World of Warcraft’s Current Allied Races Revisited

If you’re a recurring reader of Phenixx Gaming, there’s a possibility you might remember an editorial I wrote over a year ago about my thoughts on each playable Allied Race in World of Warcraft. Considering how old that article is by this point, I’m not the least bit surprised by how dreadfully outdated it is. To that end, I thought I would revisit and revamp that article to bring it up to current standards. I will inevitably have to do this again at some point in the future.

Two new Allied Races have been added since I wrote the aforementioned editorial, which brings the total to ten and grants each faction five new unlockable races. As was the case with my previous piece, this article is intended to be primarily targeted toward players who might be unfamiliar with the Battle for Azeroth expansion. It is also meant for those of you who are new to WoW in general.

As such, for the benefit of those who find themselves curious about these races, I’ll discuss four aspects of each one: the requirements necessary to unlock them, the classes available to them, their racial traits, and a brief anecdote of my personal experiences playing as each race. As you might expect, however, I’ve now had quite a bit more time to familiarize myself with how I prefer to play each race. Of course, that isn’t to say I’m an expert on any of them by any stretch of the imagination. At least I’ll have more to offer you than my initial impressions.

Before we truly begin, though, there are three things I think you would do well to bear in mind when determining which Allied Races you might want to unlock and play. First and foremost, once you’ve met the requirements to unlock a race, you must then travel to your faction’s embassy, located in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, respectively. Once there, you can start the quest chain which officially recruits and ultimately unlocks each race upon completion.

Secondly, all unlock requirements which have to do with reputation are currently still in effect as of the time of writing. However, they will be entirely removed once the Shadowlands expansion is live. As for the requirements which center around earning certain achievements, it isn’t presently exactly clear whether these achievements will still be necessary. At this point, I’d say it’s wisest to assume that these requirements will remain in place. Finally, in an effort to avoid needlessly reiterating this multiple times during today’s discussion, I should mention that all ten Allied Races (as well as Pandaren) can be members of the Death Knight class provided you’ve pre-purchased any of the three versions of the Shadowlands expansion. With all of that out of the way, let us waste no more time and get to it, shall we?

Void Elves (Alliance)

Unlock Requirements: Exalted reputation with the Argussian Reach faction in Legion, as well as the achievement awarded for completing the Argus campaign, called “You Are Now Prepared!”

Available Classes: Warrior, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Mage, Warlock, Monk

Racial Traits: May tear a rift in space, then teleport through said rift by reactivating this ability. Incoming Shadow damage is reduced by 1%. Using abilities may incur a 12-second buff which causes your damage and healing effects to deal an extra 5% as Shadowfrost. Your spell casts cannot be slowed by taking damage. You receive an automatic 50% discount on transmogrification and void storage services.

My Experiences: Even after so much time, I honestly find myself significantly let down by most of the racial traits possessed by Void Elves. I still haven’t felt the need, or even the desire out of curiosity, to use their ability to teleport through a rift of their own creation. Because of that, I’ve deleted all my Void Elf characters except one, who happens to be a Monk. That, by definition, means that unless I need to switch to Mistweaver in the context of healing a dungeon group or something, renders his innate ability to avoid having his spell casting slowed by incoming damage somewhat redundant.

The occasional twelve-second buff is still not very useful in my experience. Rather anticlimactically, that’s essentially all I can say about that racial trait. To end on a purely cosmetic note as I did last time, I remain thankful for the discount Void Elves receive on transmogrification services.

Lightforged Draenei (Alliance)

Unlock Requirements: Exalted reputation with the Army of the Light faction in Legion, as well as the aforementioned achievement for completing the Argus campaign

Available Classes: Warrior, Paladin, Hunter, Priest, Mage

Racial Traits: May summon a Forge of Light once every fifteen minutes, allowing the crafting of items within certain professions such as Blacksmithing and Engineering. Note that despite being called a forge, the item created by this ability does not actually function as a forge. Therefore, it cannot be used to smelt ore. Your Blacksmithing skill is increased by 10.

Additionally, you may summon a blast of holy energy once every 2.5 minutes, dealing significant damage to all enemies within five yards of you. You receive a 20% bonus to experience gained from killing demons. Incoming Holy damage is reduced by 1%. Finally, upon dying, you explode in a blast of pure holy energy, damaging all enemies within eight yards and healing nearby allies.

