Statistics And Their Role
There are 5 different stats that every class in World of Warcraft uses. For a priest, there are 3 main stats which you focus your character around. These are Stamina, Intellect and Spirit.
Strength (STR) increases your attack power. Priests can and do attack between
spells, but forgoing other stats for strength is not worth the investment.
Agility (AGI) increases armour, dodge and crit chance, and attack power with ranged weapons. This is a mostly average stat for any priest. It can increase the damage of your wand, and combined with Wand Specilization, can be moderately effective. Some pieces of armour will have this as an additional stat, and this is the only situation where you should add agility to your gear.
Stamina (STA) increases your health points. One point of stamina is equal to ten hit points. This is an essential stat, especially for priests focusing on PvP.
Intellect (INT) increases your mana, your rate at which you learn weapon skills, and you chance to score a critical hit with spells. This is the most important stat for priests, because for priests, mana can equal life. Because you can heal any damage you
take, and buff your hit points with shields, the more mana you have the longer you can do this for. Try and get equipment with high INT.
Spirit (SPI) affects health and mana regeneration. This stat is less important than stamina or intellect, but can be used to great effect in certain builds. 3 points of SPI is roughly equal to 1 mana regen per tick. When leveling, its often a tactic to swap INT/STA equipment for INT/SPI equipment. This works particularly well when combined with Spirit Tap for reducing downtime.

Choosing The Right Race For You
For the Alliance, priests can come from four of the five races – Dwarves, Draenei, Humans and Night Elves. Each race has different racial abilities, and also has access to two racial spells, which they learn at levels 10 and 20. For the Horde, Undead, Troll and Blood Elf races can choose priest. Below, each race's racial abilities and spells are discussed briefly, and then I will give my recommendation for which race to play.
Dwarves
Dwarves make very good priests for the Alliance. Their racial abilities, while better suited to some other classes, are nice, especially the active skill Stoneform. Desperate Prayer can help prevent a group wipe in a nasty situation, and can help escape in PvP. Fear Ward is among the best of the race specific spells available to the class, especially in end game PvE situations, against bosses with fear. The best class for PvE priests.
Racial abilities:Racial abilities:Racial abilities:
Stoneform – This racial ability allows you to remove poison, disease and bleed effects (such as garrote) and remain immune to them for 8 seconds. It also increases your armor by 10% while active. For priests, the armor increase is minor, but the ability to remove poisons and bleed effects from yourself is fairly handy, since you have no magical way of removing those effects. Overall, it's a useful ability to have for both PvE and PvP content.
Gun Specialization – increases your gun skill. Unfortunately, you can't use guns.
Frost Resistance – This gives 10 extra resistance to frost-based attacks and spells. It's mildly useful, but without a great deal of additional resistance gear, you won't see very many reduced or negated frost attacks.
Treasure Finding – a fun ability, while it's active, you can see treasure chests on your mini map. However, you can only have one tracking method active at a time, so if you're an herbalist or miner, you won't see flowers to pick or mines to stick a pick into on your mini map.

Desperate Prayer – this is an instant self-heal with a 10 minute cooldown and no mana cost. It's handy to have around when you can't cast another healing spell due to lack of mana or the possibility of being interrupted or killed.
Fear Ward – this spell prevents the target from being feared by the next fear effect used against them, with a 30 second cooldown. This is one of the best racial priest spells due to the way it changes boss-level content. The ability to prevent the tank from losing aggro and fleeing due to fear or keep more healers active to heal the tank during a fear effect is invaluable.
Draenei
A Draenei priest can be an excellent addition to the group. Draenei preists get Symbol of Hope and Gift of Naaru to give the group some extra mana and heal. Like the Dwarves, Fear Ward makes Draenei a useful member of the group against bosses with fear.
Racial abilites:Racial abilites:Racial abilites:
Gift of the Naaru – A no-cost heal over time spell. It gains the benefit of your +healing gear, and is a nice way to heal someone up without having to expend mana. It does have a cast time, so it isn't the best choice if healing is critical, but it's still a nice ability to have overall.
Inspiring Presence – Gives party members (and yourself) a 1% greater chance to hit with spells. It's not a whole lot, but it means slightly less resists or misses against enemies you're facing.
Gemcutting - +5 skill bonus to Jewelcrafting. Useful if you decide to become a Jewelcrafter, not useful otherwise.
Shadow Resistance - +10 shadow resistance. Like the dwarvern frost resistance, it's okay to have, but you need a great deal of extra resist gear to actually reduce or resist shadow spells directed against you.

