4th spec system for future expansion.

[Varx]

I know this topic has been beaten to the ground. Despite arguments against it, there is no doubt that adding new specs to existing classes would add a ton of content into the game and more content is never a bad thing. I realize that balancing is an issue but I don't think it's fair to underestimate a multi-million dollar company, especially if executed right.

First off, the expansion after Legion should NOT introduce 4th specs since the Demon Hunter was just introduced. Instead the next expansion should focus on perfecting the current classes as best as possible in both mechanics and fantasy. The following expansion should then roll out the new specs. To ensure that balance is done to its maximum Blizzard could potentially release half of them during the launch and the other half during the first patch like 9.0.5, similarly with how the updated Belf models came after WoD's launch.

So my design for 4th specs would be as follows. After reaching max level, players would unlock a small quest chain to unlock their class' Paragon Specialization. Similar to character boosts, the chain would include a training tutorial for the new specs. Here are the spec's that I've thought of.

Warlock: (Blood) The Warlock manipulates life energies and blood magic to heal their allies. Healer

Mage: (Temporal) The mage uses their mastery of time to reverse wounds sustained by their friends. Healer

Priest: (Inquisitor) Now for priests I wanted to try to be a little unique and introduce a melee spec as the first melee clothie in WoW. Either they would have their own martial art like monks or utilize a one handed weapon with a held in off-hand weapon and be a mid range melee-caster spec. If these would prove to be too outlandish then a Holy based spell DPS would be their 4th spec.

Druid: Obviously Druids already have a 4th spec. However, instead of introducing a 5th spec I gave them a beefed out Heart of the Wild spell.

(Heart of the Wild): The druid activates one of their other specializations, unlocking all chosen talents and abilities as well as providing appropriate stats. Lasts 30 seconds, 30 min CD. Does not reset, like reincarnate, to prevent druid stacking.

Monk: (Flame Dancer) Utilizes a mixture of flame martial arts based on the Red Crane of Hope and a ranged weapon to deal damage. Ranged DPS (think of avatar the last airbender and their firebenders)

Rouge: (Dead eye) A ranged assassin using ranged weapons to dispatch their enemies from a distance. In addition, Outlaw is now a tanking spec. Ranged DPS

2nd option (Bard) A back alley traveling performer/con-artist that uses their various songs and melodies to heal... for a price of course. Uses ranged weapons with Int. Outlaw stays as DPS with this option.

Demon Hunter: Now before you call me crazy on my DH ideas just hear me out. In Warcraft Chronicles it is said that Fel is the result from Light and Shadow colliding into one another. So what if DH's found a way to reverse the process and create two new styles of fighting during their quest.

(Light Sworn) The Demon Hunter is imbued with pure light energy, dealing devastating and blinding-fast attacks. Melee DPS

(Void Bound) Using Two-Handed weapons, the Demon Hunter uses the power of the void to overwhelm their foes with hungering shadows. Melee DPS

Shaman: (Earthwarder) The Shaman uses their mastery over the earth to protect themselves and their allies from incoming onslaughts. Tank

Hunter: (Dark Ranger) Inspired by Lady Sylvanas, the hunter uses sinister shots to slowly bring agony to their foes. DOT spec. In addition, Survival is now a Tanking spec. Range DPS

Warrior: (Gladiator) The warrior uses a shield and a two-handed weapon for savagery over defense. Melee DPS

Death Knight: (Necromancer) The Death Knight uses their command over dead flesh to stitch-up their allies. Healer

Paladin: (Conviction) The Paladin's inner light burns hot, enabling them to unleash seething blasts of radiant light towards their foes. Ranged DPS

So that's my two cents on this dead horse. Feel free to give feed back or post your own 4th spec ideas.

[Deleted]

This game needs less specs if something. Lots of chars doing exactly the same.

[Dannyzk]

I could expect a Necromancer spec for the warlock. it would fit well with the Story as we defeat the Legion now and the warlock has to find a new "power".
I really think that we are gonna see 4th spec, sub-races and more stuff in the future even if in the final Expansion.

[Kithelle]

Death Knight and Warlocks as healers? Just doesn't sound right...

[Lochton]

Yeah, no the Death Knight specc title is fine but should just be ranged/mid-range dps.

[Irian]

If warlocks got a healer spec before a tank spec I'd throw my monitor. No.

We came so close to having a tank spec, I want a damn tank spec.

[Waltzinblack]

I would totally play a blood warlock healer spec.

[MagusHenosis]

I really don't see all specs as being viable healers.

I think if they made say Warlock a healer for example, it would hurt the game a lot.

It just makes little to no sense OK.....

