5 reasons why 4th spec could be in the next WoW Expansion

[bloodwulf]

I really doubt we will see 4th specs (at least wholly new specs, not guardian druids). Blizzard has a terrible time trying to balance all the specs as is, and this would create 11 whole new ones that need to be balanced. I think we are likely to see the normal new class and or new race release. We might also see certain specs changed to add variety, but I don't think every class will change. We might see Demonologist locks go full tank, or something similar but not every single class, that would be a terrible waste of development time, when people really want new things.

[Prokne]

I'd advocate for Hunter healing over Hunter tanking. "Rangers" are rescuers after all.

A ranger is an elite archer unit. Its DPS. Hunters should not be healing or tanking. There are other classes/specs for that.

[Teriz]

I really doubt we will see 4th specs (at least wholly new specs, not guardian druids). Blizzard has a terrible time trying to balance all the specs as is, and this would create 11 whole new ones that need to be balanced.

Actually it would be 9 whole new ones. Druids already have a 4th specs, and Locks have the Glyph of Demon Hunting.

Has Blizzard ever stated that they have a "terrible time" balancing all the specs, or is this just an assumption because balance is a constant and ongoing thing? People like to use this balance argument whenever something new is suggested in WoW. You can look at the new class threads going all the way back to Vanilla, and anyone who opposed the idea said that "balance" was their main concern.

Let's come to a reality here; The game will never be balanced. At least balanced to the point where everyone will be happy. There will always be a spec that outperforms another spec, or just happens to have the tools to dominate PvP. It never changes, and it never will change. That was the case when there were 27 specs in the game, and that's the case now with 34 specs in the game. If we end up with 44 specs in the game, it'll probably be the same situation. So it's a bit silly to advocate for it over changes to a game that is nearing a decade in age. People want new things. People don't want to play the same game. The declining subscriptions in WoW is proof enough of that.

That said, if anyone can come close to balancing 44 specs, it would be Blizzard.

I think we are likely to see the normal new class and or new race release. We might also see certain specs changed to add variety, but I don't think every class will change. We might see Demonologist locks go full tank, or something similar but not every single class, that would be a terrible waste of development time, when people really want new things.

Unlikely. If this were ever to occur, Blizzard would have to do all or nothing. Every class has the potential for a 4th spec, since you can pretty easily expand the concept of each class into something new, yet similar in theme to the other parts of the class. Mage healing through Time magic for example, or a Rogue tanking spec that uses evasion and illusionary tactics akin to Ninjutsu.

I also strongly disagree that it would be a huge waste of developer time. 4th specs would potentially bring a lot of old players back to WoW, and revitalize the older (and newer) classes in the game. It would be like having 11 new classes in the game. People would spend time re-exploring their old classes, and may even give other classes they previously didn't find interesting a try. And frankly, it would more than likely require less developer time than they spent redoing the entire old world in Cataclysm.

---------- Post added 2013-03-02 at 11:09 PM ----------

A ranger is an elite archer unit. Its DPS. Hunters should not be healing or tanking. There are other classes/specs for that.

There's already Marksmanship for that, and Survival is a potential melee Hunter spec. Only thing left is tanking or healing, and I think Hunter healing would be both interesting, and a great way to increase the number of healers in the game. Consider that not only would it allow a Hunter spec to return to mana, but it would also allow another spec to use INT mail.

[Prokne]

Beyond simple lore though you have the reality that Blizzard is currently working on new models, there's really no great Alliance counterpart for an Ogre implementation into the game, and Pandaren may need more time to establish themselves in the game.

There arent good Alliance counterparts to a lot of races since the Alliance was founded on xenophobia. They even had to make an extremely minor race(gnomes) a launch race while leaving out Horde races(goblin, ogre).

