New S-Priest - race choice?

[discoslice]

Horde only - Undead seems cool but does cloth look horrendous on them? I plan to play Shadow mainly, probably with some Disc off-healing.

And mainly PvE. ty for any input. Question is mainly about how they look in priest gear. Someone said that Arcane Torrent is helpful as an Insanity generator but not sure how helpful that is.

p.s. also going male

[Deleted]

Horde only - Undead seems cool but does cloth look horrendous on them? I plan to play Shadow mainly, probably with some Disc off-healing.

And mainly PvE. ty for any input. Question is mainly about how they look in priest gear. Someone said that Arcane Torrent is helpful as an Insanity generator but not sure how helpful that is.

p.s. also going male

Troll mate, zerking is amazing for SP and shoulders look decent size on the model.

[Sevyvia]

On the other hand, Berserking is pretty bad for the healing specs, while Arcane Torrent retains its usefulness for both. And an AoE silence is great if you're looking at doing M+.

[Deleted]

On the other hand, Berserking is pretty bad for the healing specs, while Arcane Torrent retains its usefulness for both. And an AoE silence is great if you're looking at doing M+.

I would agree for Holy but zerking is very good for disc for the big combo of 5x atonements>2x radiance>evang>lights wrath>penance>smites, but yes content dependant it may end up being weaker, but since the OP is going to mainly playing shadow then its zerking all the way IMO.

[Razion]

So, with you only considering males of Troll, Tauren, Goblin, Blood Elf, and Pandaren... well, if armor-fitting is a primary concern for you, I wouldn't recommend Troll, as they bend a lot of their chest armor weirdly near the waist (kind of ruins a lot of robes). Tauren look pretty good in most robes, but it's a challenge finding good helms and small shoulders. (Also, you can't really do anything with boots, though that may be a relief.) Blood Elves have the lean, so if you're okay at always being at an angle, they do "fit" the best in robes. Goblins are pretty okay, (not as good as Tauren for cloth armor imo). Goblins are even harder to find good helms and hairstyles for. As far as racial casting animations, I think Tauren make for the best healing animations, though since we're talking about Shadow Priests, I think Goblins have the better dps casting animations. Pandaren I'm pretty neutral about as far as robes and casting animations. Kind of a meh recommend. Maybe try one if nothing else is lighting you up.

As far as racials, they tend to fluctuate between expansions, so it's probably better to pick which ones you find more enjoyable. However, Haste is always generally considered always a good stat for Spriests, so maybe Goblin is a good "safe" racial choice, long-term. Also, an unchanging factor though is how useful Goblin Rocket Jump can be when you need to soak something with Dispersion.

Overall I'd probably recommend Goblin for a new Spriest.

[yarafx1]

Goblin if you're pushing mythic content a movement ability is really really really useful.

[Deleted]

Goblin is amazing for utility, and passive haste is good for shadow and disc, ok for holy. And you don't have to worry about looks, since no one will ever look that low.

For looks, tauren and trolls are decent, male belf can look ok, depending on what transmog you have.

[Kyranna]

Male undead shadow (old) animations were amazing, also the look is very cool imo. Generally speaking you'll be a purple thing very often, so the look has a relative importance compared to posture and animations. I play ally on priest (nelf because I love Shadowmeld), but if I should switch horde it'd be male undead and female belf or undead.
Racials wise, I'd pick goblin maybe for having a nice utility, even if I hardly look at those features when choosing races.

[Grumpy Old Man]

if armor-fitting is a primary concern for you, I wouldn't recommend Troll, as they bend a lot of their chest armor weirdly near the waist (kind of ruins a lot of robes).

Female trolls are fine though.

[Razion]

Female trolls are fine though.

(Well, yeah, but OP specified they'd be only considering Male options.)

[IamStardust]

Male BE because of the /dance. Its the only choice.

[Grumpy Old Man]

(Well, yeah, but OP specified they'd be only considering Male options.)

Didn't see that, my bad.

[anon5123]

Race doesn't particularly matter much anymore, all the bonuses are close enough together that there's no one that is far better than the others.

I just go with panda because you can get whatever extra stat you want from the food buff bonus, compared to other races getting flat 1% in a specific stat that can never change. Plus the food buff bonus applies to food buffs that give main stat (int) which only makes it that much better.

[Kazuchika]

Except for shadow priests int is nowhere near as valuable as secondary stats are so getting extra int is pointless when you could have crit or haste.

[Caelala]

As someone who plays spriest at a relatively high level (currently 5/9M) I'd advise you to go for blood elf or goblin if you're looking to min max otherwise the difference is negligible undead is widely accepted to have some of the best caster animations although these are getting redone in a patch on Tuesday which means that most of the races will share a lot of animations. As far as transmog goes belf is the most stereotypical "human" as far as horde is concerned so the armor models will probably look best on them however undead also look quite good in priest gear. TLDR; belf / gobbo for super min max otherwise do whatever you want

[A Chozo]

Goblins are too overpowered with their racials.

[zlygork]

Laugh if you will, I love my tauren shadow priest, even from a lore perspective (or head canon, if you will) Mu'sha casts shadows on the land 8)

If you ask about min/maxing, my answer is don't; if you were playing at a level where min/maxing mattered, you wouldn't be asking here.

[Deleted]

Pick a Blood Elf and be done with it, they look great no matter what, animations and all.

[Thelxi]

I like the channeling animation of both be and undead. Im not sure if they are changing that in 7.3, but looking good channeling mind flay is reason enough to go either one if those races imo.

[Ericdaroude]

in this expansion all races are within 1% dmg wise
however as people already stated, goblin offers unique utility for an otherwise immobile spec and bloodelf racial can compensate insanity loss due to movement/spell error