[Ech0544]

I'd much prefer them to do away with specs all together and create a more fluid system, something like you have a limited 30 slot action bar and a ton of active/passive choices and then you have 3 styles, something like:

Option 1: 30 active skills + 15 passives.

Option 2: 20 active skills + 25 passives.

Option 3: 15 active skills + 30 passives.

Each option would offer a different level of engagement/ difficulty to your characters play style with a maximum 7-10% damage/survivability/utility difference between them.

You could even go so far as to do away with balance issues that seem to plague WoW by just adding some new "balancing lever" like all player characters get a magical spell cast on them or they are made host to some magical or created item/ creature etc which basically "helps maximize the potential of a person by aiding them in combat and fine tuning there skills power blah blah" because if they didn't have it they would have complications like magical backfire harming user immediately or over time to make it lore worthy but in reality the affect on the game would be it just goes, "oh you have x,y,z skills/passives selected... thats a bit OP... -5% damage - 10%hp...x skill does more, y skill does less" bringing all combinations of skills to a level playing field.

Something like that would help for expansions as well as adding new abilities would only break the balance of the game if you actually select those abilities... and with something like the balancing lever I mentioned, it would mean you can easily target and buff/nerf those specific combos only without worrying about affecting anything else.

[rarhyx]

imo not all classes should get a 4th spec:

Monk, range dps
shaman, tank
paladin, range dps (shockadin)
warrior, gladiator

some rework:
rogue, assassin to range and current assa+sub fusing

if every class gets an additional specc then:
mage, melee or tank (spellbreaker)
warlock, tank(like the old demo with the glyph)
dk, pendant to shockadin or old blood melee
priest, melee
hunter, range tank via pet(s)
dh, range or two-handed melee

[Aracs]

Demon Hunter: Now before you call me crazy on my DH ideas just hear me out. In Warcraft Chronicles it is said that Fel is the result from Light and Shadow colliding into one another. So what if DH's found a way to reverse the process and create two new styles of fighting during their quest.

Dunno if every class should have 4 specs but DH definitely needs to have at least 3. And also current Vengeance seems like: "meh, made in a hurry just during Legion alpha/beta process".

So because of new lore about Illidan (also incoming in 7.3), I can suggest the following DH specs rework:
Illidari - Melee DPS, current Havoc, no much differences, uses Fel Magic and Physical attacks
Warden - Tank, rework of current Vengeance, uses Shadow and Arcane Magic as well as some Physical attacks (two-handed glaives like Maiev). I think that was an initial plan of Blizzard for DH tanking spec, especially because they named it Vengeance (Wardens consider themselves as "vengeance" also). DH are also tightly bonded to the Wardens (Starting from the initial quests).

Now, Wardens are taken purely from Night Elves and Illidari can be any elves. Than the third spec should originate from Blood Elves and I can suggest here, obviously:
Spellbreaker - Medium Range DPS (still considered as ranged but with attack range like 20 yards) with throwing glaives (like in wc3), Uses all kinds of magic (even fel, shadow and light) to imbue glaives with devastating powers.

[derpkitteh]

battle-mage for mage, aggressive melee dps. mage should stay pure dps imo.

spellbreaker for warrior, magic-using tank specializing in warding and other defensive spells.

earth-warden for shaman, earth magic tank, what shamans have always wanted.

inquisitor for priest, light using ranged dps. people have been wanting to burn people with holy fire for a while.

arbiter(or some other name, idk) for paladin, aggressive dual-wield 1h spec, like akama from WoD.

warlock, idk. they kinda cover everything already. maybe just using pure fel energy instead of fel-fire. might be too similar to destro though.

void-ranger for hunter, alleria's new line of teaching could spread to others. moorgoth can finally be the dark edgelord he wants to be(maybe specifically have him fail the training and die, for a little tragedy. have the dark ranger he flirted with mourne him and take him to sylvanas).

some type of mist using spell dps for monk. idk what to call it.

bounty hunter for rogue. two pistols. base it around jango fett, be kinda acrobatic. rolls and flips. wrist crossbow for poison darts.

something using more soul magic and giant scythe, like alari, for demon hunter. keepit melee, doesn't make sense for a ranged spec for demon hunter. though, they'd probably be ok with just keeping two specs.

forgot dk... dk, maybe restructure dk a bit. have unholy lose all the undead stuff and focus only on plagues. then make a necromancer spec with a permanent army of the dead and a lot more summons.

[Zakajz]

Unlikely (not impossible) we all get 4th spec

Good job giving shaman a tank spec lol then why play a druid?