Also I wouldnt call ogre mages stupid. One head maybe but not both. It would be fine if there was only 2 classes they could play, mage and warlock, but ogres should be playable.[COLOR="red"]

There's already Marksmanship for that, and Survival is a potential melee Hunter spec. Only thing left is tanking or healing, and I think Hunter healing would be both interesting, and a great way to increase the number of healers in the game. Consider that not only would it allow a Hunter spec to return to mana, but it would also allow another spec to use INT mail.

Have you played any other Warcraft games? If any spec should be melee its BM which was a melee pet unit in WC3TFT. They need to give the option to play without a pet before they try to make us heal or tank. A whole lot of hunters want this option and a 4th spec is a good time to do it. Survival is good like it is, poisons and elemental damage with pet utility. MM should already be pet free and they could rework the spec that way. But you still need a ranger spec. If MM doesnt use a pet it can be a dark ranger spec, if not ranger is the pet free dps spec.

There are plenty of tank and healer specs already in the game. If the class isnt naturally one of these types like warden or DH could be then dont make them that way. If you want to tank or heal, roll that class.

[Teriz]

There arent good Alliance counterparts to a lot of races since the Alliance was founded on xenophobia. They even had to make an extremely minor race(gnomes) a launch race while leaving out Horde races(goblin, ogre).

You kind of missed my point. The point is that if Ogres go to the Horde, there isn't much of a counterpart race for the alliance. There's the other issue that Blizzard is currently remaking the old races, and that they just introduced the Pandaren.

Have you played any other Warcraft games? If any spec should be melee its BM which was a melee pet unit in WC3TFT. They need to give the option to play without a pet before they try to make us heal or tank. A whole lot of hunters want this option and a 4th spec is a good time to do it. Survival is good like it is, poisons and elemental damage with pet utility. MM should already be pet free and they could rework the spec that way. But you still need a ranger spec. If MM doesnt use a pet it can be a dark ranger spec, if not ranger is the pet free dps spec.

There are plenty of tank and healer specs already in the game. If the class isnt naturally one of these types like warden or DH could be then dont make them that way. If you want to tank or heal, roll that class.

I understand full well what a Beast Master was, and could be in WoW. The problem is that you have a pretty well established spec in Beast Mastery, and if you change that, you have a good chance of ticking off a lot of Hunter players, since BM is by far the most popular Hunter spec.

Again, the reason I feel that Hunters should be healers is because it would make an interesting healing spec, whereas them as tanks wouldn't be nearly as interesting. However, either way is fine, just as long as Blizzard doesn't create yet another DPS spec for the class.

[Rhozul]

love the idea, but not gonna happen. blizzard has a hard enough time tuning all 3 monk specs this xpac, they're not gonna add 11 new specs (in addition to the expected spell changes/additions) the next xpac. its gonna take em till the next xpac to just get the 3 monk specs right. 11 new specs...no way. they'll just add on races next xpac.

First, its only 10 new specs. Druids already have four specs.

Second, its debatable on whether or not new specs would be harder than balancing a new class. If we're working with the existing classes, it could arguably be easier. For one, you have an existing set of tools to work with already; for example, a Demon Hunter warlock is going to have the same base tools as any other Warlock. From there, its just a matter of fleshing out the idea and adding a handful of new abilities to the class to make it work. Look at any spec; how many spells are actually spec-specific? Of course, the number varies from class to class, from spec to spec, but its usually no more than 6 spells. I'm willing to bet that adding the handful of new abilities that you would need to add one new spec to 10 classes would equal, maybe barely exceed the number of abilities that Monks needed to have created for them utterly from scratch.

[Prokne]

You kind of missed my point. The point is that if Ogres go to the Horde, there isn't much of a counterpart race for the alliance. There's the other issue that Blizzard is currently remaking the old races, and that they just introduced the Pandaren.

Its possible they could unlock high elves for the Alliance and add a new model for the Horde. Or they could just make something up out of nowhere like they did with Worgen.

I understand full well what a Beast Master was, and could be in WoW. The problem is that you have a pretty well established spec in Beast Mastery, and if you change that, you have a good chance of ticking off a lot of Hunter players, since BM is by far the most popular Hunter spec.

