In one of the most recent Battle for Azeroth beta builds, the Iron Dwarf racial ability, Mole Machine, was (finally) added. As a reminder, the complete list of Iron Dwarf racials is as follows:
- Dungeon Delver: While indoors, move 4% faster.
- Fireblood: Removes all poison, disease, curse, magic, and bleed effects and increases your primary stat by 100 for each effect removed. Lasts 8 sec. 2 min cooldown.
- Forged in Flames: Reduces damage taken from Physical attacks by 1%.
- Mass Production: Items crafted by Blacksmithing are created twice as quickly.
- Mole Machine: While outdoors, summon a Mole Machine that tunnels through the earth.
While it was datamined a long while back, the description for Mole Machine didn’t exactly explain what, specifically, it would do. Some people speculated it might be a different form of Hearthstone, others thought maybe it would take you to the Grim Guzzler (like the Brewfest item), and others thought maybe it would take you to a close-by meeting stone.
Turns out, the Mole Machine racial is a 30-minute, group-wide teleport to either Stormwind or Ironforge — assuming the Iron Dwarf who dropped it uses it last. This ranges from “omg that’s so unfair” to “but we already have a Mage” in usefulness, depending on the situation. Overall, however, I think it’s a pretty solid racial ability on top of several other very solid racial abilities.
Sure, there are a lot of different ways players can currently make their way around the world. But the fact that an entire race can create a free teleport to either of the Alliance’s main capital cities — R.I.P. Darnassus — still seems pretty useful. But, as alluded to above, it’s also negated by the presence of a Mage.
So is it useful? Sure. Is it overpowered? Nah. It’s a cool little bonus that hearkens back to the Iron Dwarf Mole Machine from the very first Brewfest. I think the real shame here is that clicking it results in a dialog box — which completely negates any possibility of trolling. Ask anyone in my raid — my favorite part of the night is dropping an Old Dalaran portal and seeing who will click it. If they had a dialog option upon clicking it, that would entirely ruin the fun. Regardless, I think this is a perfectly acceptable racial. Do you?