imho, the most overpowered racial is Vulpera’s Nose For Trouble - reduce the damage of the first incoming attack from an enemy by 5% of your maximum health.
That’s fine, you can continue to enjoy the aesthetics.
You should nerf a racial because it’s an outlier and is overpowered in comparison to the other racials.
It’s only the first attack 
You’re trolling lol
what if everyone played night elf for the aesthetics and not the racial?
would you ask blizzard to nerf the night elf aesthetics so that you can enjoy warmode more?
i’m thinking that these “outliers” are orc Blood Fury (increase attack power and intellect by 4925 - that’s basically playing the game with a third trinket and allows for some pretty insane burst when coupled with other cooldowns and trinkets)
also an outlier would be troll racial berserking (increases your haste by 15%)… that is also a pretty insane damage amplifier on a rather short cooldown.
Then they can play it for the aesthetics? Huh? It doesn’t affect the gameplay.
Nerf the racial because it’s over powered. Comparing aesthetics to a racial’s mechanical impact makes no sense.
ok but your complaint was that “too many people play night elves, i can’t have fun in warmode.”
right?
so what if everyone continues to play night elf even after the nerf, what would help you enjoy warmode better then?
The outliers are the ones most popularly used in mythic leaderboards and rated PvP. It doesn’t matter what you think the outliers are, data proves otherwise.
It’s 10% on a 3 minute cooldown.
You realize Void Elves have a passive racial proc that increases their dmg/healing done by 5% right?
the outlier racials are the ones that are most impactful to gameplay - the amount of people that play the races have zero determination of whether a racial is OP or not.
Orc Blood Fury and Troll Berserking give the player a third trinket to use with their other cooldowns and both are extreme outliers in terms of player combat performance.
Too many people play it for the racial because it’s overpowered. Completely different scenario you’re trying to compare here.
Nerf the racial.
That’s fine, people who wanna play it for aesthetics can play it for aesthetics.
Matter of the fact is, people started switching to Night Elves after some Horde racials were nerfed, such as Orc Hardiness and Blood Elf Arcane Torrent.
ok but say blizzard nerfs shadowmeld but everyone still continues to play night elf, meaning there are not many horde in war mode settings, wouldn’t your problem regarding warmode still exist?
So, Shadow Meld, and to a lesser extent (even though I don’t really care about it) Dwarf/DI Dwarf.
Not really. You can just tell by the statistics that not many people play Orc and Troll for this reason.
well before cross-faction play was introduced in 9.2.5, the overwhelmingly large majority of players were orc and troll. does that mean that orc and troll racials were more OP prior to 9.2.5?
Blizzard nerfs Shadow Meld and people will start switching to other races as Blizzard continues to roll out buffs to the other racials like they’re currently doing in 11.0.7.
ok but how do you know this will happen? lots of people play night elf for the aesthetics and nerfing shadowmeld will not cause them to change races.
Because data shows that as other Horde racials were nerfed, people started to switch to other races like Night Elf because the racials were better. When they nerfed Orc Hardiness, many players swapped to Night Elf, especially the rogues.
People can play for the aesthetics all they want, I don’t care lol. You’re being obtuse if you think players won’t change race whenever there’s a better racial out there. People min/max.
ok but you said that you play troll instead of night elf specifically for the reason that you don’t like the night elf aesthetic, correct?
so if you are playing a race that you deem inferior in combat performance for aesthetic reasons, why would you believe that others wouldn’t do the same?
my point is that your main complaint is that there aren’t enough horde players in warmode and nerfing shadowmeld doesn’t automatically put more players on horde.
so nerfing shadowmeld doesn’t fix the problem that you are currently having.
if any outliers need to be nerfed - it is orc and troll: these races have direct dps increasing effects in ALL scenarios whereas dwarf and night elf provide very small benefits in a very few niche scenarios.
You’re misunderstanding the point. Just because I personally choose a race for aesthetics doesn’t mean the majority of players do. Shadowmeld’s power has directly contributed to the dominance of Night Elf in Mythic+ and rated PvP, which clearly shows that many players prioritize racials over aesthetics when min/maxing. This is evident from Mythic leaderboards and PvP ladders where Night Elf dominates, even for classes that don’t traditionally favor the race.
Regarding War Mode, nerfing Shadowmeld wouldn’t instantly fix faction imbalance, but it’s part of addressing the larger issue. Right now, Shadowmeld provides an overwhelming advantage in both PvP and PvE, making it an outlier that incentivizes Alliance participation disproportionately.
They’re nowhere near as versatile or game-changing as Shadowmeld. Shadowmeld impacts PvP, PvE, survivability, and strategy in ways that no other racial does. It’s not about gutting it, but balancing it to reduce its over-dominance while addressing overall racial balance across the board.
Void Elf passive racial also provide consistent DPS/HPS boosts, and it still isn’t as strong as Shadow Meld.
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shadowmeld does not provide an advantage in pve or pvp that is greater than orc blood fury or troll berserking, no.
berserking impacts pvp by giving you more dmg during your major cooldown windows - allowing you to do alot more dmg and win your arena match.
berserking impacts pve by giving you more dmg during your major cooldown windows - allowing you to parse higher than you would if you were playing a different race.
berserking impacts survival by giving healers a mini-blood lust on demand, helping them to spam heals faster and keep their teammates alive in situations where this wouldn’t normally be possible.
i would be quite surprised if blood fury or berserking weren’t nerfed for 11.1
the discipline priest with the highest ranked timed ara kara 19 plays Orc Priest, not night elf.
just go to raider io, choose the menu for “All runs leaderboard” and then click on the healer priest for the #1 ranked 19 ara kara run - you will see this player is an orc priest.
Sure it does. I already went over the ways you can use it in both PvE and PvP. You can watch a few videos for yourself to see how strong Shadow Meld is in PvE:
Video by RaiderIO
Video by SkillCapped
In PvP, healers in arena can use it for an instant drink if they’re running low on mana. It can be used to drop combat/targeting and can negate many abilities (such as Stormbolt even after its cast, or avoiding a Fear, Polymorph, Chaos Bolt, etc.)
While Berserking is a strong racial, it doesn’t compare to the versatility of Shadowmeld, especially in Mythic+.
In Mythic+, Shadowmeld saves far more time by enabling Meld skips, which let groups bypass entire trash packs without using Invisibility potions. It also allows players to cheese boss mechanics by negating targeted abilities or dropping combat entirely, something Berserking can’t do.
Additionally, Berserking has a single use: a 10% haste buff on a 3-minute cooldown, which is great for boosting damage or healing during cooldown windows. In contrast, Shadowmeld has multiple applications, including:
- Acting as a free Vanish for every class.
- Dropping combat for healers to drink.
- Avoiding wipe scenarios by resetting fights.
- Enabling stealth-based abilities for Rogues and Druids.
While Berserking is good for increasing haste, Shadowmeld offers far more utility, influencing group strategies and saving significant time in Mythic+. That’s why Shadowmeld stands out and warrants balancing, whereas Berserking doesn’t have nearly the same impact.
And the majority of players who play at those high keys play night elf lol.