- Author: Amery
- Date: August 16, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
A variety of races can be Priests in WotLK: Human, Dwarf, Night Elf and Draenei for the Alliance, as well as Undead, Troll and Blood Elf for the Horde.
Thankfully, the difference in performance between the races is pretty small for healers. While some races are clearly slightly better and some are clearly slightly worse, as a healer you could pick any race that looks good to you, and do just fine.
Horde
Blood Elf is by the strongest race for Horde Discipline Priests. This is largely due to the Arcane Torrent racial, which restores 6% of our total mana. The other races we can pick simply don’t have any healing-boosting racials, meaning Blood Elf is our only recommended option.
Blood Elves are typically seen as a visually appealing race that’s mostly pretty weak from a gameplay perspective. Thankfully, that’s not the case for us as Disc Priests; we don’t really need the cast speed racial increase of Trolls, while the mana restoration component of Arcane Torrent will certainly be very useful to you as a healer. Blood Elf lovers, rejoice!
- Arcane Torrent is an on-use spell that silences all enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds, while also restoring 6% of your mana. Most bosses are immune to silence, so the silence effect is mostly useless in raids, but the mana restoration component will be very useful for a healer, despite the hefty 2-minute cooldown.
- Magic Resistance reduces the chance to be hit by spells by 2%. This essentially combines all of the various Resistance-type racials out there, making it surprisingly flexible. Still, its benefit is mostly neglectable in PvE, while being alright in PvP.
- Arcane Affinity increases your initial and maximum Enchanting skill by 15. This doesn’t have a gameplay impact besides minor convenience.
Troll Discipline Priests aren’t a very common sight, as they’re arguably weaker than Blood Elves in PvE and certainly weaker than Undead in PvP. They’re 2nd best PvE race thanks to Berserking, which can be useful situationally, but they’ll generally be noticeably worse than Blood Elves, so we only recommend picking Troll if you really like their looks.
- Berserking is an on-use spell that offers +20% increased casting speed for 10 seconds on a 3-minute cooldown. While this racial is incredibly powerful for damage dealers and even many healers, for us as Discipline Priests it just isn’t as useful. We get all the spell haste we could ever need from the Borrowed Time talent, and we generally don’t have much use for more haste than that.
- Beast Slaying increases your damage dealt to Beast-type enemies by 5%, which isn’t very good for healers.
- Da Voodoo Shuffle passively reduces the duration of movement slowing & immobilizing effects on you by 15%. Generally mostly a PvP racial, but it can occasionally come in handy in PvE as well.
- Regeneration increases health regeneration by 10% and allows you to regenerate health during combat at 10% of the your normal regeneration rate. Note that this increases “health regeneration” rather than “healing”, which unfortunately makes it almost completely useless for us.
- Bow Specialization and Throwing Specialization increase your critical strike chance with bows & throwing weapons by 1%. Sadly, Priests do not benefit from this racial, as we cannot use bows or throwing weapons.
Undead Priests are a powerhouse in PvP thanks to the ubiquity of Will of the Forsaken, but unfortunately they’re almost completely useless in PvE, as none of their racials really help you heal better. Perhaps that’s for the best, as Undead Discipline Priests using the light feels like sacrilege!
- Will of the Forsaken removes charm, fear, and sleep effects. This will be the biggest beneficial racial for PvE as it will help mitigate certain raid mechanics and allow you to keep healing when other healers are crowd controlled, but this will be incredibly rare.
- Cannibalize allows you to feast on the corpses of your slain enemies to restore your health. This does not have big implications for PvE content but does come in handy whilst doing solo content.
- Shadow Resistance reduces the chance you will be hit by Shadow spells by 2%. This is mostly a neglectable racial when it comes to PvE.
- Underwater Breathing helps you survive for a very long time underwater. If only there was an underwater raid!
Alliance
Human is seen as the strongest option for Alliance Discipline Priests, mainly due to The Human Spirit which increases your Spirit by 3%. Every Man for Himself is also an excellent racial effect, particularly in PvP. Like with most healers that can be play as that race however, 
Draenei is also a great choice for Disc Priests, as every raid needs 4+ Draenei and healers generally don’t get any extremely useful effects from other races so they’re penalized the least.
Human is the strongest choice for Discipline Priests, which is fitting as some of the most iconic Priests in Warcraft lore (Alonsus Faol, Archbishop Benedictus, Anduin Wrynn) are all Human. In all honesty however, the difference between Humans and other races generally won’t be big, as the main difference lies in The Human Spirit, which improves your mana regen, but not by a game-changing amount.
