Do you miss Priest racials? If so, do you want them back?

[Deleted]

Hello everybody!

Ok, so for those of you who don't know, before Wrath of the Lich King, Priests had racial abilities, based upon the race's religion and beliefs. Each race had two spells they learnt either completely unique to them, or that they shared with another race. While they helped define your character, they were horribly unbalanced - they made choosing a race as a Priest more than just cosmetics, and that meant you could be scolded for "picking the wrong one". It was rather unfair. Some races were better at healing/support roles, while others were better at damaging. Some of the Priest abilities we have today, such as Devouring Plague, were once racially-restricted! Others were removed entirely. However, I still loved them. Priests learned their racial abilities at level 10 and 20 respectively, from class quests.

It made each race feel more special, and I personally dislike how almost all modern Priest abilities are inspired by either The Holy Light (Humans - holy and disc) or The Cult of Forgotten Shadow (Undead - shadow). What about Night Elf Priests, who worship Elune? What about Troll Priests, who worship the Loa spirits? Personally I would love them to be returned to the game, but far more balanced. I see them working better as (possibly passive) bonuses to each race, only given to Priests. Or activated abilities that don't directly damage or heal, but help the Priest in a neutral fashion - not leaning towards scenarios where the race would be better at damaging or healing, but rather benefitting both sides of the class.

Below are the racials that were either given to every race or removed entirely - and afterwards, I give some suggestions for new racials and how they could be added again, yet far more balanced and useful! I'd love suggestions about how to improve them further. I don't see myself as a game balancing master so I'd welcome advice. They probably won't return, but you never know! And it's always fun to speculate anyhow. ^_^

Without further ado, let us begin!

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Human

I feel Human Priests had an even BIGGER advantage in PvP than today (Gasp!). Honestly, it's no suprise these became either removed or shared out fairly - three racials all useful in PvP would have been terribly OP.

Desperate Prayer - Yes, it's a talent for us now. Heals you for 30% of your total health. Was shared with the Dwarves.

Feedback - A removed racial. It was a Shadow-based short-lived buff. As long as it was active, any spell cast against you would burn enemy's mana and damage them. It wa only available to Human Priests. So, it was kind of like an automatic mana burn, which was pretty sweet. For an interesting lore fact, In the third war, Feedback was an ability used by human arcane towers and Blood Elf Spellbreakers with similar effects on mana using units.

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Dwarf

These racials seemed useful for both PvE and PvP. You could root a mob or pesky enemy player to save your squishy bearded hide.

Desperate Prayer - They shared this with Humans. Heals you for 30% of your total health, now a talent.

Chastise - Yes, you might recognize this as a Holy ability! It was originally a spell that rooted a target for 2 seconds after dealing a bit of holy damage. It was then removed entirely from the game for the duration of WotLK. Yet, it returned in Cataclysm as the basic Holy spell you learn after choosing that spec! This proves any of these spells could make a comeback. This was unique to Dwarves until TBC, where Draenei learned it also.

EDIT: According to Herbert and Kae, Dwarves had Fear Ward as a racial. And judging from their experiences, it was very powerful in raids! It was a buff that negated the next fear attempt on the protected player for three minutes.

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Night Elf

My personal favourites, due to my love for Night Elf lore and Elune. Sadly, both were removed from the game.

Starshards - It was an Arcane-based instant damage over time spell. Interestingly, It is the lesser version of the powerful spell Starfall used by Priestesses of the Moon such as Tyrande Whisperwind (Which, obviously, makes sense.)

Elune's Grace - An interesting spell for a Priest, which reduced the chance you'd be hit by physical and ranged (not spells) attacks by 20% for 15 seconds. Not terribly OP, but pretty cool.

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Draenei

Introduced in TBC, Draenei had very powerful racials for PvE. I'm not too suprised the former spell was redesigned as a multi-racial Priest ability.

Hymn of Hope - That's right. Hymn of Hope, our famed raid cooldown of today, was restricted to Draenei. It wasn't as powerful as the version we have today, but still - It must have been envied by the Horde greatly.