That's the thing druid get 4 specs and all roles covered but with drawbacks such as bear,cat and moonkin/astral form that limit druids in some departments otherwise why play other classes?

[Syegfryed]

outlaw tank? wtf? some ideas are nice, but others are bad

and since the game is to full of class/spec, and to damn hard to balance, this would be more terrible than good

Good job giving shaman a tank spec lol then why play a druid?

That's the thing druid get 4 specs and all roles covered but with drawbacks such as bear,cat and moonkin/astral form that limit druids in some departments otherwise why play other classes?

what? are you assuming people only play druid because they have 4 specs, and shamans could get their job? this didn't make any sense

this way why play warrior if they give us DK? shaman tank is a thing, who should be ingame regardless this 4 spec for all

[In Ogres We Trust]

I know this topic has been beaten to the ground. Despite arguments against it, there is no doubt that adding new specs to existing classes would add a ton of content into the game and more content is never a bad thing. I realize that balancing is an issue but I don't think it's fair to underestimate a multi-million dollar company, especially if executed right.

First off, the expansion after Legion should NOT introduce 4th specs since the Demon Hunter was just introduced. Instead the next expansion should focus on perfecting the current classes as best as possible in both mechanics and fantasy. The following expansion should then roll out the new specs. To ensure that balance is done to its maximum Blizzard could potentially release half of them during the launch and the other half during the first patch like 9.0.5, similarly with how the updated Belf models came after WoD's launch.

So my design for 4th specs would be as follows. After reaching max level, players would unlock a small quest chain to unlock their class' Paragon Specialization. Similar to character boosts, the chain would include a training tutorial for the new specs. Here are the spec's that I've thought of.

Warlock: (Blood) The Warlock manipulates life energies and blood magic to heal their allies. Healer

Mage: (Temporal) The mage uses their mastery of time to reverse wounds sustained by their friends. Healer

Priest: (Inquisitor) Now for priests I wanted to try to be a little unique and introduce a melee spec as the first melee clothie in WoW. Either they would have their own martial art like monks or utilize a one handed weapon with a held in off-hand weapon and be a mid range melee-caster spec. If these would prove to be too outlandish then a Holy based spell DPS would be their 4th spec.

Druid: Obviously Druids already have a 4th spec. However, instead of introducing a 5th spec I gave them a beefed out Heart of the Wild spell.

(Heart of the Wild): The druid activates one of their other specializations, unlocking all chosen talents and abilities as well as providing appropriate stats. Lasts 30 seconds, 30 min CD. Does not reset, like reincarnate, to prevent druid stacking.

Monk: (Flame Dancer) Utilizes a mixture of flame martial arts based on the Red Crane of Hope and a ranged weapon to deal damage. Ranged DPS (think of avatar the last airbender and their firebenders)

Rouge: (Dead eye) A ranged assassin using ranged weapons to dispatch their enemies from a distance. In addition, Outlaw is now a tanking spec. Ranged DPS

2nd option (Bard) A back alley traveling performer/con-artist that uses their various songs and melodies to heal... for a price of course. Uses ranged weapons with Int. Outlaw stays as DPS with this option.

Demon Hunter: Now before you call me crazy on my DH ideas just hear me out. In Warcraft Chronicles it is said that Fel is the result from Light and Shadow colliding into one another. So what if DH's found a way to reverse the process and create two new styles of fighting during their quest.

(Light Sworn) The Demon Hunter is imbued with pure light energy, dealing devastating and blinding-fast attacks. Melee DPS

(Void Bound) Using Two-Handed weapons, the Demon Hunter uses the power of the void to overwhelm their foes with hungering shadows. Melee DPS

Shaman: (Earthwarder) The Shaman uses their mastery over the earth to protect themselves and their allies from incoming onslaughts. Tank

Hunter: (Dark Ranger) Inspired by Lady Sylvanas, the hunter uses sinister shots to slowly bring agony to their foes. DOT spec. In addition, Survival is now a Tanking spec. Range DPS

Warrior: (Gladiator) The warrior uses a shield and a two-handed weapon for savagery over defense. Melee DPS

Death Knight: (Necromancer) The Death Knight uses their command over dead flesh to stitch-up their allies. Healer

Paladin: (Conviction) The Paladin's inner light burns hot, enabling them to unleash seething blasts of radiant light towards their foes. Ranged DPS

So that's my two cents on this dead horse. Feel free to give feed back or post your own 4th spec ideas.

Some classes need four specializations; some classes need less than four specializations, but giving every class four specializations is asinine.

[TriHard]

Warlock as blood? Are you smoking?

Mage makes sense, but warlock??????????????????????

