Idea: Race-themed Classes

[Deadhank]

I made some suggestions a few months back in regards to racial glyphs; many of which do the exact same thing as described here. Check 'em out:

SNIP

I think I love you. lol

Not sure about everything being glyphs... The class ones (like glaives) sure, but the rest should be at a creation screen / barber.

[Throren]

Mountain Kings or Dwarven Avatars for dwarves! All my want!

[Deleted]

Yeah sounds cool, but of course only cosmetic. So say you make a Tauren Paladin, your're now known as a Tauren Sunwalker. Maybe you get a Sunwalker title, your ability icons could change to more fitting graphics and some of the visual spell effects change.

Oh and you could add cosmetic stuff to your char like Orc Warrior gets a Blademaster banner. Call it race class cosmetics and have a toggle button similar to hide head slot.

[Deleted]

People already like to blame their WoW grievances on simple racial abilities, they'd have a field day if race-specific classes got implemented.

[ro9ue]

Reminds me of Warhammer and I personally loved the idea. It really appeals to the lore nerd in me that classes are tied to a culture. Often makes the class a lot richer and meaningful to whats happening in the world.

[Lovestar]

Totally agree. I understand the amount of "dev time" soaked up by redundant, identical designs differentiated only by "flavor" and I'm sympathetic to why the WoW devs said "eh, screw it, let's spend more time on the next raid boss' animations instead".

Unfortunately, I feel WoW has lost sight of how much "flavor" actually impacts a player's perceptions. As a random example, SWTOR: the Mercenary and Commando (Republic mirror class) are 100% identical gameplay-wise. They have the same abilities, the same output, the same talent trees, everything. All that changes is the Merc is Bounty Hunter-themed (to fit the Empire) and the Commando is Trooper-themed (to fit the Republic).

And I quit my max-level Commando to reroll a Merc, simply because Merc feels way cooler to me. It has grittier, more "ghetto-tech" animations, shoots missiles at things, and dual-wields healing guns to constantly shoot green heal juice in your friends' faces. Pew pew pew! Whereas the Commando is all Fisher-Price shiny bombs and fancy military tech. It's a bland, plastic, action-figure hero "good guy". It's boring. It just doesn't "pop" for me, at all.

It made me realize that even if 2 classes play identically, the way their gameplay is presented can have a huge impact on how the player experiences the class and the game. The whole reason I even got into RPGs was for the wonder and fantasy of exploring different worlds and different identities. In the crusade for "efficiency" and "practicality", WoW has suffocated a lot of that.

[Deleted]

I remember back in TBC we kind of had this with Alliance paladins and Horde blood knights. Blood knights had seal of blood a paladin seal that would favour haste with more consistent dps, while alliance paladins would use seal of command and got for crit and armour pen stats and dps was done with slower heavy hitting burst. It really they felt like 2 separate classes almost and was accurate from a lore perpsective. They also had different pvp sets to allaince paladins. Of-course it was removed as soon as they could for the next expansion because Seal of Blood became slightly better but if you ignore the balancing and game mechanics it was really cool from a cosmetic and lore point of view.

[Deadhank]

I remember back in TBC we kind of had this with Alliance paladins and Horde blood knights. Blood knights had seal of blood a paladin seal that would favour haste with more consistent dps, while alliance paladins would use seal of command and got for crit and armour pen stats and dps was done with slower heavy hitting burst. It really they felt like 2 separate classes almost and was accurate from a lore perpsective. They also had different pvp sets to allaince paladins. Of-course it was removed as soon as they could for the next expansion because Seal of Blood became slightly better but if you ignore the balancing and game mechanics it was really cool from a cosmetic and lore point of view.

I say do like Lovestar said: have this seal separation, but without changing the spell (both would give the same stats etc). The difference would be in the name, icon, animation, etc... I just doesn't feel right to see Taurens and Trolls using holy light.

[Deleted]

I would tend to agree, but it would need to be minor things. For example, you can't go and change the name of "Holy Light" for the 3 non-human Paladins, because it would be confusing in PvP. Imagine if they were called Iron Light, Holy Light, Twisted Light and Sun Light... you'd be asking your partner "which one is Twisted Light, is that the big heal or the small heal?"

I would like to see more "colour changers" and visual differences though, such as the one Warlocks got. I find it kind of weird that a Sunwalker, Blood Knight, and a Paladin of the Holy Light all have the same spell effects. Having the colour distinction would be a nice added flavour.

