Priest Race that can be all three specs lorewise

[Altkar-alonsus]

Hi Guys,

Long time lurker here, I rarely ever post but I had this question I couldn’t find an answer to.

You see, I’m not much of a Roleplayer (Though its something on my “to-do” list), but I need the headcanon for my characters to work. I want to roll a priest, preferably an alliance race (I had accidentally said "allied " earlier instead of “alliance”) However, I like to try all the different specs of a class I’m playing. So I want to roll a race that is at least somewhat valid lore-wise, when it comes to playing all the three priest specs, i.e holy, discipline and shadow.

Now I realise there may be no race that fits all these three specialisations (holy, discipline, shadow) perfectly, but I was looking for a race that has at least a decent level of lore support for being any of the three specs.

Thanks in Advance.

[Solithrien-magtheridon (Solithrien)]

The somewhat boring answer is Humans ; We’ve seen Holy and Disc type priests through the various Light oriented organizations like the Scarlet & Argent Crusades and Archbishop Benedictus became a Shadow Priest when he defected to the Twilight’s Hammer.

But since you’re particularly interested in Allied Races, I’d possibly recommend Dark Iron Dwarves. Although they don’t make it a central part of their culture, they’ve had Light-Based Paladins and Priests in their ranks since Vanilla. We’ve also seen Dark Iron Shadow Priests in abundance during Cataclysm when the race played a large part in the Twilight’s Hammer.

I believe we’ve also seen the Zandalari using both Void and Light magic, although I’m not sure we’ve seen Void Priest Zandalari that weren’t followers of Zul? Either way, we know that the Zandalari are able to wield both.

Other than them, Kul Tirans, being Humans, could in theory be all three specs although their culture doesn’t revolve around the Light so it’d perhaps be quite uncommon. They do however have a solid base for Shadow Priests.

The Nightborne presumably also had Light-based Priests at some point as the Priesthood of Elune was active at the time their bubble went up. Likewise, I can’t see anything that would mean they couldn’t be Shadow Priests. After all, a lot of the other Highborne races (Satyrs, Naga etc.) have been shown to be very adept at Void magic. Overall, the lore status of Nightborne priests is pretty undefined, but doesn’t rule out any of the specs.

The Allied Races I’d avoid are Lightforged Draenei (who physically can’t wield the Void), Void Elves (who can’t wield the Light) and Mag’har who really don’t like the Light due to Yrel’s crusade.

That’s my take on it; I hope that wasn’t too bad of a wall of text I also hope you enjoy playing your Priest whichever Race you pick!

[Tyreathion-argent-dawn]

Honestly, if you stay away from void elves and lightforged draenei, you’re just fine.

I’ve seen worgen, draenei, dwarven, even gnomish shadow priests, and we know all those races can also use the Light, and with that, you’re all set.

I’m even iffy about void elves not being able to use the Light. The whole assumption is still just based on one single little quote from an out of game audio drama, but I digress, it also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for them to use the Light of course.

However, I don’t think that should be a valid reason to keep you from playing a void elf holy priest in game. As long as you seperate IC from OOC, and stick a “All Light spells are Void IC” in your currently’s top, whenever you’re doing RP-PvP (which is the only time you really actually have to use your in game abilities IC), then you’re totally fine, in my opinion.

I’m playing a discipline priest in game and you can see my race is a void elf, I’ve not really gotten any “/w lol you using the Light, fecking loller, get up” kind of whispers so far. In character, all the spells Thion is using are Void based, but I do have to use smite every now and then, or I just fatfinger shadow word: pain sometimes.

[Vilumina-argent-dawn]

Just pointing out you can play all specs without RP’ing them, sort of what Tyr above here said, you might like Shadow in raids but want to RP a cleric of the church and thus are Holy then, or if in a PvP environment, as previously mentioned said, claim your spells aren’t really from that “school”. Or your character use both IC, but it’s not like you have to “today I’ll use Holy magic so I’ll spec Holy, and tomorrow I will be a Shadow priest.” Your character’s abilities doesn’t change depending on your game spec

(Everyone except Void elves for both Holy/Shadow magic IC I’d say, I still think Draenei as Shadow is hard to pull off, and obviously not Lightforged as Shadow either then)