All 10 races and their racials

10 races, 40 abilities, and the same split on every one of them: two active, two passive. Horde and Alliance stand apart here because the choice is made apart - and because the Skyborne stand on both sides.

Two active, two passive - no exceptions

This is the rule Forever lines every race up against, and it holds across all 10 entries: none has three actives, none has only one. The dwarf's Find Treasure is the case you cannot read off the tooltip - it has no cooldown and reads like a passive effect, but it is a toggle. So the classification sits in our data instead of being guessed from the text, and the build step fails if a race does not come out at two and two.

Horde

5

Orc

Playable as Warrior · Hunter · Rogue · Shaman · Mage · Warlock

  • Blood Fury active Attack power and spell power up by 10% for 15 seconds. Two minute cooldown.
  • Shatter Curse active Strips every Curse and Bane and cuts magical damage taken by 5% for eight seconds. No immunity. Three minute cooldown.
  • Hardiness passive Stun effects on you last 20% less time.
  • Command passive Damage dealt by Hunter and Warlock pets up 5%.

Undead

Playable as Warrior · Paladin · Rogue · Priest · Mage · Warlock

  • Will of the Forsaken active Removes every Charm, Fear and Sleep effect at once. Two minute cooldown.
  • Cannibalize active Feed on a humanoid or undead corpse within five yards: 7% of maximum health and 7% of maximum mana every two seconds for ten seconds. Moving, acting or taking damage ends it. Two minute cooldown.
  • Underwater Breathing passive Breath underwater lasts 300% longer.
  • Touch of the Grave passive Spells and attacks that deal damage have a chance - 30% for casters, 20% for paladins, rogues and warriors - to drain health from the target, up to 5% of your own maximum health. 15 second internal cooldown, and it does not break crowd control.

Tauren

Playable as Warrior · Hunter · Shaman · Druid

  • War Stomp active Stuns up to five enemies within eight yards for two seconds. Half a second cast, 90 second cooldown.
  • Cultivation active Grow a duplicate of a nearby herb and pick it without the Herbalism profession. Each herb can be cultivated only once. Fifteen minute cooldown. The build of September 24 added a character level requirement per herb: the Herbalism skill needed to pick it, divided by five. Anything above 300 skill can be cultivated from level 60.
  • Endurance passive Total health up 5%.
  • Plainsrunning passive Every five seconds spent moving adds 2% movement speed, up to 60%. Taking damage or standing still winds it back down, and stutter-stepping no longer holds it. It no longer affects mounted speed.

Troll

Playable as Warrior · Hunter · Rogue · Priest · Shaman · Mage · Warlock

  • Berserking active Spellcasting and attack speed up by 10% for 15 seconds. Three minute cooldown.
  • Rapid Regeneration active Channel back 50% of maximum health over six seconds. Moving, acting or taking damage ends it. Three minute cooldown.
  • Regeneration passive Health regeneration up 20%, and a fifth of it keeps running in combat.
  • Beast Slaying passive Damage against beasts up 5%.

Skyborne · Windshaper

Playable as Warrior · Hunter · Rogue · Shaman · Druid

  • Walk on Air active Glide downward through the air for ten seconds, steering as you go. 90 second cooldown.
  • Skysight active 15% more movement speed for 15 seconds. Used at an elemental convergence it also grants Charged for one hour, which raises the bonus to 30%. Charged persists through death and is removed on entering a raid. Half a second cast, castable while moving, two minute cooldown.
  • Elemental Insight passive Damage against elementals up 5%.
  • Wind Blessed passive Two percent more haste for spellcasting, melee and ranged alike.

Alliance

5

Human

Playable as Warrior · Paladin · Hunter · Rogue · Priest · Mage · Warlock

  • Perception active Stealth detection goes up sharply for 20 seconds. Three minute cooldown.
  • Will to Survive active Removes every stun effect at once. Three minute cooldown.
  • Ruthless passive One percent more critical strike chance on every spell and attack, whatever the weapon.
  • The Human Spirit passive Spirit up 10%.

Dwarf

Playable as Warrior · Paladin · Hunter · Rogue · Priest · Shaman

  • Find Treasure active Puts nearby treasure on the minimap and keeps it there until switched off, and most chests have a chance to hold an extra item. No cooldown - the one racial that is active without being one.
  • Stoneform active Strips every Bleed, Poison and Disease effect, grants eight seconds of immunity to them and cuts physical damage taken by 10%. Three minute cooldown.
  • Artisan's Precision passive Hit chance with spells and attacks up 1%.
  • Big Game Hunter passive Damage against beasts up 5%.