My Experiences: I stated rather proudly in my original article on this topic that I consider the Lightforged Draenei to be the coolest Allied Race on the Alliance. To the point that their existence was the driving force behind my two pre-purchases of Battle for Azeroth. That still remains the case at the time of writing.

I must admit, though, now that I’ve seen both versions of the mount available to Dark Iron Dwarf Paladins, the Lightforged may soon have a worthy challenger for that title. However, that isn’t to say I think the Lightforged are completely without flaw. For example, I’m quite disappointed by the fact that, as I noted a moment ago, this race’s “Forge of Light” ability has a misleading name due to its inability to act as a standard smelting forge. Perhaps “Anvil of Light” didn’t sound as appealing to Blizzard as it does to me. For what it’s worth, I think it’s cool enough to make one heck of a name for a finishing move in the world of professional wrestling.

I’m also still let down by the lack of classes available to Lightforged characters. As I’ve said in the past, I acknowledge that their current allotment of classes makes sense from a lore perspective. Even so, I’d still really like to have the ability to play as Lightforged Monks and Shaman. Admittedly, that’s primarily because I can easily think of silly names I could give such characters, but that’s beside the point.

Despite my disappointments with the Lightforged, as petty as they may be, I still greatly enjoy playing all my Lightforged characters. Their ability to essentially smite enemies with a devastating beam of holy energy has prevented me from dying quite a few more times than it had when I wrote my original article on this topic. After all, what Paladin needs baseline area-of-effect spells like Consecration and Divine Storm in their kit when they can just call down a holy death ray from an orbiting spaceship every couple of minutes if they get into a jam?

Dark Iron Dwarves (Alliance)

Unlock Requirements: Exalted reputation with the 7th Legion faction in Battle for Azeroth; the achievement “Ready for War,” which is awarded for completing the first portion of the Alliance war campaign

Available Classes: Warrior, Paladin, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Shaman, Mage, Warlock, Monk

Racial Traits: Once every two minutes, you may instantly remove all poison, curse, magic, bleed, and disease effects from yourself. Activating this ability increases your primary stat by a flat amount for each of these effects you remove. This buff lasts for eight seconds.

Once every thirty minutes, while outdoors, you may summon a mole machine which tunnels through the earth and can transport you to many various unlockable locations. While indoors, you move 4% faster. Incoming damage from physical attacks is reduced by 1%. Your Blacksmithing skill is increased by 5, and you craft Blacksmithing items twice as quickly as normal.

My Experiences: I’ve mentioned in many articles on World of Warcraft that I avoid most forms of PvP combat like the plague unless I’m in the mood to do a few battlegrounds. That’s primarily because I’m both terrible at fighting other players and made particularly uneasy by the prospect of doing so. You would be forgiven for thinking otherwise, though, considering I level the vast majority of my characters with War Mode consistently active.

It’s almost like I’m looking for a fight at all times. In fact, I’m sure that would be the excuse used by all the max-level enemy players who seemingly had absolutely nothing better to do as they repeatedly killed me, along with countless other low-level players in zones like Duskwood and Westfall. Yet, despite how many times I’ve been slain by such players, I’m still stuck in the belief that turning off War Mode is a sign of weakness. At any rate, the point I wish to make by bringing that up is that even though I only engage in PvP combat exceptionally rarely, I think the racial active ability granted to Dark Iron Dwarves to instantly remove all those different types of negative effects and get a temporary buff to their primary stat for doing so is among the most convenient racial abilities for PvP in the game.

I’m well aware that the classic racial ability available to Humans known as “Every Man for Himself” still claims the popular vote for “most useful racial trait.” This must be why Blizzard created trinkets that possess its effect and can, due to their status as heirloom items, be used by any race.

However, Every Man for Himself likely won’t save you if you encounter a group of enemy classes with damage-over-time effects and few, if any, stuns or other such effects. I recognize that this trait can enable you to fight back against classes that like to stun-lock you before proceeding to melt you where you stand. However, just breaking you out of stuns doesn’t necessarily innately make you stronger when defending yourself, unless you can quickly gain the upper hand once your foe’s stuns are on cooldown.

