A Tale of Two Lame Races

Two new Expansion races means a whole lot of... new... uh.... racial abilities?

Way back when the new races were revealed in WoW, people got a little over excited at the prospect of playing a new race. People jumped on the Blizzard forums and tried their hardest to 'be the one' that coined the new nickname for the races... ZOMG Belves & Dranos LOL!

They would start these threads, and try to casually weave words like 'SpaceBerry' (I'm sadly not making that one up) into every other sentence, and just made the forums a chore to read. Okay, more of a chore.

A new class would have actually been something exciting, but everyone seems to be forgetting one thing: there's not really anything new about new races except graphics, and some lame racial abilities. You're still rolling a shaman or whatever, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich tastes the same whether it comes wrapped in waxpaper or a Limited Edition 1989 Barbie 'COOL TIME' lunchpail.



So when is a mage not a mage? When it's a blood elf, and can:

Mana Tap!
Activate to drain 50 mana from your target and charge yourself with arcane energy
for 10 min. This effect stacks up to 3 times. 30 second cooldown. Scales with level.

or

Arcane Torrent!
Activate to silence all enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds. In addition, you gain
20 Energy / 12 Mana for every charge of Mana Tap currently affecting you.
Scales with level.



I don't know what to say, since my primary class (warrior) relies on hitting things with swords to make them bleed and die. But wow... 50 mana? Hot damn! Is that how much it takes to cast Frostbolt XII? I hope so! What else do we have here, 2 seconds of silence? I'll admit to not being High Warlord material, but 2 seconds sounds like just enough time for me to have tried to cast something, have it not go, and figured I just hit the wrong button. Hit it again, oh there it goes, hooray!


Call me old fashioned, but last time I checked, I could break fear and EAT DEAD PEOPLE on my undead girl. Like... kill them, then hunch over their corpse and make lip-smacking noises while I watch my health go up. I can even use it in combat and eat someone's best friend that I just killed while Intimidating Shout is keeping them frozen in terror and making them WATCH. Christ, I should get an extra 2 seconds of stun if they knew that guy IRL.

The Draenei do have a kind of sweet heal over time:

Blessing of the Naaru
Activate to heal your target for 10 + 3 * level every 3 seconds for 15 seconds.
1.5 second cast time and 3 minute cooldown.
(At level 1 it heals 65 health, and heals 1100 at level 70)

Heroic Presence
Increases chance to hit of all party members within 30 yards by 1%.

... but it doesn't save them from just looking so chumpy that I want to break their knees. I think this was the intended effect; Blizz made sure they have like 4 major joints on each leg, allowing me plenty of time to make that special moment last.



Every idle animation, and things like /sit and /kneel just make them look like ... whatever. I just want to stab them, okay?

In fact, I wish both of the new races could have been Alliance. The Horde can wait until something good comes along, we don't want Pouty Pink Night Elves prancing around Ogrimmar, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of rolling horde in the first place. The boards are flooded with people trying to hold pseudo-intellectual contrasts between the races, but their posts invariably unravel until they just boil down to:



or even better:



Wow. As unsettling as it is that they find the new toons "attractive AND smart" (?), I've read that last sentence about three or four times, and I still don't quite get it. Is Tpringa suggesting that female blood elves have large penises under their dresses, so it's okay for transexuals to play as a ... or wait...I mean...? Wait, huh?


Now, in all fairness, I need to point out what could be viewed as a glaring hypocrisy... I myself am a guy, and have a female undead warrior named 'Isobelle' (which is also used as my account here as you can see). In my defense, though, I can honestly say I've never started a topic on any forums discussing how 'cute' or 'sexy' my avatar is, and I lead guild raids over vent in my sexy "i'm the man in charge voice" (Woahwoahwoah there...! Ease down, Slim! I never said I personally wasn't sexy; just that I don't look at my avatar like that). I don't pretend my mic doesn't work, or try to hide who I am.


Anyway. If all you're looking for is a shiny new brown-bag to cover up the bottle of swill that you consume in your spare time, then by all means, roll an expansion race. At this point, I'll probably keep what I have going, and leave it up to a guildie to roll that silly paladin we're going to want to be dragging on runs with us now. Maybe he can make it a 'cute and sexy' blood elf, and we can cyber during downtime between wipes... I'll administer some serious Blessing of the Naaru, seeing as how my Heroic Presence was just bostered by some hot tauren porn I downloaded by Arcane Torrent. Watch out baby! I'm gonna (Mana) TAP THAT ASS TONIGHT, YOW!


(okay, that was just silly)