Again, the reason I feel that Hunters should be healers is because it would make an interesting healing spec, whereas them as tanks wouldn't be nearly as interesting. However, either way is fine, just as long as Blizzard doesn't create yet another DPS spec for the class.

Its a stretch that they would make a ranged spec melee since it changes the play a lot. But if they did and the BM hunters didnt want to melee, they could still play Surv and have a pet. Theres people that play hunters because they like ranged physical dps and some of them really like pets. Some of those pet people wouldnt care if it was melee as long as they can keep fluffy(and really the only ranged abilities they use are cobra shot and arcane shot/MS so you arent doing much). Then theres people who want to play ranged and dont want pets and this is a larger group than a lot of people realize. Probably everyone who doesnt play BM as a main spec even if its not OP wants to have this option.

Also healing totally doesnt fit into the lore for hunters. So if you are going to do it right you want to differentiate the specs a little more and still be pure DPS.
BM for pets
MM for archering w/o pets
Surv for naturing
4th spec dark ranger for magic damage(also no pet)

or leave MM as it is and the 4th spec should be a pet free ranger, dark or normal.

---------- Post added 2013-03-03 at 02:11 AM ----------

since BM is by far the most popular Hunter spec.

Only because its the top spec for PvP and single target PvE. If all specs were equal in DPS they would be pretty evenly distributed. MM was the most popular in ICC and FL and Surv was the most popular in DS and T11. Again they wont change BM to be melee but that is what it should have been to begin with. It would have at least given the class some variety with ranged and melee specs which is enough for a pure DPS class.

[Teriz]

Its possible they could unlock high elves for the Alliance and add a new model for the Horde. Or they could just make something up out of nowhere like they did with Worgen.

Problem with that is that Blizzard would have to make a new model for the High elves, which would force them by default to redo the Blood elf model. Also it would make elves into a psuedo neutral race, since High Elves are essentially the same as Blood elves. Of course all of this would have to take place while Blizzard is working on redoing the older races anyway. When you consider that, along with Pandaren just being introduced, and a lack of races available in general, it leads one to believe that no new races are coming in the next expansion.

Its a stretch that they would make a ranged spec melee since it changes the play a lot. But if they did and the BM hunters didnt want to melee, they could still play Surv and have a pet. Theres people that play hunters because they like ranged physical dps and some of them really like pets. Some of those pet people wouldnt care if it was melee as long as they can keep fluffy(and really the only ranged abilities they use are cobra shot and arcane shot/MS so you arent doing much). Then theres people who want to play ranged and dont want pets and this is a larger group than a lot of people realize. Probably everyone who doesnt play BM as a main spec even if its not OP wants to have this option.

Also healing totally doesnt fit into the lore for hunters. So if you are going to do it right you want to differentiate the specs a little more and still be pure DPS.
BM for pets
MM for archering w/o pets
Surv for naturing
4th spec dark ranger for magic damage(also no pet)

or leave MM as it is and the 4th spec should be a pet free ranger, dark or normal.

I agree with all of that except for Dark Ranger. Dark Ranger doesn't make much sense because it doesn't really work with the current hunter class. Consider that Hunters can already heal, and have loads of utility through their pets, and you can see why a healing/support spec makes a bit more sense.

---------- Post added 2013-03-03 at 02:21 AM ----------

First, its only 10 new specs. Druids already have four specs.

Second, its debatable on whether or not new specs would be harder than balancing a new class. If we're working with the existing classes, it could arguably be easier. For one, you have an existing set of tools to work with already; for example, a Demon Hunter warlock is going to have the same base tools as any other Warlock. From there, its just a matter of fleshing out the idea and adding a handful of new abilities to the class to make it work. Look at any spec; how many spells are actually spec-specific? Of course, the number varies from class to class, from spec to spec, but its usually no more than 6 spells. I'm willing to bet that adding the handful of new abilities that you would need to add one new spec to 10 classes would equal, maybe barely exceed the number of abilities that Monks needed to have created for them utterly from scratch.

