Forum post of the day: Do away with racials!
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Nov 6th 2007 at 1:00PM
Whenever I look at one of my guild's first-kill screenshots, my character stands out like a sore thumb. A seven-foot-tall troll with an orange mohawk tends to look out of place among the legions of undead and blood elf rogues. People even ask me why I rolled a troll character in the first place. It's tempting to say that I picked it because giant tusked cannibals tend to get more loot than anorexic junkies or rotting zombies, but I understand what they mean. Troll racials suck, and that's why there aren't as many trolls out there as there might be otherwise.
Gunnarr, an orc warrior, has noticed this as well. He's sick of seeing undeadd player-characters everywhere, and has asked for Blizzard to normalize racial traits so that some races aren't dramatically better at certain classes than others. His idea doesn't get much support, but a side proposal from the warlock Turana -- no active racials in arenas -- receives more kudos,
On one hand, I can kind of understand where he's coming from. My recently-created undead warrior will always be an inferior tank when there are Taurens around, but I didn't want to have to spend 70 levels looking at a skipping cow just for more health. My troll rogue will always be a minority among the undead (WOTF!) and blood elf (Arcane Torrent!) PVPers. And let's not even get into the pain suffered by human and night elf priests before Fear Ward became trainable. But I also agree with the blue poster Bornakk, who notes that removing the racials would further homogenize the races. If it wasn't for WOTF, who would even play a non-caster undead? Where would the dwarven priests be?
Do you think that racials are overpowered in WoW? What about in an arena setting?
Filed under: Human, Blood Elves, Draenei, Analysis / Opinion, Trolls, Undead, Tauren, Orcs, Gnomes, Dwarves, Night Elves, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Ahoni Nov 6th 2007 1:10PM
Am I the only one who hates what arena has done to WoW? Every question about a race or ability now has "What about in an arena setting?" on the end.
makabak Nov 6th 2007 1:14PM
If anything, I'd love to see racials buffed a little bit. What's the point in picking a race if they're all the same? I was really disappointed to hear that fear ward was getting spread around to all priest races. As the Blue noted, there's a lot of homogenization going on in WoW.
As far as arenas go, I'd like to see a drastic change: everyone goes in with the SAME gear with NO racials, enchants, etc. Make it a pure PvP setting, and give everyone identical equipment. That should really separate the men from the boys, eh?
thush Nov 6th 2007 1:16PM
Leave the racials and ban the QQers. You had a choice when you created your character for a reason you friggin crybabies. I leveled a tauren druid instead of a NE for 1 reason, warstomp. He looks rediculous in all of the end game gear except T4, but I have warstomp. TS to all of the alliance druids with their lame racial because they wanted to look pretty.
Yeah I rolled a tauren warrior too instead of undead. Warstomp in that case was almost useless, but the HP buff was worth it.
Lesson: think hard when you create a character. This is enough of a bubble-gum MMO, do we really need to eliminate *ALL* thought process for the players???
teag Nov 6th 2007 1:25PM
I play undead because they're cool. WOTF is just a bonus. I skipped over an Orc hunter for a Troll because they look cooler. Racials don't determine anything for me. I wouldn't miss them but I don't think they should be removed.
Lenina Nov 6th 2007 1:26PM
@3:
I think the point is that a lot of people (myself included) didn't realize that racials were something that needed to be considered when we were new to the game. I was 60 before I realized that guilds would rather have a dwarf priest than a human. I wasn't going to reroll just for Fear Ward.
My point is, maybe you shouldn't be so hard on the people who are complaining about this. For most people it was just a case of being anxious to start the game and not realizing what went into race selection.
clozer Nov 6th 2007 1:31PM
@1
I completely and utterly agree with you.
I am so tired and sick of hearing "what will it do for arenas". Changing game mechanics for it is ruining the rest of the game. Period.
Milktub Nov 6th 2007 1:30PM
I'm fine with racials. I'm fine with people going mental over racials. But I'm not hardcore. I'm not a theorycrafter. I'm not a min-maxer. I try to do well enough with what gear and abilities I have available.
Oh, and I still can't see what's wrong with a Troll Rogue. Undead get WotF ... which is great in PvP, but I don't need that to rock in PvP. Orcs get a slight stun resistance. Hmmm ... again, fine in PvP. But I play this game for PvE. If all I wanted to do was PvP, I'd get Guildwars. As it is, Berserkering is great in PvE: Hit Slice 'n' Dice + Hit Berkerkering + chug a haste potion + hit the Abacus of Voilent Odds = insanely fast attack speed.
rafe.brox Nov 6th 2007 1:31PM
I'm with #2; I'd like to see the racials be more pronounced (especially for the original races) so that there's a tangible cost/benefit to choosing one over another.
vildmule Nov 6th 2007 1:36PM
I picked my race because of it's advantage in pvp, and I've regretted it ever since. Ugly sod.
Epiny Nov 6th 2007 1:33PM
On the Priest forums they have had a post, well it's in it's 3rd version now, for about 1 1/2 months asking for Priest Racials to be changed.
