Ever since I think even before Disney's Aladdin (though definitely a lot more since then) I've always loved genies as a mythological creature. In fact, the original myths about them are arguably one of the first instances of a "fantasy race." In some Islamic traditions, the djinn (singular is djinni - don't get it confused with Latin linguistic patterns) were created like humanity by God, but while we were made of earth, they were made of fire. Like humans, djinn have free will and can be good or evil.
D&D makes genies into, instead, a somewhat humanoid-like type of elemental with great magical power. Genasi, most traditionally, are one of the several half-races - I believe that the official story for a genasi is that they have one genie parent and one humanoid (typically human,) though there are also settings where genasi are simply people who are touched by elemental energies (this being the case in Exandria, for instance).
Genasi were introduced to 5th Edition in the Elemental Evil Player's Companion and were published in the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure book - one subrace for each of the four elements (and thus, presumably, having a parent or ancestor of each of the four kinds of elemental genies). Mechanically, they were... underwhelming.
Actually, honestly, I think they were given a bad wrap, but there is a perception in D&D that any race that doesn't have darkvision kind of needs something cool to justify itself. Of the four, only Fire Genasi had darkvision. Their racial ability score bonuses also weighted Constitution heavily, with a +2 for that and +1 in a different one based on the subrace. And again, I actually think that's not bad - indeed, every class likes to have high constitution, so in a lot of ways they're more flexible than, say, a Tiefling's default +2 to Charisma and +1 to Intelligence - a combination that no class can take full advantage of.
Still, it's hard to argue that the Monsters of the Multiverse update wasn't a huge buff to the race as a whole.
In a lot of ways, the races were balanced a little better. Obviously, ability score bonuses aren't based on your race anymore, so you can now easily play an Air Genasi Wizard or Fire Genasi Fighter without "wasting" your ability score bonuses.
But one thing we saw was a sort of refinement of the various features - a big one being the spellcasting granted to genasi. Like a lot of playable races, racial spellcasting has been changed to A: let you use Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma as your spellcasting ability and B: letting you cast those spells multiple times if you have spell slots to spend on them. This has made them a lot more appealing to spellcasting classes, who can simply work the racial spells into their overall spellcasting capabilities (my Triton, for instance, can now simply think of Fog Cloud and Gust of Wind as spells he always has prepared, rather than odd one-off uses that have a lower save DC).
So, now Fire Genasi have Produce Flame, Air Genasi have Shocking Grasp, and Water Genasi have Acid Splash. Also, fire genasi have resistance to fire damage, air genasi to lightning damage, and water genasi to acid damage.
And then there's Earth Genasi.
These are sort of the odd ducks. Rather than a damage cantrip and a damage resistance, Earth Genasi learn Blade Ward - one of those cantrips that usually seems like a trap for new players, but is basically only ever useful for a Lich casting it as a legendary action or perhaps an Eldritch Knight using it and then making their War Magic bonus action attack if they really need to reduce incoming damage.
But, Earth Genasi have a special way to use it - they can cast Blade Ward as a bonus action a number of times equal to their proficiency bonus per long rest.
And Blade Ward as a bonus action is significantly better than Blade Ward as an action.
To be clear, Blade Ward is a cantrip that gives you resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from weapon attacks (including magical weapons) for one round. Normally, it's pretty worthless as you just wind up doing nothing and taking less damage for a round, when you could have, you know, attacked or done something to bring the fight to an end (the surest way to avoid damage is to have all the bad guys dead).
But, if you're able to do this and then also your action, this can potentially be pretty strong.
It's really, I think, a question of how valuable those limited bonus action uses of it are (you can cast it as much as you like as an action).
First off, a bonus action isn't the same as no action. Some classes really need to use their bonus actions every round, like an Artillerist or Battle Smith artificer, Beast Master or Drakewarden Ranger, pretty much all Rogues, etc. That said, if you play a class that usually has a free bonus action - say, a Fighter who doesn't dual-wield - you can weave this in pretty easily.
Also, while I think the look and feel of an Earth Genasi lends itself well to the hulking Barbarian, this feature is not only redundant with Rage, but also impossible to use (you can't cast spells, even racial ones, while raging). That said, if you're worried about running out of Rages in a long dungeon crawl, this could be a sort of back-up to get you through fights you expect to only last a round or two while you save Rage for the big ones.
Indeed, even if Blade Ward is a profoundly situational cantrip in most scenarios, there's a pretty decent chance you aren't going to be using those damaging cantrips too often with the other genasi. For example, I've always wanted to play an Air Genasi monk (I played a wood elf version of that character because Adventurer's League still had its PHB+1 rule,) and with his powerful unarmed strikes, he's probably not going to waste his action on Shocking Grasp (at his level, 3d8, which comes to about 13.5 damage, is not going to match two attacks for 1d8+5, which is about 9.5 each, and then allows for another attack or even two with a ki point).
So, I think there's a bit of a knee-jerk reaction when seeing Blade Ward, one of the most infamous "trap" cantrips (True Strike being arguably the worst of them,) but even if it's pretty limited (especially at lower levels,) this actually might be quite good.
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