Good post, and pretty much my assessment. Its a lot more work to build a class from scratch than it does to add another spec to an existing class.

[Prokne]

Problem with that is that Blizzard would have to make a new model for the High elves, which would force them by default to redo the Blood elf model. Also it would make elves into a psuedo neutral race, since High Elves are essentially the same as Blood elves. Of course all of this would have to take place while Blizzard is working on redoing the older races anyway. When you consider that, along with Pandaren just being introduced, and a lack of races available in general, it leads one to believe that no new races are coming in the next expansion.

The way the Vanilla races are going to come out when they are updated is going to make the BC races look pretty bad. They arent that great right now, more like Vanilla models than Worgen or Goblin. Blizzard will probably be updating them shortly after the others. Making the elves a neutral race is kind of a cop out though.

I agree with all of that except for Dark Ranger. Dark Ranger doesn't make much sense because it doesn't really work with the current hunter class. Consider that Hunters can already heal, and have loads of utility through their pets, and you can see why a healing/support spec makes a bit more sense.[COLOR="red"]

I imagine a Dark Ranger is kind of an unholy Surv hunter. Its like a DK to a Paladin. As far as healing goes sure we heal our pets but we probably have the least amount of self heals in the game. One ability is MM only and the other you have to spec into. If you cant heal yourself how would you think you are going to heal other people? In reality I wouldnt really care what they did with the 4th spec as long as they gave us a pet free option for MM. Then they can make a healing or tanking 4th spec and I can hate it as much as I do BM.

[HeroZero]

I probably should have finished reading the whole thread before commenting but... what the hell

The idea of adding some specs into the game isn't a terrible one. Adding one for every class (In my personal opinion) is not a good idea. Some class ideas would work rather well and there are openings for potentially interesting specializations. adding a ranged monk, melee hunter... those i think are good ideas. Trying to add a healing mage spec or another priest dps spec... not so good. I think it could be interesting to add extra specs to four or so classes and leave the rest as is might be a happy middle ground. This would probably cause a lot of people to switch to the classes that have a new spec but I don't think it would have a big enough impact to be noticeable.

Adding a few extra specs is good... trying to force one onto every class not so good.

[Prokne]

I probably should have finished reading the whole thread before commenting but... what the hell

The idea of adding some specs into the game isn't a terrible one. Adding one for every class (In my personal opinion) is not a good idea. Some class ideas would work rather well and there are openings for potentially interesting specializations. adding a ranged monk, melee hunter... those i think are good ideas. Trying to add a healing mage spec or another priest dps spec... not so good. I think it could be interesting to add extra specs to four or so classes and leave the rest as is might be a happy middle ground. This would probably cause a lot of people to switch to the classes that have a new spec but I don't think it would have a big enough impact to be noticeable.

Adding a few extra specs is good... trying to force one onto every class not so good.

Theres really only a few classes that dont have potential historical Warcraft specs they could use. Shaman comes to mind. Some are easy to come up with like ranged dps pallies and holy dps priests even though its totally new. Hunters(ranger), warlocks(DH), rogues(warden), warriors(berserker axethrower), DKs(WC2 DK), all have classic Warcraft specs that should be added. 5 out of 10 isnt bad. You could add those other easy ideas along with a bow monk to make 8/10. Although it does make it worse for the guys that are left out if there are only 2 of them.

