Warrior Racial Talent Builds Advantages

Racial advantages

Humans: Increased expertise with swords and maces, two very popular warrior weapons. Perception gives the ability to detect stealthed units, which can be useful for those in PvP situations.
Dwarves: Stoneform blocks poison and bleed damage, and increases armor by 10%. Both of these can be very useful in PvE fights. The addition Frost resistance is always useful. Increased expertise with maces provides additional threat generation when using them. Though Warriors will not primarily be using guns as their main weapon, they can be useful for a pull, and Gun Specialization helps with this category. Lastly, Warriors are notorious for their high repair bills. Treasure Finding can help alleviate some of this payment, though it is minimal at best.
Gnomes: Escape Artist can be very useful, primarily in PvP situations, but also in PvE situations. Warriors being the prototypical tank often have to lead mobs and bosses away from the healers and ranged fighters, thus making Escape Artist very useful. Gnomes also benefit from increased Arcane resistance, which is always useful. Because of their small size, Gnomes warriors are useful in PvP environments, since inexperienced or careless opponents can be quickly Hamstrung, Thunder Clapped, with Sundered Armor before they have any idea as to what happened.
Night elves: Quickness adds an extra layer of survivability to Night Elf Warriors. The enhanced Nature resistance is always nice. Shadowmeld provides an interesting element to Night Elves, who can stealth to avoid mob detection (more useful for solo play). In addition, in PvP settings, Shadowmeld can be devastating. Stealth, Charge, Hamstring, Thunder Clap, etc. and Ta-da! You just became a Rogue in heavy armor!
Draenei: Gift of the Naaru reduces downtime for Warriors who are soloing, and helps conserve the mana of the group. The extra Shadow resistance is always welcomed. Heroic Presence can help Off tanks, or the Main tank perform better, depending on what role you may be fulfilling.
Orcs: Axe Specialization increases the chance to hit with one- and two-handed Axes, a very popular weapon choice. Hardiness provides stun resistance, which can save a warrior in PvP settings, or save their group in PvE settings. Blood Fury is a bit interesting; use at your own risk. It is useful for soloing and for low level raids, but a higher levels, where monsters hit significantly harder, as the main tank, you'll want healing. Blood Fury can be useful for off-tanks to gain aggro, and for DPS Warriors.
Trolls: Berserking increases damage output, useful for all warriors and particularly DPS warriors. In addition, Beserking's effects are whatever your health was when you triggered it, so you can still be healed after you've used it. Regeneration can help keep you alive during PvP fights, or boss battles, and the increased healing can reduced down time for soloing players. The increased damage against beasts can be useful, since beasts are located almost everywhere in the world. Though warriors will not be using bows or thrown weapons as their main weapon, they can be useful in pulls, and the Trolls Expertises help in this category.
Forsaken: The increased shadow resistance is always useful, as is Cannibalize, which can reduce down time while soloing, and save your healer's mana. The increased Underwater breathing is also useful, especially when soloing, where a warrior might not have access to an Alchemist, or Warlock. Will of the Forsaken is one of the best racials in game, and can be the difference between life and death in both PvP and PvE settings.
Tauren: War Stomp is a useful form of crowd control. Endurance provides Tauren with extra health, meaning Tauren warriors can have the highest possible hp of any warrior tank. The additional Nature resistance is always a plus.

Warriors are the only class where you can be any race in the game. The wide range of choices does cause some people to think that one race choice is superior to another, but every race class makes a very effective warrior. The bonus skills, though they do change your play style in certain situations, they are by no means the “Be-All-End-All” skill. Remember, you will be looking at this character for a long time, so I really think people should go by their aesthetic choice first, but for the power gamer in you, here are the significant differences between the races.

Alliance

Dwarves:

Stoneform - "While active, grants immunity to Bleed, Poison, and Disease effects. In addition, Armor increased by 10%. Lasts 8 sec". - It doesn’t just give you immunity but also gets rid of any current bleed, poison and disease on your character when you activated it. The 10% bonus to armor does diminish in usefulness as you gain more armor because every 1 point of armor adds less to damage mitigation. Not the best of skills, but handy early in the game.

