Post by Rankkor
and why would you say the food buff is imbalanced? its a marginal stat gain, as small as what you'd gain by being an orc with an axe, or a human with a sword.
Ordinarily, I would agree with you, but this is a buff to a primary stat. A large one at that.
for instance, is 1% crit. Crit is a secondary stat, can be reforged to, out of, and is generally easier to come by. Primary stats, like agility, can only be found on gear, gems, and enchants.
Survival Hunters, for instance, weight Agility 2.8 times more valuable than crit (maxdps.com). So that 300 agility bonus is worth 840 critical strike rating. Since 1% crit is about 185.71 rating, that means that 300 agi would be as good as 4.5% crit chance. Significantly better than the dwarf racial.
I picked dwarf because the math was simple, but pandarens will have a healthy advantage over all the other races.
not really.
Lets apply that racial to today's food.
Lets say you're a warrior pandaren, thus strength is your main stat. Today, your food would grant you 90 strength and 90 stamina. To a pandaren it would grant 180 strength and 180 stamina. That's what? a hundred AP increase at most. And that's about it. If we think about it, a hundred AP are about as valuable as 1% crit, or 1% attackspeed, or some expertise.
And it gets worst on a BG because then, the pandaren racial is completely useless unless you wanna eat a food every single time you get killed which can happen OFTEN on a BG. And that's not counting arenas where I think food buffs are not allowed, so that's plenty of scenarios were the pandaren racial is entirely worthless, whereas the always-active racial of other races is always there.
Worgens will always have their 1% crit, Orcs will always have their 15% pet damage and expertise, Goblins will always have their 1% attack/caster speed. Pandarens on the other hand, will only get their meager hundred-something AP when eating something.
Do remember that their racial only increases stats gained via food. Not stats via gems. You wont get a 1% extra STR, its a double-food buff. Considering they don't have another "always active" racial like worgens/draenei/orcs/goblins/dwarf/gnome/human/ect its more than compensated.
Post by Thror
Rankkorr, if you think choosing a race on the basis of racials is wrong, you did voice your opinion. Would you kindly stop posting here? Because as of now, you are actively derailing this into a discussion about the value of racials.
Now to add something that is relevant to this topic.
Since the buffs that increased resistance to various schools of magic are getting scratched in MoP beta, the racials that add resistances to schools of magic are actually becoming useful again.
- Draenei
Gift of the Naaru - Solid self heal. Brewmasters already have some self-healing capabilities, so adding this would either be just a minor improvement, or it might be good enough to enable Monks to solo some bosses. (A combination of self healing (Expel Harm) and absorption (Guard) is needed to solo bosses from lower tiers.) - - An increase to personal DPS.
- - Shadow tends to be one of the most represented elements in PvE, so this is pretty handy.
- Dwarf
Might of the Mountain - Monks can not use 2H maces. This racial will only be useful if DW tanking turns out as a viable choice for Brewmasters, which is not guaranteed as of now. - Frost Resistance - An ok mitigation racial when it works.
- Stoneform - Mitigates all types of damage, which means it applies to magic. Getting more ways to mitigate magic is generally a good deal for tanks, because it is more troublesome than basic melee swings. The 2 minute CD is pretty reasonable, makes it usable multiple times per a boss fight.
- Gnome
Arcane Resistance - See Frost Resist from dwarves. - Nimble Fingers - See Mace Spec from dwarves. Monks can not use Daggers.
- Escape Artist - Tanks do not really get snared all that much. There might be a fight where this is really handy but I think it is pretty passable.
- Human
Will to Survive - See Escape Artist from gnomes. - + - Same as previously mentioned Specs. Only useful if DW is viable.
- Night Elf
Nature Resistance - See Frost Resist from dwarves. - Quickness - Obviously a useful racial for any tank, but it only works against auto attacks. Despite the fact that auto attacks tend to result in a major portion of incoming damage for tanks in most boss fights, this is not all that awesome. Tanks rarely die to auto attacks. They are a predictable, constant, and less bursty source of damage. Auto attacks are rarely an issue for healers. It is spells and various special melee abilities that are troublesome and able to burst a tank down, and this racial does not cover those. The only fights where this racial really shines is the ones where a boss empowers his normal melee swings with something really nasty. Hodir from Ulduar comes to mind, that was such a *!@#$. And obviously, take the "shines" with a grain of salt. It is still 2%.
- Pandaren
Epicurean - Huge amount of bonus Stamina and Agility. Increases HP, Dodge chance and AP (monks mitigation scales from their AP to an extent). Additional health helps soaking spells, additional mitigation helps against melee hits. If we add Glyph of Guard into the equation, the additional Agility can help mitigate magic too.
Personally, I would put the races in this order (
in the list above, the races are sorted alphabetically):
Pandaren > Night Elf or Dwarf > Draenei > Human > Gnome
PS: I honestly believe Epicurean will get nerfed before MoP makes it live. It will get nuked when we start testing the MoP end game in the beta.