Gnomes rock! 10 reasons why.

December 18, 2007 at 3:15 pm (1)

Ever since the launch of World of Warcraft, it’s been the fashionable trend to engage, from time to time, in a healthy bout of gnome-bashing.  The shield of tolerance does not cover Azeroth’s smallest intelligent race, as talk of gnome punting, consuming gnomes, and hollowing out gnomes to use as candle holders continues even to this day.  Let’s face it: so many, many people despise gnomes.

Good.  I’m glad.  These people will die in a fire that my little 2-foot-tall gnome creates with only an effort of the will, writhing in pain and itching before the merciful end arrives.

As you can tell, I’m a gnome lover.  As much as others hate the little fellas, I’m a staunch supporter of all things gnome.  My main’s a gnome warlock, who has a 390 in gnomish engineering, and often times I’m the only short stuff in a given raid.  Perfect.  That’s the way I like it.

So today, instead of spreading spittle-fueled ignorant hatred toward THE GREATEST ALLIANCE RACE THAT MIGHT AS WELL BE THEIR OWN FACTION, FOR HOW AWESOME THEY ARE, I’m going to rectify past ills by posting a list of 10 reasons why gnomes simply rock.

1. It’s awesome to root for the underdog.

People love underdogs, cheering them on to win out over superior odds, and what race fits that profile more than gnomes?   The more you hate on gnomes, the more underdoggish they become (“If you strike me down, I shall come back stronger yet a bit more ghostly.”).  Nobody expects gnomes to be anything other than Santa’s elves, tinkering away at advanced toys… so when a daring gnome adventurer goes toe-to-toe with Illidan himself, it’s a triumph of the little guy over the many Goliaths in WoW.

2. The mounts… oh, the mounts!

Oh, you have a pony?  A goat, er, ram?  A cute widdle kiddy cat?  Dumbo?  Sorry to hear that.  MY ride is a mechanical masterpiece of design, belching environment-friendly black smoke and laden with practical things like rear view mirrors.  Does your cat have a rear view mirror?  You want to try to drill a hole in its head to attach one?  Good luck!

3. Engineering.

There is nothing more fun in WoW than what the engineering profession can whip up, and gnomes are all over engineering like a fat kid on a twinkie.  Mechanical squirrel?  Scopes?  Dragonling guardians?  Shrink rays?  DEATH RAYS?  THE EPIC FLYING HELIJET?  THE FREAKIN’ BATTLE CHICKEN OF DOOM!?!  Oh, you can go back to your leatherworking now.  I hear you can make drums now.  That’s nice.  Be great if you ever break into that band you and your dwarf buddies keep talking about.

4. Inflicting humiliation.

Getting killed in PvP is never fun, but when you’re slaughtered by a munchkin with a tiny pair of stabby knives… that is humiliation that never goes away.  Or how about when the highest damage dealer is under three feet tall?  Or if you have to get on your knees and beg an epic’d gnome to gift you with a little bread and water?  They have an unkind word for people like you in prison, pal.  Just call us gnomes your “daddy”.

5. Toshley’s Station.

Ever since gnomes went ahead and nuked their home city rather than let it fall prey to level 30 mobs (which, by the way, shows our strength of will and insanity), we gnomes have been on the lookout for a new place to call home.  When Outland opened back up, we found it — Toshley’s Station.  It’s nothing huge, just a last ditch defense on the border of a hostile frontier, but there’s ten kinds of awesome in this place.  You want gnome snipers staving off wave after wave of bug attacks?  Gnome devices freely handed out for you to experiment with?  A catapult to send you to other areas on the map?  A teleporter to heaven?  Here ya go!

6. The racials.

Sure, gnomes don’t get racials to heal themselves, silence magic casters, stun enemies in a circle around them, or — and the loss of this really stings — be able to find TREASURE on your MAP, but be ye not hasty in discounting the gifts we are given!  +5% INT is a boon to the gnome mages and warlocks, which comprise a majority of the gnome players out there.  We get a bit of arcane resistance (yawn), and a nifty 15-point bump in engineering.  With the engineering skill boost, our battle pets (who scale according to the players level AND the player’s engineering level) are stronger than any other engineer’s.  Finally, no one can slow down a gnome — with “Escape Artist”, we get an instant cast root/slow cleanser that keeps us moving away from those pesky mages or druids.

7. Hands down, the best avatar choices in the game.

People whine and moan about how little variety there is in WoW’s character creator options, and for the most part this is true — except when it comes to gnomes.  Gnome males get a huge variety of stellar-looking facial hair options, and gnome females are all over crazy ponytails, bobs and sweeping hairstyles.  Plus, why would you want a character with brown, dark green, or sandy yellow hair when you could whip up a gnome with pink or blue highlights?

8. The emotes.

/dance.  /silly.  /flirt.  /rude.  Every emote that erupts from a gnome is scientifically proven to be 100% cuter and superior to the other races.   “I apologize profusely for any inconvenience my murderous rampage may have caused.”

9. You can get away with murder.  Literally.

Did that orc warrior pull before your casters were ready?  Did that human paladin bubble to safety while letting the rest of your group die?  It’s time for a little kicking of the butts, mon frier!  Yet as a gnome, I’ve found I can get away with practically anything, as long as I do it in the mischievous spirit that the gnome aura fosters.   How can you possibly get mad at an adorable bouncing midget who’s clearly having the time of their life tagging a couple dozen mobs to come stampeding down the corridor toward your group?  Can you blame a gnome for deciding that in the middle of a boss fight is the best time to experiment if that poultryizer works or not?  I think not!

10. Conformity is for morons. 

You’re a night elf hunter?  An undead shadow priest?  A dirty ninja of a rogue?  A blood elf pally?  Congrats.  You’re as unique as a grain of salt in a shaker.  You’re just one of a hundred thousand sellouts that delude themselves about the special nature of their character, while in fact you’ve joined an army of clones.

Me?  I’ll be over here doing something different than the rest of you.  Marching to the own beat of my techno drum.  Making my fellow citizens into radioactive lepers.  Living up life close down to the ground.  I’m sexy.  I’m frisky.  And I’m a gnome, baby!