Originally Posted by
MilitantCasual
Looking at specs and roles currently in the game could give us a clue as to what would fit for a new class in World of Warcraft. Under the assumption that any new class would have to feel different from any current class, while still filling one of the three basic roles of WoW let's do a bit of analysis.
I'll break the current classes down into several roles:
Tank
Healer
Ranged DPS
Melee DPS
Ranged DPS (with a pet)
Melee DPS (with a pet)
If we look at the various specs we find that the role with the lowest representation is Melee DPS (with pet) Unholy Death Knights are the only specialization to use a pet in this fashion. This is followed by Tank, with 4 viable specs in Cataclysm. The largest role is that of Melee DPS, followed closely by Ranged DPS (with pet).
Additionally let's look at each type of resource system. There are 16 specializations that use mana as a resource system, while Focus and Energy represent the least used systems. If we delve a tad deeper and consider the resource systems as 'do the build up and spend, or are they top off and spend?' For example, Energy starts at 100 and is spent to perform actions. Mana starts at a large number and is spent, with a considerably slower refill rate than energy. We could say that these resource systems 'build down'. Rage and Runic Power build up. They start and zero and build based on actions, and are then spent. They also decay back to zero. Only Rage and Runic Power build up. This leads me to believe than any new resource system will also 'build up' like Rage or Runic Power.
So what sort of class could fill in gaps in the current landscape of specializations? It would need to be able to tank. This seems to be the primary role that could use an additional specialization. It would also need to be able to do ranged DPS without a pet. This is the other role category that is under represented in the current specializations. If it was also able to heal we would go a long way to filling in the balance of specs.
It sounds like another Paladin/Druid sort of class, perhaps closer to Druid.
What about types of damage? What could we glean from that? If we break damage types into Arcane, Nature, Fire, Frost, Holy, Shadow and Physical, the underrepresented types are arcane, nature, fire, frost, holy. Generally a class doesn't have more than 2 types of major damage available to it (mage being the outlier).
So now we're looking at a hybrid class that uses two forms of damage, from arcane, nature, fire, frost, holy. It would build up a resource and spend it like Rage or Runic Power.
Lastly, let's look a the different armor types used by the specs/classes. Plate and Cloth both are used by 3 classes, while Leather and Mail are used by 2 classes. This would seem to push us towards a class that uses mail or leather. However, the Druid already tanks, heals and DPSes in leather. It would seem that mail is the underrepresented armor type across the broadest range of specializations.
A Hybrid class that can Tank/Heal/Ranged DPS (w/o Pet) in Mail armor, with a resource system that builds from zero to be used, with damage done by two of arcane, holy, nature, fire or frost. I don't have any good ideas on what such a class would be, but if the WoW developers are wanting to maintain a sort of balance between the current specializations, while targeting under-represented roles this seems the most likely.