Best Race for mage on Alliance ? WoD and now.

[Wyrt]

I'm still going to disagree with Draenei just for the Int boost. The heal, sure, but I'm sticking to my guns about Humans. Also, don't forget, NO OTHER RACE can pick Multistrike (which will be an amazing stat for Frost and Arcane), Mastery, or Readiness (which... well, most likely will be shit for all 3. Fire might benefit the most out of it). Plus that EMfH trinket is a lot more helpful than you non-Humans may think. Worgen is never a bad choice either due to that Sprint, and the Crit helps out Fire pretty nicely. I also feel that, assuming Mastery is one of Arcane's best stats going into WoD, Gnome will probably end up being the best for Arcane specifically.


PS: If Humans can pick Crit Damage as a stat as well, that'd be insane. Maybe they'll implement Amplitude (Crit Damage) strictly for Humans, Dwarves, and Tauren, but not actually put it on gear right away. They never 100% scrapped Amplitude and Cleave; they simply shelved them.

Humans get .5% of their best secondary and .5% of their second best secondary. That's not as good as a worgen fire mage who would get 1% of their best secondary.

[Polarthief]

Humans get .5% of their best secondary and .5% of their second best secondary. That's not as good as a worgen fire mage who would get 1% of their best secondary.

You say "Second Best" as if there will be only one best stat. With there now being 5 secondaries instead of 3 (Hit/Expertise never really counted), I'm willing to bet there will be points where you bounce between two stats, similar to Haste breakpoints where you would get Haste up to the breakpoint then get another thing, except in this case, there is no breakpoints, just stats scaling with one another. You also don't have to commit to one stat since all 3 specs favor different things. Arcane will probs want Mastery/MS, Fire will want Crit over everything as usual, and Frost will want Haste/MS. Also because there is no more reforging, it will be much harder to specifically go for one stat, resulting in more hybrid builds, as well as customization in what you want your food/enchants/flask-or-elixirs to be.

[Wyrt]

You say "Second Best" as if there will be only one best stat. With there now being 5 secondaries instead of 3 (Hit/Expertise never really counted), I'm willing to bet there will be points where you bounce between two stats, similar to Haste breakpoints where you would get Haste up to the breakpoint then get another thing, except in this case, there is no breakpoints, just stats scaling with one another. You also don't have to commit to one stat since all 3 specs favor different things. Arcane will probs want Mastery/MS, Fire will want Crit over everything as usual, and Frost will want Haste/MS. Also because there is no more reforging, it will be much harder to specifically go for one stat, resulting in more hybrid builds, as well as customization in what you want your food/enchants/flask-or-elixirs to be.

If you pick crit and haste you get 300 crit and 212 haste for your fire mage. A worgen would get a whole 600 crit. And a draenei would get 300 int.

I'm pretty sure in that case it'd be worgen>draenei>human. But the worgen wouldn't remain as good for other specs, draenei would remain just as good, and human would depend on how much rating you get per percent for the secondary stats you chose.

[Polarthief]

If you pick crit and haste you get 300 crit and 212 haste for your fire mage. A worgen would get a whole 600 crit. And a draenei would get 300 int.

I'm pretty sure in that case it'd be worgen>draenei>human. But the worgen wouldn't remain as good for other specs, draenei would remain just as good, and human would depend on how much rating you get per percent for the secondary stats you chose.

This would be more of a problem with Blizzard not appropriately balancing the rating-to-percent-ratios. Also, that's assuming you pick Haste. If MS, Mastery, or Readiness is something you desire, ONLY a Human can pick those stats.

Also, keep in mind guys, we're talking about a fairly marginal DPS gain, with Troll probably being the only outlier (AS USUAL), especially in cases of burst and/or/with proc/cooldown stacking. Again, unless you're racing for world first kills (and even then, it doesn't matter THAT much), it really isn't going to matter in the long run, and I'm willing to bet we have 1 or 2 world-first-racers, MAX on this Mage forum. Just pick the race that you enjoy looking at the most, or your favorite armor looks great on, or the one with the best animations (personally, I can't play a Worgen caster unless I can change my shape like a Druid, DESPITE them having pretty good racials. Those wobble-arms made me ill back in Cata... Blech)

[Traveler Voltin]

wait arent dwarfs getting a racial similar to tauren?
2% crit and 2% healing.
so dwarf is another option.

[Polarthief]

wait arent dwarfs getting a racial similar to tauren?
2% crit and 2% healing.
so dwarf is another option.

2% Crit Damage/Crit Healing. Not 2% Crit Damage and 2% Healing.

The reason for the healing to be 'added' is because Haste and Crit (chance) already inherently buffs healing. They also didn't say "Critical Effects" because that would just cause confusion.

