You want to know which race will provide some nice bonus for your mage while diving into the world of Classic WoW?
Well, you’ve come to the right place.
We will describe every race that you can choose for your mage mostly on the racial abilities they poses.
So without further ado, let’s get to the list:
4. Humans
Considering every little advantage that you would want to have as a mage, humans are the last race to choose for this class due to their racial abilities.
The only ability that can be considered as a decent addition for the mage is Perception.
When activated it will dramatically increase your stealth detection for 20 seconds.
With cooldown of 3 minutes it is really nice to have, because mages lack the armor, since they rely on cloth gear and as such will always be attractive targets to the rogues and feral/cat druids.
However, Perception is pretty much useless in PvE.
Some people might argue that passive skill The Human Spirit, which increases spirit by 5 is good for mages, because of the influence that spirit has on the mana regeneration.
However, it is not a good argument because mana regeneration based on the spirit stops 5 seconds when expended.
Also, in non-combat situations mages have nicely covered regeneration due to their abilities to create consumables like conjured food, water, etc.
3. Trolls
As a troll mage you will have two semi-decent racial abilities.
One of them is passive, called Beast Slaying, which increases damage dealt by 5% and yes, it works for both melee and spell damage. It is a nice boost while leveling, because later on there are not many bosses considered to be beasts.
The second one is active one know as Berserking. When activated it will increase your casting speed by 10% to 30%.
This percentage depends on the current state of health, less health provides bigger percentage increasing it towards the maximum of 30%.
On the other hand while playing as the mage you will not want to risk your health dropping low in order to use this skill to its full potential.
Still, minimum bonus of 10% is a nice cast rate improver and Trolls could easily overcome forsaken mages when it comes to the damage dealt but that is arguable and will speak more about it more in the next part.
2. Undead / Forsaken
Due to possessing two active and one passive racial ability, forsaken mage would be a nice choice, especially if you are hardcore PvP player.
Will of the Forsaken will provide you with immunity to charm, fear and sleep while active, and it can also be used to remove these effects if they are already applied on you.
This is definitely one of the greatest racial skills for PvP.
Next one is active ability called Cannibalize.
It regenerates 7% of total health every 2 seconds for 10 seconds when activated near humanoid corpse.
It is not a big deal but it can be handy to have in situations when you need to recover your health fast. This skill is pretty good to have in PvP as long as you are out of combat. However it is almost entire useless in PvE.
As the decent passive skill, forsaken naturally have increased shadow resistance by 10. This will mostly be useful in PvP against the warlocks and shadow priests.
Also, it is a fine bonus to have in dungeons like Scholomance, Stratholme, etc.
As we can see, as a forsaken mage, you would not have racial that will increase your damage or casting speed, like it is the case with trolls. However, World of Warcraft gameplay is seldomly “static”.
From time to time, despite being a range class, you will have to move around or cast some abilities in order to survive.
So, in short, what is the benefit of having periodic booster ability if your character is dead?
1. Gnomes
Tiny gnomes are the number one race for mages.
Besides two nice racial skills, due to their size they are also tricky to spot and focus compared to the other races, which can be really handy in PvP.
Their main power as mages lies within passive ability called Expensive Mind, which increases intelligence by 5%.
For mages intellect is the main attribute – every point of it brings 15 mana points and also increases your chance to score critical strike hit with spells.
The next useful gnomish ability is Escape Artist, which will remove any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect.
Racials are usually instant cast abilities but this one actually have casting time of 0.5 seconds.
Anyway, add this ability with its cooldown of 1 minute, to the other mages abilities like Blink or Ice Block, and you will be pretty much true “Escape Artist”.
Worth of mentioning is that gnomes also have engineering skill increased by 15.
As a mage engineer you will be able to use some nice equipment that this profession provides, so advantage in PvP over non-engineer players will be incredibly high.
Engineering profession is very expensive on the Classic WoW, so 15 bonus points will be great to have.
Conclusion
Let’s talk about mages and races without precise list.
If you are fan of the Alliance it is pretty easy, just pick the gnome. They are dominant over human mages in both, PvE and PvP.
When it comes to the Horde fraction it is a bit tricky. Trolls are little better from the forsaken if we consider only damage dealing, while forsaken possess some suitable abilities for PvP.
However, mage gameplay can be done in many ways, let’s take the leveling for example.
As a newbie, you will look to avoid any conflicts with more than one hostile NPC, but due to the powerful arsenal of mage’s AoE (Area of Effect) abilities like Blizzard, Frost Nova, Arcane Explosion and similar spells, soon enough you will figure out gameplay path which includes pulling and overcoming even more than five enemies at once.
This can drastically increase you leveling speed and can be used later to farm certain items required by reputation factions like Argent Crusade, Cenario Circl, etc.
As you can see with this one example, there is no single “best” option to play as a mage.
Still, whatever you’re gonna be doing, there are some significant differences when it comes to choosing the race, especially if you are going even the smallest powerup.