The Dark Irons’ trait known as “Fireblood,” however, does temporarily strengthen you somewhat when you use it to cleanse yourself of any harmful damage-over-time abilities, although it does nothing against things like stuns and fears. Admittedly, I don’t know nearly enough about how character stats or PvP match-ups work to know whether Fireblood’s flat bonuses to your character’s primary stat are more powerful than an alternative percentage-based buff might be. However, I could see the latter easily being considered overpowered if Blizzard didn’t tune it extremely carefully.

On a final note about the Dark Irons, I feel compelled to at least mention their Mole Machine racial ability, despite the fact that I’ve never experimented with it. According to Wowhead, this ability can transport Dark Iron characters to many locations. You should know though, that the ability to travel to such locales via Mole Machine must be unlocked somehow. Wowhead reports that this ability can take players to such locations as Stormwind, Ironforge, Blackrock Mountain, The Hinterlands, and several noteworthy points in Northrend, Pandaria, Draenor, and the Broken Isles.

Kul Tiran Humans (Alliance)

Unlock Requirements: Exalted reputation with the Proudmoore Admiralty faction in Battle for Azeroth. Complete both parts of the Alliance war campaign. Several achievements: “Tides of Vengeance,” “Loremaster of Kul Tiras,” “The Pride of Kul Tiras,” and “A Nation United.”

Available Classes: Warrior, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Shaman, Mage, Monk, Druid

Racial Traits: Once every two and a half minutes, you may wind up and subsequently throw a powerful punch at your target. This ability deals considerable damage based on various factors, stuns the target for three seconds, and knocks the target back a certain distance. Your Versatility is increased by 1%.

You heal for 2% of all damage you take over a period of four seconds. You may hold your breath underwater for 50% longer and swim 10% faster than normal. Your skill level in all professions is increased by 5. Incoming Frost and Nature damage is reduced by 1%.

My Experiences: Again, I don’t know much about the finer details of player-versus-player combat within the context of World of Warcraft. Regardless of that, it seems to me that Kul Tirans are fairly well-equipped to handle some Horde ruffians in fisticuffs based on their racial abilities and passives. The extra versatility is often nice, as is the innate resistance to Frost and Nature damage should you happen to run afoul of any enemy Mages or Druids.

Alternatively, if you wind up in an unwinnable battle, you can always attempt to take advantage of Kul Tirans’ ability to swim more quickly and hold their breath for significantly longer in order to escape and hide underwater. I shamelessly admit I’ve done exactly that in the past. Sadly, I still haven’t yet had the opportunity to use their Haymaker racial to send any Horde players flying off cliffs to their doom. Nonetheless, I remain confident that it’ll happen someday.

Mechagnomes (Alliance)

Unlock Requirements: Exalted reputation with the Rustbolt Resistance faction in Battle for Azeroth. The achievement for completing all story quests in Mechagon, called “The Mechagonian Threat.” Note that this achievement also requires completing a so-called “mega-dungeon.” This dungeon, as far as I’m aware, is currently only available on Heroic and Mythic difficulties.

Available Classes: Warrior, Hunter, Monk, Mage, Rogue, Priest, Warlock

Racial Traits: Once every three minutes, you may summon two “Organic Light” duplicates of yourself which serve to distract your enemies. For as long as you remain in combat, you generate a stack of a buff called “Combat Data” every five seconds. This buff increases your primary stat by a flat amount and may stack with itself up to eight times.

You function as your own personal smelting forge, Blacksmithing anvil, and cooking fire. Your limbs also passively grant you access to every profession tool which composes an Ultimate Gnomish Army Knife. That means you get access to a Blacksmithing Hammer, Mining Pick, Herbalist’s Spade, Skinning Knife, etc. Note that as far as I’m currently aware, your ability to serve as a forge, anvil, and cooking fire only applies to you, meaning no nearby group members of other races can benefit from this aspect of your presence.

Additionally, all classes available to Mechagnomes have the permanent ability to open locked chests and doors which would ordinarily require a Lockpicking skill of a value appropriate for your current character level. Finally, once every two and a half minutes, if you suffer damage which causes you to fall below 20% health, you instantly heal for 15% of your maximum health.

My Thoughts: The particularly keen-eyed among you have likely noticed that I’ve titled this section “my thoughts” on Mechagnomes rather than detailing my personal experiences playing as them. That’s entirely because Mechagnomes remain the sole Allied Race I have not yet unlocked at the time of writing. That, in turn, is due to the fact that I can’t currently be bothered to grind out the necessary reputation with the Rustbolt Resistance. Especially because this faction is the only one that has no occasional emissary quests as far as I’m aware.

