Warlock: Which Horde Race is the Best?

This information is verified to be accurate as of World of Warcraft Patch 3.3.x.

Before going too far into this, it’s worth pointing out that you shouldn’t make a decision regarding which race to play in World of Warcraft simply on the traits that differentiate the races. Although these differences may have a large impact on your game experience in certain situations, picking the “wrong” race is not going to ruin your character. If you are a casual player, you will have much more fun choosing a player based on looks or an interesting back-story you’ve created. That being said…

Horde players can choose from three races when creating a warlock: blood elf, orc, and undead. Although starting stats are slightly different for each race, they are not different enough for stat differences to matter when selecting a race. At level 80, six points of Intellect is not that big a deal. When choosing a race, you should only consider the benefits of racial traits.

Blood Elf

Blood Elves receive two racial traits that are of minor benefit in specific situations.

• Arcane Torrent silences enemies within 8 yards and restores 6% of the warlock’s mana. The silence aspect of this trait is really only useful in PVP since enemies in PVE are usually at near maximum range. Additionally, warlocks already have an easier time managing their mana pool thanks to Life Tap.
• Magic Resistance reduces the chance the blood elf will be hit by spells by 2%. This ability has very limited usefulness since warlocks in PVE are only attacked when unable to properly manage threat.

Orc

Orcs have three abilities that effect warlocks.

• Blood Fury increases the warlocks spell power for 15 seconds. This results in a massive damage boost and is useful in both PVE and PVP situations.
• Command increases the damage done by warlock demons (pets) by 5%. This is most useful for soloing and Demonology specced raiders. Warlocks rely heavily on their pets when soloing. A 5% increase in damage not only kills mobs faster, it allows pets to generate more threat and hold aggro off the warlock better. In dungeon and raid settings, this translates to a direct damage boost for warlock demons.
• Hardiness reduces the duration of stun effects by 15%. This trait is mainly beneficial in PVP situations, but can occasionally by useful in PVE.

Undead

• Will of the Forsaken used to be the most powerful PVP racial trait. This trait removes charm, fear, and sleep effects. Unfortunately, this trait has been changed so that it shares the same cooldown with trinkets that provide the same functionality. As such, the usefulness of this trait is severely inhibited.
• Cannibalize is a useful trait in that it quickly returns health to the character. Warlocks use their health pool to replenish their mana, so this would seem to be a useful ability. Unfortunately for undead, food is readily available to replenish the warlock’s health pool, and warlocks also have the ability to steal health from mobs.
• Shadow Resistance is similar to the Blood Elf Magic Resistance but only effects Shadow spells.

Therefore…

From the above listings you can clearly see that Orcs are currently the best Horde choice for the warlock class. Orc traits allow warlocks to out damage other races, and make solo leveling much easier.

And let’s face it, orcs are just dead sexy.

If you are looking for the absolute fastest way to reach level 80, check out Joana’s WotLK Horde Level Guide.