Chastise - Shared with Dwarves, this deals some holy damage and then roots a target. It was removed entirely in WotLK and then re-added in Cata as the spell you learn after choosing the Holy Specialization.

~~~

Troll

The Troll racials seem very heavily oriented toward PvP. They seemed OP, but were apparently pretty awesome to use! Both have been removed from the game entirely.

Hex of Weakness - This bad boy was the bane of healers in PvP, it seems. It cursed a victim with weakened physical damage and reducing the effectiveness of any healing by 20% for two minutes. That's right - it could reduce the healing an enemy healer could do, making it a great weapon against other Priests. They couldn't dispel it themselves, since it was a curse, and their healing was crippled for 2 whole minutes!

Shadowguard - An interesting spell, similar to a Shaman's Lightning Shield. When you were attacked with this buff, it did direct damage to the attacker. It could only proc every few seconds and had 3 charges. A powerful repellent against other players.

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Undead

The Undead racials seemed useful for both PvE and PvP. The former you'll recognize, but the latter was removed.

Devouring Plague - It was an Undead-only spell - a whole extra DoT for Priests! It was unfair, but very useful. It's the "I win" button of Shadow Priests today, consuming your shadow orbs. I never played an Undead Priest, unfortunately, so I'm not sure how it worked exactly before the orb mechanics.

Touch of Weakness - It was useful for both PvE and PvP, I imagine. It was a buff that lasted for ten minutes, and the next enemy who attacked the Priest had their damage reduced for 2 minutes. A nice punishment for those who would try to attack the squishy Priest. It was unique to Undead until TBC, where it was shared with Blood Elves, and eventually removed in WotLK.

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Blood Elf

I think Blood Elf Priests had very interesting racials. Both have been removed, unfortunately.

Touch of Weakness - It was shared with the Undead. A 10 minute buff that cursed an attacker with a damage penalty for 2 minutes. Removed.

Consume Magic - Sadly, also removed, though looking on back on it it was a very interesting spell. It consumed a self-buff of the Priest casting it, to generate mana. This included buffs such as Power Word: Fortitude, Inner Fire, and Touch of Weakness - it HAD to be a self-given Priest buff. Very powerful for mana regeneration, but kind of OP.

~~~



You'll notice that Alliance racials leaned towards more direct damaging and healing spells, while the Horde racials leaned towards utility more, and dealing damage. Some will also look obviously unfair and OP, while others were situational. Anyway, now that I've reminded you of them, do you think you miss Priest racials? Was their removal the highlight of WotLK's launch for you? Would you like them back, but more balanced? If so, how? Below I've written how some of my personal favourites could be returned, and how new racials could be given out to make each race more interesting and lore-worthy, but still balanced.



Touch of Weakness - I liked how this spell worked. It seemed pretty interesting to use. Perhaps it could be returned as a Shadow spell, with a shorter duration and curse time? 10 Minutes as a reactive buff and then a 2 minute curse did seem a bit crazy.

Elune's Grace - I personally tried out a Night Elf Priest on a friend's account, and I loved this spell. It saved my butt in sticky situations when I came across an angry furbolg or spider in Ashenvale. And yet, it never struck me as OP. I'd love to see it make a comeback, but perhaps with a nerf. What about if it was just a simple damage reduction spell, sparing you from 10% of damage taken and increasing your dodge chance? Dwarves have Stoneform which reduces the damage they take, and nobody ever really complains about how that's overpowered.

Consume Magic - as I said earlier, I found this spell very interesting. It's a shame it only really fits blood elves, and lore-wise they don't need to feed on mana anymore with the Sunwell restored, so it wouldn't make much sense. If it could be added back in somehow, I'd love it!


I've given some suggestions, but what do YOU think? I'd love some feedback, and to see if anybody else misses the old racials. If they were re-added I'd want them to definitely be balanced and fair, but still to be able to add an exciting new flavour to each race. Perhaps all classes could get racial abilities? It's interesting to think about.

Apologies for the wall of text, but thanks for reading!

PS: I'm not asking for now-shared Priest abilities, like Desperate Prayer and Devouring Plague, to be ripped away from all but one race to give them their unique racial back. That wouldn't be fair, and the game has evolved since that time. I'm just wondering if the removed racials could be implemented again but with balance, or perhaps even shared out towards all races.

[Thirteen]

I used to play a blood elf priest, and really miss having Consume Magic :[. I even remember putting Fade on myself, hoping that that would be the one it removed. So, while I don't think there's a chance of priest racials returning as priest-specific racials, I would love to have them back.

[Ezekiah]

I do miss starshards, but only in it's later, broken incarnation. Instant cast, mana-free DoT. Ridiculous. Before that, I believe it was a channeled nuke that hit weaker than mind flay, no?

[Deleted]

IIRC, before TBC dwurfs had Fear Ward instead as one of their racials. Was freaking OP!

[Leih]

Yeah old school dwarf racial was Fear Ward. I remember having a couple of dwarf priests in the raid being glorious for things like Onyxia and Nefarian with their AOE fears. Our dwarf priest was celebrated as a hero!

