World of Warcraft Best Class for Blood Elf | TBC Edition

With the upcoming Burning Crusade Classic release, plenty of Blood Elf loyalists and fanatics will certainly resume their role in this race, and with so much new content, even veterans can be disconcerted for a while. In this article, we’ll tackle the Blood Elves to ensure everyone, veteran and beginners alike, shall strive to excel in this race amongst races!

As we did with the Humans, we’ll delve deeper into the question: Which is the best class for Blood Elves in World of Warcraft’s Burning Crusade Classic?

There are many variables at work here, so we’ll first give an overview of the Blood Elf class, their overall strengths and racial skills, and compare them to other available races. And then we’ll discuss each class that a Blood Elf can play as in more detail.

Overall Blood Elf Strengths

Blood Elves are one of two new races added to Burning Crusade Classic. In this expansion, they are allied to the Horde and provide Horde players with a somewhat different option than they were used to.

Picking a Blood Elf is an easy choice for many players, and over the course of WoW’s expansions, they are certainly in the top 3 most popular classes. Let’s check out why people flock to this race, and what makes a Blood Elf such a tempting option:

• They are one of the few races that have the choice between 6 classes. On the Horde side, only Trolls have the same number of options.
• Blood Elves are pretty. While this might sound silly and not a good reason at all, it’s a fact that Horde races picked the short straw when it comes to looks. Orcs, Trolls, Undead… they are fearsome, but not pleasant to look at … for most people. Blood Elves on the other hand are the most aesthetically pleasing race in Burning Crusade, and you can be certain that people who are turned off by the Horde’s other races will turn to Blood Elves!
• Arcane Torrent. A very strong Racial skill, which we’ll discuss in more detail later on.
• Blood Elves are the only Horde race that has access to the Paladin Class. Previously restricted to Alliance only, Burning Crusade Classic ushers in an era of “class equality” between the two factions. If you want to play as a Paladin on Horde side (and many people do), you have to pick a Blood Elf.
• They are one of the two first “added” races, so their novelty value cannot be underestimated.

Racials

In Classic Burning Crusade, players who choose Blood Elf get access to these Racial abilities:

Mana Tap

Reduces target’s mana by X and charges you with Arcane energy for 10 min. This effect stacks up to 3 times.

On-use ability, 30 second cooldown, 30 yard range.

This is basically a ranged, instant-cast, weak mana burn. By itself, that is not very impressive, but it has the added benefit of providing melee classes with a ranged pull. Plus, Mana Tap also powers:

Arcane Torrent

Silence all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec. In addition, you gain X mana for each Mana Tap charge currently affecting you.

On-use ability, 2 minute cooldown.

This is the big cheese, the main Racial for Blood Elves. Its main component is an instant AOE-silence, which is useful in many PVE-scenarios and can make-or-break arena games in PVP!

It’s insanely good, and definitely one of the main reasons why you should play a Blood Elf. Its usefulness does depend on the class (better for melee), so we’ll go over each one later.

Magic Resistance

All resistances increased by 5.

This passive effect is nothing to write home about, but it is just a little extra benefit. You might occasionally resist a crucial Polymorph or Fear, so it’s nice to have but nothing you can really rely on.

Arcane Affinity

Enchanting skill increased by 10.

Nice if you take up Enchanting as a profession, worthless if you do not. By far the least useful of all Blood Elf Racials.

Class Overview in Classic Burning Crusade

Upon picking the Blood Elf Class in Classic Burning Crusade, you have the choice between 6 Classes, so there are more Race/Class combo options than most other Races get. We’ll now take a look at each Class specifically, go over the Racials and see how useful they are for that Class.

How does being a Blood Elf affect each Class’s effectiveness in both PVE and PVP? How does it compare to the other Horde Races that have access to that Class?

Priest

As we did with Humans, when we are discussing Classic Burning Crusade Priests, we cannot just look at the Racial abilities of each Race, we also have to take the Race-specific Priest-abilities of all other Horde Races into account. Yes, this definitely adds another layer of complexity.

• Blood Elf: Touch of Weakness (The next melee attack against the caster will cause X Shadow damage and reduce the damage caused by the attacker by Y for 2 min) and Consume Magic (Dispels one beneficial Magic effect from themself and grants them X mana. The dispelled effect must be a Priest spell. 2 minutes cooldown)
• Undead: Devouring Plague (Afflicts the target with a disease that causes X Shadow damage over 24 seconds. Damage caused by the Devouring Plague heals the caster) and Touch of Weakness.
• Troll: Hex of Weakness (Weakens the target enemy, reducing damage caused by X and reduces effectiveness of healing spells by 20% for 2 minutes), Shadowguard (The caster is surrounded by shadows. When a spell, melee or ranged attack hits the caster, the attacker will be struck for Y Shadow damage. Attackers can only be damaged once every few seconds. This damage causes no threat. 3 charges. Lasts 10 min)

Blood Elf Priest in PVE

All specs of Blood Elf Priest have only marginal use of Arcane Torrent, as they would have to run next to the casters to silence them, potentially exposing them to avoidable damage by moving away from their safety at range. In addition, Shadow Priests have a ranged silence, and if they are running into melee range, they might as well use Psychic Scream.