[fenixazul]

The problem is , that only pure DPS clases should receive a 4th spec, but not the already-hybrid classes

[HeroZero]

Death Knight: At first I thought nothing could fit with the DK lore, but Necromancer might work ok and use some spell plate for good measure.
Druid: N/A
Hunter: I think Melee hunter is the choice for this (even though it's still dps).
Mage: Same for this one, Melee mage. either another dps spec (yeah you want variety but meh) or a tanking one that cloaks themselves in temporal armor type abilities and augements their weapon with different magic.
Monk: Lightning Dancer (goes better with the naming theme for monk) Ranged caster monk uses int.
Paladin: Shockadin, Ranged DPS uses spell plate
Priest: Just leave well enough alone.
Rogue: Evasion tank rogue is the only thing i see being viable here.
Shaman: Tank (not 2H, Claw and board....) or Leave well enough alone
Warlock: Tank or just melee dps
Warrior: Just Leave well enough alone.

most of this is exactly what others have said before me, and i still think a couple of them wouldn't be necesarry to have an extra spec but i figured why not.

[BrerBear]

First, its only 10 new specs. Druids already have four specs.

"Congratulations, Druids! You get nothing for the next expansion. Wait, where are you all going?"
Guardian spec was the worst thing that ever happened to my main. Used to be that feral tank spec with some DPS gear was good enough to solo mobs. Not anymore. Had to give up my resto off spec for feral so that I can kill mobs or not be deadweight in scenarios.
Not impressed.
I'd laugh when they took away, say, all hunter abilities for pet aggro and gave them exclusively to the new hunter tank spec.

[Bemlikanz]

Well..
First of all, ignore my english!!
I guess it doesnt make any sense, classes like lock or mage to tank... They use cloth and wouldnt be good a mage using plate...
Druids already have 4 specs. The idea is to all class have 4 specs.
So..



Warlocks-> Demon-Sha

Warlocks who uses a Saurok style pet and Sha habillities learned on Pandaria!

Druids-> No changes

Druids have 4 specs already..

Paladins-> Shockadin Caster DPS

Need to explain? A Light Bolting Paladin... awesome!

Hunter-> Ranger or a Dark Ranger

Like Lor'themar Theron or kinda Illidan with some Fel habillities and no pet!

Rogue-> Fury-Energy Slayer

A mix of warrior and rogue

Priest-> Holy DPS

Disc priests do a little bit of dps... It would be like it..

Monk-> Wind Healer

Send orbs, clouds and storms of heal... It would be more an AOE healer.

Death Knight-> Bolt Knight

DK using thunder and bolts (not to cast) melee DPS... shocking!

Mage-> Earth Mage

WTF? Well, think about Aang and avatar... shall be good... I've played a MMORPG once that mage was using earth shields and big blocks of dirt. Its awkward but...

Shaman-> Elemental Tank

Have no words to say...

Warrior-> Blademaster

Well.. Blade master.. Is a Master of Blades, gotcha? haha

My english sucks, I dont speak english and I dont live in a place where english is spoken, so ignore my bad english please!

[DarkTZeratul]

Thing is, though, that wouldn't be a new feature. It would just be applying an existing feature to more classes.

[Sand Person]

"A new class, or especially a new hero class could make that status permanent, and cause a lot of problems for the class in terms of balance"
And adding a 4th spec would not...?
With the 11 classes we got 33 different specs, adding 4th tree would be like adding 3-4 more classes, i dont see them adding a 4th spec for every class, MAYBE tank for shaman and/or warlock, but thats stretching it

With that, the new class is actually easier to balance.

[Bemlikanz]

I know druids need news to new expansion, so what about optimize the forms, get a legendary chain and new forms, etc?

[Bad Ashe]

not that i ever thought for a moment that a 4spec would ever happen, but it would last for 12-16months, just long enough for a new injection of content and the talents getting butchered/squished again.

once upon a time we actually HAD 4th specs via hybrid builds, but then came wrath and talent trees were frozen by mainspecs. so you see, they wont bring that back since there is no more talent trees to speak of, let alone the fact they deliberatly KILLED the option.

---------- Post added 2013-03-03 at 04:10 AM ----------

Hunter-> Either a 'melee' hunter or a petless hunter

reminds me of the early days of thottbot, and first post on EVERY item was "yep, that there is a hunter wep."

[ManjiSanji]

4th specs would be an absolute nightmare to balance. I'm sure every time somebody suggests it, some dev on the WoW team cries.