The original motivation for priest racials was to make horde priests predisposed towards shadow, and alliance priests predisposed towards holy. If that philosophy still holds (granted, things change in three years), there's no chance Chastise will be available in shadowform.
It's odd though, because Chastise would have been really nice to have as a WLK priest ability, non-shadow CC. It strikes me as making more sense as a base ability than a racial (unlike devouring plague or DP) the more I think about it.

Like hell it is. If you lose track of a night elf (very easy on Blade's Edge) who's running out to drink, good luck finding them before they have all their mana back.

I have 1100 health more than a warrior of a different race at my gear level. For no particular reason. I get to be the first choice tank on rough new encounters over my undead, orc and troll brethren in my raid group not because I'm better geared or skilled than they but because I've goten what's basically a freebie 100 stamina due to picking a visual representation that happens to have horns, hooves and fur, and as sta is the primary tanking stat those who went for being rotting, tusked or green with bad posture cannot match me. Similarly, for most combinations of class & task there are superior racial choices and inferior ones, which by definition isn't balanced. I don't think there's a need to discuss it on a per-faction basis, the racials should be balanced on a per-race basis. Right now, they're not.


To muse a bit, I don't think balance was really the overriding concern when the racials were created or that Blizz had any clue how significant they'd turn out to be. 5% tank health didn't really matter nearly as much on Ragnaros as having healers who did innovative things like bind their spells to keyboard shortcuts or start casting heals before the tank was actually damaged, after all, and while having the occasional gnome warrior use his 1.5 sec cast racial to escape your frost nova in the Tarren Mill zerg might've been annoying it wasn't really worth getting that upset about when you could complain about Blessing of Freedom messing with your novas instead. It's only with the event of paladins & shaman crossing factions and arena play that the racials have become a notable balance issue (okay, exceptions for fear ward and wotf) compared to all the other balance issues around.

Blizzard have been steadily moving away from "flavor" decisions to basing their decisions on performance optimisation as the game has gotten older and the playerbase more interested in high-end activities, I personally expect that trend to continue with the racials to be tuned to be less distinctive in the future. I don't expect my 5% health to last more than a year. I could, of course, be wrong. We'll see where it goes.

To do so requires:

1) Playing against a terrible team who can't keep track of a player.
2) A healer doing that in a 5s game is likely going to let someone die.
3) A hunter doing that does 0 dps. Also, smart teams ride a hunter's nuts, so he ain't getting away to drink.

Edit: zomg, updated profile.

All it really takes is being near a pillar and dropping around behind the pillar when they're on someone else for a few seconds. Or dropping off the bridge when they're attacking someone else.

In a lot of situations yeah you can kill someone in that time, but if they're OOM it's still a huge difference to get the mana back while that person dies (or if they're good enough kites) instead of just sitting there OOM.

Late in a fight there's time where people aren't going to be taking heavy damage, in a 2 healer team the priest or druid could go "hey keep em up drinking for 10 seconds" and the other healer could heal for the few seconds the priest needs to get his mana back, and with shadowmeld you aren't going to see them.

I wouldn't say shadowmeld is by any means overpowered, but saying that you'll never get to use shadowmeld in arena effectively is a pretty bogus claim.

Like it has been said before, the one racial that bugs me the most is wisp form. It's a racial I can only use when dead, so in essence, it's useless. Shadowmeld has it's uses, so I guess it can stay (WTB unnerfed version though).

This is very very true and bites many people though probably alliance priests the most because of Fear Ward. WoW is my first MMOG and when I started I was very casual with regards to min/maxing things. My first character was a dwarf paladin and I was never really taken with the racials. When I made Brakar I did a little research on the official class/race descriptions and once again saw nothing I just had to have so I chose the one I liked the look of the most, human. In the official descriptions of priests there is barely a mention of the names of the different priest racials and no explanation of them. It says look at the individual races for their abilities which I did.

Fast forward six months and I'm starting to get interested in raiding and start looking into it further. From reading forums and other non-Blizzard resources I discover the power and desirability of Fear Ward. When going through recruitment pages I see many "Looking for a priest, non-dwarves need not apply." Both then and when TBC came out I considered rerolling a priest for the sheer purpose of getting fear ward but I just can't stand the idea of trashing a character I've put a great deal of time into just to do it all over again but starting as a dwarf.