[Yassy]

This game needs less specs if something. Lots of chars doing exactly the same.

I'm one of the people happy DH were only two specs. Many of the tri DPS spec classes lose so much class flavor for the sake of each spec being completely different. Why do only Assassination rogues get poison? A rogue is still a rogue. Legion basically removed all of the original classes from the game, and re-implemented 34 classes. So many specs feel barebone.

[Igneous42]

I don't think we'll get a 4th spec, as others have said it's hard to balance around with that many specs. But I have thought a lot about what each class would get if they did and it's fun to come up with ideas.

Death Knight: Lifebinder
Role: Healer
Yeah DK Healer is weird but that is the point. With the exception of maybe discipline, all the healers are pretty "nice" as far as Warcraft classes go, they seek to maintain balance and understanding with whatever power they draw on. Lifebinders wouldn't be like that, the core theme being "true masters of death have the ability to deny it." The lore comes from Bolvar. He was burned by Alexstraza's flames but also subject the Lich Kings dark powers. Over time he learns he can utilize some of the red dragon's healing abilities but twists them with the unholy magic of a Death Knight to his own ends. He would share these powers with the player Death Knights, for a price.

Weapons would be One Hand Melee Weapon and Dagger/Off hand. The runeblade is iconic to DKs, so the main hand would always have the more traditional DK Melee weapon while the off hand would be a magic focus, they have used sigils and such in the past so it wouldn't be too strange. Their resource would be runes and "runic mana" which would act like mana in that is starts full but would drain faster than normal mana, but then spending runes would refill it. Anything that affects mana regen would instead affect Runic Mana.

Demon Hunter: Wrath
Role: Ranged DPS
Pretty much influenced by Diablo's Demon Hunter. I know people love to tout that "Diablo =/= Warcraft" and they're not wrong, but they draw on each other for influence often. Even the current WoW Demon Hunter, Vengeance's demon form is clearly modeled somewhat after Diablo from the Diablo series. It would be tweaked to have more fel influence. The idea would be a high mobility Crossbow, Bow, and Gun user. They wouldn't have damage and mobility at the same time (as to not step on the toes of hunters) but rather have a lot of tools to get into position or out of danger and a lot of their abilities would do damage while moving. Think a forward dash that also shoots a Fel powered shot or a retreat that jumps back and does a cone of shots to enemies. Demon Form could be based on Shivarra, using the multiple arms to rapidly reload.

Second DH: Fel Warden
Role: Melee DPS
I'm a lot less invested in this one but it could work. After the events of Legion, many Wardens become disillusioned with the order. The DH's they had held captive for years ended up being critical in defeating the Legion with Illidian himself being one of the most important. Still committed to the cause of containing threats against Azeroth, they decided to join up with their former captives and aid their cause. They would be Melee DPS just like Havoc but have a bit more control abilities and maybe be a different gameplay style, DOT based or something. I don't really have much idea for this one honestly, but the Warden's is a unique look that would be cool to get playable but I don't think there is enough to Wardens to be their own class.

Druid: Sorry you already have 4. But hey in place of the work needed to develop a fourth spec you instead get new skins or something (Arrakoa Moonkin skin anyone!?).

Hunter: Wild Rider
Role: DPS
A mounted combatant in WoW. I feel like this one fits pretty naturally without much explanation. If a Hunter has that close a bond with their pets why can't some Hunters develop bonds with pets that would allow them to be ridden as mounts? There would be limitations to what pets could be used as mounts, and it would still be Hunter Pets being used, not actual mounts. But pretty much anything that has mount animations already would probably be game. Out of combat, you could dismount but in combat, you are always mounted. Wild Rider's would primarily be Ranged but their pets would attack anything in Melee, independent of the Hunter's target. This would be the coolest thing about them, they could be in Melee range with their pet attacking the boss while shooting at adds or other high priority targets or they could attack the boss while their pet attacks minor adds and targets in melee range. Assuming the AI could do this (which realistically it could not, but let's pretend) the pet could even be told to focus certain high priority targets, so, for example, you could keep the pet on the boss and it would follow it around, with the player on the back attacking whatever they choose. The pet wouldn't be smart enough to "get out of the bad" though so it wouldn't totally take control (and that would only be an optional behavior). They wouldn't have a ton of high mobility moves but being mounted they would move a bit faster than normal running speed at all times.

Mage: Battlemage
Melee DPS
A popular choice, not a tank or anything like that, just an alternate way for mages to damage other than just ranged DPS. They wouldn't specialize in any one school instead the "lore" would be that they focused on their physical abilities where most other mages focused on a school. The biggest issue would be keeping them unique from Enhancement Shamans but I don't think that would be too hard. Not a ton to say on this one. Walk up and hit things in the face, but with magic (and cool staff animations!).

