands
Priests are only able to wear cloth armor. They are also able to use the following types of weapons: daggers, one-handed maces, staves, and wands. Priests are simply not designed to take or give melee damage. Beyond damaging with a wand, Priests typically will not be found meleeing unless for fun or to level up a weapon skill. Priests also have low hit points and taking large amounts of melee damage will often lead to their demise, unless they can heal and shield themselves enough to survive the attack.
What Stats Should a Priest Get?
Spirit
Intellect
Stamina
The three basic stats to focus on obtaining as a Priest are spirit, intellect, and stamina. Spirit has long been viewed as the most important stat for Priests because of talents in the Priest talent tree that are based off of the amount of spirit a Priest has. However, since there are a variety of specs a Priest can be some might find that they'd rather focus on stamina for survivability or intellect for more spell critical strike rating and mana. However, spirit, intellect, and stamina are the main stats any Priest should focus on obtaining.
What are the Main Abilities of a Priest?
Priests are perhaps best known for their healing abilities; however, they also produce high burst holy damage and consistent shadow spell damage. Priests are also able to cast useful buffs and shield party members from damage. In addition, they have many other incredibly useful spells that allow them to control humanoids, fear enemies, resurrect group members, and dispel magical effects, among other things.
What Kind of Attacks do Priests Have?
Priests are a casting class that doesn't use melee weapons, besides wands, for dealing damage. Instead they deal their damage through the use of powerful spells. While Priests do have some area of effect spells, they are primarily designed for causing single target healing and damage. The types of damage Priests can cause are shadow and holy.
What is the Role of a Priest in Groups?
The most common sought after use of Priests is for their healing abilities, therefore, if you are a Priest you will commonly get invited to groups to fulfill the role of a healer. Although a shadow spec'd Priest is able to heal fine for lower levels or in easier instances, Holy spec'd Priests are often desired for end game raids and instances. However, shadow spec'd Priests are also extremely beneficial in group settings because of their consistent damage, their ability to backup heal and resurrect players, and the bonus healing and mana regen their shadow spells can provide.
Is is Easy to Solo With a Priest?
Soloing with Priests is typically very easy because of the high amount of damage they can cause with shadow spells, their healing abilities, and special skills that allow priests to fear enemies and buff themselves. However, soloing can be very slow for Priests before they get the talent Shadowform, which increases shadow damage and reduces physical damage taken. Also, soloing while holy spec'd can be much much slower than soloing while shadow spec'd.
What Professions are Best for a Priest?
Tailoring
Alchemy
Enchanting
Jewelcrafting
If you are looking for professions that best compliment the Priest in terms of usefulness of the items created then the best four professions for Priests are Tailoring, Alchemy, Enchanting, and Jewelcrafting. With Tailoring Priests are able to craft useful stat relevant gear. With Alchemy Priests are able to create potions which do everything from increase spell damage to replenish mana. With Enchanting Priests are able to provide a wide range of enchants to gear which increase stats and provide other bonuses. Finally through Jewelcrafting Priests are able to cut gems and create jewelry and trinkets. However useful each of the above professions might be for the Priest, if you are looking to make lots of money with your Priest through gathering professions or simply want to do another profession then by all means go for it!