With that said, I’ve long been intrigued by the particularly profession-friendly kit of racial traits available to Mechagnomes. I’ve been known to fixate somewhat on maximizing my usage of my characters’ professions, even if the ones I choose don’t necessarily mesh well with my current class or don’t quite enable me to make a significant profit on the auction house. That’s the primary reason why I think Mechagnomes’ passive ability to act as their own personal smelting forge, anvil, and cooking fire is fantastic. After all, it enables the crafting of profession materials from anywhere and bypasses the need to trek all the way back to a capital city or encampment that happens to have the facilities you require. At the very least, this trait allows you to do more than the aforementioned, ill-fated Forge of Light. I think that’s got to count for something.

Nightborne (Horde)

Unlock Requirements: Exalted reputation with the Nightfallen faction in Legion; the achievement for completing the main Suramar story quests, called “Insurrection”

Available Classes: Warrior, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Mage, Warlock, Monk

Racial Traits: Once every three minutes, you may release a pulse of arcane energy which damages nearby targets and halves their movement speed for twelve seconds. Once every ten minutes, you may summon a grimoire which allows you access to your mail for 1.5 minutes. Incoming magic damage is reduced by 1%. Magic damage you deal is increased by 1%. Your Inscription skill is permanently increased by 15.

My Experiences: Even after all this time since my last editorial on this topic, I have still yet to find a worthwhile use for any racial traits possessed by my Nightborne characters. For one thing, I don’t engage in nearly enough player-versus-player combat to know with any degree of certainty whether their racial “arcane pulse” ability or their innate resistance to incoming magical damage are anywhere near worthwhile.

I suppose the bonus to the Inscription skill and the ability to occasionally access your mail from anywhere could be nice if you find yourself selling a high volume of profession-related items on the auction house. Sadly, I think that’s about as far as that goes. Having said that, I’ve noticed a theme among the playable elf races in World of Warcraft, whether they’re Allied Races or otherwise. I seem to be perpetually disinterested in any traits available to these races due to how lackluster they tend to be in practice.

Highmountain Tauren (Horde)

Unlock Requirements: Exalted with the Highmountain Tribes faction in Legion; the achievement awarded for completing all story quests in Highmountain, called “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”

Available Classes: Warrior, Hunter, Shaman, Monk, Druid

Racial Traits: Once every two minutes, you may charge forward for one second which knocks down and stuns any enemies hit for 1.5 seconds. Your Versatility is increased by 1%. Your Mining skill is increased by 15. You also mine more quickly than other races. Damage you take is reduced by a flat amount. You have a chance, in appropriate circumstances, to loot additional fish and meat.

My Experiences: I don’t sign myself up to tank dungeons very often unless I have a healer I know I can trust. Despite my hesitancy in this context, though, I’ve found that Highmountain Tauren make great tanks in my opinion. That’s due in large part to their innate damage reduction. I know the flat damage reduction and 1% bonus to Versatility may not sound like much, but I do believe they’ve saved my life on at least a couple of occasions when my healer happened to look away at an inopportune moment or was temporarily stuck healing someone else.

Mag’har Orcs (Horde)

Unlock Requirements: Exalted with The Honorbound faction in Battle for Azeroth; the “Ready for War” achievement for completing the first portion of the Horde war campaign

Available Classes: Warrior, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Shaman, Mage, Monk

Racial Traits: Once every two minutes, you may “invoke the spirits of your ancestors,” which provides a random buff for fifteen seconds. Your movement speed while mounted is increased by 10%. Your pet’s health is passively increased by 10%. All poison, disease, and curse effects cast on you have their duration reduced by 10%.

My Experiences: I still enjoy playing my Mag’har characters, but their allotment of racial traits remains strange. I must say that the majority of them are at least occasionally useful. I only wish Mag’har Orcs could play as Warlocks so that they would have at least one more class that could benefit from the passive increase to pet health. The fact that the Mag’har seem to have a racial trait that only benefits Hunters is a large reason I find that their kit of racial traits seems odd.

