Arms Warrior PvP Best Races and Racials — The War Within (11.0.5)
Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction. The races are sorted from highest impact in arena to lowest. However, all races below have their own unique ways of making an impact in a PvP match.
This page is part of our Arms Warrior PvP Guide.
Best Alliance Races for Arms Warrior
- Gnome
- Night elf
- Human
- Dwarf / Dark Iron Dwarf
Gnomes
Gnome is competitively the best because of Escape Artist, allowing you to frequently break roots, which is one of Arms Warrior's greatest counters. Expansive Mind is a very minor bonus, and does not offer a lot for Arms Warrior.
Night Elf
Night Elf is incredibly strong and competitive with Gnome thanks to Shadowmeld, which can turn you invulnerable for a brief moment against any attack or CC. The passive stat increases from Nature Resistance and Touch of Elune are very minor and hardly matter.
Humans
Since the removal of Relentless, human fell off greatly, but is still a viable race to pick. Will to Survive is usable 30 seconds earlier than your trinket comes off of cooldown, allowing you to have a second cleanse for stuns ready roughly 1 cycle of Diminishing Returns before any other race does. Additionally, The Human Spirit is a decent increase to your secondary stats.
Dark Iron Dwarf
Dwarven races see viability in metas that include a lot of bleed and poison damage, such as Feral Druid or Assassination Rogue meta, or metas that include vital magic debuffs. Fireblood and Stoneform share a 30-second cooldown with your PvP trinket, which hinders this race from being a competitive pick outside of these niche metas.
Best Horde Races for Arms Warrior
- Orc
- Blood Elf
Orcs
Orc is the best race on Horde because of Hardiness, making you more effective against stuns. You gain a good amount of primary stat from Blood Fury, and is off the global cooldown, so use it together with Warbreaker for extra burst.
Blood Elf
Blood Elves are primarily picked because of Arcane Torrent, which can purge off important buffs like Blessing of Protection or Nature's Swiftness. Blood Elf is not a very strong alternative to Orc, but somewhat viable competitively.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Season 4
- 19 Mar. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.6
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.5
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5
- 09 May 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.1.
- 21 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 30 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 28 Feb. 2022: Page reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 08 Nov. 2021: Page reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
- 02 Jul. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 27 Dec. 2020: Rewritten by Karanze for Shadowlands season 1
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
Other PvP Guides
This guide has been written by Karanze, an experienced Gladiator Warrior player who has been a Stormforged/trusted member in the popular Warrior class discord Skyhold. You can watch his stream on Twitch.
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