Disciplines: An expansion alternative to new talents and spells (and professions)

[Jtree]

Daydreaming a bit, I was wondering about what would come with future expansions. New spells, more talent points, three or four more buttons we have to squeeze into our toolbars for situational purposes. Spells that will be redundant, nerf-bait, or a copy of another class' ability from the last expansion.


At the very least, Blizzard could do away with the same old X new talent points and three new spells. I'm imagining a system that could give players a proper feel of gaining new abilities and greater power, while also getting options for personal preference and guild needs. For lack of a better name, I'm calling them:

Disciplines

The heroes of Azeroth have conquered many challenges, and saved their world many times already. Yet greater dangers still lurk within and beyond the world, and the need to be stronger grows. To answer this concern, legendary figures are beginning to share the secrets of their arts. From the courageous Blademasters to the shadowy Necromancers, Azeroth's champions are ready to begin a new era of adventure and conquest.

Disciplines are open to any class, though each discipline will not aid each role equally. Each one provides passive and active abilities, allowing the player to choose the one that best fits their play style and the needs of their group.

Taking up a discipline will require the player to seek out the appropriate trainer, and complete a series of quests to enter into the chosen path. Changing disciplines will take a generous donation to your new teacher. Discipline information will be displayed on a new tab in the talent and glyphs window, and players can choose a different discipline for each of their dual specs.

BLADEMASTER
Masters of martial combat, their attacks are powerful and swift. They flow effortlessly through battle, slicing though foes even while effortlessly avoiding enemy attacks.

Cleave: Strike for X weapon damage, divided across up to three enemies in a frontal arc. 10 second CD. A strong attack useful in single-target and AoE situations.

Weapon Perfection: Increases weapon damage by 1% and Expertise by 2.

Wardance: Increases critical strike, dodge, and movement speed by 20%, for 12 seconds. 3 minute CD. Stacks with other movement enhancing abilities.

Center of the Fray: The Blademaster's critical strikes can increase the critical strike damage of nearby allies.



NECROMANCER
The Knights of the Ebon Blade have begun teaching their darker secrets to any willing to learn. Necromancers deliver a swift and painful death to their foes, and turn their remains into weapons.

Debilitate: Debilitates the target, lowering melee attack, spell casting, movement, and ranged attack speeds by 50%, and deals shadow damage every 2 seconds. Lasts 8 seconds. 2 minute CD. Attack debuffs will work on bosses.

Corpse Explosion: Detonates the remains of a freshly killed enemy, dealing X damage to all enemies within 5 yards. 15 second CD. Cannot be used out of combat. Based on the old Death Knight talent.

Death Touched: Places a buff on a friendly target. When struck by enemy attacks, Death Touched has a chance to steal X heath from the attacker. Cannot occur more often then every 10 seconds, and can only be cast on one target at a time.

Vengeful Shades: Summons a wave of lost spirits to attack your enemies for 15 seconds. These shades will explode when they expire. 3 minute CD.



TEMPLAR
While the Argent Crusade continues to deal with the remnants of the Scourge, the power of the Holy Light must be sent to combat other evils in the world. Templars aid and heal their allies, and bring swift justice to their enemies.

Avatar of Light: All your attacks have a chance to strike for holy damage, and all your heals have a chance to direct over-healing to a nearby ally.

Confess: Draws out the target's darkest memories, forcing them to confront it for up to 20 seconds. 3 minute CD. The memory cannot lose more than 20% of its health to a single attack. Inspired by Paletress in Trial of the Champion. Could have a logic to it where, if cast by a tank or healer, it forces the NPC target to fixate, but if cast by a DPS it will ignore the memory.

Blazing Soul: You are filled with a burst of Holy Light, damaging all enemies within 8 yards and disorienting them for 5 seconds. 1 minute CD.

Cauterize: Reduces the damage of bleed effects by 50% for 5 seconds. Players cannot be cauterized more than once every 30 seconds. 2 second cast.



TINKER
With the recent openings of multiple Titan cities, stunning new technology is waiting to be applied to life in Azeroth. And the most demanded application is on the battlefield.

Gravity Bomb: Explodes after 5 seconds, dealing X damage to the enemy and leaving a gravity well behind for 20 seconds that draws nearby enemies toward it. 3 minute CD.

P3Wx2 Cannon: Fires a cone of fire bursts in a cone in front of the player. 2 second cast, 4 second duration, 35 yard range. 1 minute CD.

Stasis: Captures the target in an energy field, freezing them in place for up to one minutes. 1 minute CD.

