Everything we know about Allied Races

Allied Races are one of the most anticipated features of Battle for Azeroth. Players have been wanting more options for years, and hype only increased when they saw the Highmountain Tauren in Legion. These new races also work differently than races in the past — each has its own requirements to be unlocked and unique items available to them — so we’ll cover all of that here.

Update: Four races —Void Elves, Nightborne, Lightforged Draenei, and Highmountain Tauren — will be available to play if you’ve pre-purchased Battle for Azeroth and completed the unlock requirements. Dark Iron Dwarves and Zandalari Trolls will arrive later, with Battle for Azeroth.

That out of the way, let’s look at what we know about Allied Races so far.

Allied Race options

• Alliance get Lightforged Draenei, and Void Elves with Battle for Azeroth pre-purchase. Dark Iron Dwarves will be added later, with the expansion itself.
• Horde get Highmountain Tauren, and Nightborne with Battle for Azeroth pre-purchase. Zandalari Trolls will be added later, with the expansion itself.
• Additional race options will likely be added in the future.

How to play them

• Allied Race characters start at level 20.
• The four races available on or before Battle for Azeroth’s release will need to be unlocked by meeting specific rep requirements that can be completed by following Legion’s story. The rep requirements are account-wide and cross-faction.
• You need to have a level-110 character on the same server you wish to create a new Allied Race character, similar to Demon Hunters.
• Allied Races require you to purchase Battle for Azeroth to be played.

Allied Race rep requirements

While we don’t know how Dark Iron Dwarves, Zandalari Trolls, or future Allied Races will be unlocked, we do have information about the other four known Allied Races. Each of those four will require the following to be unlocked:

• Lighforged Draenei: Reach exalted with the Army of the Light by playing through Argus and complete the zone story achievement You Are Now Prepared!.
• Void Elves: Reach exalted with Argussian Reach by playing through Argus and complete the zone story achievement You Are Now Prepared!.
• Highmountain Tauren: Reach exalted with the Highmountain Tribe by playing through Highmountain and complete the zone story achievement Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.
• Nightborne: Reach exalted with The Nightfallen by playing through Suramar and complete the zone story achievement Insurrection.

Class options and racial abilities

Like existing races, Allied Races have their own unique class options and racial abilities. Keep in mind, some of these may change before Allied Races go live:

• Lightforged Draenei
  • Classes: Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Warrior
  • Abilities: Demonbane, Forge of Light, Holy Resistance, Light’s Judgment, Light’s Reckoning
• Void Elves
  • Classes: Hunter, Mage, Monk, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior
  • Abilities: Chill of Night, Entropic Embrace, Ethereal Connection, Preternatural Calm, Spatial Rift
• Highmountain Tauren
  • Classes: Druid, Hunter, Monk, Shaman, Warrior
  • Abilities: Bull Rush, Mountaineer, Pride of Ironhorn, Rugged Tenacity, Waste Not, Want Not
• Nightborne
  • Classes: Hunter, Mage, Monk, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior
  • Abilities: Ancient History, Arcane Affinity, Arcane Pulse, Arcane Resistance, Cantrips
• Dark Iron Dwarves: Blizzard has been considering Death Knights, other classes are not yet confirmed.
• Zandalari Trolls: Druids have been confirmed, with raptors as travel form.

Cool features for Allied Races

• Allied Races have special customization options: Lightforged Draenei have glowing Light tattoos, Void Elves can have tentacle hair, Highmountain Tauren get antlers and a Druid moose travel form, and Nightborne have arcane tattoos.
• Allied Races have a full set of jokes and flirts that were datamined a while back — and some of them are pretty steamy!
• Each Allied Race has a unique Heritage Armor set as a reward from leveling from 20 to 110 without any character or recruit-a-friend boosts. They are cosmetic and can be transmogged on any armor type for any character of the same race.
• The Allied Races have unique racial mounts: Lightforged Felcrusher, Starcursed Voidstrider, Highmountain Thunderhoof, Nightborne Manasaber.
• They also have unique starter pets for Hunters.

Story spoilers

The four initial Allied Races will be introduced with the post-Argus story. There are questlines and scenarios that unlock the races and also change the cities to accommodate them. Some of these were on the PTR and some were datamined. We can expect to see the story as we progress through patch 7.3.5 and closer to the future 8.0 pre-patch.

• Introductory and story cutscenes for Allied Races
• Lighforged Draenei Questline Broadcast Text
• Void Elf Questline Broadcast Text
• Highmountain Tauren Questline Broadcast Text and Highmountain area changes
• Nightborne Questline Broadcast Text and Nighthold area changes