Some Racial Abilities need Love!

[Bitkoin-ravencrest]

I enjoy Blizzard whenever Racial Abilities are updated, for Example Orc Blood Fury was updated to provide Intelligence for Casters, or Draenei Heroic Presence gives core stat after Hit Rating was removed from the Game. Here are Racial Candidates worth a 2023 Update:

-Lightforged Draenei Light’s Judgment. First of all it is undertuned, as with the new Talent System the relative power of other Abilities rose. Secondly it should be targetable on Allies to heal instead of damage, so it is becomes more attractive for Healers and Tanks.

-Nightborne Magical Affinity increases Magic Damage by 1% which is terribad. Useless for Healers and all Melee Classes have physical damage components, drastically reducing the value of this. Even if you play a Caster it is better to pick a Race with 1% Versatility for the same DPS increase, but also more heals and absorbs and reduced damage intake.

-Mechagnome Combat Analysis. Blizzard took several weeks after Shadowlands Launch to scale this from LV50 to LV60. Two months into Dragonflight it still does not scale to LV70.

Emergency Failsafe. Good ability but sadly it specifically kills you in PvP against Mindgames Priests. Because it triggers automatically, hope Blizzard can code an exception for Mindgames in particular.

-Void Elves Entropic Embrace. Good Ability, but needs extension to Pets.

-Pandaren Epicurean. First of all it gets outscaled by other racials. Why acquire 76 Stats temporary while well-fed with the most expensive Food when you can Pick Draenei for 113 Stats permanently plus a heal spell and Shadow Resist.

The Racial could just be 1% Extra Secondary Stat depending on your Food (Main Stat Food would increase your highest Secondary Stat by 1%). That way developers have less work scaling the Pandaren PvP food every Expansion.

Finally, sometimes you die and the buff is lost. Death is expected on Shamans who have balanced less survivability via self-resurrection and in Battlegrounds. It is just not feasibly to sit and eat food in RBGs.

-Human The Human Spirit. Scales multiplicatively so the game becomes pay to win for Min-Maxers. In the first tier secondary stats are low so players are incentivized to race-change into something else, while in the final tier we have an abundance of secondary stats and Human sims top damage for many Classes.

[Thellanah-aggramar]

i think they should just focus on races and not ability’s like shadow meld is fun but why should a race have minor stats they should have iconic ability’s that are neat in a moment.

remove stats keep ability’s and maybe add new onces i dont get why pandaren as mage priest shaman should have a daze ability when they sometimes don’t stand in melee.

[Chadsworth-turalyon]

The racials started to decline over time. Like, if you look at the classic racials they are kind of OP. Orc was so strong they had to add CC reduction to pvp gear to keep everyone balanced. Humans had a pvp trinket from the get-go. Forsaken could get out of fear, charms, etc. Night Elf Shadowmeld is inane… it gives rogues an extra stealth, and you can use it to avoid huge burst.
Blood Elves can remove beneficial magic effects from every target they hit. That HoT the healer put on all your enemies - yeah it’s gone now.
Tauren war stomp can be used an interrupt or a short aoe stun.

Then you look at Nightborne who can summon a mailbox and perform a weak af AOE attack that slows enemies with a really long cooldown.
Having said that, Void Elves having no cast delay when hit is actually really strong. Being able to get a cast off while you’re getting hammered by a melee could mean life or death, and Void Elf has that advantage. Personally I think that’s overtuned and should be on a cooldown with a duration, not a passive.

Personally I don’t really like racial abilities. Sure, they give your character a little more flair, but as long as they aren’t balanced people feel forced to pick a race they don’t really want to play just because it’s stronger for their class.
I’m seeing more and more dwarves in pvp just because they can take all DoT effects on them and turn it into power. With so many DoTs in the game nowadays that’s huge.

But hey, I can summon a mailbox so I shouldn’t complain too much.

[Ashada-argent-dawn]

I just don’t like racials at all in their current iteration.

For example, I’m rolling an ele shaman and my choice is Draneai, dwarf or dark iron. Lava burst auto crits and your crit power is amplified and is the centre of the spec. Dwarf gives 2% increase to crit power. It’s a no brainier……….but I just don’t want to play a dwarf.

A few years back I went off to play SWTOR (WoW with light sabres!!). All racials were race themed cosmetics. As a Sith (race) I could face slap someone. As a Mirakulo (or whatever, cant remember) I could glow with light. As a human I could do a rallying cheer. It was such a a relief that your race didn’t matter and you just got a cosmetic. You were free to choose your fantasy.

So yeah, I don’t want to play a dwarf shaman, but then I don’t want to lose 2% power either and replace it with a weak self heal dot.

Historically I suspect WoW evolved racials from dungeons and dragons themes (just like strength, intellect, agility etc) which in turn are basically memes from Lord of the Rings (dwarfs are tough, humans are heroic, elves can spring out on you from the forest shadows, orcs are bloodthirsty etc.)

I think it’s time to replace them with cosmetics.