Power of the Keepers: Your attacks have a chance to call upon the powers of the Keepers of Ulduar. Derived from the towers in the hard mode Flame Leviathan fight, it can give a hard hit of nature damage, leave a pool of fire, freeze the target in place, or summon short duration lasher guardians.



DEMON HUNTER
Altruis the Sufferer, a demon hunter who left Illidan's service before his eventual defeat, has returned to Azeroth. Found battling the demons of the Blasted Lands, he is calling all who are willing to follow the painful, dangerous path to greater power.

Powerburn: Consumes mana, rage, energy, focus, or runic power, damaging the target in the process. Also removes enrage effects. 10 second CD.

Inner Demons: Draws up to four inner demons out of nearby enemies, which will fixate on their host and assault it for 15 seconds. 2 minute CD.

Fighting Fire with Fire: Your attacks have a chance to strike the enemy with Felflame, dealing additional damage.

Fel Empowerment: Draw upon the power of your captured demon, increasing damage and healing dealt for 20 seconds and reducing damage taken for 10. 3 minute CD. As it's a demon hunter discipline, not a class, I don't want it to go full blown Metamorphosis.

Bonus ability:
OMG SEARING TOTEM!: Automatically targets and charges any searing totem that has been dropped within the same zone, even if it's friendly.



SPIRIT CALLER:
The Earthen Ring continues to repair the damage the Cataclysm has wrought, and are enlisting the help of any willing to aid and bring balance to the elemental spirits of the world. These Spirit Callers are given a Spirit Totem, empowered by the Earthen ring to aid them in combat. Using one spirit totem ability will trigger a 30 second cooldown on all spirit totems.

Totem of Cleansing: The player uses his spirit totem to cleanse one poison and one disease from nearby allies every 5 seconds for 15 seconds. 30 second cooldown.

Totem of the Revenants: Summons a revenant to aid the player for 10 seconds. 3 minute cooldown. Summons a revenant based on the player's spec/role: Earth for tanking, water for healing, air for melee dps, fire for ranged dps.

Totem of the Ancestors: The totem's creator blessed it with the legacy of his people, giving it a chance every five seconds to increase nearby allies' strength, agility, or intellect by a small amount for 15 seconds. This effect can stack up to three times. The totem lasts 5 minutes. The generic totem, and the one a Shaman would general drop along side his other four.

Spirit Touched: Increases the player's haste by 3% and movement speed by 10%. Does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.




One more that I worked on but haven't really figured out:

LOREMASTER
An adventurer, an artist, and a historian. But the Loremaster is no simple bard. The power in his words inspires his allies and intimidates his enemies.

Inspiring Presence: Increases party and raid member's chance to hit by 1%. The old Draenei racial ability.
Motivate: Increases the friendly target's damage by 10% for 6 seconds. 30 second CD.
Justice Seeker: Your attacks have a chance to place the Justice is Come debuff on your target, increasing damage against the target for 10 seconds. You know what evil this enemy has committed.
Might and Glory: Increases melee, ranged, and casting speed by 30% for 40 seconds. 5 minute CD. No Shaman, no mage, no BM hunter? No problem. Alternate name: Big Damn Heroes.


Possible additional disciplines could include the Ranger, Archmage/Warmage, Archdruid, Spellbreaker, Runemaster, Monk, and more.



My general idea is that there is a short CD ability, a long CD, a self buff/benefit, and a raid buff, though I didn't hold entirely to that theme. Still, I think the foundation works. Specific abilities could be balanced against each other across the classes, and numbers could be tweaked on a per-class basis. For example, if a Fury Blademaster's cleave is too much stronger than other classes, tweak his numbers down.

Of course, that's gonna make patch notes massive, having to describe Discipline/Ability/Class info. It'll drive the theorycrafters crazy too.


Thoughts? Suggestions? What Disciplines would you like to see?

[MaccaBird]

so like Path of the Titans? :O But i liked it

[Nenavn]

I don't like it much. I can't see any of those classes in WoW. Their place was in Warcraft III, and I don't think they'd work at all unless there was some co mpelling story behind them.
And we don't need more classes with Totems, Necromancy and Bladestorm. We already got classes in that department.

[blackangel209]

I don't like it much. I can't see any of those classes in WoW. Their place was in Warcraft III, and I don't think they'd work at all unless there was some co mpelling story behind them.
And we don't need more classes with Totems, Necromancy and Bladestorm. We already got classes in that department.

It's a good thing that this clearly wasn't a suggestion about adding new classes then, isn't it?

