The real problem of why the raiding scene is becoming more Horde only

[Emerald Archer]

Yeah, when I said on par I meant more on par with base races rather than on par with Void Elf and Highmountain tauren, obviously with some exceptions where base races have a good racial to compare. I know as a dps class I'd choose void elf if I could, the 5% buff would be up with every use of my wings including the initial burst given its 33% proc rate and 1 minute internal CD. Atm in legion that would pull ahead of human stat bonus racial, though unsure if it will in legion given crusade might not be our best talent choice.

I do think Highmountain Tauren will be the number one tank class, esp if the base damage reduction works on magical attacks. Unsure if it does, still powerful if it doesn't and dominant if it does. Like for a dot does it reduce each tick by that amount, or is it calculated on max damage and reduces each tick by a smaller amount? Been a couple weeks since I played a highmountain tauren on alpha, but I believe it is supposed to be around 360ish damage reduced at 120 in dungeon gear. Not game breaking, but can't think of a better defensive racial. I think the only one that would come close would be Stoneform? Happy to be corrected if I am missing one.

Don't really think the blink of Void Elf is great in and of itself since it takes multiple presses and you have to wait for the void portal thing to get to where you want to go, will take at least 2 GCDs to use properly. Though with the overall slowed down combat on alpha its not as bad as it would be on live.

Except not on par, for non-casters it's literally a 0 dps gain, literally the worst race aside from lightforged, another allied race.

And Pallys can't be void elfs, so that doesn't really mean much. It lines up with other specs buffs too, and it's still bin. Looks good and IS good, are very different things.

Why are you talking about highmountain tauren like it isn't out yet? And why are you talking like only pure defensive racials effect tanks? Stats effect tanks too. Crit/Haste/Mast, they all have an effect on tanks. And not all tanks go pure 100% defensive sacrificing everything else. There are balances. And standard tauren gives HP which leads to standard tauren giving a higher effective HP typically.

So we've worked out Lightforged+Nightborne have the worst racials in the game (Nightborne slightly better than the worst for casters, but still typically middle of the pack) Void elf would be great for ret if they could actually reroll it, but they can't, so it's stuck as middle of the pack racial (because it's better to go off what IS, rather than what could be) And Highmountain tauren is good for tanks, not good for dps roles, and also doesn't give the most EHP, and is debatably not the best race for any tanking spec. It's not black and white for them, and it is close enough for it to not be an obvious choice.

Might be worth you taking a look at https://www.herodamage.com/ for a rough idea about racial values.

[theyanger]

The topic is strictly raiding. Those "Game breaking utility racials" (Assume you're talking about torrent?) isn't a factor in raiding. People will go what gives the most dps.

There is a 0% chance that you are in a high end raiding guild if you believe this.
Guilds LITERALLY went horde just for freaking rocket jump. Things like Arcane Torrent are useful on all kinds of raid bosses. Being PERHAPS 0.1% behind in dps accross the entire spectrum of classes? If that? It's never going to make people faction transfer, it never has and it never will.

EDIT: I'd also note that even taking it at face value, that's something recent. Horde was significantly better for DPS for most classes for most of this period as well. Berserking being the SUPER outlier for ages.

[Felkor]

The Hall of Fame (top 100 guilds on each faction get rewarded for completing content) is obviously Blizzard's answer to the problem. The Hall of Fame for Horde ends up being world top 130ish, while you can go all the way down to World 300-400 before you wouldn't make the Hall of Fame as an Alliance Guild. If they make the rewards interesting/prestigious enough then people will go back Alliance for a guaranteed/easier spot in the Hall of Fame.

By far the smartest suggestion here to close the gap in the long term.

[Emerald Archer]

There is a 0% chance that you are in a high end raiding guild if you believe this.
Guilds LITERALLY went horde just for freaking rocket jump. Things like Arcane Torrent are useful on all kinds of raid bosses. Being PERHAPS 0.1% behind in dps accross the entire spectrum of classes? If that? It's never going to make people faction transfer, it never has and it never will.

I mentioned the rocket jump thing, but that was only relevant to very very high end guilds. I'm in a top 100 guild, not insane but It's enough to know that at that level, it really wasn't anywhere near as big a deal as it was for other guilds much higher up.

When orbs were fixed, goblins were no longer that insane. And they were only that insane for specs/classes who didn't have an alternative, like disengage. Typically priests were the ones needing it.

"Arcane torrent are useful on all kinds of raid bosses" ok so what? Mistress and Portal keeper? What else were they actually useful for?

