Which Race Is The Best Warlock Race?

So you want to be a warlock?... The very first thing you have to do is decide which race your warlock will be.  You could read the Starting a Warlock page on wowwiki, but that page (as most of wowwiki) was written by idiots who know little about end-game raiding or high-level PVP, and then rarely updated as the game changes. 

On the Horde side, warlocks can choose to be an Orc, an Undead (aka Forsaken), or a Blood Elf.  On the Alliance side, warlocks can chose to be a Human or a Gnome.

All of the races vary in terms of base attributes (stamina, intellect, spirit, etc.) and also in terms of what racial abilities you have. So let’s run down the choices, evaluate their differences, and then choose the “best” warlock race.

Regardless of whether your choice is PVP or PVE, the only attributes that matter for a warlock are Stamina and Intellect. So let’s look at those values first for each of the possible warlock races.

                       
          Level 70 Warlock Attribute Values

                   Stam (Health) Int (Mana)

          Undead     77 (4080)   131 (4300)

          Orc        78 (4090)   130 (4285)

          Blood Elf  74 (4050)   137 (4390)

          Human      76 (4070)   133 (4330)

          Gnome      75 (4060)   137 (4390)

All of the stamina and intellect values above are within a few points of each other.  This shows that regardless of race, all warlocks will have very similar health and mana pools; so these values should not be a factor when deciding the best race.

Different races also speak different languages, but that has no bearing on the actual play experience of the game, so just disregard them.

The only factor left in determining the best race for warlocks are the individual racial abilities.  So let’s give a concise rundown of each race’s racial abilities and then choose our winner.

Undead

Will of the Forsaken – A great racial ability in both PVP and PVE, it is just like having a third trinket to get out of a Fear (most common use) on a 2 minute cooldown.

Cannibalize – Nice to have, but don’t count it towards selecting a winner.  You should always have food & water, Conjured Manna Biscuits, and/or your Everlasting Underspore Frond.  The best part of this ability is to use it on the copse of an enemy player after killing him but before he releases.

Underwater Breathing – Useless since warlocks have a spell that does it better

Shadow Resistance – +10 shadow resistance in nice, but only marginally, don’t count this when choosing a winner.

Orc

Blood Fury – Increases spell damage & healing 143 (at level 70) for 15 seconds, on a 2 minute cooldown.  This is a very nice ability but only in PVE; it’s like having an extra trinket (but a minor one), and it does not share a “use” cooldown with any other trinket or ability.  Prior to the burning crusade expansion, this ability only gave a melee attack power buff.  I would not recommend using this ability in PVP (assuming you have a healer) because of the 50% healing reduction debuff you get is the same thing as a mortal strike debuff for 15 seconds.

Hardiness – Very nice, but only in PVP.  15% is nothing to kid about.  Prior to the burning Crusade Expansion, this was a 25% stun resist.  Hardiness does stack with all other stun resist gear or abilities.

Command – Great, but only if you are a Felguard Demonology spec, which is actually the smallest percentage of level 70 raiding warlocks.

Axe Specialization – Useless for warlocks.

Blood Elf

Mana Tap – Takes away 120 mana (at level 70) from your target, 30 second cooldown.  Useless in PVE and very situational in PVP.

Arcane Torrent – Area silence for 2 seconds with a 2 minute cooldown.  Almost useless in PVE, but awesome in PVP, especially since warlocks do not have any other way to silence.  This ability gives a warlock 4 modes of crowd control that do not share diminishing returns: Fear, Horror (from Death Coil), Charm (from a Succubus), and this Silence).  If you bother spending 60 seconds building up 3 Mana Taps, then this will also transfer 225 mana from your target to you.

Magic Resistance – +5 resist to all magic schools.  Nice, but don’t count when choosing a winner.

