Just a passing thought.
Gnomes are almost entirely culturally defined by Science and Technology, which is why, I imagine. They couldn’t be priests originally.
It’s not like it’s impossible or anything, there’s no rule saying they can’t be priests. But it feels a lot like playing against type. Considering how many races are good thematic options for priests.
Thoughts? In my opinion gnomes don’t really have a class that fits them.
Tinker class fits gnome… oh wait
Blizzard has a weird track record about this sort of thing.
There are certain combinations that they won’t allow because of culture (draenei warlock), implied bio-essentialism (goblin monk), and others because of lore incompatibility (lightforged shaman).
And then there are combinations that make no sense for one of those reasons but are allowed, such as gnome priests, orc mages, and undead monk for the same reasons.
There are also weird mental gymnastics they’ll take to allow some things, such as Belf DH, but won’t allow Nightborne or Void Elf DH even though it would literally just be them choosing which faction of their people they identify with and wouldn’t require any more work. Just steal the existing models.
From a development perspective, the only classes that require work are Druid, Demon Hunter, Shaman and Paladin. They could enable everything else without much difficulty. And even those would be easy enough to fix by making a generic set of models for each faction.
So uh, I don’t know? They stick to their rules when they feel like it and don’t when they don’t.
Gnomes in general just look weird.
Due to their close ties with humans and dwarves, it’s more than feasible that gnomes would pick up an affinity for the holy light and/or the void. Remember; their society is based around technology, but it’s not their religion. WoW exists in a universe where entire pantheons of deities are literally confirmed to exist. Any gnome that is concerned with bigger cosmic ideas (of which the light is certainly involved) probably wouldn’t have any issue unifying the mortal interest of technology with the religious reverence to the light.
If this was Elder Scrolls where half of the “known” deities aren’t really confirmed to exist, that would be one thing. But the light is a tangible presence across the universe. The naaru are proof of this. The gnomes would have to be ignorant to overlook this.
It began as a similar concept to Zandalari paladins which were some gnome npcs casting buffs and heals.
Edit: Funny enough is the named Gnome priest has an odd outfit and will appear during the Protectors of Hyjal daily. Kinda wish we knew more about her.
I find Mechagnome priests to be even weirder. I just can’t imagine those half robot gnomes to be anything other than Hunters or warriors.
Excuse me? Yes you down here. I think you missed at least one other class.
Prince Erazmin doesn’t understand light either as he considered it like natural light. The best way to explain it was a poor gnome priest was turned into a mechagnome. 
I saw Grumbles being adorable, and thus, Rita was born! They’re not weird to me, well not weirder than pandas that talk and two-headed ogres wandering about. Also a 1000-foot sword sticking out of the world. And space travel, the fact that our characters eat all the time but never poop, that the barber can change my skin color and shape. That magical chests appear at the end of dungeons even though we didn’t kill all the enemies in there and made it a point to skip some of them. That we can roam the skies on flying cats that are larger than us. That we can come back from the dead. Etc.
Gnomes priests would experiment on the Light (and see what radioactivity will do to it).
I’m all about keeping races and classes restricted, but Gnome priest doesn’t bother me. They are very close with Dwarves who worship the Light. It seems they could just learn it from them.
They say, “Once you go Gnome, you can never go home!” or something like that. Hence, no Gnome.
For me it’s simple. Without tryharding the lore too much, Gnome Priests can be roleplayed as field medics. You can imagine that your Holy Light is some bandage and that the ressurrection is the defibrillator
That’s what I did. I think the priest trainer in gnome starting area is actually a doctor? I’m more or less a medic in my head.
Yes, I’m weird.
Well, some mathematicians are indistinguishable from cloistered monks.
Not me,they’re so cute.
They seem to be quite fitting despite how rational in thought they are (When oppose to superstitious in a behavioral sense). It doesn’t stop anything from calling on the Light to help those in need but being a Paladin is another though. Given that we have Lightforged Draenei who are technologically advanced too, that could change (But that’s Paladins, not Priests, another topic for another time). It may be weird that a Gnome could be Priests but…then you have to look at Undead, Orcs, or anything that seems more outlandish.
It also doesn’t stop the classifications of a Gnome Priest to be a “medic” in some degree which would kind of stir up some ideas on how that would fit but its plausible too. I try not to think hard when it comes to gnomes because a lot with them makes sense at least, just not with their decisions (Like Gnomeragan) or anything to do with Mechagnomes.
What do you call a gnome priest?
A compact disc!