Also, like what was said above, Fire is going to favor Dwarf like crazy, even moreso if you PvP at all.

[Traveler Voltin]

2% Crit Damage/Crit Healing. Not 2% Crit Damage and 2% Healing.

The reason for the healing to be 'added' is because Haste and Crit (chance) already inherently buffs healing. They also didn't say "Critical Effects" because that would just cause confusion.

Also, like what was said above, Fire is going to favor Dwarf like crazy, even moreso if you PvP at all.

well my alliance mage is staying a Draenei. though i will probably make a 2nd mage if my alliance server ever gets connected with another one.

[Wyrt]

This would be more of a problem with Blizzard not appropriately balancing the rating-to-percent-ratios. Also, that's assuming you pick Haste. If MS, Mastery, or Readiness is something you desire, ONLY a Human can pick those stats.

Human being able to pick those stats only matters if they're the best stats for that spec and it would still depend on how much rating you get per percent.

If readiness and multistrike are closer to haste then you'd get like 212 rating of each, which wouldn't beat out the draenei int bonus.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Goblin: Almost unchanged. +1% Haste instead of Attack Speed. Again, better races.

Goblin racial has always given 1% Haste, not Attack/Casting Speed.

[Deleted]

Exactly, and since you have an extra 15k mana, your mana % will ALWAYS be higher than if you were another race, meaning Arcane's Mastery will always benefit more as a Gnome, assuming you were do the exact same thing as any other race. For example: Let's just ASSUME in this scenario, you're at 100% mana and that's 100k mana (105k for Gnome). Arcane Blast costs 10k mana. So, as a Gnome after 1 ABL, you will have 95k mana, which is 90.48% (95k/105k), while as ANY other race, you would be at 90k mana, which is 90% (90k/100k), so your mana % would be higher as a Gnome, meaning Mastery benefits more as a Gnome.

Except that's not how it goes. Spell cost isn't a fixed amount of mana, it's also a percentage of total mana. The Gnome's total mana is 5% higher than others.
So let's assume Blast costs 10% of total mana, then for Gnomes it means they spend 10.5k to cast it, while others only spend 10k. In the end, all of them would be OOM after 10 casts, if you disregard mana recharge.

[Komman]

Except that's not how it goes. Spell cost isn't a fixed amount of mana, it's also a percentage of total mana. The Gnome's total mana is 5% higher than others.
So let's assume Blast costs 10% of total mana, then for Gnomes it means they spend 10.5k to cast it, while others only spend 10k. In the end, all of them would be OOM after 10 casts, if you disregard mana recharge.

I'm afraid you are mistaken. Spell costs are calculated from base mana, not character total mana. Gnomes have exactly the same spell costs as other races.

Source: I'm a Gnome.

[Polarthief]

Human being able to pick those stats only matters if they're the best stats for that spec and it would still depend on how much rating you get per percent.

If readiness and multistrike are closer to haste then you'd get like 212 rating of each, which wouldn't beat out the draenei int bonus.

We still don't know how much Int the Draeneis are getting. Also, if you're calculating this purely based on the raw # of rating you get... Well, I don't believe the math works out like that.

Goblin racial has always given 1% Haste, not Attack/Casting Speed.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=69042 (Live Goblin Racial)

I mean, I was just reading from the WoW post. I don't normally keep up with Horde racials anyways.

Except that's not how it goes. Spell cost isn't a fixed amount of mana, it's also a percentage of total mana. The Gnome's total mana is 5% higher than others.
So let's assume Blast costs 10% of total mana, then for Gnomes it means they spend 10.5k to cast it, while others only spend 10k. In the end, all of them would be OOM after 10 casts, if you disregard mana recharge.

If mana cost were based on max mana, what on Azeroth would be the point of the 5% mana bonus? That would mean everything costs 5% more and overall, the Gnome racial would be a penalty more than a perk. More importantly, what would be the point of the 300% mana gain for non-priest Healer specs since it does the exact same thing? That makes literally no sense and would be pointless.

As Komman has stated above, spell costs are based on base mana. Any increases to max mana (such as non-Priest healer role passives or the Gnome racial) do not increase mana costs.

[Tahnaa]

Pretty sure they meant purely for stats. Night Elves also don't make the best Mages aethestically, imo.

(Akraen, don't hate me >.>)

During the short time I was Alliance, I was Human for three days and wanted to delete my toon and went Nelf. (Human females just make me want to scream, their mouths are always open like they want to give a bj...can't stand them...also not a cutting edge player - soooooo I'll play what I like). =D

Akraen is gonna smack you!

[Polarthief]

During the short time I was Alliance, I was Human for three days and wanted to delete my toon and went Nelf. (Human females just make me want to scream, their mouths are always open like they want to give a bj...can't stand them...also not a cutting edge player - soooooo I'll play what I like). =D

Akraen is gonna smack you!

