The most common complaint I see is races will lose their identity but can we just at least admit as far as PvP goes: Human ‘trinket’ and Orc stun resistance are ruining race choices.
What do you think is the best way to address this problem? I’ve thought quite a while and I’m struggling to come up with an idea that could appease both sides of this issue.
One idea I had was to give people to choice to choose a racial skill group they want and instead of calling it a racial it could be a character’s background, personality, or something stupid like your astrological sign.
And then with that solution everyone would just pick the most broken group right? But you see how that illustrates the problem with racial talents as is.
Look at a race like Light-forged Draenei. Absolutely TERRIBLE. Racials shouldn’t make a race so bad that I straight up don’t want to play them. That’s another major issue I have.
I happen to just be one of those people, who primarily play these races. It’s a win-win for me. Having said that, I can understand how it would be crappy for other people wanting to play an aesthetic they like vs having combat convenience.
I’m fine with racials mattering more as long as it’s done right. But that seems like A LOT to ask. I don’t think they could do it. So it’d probably be disastrous.
I think the system we have now cannot be how racials work if this problem is to be solved. Maybe racial options you can choose from? You could still keep flavor this way.
I like Orc quite a bit. I just don’t want all my PvP Horde characters to be Orc.
I think the major problem is how poorly thought out the racials are…
You have races like Orcs, undead, and humans which have bonuses that really elevate those races when choosing classes. Then you have races like Goblins - which aren’t in the minority - which have racials like “discounts” - which literally does nothing in the current game and hasn’t for like…a decade.
I mostly play PVP, but I don’t like the Orc body-type. So this means I am constantly handicapped in PVP because I am missing an extraordinarily powerful set of racials. It’s stupid. They need to give other races meaningful races instead of the system that currently exists where almost every race has garbage racials and 4 have extremely good ones.
Oh yeah I forgot how bad Goblins are. Which is a shame because I wanted to make a Goblin shaman a while back and I kid you not: their racials made me reconsider.
Rocket jump is amazing for less mobile classes. The 1% passive haste boost is good for most specs, mobile bank is nice, and Best Deals Anywhere is great if you’re a crafter. I think they actually have the most useful (pve) racials of any Horde race. The main drawback is they’re fugly.
The ‘Rocket jump’ comes in really handy for a large handful of mechanics, along with surviving large falls which we shaman don’t have much power in towards countering for living through such travesties.
At the end of the day, even removing racials would only serve to dump a cup of water on the forest fire is that PvP balance.
There is just no hope for balance. In a mode that is so competitive, top players will always min/max to the highest degree.
Even in fighting games, where PvP balance is the entire game, you see tournaments end with the top players choosing from the same S/A tier character pool the majority of the time.
There’s a lot of obvious room for improvement in the balance of racials in PvP; saying it’s pointless to try to balance it further is nonsense when they won’t bother to pick low-hanging fruit like disabling Hardiness, Will to Survive, Shadowmeld, etc. in instanced PvP
Portable inventory utility (mailbox, void storage, bank, guild bank)
Far-sight / eagle-vision type of spells
Or other cosmetic creative things like:
Able to keep two companion pets out at a time
Able to grow or shrink companion pets without an item
Race specific emotes and dances!!
No power gains or defenses. Each race should have racials that make non combative life more convenient in their own way unique way, while still fitting with their culture and story.
EDIT: The dark iron dwarf Mole Machine racial and Vulpera’s camp racial are examples of excellent racial abilities.
Then troll racial will be low hanging fruit. Then BE racial will be low hanging fruit. Then you remove all racials and rogue cloak + vanish becomes low hanging fruit. Then all cheat deaths are low hanging fruit.
This game is built around PvE and will never be balanced in PvP. Players wanting to compete in PvP must come into it knowing this and accommodate for it.