Human

Perception – Increases stealth diction by 50 points (+10 levels) for 20 seconds, 3 minute cooldown; useless in PVE and situational in PVP.   In PVP, unless you are a Felguard Demonology spec, you will be using a Felhunter, so you will already have a Paranoia buff giving +30 points (+6 levels) of stealth detection.

The Human Spirit – 10% spirit increase, almost useless for warlocks.  We have no spells or talents that rely on spirit (priests & druids do, and mages use to).  I say almost because if you have a priest speced into 2 points of Improved Divine Spirit, then your spell damage would be raised by 10% of your spirit.  For comparison, my T5/T6 level gear’s spirit would only give me 22 more spell damage in this best-case situation (not very much).

Diplomacy – Useless for endgame PVE and/or PVP.

Sword Specialization – Useless for warlocks.

Mace Specialization – Useless for warlocks.

Gnome

Escape Artist – Useless in PVE, mostly useless in PVP.  If you get snared or rooted in PVP, it’s not the end of the world, it doesn’t stop you from casting.

Expansive Mind – 15% increase in intellect. Not bad at all, but mana is not usually a problem because we can Life Tap.

Arcane Resistance – +10 AR, mostly useless.

Engineering Specialist – Useless in terms of choosing a race.

So your BEST choice of race of course first depends on if you want to play Alliance or Horde.  You do want to be Horde, right?....

For an Alliance Warlock, Gnome is the obvious winner for PVP and PVE.  The Human race just does nothing for end-game raiding and in PVP the Perseption ability is not worth much especially when most PVPer will be using a Felhunter.  The Gnome’s Expansive mind ability is really what makes being a Gnome Warlock the clear winner over a Human Warlock.  But even Expansive Mind isn’t a big deal.  Another way to look at it is that both Human Warlocks and Gnome Warlocks suck donkey balls, but Gnome Warlocks suck less because of the Expansive Mind racial ability.

For Horde Warlocks, the decision becomes much more interesting.  Before the Burning Crusade expansion, there was no Blood Elf race, so the choice was between Undead and Orc.  Back then, the clear winner was Undead because the Orc’s Blood Fury racial ability only affected melee damage, and Fear was a huge PVP issue back then (more of an issue than stuns) making the Undead’s Will of the Forsaken very valuable (there was no diminishing returns, and the Insignia of the Horde didn’t work on Fear effects back then).

Post Burning Crusade, however, the clear winner in the Orc Warlock.   Blood Fury is a great ability in PVE, and Hardiness is great in PVP.  You don’t have the Undead’s Will of the Forsaken, but that loss is lessened by the Insignia of the Horde or the Medallion of the Horde and by diminishing returns (in addition to a Tremor Totem or any class that can remove magic).  You also won’t have the Blood Elf’s Arcane Torrent in PVP, but the Orc’s Blood Fury in PVE needs to be first priority and the Hardiness in PVP is definitely very useful.  

The only exception to this would be a warlock who ONLY intended to do arena PVP and end-game raiding is not even a possibility.  In this very limited situation, the Blood Elf is the choice to be because a well timed Arcane Torrent ability can easily mean the death of your opponents in your arena games.  You will miss the 15% stun resist from being an Orc, but 15% isn’t high enough, in my opinion, to over take an area silence ability.

For those that feel they are in this arena-PVP-only category, I would still recommend choosing Orc instead of a Blood Elf. Because I would bet eventually you will want to do some high-end raiding, in which case the Orc is better suited while still having a good PVP racial ability.

I have to admit that Orcs are the clear winners for the Horde.  Unfortunately for an elitist like me, that means that I might have to re-roll an Orc Warlock after the next expansion.  Looking back and knowing what I know now, I wish I would have re-rolled an Orc Warlock for TBC expansion.  On top of everything else, the Orc model is significantly larger than the Undead or Blood Elf models; this makes the end-game gear’s graphics look much cooler on Orcs than any other race.

So grats to my Orc Warlock colleagues, your day in the sun has arrived…