However, if the Priest dutifully uses Mana Tap on CD, Arcane Torrent can be used to restore a decent amount of mana, upon hitting 3 stacks.

Consume Magic can be of similar use, providing a little bit of extra mana in a pinch. For a Shadowpriest, this should not be necessary though, and it might even strip away Power Word: Fortitude or Divine Spirit.

Touch of Weakness is pretty useless in competitive PVE-environments: if a boss hits you once, you are most likely dead. However, for solo-play or just normal dungeons, this could be useful for Shadow, as it can proc Blackout. A Troll’s Shadowguard is similar, and Undead have Touch of Weakness as well, so no real difference between the Races there.

For Holy or Discipline priests, a Troll’s Berserking Racial provides a nice emergency casting-speed-increase, which can definitely help out more than Arcane Torrent or Consume Magic could.

An Undead’s Will of the Forsaken might be very, very situational, but there are definitely fights (Archimonde, multiple Heroic dungeon bosses) where this will come in handy.

If we look at Shadow, Berserking/Shadowguard and Devouring Plague/Touch of Weakness are almost always better than Arcane Torrent.

In conclusion, Blood Elves make decent Priests of all specs in PVE, but Undead and Troll just win out.

Blood Elf Priest in PVP

An AOE-silence is definitely more useful in PVP, where the positioning is more fluid and you will want to get in range of opponents anyway for Psychic Scream. Mana Tap can help if you’re part of a drain-team.

Touch of Weakness can be put to good use as well, both as a small protection against melee and as a buff-dispel-ward.

However, it’s a fact that Undead Priests are just better. Will of the Forsaken and Devouring Plague can win games and thus Blood Elves are only second-rate PVP Priests.

Rogue

Blood Elf Rogue in PVE

Rogues have a rough time in Burning Crusade Classic PVE. They bring very little utility, have nearly no AOE-damage, and even their single-target damage isn’t worth writing home about until late T6.

The AOE-silence of Arcane Torrent is definitely a boost to a Rogue’s usefulness, both in Heroics and in Raids.

However, Orcs have Blood Fury and Trolls have Berserking, which are both abilities that boost a Rogue’s damage and that is, in the end, what matters most.

Blood Elf Rogue in PVP

A Blood Elf Rogue can use Arcane Torrent to instantly silence the entire opposing team, which is not to be overlooked. This combined with a Rogue’s already vast arsenal to lock down casters (Kick, Cloak of Shadows, Vanish, stun-lock) will bring nightmares to your opponents in PVP!

They do have to compete with Will of the Forsaken again, which is by far the most useful ability in PVP. An Orc’s stun resistance is of course also valuable, especially if you pair it with Blood Fury.

We would say that all Racials have their use, depending on the situation, so we can put Blood Elf on par with Undead and Orc (not an easy feat).

Mage

Blood Elf Mage in PVE

Mages are a lot more straight-forward than Priests to decide upon, because they do not have specific abilities, apart from Racials.

Arcane Torrent and Mana Tap might again be marginally useful (and fun), but if you want to be competitive, and we are after all talking about the “best” here, a Troll Mage has Berserking, a mini-Bloodlust. You cannot compete with that.

Blood Elf Mage in PVP

A similar story to the Priest’s, Mages already have a ranged silence and if they have to run into a pack of enemy casters to silence them, they expose themselves to damage – and lose precious time doing damage themselves.

In addition, if you want to play a Mage in PVP, you can also just choose Undead, which, as we discussed earlier, has the most overpowered Racial in Will of the Forsaken. No real contest here.

Paladin

Blood Elf Paladin in PVE

Looking at the Blood Elf Paladin is a bit wonky in a comparison article, because there are no other options on the Horde side. If you want to play a Paladin, you have to pick Blood Elf, so just keep that in mind.

That being said, both Paladin Melee specs (Ret and Prot) gain tremendous benefit from both Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent. Not only does it help with mana issues, it also provides them with a single-target ranged pull. Yes, Protection Paladins have Avenger’s Shield, but on bosses like High King Maulgar, you do not want to use that because you will aggro other mobs.