- The Human Spirit increases your spirit by 3%. This will be very useful for us as healers, as spirit increases our mana regeneration, and thus Humans will be able to keep healing where other Priests go out of mana.
- Every Man for Himself is a crowd-control removal ability just like the Undead race, but this one has universal applicability. It is useful in PvE scenarios but has much more use in a PvP encounter, where Humans are typically considered the strongest race in the game.
- Perception passively increases your stealth detection level by a small amount. Since there aren’t a lot of stealthed mobs in PvE, this benefit is largely not too useful.
- Diplomacy increases the rate at which you gain reputation by 10%, a major boost for your reputation grind. Whilst a beneficial quality of life racial, it doesn’t impact actual gameplay.
- Sword Specialization & Mace Specialization increase your expertise by 3 when using swords or maces. As a Discipline Priest, you do not benefit from expertise at all, as you generally don’t attack with your mace, and you can’t use swords.
Draenei are the 2nd strongest option for Alliance Discipline Priests, and that’s pretty much all thanks to the Heroic Presence. Every DPS group in your raid will want to have 1 Draenei in it for this powerful aura, meaning your raid needs 4-5 Draenei in total. As a healer, you lose very little by not picking a different race, so you make for a great candidate for this powerful racial. If your raid needs more Draenei, or you like the impeccable Draenei aesthetics, feel free to go Draenei — you won’t miss The Human Spirit that much.
- Heroic Presence increases the chance to hit with spells and physical attacks by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards. Every single DPS group will want to have at least 1 Draenei for this powerful buff.
- Gift of the Naaru places a heal-over-time effect on a single target that lasts 15 seconds, with a 3-minute cooldown. Sadly, this spell doesn’t heal for a whole lot, so you’ll use it very, very rarely.
- Shadow Resistance reduces the chance you will be hit by Shadow spells by 2%. This is mostly a neglectable racial when it comes to PvE.
- Gemcutting increases your initial Jewelcrafting skill by 5. This doesn’t have a gameplay impact besides minor convenience.
Dwarf Priests were highly coveted back in Classic, for their unique ability to use Fear Ward. Now that Priests of all races have access to it however, poor Dwarves are left with no real useful racial to speak of, and as such are very rarely picked — we’d recommend against going Dwarf.
- Stoneform is an on-use spell that gives you +10% increased armor for 8 seconds and dispels all poison, disease and bleed effects on you, on a 2-minute cooldown. This can be handy in PvP, and the dispel effect can even be situationally useful in PvE, but in general this is the only somewhat useful racial you get as a Dwarf, and the fact that it isn’t all that good speaks for itself.
- Frost Resistance reduces the chance you will be hit by Frost spells by 2%. This is mostly a neglectable racial when it comes to PvE.
- Find Treasure is a very cool racial from a roleplay point of view, allowing you to see treasure on the minimap. This is very fun to use while questing and leveling up, but it unfortunately has 0 relevance in raids.
- Mace Specialization increases your expertise by 5 when using maces. This is useless for a Priest as you do not use your mace.
- Gun Specialization increases your critical strike chance with guns by 1%. This is completely useless for a Priest, as we can’t use guns.
Night Elf Priests are a rare sight, and unfortunately that’s for good reason; they don’t have any healing-related racials to speak of. Shadowmeld can very situationally be useful in dangerous situations, but all in all, we recommend against picking Night Elf.
- Shadowmeld can be used in order to escape combat and become stealthed once every 2 minutes. It will also cause you to drop all threat on every target you’re currently engaged in combat with, but all threat will be restored the moment you leave stealth — which will happen the moment you move or take any action. This racial can be helpful for those moments where you accidentally pull threat on a mob that a tank can’t get to, but on its own this racial just can’t cut it.
- Quickness reduces the chance you’ll be hit by melee and ranged attacks by 2%. If you’re getting hit by melee or ranged attacks as a Discipline Priest, something has gone very wrong — this racial should never come in play at all in pvE.
- Nature Resistance reduces the chance you will be hit by Nature spells by 2%. This is mostly a neglectable racial when it comes to PvE.
- Elusiveness reduces the chance to be detected if you are stealthed. The only way to go stealth as a Priest is through Shadowmeld, making this racial irrelevant in PvE content.
- Wisp Spirit increases your movement speed by 75% while dead. You generally don’t want to be dead.
About the Author
Hey guys – error here with the mention of the troll racial Berserking.
Should be fixed now!