Racial spells:

Symbol of Hope – at level 10, this provides a small-scale mana restoring ability for you and your party. It's not bad at all to have, being one of the few ways to restore mana to other players while in combat without using a potion.
Fear Ward – Draenei also receive this spell, and it remains just as useful.
Humans
Humans rank slightly lower than Dwarves as priests. They also have access to Desperate Prayer, which, as mentioned above, can be very useful at times. The race ability The Human Spirit is also nice for priests focusing on high amounts of spirit. Overall a good choice for any priest. Additionally, Diplomacy is extremely useful, as a large portion of the end game focuses on gaining reputation.
Racial abilities:Racial abilities:Racial abilities:Racial abilities:
Perception – This racial ability increases the human's stealth detection for twenty seconds. It's occasionally useful in PvE content, and very useful in PvP content, if you think a rogue is lurking around. It can give you an extra moment to attempt to defend yourself.
Human Spirit – This provides 10% more Spirit then normal – this is normally not a useful ability, since Spirit mostly increases out of combat health and mana regeneration, where food and water can do a lot. However, for Holy priests, it can increase your +healing and +spell damage totals.
Diplomacy – 10% greater faction gain. Another somewhat useful ability, you gain 10% more reputation for quest turnins and the like – so where another race would gain 10 reputation points, you gain 11. It slightly shortens the process of reaching revered or exalted with other factions, which is useful in the Outlands, where you need to become Revered with different factions to have access to the heroic difficulty dungeons.
Sword and Mace Specialization – you have +5 skill with swords and maces. Well, you can't use swords, but you can use maces. On the other hand, you shouldn't be relying on that mace as your main source of damage. Not that useful for priests.
Racial spells:Racial spells:Racial spells:
Desperate Prayer – Humans also receive this spell at level 10. Like with dwarves, it makes a handy instant heal when you're low on health and can't rely on anything else.

Feedback – The second human racial spell is Feedback. It remains active for 15 seconds, and drain's an enemy caster's mana when they cast spells on you, dealing damage equal to the mana drained to them. Unfortunately, the amount drained is so minimal that it's almost useless. It does have a mana cost to cast, and the amount drained will not match what it costs you to activate it. For example, at level 20, when you receive it, it costs 140 mana to cast, but only drains 18 mana per spell that strikes you.
Night Elves
The 2 racial spells available to Night Elves are sub-par, only helping them in limited situations. However, this is alleviated by their active racial ability Shadowmeld. Shadowmeld is very useful on PvP servers to escape from gankers or to ambush any by passers. It can also be used when going AFK to prevent death from creatures or players. After having Shadowmeld, you will not want to play without it.

Shadowmeld - This ability allows the night elf to stealth while remaining standing still. It's useful for PvP, allowing you to hide in ambush along with rogues, druids and other night elves. However, most PvP is too mobile to make this overly useful. It can also be useful on PvP servers if you need to go AFK while in contested territory, as it makes it harder for any Horde to find you while you are away from the keyboard.
Quickness – 1% greater dodge chance. This can be useful for rogues and warriors, however your dodge chance will be so low it won't affect much for you.
Wisp Spirit – while dead, you move 50% faster then other ghosts. Well, everyone dies at some point in WoW, so it's useful for getting back into the game faster, but not dying is preferable!
Nature Resistance – as with the other resistances, it is not too useful on its own, but can help a little when you're building up resistance gear for a nature-based fight.