I mean, feel free to play whatever! I was actually at a decision once to play NElf, but chose not to. Been pretty much every race now (because I'm insane) and found that I almost always default to Human (male), and probably won't shy away from that. Most basic-sized race (in both weight and height) that pretty much all armor is 'tested' on, so nothing is going to look like this abomination:



Seriously, when I saw this, I pretty much died a bit inside.

[Tahnaa]

I mean, feel free to play whatever! I was actually at a decision once to play NElf, but chose not to. Been pretty much every race now (because I'm insane) and found that I almost always default to Human (male), and probably won't shy away from that. Most basic-sized race (in both weight and height) that pretty much all armor is 'tested' on, so nothing is going to look like this abomination:



Seriously, when I saw this, I pretty much died a bit inside.

You are insane, but that's why I like you.


MY EYES!!! THAT'S TERRIBLE.

[Polarthief]

MY EYES!!! THAT'S TERRIBLE.

One of the core reasons I realized I couldn't continue to play as a Panda (though now I just use half CM and half Wrathful...)

PS: It looks even WORSE in game. The ear-holes don't really have the ears coming out of it; they're just holes.

[Deleted]

I dont really see someone to really clarify that, so let me be the "bad guys who did this".
Humans will get 1% secondary stat buff split on 2 you you can choose as racial. That's cool. But! people seems to be way too happy to remember that multistrike and readiness are tertiary! not secondary stats. Meaning they will not be affected by this racial.

Now about who will be best choice for mage on ally side. As im looking at the new cooking and alchemy recepies they will be secondary and tertiary stats so the best choice will remain pandaren due their racial.
Second might be the draenei. I think their racial stat buff should be equal to the buff a pandared could get if he eat stat food. Now this in the begging of the expansion should be strong.
3rd place my bet goes to gnome/nightelf due their 1% pure haste (99% of the people raid during the night so... ) or worgen IF you are fire mage.
4th place maybe will go to humans for the reason i stated in the begging of my post - 0,5% buff is insignificant in my opinion and also again note that there wount be any! break points in WoD
Last place in my opinion goes for dwarfs. 2% crit damage! not critical rating i mind you. However its not that it is weak, but in the begging of the expansion will be weak, but in the end of the expansion might go higher in value. I read somewhere, someone had made the job to calculate, that you might actuly near somewhere near 50% crit rating to be able to outweight the other ones.

[nickseng]

Erm, Multistrike and Readiness ARE secondary.

Tertiary are stuff like movement speed and cleave (if that's still in)


ETA: Proof

From http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/3...es-05-23-2014/

New secondary stats: Bonus Armor, Multistrike, and Readiness.

[Traveler Voltin]

Secondary: Crit, mastery, haste, spirit, multistrike, bonus armor, and readiness. i might have forgotten one.

Teritary: cleave, lifesteal, movement speed, no armor duration(cant remember what its called.) i dont remember if their is a 5th one.

anyway
re-answering.
Now for alliance.
Gnome, worgan, or draenei.
in WoD.
any of them. though i will say draenei

as for horde
Now:
trolls
in WoD
Troll, blood elf, and goblin.

[Polarthief]

But! people seems to be way too happy to remember that multistrike and readiness are tertiary! not secondary stats. Meaning they will not be affected by this racial.

Tertiary stats are stats that do not affect performance, but are still fun/useful. Multistrike and Readiness both GREATLY affect your performance on a level compared to Mastery, Haste, Crit, and (Bonus) Armor. They are not tertiary, and here's even a source for you:

Itemization Changes
General

• New secondary stats added:
  
  • Multistrike: Grants a chance for spells and abilities to fire up to 2 additional times, at 30% effectiveness (both damage and healing).
  • Readiness: Reduces the cooldown on several abilities with long-cooldowns for the class. The tooltip for Readiness displays a list of affected abilities.

So, y'know, sorry.

- - - Updated - - -

Secondary: Crit, mastery, haste, spirit, multistrike, bonus armor, and readiness. i might have forgotten one.

Teritary: cleave, lifesteal, movement speed, no armor duration(cant remember what its called.) i dont remember if their is a 5th one.

Cleave was shelved (along with Amplitude) and was a secondary, not a tertiary, and they also haven't been talking at all about tertiary stats since Blizzcon, so idk if they are even planning on keeping them or not.

I also had the list over on the 6.0 Thread, which includes Movement Speed, Lifesteal, Avoidance (reduces AoE damage taken), and Steadiness (makes that specific armor piece indestructible and not needing repairs), though that list (besides Cleave/Amplitude being shelved) has not been updated since the Blizzcon panel last year.