[Prancing Minstrel]

I'd like to think my Worgen priest would get some sort of 'go for the throat' type racial. Still, I don't even like current racials, I definitely don't want even more pressuring me to choose a race I may not like the look of.

[Mctriple]

I wish they'd get rid of the current racials. There's no way I want them adding even more.

[Gestopft]

I don't miss having to rebuff both shadowguard and inner fire all the freaking time. They were interesting, but ultimately it's better that they are gone.

[Anastacy]

Feedback, the Human racial, was mana drain on melee hit, which went in line with the (assumed/apparent?) "melee-caster-hybrid" train of thought that used to be the Disc Tree. Mana drains are gone forever.

Touch of Weakness, the Undead racial, was a minus-melee damage debuff on targets, which shared spellslots (I believe) with the old Warlock curse, which was reduced to a minus-Attcack Power debuff, which has been homogenized further into a straight percentage reduction in melee damage done debuff.

Shadow Orbs, Devouring Plague, Hymn of Hope, and Fear Ward have been re-worked entirely.

The only real unique ones left, considering all of that, are Star Shards and Consume Magic, neither of which fully fit a "Priest" (not race specific) toolkit.

Thus, I think nostalgia has just struck you really, really hard.

[Deleted]

As I said, it's interesting to think about. I also wasn't aware Fear Ward was a Dwarf racial! I never really saw any of the little guys, especially in the Night Elf zones. :P

Balancing would be a nightmare, yet if they could make racials (Not just Priest ones) not too OP to be unbalanced, but just enough to be appreciated group-wide, it would be awesome, similiar as Kae's story about the Dwarf Priests.

If that would be too hard, I'd like to see some of the removed ones brought back and then revamped, like how they did with Holy Word: Chastise and Hymn of Hope. Touch of Weakness would be a cool shadow spell, I think. And if all Priest races, including Night Elves and Trolls, are forced to use "Holy Light" spells to heal and protect themselves, then I'm sure races that worship them, such as Humans and Dwarves, could manage having one or two Elune/Loa based spells, yes?

[ovamaestro]

i remember devouring plague, it was a single target dot, 24 secs cooldown, also healed the priest on every tick, it was good, not awesome, but good.

[Sunius]

The racials - not really. I rarely ended up using them.

However, I miss working mind vision, baseline mind control and mind soothe .

[Zinge]

Draenei, when introduced, were also given Fear Ward as a racial.

[Grubjuice]

it would be nice if the racials were cosmetic variations only

for example: Mind Flay would be called Star-shards for Nelfs and have a different animation, but would be the exact same spell damage and proc wise.

Nelfs would have Elunite spells
Draenei would have Naaru inspired spells
Humans/Dwarves/Gnomes would have Church of the Holy Light inspired Spells
Foresaken would have Cult of the Lost Shadow inspired spells
Blood Elves would have Sunwell/Blood Magic inspired spells
Trolls would have Loa/Witch Doctor inspired spells
Goblins would have Blessed Exchequer of the Divine Treasury inspired spells.
Pandaren would have August Celestial Inspired spells

[Raxxed]

Starshards was the shit.
Rip in piece.

[Velerios]

NO NO NO

Racials were simply bad: As alliance, you were needed to play a Dwarf Priest for Fear Ward. So no, racials were simply bad. But what i would rather like to see is something similar: You should able to follow a faith, that provides similar abilities like Racials, But you should be able to change your faith. Not as easy as it is with talents, but you should be allowed to change it. One good example would be the Scryer/Aldor: you need to farm a lot to be able to change your faith.

[snaxattax]

racials are already too strong. i like racials from a flavor standpoint, but when they're as strong as they are right now it becomes what drives your race choice.

[checking facts]

I believe priests should have "racial flavor" on their spells in order to show the differences between the various religions of azeroth.

but IMHO, all priests should have access to the same effects. the troll priest abilities should look differently from the draenei ones, but they should do exactly the same things as far as game mechanics go.

[Dyra]

I remember these!

*zones out in nostalgia*

I remember Devouring Plague being quite handy, but Touch of Weakness not often being used since I was running around questing with my pocket tank.

But no, I don't want to see them back. The racials are already bad enough without adding in class ones too. Plus I think our spellbooks are already pretty bloated. Some cosmetic changes to our spells depending on race would be nice though.

[Venziir]

Honestly, all classes should have race based abilities to make things a bit more "unique". Though it would be a hassle to balance of course... But still...