I realize as I post this, that this subject may be even a bit too taboo even for these boards. It's completely impossible to discuss this on the WoW Public Boards, for obvious reasons. I'm hoping on these boards where rational thought normally shines through will be different.

First off, this is not a "Nerf Horde Racials" post.

However, as the game has evolved Alliance have lost whatever edge they used to have that separated them from Horde.

Paladins are with the Horde, with all their blessings and buffs.
Shaman are with the Alliance, with all their totems and buffs.

In 2.3 Fear Ward is being given to both factions.

The final frontier are the racials, and the question that follows, are they balanced for the game we have today?

A friend of mine who has rolled three different max-level priests, and raided with all of them at different times, swears up and down that the draenei priest mana-back thing is OP for raiding. For reference, her history is troll from MC through twin emps and early naxx, belf through kara and gruul, and draenei through SSC-ish (holy/disc up until mag or so on the draenei). I trust her opinion on these sorts of things because she's actually seen first-hand both factions in a raid environment post-TBC, and she's very good at theorycrafting and class mechanics.

The broad generalization that horde are better PvP, alliance better PvE, trolls and humans suck, is still true to a degree but the difference has decreased from what it once was. Oddly, one of the things that brought it most in line was the change to weapon skill mechanics: both from a class and an itemization perspective, swords and maces were both way better than axes. The overall ease of rep gains nowadays means that the time/effort/money value of diplomacy isn't as big a deal as it used to be. I would rank it as considerable, although I don't have first-hand experience.

I'm concerned about the human spirit buff and the direction blizzard is taking to make spirit more useful. IIRC, it was buffed from 5% to 10% because of the meh-ness of spirit, it may need to be re-nerfed back to its original value if WLK makes spirit as awesome a stat as bliz wants us to think they will. 2.3 alone may really upset the balance with priests and mages, WLK may bring that over to paladins as well. But, once again, spirit is currently a PvE stat almost exclusively.

The resist racials are so small as to be completely pointless by now.

Things like warstomp, escape artist, WotF, and arcane torrent vary a hell of a lot by how important that 2 or 3 minute cooldown is. Once an arena may or may not be game-winning; twice a boss fight is negligable; every time you gank or are ganked, it's a big deal.

Expounding on the arena point:

It varies based upon the opposing team and bracket. In a 2v2, getting feared, trinketing, and getting refeared typically means your partner is dead, if you're facing an affliction lock/shadow priest combination. Yet those same 6-7 seconds of fear probably won't matter nearly as much in a 5v5, unless you're the sole healer for your team.

The racials also differ in power based upon class. An undead rogue is a nightmare to a priest, due to being unfearable for a full minute and having CloS to boot. An undead warrior, on the other hand, is the same fight because he'll typically be using Deathwish or Beserker rage.

Mainly they show in class versus class. An orc warlock is at a disadvantage to an undead warlock (assuming same gear and talent spec) because of Will of the Forsaken. A blood elf paladin has an extra interrupt (though it is point blank) that all other paladins do not. A dwarf rogue (until 2.3) can trinket Kidney Shots without having to save it for a Blind.

As to whether they're game-breaking? Last I checked, the rogue with the highest arena rating in every single bracket is...a night elf. So, I don't think they are truly imbalancing, but they are extremely irritating at times.

I think people fail to realize how good the things they have really are. "The grass is always greener on the other side.." thing. Its just human nature.

I can't tell you how many times I've been screwed up in an arena match by a stealthed Night Elf. Humans, especially warlocks, are really annoying for me as a rogue. My racial is all but useless in arenas. It really comes down to the situation - as a previous posted said, some racials are really good for some classes against some other classes, but nearly useless in the same situation for a different class or against a different class.

A lot of people discount perception in BG / arena play. A friend of mine who usually played a NE warrior on another server had rolled Human warrior with the intent of better glace damage in PvE. He was trying to grind out some honor to get a few pieces of armor and he said he was suffering from lack of shadow meld. I told him that if he learned to use perception he'd find how awesome it was, especially since a lot of rogues who are in a hurry will stealth in plain sight. He was later playing on his NE again and said he was suffering from the lack of perception!

While some race/class combos are better than others, looking at the "top" players in the 3v3 in my BG group, the top 10 all had a good choice for race, except one Warrior was a human (+5 weapon skill and seeing stealth are decent), so it makes a noticeable difference.

I think a bigger issue is why, upon deciding to give fear ward to all priests, did they then alter it so fundamentally (and detrimentally, from the perspective of tanking druids and paladins)?

Especially with regards to Priest racial spells, it seems like such an odd design decision to make race, in virtually all other cases a matter of trivial difference, such a matter of importance. The differences between the five alliance races as warriors are trivial, but the difference in capabilities between a Night Elf and a Drenai/Dwarf priest?

I see that as the more pressing issue, especially as it's the easiest to quantify capabilities and evaluate differences (within the same class). It's much harder, for instance, to compare Arcane Torrent with will of the Naruu given that Drenei and Blood Elves have different class possibilities.

False, the highest rated rogue at the moment is Neilyo, as he has succeeded in maintaining a rating of 2400+ in every single bracket. He has several of his high level arena play videos out, and he is an undead.

Heres the link:WoW Forums -> *Neilyo 8 - 2.4k+ All Brackets*

In the PvE front, tanks have a pretty wide variety of racials:

Warriors: Everything but Blood Elf
Paladins: Human, Dwarf, Blood Elf
Druids: Night Elf or Tauren

The difference for druids seems pretty clear-cut, though I'm no expert -- Horde feral druids have more health. For paladins, the choice is between 5 weapon skill, Stoneform, and an untalented 30yd pulling ability. Those racials are balanced IMHO, with small but useful benefits for each. A warrior has a wide variety of choices, with no total winner on the Alliance side but Taurens and their +5% HP coming out on top for the Horde.

So with the lacking popularity of prot paladins, Horde tanks generally have the racial advantage. Blood elf paladins are left even farther behind than their alliance counterparts due to a larger relative HP difference. The overall difference isn't massive, but it's certainly more noticeable than the other race/class combinations' abilities. So in this respect, I don't feel that racials are well balanced.


What can be done about it? To be honest, I'd like to see more racial abilities. There are all sorts of little things like Diplomacy and Wisp form that barely affect gameplay and are nice to have around for flavor, but when it comes to the most defining aspects of a character, more should come into play than race.
I think the system would be greatly improved if racial abilities took into account not only the class, but the spec of the player. Class trainers could offer these abilities with the requirement that only one of the three could be learned. For example, dwarf tanks could have a 5% bonus to total armor; night elves could enjoy a dodge bonus while fury warriors might choose an Elunite blessing to increase chance to hit and beast mastery hunters grant a buff to their pets; etc...

Sure it would take some effort to make these racials worth having for every spec, but I think the game has matured enough for Blizzard to understand what would be useful without being overpowering. The racials in the game today strike me as a relic of the early lack of such understanding that led to lovely things like +Spirit on Might and Nightslayer.

While I think most people will agree that racials are, well if not balanced, than at least trivial enough to not swing things drastically one way or another. However, racials probably do need to be looked at a bit by blizzard. There is just some truly absurd stuff in there: Wisp form, Feedback, +throw, ect.

If you look at priest racials though; What the fuck is up with Drenai racials? Drenai priests are easily the best option for PvE, even after fear ward is changed.

also: the last thread along these lines = Maniq owned

The Armory

1941 2v2, 2152 3v3,and 2466 5v5?

The rogue I'm referring to was on the European servers, I believe, though I cannot remember his name at the moment.