The most backwards thing about the fear ward situation is the rewarding of dwarfs and draenei with what sounds like yet another amazing skill, which keeps every other priest still jealous of them to a degree. I feel especially sympathetic to Night Elves regarding this. I play horde and probably always will- and there is really no remarkable difference between horde priests worth losing sleep over, but alliance have the best priest and the worst priest, and the gap is huge.

But I will say that I'm glad for this new skill in the fact that it's a skill that just sort of replicates something many classes can do already. The worst way to design a new racial would be to make another ability that, however situational, would be something worthwhile that absolutely no one else can do. This is true for all racials, in my opinion.
The big problem with fear ward that people seemed to not understand was that it was the supreme fear counter by such a large margin, with NO OTHER reliable version of it existing elsewhere. Tremor totem and berserker simply fall very short.

Just focusing on racials it's easy to see, for example, Will of the forsaken would be absolutely ridiculous if the PvP trinket didn't exist (as evidenced by the fact that EVERYONE uses the pvp trinket). Escape artist is also sort of less noteworthy because the pvp trinket exists, as well.
And unless i'm forgetting something, it's interesting that the only other racial that practically no one else can replicate is Stoneform's bleed dispell (am I wrong? other than Thottbot World of Warcraft: Luffa)

Fear ward would not be as big a deal if there existed a way to replicate it's 100% reactive reliability and ability to nearly always have it on. Every other fear counter in the game is overwhelmingly more susceptible to timing and, thus, human error.

I rerolled priest for TBC and the faction was already chosen, horde. I had an undead available to me, but I didn't mind the idea of re-leveling and actually spent a while thinking about racials and did play troll and blood elf up to about 35 to test the waters. I came to the conclusion that horde priest racials were not worth worrying about, and all of them worked well in certain situations, so I stuck with undead out of convenience and I am generally pleased. I've never been jealous of a troll priest, but I certainly don't pity them. Blood elves I am jealous of in a few situations.
One is the ability to use this Bloodthistle - Items - World of Warcraft (lol). Hey 10 damage is 10 damage. The other is Arcane torrent- the ability to silence when silence is on cooldown is certainly something I wouldn't mind having.
But I really like devouring plague, probably a lot more than most do.

I think Shadowmeld is a great example of how they should handle racials. Not saying the ability itself is good or bad, but the fact it can have two different functionalities depending on class is great (gives a minor stealth to non-stealthers, gives a minor increase in stealth-effectiveness to stealthers).

I Chose an Orc, because I wanted to play an Orc. That was my only motivation for taking that race. I was just lucky that they ended up changing Blood Fury to work on ranged attacks, before then, it wasn't even on my bar.

I can't imagine someone choosing a particular race based solely on the racials available. They're all fairly innocuous. If you're sitting at the character creation screen, and agonoizing over what race to take so you can maximize your overall "productivity", I think youre missing the point.

As far as a disparity between the usefulness of Horde, and Allaince Racial bonuses, I mean, come on. I know it will likely suck when a Tauren breaks out a warstomp at the last minute, but any racial bonus is unlikely to actually affect the outcome of an important fight.

The only real issue I think is the whole fear ward thing (which isn't technically a racial ability, I suppose). Not having Fear Ward has caused the Horde to have to deal with many raid encounters differently than Alliance people. Stance Dancing ftw.


As far as Arena goes, you end up matched against your own faction anyway. This eliminates racial bonus advanatages in Alliance vs. Horde discussion, assuming you could call any of them a real advantage.

One comment I have seen in this thread a few times, complains about the Wisp thing that Night Elves have as being a terrible racial. All I can say to that is, Have YOU ever died in Un'goro? I would have traded my entire ballsack for that Wisp thing.

I wouldn't mind things so much if certain race/class combos didn't flat out suck compared to alternatives.

Like, say Tauren Warrior vs. Orc Warrior. It's actually difficult to say which one is truly better without getting down to discussions of PvE vs PvP focus, what situations you will be in, what job you are doing etc.

