Priest Class Overview

With the announcement of World of Warcraft: Forever also came details about a new race and racial abilities, as well as tweaks to existing ones. The fact that the new Skyborn Elf race cannot play as a Priest doesn't mean that Priests haven't gained a new race to play as.

Below is the list of all the races that can play as Priest, starting with the newest addition to the Priest roster.

• Gnomes
  • Gnomes are the new racial option for Priest players to play as in World of Warcraft: Forever.
  • In WoW Classic, Gnomes had 4 innate Racial Traits: Arcane Resistance, Engineering Specialization, Escape Artist, and Expansive Mind. With World of Warcraft: Forever, their Arcane Resistance has been replaced with Eureka, and their Expansive Mind has been reworked from providing passive Intellect to increasing the maximum of your class's combat resource (Mana, Rage, and Energy).
  • Engineering Specialization and Escape Artist remain unchanged from WoW Classic.
  • The Priest racial spells for Gnome are entirely new since Gnomes were not able to play as Priest in the past. Confounding Flash and Contingency Plan are Gnome's Priest racials. Both of these unique racial abilities provide additional survivability through utility.
  • Confounding Flash is an AoE CC that confuses up to 5 enemies. Contingency Plan works to give an ally a second chance at life. These abilities work great to give you and your tank some breathing room if a situation gets dicey, making Gnome an overall solid pick for Priest players.
• Humans
  • In WoW Classic, Humans were seen to be one of the weaker choices for Priests to play as. World of Warcraft: Forever introduced changes to Human Racial Traits that lookt to shift their ranking as Priest among the other races.
  • Diplomacy has been removed, its increased Reputation gain being replaced with Will to Survive. Will to Survive provides a way to break out of CC. Sword Specialization has been reworked, no longer granting 5 skill levels of one-hand and two-hand Swords.
  • In World of Warcraft: Forever, Sword Specialization now grants a passive 2% Critical Chance increase to spells and abilities while wielding a Sword. The Human Spirit and Perception remain unchanged.
  • The Priest racials for Human retain Feedback, but have exchanged Desperate Prayer for Divine Grace. Feedback is unchanged from its Classic counterpart. Rather than having a generic heal spell, Divine Grace has more flavor. The spell heals a target below 50% Health and removes Weakened Soul from the target.
  • Divine Grace makes Humans an appealing choice for those wishing to play the Discipline specialization since it is en emergency heal with a Power Word: Shield reset.
• Dwarves
  • In WoW Classic, Dwarves were a popular pick for Priest players, mainly due to their Fear Ward racial. This pushed Dwarves to the top of the Alliance Priest race options for both PvE and PvP content. World of Warcraft: Forever has changed one of the Dwarf Priest racial abilities, shifting their preventative ward to all Priest races and granting Dwarves a proactive utility option to replace it.
  • Between Classic and Forever, Dwarves have lost their Frost Resistance and Gun Specialization. They have been replaced with Big Game Hunter and Mace Specialization. Their Stoneform and Find Treasure remain unchanged.
  • Fear Ward has been removed, now becoming a baseline ability for any Priest race, and replaced by Chastise, a soft CC against Humanoids that roots the target in place.
  • Dwarf's Desperate Prayer remains unchanged.
• Night Elves
  • When it came to the best picks for those wishing to play as Priest in Alliance, Night Elves were (and likely still are) the least desirable. Their Racials didn't synergize well with the clas in Classic WoW. Forever makes many changes to Night Elf racials, making them more desirable as to pick as Priest than in Classic.
  • Nature Resistance has been removed entirely. Quickness and Shadowmeld are changed. Wisp Spirit remains largely unchanged.
  • Replacing Nature Resistance is Elune's Light, an active that increases your Critical Strike Chance by 10%. Quickness has been buffed, previously only granting 1% Dodge Chance, and now also granting 2% Run Speed passively. Shadowmeld remains an active ability, granting Stealth while immobile.
  • Elune's Grace has been changed from its Classic counterpart. It no longer provides an aura, its Dodge Chance is applied to both Melee and Ranged attacks, and its dodge chance has been increased from 10% to 50%.
  • Starshards remains largely unchanged, its damage was notably buffed and also gained a 30s cooldown to compensate.
• Undead
  • The Undead are one of two races among the Horde faction in WoW Classic that could play as a priest. The World of Warcraft: Forever Demo at BlizzCon 2026 did not feature any races added to the Priest roster.
  • Cannibalize has been buffed to also grant mana as well as health on use, giving Undead Priests another tool for mana management. Will of the Forsaken no longer grants immunity to Charm, Fear, and Sleep effects, making it a 1-time cleanse on a 2 minute cooldown. Underwater Breathing remains unchanged.
  • Undead Priests have seen one major change to their race specific Priest spells. Devouring Plague is no longer exclusive to Undead Priests and is now available to Priests of every race. Undead Priests instead gain Dark Sacrifice, which allows the Priest to sacrifice some of their own health over 15 seconds to restore an equal amount of Mana. This is a nice utility to have for mana management.
• Trolls
  • The race-specific Priest spells available to Troll Priests have not yet been confirmed from the BlizzCon demo. This section will be updated once more information becomes available during Beta.

Priests have received several important changes to their baseline spells in World of Warcraft: Forever. Some abilities that were previously limited to specific races are now available to all Priests, while new abilities have also been added to support each specialization.

• Shadowform sees a change from being unable to access Holy spells to being unable to access Healing spells. Shadowform now increases Shadow damage by 10%, reduces the Mana cost of Shadow spells by 50%, increases the critical strike damage bonus of Shadow spells by 100%, and reduces Physical damage taken by 15%.
• Devouring Plague is no longer exclusive to Undead Priests and is now available to Priests of every race.
• Fear Ward is no longer exclusive to Dwarf Priests and is now available to Priests of every race.
• Shadow Word: Death is a new Shadow spell available to Priests and is further improved through the Shadow talent tree.
• Divine Spirit is no longer obtained through the Discipline talent tree and is instead learned as a normal Priest spell.