Honestly, I completely forgot about the Mag’har Orcs’ racial trait that allows them to “invoke the spirits of their ancestors” to receive a random, fifteen-second buff until I started working on this article. That should be an indication of how often I’ve used this racial ability. I really should experiment with traits like this that I rarely, if ever, use. Perhaps I’ll do that in preparation for a third version of this article in the future.

Zandalari Trolls (Horde)

Unlock Requirements: Exalted with the Zandalari Empire faction in Battle for Azeroth. Complete both parts of the Horde war campaign. Complete all story quests within the three zones in Zandalar.

Available Classes: Warrior, Paladin, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Shaman, Mage, Monk, Druid

Racial Traits: You may pray to your chosen Loa, granting you a certain buff for a specific period of time based on your chosen Loa. Once every fifteen minutes, you may slow your falling speed for a two-minute period. Once every 2.5 minutes, you may channel for six seconds in order to regenerate 100% of your maximum health unless you take damage during channeling. You receive 2% bonus gold from looting creatures.

My Experiences: I’m pleased to report that I have unlocked the ability to play as Zandalari Trolls since the publication of my original editorial on this topic. Since I’ve done that, I’ve found that I greatly enjoy playing my Zandalari characters. I must confess that a large reason I enjoy playing my Zandalari so much is the fact that they can be Paladins. You see, my main character has been a Paladin for several expansions now; I think it’s quite nice to be able to play a class with which I’m so familiar, with the added bonuses of both playing a Zandalari specifically and as an Allied Race in general.

I feel I should elaborate a bit on the aforementioned racial trait granted to Zandalari Trolls which allows them to “pray to their chosen loa.” The various loa worshiped by the Zandalari have shrines scattered throughout the Zandalari capital of Zuldazar. Zandalari Troll characters start in Zuldazar before heading to Orgrimmar to begin questing. This is your primary opportunity to visit one of these shrines if you wish to change your chosen loa and, therefore, the buff you receive from activating this racial ability.

Vulpera (Horde)

Unlock Requirements: The achievement for completing every story quest in Vol’dun, called “Secrets in the Sands;” exalted reputation with the Voldunai faction in Battle for Azeroth

Available Classes: Hunter, Mage, Monk, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior, Shaman

Racial Traits: Once every 1.5 minutes, you can pull something out of your “bag of tricks” to either heal an ally or damage an enemy. You can choose which of these effects is active by using the related “Rummage Your Bag” ability on a five-minute cooldown. Additionally, you may make a campsite at any outdoor location. Once an hour, you can channel this ability to return to the location of your campsite.

Although your campsite is only temporary in certain respects, its location will stay the same until you manually change it. Your campsite provides a temporary rest area and a functioning Cooking Fire. Your standard-issue starting backpack permanently features eight additional item slots. Fire damage you take is reduced by 1%. When you first take damage from an enemy, that damage is automatically reduced by an amount equal to 5% of your maximum health.

My Experiences: I’ll start this section by admitting that I had to look up how the aforementioned “campsite” systems work because I’ve never actually used these racial abilities myself. It turns out that Vulpera characters cannot use their campsite as a permanent rest area (as would be possible at an inn or capital city). Now that I’ve read up on this topic, this limitation makes a lot more sense to me.

Instead, this ability is apparently mostly meant to be used as a temporary rest area to do such things as change your talents or turn off War Mode without having to use your actual Hearthstone to get to a full-fledged rest area. You can also set your campsite to whichever area within which you’re currently questing. This gives you an easy, expeditious way to return to that area later, even if it doesn’t have an inn or nearby flight master.

Moving on, the Vulpera constitute another race that I greatly enjoy playing even if I don’t understand one of their biggest selling points. The extra bag slots are definitely quite nice to have, although Vulpera characters (like all Allied Races) start with four ten-slot bags in addition to their normal backpack. Plus, the names of all my Vulpera characters are puns about the Vulpera essentially being humanoid foxes. I don’t know about you, but I get quite a kick out of that for some reason that I’ve yet to fully pin down.

Well, there you have it, my friends! I hope this article has helped you decide which Allied Race(s) you’d like to work toward unlocking and playing. I know all this information is a lot to take in, but if it helps, remember that you’ll have fewer requirements to contend with once Shadowlands is out. Which Allied Race do you consider your favorite and/or least favorite? Why? Do feel free to share your thoughts with me in this article’s comments!