Monk: Loresinger
Role: Ranged DPS and some Support
Loresingers are Lorewalkers who also took up the training of the Monks. This would essentially be WoWs answer to a bard and would also be the Chi-Ji influenced spec. Chi-Ji has some attention in Mistweaver spec, but this would make every Monk spec specifically associated with one of the Celestials. They would be kind of like Disc priests but primarily DPS where as Disc Priests are primarily Healers. They would have a bunch of songs they could perform and each song could give different buffs, for example, they could perform one that grants leech, one that is a Bloodlust/Heroism (working exactly the same as those so just another class with the option to cast it). Performing a song would carry a cooldown and only one song could be in effect, the cooldown would also apply to allies, so stacking Loresingers wasn't too overpowered.

Paladin: Inquisitor
Ranged DPS
Bow using Paladin. Heavy armored Bow/crossbow/ranged user, bring back inquisition but instead of slapping it on a spec that is already made have it designed with he core rotation in mind. Kind of like arms or something where the idea is to do big damage during inquisition and then have a more conservative phase when it's down. Pretty much think of all the things you normally get on a paladin but now you shoot people.

Priest: Confessor
Ranged DPS
This could also be called Inquisitor but we have Confessor Paletress who this would borrow from. Ranged DPS with holy light/fire. Big cooldown could be Summon Legend which would summon a ghostly version of past characters, rather than enemies like Paletress' fight it should be deceased old characters. Who was summoned would just be for flavor. Otherwise, a fairly typical ranged caster but using the light to strike enemies. Unlike Shadow, they would still have access to some of Priest's basic healing spells.

Rogue: Hitman
Ranged DPS
Similiar to OPs Dead Eye idea (and that is actually a better name) ranged weapon using Rogue. Do big damage by shooting from stealth, then maintain bleeds and poisons on the enemy. Lots of abilities that reset stealth or put you back into stealth.

Shaman: Earthwarden
Tank
Another one that I'm pretty much just stealing because it's a popular idea. Use elemental, specifically earth powers to protect yourself from harm. While Shamans can use shields I actually think Two-handed weapons would be cool, in Vanilla Shamans used two-handers sometimes and DK is really the only tank who uses a Two-Hander. Dual Wielding or Shields could be fine too, but Shamans used two-handers back in Vanilla some and it was a pretty cool look.

Warlock: Synthesist
Ranged DPS
The idea with this is to bring back the metamorphosis, pre-Legion Demonology but in a way more fitting to Warlocks. Instead of randomly becoming an Illidan looking half Demon you would fuse with your currently summoned demon. You would build synergy and at max, you then synthesize with your Demon. Depending on the demon you would get different bonuses. Unlike shadow priests you wouldn't try to prolong the transformation as long as possible, instead, it would last a set amount of time (maybe changing based on mastery or something) depending on the Demon. So the Demon choice would be important for both the abilities it granted and the time the transformation lasted. Succubus could be the "default" because no other spec really uses them, and they tend to get along with their masters better than most (once enslaved at least). They would have the longest synthesis making them a good go to and good for smooth damage. Imp would last the shortest but have some of the best burst potentials. Fel Hunters would be considered "average" length synthesis but give the most utility. Interrupts and a mana drain that restored mana to the lock.

Voidwalker is where it gets fun because I feel like it's synthesis is obvious, you get tanking abilities. There could be a talent "Grimoire of Dark Apotheosis that makes the synthesis last indefinitely, but at some cost. Essentially it wouldn't be good to use for DPS but would allow the Warlock to be a bit of a tank, just like old the Dark Apotheosis glyph did.

Warrior: Weapon Hurler
Ranged DPS
I'm not in love with the name, but a warrior who stands at ranged and throws weapons. Think Zul'Jink in HotS. Since they are a plated Warrior they would still have some melee potential but would primarily be a ranged class. I know a lot of people think Gladiator, but honestly, I think 3 melee DPS specs on warrior would be a lot. I'd rather they just bring back the Gladiator talent.

Kind of a wall of text there but oh well. Again I don't actually even see 4th specs being a thing, but I find it fun to think about.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You know it's been beaten til' death, yet you keep beating...?

How about they focus more on giving everyone content in the World of Warcraft, rather than creating further balancing nightmares on top of the ones they already get as they reinvent the damned class wheels every expansion?

4th specs = one of few things I'd be 100% secure betting money on that it won't happen.

[Kaldriss]

i like most of these ideas a lot!