A new role for WoW?

[Dantastic]

So. Blizz is going to make another Hero Class. It's going to happen. So, whilke they're at it, why not make a new role to go along with it?
I mean a debuffing role. Like, making the enemy do less damage, and take more. And Buffs if you deal damage while the debuffs are on. Stuff like that.

Plus, in all past expansions except cataclysm, they've added new talents. Rather than putting 5 more points after the last ones, why not put them ont he sides? Meaning, we could have certain single specs perform their old role, and a new one. At the same time, depending on what you choose in the spec. (Kinda like Feral Tank/DPS)
Or, screw it, give us all a new spec option.

Ranged DPS: Pallies! Warriors. (Give them some ranged weapons. This would give a reason for the gnomes with guns.)
Melee DPS: Hunters. Warlocks. (Turning into demons. Yes please.)
Tank: Shammies again! And... Mages. (Magical shields or soemthing. I don't wanna see another ranged DPS choice.)
Debuffer: Druids. (Smellf fungi. They have to have EVERYTHING! ) Priests (shadow). Death Knights. (disease.) Rogues. (poisons)


Discuss.

[erunn123]

Making Hunters and warlock, Melee dps? uh, your off your meds. Roles are pretty solid right now, dont think were going to see a mix up of those.

[Aspyre]

Lets not and say we did.

[Squirreludecker]

seems like your wanting to get into Alternate Advancement territory, which the talent trees already handle well. within the next 2 X-Packs we'll see more innovation, but most likely not stuff directly copied from EQ1.

[Blazenwing]

You're thinking, I like that, but unfortunately, with this idea, you're pigeonholing people; if only one class (the hero class) is this new fourth role, then you always need to bring one and then it's going against "bring the player, not the class"... not to mention we can't even get people to properly play the three roles we have now, lol, not even adding a fourth to the mix.

[music616]

i like the idea but i think it would take a lot of work to implement. plus u would have a bunch of elitist whiners complaining "why is my clothie tanking/meleeing?" i think it would be more trouble that its worth.

[Deleted]

A debuffing role seems like the opposite of what it should be.
I would imagine a Support Role, who spends their time augmenting allies. Perhaps a Bard Class. With boosting songs.

half of that is a joke. but which half.

[Jakebert]

Perhaps a Bard Class. With boosting songs.

This was actually mentioned as a possibility for priests (we already have two "hymns") but it never happened. Maybe it's in the works!

[Stevegasm]

I'm not sure if you're serious. This is exactly the system Blizzard has scrapped in Wrath and then took it a step further in Cataclysm. Maybe you never played classic or TBC, but every class had different debuffs (and buffs for that matter) which were game breaking and shit all over raid flexibility. Raids had to be cancelled if a certain number of a particular class didn't show.

[Tigerlord]

It seems sorta pointless to me to give melee a ranged spec or ranged a melee spec. That seems to defeat the purpose of having a ranged or melee class. The other ideas are neat but if I roll a warrior it would be because I want to melee, not because I want to shoot things.

[casby]

There are people that have been playing since vanilla that still don't know how to play their class. Adding more roles just adds to the ADD fever of leveling a thousand and nine toons without knowing how to properly play one.

I'm sure the game will evolve as xpacs and patches come out that will force people into learning to play different roles without adding brand new ones. The fact that each class has unique abilities makes it more interesting imo.

[Rellekk]

Terrible Terrible Ideas.

[Bamboozles]

There was a buffing role. It was called a Paladin in Vanilla WoW, and it blew.

The roles we have now are fine.

Also, Mage tanks? lol?

[KeyserSoze]

World of Warcraft is built on the three role system. Introducing a fourth role, no matter how fun and fresh it might seem, would not work without revamping all the content to give that fourth role a purpose.

The closest thing you could do is strip every class of nearly all their buffing and debuffing abilities and give them to the new class. However, there are several problems with going that direction: it risks radical homogenization of the stripped classes, it would make the new class absolutely necessary for groups/raids, and it would likely be boring as hell after the novelty wore off.

As has been stated so far in this thread, Blizzard is purposefully moving WoW away from this kind of design in nearly all aspects.

[Killerjam]

Or they could add one more class that uses bows/guns as their main source for dmg (like hunters). Even another plate spell-caster. What I'm trying to say is, fix what we already have before you go on to something else.

[Dantastic]

And about the mage tank, it's the one thing we're missing. Clothie dps and healing, mail tank dps and heals, plate tank dps and heals, leather tank dps and heals. (DURID.)