Racial Abilties - how good are they?

I know it's been along time since I posted and I sincerely apologise to my loyal fans (Hi Mom!  Ok maybe just the one but I can hope right?).

Today I will be looking at racial bonuses, with the obvious slant towards priests that will be standard in all my posts (unless I fall in love with my Elemental Shaman again).

Racial Bonuses:

Horde:
Tauren:
Cultivation - fairly useful if you intend for your priest to farm herbs constantly, in which case you should've levelled a Tauren Druid (no landing = less mob fighting).  Not very useful for anything else.
Endurance - a little bit of extra survival.
Nature Resistance - a reasonable extra bit of survival, but extremely situational.
War Stomp - fairly useful in PvP and situationally useful in PvE.
All in all, I'd say if you choose Tauren for your priest you're insane or a PvPer (same thing) or going for the Classy Tauren guild achievement.

Undead:
Cannibalize - Very nice for questing, situationally useful in PvE and more so in PvP.
Shadow Resistance - a reasonable bit of extra survival, but extremely situational.
Underwater Breathing - once upon a time a nice-to-have, but since the holding-your-breath-underwater time has been extended from 45s to 3min, much less amazing.
Will of the Forsaken - a handy PvP racial, but has a 45s shared cooldown with PvP trinkets.
A good race to pick for levelling or if your focus is PvP, but not great for PvE.

Goblin:
Best Deals Anywhere - exalted faction discount on all vendors, even if they don't have a faction.  Useless in PvE and PvP both, but not a bad little side bonus.
Better Living Through Chemistry - Get to your profession bonus faster!  But only if you choose Alchemy.
Pack Hobgoblin - very nice for questing if you have a tendency to accidentally shove quest items in your bank and then go try hand in, or if you forgot an item of gear that you need in the bank like a moron.  I've never done either of these.  I also never lie.
Rocket Barrage - a nice little bit of extra damage that scales with spell power.
Rocket Jump - very nice in PvP and situationally useful in PvE.
Time is Money - 1% haste.  Very yummy for PvE, healing and dps alike.
A good race to pick if you're a scrooge with your gold, very nice for dps and pretty good for healing.

Troll:
Beast Slaying - situationally useful in PvP (works against hunter pets, druids in cat, bear, travel, flight and aquatic forms and shamans in ghost wolf) and PvE.  Very nice when it's useful, very useless when it's not.
Berserking - without a doubt, the best dps racial in the game.  Applies as a haste buff to DoTs, (apparently) stacks with Power Infusion and and is off the gcd, allowing you to macro it into all your abilities.  Mini-bl every 3min...  A nice boost to healing in an emergency as well (macro into your tank cooldown for maximum effect)  The buff you get has no type, so it can't be dispelled, purged or spell-stolen, so it's great for PvP as well.  I can't even begin to describe how amazing this racial is.
Bow Specialisation - erm... I'm not sure if I could find a less useful racial ability.  I don't even think hunters would disagree with me unless their BiS is a bow and they happen to have it.
Da Voodoo Shuffle - situationally useful in PvE and PvP.
Regeneration - a little bit of extra survival that scales with your spirit.  Better for healers than dps as dps have a limited amount of spirit they go for.
Throwing Specialisation - ok I admit.  I was wrong.  There IS a more useless racial than Bow Specialisation.  Good for precisely one Rogue ability requiring a thrown weapon to be equipped.
Definitely the best race to go with for PvE dps, not a bad choice for PvE healing and not a bad choice for PvP.

Blood Elf:
Arcane Affinity - Get to your profession bonus faster!  But only if you choose Enchanting.
Arcane Resistance - a reasonable bit of extra survival, but very situational.
Arcane Torrent - in our last raid I used this spell 31 times over 10 boss kills and a few wipes for a total return of 241,314 mana.  And I don't use it on cooldown.  If that's not enough to convince you that this is the very best heal racial ever, then nothing is.
Definitely the only sensible race to choose for healing.  No contest.

Alliance:
Dwarf:
Explorer - if you spend as much time doing archaeology as I do, you'll love this.  Not very useful for PvE or PvP though.
Frost Resistance - a reasonable bit of extra survival, but very situational.
Gun Specialisation - see Bow Specialisation above.
Mace Specialisation - a reasonable dps boost for melee classes if they can get a mace (or 2 for dual wielders).  Not very useful for priests unless you fancy yourself a melee priest (Hint:  stop playing WoW.  You're just embarassing yourself and everyone around you).
Stoneform - an amazing survival cooldown, but only really worthwhile for a tank.
Not great for anything really.  I wouldn't bother unless I wanted a toon specifically to do all my archaeology (most people use, you know, their MAIN for this, but whatever) or for the Classy Dwarves guild achievement.

Draenei:
Gemcutting - Get to your profession bonus faster!  But only if you choose Jewelcrafting.
Gift of the Naaru - a HoT.  On 3min cooldown.  Woo?  Actually, it's not so bad for PvP - no spell type means no dispell or spellsteal.
Heroic Presence - very nice dps racial, I haven't done the numbers (ew dps) but it seems entirely likely this is a better dps racial than Berserking.
Shadow Resistance - a reasonable extra bit of survival, but very situational.
I wouldn't bother except for Classy Draenei.