Gun Specialization - "+5 to Gun Skill" - Well, a warrior can use guns, but overall this isn’t all that useful. Warrior just can’t do ranged damage well. Guns can be useful for pulling in instances or with large mobs.

Frost Resistance - "+10 Cold Resistance" - More resistance is always good. Frost damage is not used all that often by enemies though that may change as newer instances come out. Rumor has it the Necropolis Naxxramos is frost based, but that is rumor only. Still the prevalence of fire resistance gear in PvP has caused most mages to switch to cold spells, these 10 points could come in handy.

Find Treasure - "Activate to see treasure chests on mini map - lasts until canceled - no cooldown" - This works like a gathering skill, and because you can only have one gathering skill active at a time, this does make it a little worthless. If you have leatherworking, and a crafting skill, you can use it all the time, but if you are a miner or herbalist then you are stuck a little having to switch between modes. Even then, the chests don’t usually have anything significant inside them anyways. You will be lucky to get a green item.

Gnomes:

Escape Artist - "Activate to break out of a Root or Snare effect - 0.5 sec cast - 1 min cooldown" - One problem warriors have is getting into melee range in the first place. Roots and Snares stop us dead in our tracks, holding a big, bad sword while the arrows or fireballs rain in. This skill helps you get out of this situation. This skill is a channel cast so you can get interrupted, but with the .5 sec cast that is slim.

Expansive Mind - "Increase Intelligence by 5%" - Warriors are dumber than a rock, and a 5% increase isn’t going to improve this much. This helps a little in leveling up weapon skills, but even then warriors are not the target class for this skill.

Arcane Resistance - "+10 Arcane Resistance" - More resistance is always good, especially in something as rare as arcane. Though on the flipside, not much in the game uses arcane. Take what you can get is my motto here. Engineering Specialization - "+15 skill bonus to Engineering" - Engineering is a good profession for a warrior (more on that later) if you don’t want to be an engineer though, this is pointless.

Humans:

Perception - "Activate to dramatically increase stealth detection - Lasts 20 sec - 3 min cooldown" - Warriors kill rogues. We are the Rock to their Scissor. A skill which helps us catch more of them is always good. Very few mobs in the game use stealth so this is definitely a PvP skill.

The Human Spirit - "Increase Spirit by 5%" - Spirit helps regenerate health and mana. Mana does regenerate while in combat, but health does not so this skill is limited in usefulness to a warrior since first aid and bandages cover out of combat healing well.

Diplomacy - "10% bonus to faction point gain" - This trait is worth gold. This game is build around factions, and lots of factions outside of the 4 main racial factions give rewards for gaining reputation with them. These rewards at higher level are epic in quality. Thus a 10% increase in gain means you get the item 10% faster.

Sword and Mace Specialization - "+5 to Sword and Mace skill" - Naturally, as a warrior you will, in some point in your career, be killing something with a Mace or a Sword, it is sort of the object of the game. This helps you kill better. In essence, a +5 skill bonus is a being able to hit something at the equivalent of being one level higher than you are if the skill in maxed out. This helps a lot in leveling in taking on higher level mobs in instances, and still being able to hit them effectively

Night Elves:

Shadowmeld - "Activate while immobile and out of combat to enter stealth mode - lasts until canceled - 10 sec cooldown" - Not as useful to warriors as some other classes, but it does help a little in evading enemies and hiding in order to jump a trap. It isn’t too useful in PvE though. Works as a pinch AFK button so you don’t get attacked on a PvP server.

Quickness - "Dodge chance increased by 1%" This may not sound like much, but when you are in higher level instances and that boss you are tanking can hit you for 4000 to 6000 damage and you dodge said attack, you will feel golden.

Wisp Spirit - "Become a wisp when dead with movement speed increase of 50% (25% faster than normal ghost)" - You will die. It is inevitable. There are no Hardcore servers or modes (like in Diablo), and since there are no death penalties the only annoying part on death is running back to your corpse. As a Night Elf, you do that faster.