Both specs are always in melee range, so having an instant cast AOE-silence at their disposal is invaluable and you will use this ability a LOT, regardless if you play Prot or Ret.

For Holy, it will mainly come in handy to restore some mana.

Blood Elf Paladin in PVP

Protection will see limited to no use in PVP, so we can just ignore them. For Retribution, which has no interrupt (like Pummel or Kick), Arcane Torrent is a wonderful skill. It actually allows them to put great pressure on healers, if combined with Hammer of Justice and Repentance.

Holy is in a similar boat to healing Priests, having to run in range to use the ability instead of standing way back so you can heal safely is probably not a good idea in Battlegrounds. In Arena however, you will end up using it quite a bit.

Hunter

Blood Elf Hunter in PVE

Hunters are the Physical-Damage MVP in most of Classic Burning Crusade. They scale well and can do insane amounts of damage to mobs and bosses.

Unfortunately, being a Blood Elf contributes nothing to this. Arcane Torrent, the AOE-melee-range-silence, is pretty pointless for a class that needs to stay far at range to do its damage.

Added to that is the fact that Orcs and Trolls have racials that actually boost their damage and we can safely say that Blood Elf is the worst option for Hunters by far. Yes, Tauren have no damage-boosting abilities either, but at least War Stomp allows them to stun mobs and run away to do more damage.

Blood Elf Hunter in PVP

Playing a Blood Elf Hunter is nearly pointless when you have the option of Orc (Blood Fury + Stun Resistance + extra Pet Damage), Troll (Berserking, extra Bow damage) or Tauren (bigger health pool, War Stomp).

Yes, the AOE silence might come in handy sometimes, but the other Races have abilities that come in handy every single fight. Blood Elves are by far the worst choice.

Warlock

Blood Elf Warlock in PVE

Warlocks are the magical equivalent of Hunters: both have pets, both are ranged damage dealers and both excel at topping the damage meters. As was the case with Hunters, being a Blood Elf contributes little to this. Warlocks benefit even less from any potential mana gained from Mana Tap + Arcane Torrent, because a Warlock that has mana issues should just go home and quit playing. Life Tapping isn’t hard.

In addition, an Orc’s Blood Fury Racial changes in Classic Burning Crusade to also increase spell damage dealt, which means they are the go-to choice for a PVE Warlock.

Blood Elf Warlock in PVP

Undeads can be Warlocks, so enough said. A ranged caster class simply does not benefit enough from a melee AOE silence to make Blood Elves even a viable option. If you are serious about PVPing as a Warlock, you go Undead or Orc. Both of these races have abilities that massively benefit Warlocks in PVP.

So What is the Best Class for Blood Elves?

There, that was quite a lot of information!

Let’s recap with a handy overview, and find out which is the World of Warcraft Best Class for Blood Elf in Burning Crusade Classic:

	Priest	Rogue	Mage	Paladin	Hunter	Warlock
Best PVE Race	Troll	Orc/Troll	Troll	Blood Elf	Troll	Orc
	Troll	Orc/Troll	Troll	Blood Elf	Orc/Troll	Orc
	Troll	Orc/Troll	Troll	Blood Elf	Orc	Orc
Best PVP Race	Undead	UD/Orc/BE	Undead	Blood Elf	Orc/Troll/Tauren	Orc/Undead
	Undead	UD/Orc/BE	Undead	Blood Elf	Orc/Troll/Tauren	Orc/Undead
	Undead	UD/Orc/BE	Undead	Blood Elf	Orc/Troll/Tauren	Orc/Undead

As you can see, as opposed to Humans, which we discussed, Blood Elves rarely are a top pick for most Classes.

If there is one thing that we can say, it’s that Blood Elves are almost never a “bad” choice, their Racials are always somewhat useful, but in many / most cases, they are just severely outclassed by the other options Horde players have.

In their defense, the other Horde Races just have such incredibly powerful Racial abilities that competing with those is always an uphill battle.

The conclusion is clear: if you want to play a Blood Elf and you want to pick the best Class this Race can offer, then you are best off playing a Paladin. Yes, there are no other options, but there is no denying that Blood Elf Paladins are a very potent Race/Class combo and can make good use of the Blood Elf Racials.

However, all this being said, Blood Elves are still the “pretty” Race, and in an MMO, aesthetics are certainly an important factor. At the end of the day, Racials are undeniably powerful but the more skilled player will always be the best player, regardless of which Race he or she plays as, and how “pretty” his or her character is.

TLDR: Blood Elves are almost always a decent choice, so if you want to play one in the upcoming Burning Crusade Classic, regardless of which Class you end up going for, you will not regret it.