This may not be a great article for those of you out there who prefer style over functionality. If you really just build your toons to look cool, then this is completely worthless information to you. Me, I’m a total geek. I like to study up on things and see what really works. Well, to a degree, I’m not an UBER geek that has to have only the best. I am also pretty practical when it comes to the bird in the hand is better than the two in the bush stuff. That may be a touch archaic for some of you so let’s just move on.

Each race in WoW has a small set of bonus traits that lend themselves to a greater or lesser degree of usefulness during game play. We’re going to look at each race and the bonuses involved and draw a few conclusions.

Some bonuses lend themselves to certain classes, and others help in play style. Sometimes you just don’t have a choice. Like if you want to be a horde druid – you’re getting a Tauren and that’s all there is to it. But in the cases where you do have a choice, it can actually make a fair amount of difference in your character in the earlier parts of the game.

Racial bunuses have a tendency to balance out for the most part by level 70. You’re still going to see mostly Tauren Main Tanks, but most races can do a great job of playing the classes available to them.

Certain classes match up well with certain racial bonuses. Undead have the highest base spirit in the game, just like night elves have the highest agility. That’s why you see so many night elf rogues. Every race but the Dranei can make rogues, but you will see more night elf and gnome rogues than human and dwarf. Why? The bonuses to agility for night elves and the escape artist bonus for gnomes lends itself to playing a rogue. That’s also why you see so many gnome casters – gnomes get a boost to intellect higher than any other race.

So let’s look at the useful, and sometimes NOT so useful racial attributes for the different races and how they might match your particular play style preferences when it comes time to try out a shiny new toon.

Humans – We’ll start there since I happen to be one. Humans have one racial trait that makes them great priests, increased spirit, the rest are just ok.

> Humans have increased stealth detection. The vast majority of WoW players consider this completely worthless, because it basically is.
> Humans have higher stats for spirit than the other alliance races, therefore a lot of human priests.
> Humans get an extra 25% reputation when turning in quests – kinda cool but it still won’t get you exalted with gnomeregan that much faster so you can ride the giant turbo chicken mounts.
> +5 to sword and mace skill – not too bad if you plan to specialize in one of those

Dwarves – these poor guys don’t seem to have a single bonus that’s truly useful, unless you consider being a paladin a bonus.

> Stone form - greatly increases defense for a short period of time. It’s ok, but won’t save your life very often.
> +5 gun skill - not bad for a hunter if you don’t mind the loss of agility from being a dwarf in the first place.
> Frost resistance - not a big enough bonus to count for much in PVP and very few mobs use frost attacks in PVE
> Treasure finding - I never really got anything “leet” out of a chest anyway, plus most chests aren’t exactly hidden. Not very useful.

Night elves - may have the second-best racial bonuses on the Alliance side, but they are still mostly best for hunters and rogues.
> Shadow meld - a bit like stealth, only you can’t move. If you stealth and shadow meld you are virtually undetectable.
> Dodge bonus - very helpful for hunters and rogues who have attacks that come after dodges and a good bit of their defense rating is based on not getting hit in the first place.
> Wisp form when dead - increases movement speed when you die. It can be nice to have a little reduction in your corpse run time, but dieing still stinks.
> Nature resistance - again, not enough resistance to be a big deal.

Gnomes - gnomes come in behind night elves for helpful bonuses, but I just can’t get used to having to swim where others walk; -10 points for pure shortness.

> Escape artist - can avoid speed altering affects. This is great for melee classes, but with their relatively high agility, is probably best suited for rogues of this race.
> +5 intelligence - nice for the mage or warlock
> Arcane resistance - same story, third chapter.
> +5 engineering skill - was a complete waste before expansion and it’s not a big deal now, but can help a tiny amount when leveling engineering skills.

Dranei - this race really doesn’t have a completely useless bonus, even though the resistance to shadow is small. Best bonuses on the alliance side.

> Jewel crafting skill increased +5 – ok so this isn’t great.
> Gift of the Naaru – heal yourself or others. This heal-over-time spell is a great little life saver for anyone. Best Alliance bonus by far
> Increase chance to hit – this also affects party members with both melee and spells. It’s not a huge increase, but it is one more buff and every little bit counts.
> Shadow resistance - maybe the most useful resist, but not enough to save your bacon.

This is just the racial bonuses, and does not take into account the stats each race starts with. For a list of racial stats you can check out http://www.wowwiki.com/Race Next time – Horde race analysis.

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