Racial spells:

Starshards – a channeled DoT spell, this is the only arcane damage spell you'll receive as a Priest. However, the channeling time is reduced by being hit, and it does not benefit your healing or mana regeneration through shadow damage as a Shadow Priest.
Elune's Grace – For fifteen seconds, this spell reduces the ranged damage you take by a certain amount and increases your chance to dodge by 10%. Mildly useful in PvP if a hunter is targeting you, but there are very few PvE reasons to use this spell, as most ranged enemies are easy enough to kill that it doesn't justify casting this spell.
So which race should you pick for your priest? For racial abilities, Dwarves, Draenei and Humans all have useful abilities, but both Dwarves and Draenei receive the powerful Fear Ward spell. If you plan to do more PvE content such as dungeons and raids then PvP such as battlegrounds, one of these two races is the best choice. My recommendation is the Draenei race, due to the usefulness of their other racial spell in mana restoration, and the party usefulness of their Inspiring Presence ability.

Trolls
Despite recent buffs, troll priests are still not as effective as undead for the Horde. Berserking is not bad now, especially when fighting rogues, who crit often, but the other 3 racial skills are lackluster. The racial spells they have access to are also on the lower end of the scale.
Racial abilities:Racial abilities:Racial abilities:Racial abilities:
Berserking (active) - This ability increases melee, ranged and spell casting speed by 10% to 30% for the duration of 10 seconds with 3 minutes cooldown. The lower your health is, the higher reduction you get. It is quite useful, 10 seconds can mean a matter of live and death.
Regeneration (passive) – Increases 10% health regen bonus, 10% active in combat.
Beast Slaying (passive) – Increases 5% damage bonus to Beasts.
Throwing & Bow Weapon Specialization (passive) - Increases Throwing Weapon skill by +5 and +5 to Bows. This talent is useless as Priest cannot use those weapon types.
Racial spells:Racial spells:Racial spells:
Hex of Weakness (available level 10) - Weakens the target enemy, reducing physical damage caused, as well as now reducing 20% healing. The effect lasts 2 minutes. An average useful as a starter for young priests, this spell is now also very effective in the end game , especially in PvP combat. Throw it on opposition healers when they are alone, or the flag carrier in Warsong to make your team love you.
Shadowguard (available level 20) - The caster is surrounded by shadows. When a melee or ranged attacker hits the caster, the attacker will be struck for shadow damage. Attackers can only be damaged once every few seconds. 3 charges. A good source of additional damage which can be cast outside of battle to conserve mana. This spell works in a similar fashion to the shaman’s lightning shield, but causes no threat. Although, it needs to be recasted constantly.

Undead
Undead priests are very strong, far better than their troll counterparts, especially in PvP combat. Will of the Forsaken is one of the best racial abilities available in the game, and can turn the tide of battle. They also have access to an additional DoT (damage over time) spell, that also heals for the damage it deals, which makes them the obvious choice for the Horde priest.
Racial abilities:Racial abilities:Racial abilities:Racial abilities:
Will of the Forsaken (active) - Activate to become immune to fear, sleep, and charm effects - lasts 5 sec with 2 min cooldown . It is one of the most useful racial talents.
Cannibalize (active) - Increases health regeneration by 7% of total health while consuming a corpse - every 2 seconds for 10 seconds . It is fairly useless for a Priest because healing themselves would be more efficient.
Underwater Breathing (passive) - Underwater breath increased by 3x (300%)
Shadow Resistance (passive) - All Undead gets +10 Shadow Resistance
Racial spells:Racial spells:Racial spells:
Touch of Weakness (available level 10) - The next melee attack by the caster causes 8 additional shadow damage, and reduces the damage caused by the target by 2 for 2 minutes. This spell could be useful for Shadow specced Priest as Touch of Weakness will apply a charge of Shadow Weaving to the target, and could be useful against Rogues, Warriors and Enhancement Shamans as it also has a chance to proc Blackout.
Devouring Plague (available level 20) - Affects the target with a disease that causes 152 Shadow damage over 24 seconds. Damage caused by Devouring Plague heals the caster for and equal amount. This is a great spell for one on one PvP, adding significant damage over time and cannot be dispelled by a Warlock's felhunter nor by a Priest in Shadowform. A high mana cost makes it restrictive in PvE combat.
Blood elf
Main strength of Blood elf is the ability to regain mana using Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent combination and Consume Magic. Arcane Torrent is also quite useful in PvP as it silences all enemies within 8 yards.

