That's kind of how the conversation goes in my head, too, only I add in a little commentary about giving svirfs a grab-bag of resists, too (like fistlaw mentions below) just to make sure people will play them

So I guess I wasn't clear but I was agreeing with you that inherent sskin is by far the main factor that makes svirf a playable/desirable rager race. Otherwise everyone would just play dwarves. I couldn't wait to use that line about the crack Fortie and nexus outcast team and that may have obscured my point.

The only part where I diverge is that I think all that crap is given to svirfs because without it, they are a sucky mediocre race that no one will play. I have a feeling stoneskin benefiting Ragers was just an afterthought balancing consideration where the designers said, "oh what the hell, it's not a gamebreaker.". In fact, I remember the first time svirfs got the inherent there was a debate over whether it was magical. And over time I think PK counts have shown that svirfs, while competitive, are not the deadliest option. My guess is that's because of their size and inability to efficiently lag in most cases (i.e., enlarge yourself and remove a vast majority of the ways a rager svirf can finish you).

And the fact that Ragers can't otherwise get stoneskin and every other player can buy it for 200 coppers is why there are sooooooooo many more svirf Ragers than svirf anything else (again what I was discussing with fistlaw below) - stoneskin is a goldmine to a rager, but not that valuable to the rest of the game which means non-rager svirfs are devalued.

Sorry for the long-windedness I just think they're a funny, committee-design race.


Eta: damn autocorrect.