Except it’s true. With the exception of a few examples, mostly in PvP, most racials make a minimal impact on their own. The reason they matter more in top end content like world first raiding, is because they stack them.
1% crit might not make a difference to you, but if 15-20 people have 1% crit bonus it becomes noticeable.
If you yourself are able to clear a bleed or magic effect from yourself it’s nice, but doesn’t have a huge effect on the group, but if your group can effectively negate a mechanic because everyone can do it, it becomes a big deal.
So yes, they matter, but only minimally to the vast majority of the player base.
The mythic gear example is apples to oranges. If you outgear something enough you can just solo it. Racials aren’t on that same level of power increase.
???
You are comparing at best maybe 100 damage vs thousands with gear.
I’ve been mythic raiding since MoP as a Worgen almost every tier a race that isn’t close to BiS in anything. It really doesn’t matter outside of cheese with racials like Goblin Rocket jump.
Dps wise its negligible, but some racials are busted situationally. Shadowmeld is an art and it can do more then most class abilities. Dwarf debuff resets is also fairly massive. Tauron stuns are useful so I hear. These types of things are worth thinking about if you are gameplay focused, but even then if you like the look or theme of a race it won’t handicap you in current wow.
It’s more flavor than substance. If you like pineapple on your pizza, don’t let others convince you otherwise. The people who think it makes a substantial difference are deluding themselves.
I don’t choose based on racials. The death laser is cool, but it’s not why I chose a LFD. Some folks will choose based on racials, but that’s their prerogative.
They mattered, at least for PvE, back when something like Arcane Torrent or Rocket Jump could have an impact on raid performance significant enough for top end World/Realm First chasing guilds to buy faction/race changes over.
But generally speaking, for the average player racials don’t matter too much. In the small percentage of times a niche racial could have saved you from death, improved your performance in PvE, or won a pvp fight, its evened out by the amount of times it doesn’t or someone else’s racial has a chance to shine. QoL racials are more useful, imo, as you’ll always use them regardless of content. But for players like myself, the best racial is how great your character’s backside looks. Because you’ll be staring at that for the entire time you play them.
Edit: I’m really tired, misread the OP completely and went off on a tangent about faction balance. Got my booster a day ago and it’s made me very drowsy. I removed that from this post.
Top 0.1%? yes it affects it a bit. Top 5%? Not much. I will say nelf and dwarf racials are very powerful and feel strong to use. Every other one does not. I was horde main for most of my time in wow, barely noticeable.
My favorite racial by far is shadowmeld. Hunters have feign death, so have a weak version of it. Human passive is great. Others are good in pvp as stated. I wanted a nightbourne and my hunter was the toon I was willing to change at the time. They really should buff nightbourne more. I guess they think nightbourne lore means magic use.