What race?

Race choice is at the same time meaningless and meaningful. When you first roll your character, it really doesn’t seem to matter what you choose. Even in the end, race is never an ultimate deciding factor. Sure, every now and then a certain racial ability can make a difference, but typically they are not the be-all, end-all matter. However, in the end, you may often wish you rolled differently. I know I do. Your starting stats do not matter. What seem like significant 4 or 5 point differences in agility or strength are pointless once you have 350 agility. Only racials count.

Alliance

The four original alliance races – Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Night Elves – can all be Rogues. Draenei do not have Rogue as a choice.

Humans used to be a good choice for Rogue in a PvE setting, but never really excelled at PvP. The two key abilities of a Human are increased weapon skill, which had significant beneficial effects before the latest major patch (weapon skill has been nerfed into near meaninglessness since), and Perception. Perception is an ability which, if activated, temporarily permits the Human to see stealthed targets better. It has very limited PvE utility and while generally good for non-Rogue classes, it is less useful for Rogues since they rarely end up fighting other Rogues, with the exception of Arenas for end-game PvP. Humans would thus be among the last choices for a Rogue.

Night Elves seem, based on fantasy stereotypes, to be an excellent Rogue choice when in fact they’re rather mediocre. Night Elf Rogues benefit from a slightly increased stealth level, and the Shadowmeld racial. Shadowmeld is a weak form of stealth which works only if the Night Elf doesn’t move. Naturally, this is not competitive with a Rogue’s stealth and is not only redundant but inferior. It is useful only in those very rare situations in which you need to stealth but your own stealth is still cooling down. The Night Elf is thus about as bad as the human; somewhat better for PvP but worse for PvE.

Gnomes are an excellent race for Rogues. Not only are they extremely small and thus hard to click if your opponent is relying on his mouse to target, but Gnomes have one of the better racial abilities in the game: Escape Artist. Escape Artist permits the Gnome to leave any movement-impairing ability. Whether you’ve been hit with a Root, Frost Nova, or even Concussive Shot, Escape Artist will get you out of it. It doesn’t work against Hunter traps for the most part, however. Since Rogues are almost completely dependent on being within melee range of their targets to be effective, Gnomes are an excellent choice. Besides, there’s nothing funnier than a 2-foot high Gnome stabbing a giant Tauren warrior in heavy plate with daggers the size of safety pins for 2500 damage Ambush critical attacks.

Dwarves are an unpopular yet almost ideal choice for a Rogue. Remember when I said that damage effects bring you out of stealth, forcing you to wait out bleeds, curses, and poisons? Well, there’s a level 66 Rogue ability called Cloak of Shadows which dispels all the curses and other spells, permitting you to use Vanish to stealth in an emergency and stay stealthed, but Cloak does nothing for poisons, bleeds, and diseases. Guess what, the Dwarf can get rid of those debuffs with his Stoneform racial. Like the Gnome, the Dwarf can address a key sticking point for Rogues – in this case the ability to restealth despite having a bleed or poison effect on them.

Horde

The Horde like the Alliance have four out of five races that can be Rogues. Three of them are original races, while Blood Elves are for The Burning Crusade owners only.

Trolls are one of the more unpopular choices for a Rogue and with some reason. They have two racial abilities – Regeneration (which doesn’t heal enough to be noticeable, never mind useful), and Berserking. Berserking increases attack speed from 10-30% for 10 seconds, depending how little health you have (the less, the more speed you get). This isn’t the worst buff in the world, but the limited duration and the dependence on having low health to maximize the benefit makes the Troll far from ideal.

Orcs are, like Dwarves, a very rare choice for a Rogue but one that is surprisingly effective. Whereas the Dwarf and Gnome racials address weaknesses of the Rogue, the Orc adds to a strength. Blood Fury increases attack power significantly and this translates to a considerable damage boost. It lasts for 15 seconds and can make your attacks really hurt an extra bit in that time. The innate Orc ability to resist 15% of all stuns is fairly decent but not especially useful for a Rogue. However, if you want a really damage-oriented character, and one that’s a fairly unique race choice, Orc is an excellent option.

The Undead Rogue is almost a cliché, they’re so abundant. A single ability, Will of the Forsaken, makes them the most hated class/race combination for Priests and Warlocks, and Warriors aren’t too fond of them either. Will of the Forsaken removes and charm, fear, or sleep effects currently present on you and gives immunity from them for the next 5 seconds. For classes like the ones mentioned above (particularly Priests/Warlocks, since Warriors generally handle Rogues fairly well), an Undead Rogue is a nightmare to deal with. Undead can also regenerate a considerable portion of health by eating the corpse of a humanoid or undead target. This saves on your food and bandage bills as you level up. Finally, Undead have the ability to stay under water for longer, which comes in useful at some points. An example would be the practice lock picking chests off the coast of Badlands.

Finally, there are Blood Elves. Blood Elves are most notable for their self-targeted area of effect Silence ability. This will interrupt all spellcasting and silence all casters for three seconds, provided you have at least one Mana Tap going. It’s ideal for group PvP if you can get among a bunch of opposing spellcasters to interrupt them.

Overall

All in all, race choice isn’t definitive by any stretch of the imagination, but as you can see, the racial abilities do have their uses. They won’t make you a good Rogue or a bad Rogue, but they can make a good Rogue slightly better in some situations. Hopefully you’ll be able to knowledgeably choose what is important to you and what’s not.