Poll: Would you be ok with Faction-exclusive Classes?

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  1. #1
    Herald of the Titans Aurabolt's Avatar
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    Lightbulb Would you be ok with the return of classes split by Faction?

    The general consensus of the Vanilla crowd is they preferred it when Pallies were Alliance exclusive and Shaman was Horde exclusive. Toward the end of Vanilla's lifecycle some folks on both sides complained the Paladin/Shaman was too OP for the Alliance/Horde to stay faction exclusive and thus, the other side was given the Paladin/Shaman class in TBC. DKs and Monks were given to both factions in WotLk and MoP and of course, new Race/Class combinations were introduced in Cataclysm.

    Pressing the reset button on Paladins and Shamen (and by that I mean making the Alliance/Horde exclusive again) probably wouldn't be a good idea at this point so I'll kick the question to future classes.

    On second thought: What if the class names and class abilities of existing classes were changed based on their faction and race? After all we already have Heroism (Alliance) and Bloodlust (Horde).

    A few examples that come to mind:

    Night Elf Mage = Highborne
    Blood Elf/Undead Hunter = Ranger/Dark Ranger
    Orc Warrior = Blademaster
    Human Paladin = Crusader

    In doing that, classes become diverse based on race and not faction. I'll leave balancing it to someone else but the lore's always been there and from a programming perspective it's doable with the existing technology.

    Getting back to the original question I want to pose, though: Would you be ok with new classes being faction exclusive? Both factions would get a new class each but the other would never get it. For example The Alliance would get Shieldbearer (Melee DPS/Tank Hybrid) and the Horde would get Axebearer (Pure Melee DPS). Again, that last sentence is just for example purposes.
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  2. #2
    It could be interesting. It just sort of depends on how Blizzard feels and how they'd execute it. I always thought it was more interesting when both factions had an exclusive class, although I can see the objective reasoning behind NOT doing that as well.

  3. #3
    Scarab Lord Grubjuice's Avatar
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    if both factions cannot play all the same classes you can not even attempt to try to make an effort towards creating anything remotely resembling balance between them

    - - - Updated - - -

    i see nothing wrong however with renaming classes by race to match lore (but they remain mechanically the same across factions/races)
    .


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  4. #4
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    i loved the fact that shamans were horde only and paladins were alliance. i'd love to see it come back one day that the classes are faction only.
    i guess i am one of the few that never complained about the other being op.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Aurabolt View Post
    The general consensus of the Vanilla crowd is they preferred it when Pallies were Alliance exclusive and Shaman was Horde exclusive.
    Ummm. Were you around back then? This is a prime example of a vocal minority. Almost everyone hated this in Vanilla after the unique and newness wore off after a month or two. By the time people really figured out that WoW was something that could really take off, it was immediately the consensus that shit like this would have to go asap.

  6. #6
    Oh my god, someone actually discovered the allmighty option for multivote on MMOC and then made pol with only a single option making sense...

    As for the answer to the topic. No..hell no. Paladins and Shaman were bad enough back then, we don't need that or even worse extend it.

  7. #7
    With the fine-tuning of the different classes' specs these days (due to the homogenization of buffs and such) generally meaning that each spec is playable for a certain niche...

    No. Unless they were mirror images of each other, there would be huge imbalance issues on a patch-by-patch basis.

    The time when shamans and paladins were buff bots with 1 or 2 abilities while they all healed is long gone. (And crazy OP windfury procs... but that's the exception that proves the "they were healers" rule because the only reason Windfury was good was because it was when it was exploited in a brokenly OP manner)
    Last edited by Confirm Deny; 2013-09-08 at 10:39 PM. Reason: No I don't actually mean "exploited"
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  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Grubjuice View Post
    i see nothing wrong however with renaming classes by race to match lore (but they remain mechanically the same across factions/races)
    I've been wanting them to do this for a while. Mostly with the tauren priests and paladins. Call them Seers and Sunwalkers like lore says they are. And troll priests should probably be Witch Doctors or some such. Draenei paladins should be Vindicators and Blood Elf paladins should be Blood Knights.