Night Elf

Playable as Warrior · Hunter · Rogue · Priest · Druid

  • Shadowmeld active Slip into the shadows so enemies are less likely to spot you; it ends when you move. Used in combat it discourages enemies from attacking, but pushes the cooldown to two minutes. Ten second cooldown otherwise.
  • Elune's Light active Ten percent more critical strike chance on every spell and attack for 15 seconds. Three minute cooldown.
  • Quickness passive Dodge up 1%, movement speed up 2%, and the speed stacks with other bonuses. Night elf rogues and druids are as hard to spot in stealth as if they were one level higher.
  • Wisp Spirit passive Become a wisp on death, with 75% more movement speed.

Gnome

Playable as Warrior · Rogue · Priest · Mage · Warlock

  • Escape Artist active Breaks out of any movement impairing effect and stays immune to them for three seconds. Two minute cooldown.
  • Eureka! active For eight seconds every direct damaging ability costs 10% less and hits 10% harder; for priests healing counts too, Power Word: Shield included. Not usable in stealth or invisibility. Two minute cooldown. The build of September 24 unified the discount across every class to 10% of mana, rage or energy.
  • Expansive Mind passive Maximum mana, rage or energy up 5% - whichever your class runs on.
  • Engineering Specialization passive Engineering devices fail or backfire 20% less often.

Skyborne · High Order

Playable as Warrior · Hunter · Rogue · Mage · Druid

  • Walk on Air active Glide downward through the air for ten seconds, steering as you go. 90 second cooldown.
  • Read Leyline active 50% more health and mana regeneration for 15 seconds. Used at a ley line it also grants Attuned for one hour, which raises the bonus to 100%. Attuned persists through death and is removed on entering a raid. Cannot be used while Innervate is active. Two second cast, castable while moving, two minute cooldown.
  • Elemental Insight passive Damage against elementals up 5%.
  • Wind Blessed passive Two percent more haste for spellcasting, melee and ranged alike.

The Skyborne share three of four

They are the only race on both sides, and the abilities follow the same split as the classes: Elemental Insight, Walk on Air, Wind Blessed are on both factions, and only the second active differs - Skysight for the Horde Windshapers, Read Leyline for the Alliance High Order. One line cuts against the story of the starting zone: Elemental Insight, the bonus against elementals, stays with the High Order too - the side that is in the middle of trading the elemental pact for the arcane legacy.

Why the Skyborne split into two factions at all is on Zephras Isle.

Three things the table says that are easy to miss

  • Since the build of 15 October there are no weapon specializations at all. Bonuses tied to no weapon took their place at first. On 26 October Blizzard reworked them once more, this time with roles in mind: Ruthless now gives humans only 1% critical strike chance, dwarves get Artisan's Precision, 1% hit chance, instead of Earth Fury, and orcs have Command back instead of Savage - 5% more damage for Hunter and Warlock pets. The weapon specializations stay gone, so that loot is not judged by "required" weapon types.
  • The Classic resistance racials appear in none of the 10 ability sets - no Shadow Resistance on the Undead, no Frost Resistance on the dwarf, no Arcane Resistance on the gnome, no Nature Resistance on tauren or night elf. That is an absence in the data, not an announcement: Blizzard has nowhere explained their disappearance, the slots are simply filled with something else.
  • Three races carry the same passive under two names: Beast Slaying on the troll and Big Game Hunter on the dwarf are both 5% more damage against beasts, and the Skyborne's Elemental Insight is the same thing against elementals. Anyone looking for the strongest race mostly finds an answer to the question of strongest against what.

Where the numbers come from

Structure and values come from the Forever client's own data files, prepared by talentsforever.com - the same source this site's talent calculator is built from, under CC BY 4.0. Blizzard's tooltip text is not reproduced; the descriptions here are our own. Numbers from the client can lag behind server-side hotfixes.

Blizzard has officially confirmed only part of this so far: the four Skyborne abilities, in an article of its own, and individual changes in the development notes for the builds of September 24 and October 15, plus the final pre-launch pass of October 26 and 27. Where those notes add something the client text does not carry yet, it is marked on the ability.

Ability names stay in English in the German edition as well - like the talent names, and for the same reason: there is no dependable German source for the Forever names, and an invented translation would be worse than none.

Which class suits which race is decided in the talent tree: to the talent calculators