[Lovestar]

I would tend to agree, but it would need to be minor things. For example, you can't go and change the name of "Holy Light" for the 3 non-human Paladins, because it would be confusing in PvP. Imagine if they were called Iron Light, Holy Light, Twisted Light and Sun Light... you'd be asking your partner "which one is Twisted Light, is that the big heal or the small heal?"

This is exactly what happens in SWTOR. You need to learn 2 languages: Empire and Republic, so that when someone says "Don't take Assault Plastique, that skill sucks" you realize they're saying "Don't take Thermal Detonator, that skill sucks".

It has pros and cons. The pro is the great immersion: even though you know the 2 abilities are identical, they still look different, have different icons, and make you imagine different things. So they feel different. Equal numbers and effect, doesn't mean equal things, because it discounts human emotion and perception.

On the other hand, as you point out, it's annoying and an extra level of confusion for new players and PvP. Over time, you learn it all. But it's up to each individual to decide whether the increased sense of identity/immersion is worth the trade-off in logistical clunk.

[Deleted]

This is exactly what happens in SWTOR. You need to learn 2 languages: Empire and Republic, so that when someone says "Don't take Assault Plastique, that skill sucks" you realize they're saying "Don't take Thermal Detonator, that skill sucks".

It has pros and cons. The pro is the great immersion: even though you know the 2 abilities are identical, they still look different, have different icons, and make you imagine different things. So they feel different. Equal numbers and effect, doesn't mean equal things, because it discounts human emotion and perception.

On the other hand, as you point out, it's annoying and an extra level of confusion for new players and PvP. Over time, you learn it all. But it's up to each individual to decide whether the increased sense of identity/immersion is worth the trade-off in logistical clunk.

Which works fine in SWTOR because there are only 2 copies of each class. If it was like that with WoW-races each having their own spin on their class, we'd have a silly situation of like 13 different names for Heroic Strike.

[Lazy Gecko]

Seal of Command was available to all paladins as a Retribution talent. Alliance paladins had some other seal, can't remember what it was called.

[Matt0193]

Which works fine in SWTOR because there are only 2 copies of each class. If it was like that with WoW-races each having their own spin on their class, we'd have a silly situation of like 13 different names for Heroic Strike.

The problem I recall from SW:ToR is that certain abilities, like Ravage and Master Strike, had different delays despite being the same move.

And to the OP: This used to happen up until Wrath, when they removed Seal of Blood and Seal of Truth's exclusivity. I believe the individual Priest racials had already been removed by this point but I could be mistaken. A way Blizz could go about doing this is adding flavour text to spells and changing icons, but it'll have no effect on gameplay and people would whine and bitch about it taking away from this, that and the other.

Seal of Command was available to all paladins as a Retribution talent. Alliance paladins had some other seal, can't remember what it was called.

Seal of Truth for Alliance (better for tanking) and Seal of Blood for the Horde (Better for DPS). These both became available in Wrath.

[Valech]

I would love to see that in game. Discussed the very same topic just recently with one of my guildies and we made up names and special graphics for each race/class combo. Aside from those graphics it would not even take a lot of work for blizzard to change this. Names and perhaps a new menu when you create a character wouldn´t take much of their ressources.

[scormac]

If only we had Troll witchdoctors and shadowhunters

[Deleted]

Seal of Command was available to all paladins as a Retribution talent. Alliance paladins had some other seal, can't remember what it was called.

Yes but Seal of command was the optimal dps seal for alliance paladins.

[Norgannon the Dreamweaver]

Lorewise, most races can be most classes, as races aren't limited when it comes to most schools of magic. The only real playable class that is race specific is the Druid, as one must be blessed/touched by nature to achieve the powers of druidism.

It always pissed me off that taurens couldn't be mages/warlocks/rogues when it's entirely possible, regardless of culture.

[Rathnor The Flesher]

It always pissed me off that taurens couldn't be mages/warlocks/rogues when it's entirely possible, regardless of culture.

I'll give you casters, but you gotta see why an 8-foot tall, 500-pound bull-man with hooved feet would not make a very effective sneak.

[Wazooty]

Something as simple as names or titles would do a lot. Like calling draenei paladins exarchs, orc arms warriors getting a blademaster title..etc.

[Conscious]

They could just rename classes for certain races

Night elf hunter = sentinel
Be pally = blood knight
Tauren pally = sunwalker
god mountaineer,technomage, plagueshifter,assasin,mountain king,blademaster the list literally goes on

I'm feeling this idea.

Throw in some different abilities (that do the same thing however) and animations, and I think it'd be mint.