Race tier list
Racials after the Forever rework - beta week 1
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Tap an item to see its racials and talent tree, and to jump to the paragraph about it in the notes below.
Author's notes
Forever rewrote racials, so this ranks the racials as they stand in the beta client, not as they were in Classic. We weighted three things: does the racial work for every class, does it work without a condition, and can you feel it while levelling to 20 — the only thing the beta lets anyone test right now.
S — always on, and good for whatever you rolled. tops the list for the thing the beta can actually test. All five racials are new; Wind Blessed gives 1% melee, ranged and spell haste to every class that can be one, Skysight adds 10% movement speed, and Read Ley Line doubles health and mana regeneration, which is most of what levelling to 20 consists of. It also opens six class combinations that did not exist before. Be clear about why it is here, though: it wins on breadth and downtime, not on burst. One per cent haste is a smaller number than Blood Fury or Elune's Light, and on a per-spec basis Skyborne does not beat Orc or Night Elf for any single tree — our race-and-spec list ranks it accordingly. If you are picking a race to level a new character this week, it is the best answer; if you are picking one to maximise a spec at 60, it is not. gained the most from the rework: Blood Fury now raises spell power as well as attack power, so it is no longer a melee-only racial, and Shatter Curse is new. Hardiness and Axe Specialization are unchanged and still good. has Elune's Light, a new flat 10% crit for 15 seconds that does not care what you equip, on top of Quickness.
A — strong, but narrower. pairs Berserking's 10% haste with the new Rapid Regeneration, which restores half your health and matters more while levelling than it will at 60. Beast Slaying is 5% against exactly the mobs you kill on the way to 20. keeps the best stat line in the game — Endurance is 5% health and 1% hit — and Plainsrunning is new, though it only helps out of combat. has the new Eureka!, which makes your next three casts cheaper and 10% stronger, and Expansive Mind now covers rage and energy as well as mana.
B — barely touched by the rework. did well out of it in fairness: Stoneform now cuts physical damage taken by 10% on top of clearing bleeds, poisons and diseases, and Big Game Hunter is new. It sits here because the rest of the kit is situational. and are the only two races that received no new racial at all. Human still has the best PvP package (Will to Survive, Perception) and Sword Specialization now applies its crit to spells, so casters holding a sword benefit. Undead keeps Will of the Forsaken, which is the single strongest PvP racial in the game, plus Cannibalize, which is genuinely good between pulls while levelling. Neither is bad — they just did not move while everyone else did.
Two things this list does not do. It does not split Skyborne by faction, even though High Order and Windshaper can play different classes, because the racials themselves are the same. And it does not try to rank racials for level-60 raiding, which no one can test yet.