"Class/Race/Faction" fantasy - which do you value the most?

[Sigxy]

So in this expansion, Blizzard put in a LOT of effort on the "Class Fantasy". With a bit of a mixed results - sometimes it worked, sometimes it doesn't. The armory was updated now to display the Order Hall image behind your character, rather than the race image (Death Knights were an exception I think on the Armory though?)

I'm personally more on the side of that I am not too fond of the Class Fantasy a whole lot. Not a big fan of my Blood Knight to be in the paladin Order Hall (Despite Blizzard wanting them to be just standard paladins, rather than being more unique) and preferred the race bit. Pretty sure I read someone not too happy with his dwarf hunter at an elven looking lodge.

So, my question is: What do you value the most for your character, your Faction - you Race - your Class? I do not mean just the whole background-image part, but was just an example.

[Friendlyimmolation]

race/faction and then worry about class imo.

[Schattenlied]

Class, which Blizzard absolutely butchered this expansion.

I don't care about the order hall or any of that shit, I care about the fantasy behind the kit, their abilities and skills... Blizzard pruned and changed too much shit in the name of "improving" fantasy, when all they really did was take the good, well established class fantasy that already existed and threw it in the garbage.

The legion class revamps should not have happened... Hell I'd argue all the revamps since WotLK ended were unnecessary... Class fantasy was by far at it's best during Wrath.

[Lebanese Dude]

I dislike the Horde so Faction I guess. I would love to play Blood Elves but that would mean having to interact with the rest of the craven filth.

[Lex Icon]

i tend to consider all of it when i pick my characters.. like what race fits the class(imo) and the faction they belong to.
some can be really restrictive.. like paladins.. for me there is only humans and warriors fit pretty much any race.

[Sigxy]

I dislike the Horde so Faction I guess. I would love to play Blood Elves but that would mean having to interact with the rest of the craven filth.

I've always been more of an Alliance fan but I really liked the blood elves. So it's fitting in my RP that my main doesn't want to do any work with the Horde (Unless it's something like fighting at the Broken Shore against the Legion as it's a serious threat to Azeroth and thus, Quel'Thalas) and only focus on blood elf related stuff!

[Friendlyimmolation]

I've always been more of an Alliance fan but I really liked the blood elves. So it's fitting in my RP that my main doesn't want to do any work with the Horde (Unless it's something like fighting at the Broken Shore against the Legion as it's a serious threat to Azeroth and thus, Quel'Thalas) and only focus on blood elf related stuff!

THe blood elves (in character) are far closer to the Horde now than they arguably ever were with the Alliance.

[Wyrt]

Race. Class fantasy should be filtered through race because different racial cultures would have an influence on how that class functions for that race.

Couldn't give less of a shit about faction because it always ends up being humans and orcs and both are shit races.

[Sigxy]

THe blood elves (in character) are far closer to the Horde now than they arguably ever were with the Alliance.

Nowdays the blood elf race are, possibly - but my character is still leaning more on the side of "You know, Lor'Themar, if you ever would consider joining the Alliance again like when Garrosh was a total jerk towards us..."

I know the Blood Elves won't ever join the Alliance and I'm sorta happy with that, would be too much of a bother for Blizzard to fix things. But my character doesn't like either faction, leaning more towards Alliance than Horde though, but remains only loyal to Quel'Thalas and Lor'Themar. He also shows great support to the leader of the Reliquary, High Examiner Tae'thelan Bloodwatcher. "You see, there are ancient, powerful relics found throughout this world that I plan to use to free my people from their addiction and unify them again as the proud, indomitable race we once were."

[Deleted]

I'm going to be a jerk and instead of answering this question I'm gonna say which indentitiy should get focus next expansion.

Race

The faction war is pretty pointless as any war between the two needs to be balances, for gameplay reasons, and the story always has them working together for a bigger bad anyway.

Class: Lack of class trainer interaction and bad class design aside, I spend the game using class abilities, wielding weapons my class can use, wearing armor for my class and getting talent points for my classes talents.

But only the starting area is about my race. After that it doesn't really matter much which race you actually picked. Hell, Cataclysm unified the visuals of leveling gear so we have even less race specific stuff.

[Friendlyimmolation]

Nowdays the blood elf race are, possibly - but my character is still leaning more on the side of "You know, Lor'Themar, if you ever would consider joining the Alliance again like when Garrosh was a total jerk towards us..."

Jaina pretty much made that nil, combined with his talks with Vol'jin, the Blood elves became more Horde than ever.

[Sigxy]

I'm going to be a jerk and instead of answering this question I'm gonna say which indentitiy should get focus next expansion.

Race

The faction war is pretty pointless as any war between the two needs to be balances, for gameplay reasons, and the story always has them working together for a bigger bad anyway.

Class: Lack of class trainer interaction and bad class design aside, I spend the game using class abilities, wielding weapons my class can use, wearing armor for my class and getting talent points for my classes talents.

But only the starting area is about my race. After that it doesn't really matter much which race you actually picked. Hell, Cataclysm unified the visuals of leveling gear so we have even less race specific stuff.

Not really being a jerk, I want to give it a shot too. IF Blizzard insists so much faction war, could always try have a new zone where you have 2 races from each faction in each - one zone has Orcs and humans fighting, one has dwarves and trolls, etc etc...

Problem is that Legion proved that if we end up with a race-focused expansion, kiss good bye to all the good bits about the races. x_x

Jaina pretty much made that nil, combined with his talks with Vol'jin, the Blood elves became more Horde than ever.