Edit: It's a cool idea, but it would probably end up making some classes overpowered because of the benefit to each class not being equal. Unless there was one made with each class in mind, but that defeats the purpose anyway. Personally, I'd like to see a revival of Path of the Titans and for Blizzard to get off their asses and actually try to balance something for once.

Edit: Thought about it some more, and I could see it working, but only if they restricted parts of each discipline from certain classes. Ooo, or make it so that each discipline affects each class entirely differently and make them only add utility and not straight damage/efficiency buffs.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Blizz could have done so much with PotT, but dropped it. Maybe now they'll bring some of it back....

I agree, there needs to be an end to the 3 new skills, 5-10 new talent points nonsense.

[Nenavn]

I didn't read much into the beginning. What I did see was 'BLADEMASTER''NECROMANCER' which is just suggested way too much as full on classes.
But, after giving it another read, I'm still not a huge fan of the idea. How would these fit in anyways? It seems like these options are avaliable to any classes. Death Knight dropping totems, Warrior casting (as you put it) "Big Damn Heroes."

[blackangel209]

I didn't read much into the beginning. What I did see was 'BLADEMASTER''NECROMANCER' which is just suggested way too much as full on classes.
But, after giving it another read, I'm still not a huge fan of the idea. How would these fit in anyways? It seems like these options are avaliable to any classes. Death Knight dropping totems, Warrior casting (as you put it) "Big Damn Heroes."

It's not like you can't restrict certain disciplines from specific classes/specs.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

As I think, this could be great for WoW.

Now blizz will never need to hear whiners for new professions, talents, spells, or CLASSES again. They can focus on races, and I like races. Maybe add a new one of these every expansion, too?

[Millennía]

Blizz could have done so much with PotT, but dropped it. Maybe now they'll bring some of it back....

We can hope but best we can hope for im thinking is a system that does something similar but in a different way because I think they said PotT was technically too difficult

[blackangel209]

As I think, this could be great for WoW.

Now blizz will never need to hear whiners for new professions, talents, spells, or CLASSES again. They can focus on races, and I like races. Maybe add a new one of these every expansion, too?

Yeah, I think we can be done with adding full classes and they should only add spells that actually do something different/new and aren't just adding them so that a class can have new spells. Hell, they still need to fix the spells we already have.

[Gradius125]

So would you be able to just change disciplines on a whim? if so thats the exact same as having a 'spec' so basically that would be adding universal mini-specs open to every class...

If not people will complain about choosing the wrong one and/or cause tons of the same toons with different disciplines on the same account which is a waste of time.

This concept is great for games like Dragon Age but for WoW i think it would go against the more simplified game play wow has.

[Sockgoblin]

I'm reading this and it reminds me heavily of Anarchy Online's expansion levels that leveled up elsewhere.. id go in it more but I hate typing on a phone. Maybe someone else'll expand on it

[Jtree]

so like Path of the Titans? :O But i liked it

I initially thought of the mechanics as PotT, but I like the idea of using Azeroth's own lore and frequently requested classes.

But, after giving it another read, I'm still not a huge fan of the idea. How would these fit in anyways? It seems like these options are avaliable to any classes. Death Knight dropping totems, Warrior casting (as you put it) "Big Damn Heroes."

That's exactly the idea. Call them "sub-specs" if you like, but any player of any class can choose whichever one they like. Even if the combo is a bad idea. (Holy Priest Blademasters? Have fun getting kicked from every LFG.)

So would you be able to just change disciplines on a whim? if so thats the exact same as having a 'spec' so basically that would be adding universal mini-specs open to every class...

If not people will complain about choosing the wrong one and/or cause tons of the same toons with different disciplines on the same account which is a waste of time.

Changed for a fee, and of course you've gotta do the quests to open up the discipline initially. I imagine them being set in phased areas of Azeroth, with level appropriate enemies. So if you wanted to go Templar, you'd go to Hearthglen and talk to Tirion Fordring. If you were already a Necromancer, you might hear some stern talk about the "dangers of following such dark paths".

[yolmez86]

Seems too good to be in WoW, honestly. WoW is the sh*ttiest rpg there is when it comes to such integration of adventuring and customization.

[Rusken]

I'm a little confused to be honest, would these be in place of current talents or what? I get the idea that, you'd hit level cap, choose one of these then you would lose all your old spells and gain the 4 attached to your Discipline? If that's the case then no. Classes are simple enough as they are, there's no need to make them any more so. I like having a rotation/priority list to work through and master than hitting "cleave" overandoverandoverandoverandover to kill something.

[Darsithis]

Dont necro old threads