Goblin jump was on 1 boss, and lasted until the orbs got nerfed which was reasonably early in, and only big guilds got there by then. And after that it died down a bit. Still good, but not in the same universe as it was, not a must at all after then. Therefore not worth an entire guild faction change for priests who could do without it.

Again, the 1% of the 1% of the 1%, doesn't effect the overall faction imbalance much at all.

[theyanger]

I mentioned the rocket jump thing, but that was only relevant to very very high end guilds. I'm in a top 100 guild, not insane but It's enough to know that at that level, it really wasn't anywhere near as big a deal as it was for other guilds much higher up.

When orbs were fixed, goblins were no longer that insane. And they were only that insane for specs/classes who didn't have an alternative, like disengage. Typically priests were the ones needing it.

"Arcane torrent are useful on all kinds of raid bosses" ok so what? Mistress and Portal keeper? What else were they actually useful for?

Goblin jump was on 1 boss, and lasted until the orbs got nerfed which was reasonably early in, and only big guilds got there by then. And after that it died down a bit. Still good, but not in the same universe as it was, not a must at all after then. Therefore not worth an entire guild faction change for priests who could do without it.

Again, the 1% of the 1% of the 1%, doesn't effect the overall faction imbalance much at all.

Cho'gall was egregious. Literally any boss with a cast, is easier with torrent. And as I edited in above: A miniscule, at best, difference in dps in favor of alliance, is not going to offset utility like rocket jump, torrent, and the fact that horde had BETTER dps racials for a decade. There doesn't just need to exist balance, there needs to exist a compellign reason to go BACK to alliance, and there isn't. 0.1% dps isn't compelling enough for even top guilds, as I noted. If Ally are that much better now, it has no net effect, you gain more raid dps simply by being able to recruit better players and remaining horde.

[glorygores]

Alliance has by far the best pvp racials and still they complain..

"by far" is an overstatement considering you can just watch the pvp tourneys and half the teams are horde.

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"All the guilds will switch" is such a gross miscalculation. It took a DECADE of horde imbalance for it to get like it is. If they make Alliance OP for one-2 expansions it'd probably equalize naturally. Your'e right they have to actually make alliance more attractive than horde, I said that. There's no other way. They f'd up for too long.

a decade? lol? horde has had the faction imbalance since shaman/paladin were added to both factions. Vanilla was literally the only arguable point in time that factions were either balanced or in alliance favor.

[theyanger]

"by far" is an overstatement considering you can just watch the pvp tourneys and half the teams are horde.

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a decade? lol? horde has had the faction imbalance since shaman/paladin were added to both factions. Vanilla was literally the only arguable point in time that factions were either balanced or in alliance favor.

In TBC the draenei racials were significantly stronger and the blood elf ones were significantly weaker. I'd have to go back and look but I'm fairly sure that Alliance was still a better choice back then in terms of raw dps. There are outliers of course, but aside from Ret paladins (where horde was vastly stronger) I'm pretty sure Horde only competes if you're getting a lot of value from berserking, and the human expertise bonuses were better than the orc ones still at that time.

[glorygores]

In TBC the draenei racials were significantly stronger and the blood elf ones were significantly weaker. I'd have to go back and look but I'm fairly sure that Alliance was still a better choice back then in terms of raw dps. There are outliers of course, but aside from Ret paladins (where horde was vastly stronger) I'm pretty sure Horde only competes if you're getting a lot of value from berserking, and the human expertise bonuses were better than the orc ones still at that time.

even if we give alliance vanilla and bc, thats over a decade of horde dominance. There is no argument that horde wasn't clearly superior in a pve sense from Wrath moving forward.

[Danvash]

Horde is far more interesting than Alliance. Blizzard needs better writers along with balancing racials for the Alliance to be attractive from a fantasy perspective. In BFA, they've taken the same road as always and given the Horde interesting storylines and the Alliance just fight a bunch of generic pirates. Interesting Alliance characters disappear or die.

I'm an Alliance main, and I hope that Blizzard gets it together sometime in the next three expansions.

[Riistov]

Pretty sure that hasn't been the case in a very long time.

Not since WoD, thats for sure.

[Marrilaife]

Not since WoD, thats for sure.

Since the introduction of honor talents orc + relentless rose in power as the "anti stun" race, plus the biggest benefit of human racial was having 2 trinkets to use, with implementation of the templates you can't use trinkets any more so that's another advantage gone, and also they nerfing human racial for BFA, again (must be like 3rd nerf to it by now, why did they remove perception if they can't balance EMFH).