Night Elf:
Nature Resistance - a reasonable extra bit of survival, but very situational.  If this is a dealbreaker for you, rather go Tauren (Lok'tar O'gar! For the Horde!  I'm not biased honest).
Quickness - a bit of extra survival for PvP, not overly useful for PvE unless you're a tank.
Shadowmeld - an extra Fade, albeit on a longer cooldown.  Very nice for dps and for irritating the hell out of people in PvP by cancelling their casts.
Wisp Spirit - nice for wipes, and with Leap of Faith in case anyone uses a live speed boost to beat you back.
All in all, not terrible for PvE dps or PvP.

Worgen:
Aberration - best resistance racial in the game, but still only situational.
Darkflight - a good PvP racial, and situationally useful in PvE.
Enable Worgen Altered Form - purely cosmetic.
Flayer - Woo skinning?
Running Wild - Worgen mount?  Lol Blizzard hates Alliance.
Two Forms - purely cosmetic.
Viciousness - 1% crit.  Not bad, but not very good either.  Unless you're a fire mage.  Fire mages love them some crit.
Not really that great, but not overly dreadful either.  Not my first choice for anything except to see the Worgen starting areas (They're amazing.  Really, really, really incredible.).

Human:
Diplomacy - nice for repping up, but not very useful overall.  It doesn't take very long to max out useful reps and if you're going to go grind Brood of Nozdormu or Hydraxian Waterlords, this won't even make it very much more bearable anyway.
Every Man for Himself - racial PvP trinket, shares a cooldown with PvP trinkets.  Very nice for PvP as you don't need to bother with a trinket of the same effect.  Situationally useful in PvE.
Mace Specialisation - nice for melee dps, assuming they can get hold of a mace (two for dual wield).
Sword Specialisation - nice for melee dps, assuming they can get hold of a sword (two for dual wield).
The Human Spirit - very nice heal and dps racial, more regen for healers and less spirit required on gear to reach hitcap for dps, meaning that you can go for more throughput stats.
If you have to play Alliance (shame), this is definitely one of your top 2 choices forhealing, dps and the best PvP.

Gnome:
Arcane Resistance - a reasonable bit of extra survival, but very situational.  If this is a dealbreaker for you, rather go Blood Elf (Lok'tar O'gar!  Again, totally not biased.).
Engineering Specialisation - Get to your profession bonus faster!  But only if you choose Engineering.
Escape Artist - very useful for PvP and situationally useful in PvE.
Expansive Mind - very nice for healing, an extra 5% mana is an extra 5% replenish, as well as an extra 5% starting mana.
Shortblade Specialisation - nice for the dual-wield classes, not great for priests.
Pretty good for healing if you have to play Alliance.

The difference between a bad tank and a new healer

A few weeks ago I spoke about our ex-guild leader and the drama surrounding his quitting WoW and now I'd like to talk about the changes we've made in our line-up and the difference it's made to our raiding overall.

First up, we'd found us 2 new healer subs but tanks were still few and far between.  So we decided to switch up between the subs and have our holy paladin go prot.  This was a severe blow to the heal team, as he is easily the best healer our raid team has ever seen and neither of the subs were anywhere near his level.  Neither of them were even as good as the resto druid or myself and I was very worried that the buff to our tanking team might not make up for the loss on the healing team.  Sometimes, it's good to be wrong.

Last week's raids were amazing.  On Wednesday, we cleared out BoT and managed to get Chimaeron AND Maloriak heroic down, leaving us only Throne, Atramedes (which we planned as our next heroic boss) and Nefarian.  On Sunday, we had to end an hour early and so didn't have enough time to get Atramedes down, but we managed 30% and came out of the raid fully confident that we'd get him this week.  Sadly, Nef was plagued by a slew of dcs, one try having an interrupter dc during phase 2 (eep!), others having our new holy paladin dc (the main telecomms line into his country was cut, pushing him from 200ms average to well over 800 for 2 weeks :S) and eventually we decided enough was enough.  Our early leaver had already left and 9manning Nef with dcs wasn't as much fun as it had sounded when we'd decided to do it.

Last night, we went to BWD first and holy [censored] it went well...  We one-shot Chimaeron heroic and then Maloriak heroic too!  In less than an hour!  Our logs show 3 unsuccessful tries on Maloriak, but we reset if we don't get a set of aberrations before the black phase.  Then we pootled off to BoT and cleared that out in about an hour and, 2 hours after raid start, we found ourselves on progression content once again.

An hour and a half later, we are 4/13 =D  And now on Sunday all we have left to clear are Throne of the Four Winds and Nefarian.  Given that we're going ot be doing the achievement for Nef, Sunday's raid will effectively be a 2 hour affair.

I'm shocked at how much difference it makes to a raid group to swap a bad tank for an inexperienced healer.  And even I am surprised at how much our ex-guild leader was tanking guild morale as a whole.  Our raids are happier, jokier and more fun than they've ever been, and clearly we're pushing more content faster.  At this rate, we should be (at least) 5/13 next week.  Keep up the good work guys =D