Opposing that particular situation is the poster child of bad racials: Night Elves. It's hard to say what class you wouldn't have been better off by picking any other race option randomly, much less comparing with ideal race/class picks. A good use of NE racials didn't happen until arena play where you might get some extra drinking ticks with good play, unless you liked to die a lot or screw with people by combing shadowmeld and invis potions. I suspect the new grace is *still* going to be horrible.

Arena play really delineates the gaps. Playing against a gnome or dwarf warrior instead of a human or NE matters. Playing against a dwarf or undead priest instead of a NE or human matters. Playing against a Tauren druid over a NE druid, or a Tauren shaman over a Draeni shaman *matters*. Too many of these comparisons aren't a difference created by separate threats available or options/answers to deal with, but rather one race getting something extra or flat out better than the other. There's a really good pvp hunter in our guild. He just *can't* do what Hamchook does because he's a NE and Ham is a dwarf.

A joke I used to tell way back in 1.0 release comes to mind.

Unlisted Human and NE Racial Ability:

Sexy: You look *good*, but manicures and beauty treatments cost time you could have been using to learn to fight better. After all, anything is worth not being ugly, right ...?

The game is more interesting with the racials then without them. I'm not one to care about lore or flavor. I'm personally most offended by the racials that are total trash for my class. Stoneform is great, but +guns and find treasure are garbage for a warrior.

I'd like to see a mini talent system implemented for the racials so people could get what they want. Give everyone 11 "racial points". Make the premium racials(WoTF/EA) cost 7. Make the second tier stuff like berserking and stun resistence cost 5. Resist racials cost 1. Something like that. Would you take berserking+stun resistence or wotf and +5% stamina? They've already done something similiar for hunter pets. They have this whole subset of cool, relatively minor abilities, let players customize with them.

Let people respec them at a prohibitivly high cost, say 500g. Obviously you'd have to scrap a few and rename some others, but all the whining would go out the window. I'm sure a handful of devs could hammer a system that was close to balanced in a week or two. We could probably do it for them on these very forums.

I'll take balance over lore and flavor any day of the week.

I'd switch our guild to horde in a heartbeat, solely to get tauren tanks. Raiding and pvp altering racials shouldn't exist since it's virtually impossible to balance them. Of course, that's a convenient position to take now when alliance have held the upper hand for most of the time.

When I say "Important fight" I'm really not talking about PVP exclusively. I PVP fairly often, and I don't think losing to a racial cooldown in a BG should be considered important by any stretch.

If it is Arena matches that you are specifically referring too, I think, because you are just as likely to be matched against your own faction, that racial advanatages become obsolete.

Faction advantages become weaker, yes. Arguing that the horde have a better suite of racials is somewhat less important now that you aren't always banging your head against WotF and never experience the joy that is dealing with stoneform.

Individual choices out of all the options are just as important as they always were. A gnome warrior will just do better vs. frost mages and druids than any other kind, while other races cannot necessarily claim an advantage of similar scale vs. other matchups. A dwarf priest or hunter is much more capable of giving warriors and rogues fits than other races.

If all you were talking about with racials not swinging fights was in PvE, then yes, I agree. For the most part. The only truly standout racials there are Fear Ward, Tauren HP, and Symbol of Hope. And FW just pulled aggro on the nerf bat.

But you would and could work around those in PvE, maybe with more pots, more skill, or just more gear. In PvP racials tip the playing field with the double sin of being significant and hard to change, and PvP is where the racials matter. At the mid to high end at least.

Edit: Sorry, when I speak of PvP these days I mean arena matches. Since there are no BG ratings or ladder, accomplishments there are neither long lasting, provable, nor particularly meaningful. Bg's are for your own personal fun, and racials don't have that big an impact. Arena games have a memory, and thus carry more impact.

From a PVE standpoint as a hunter, I've lost count of all the times I wanted to reroll class - either Orc on horde side or at least chosen to play Dwarf if I stayed on the Alliance side.

Night Elf now strikes me as the only hunter race that doesn't have a racial that affects their DPS, outside of the small passive base agility boost they have (do we still have that?).

