Don't the Lightforged Draenei sort of make regular Draenei redundant?

[Claymore]

In terms of Allied Races and their lore, the Alliance definitely got the shaft with the first two. Lore-wise, why would any LF Draenei be any class besides Paladin and Holy Priest? Their whole shtick is that they are essentially fanatically devoted to the Light, so why would any of them be a lowly Warrior or Hunter, drudging through the world not using any Light given powers, when they could be a Pally instead? Or why wield arcane magic as a Mage when they could be slinging Holy magic as a Priest? If being connected to the Light is literally your entire cultural identity, why would you be any non-Light based class?

As for the Void Elves, instead of their lore seeming to be an ass-pull, Void Elves should have come from any one of the current High Elf factions, like the Quel'Lithien Lodge. In Cata they all devolved into a wretched state, so a perfect introductory story could have been Alleria returning home, finding them, and using the Void to "save" them. Bam! You've got your Allied Race, a credible backstory, and there would officially be playable High Elves in the Alliance. If Blizz really wanted to they could have had some random NPC say that all of the High Elves had turned wretched due to being cut off from the Sunwell. That would have solved the High Elf problem altogether. And they suffer from the same class issues that LFD's do- if the point of your very existence is that you were studying the Void to the extent that now your very being is suffused with it, why would you be a mangy Hunter/Warrior/etc that doesn't utilize your new Void powers?

I know the answer to these questions is "gameplay > lore", but still.

Good points. Also, I really dig that concept for Void Elves, particularly if they just said "Yeah, those High Elves stuck in Outland for all that time, Alleria came back to empower them". Instead, the current set up just seems... so, so flimsy. I honestly think "Void Elves" were a bad idea to begin with; if they were intent on Nightborne going to the Horde, they should have just had Alleria round up all the High Elves that remained with the Alliance (again, mostly those in Outland, and the few Silver Covenant), and focus their cultural identity more as being woodland rangers, perhaps incorporating nature-themed tattoos and whatnot.

In any case, at least the Void Elves feel "different" from Blood Elves. Even though I sort of feel like Blood Elves have hand their teeth pulled, since they were awesome badasses The Frozen Throne.

Back to the Lightforged, though...

It just feels like, conceptually speaking, why would you be a "Draenei Paladin" when you can effectively be a "SUPER Draenei Paladin"? I don't care for the skin/hair colors or golden eyes as much, but they still cognitively feel like "better" than regular Draenei.

[Cockus Maximus]

I'm pretty sure he wold be kicked out of the Order and be hunted for that, now that the Blood Knight Order is a religious organisation.

Funny you mention it because in my RP he's undercover since he knows that's exactly what will happen should his true beliefs be discovered. He still wears the Blood Knight tabard along with the no longer acquirable Initiate's Shirt because he believes himself to be the "true" Blood Knight and because it helps him blend in with the "lightslaves" who lost their individuality to the Light after Liadrin aligned the Order with the Naaru.

[Triptych]

I was disappointed with all four of the original Allied Races.

Partly because of the aesthetics (which is obviously just a personal preference thing), but more importantly, I didn't like how the faction allegiance played out in gameplay terms. Having spent the duration of the Legion expansion as the savior and unflinching defender of the Nightborne, and the Highmountain Tribes, it feels really bad to have those groups turn coat and become "the enemy". Factions that all players have spent hundreds of hours courting and becoming Exalted with, should never have been used in this way.

It feels different with the new ones, since they've been linked to one side or the other since their inception. Well, I suppose you could argue the case for the Zandalari faction that was linked to ZG in vanilla, or maybe the Thorium Brotherhood too, but that would be pushing it.

[Schizoide]

Broken would have been a way better choice. I think they probably even contemplated it but got too lazy to make the females work. Broken could of explored a darker theme too. And added Rogues/Warlocks which old school Draenei cannot be

I completely agree that Broken would have been an excellent choice, but they would have required a lot more work on animations. All the 7.x allied races use existing skeletons and animations.

Fundamentally, allied races are about getting a lot of benefit from very little work. That's why they don't have 1-20 zones.

[Deleted]

off topic but I just unlocked the lightforged draenei with my alliance alt. got the quest for void elves too when I reached 120, but I'm only "Friendly" with the argus reps. did I missed the news about the rep requirement gone??

[Harbour]

Its opposite for me. The only good thing LF has are heritage armor and beards/horns.
Im not a huge RP guy, but for me draenei are those with whom i went through some serious shit in WC3, TBC, WOD, Legion, and WC Chronicles, and LF are some lame brainwashed zealots with no real backstory.
Thats why Maraad, Nobundo, Akama, Velen are >>>> any LF draenei. They witnessed shit, fought it, survived, suffered while LF suck the big dick sonewhere out there.

[Claymore]

I was disappointed with all four of the original Allied Races.

Partly because of the aesthetics (which is obviously just a personal preference thing), but more importantly, I didn't like how the faction allegiance played out in gameplay terms. Having spent the duration of the Legion expansion as the savior and unflinching defender of the Nightborne, and the Highmountain Tribes, it feels really bad to have those groups turn coat and become "the enemy". Factions that all players have spent hundreds of hours courting and becoming Exalted with, should never have been used in this way.