Yeah, I know. As I said: I know it will never happen. The only reason why my character doesn't want Quel'Thalas to go 'solo' is because of the Forsaken right next door.

[Deleted]

Class makes the biggest impact on my gaming experience. You only have two faction choices, so it's a matter of visual preference when in their respective home-areas. You have a good amount of racial choices, but they don't really DO anything for your gameplay, beyond the individual racial perks that might make a tiny difference.

Class is the major gamechanger for me. You have to learn vastly different things depending on class. You have to play differently depending on class. You have to think in different ways depending on class. If you log your hunter and charge in with a warrior mentality, it might work if you're survival. But if you happen to be a marksman, you're screwed. If you don't think like a hunter, you will surely die like a huntard. And if you happen to be a priest, you shouldn't be expecting your shadowfiend to be able to tank for you like if you were a warlock. I like changing things up on various classes, but I honestly don't give a damn about faction or race. I'm Alliance because I've been that since the start and don't like the visuals of the Horde areas, and my racial choices were only a thing upon character creation, in order to see new starter-zones. Class is what matters to me.

[Deleted]

Not really being a jerk, I want to give it a shot too. IF Blizzard insists so much faction war, could always try have a new zone where you have 2 races from each faction in each - one zone has Orcs and humans fighting, one has dwarves and trolls, etc etc...

Problem is that Legion proved that if we end up with a race-focused expansion, kiss good bye to all the good bits about the races. x_x

Yeah. but again, in those fight you can't have a winner. Or if you get, because mayne humans beat the orcs, in the other zone the dwarves have to lose to the trolls. If one faction leader dies, the other has to die as well.

[SirCowdog]

The entire two-faction system should be done away with. It's a joke. The lore barely supports it, and only with a constant stream of contrivances and plot holes.


That being said, however, Class fantasy was also a complete failure IMHO. It made too many assumptions about what each class was, and ignored the real depth of what was possible. The previously mentions case of Paladins is a perfect example of this. Paladins have the standard Human/Dwarf versions, Blood Knights, and Sunwalkers. Each has a VERY different approach and theme. And yet they're all lumped into the same "class fantasy". It's ridiculous.

Another example is Blizzard getting completely the wrong idea with Hunters. Marks and BM hunters more or less fit. But who in the holy shit ever wanted melee hunters(a joke from vanilla/TBC) to become a fully supported spec? When did that become a "class fantasy" instead of a class joke? Who really wanted another melee -DPS spec when the game already overburdened with melee DPS? Blizzard completely missed the mark here.

I'll say this: At least Blizzard recognized how they screwed up with "class fantasy" and hopefully we'll see better use of storytelling in the future.

[Lady Dragonheart]

Race, by far. Then, class.

[JaoStar]

All parts are equal. I just can't play horde toons. Even when I was maining a BE mage I always felt like an alliance player pretending to be horde. Once NE were able to to become mages I left that dirty world all together. Class is about fantasy so for me that's important as well. Race is a bit tricky in that there are some races I may like, howerver the animations or the models I don't like I.e. Humans. All things are equal to me.

[Lane]

I started to vote race, but then I remembered how much I love DK class fantasy. DKs don't fit in with their race or faction, so it wouldn't feel right otherwise. Even Thassarian and Koltira are still brothers-in-arms despite the race/faction conflicts and I love that about DKs. Same sort of applies to DHs, but they mesh race and class a bit better since they're all elves.

Legion did a good job of creating a commonality among classes. I like the rogue theme with the Uncrowned. Druids are usually friendly with each other. Paladins working together under the Light makes sense. Some other classes I don't necessarily feel the same camaraderie, particularly warrior and hunter, so for them I'd prioritize race first. Like, I don't know how my Draenei warrior is supposed to feel like she belongs among a bunch of vrykul as opposed to her own people. :P

[Sylar Hao]

I'm gonna say Race+Class. I think A LOT about everything around a character I create, the race+class+spec combo must be one that makes sense (in my opinion, of course), like for example, Undead hunters only make sense to me if they are MM with the Lonely Wolf talent, it looks awkward that a zombie can tame a pet. For example, I would never play a Tauren Paladin, not that I'm against this combo, but it just doesn't make any sense gamewise (it does lorewise), IF they were renamed Sunwalkers and gave them different visuals and spells names, I don't know imagine Avenging Wrath is renamed An'she's Wrath and instead of wings they get a flare-y aura or fiery wings not holy ones, that would fit a lot more; even if the class is exactly the same as the standard paladin, then I'd totally play them, because the whole package matter to me, I tend to give each of of my characters its own personality (although I don't roleplay at all, I mostly PvP and semi-casual PvE).

I'd really really really like to have spec-race specific spells, at least one, like when Priests had a different spell per race, but taken to each spec. I know it would be a lot to balance, but it's only just one spell inside a common spec, and perfect balance between specs and classes has never and will never exist, so it would at a lot of flaver. For example: I main a Goblin Destro Warlock (and I might be the only one in my server since I never ever see any other XD) and it would be nice to have a spell that resembles both the fact that I'm Destro and I'm Goblin, something like Chaos Rockets, it could be, I don't know, a cone-AoE that always crits and target caught explode a second time after a few sec, or something like that; then the other Destrolock races could get some cone or AoE spell as well, but with different flavor-effect. In the end it's gonna be about the same. But these kind of stuff add a lot of flavor and makes players get more attached to their characters.

Sorry for the long text, today I'm a bit dizzy and I'm having trouble to explain myself with few words even in my native language XDD