Originally Posted by
Verazh
The origional Highbourn were split into 3 factions at the Sundering. The Nagas and Queen Azshara (large portion), the Shren'dralar in Dire Maul (minor portion) and the Highbourn that went to Quel'thalas and made the Sunwell, later known as the Sin'dorei (large portion).
Now for all intents and purposes these 3 "factions" were once the same, and as so we could conclude that their magical knowledge was/is the same, although logic dictates that they would have discovered new magic through the many years, like the Shren'dralar making us able to Reforge gear.
High Elves, Blood Elves, Shren'dralar or Naga, they are all part of the Highbourn origin.
Now, its been brought up previously, but, Im highly suspecting this to be a troll OP, and I refuse to let the trolls win, so Ill try and contribute.
Horde:
- Blood Elves: A society where everything is about magic. Their culture, their history, their previous or current addiction, their city and their land. Everything is somehow connected and devoted to magic. Their numbers might not be as overwhelming as the humans, but they still have more mages in total. They also have ancient scrolls etc about magic from the time of the Highbourn, and they've been training for thousands of years. I believe this is the most powerful of the races regarding the arcane within the Alliance and the Horde.
- Forsaken: Undead humans from all of Lordearon and Undead High Elves. Their knowledge is as great as any, and due to their new more sinistre and malefic nature they are prepared to experiment to lengths few others would. They also do not need to sleep and as such they can train and study night and day, which one could imagine they'd do since they are so focused on having a reason to exist.
Trolls: Small in numbers and magical knowledge unknown, Id consider them medicore overall.
- Orcs: New to the arcane arts - that doesn't follow the path of Fel and Dark magic - mage numbers assumed few.
- Goblins: Their inginuety and their nose for experimenting might serve them when it comes to being a mage. Numbers assumed few though.
Alliance:
- Humans: A very populated race, and as such it would contain many mages compared to other races, except the Blood Elves. Quite gifted race, has an easy time adapting to anything. The humans have had some great examples of mages over the years. (Rhonin, Jaina, Khadgar, Medivh, Aegwynn, Atonidas etc).
-Dwaves: The return of the Dark Iron gave them a good advantage on the arcane front, although the depth of their magical knowledge is an unknown area.
- Worgen: Same as the humans, cept smaller numbers.
- Gnomes: Same as the Goblins cept very small numbers.
- Draenei: For the sake of not sounding like a Horde fanboy Ill agree to that they have great magical knowledge, given they are such an old race. Although in reality I dont think we have many if any sources on how good they are with it.
Numbers few.
Overall the Alliance has more actual mages, while the Horde has more powerful mages.
Both have poor mages and very strong mages though, so my opinion would be that it adds up pretty nicely to a draw.