Engineer or some sort of caster tanking class like a battle Mage.
Am not sure if these are a scrapped spells for monks, but while checking the database i found these interesting spells:
"Fire"
Flaming Dragon Punch
Breath of the Dragon
Exploding Palm
Fire Kick
Flame Fist
Fire Stance
Pheonix Flame
Rush of Flame
"Water"
Water Kick
Broken Foot
Water Stance
Tsunami Kick
Wave Kick
"Air"
Eagle's Screech
Howling Cyclone Kick
Wind Punch
Wind Stance
"Earth"
Earth Punch
Decapitating Punch
Shatter the Earth
Earth Stance
Earthen Ward
Hawk Strike
"Others"
Punch
Crushing Strike
Double Strike
Dragon
Sweeping Kick
Kick
idk Bard could be fun if it was a self buff class that makes it better at what is does like it can self buff itself to heal better dps better all i know is i wanna rock while fighting.
Spellbreaker please
Don't worry, lass.....I'll be able to defeat him with my nifty BardMaster 5000 (it's a stripped-down version of the Bardmaster 9000 of course, but upgradeable)
Pulls out guitar...starts strumming.
Aye...he'll soon be dozing off ta this sweet lullaby; ah one, ah two...
Yes...but other than healing, the need to "play/channel music through an instrument limits (to a degree) what a bard can do in this fashion. More, players of this game have certain expectations from a class...and bards are typically support just as mages are typically DPS. Especially since you are proposing the use of staves as opposed to lutes for spell based DPS....not very bardic at all.If you read more than just the class name from my post, you'd see it uses the flavor of the class (a wandering musician) without being a "pure support" class. As a healer or spell/mobile DPS, it can very well fit into WoW.
I could see it working, but I don't think it'd work well enough to justify they effort. You could , I suppose, have a sonic based mage equivalent akin to the klaxxi where the user sings instead of channeling an instrument...but its the instrument and playing of that, to me, defines a bard. So, if you wnat that aspect, you are looking at creating an instrument (for a music sub -game?) which Blizzard have done in the past but also creating the opportunities and abilities which require that instrument to be used. That suggests channelled abilities, mainly AoE.
In essence, the Bards stereotypical support role.
Why not just give humans shamans? They do exist in game. Either way, Battlemages have several pathways open within the game already. They woudl just follow the "Same class with a different name" meme used by certain Tauren druids - aka Sunwalkers.Also, Battlemage is much closer to enhancement shaman than paladin. In fact, I once had a theory that human shamans could be explained as a sort of "battlemage" type of character.
But if you want a spellwielding, plate wearing melee class.....Paladin are a good match (swap names, switch Holy damage for Arcane) as are DKs (aside from the whole undead thing). Both wield spells, both wear plate, both melee.
EJL
If they introduced a new class in the next expansion, do you think it would 'have' to have all 3 roles covered, with DPS, healing and tanking? Think of the last two classes added, with the Deathknight and Monk. Both have had a tanking spec, and the monk has all 3. With monks having all three roles covered, this has not lead to any substantial queues for dungeons when leveling. Could you imagine if the next 'new' class is released without a tank spec? The massive influx of re-rollers, and massive queues for dungeons while leveling due to a shortage of that particular role.
I have long thought the next class would be a mail wearer, and looking at what archetypes were in Warcraft 3, there is definitely scope for a 'Tinker', Shadow Hunter (voodoo damage and healing class) and Demon Hunter (though they are traditionally night elves only).
I'd also like to see Ogre as the next playable Horde race. I'd race change to an Ogre Warlock in a heartbeat.
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