+3% hit for Dwarf and Troll both seem great, and offer you a whole different flexibility when choosing gear. The free AP trinket Orcs get, plus the pet damage bonus strikes me as the perfect hunter choice now that I've played my hunter for a couple of years.

Shadowmeld is great and fun, but not for what I'm concerned about, which is raid DPS.

Yah, NEs have the highest agility.


Wisp form is a great on Archimonde (however you don't get to be a one of those wisps, at least someone is getting a good use out of it).

Aye, I'll concede the possibility.

But, although I don't arena seriously now, I did arena pretty hard in S1. I was on a 2400+ rated 5v5, and we never had an issue with someone running away and shadowmelding, and if another class tried to run and drink, we were paying enough attention to know and call it out.

Usually, drinking happened late in a game, where attrition had reduced both sides down to 3 players or less. By then, there's enough space on the field and cooldowns blown that someone doesn't need shadowmeld to get a drink off.

Therefore, I see shadowmeld as situational and something that rarely decides a fight.

Nelfs have 7 agi over draenai, 8 over dwarves, and a piddly 3 over trolls and belfs.

:/

Before our Nightelves get all too happy about their extra agility... has anyone tested if that actually translates into extra damage/crit? I read base stats are just there for looks and don't do what the extra stats from equipment do.

Edit: Tested it and the extra starting stats actually do what they propose.

Hmm, shortly after release, I did some testing and found base stats didn't actually impact you. For example, you might level up, see your base int increase by 3, but see your max mana increase by 20. Since 3 int is worth more than 20 mana, something was off.

Further testing showed that this was true for mana (from int), hp (from stamina), and crit (from agility). In fact, at the time, at least, if you took a mage and a warrior with the exact same stamina, the mage would have more hitpoints (since more of the mages stamina was "real" stamina from gear).

They may have fixed it since, but it never showed up in a patch note.

The 10% spirit boost for human priests is way too good. 600 spirit and NE means you will get 400 mp5 (5 seconds not casting) and 60 mp5 while casting. As a human priest 600 spirit translates into 660 spirit and you will get 440 mp5 out of the FSR and 66 mp5. Many priests easily have ~750 spi or more if they are fully buffed and then the gap becomes even larger. In long fights thats a HUGE advantage for all human priests. With 2.3 and the meditation buff the gap will become even larger again and another is thing is still to come: WotLK.

Several months ago I started a thread about the tauren 5% hp racial, but I guess it was viewed as flame bait and locked.

I still think it's the most overpowered racial in the game. It boggles my mind that blizzard gave taurens 5% hp and night elves 1% dodge, instead of giving them both 1% or 5%. Even for a non tank, with endgame level 70 gear a tauren is going to have at least 500 more hp, basically a free flask. For a tank, the racial can account for over 1000 extra hp. I feel bad for orc, troll, and undead horde warriors who want to tank, because that is a huge gap to overcome. This bonus is easy to miss because there isn't a little note next to your hp "500 hp from endurance racial" but it is there.

On the other hand, are priest spells. Fear ward is amazing now, but it's basically going away. The new fear ward will be handy in pvp but isn't going to work very well for pve due to the long cooldown. When I first heard that all priests were getting fearward I thought druid and paladin tanks would finally be viable for fearing mobs, but it seems that blizzard wants to keep warriors on top. The new spell sounds interesting but it sure causes a lot of grief among horde who wish they had it, they should have just given draenei and dwarf devouring plague.

Overall, looking at the racials they seem fairly balanced, but when you do a class by class comparison it really seems horde have the edge in almost every case.

Warrior- tauren by far for tanking, orc for pvp stun resist and dps with bloodfury
Druid- tauren
Shaman- tauren
Mage- undead pvp, blood elf pve
Warlock- undead for pvp, orc for pve
Rogue- undead
Priest- currently dwarf pvp, draenei pve, after fear ward nerf undead for pvp draenei pve
Hunter- orc pve, tauren pvp
Paladin- blood elf pvp/pve, stoneform is arguably close but the free silence + mana is great for pvp and pve *if ret is viable, draenei are the best for pve ret