  9. #9
    Warchief ImpTaimer's Avatar
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    Only if PvP was removed.

    or.

    Only if the class differences were completely cosmetic.
    There are no bathrooms, only Zuul.

  10. #10
    As long as it doesn't add buffs/group buffs that are exclusive, sure, I'd have no problem with it.

    Most people will probably be annoyed that they'd have to be locked into a faction to play a class they want to play, though.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Doesn't matter, got looms.

    Now I'd just need another character slot..

  12. #12
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    I'd be okay if it was visual but if it changes the mechanics of classes I wouldn't like it.

  13. #13
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    The most interesting result would be watching the world first guilds switching between the factions depending on which class is the strongest during that particular tier...

    Other than that yes I would like for them to re-introduce class split, I was so sad the day they gave our precious Shamans to the Alliance, and all we got was bubbles...

  14. #14
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Aurabolt View Post
    The general consensus of the Vanilla crowd is they preferred it when Pallies were Alliance exclusive and Shaman was Horde exclusive.
    Source? Threads on here, and youtube video comments don't really count since it's such a minority of the even then playerbase

  15. #15
    The main reason for opening Shaman and Paladins to both factions no longer applies, which is/was their buffs. But since all of those unique buffs are no longer unique or even in the game it doesn't matter any more.

    (Did you know that Heroism was originally going to be a Paladin spell? That was Blizzard's initial solution to the Bloodlust problem)


    I always thought it was good to have some classes unique to certain factions.

  16. #16
    Ehh i'd rather not really.

    It was more annoying than anything with people spending every BG loss QQ'ing about how OP shamans were.

  17. #17
    That would be fine but it would hurt balance too much so I never see it happening.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Aurabolt View Post
    The general consensus of the Vanilla crowd is they preferred it when Pallies were Alliance exclusive and Shaman was Horde exclusive.
    I have no idea why people still make blanket statements like this, when everyone reading knows there is no way for you to actually know if this is true or not. You probably don't even have enough information to make an educated guess as to the "general consensus".

    Quote Originally Posted by Aurabolt View Post
    Toward the end of Vanilla's lifecycle some folks on both sides complained the Paladin/Shaman was too OP for the Alliance/Horde to stay faction exclusive and thus, the other side was given the Paladin/Shaman class in TBC. DKs and Monks were given to both factions in WotLk and MoP and of course, new Race/Class combinations were introduced in Cataclysm.
    This is not the reason this was changed, at all. The reason the faction exclusivity was removed was because it was impossible to keep the factions balanced without making the two classes exact copies of each other. It wasn't because people complained.

  19. #19
    The Insane Aquamonkey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grubjuice View Post
    i see nothing wrong however with renaming classes by race to match lore (but they remain mechanically the same across factions/races)
    They already do this with paladins, sunwalkers, and blood knights.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Netherspark View Post
    The main reason for opening Shaman and Paladins to both factions no longer applies, which is/was their buffs. But since all of those unique buffs are no longer unique or even in the game it doesn't matter any more.

    (Did you know that Heroism was originally going to be a Paladin spell? That was Blizzard's initial solution to the Bloodlust problem)


    I always thought it was good to have some classes unique to certain factions.
    Hand of Protection? Makes Paladins highly desirable in PvE to allow 1-tanking.

    Also, Tremor Totem.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Aquamonkey View Post
    They already do this with paladins, sunwalkers, and blood knights.

    - - - Updated - - -


    Hand of Protection? Makes Paladins highly desirable in PvE to allow 1-tanking.
    I'm pretty sure he means more in game differentiation.

    Like when you go to create a character it calls it a Sunwalker, or a Dark Ranger etc (with the overall class name in brackets maybe) and have you referred to by NPCs as "Dark Ranger" not just "hunter".

    It'd be a pretty simple thing to do, i'd love it tbh

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