Mana Tap - Drains target's mana by (50 + Level) and charge you with arcane energy for 10 min. This effect stacks up to 3 times. 30 yd range - Instant - 30 sec cooldown. You should keep Mana Tap stacked to 3 at all times if possible.
Arcane Torrent
Silence all enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds. In addition, it restores 10 energy or (5 + Level) mana for each Mana Tap charge. 2 min. cooldown. This can be a life saver when you need to silence and are low on mana.
Arcane Affinity
10 point skill bonus to Enchanting.
Magic Resistance
Increase all Resistances by 5.
Racial spells:Racial spells:Racial spells:Racial spells:
Consume Magic - dispels one of your buffs and restores 120 to 154 mana. (660 to 694 mana at level 70) - instant cast, two minutes cooldown.
Touch of Weakness - Bloodelves also receive this spell, and it remains just as useful for Shadow Preiest.
Trade Skills - Moneymaking Or Epic Gear?
Trade skills are useful both for their ability to create decent gear for yourself and others, and for making money. Trade skills fall into two catagories – gathering skills and crafting skills. Of the two, gathering skills are usually the best for making money without spending a lot of time announcing your rare patterns over and over again in trade channel. On the other hand, crafting skills allow you to create epic-quality gear towards the top of your skill level, some of which is Bind on Pickup, and thus useful only to you, and some of which you can sell to others.
Gather skills are a good early moneymaker. Of the three, the most profitable is probably herbalism – herbs are found just about everywhere you wander, and tend to sell for a bit more then mining or skinning resources. If you don't want to bother with a crafting skill, herbalism (or mining) and skinning are a good combination. Skinning requires no tracking skill, while herbalism and mining both provide one.

Crafting skills are alchemy, engineering, blacksmithing, tailoring, jewelcrafting, enchanting and leatherworking. Blacksmithing and leatherworking are two obvious ones to avoid as a priest – crafted items, until the epic stage, are usually worth more as their components then as the completed item on the auction hall, and you can't use leather, mail or plate armor. Engineering is another one that isn't very useful. While a few quests require engineered items, these can be bought from vendors, other players and the auction hall. Engineering's main claim is some randomly useful trinkets that can (and will) backfire on you, the ability to chuck bombs at people, and at high skill level, a helmet that outdoes anything else until you get to tier 5 or tier 6 gear. Still, it's a lot of time and money for a single useful item, and very little of what you make can be sold to other players.
Of the remaining four crafting skills, you have jewelcrafting, alchemy, tailoring and enchanting. Jewelcrafting allows you to create a variety of rings, necklaces and trinkets, many available well before they begin to show up as quest rewards and drops from enemies. However, with the exception of a few of the necklaces and rings, and the trinkets, everything else can be bought from other players. Alchemy suffers from the same, where every potion that you can make can be bought from other players if needed. Also, you can only keep two potions active at any one time, limiting the usefulness of carrying too many different types. Both do allow some ability to make money at higher levels – jewelcrafting allows you to turn gemstones from Outlands into socketable gems for socketed gear, while alchemy allows you to transmute elements from one type to another (Primal Earth to Primal Water, as well as creating the base gems needed for powerful meta gems.

Tailoring and enchanting are the two trade skills that does not need a gathering profession to fuel it. Tailoring uses the cloth you find off of humanoid enemies, while enchanting uses unwanted green, blue and purple-quality items to create the enchanting materials. Because neither of these needs a gathering profession, they are often paired together. Tailoring allows you to create cloth armor useful to yourself, as well as bags ranging from 6 slots to 20 slots. Enchanting is in high demand towards the end game as a way to increase your stats without finding new gear upgrades. It has a high cost to reach that level, but once you're near max level enchanting, you can then sell your enchanting services to others as a source of income.
My recommendation for priests are Mining/Herbalism and Skinning for pure moneymaking, one of the gathering skills with tailoring or enchanting if you want one of the most useful endgame skills and an early moneymaker, or tailoring and enchanting together if you wish to have the most useful endgame trade skills.
Secondary Skills – Fishing, Bandaging And Making Food
Finally, there are three secondary skills that you can learn – Fishing, Bandaging and Cooking.
Fishing is a skill for when you're bored, really. Fishing is pretty simple – you cast your line, wait for the bobber to splash, and then you click on it. Depending on your skill, you'll catch a fish or you won't. Every so often, you'