It feels different with the new ones, since they've been linked to one side or the other since their inception. Well, I suppose you could argue the case for the Zandalari faction that was linked to ZG in vanilla, or maybe the Thorium Brotherhood too, but that would be pushing it.

I think that's actually a really solid point. Personally, I'm glad the Nightborne went horde, simply because I feel like the Night Elves have struggled with their identity enough already (I honestly wish Cataclysm had never added NE Mages, or Orc Mages and Tauren Paladins for that matter). But I also can see where a lot of people felt it was a bait-and-switch. As far as the Highmountain Tauren, they do seem awfully similar to *regular* Tauren (in both appearance and culture), so I can see the issue there, as well.

I almost wish WoW could introduce a "Neutral" faction. I mean, I'd personally dig just being able to play together cross-faction (even if the Horde and Alliance weren't technically unified, players could be outliers or mercenaries/adventurers). But having Tauren, Goblins, Pandaren, and Nightborne as neutral, "can play friendly with either faction" faction, I think would make a lot of sense.

[Deleted]

Funny you mention it because in my RP he's undercover since he knows that's exactly what will happen should his true beliefs be discovered. He still wears the Blood Knight tabard along with the no longer acquirable Initiate's Shirt because he believes himself to be the "true" Blood Knight and because it helps him blend in with the "lightslaves" who lost their individuality to the Light after Liadrin aligned the Order with the Naaru.

After the Naaru kind of sacrificed itself after intense torture to recover the sunwell so that the blood elves stop to degenerate into wretched?

[korijenkins]

I completely agree that Broken would have been an excellent choice, but they would have required a lot more work on animations. All the 7.x allied races use existing skeletons and animations.

Fundamentally, allied races are about getting a lot of benefit from very little work. That's why they don't have 1-20 zones.

Pretty sure Broken just use the Tauren animations and skeleton.

[Trollokdamus]

Lightforged should have been an option like green fire for warlocks. And the actual allied race should have been broken. They wouldn't have required more work to implement than say nightborne since they are based on the tauren skeleton.

[Deleted]

Yes. Except for the classes lightforged can't be.

But, this same logic can be applied to most allied races. The only thing that is different with LF draenei is that we could already make a white looking draenei, making the tatoos the only thing that is really different. Aka... boring.

[Andromedes]

Lightforged should have been an option like green fire for warlocks.

Or option like golden eyes for blood elves or straight back for orcs.. Why wouldnt my draenei paladin, champion of the alliance, undergo the lightforging ritual same like retarded Tpartos? As you said, they should make the broken as an allied race, which would tie to argussian reach much better(also they could be warlocks and rogues). But that would be too much work.

[SRTtoZ]

It's not just the Draenei though. All of the races so far are pretty much added customization options except for the Nightborne which are pretty much Nevles anyway. Don't get me wrong I love a lot of the newer 'races' but they are pretty much just repaints.

[tangers58]

I feel the whole allied race thing is a joke in general, just make factions be whatever race you want to play on whatever faction you want to play on. and then have PVP be based on faction not races.

That is the single most retarded idea in the history of ideas.

[NuLogic]

Lightforged seems more like a class than a race

[sam86]

Could the same not be said of Void Elves compared to Blood elves?

no because one is alliance the other is horde, which what i was assuming blizz will do with the reskined 'allied' races, however blizz only did that to emo elves, then everyone else just get hd version of their already existing race

[Melsiren]

After the Naaru kind of sacrificed itself after intense torture to recover the sunwell so that the blood elves stop to degenerate into wretched?

Naw, his character being edgy and unique is more important than simple logic.

People forget that manataping and Light "bending" was done out of necessity. You see this shit on Wrymrest Accord and Moongaurd US all the time. They call them selves "traditionalists" and they do not understand that the Bloodknight forcing the Light image was a footnote on Elven history. Bloodknights have been sanctified knights of the sunwell for much longer than they were Light "benders".

[Enkrypt]

I kinda feel like it's Hamburger vs. Cheeseburger.

Sure some people like Hamburgers, but Cheeseburgers are much better.

[Yarathir]

Lightforged are also far more zealous and are so used to war (25k+ years of it) that it's the norm for them now.
They are pretty much as severe as I wanted draenei to be.

[Deleted]

Naw, his character being edgy and unique is more important than simple logic.

People forget that manataping and Light "bending" was done out of necessity. You see this shit on Wrymrest Accord and Moongaurd US all the time. They call them selves "traditionalists" and they do not understand that the Bloodknight forcing the Light image was a footnote on Elven history. Bloodknights have been sanctified knights of the sunwell for much longer than they were Light "benders".

I mean, on my Server I guess you could see this folk back in wotlk a lot, where it was understandable because 2.4 wasn't too long ago and people somehow had to adjust to their character concept being suddenly changed, but we are in BfA now and the Blood Knights served the humans in the Silver Hand by their own will.