World of Warcraft: Forever is making many changes across the board, including huge changes to Priest talents. Each specialization for Priest is affected.

Many of the new Discipline talents affect both healing and damage dealing, pushing the theme of balance further. The most notable additions that demonstrate this include Penance and Twin Disciplines. Rather than increasing raw healing output, the additions and changes give Discipline more utility, damage, and damage prevention.

• Unbreakable Will — Removed.
• Improved Power Word: Fortitude — Removed.
• Divine Spirit — Removed from the talent tree and made a normal Priest spell.
• Force of Will — Removed.
• Wand Specialization — Changed. Previously had 5 points that could be spent into it. Now has only two, but the wand damage increased has been changed from 5% to 13%.
• Power in Light — New. Increases the damage of Smite and Penance against targets affected by Holy Fire.
• Twin Disciplines — New. Increases the damage and healing of instant cast spells.
• Holy Precision — New. Increases the chance to hit with Holy spells.
• Soul Warding — New. Reduces the cooldown and Mana cost of Power Word: Shield.
• Penance — New. Channels a volley of Holy energy that can either damage an enemy or heal an ally.
• Renewed Hope — New. Direct heals gain increased critical strike chance when cast on targets affected by Weakened Soul and reduce the remaining duration of Weakened Soul.
• Divine Aegis — New. Critical heals create an absorb shield on the target.
• Silent Resolve — Changed. Now reduces threat generated by Holy spells and reduces the duration of Stun, Fear, and Silence effects.
• Mental Agility — Changed. Now reduces the Mana cost of Smite and Holy Fire in addition to instant cast spells.
• Meditation — Changed. Continues to allow Mana regeneration while casting, with its values adjusted in Forever.
• Improved Inner Fire — Changed. In addition to increasing the Armor provided by Inner Fire, it now increases the spell's total charges.
• Mental Strength — Changed. Now increases total Intellect.
• Improved Mana Burn — Changed. Reduces the casting time of Mana Burn.
• Power Infusion — Changed. Now requires Penance and increases the target's spell damage and healing for its duration.

Holy keeps its focus on direct healing while gaining several new tools for healing multiple targets and rewarding Priests for using a wider variety of healing spells. New additions such as Binding Heal and Prayer of Mending give Holy Priests more options for reacting to incoming group damage.

• Improved Prayer of Healing — Removed.
• Lightwell — Removed.
• Binding Heal — New. Heals a friendly target and the Priest at the same time while generating low threat.
• Litany of Light — New. Restores Mana when a Priest casts a healing spell that is different from their previous healing spell.
• Prayer of Mending — New. Places a heal on an ally that activates when they take damage or receive non-periodic healing, then jumps to another nearby party or raid member. It can jump up to five times.
• Twilight Focus — Changed from Healing Focus. Its protection against spellcasting interruption now applies while casting any spell rather than only healing spells.
• Improved Healing — Changed. Now also reduces the Mana cost of Penance and Prayer of Mending.
• Searing Light — Changed. Increases Holy damage and gives Holy Fire's periodic damage a chance to make the Priest's next Holy Nova cost no Mana.
• Blessed Recovery — Changed. Can now trigger after taking a melee or ranged critical hit or suffering a large amount of damage from a single attack.
• Inspiration — Changed. Non-periodic critical heals increase the target's Armor.
• Spirit of Redemption — Changed. While in Spirit of Redemption, the Priest can cast any healing spell without a Mana cost.
• Spiritual Guidance — Changed. Spirit now increases both spell healing and spell damage.
• Spiritual Healing — Changed. The number of talent ranks and healing increase have been adjusted.

Shadow receives substantial changes aimed at improving its damage, Mana efficiency, and ability to function as a dedicated damage specialization. Devouring Plague is now available to every Priest, Shadow Word: Death has been added to the Priest toolkit, and Shadowform has been redesigned to heavily reduce the Mana cost of Shadow spells.

• Improved Vampiric Embrace — Removed.
• Improved Mind Flay — New. Increases Mind Flay's damage and range while reducing the strength of its movement speed reduction.
• Devouring Contagion — New. Reduces the Mana cost of Devouring Plague and causes it to spread to a nearby enemy for its remaining duration when the affected target dies.
• Early Demise — New. Increases the critical strike chance of Shadow Word: Death against targets at or below 20% health.
• Spirit Tap — Changed. Can now allow Mana regeneration to continue while casting when active.
• Shadow Affinity — Changed. Reduces the threat generated by Shadow spells.
• Shadow Reach — Changed. Increases the range of offensive Shadow spells.
• Mind Flay — Changed. Mind Flay continues to deal channeled Shadow damage while slowing the target and can now be further modified through Improved Mind Flay.
• Vampiric Embrace — Changed. Shadow damage heals party members, and enemies affected by Vampiric Embrace can allow Spirit Tap to trigger when they die.
• Shadow Weaving — Changed. Instead of increasing the Shadow damage taken by the target, it now increases the Priest's own Shadow damage and can stack up to five times.
• Silence — Changed. Silence now both prevents spellcasting and interrupts an active spellcast.
• Darkness — Changed. Increases the Priest's Shadow damage.
• Shadowform — Changed. Now increases Shadow damage by 10%, reduces the Mana cost of Shadow spells by 50%, increases the critical strike damage bonus of Shadow spells by 100%, and reduces Physical damage taken by 15%. Instead of preventing Holy spells from being cast, Shadowform now prevents healing spells.