Hey everyone,
Today I’ve wanted to bring up a particular subject, racial abilities. I would like to start off by saying that, PvE-wise, racials tend to be generally balanced. Only a handful of people actually pick a race purely for competitive use, while the vast majority of players pick theirs simply based on their appearances. And I think that’s great!
I do however think racials could considerably be improved, without even affecting the meta. To me, it just feels like the vast majority of these abilities are passives that tend to go unnoticed, while some races definitely have racials that stand out.
Here’s some examples of current racials that I believe are great:
- (Goblin) Pack Hobgoblin: Calls in your friend, Gobber, allowing you bank access for 1 min.
- (Zandalari Troll) Pterrordax Swoop: Reduces your falling speed for 2 min.
- (Vulpera) Make Camp/Return to Camp: Make a camp at this location. Can only be used outdoors./Return to your camp.
- (Void Elf) Ethereal Connection: Reduces the cost of Void Storage and Transmogrification by 50%.
- (Mechagnome) Mastercraft: You function as a personal Blacksmithing Anvil, Cooking Fire, and Mining Forge. In addition, your limbs include every profession tool.
Those are instances of racials that are fun. They’re really nice QoL abilities that fit their races, without being spells that people feel like they’re ‘‘overpowered’’ or ‘‘meta-defining’’. They can also be visually appealing, like the Vulpera tent and the ZTroll’s flying dinosaur.
The original races tend to have less interesting racials, as well as fewer ones. For instance, our good ol’ green orcs only have three racials:
- Blood Fury: Increases your attack power and Intellect by X for 15 sec.
- Hardiness: Duration of Stun effects reduced by an additional 20%.
- Command: Damage dealt by pets increased by 1%.
And while I agree that Hardiness is an obviously good passive for PvP, and Blood Fury for when you pop cooldowns, none of these are specifically ‘‘fun’’ spells.
Some others races also have, should I say ‘‘outdated’’ racials, that used to be somewhat good, but not so much anymore:
- (Undead) Cannibalize: When activated, regenerates 7% of total health and mana every 2 sec for 10 sec. Only works on Humanoid or Undead corpses within 5 yds. Any movement, action, or damage taken while Cannibalizing will cancel the effect.
The days of eating between packs of mobs for health are pretty much gone, rarely have I ever hit that spell apart from ganking gnomes. Cannibalize could instead provide a unique food buff, especially considering it’s only limited to Humanoids and Undeads.
- (Troll) Beast Slaying: Experience gains from killing Beasts increased by 20%.
Just not something that’s good considering how fast leveling is, and grinding mobs for experience isn’t as common as it used to.
Some ideas for racials could include:
- Purely cosmetic spells such as emotes, as mentioned in this post.
- QoL abilities: Undeads could dig a grave in the ground, creating a rested area for themselves, gnomes could learn tradeskills faster, etc.
- Visually redesign some of the older racials.
- Rework outdated racials.
- ???
Would be curious to hear everyone’s ideas, as well as their take on racials and their place in game.
), it would be neat if they introduced another wherein we could learn a new racial. Perhaps with the aforemention suggestions they could give us a new “flair” racial ability.