The problem with racials is that when people first rolled their characters no one knew HOW powerful certain abilities would be. Further more if you wanted to play with your friends who were already on a certain side, Alliance/Horde, that cut your choices in half again.
Why should you HAVE to pick your race based on an ability, rather than the race you enjoy.
And yes I play a Troll priest and I actually like my racials.
Rich Nov 6th 2007 1:34PM
The arena is screwing alot of stuff up.
They need to expand the racials. I am all for racial talents for each race/class combo, not just priests.
If you want everyone to be the same, go play Call of Duty.
braydn Nov 6th 2007 1:38PM
in my opinion, people like cool stuff, not crap. and some racials are just crap. like human "perception"...
i don't think the answer is getting rid of racials, but making really good, really useful, very cool racials for ALL the races, not just a few of them.
instead of "perception" for humans, why not make a racial called "extension" which would increase all ranged attack area/distance by 10 yards. or maybe "toughness" which could increase all armor by 5%.
i could come up with 1000 more ideas for any of the races and racials, but i think most people would agree that racials are lame for most of the races as they currently are in the game.
another idea would be instead of having just spell racials and weapon racials, have more categories of racials. for instance, all races could have 7 racials each, one in each category. the game currently has this but not in a consistent way, 1 through 5 would standardize the racials, and 6 would be a special racial that is totally unique to each race.
1-a weapon racial-weapons that can be used, melee attack rating, melee hit rating, etc...
2-an armor racial-% increase to armor, increase to defense rating, increase to dodge/parry/block, etc...
3-a magic racial-partial resistances to magic, increased damage using certain schools of magic, etc...
4-a resistance racial-complete resistance to one school of magic, resist crit, resist interruption to cast or attack, resist spells, etc...
5-a profession racial-increased gathering, increased skill lvl, increased discoveries, etc...
6-a unique racial-some ability not covered in any talent tree that is castable and/or passive, anything that has a direct impact on survivability, should have 3 unique abilties for each race.
currently each race has a few "racials" but they don't hit in each category. i think each race should have a racial for each category.
McKree Nov 6th 2007 1:41PM
I play an Orc Warrior. Why? Because I like Orcs, and because I don't give a flying intercourse about a one-digit percentage of extra health in endgame or the ability to vibrate my enemies into submission for a second or two.
If you want to spend a good time of your online life with a character you don't actually like the look of because he can make the enemy shut up for 3 seconds or keep everyone else from pissing themselves and running at the sight of a skeleton, more power to you, it's a valid thought process and completely your choice, but I can't.
And I wont stand for it when people tell other people they made a bad choice just because of racials, as an aside. Racials are a nice bonus, but there wouldn't be any Undead tanks or Troll Rogues if they were a make-or-break mechanic.
Epiny Nov 6th 2007 1:41PM
This is what the priest's want.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2509263410&postId=27657017396&sid=1#206
Scruffy Nov 6th 2007 1:42PM
#2 gets top props. I mean, there was the reason house rules for Golden Eye was "No Oddjob".
You want PvP in the arena to be about skill? Well, completely disconnect it from the main game. Let players pick a character, a class, talents, and gear from gear sets suiting the three potential builds.
It always irked me how players with good/great gear get rewarded with better gear which just entrenches their position.
Lucas Dec 13th 2007 7:45PM
Play guild wars; they fixed their only PvP system, arena pvp a while ago. Though their skills are a bit fugged up (crazy builds that work too well and dominate too much in PvP are too common), the fact that you can make a PvP char of any class at max level is rather nice. Though you need to unlock the majority of the gear through PvE, at least you can use it on any PvP character you want, when ever you want. Though to do this you need to play the PvE of that game which is utter shit. My point is wow should copy GW's PvP system, make it so your PvP wins give you something for your PvE char (maybe you could unlock PvE gear for your main PvE character by playing PvP).
Meh
Xiaoshen - Vashj - Alliance
tituspullo Nov 6th 2007 1:48PM
alliance racials are crap.. ex whisp... oh i can move faster when i'm dead.. wtf? balance them out a bit.
billgates Nov 6th 2007 1:44PM
I think that balancing the game for PVP is silly, Wow is about PVE.
Baluki Nov 6th 2007 1:44PM
Screw that. There need to be MORE racials, and they need to be stronger. And there need to be more class-specific racials.
There are still a few racial abilities that are weak, and they need to fix the ones that only work for certain classes so they work for all classes that the race is capable of being.
Trolls are a good example of a race that is lacking good racials. Berserking is fine, Beastslaying is ok, but Regeneration and Throwing Weapons both suck. Maybe Regeneration will work better when they fix Spirit (as well as the Human Spirit racial on humans) but I think it should be about as powerful as Spirit Bond on hunters. Throwing Weapons is ok for hunters, warriors, and rogues, but for shamans, mages, and priests, it's 100% worthless. I think it should be scrapped and replaced. How about Axe Throw: throws a poisoned axe that causes the target to _______.
Epiny Nov 6th 2007 1:47PM
@17
With 9 Million subscribers I'm sure a fair amount of them would disagree with you.