Nature Resistance - "+10 Nature Resistance" - If you have been reading so far through everything, invariably, you will know that my motto is more resistance is a good thing. Nature resistance is even more of a good thing since the release of patch 1.9 Ahn'Qiraj, where a large number of mobs do nature damage.

Horde

Orc:

Blood Fury - "Activate to increase base melee attack power by 25% for 15 sec - 2 min cooldown. Applies a healing effectiveness debuff on the user. The healing debuff is applied immediately upon using the ability. " - Use it in a pinch to gain more damage on a target in either PvP or PvE. The healing debuff causes all healing done on you to be only 50% effective. So use it when you know you don’t have healing incoming or healing doesn’t matter.

Hardiness - "25% resistance to stun effects." - Warriors are rogue killers, but one effective way for a rogue to have a chance against us is to use the stunlock tactic. Rogues have enough stuns that they can almost incapacitate a target indefinitely. This trait gains you a 25% chance of resisting said stun, and beat the pants off the rogue.

Command - "Pet melee damage increased by 5%." - Well, we don’t get pets, but in a pinch you can always us /p and command your party members to attack. They don’t get a bonus though. Pity.

Axe Specialization - "+5 to Axe skill." - This increases your axe skill as though you are one level higher than you are. Better skill at hitting someone is always good. More death, more carnage, more blood... well you get the idea.

Tauren:

War Stomp - "Activate to stun up to 5 opponents within 8 yards - lasts 2 sec - 2 min cooldown" - A tauren can put his foot down on any situation. This skill works wonders in a lot of situations. Need to run, Warstomp and flee. Want to disrupt an enemy formation? Charge in and Warstomp. Is a Mage ready to throw that large Pyroblast at you? Warstomp. Have a Gnome problem? Crush him under your boot. Very effective.

Endurance - "Max Health increased by 5%" More health always good and considering how large tauren are, it is no surprise they get more health.

Cultivation - "15 skill bonus to Herbalism" - It works well, if you actually get herbalism. The profession is not required though and the +15 can be gotten other ways. Still, nothing like seeing a several-hundred pound 9 foot Tauren prancing around in the flower garden.

Trolls:

Berserking - "Berserking is an activated ability that increases your melee, ranged and casting speed by 10% to 30%. The value scales upwards towards 30% depending how low your health is when you activate the ability - lasts 10 sec - 3 min cooldown. Requires 5 Rage to activate." - Emergency maneuver. Are you in dire straits and need a way out? Mad as all hell that this mob or person is going to kill you? Sounds like you really need to hit that berserking button.

Regeneration - "10% health regen bonus, 10% active in combat" – It’s not a bad bonus, but it isn’t all that much. At level 60, you usually have a warrior with about 50ish health regen out of combat per tick(more if you have spirit gear). This trait gives you 10% more so you have 55. In combat, though, you would only get 10% of that 55 point regen so about 5 health per tick while in combat, so it isn’t that powerful.

Beast Slaying - "5% damage bonus to Beasts" - You will kill a lot of beasts in this game, so a damage bonus is a good thing. Too bad though that at higher level though most enemies are not beasts.

Throwing Specialization - "+5 to Bows and Throwing Weapon skills" - This skill gives you a better chance to hit and score criticals with a bow or throwing weapon, but we are warriors. If we pull out the bow, then melee range better be close to instant death.

Undead:

Will of the Forsaken - "Activate to become immune to Fear, Sleep, and Charm effects. Can also be used while already afflicted by Fear or Sleep - lasts 5 sec - 2 min cooldown" Considered by some to be the best racial ability in the game. This skill allows you to mitigate the mentioned crowd control effects and keep control of your character. Very effective in fighting Priests and Warlocks who will fear you out of melee range.

Cannibalize - "Activate to regenerate 7% of total health every 2 sec. by consuming Humanoid or Undead corpses within 5 yds - lasts 10 sec - 2 min cooldown" - I recommend the red wine with dead enemy. More or less a free bandage every 2 minutes.

Underwater Breathing - "Underwater breath lasts 300% longer than normal" - One doesn’t do that much swimming in the game, though this skill is handy when you do.

Shadow Resistance - "+10 Shadow Resistance" - More resistance is good.