I’ve been playing WoW for over 20 years. This is the first time I’ve ever felt compelled to post on the forums — and the first time in any expansion I’ve seen racial trait design this jaw-droppingly out of touch.
Minor tuning to racial power is totally understandable. We all know Blizzard wants to balance faction and racial populations, and lean into lore and thematic identity. But in an expansion that leans so heavily into world PvP and open-world random encounters? Horde Nightborne can simply track down a Ley Line after logging in and permanently have the equivalent of a Swiftness Potion active at all times. How is world PvP even supposed to function with that kind of permanent advantage?
Tauren are stacking movement speed modifiers all the way up to 60%. That creates a ridiculous gap in unmounted traversal and exploration speed compared to every other race. Yet at the same time, this bonus is nearly useless in actual combat. It does nothing to balance their overall power level, and it completely destroys the level playing field for grouping, exploration, and gathering. What — are Tauren only meant to be played for RP now?
Humans getting 10% increased Spirit? This is the first time I’ve ever seen a racial create a 10% gap in what is functionally a primary stat. And let’s be clear: for healers and any spec that scales with Spirit, Spirit IS a primary stat. This is absurd numerical power creep, artificially forcing a massive power disparity for no good reason.
Take Priests as a prime example. The Horde only has two playable Priest races, and both of their exclusive racial abilities are PvP-oriented. How am I supposed to make up for the massive Spirit and racial ability gap between Horde Priests and Human Priests in raids? As the most versatile and powerful healing class in the game, how is the raid experience even supposed to be balanced between Horde and Alliance?
I’m strongly calling on Blizzard to properly balance the play experience across all races. Picking a race is like buying a car. In a perfect world, you’d never pick a car you don’t actually like just for raw power or specs — you’d go with the one that draws you in, whether it’s the first impression, the vibe, or the character behind it. But instead, we’re stuck playing with this constant, awful feeling that we’re knowingly gimping ourselves by playing the race we actually enjoy. It’s a terrible feeling, and it needs to be fixed.
Not to mention the constant changing of racials aren’t leaving a good impression. You role one class at launch because omg op! But than some time down the road when you’re in your 30’s, your racials get nerfed. That’s going to feel awful. Could result in many quiting.
Reread the post. The horde skyborne racial (Skysight) is a 15-second sprint no matter what. The 1hr buff, “Charged,” is a separate effect that makes the 15 second sprint grant 30% movement speed instead of 15%. It also doesn’t stack with other effects, so it is 100% dead for 2/5 classes (druid and shaman) who have instant-cast, permanent effects which are either better or equal to 30% speed (catform w/ feral swiftness, travel form, and ghost wolf). It’s 90% dead for hunters who have cheetah, only usable in combat for a weak sprint without risking daze. It’s only beneficial for warriors and rogues, who get a sprint at 1/3 - 1/2 efficacy for 15 seconds every two minutes.
It’s the worst active racial in the game by a lot. Pretty funny for blizz to make shamans exclusive to horde elves, then give only that version of the elves a racial that doesn’t work for shaman
The horde skyborn racial is, perhaps, the most impressive piece of crap from design I think we have seen in a long time. Though what is more impressive is how incompetent the response from Blizzard has been given the clear feedback from the community on it being useless. It doesn’t have to be much! Just don’t give players a useless movement speed ability; pretty much ANYTHING else would be seen as useful.
This has to be one of those scenarios where the majority of the team wants to make the change but some ego in a leadership position is stopping them.
Tauren have a 2 second stun and 5% extra health, and plainsrunning gives you full mount speed from level 1. Plainsrunning is not an in-combat power boost, but when you’re out leveling / questing, having 60% speed to get between quest hubs, to quest objectives, to dungeons, etc. is insane. It’s also an objective improvement from what it was, because it always dropped w/ damage and increased at the same rate.
Honestly, with the state of other races, like horde skyborne, seeing someone complain about tauren is the craziest thing I’ve seen today. Blizzard made shaman exclusive to horde skyborne, then gave that version of them a racial that doesn’t work for shamans lol. Skyborne’s only racial that does anything for horde shamans & druids is a slow fall
The racials are way more balanced now than they were a couple days ago. The races are meant to all feel different to play, and bring their own special sauce. They did a good job of that.