Is it time to remove race restrictions on Classes?

[Sharby]

WoW races have always had very distinct identities. It's what makes them interesting in the first place. Night Elves are a very proud race of ancient, superhuman beings that have only survived because they shut themselves off from other races and sticked to their culture that is heavily based on druidism and their worship of Elune. They're also traditionally very wary when it comes to other types of magic. The time they've been allied with humans pales in comparison to the time in which they've lived in complete isolation. Why would these beings (that are usually ten to one hundred times older than any human) suddenly start converting to the Church of the Holy Light?
I mean, sure. We can let any race believe in anything they want. Get some Mechgnome shamans and Orc Paladins while we're at it.

The WoW universe is not static though, the Nelves have done many things and have had many things done to them since their debut, they literally were almost all wiped out at the start of BFA, traumatic events like that would def leave even the most devout questioning themselves. Furthermore, if they put their lives on the line for the allies multiple times what makes you think it would be out of the question to do something far less costly (explore the religion of your allies)? The night elves very clearly care deeply about humans and the rest of the alliance and the other races just as much, its literally a core tenant of the faction.

I find it far more boring to act as if the WoW races shouldn't ever change because of how they were traditionally released.

Obviously there should be at least some justification for it rather than just a silent enabling but it wouldn't be very awkward at all for some Night Elves to mix the magics of both Elune and the Holy Light, allowing Nelf Paladins.

In all honesty? I think Blizzard should *REMOVE* certain options (and simply offer free race-changes to those affected). Race/Class restrictions are incredibly important, and they've essentially relaxed them to the point they're undermining themselves.

See, here's the thing; when you see only certain Races can be certain Classes (and vice-versa), it communicates a ton of information about both of those things.

"Night Elves can be Druids, but not Mages. That must mean they have a connection to nature, but not magic. Tauren can be Druids and Shamans, but Orcs can only be Shamans? That must mean Shamans are a bit more primal in using elemental forces, but not quite as in-tune with nature as Tauren or Night Elves are."

And quite brilliantly, Blood Elves originally couldn't be Warriors. That also communicated information; that Warriors are clearly a more rugged class, not just "anyone who picks up a weapon". It simultaneously communicated that Blood Elves were less "rugged" than other races, including Gnomes!

When they released Death Knights, Blizzard made a massive mistake by allowing everyone to be a DK. This was due, quite literally, because some of the devs thought "it would be funny" to have Gnome DK's running around. In doing so, they basically took a shit on their own lore. With Demon Hunters (and indeed, Legion as a whole), Blizzard returned a bit more to form, perhaps even slightly overkill, by restricting them to only two races, one per faction. In being *SO* restrictive, I would say it didn't *really* communicate a lot of information, and I would totally support them expanding the selection of Demon Hunters a bit. I'm not sure who I would extend it to, though. Draenei might make some sense for the Alliance (particularly if they had Broken or Man'ari options), and maybe Fel Orcs (or Mag'har) for the Horde?

In any case, those restrictions are incredibly important for world-building, and by loosening and even outright removing many of those restrictions, I think it has had the adverse effect of making the game worse.

I mean, if Blizzard truly doesn't give a shit about their lore (and it doesn't seem that they do), then by all means, let everyone be everything. But I genuinely feel that -- with the sole exception of the Demon Hunter -- the game would be better off having *fewer* Class-Race combinations, not more. It would also make "Allied Races" a lot more exciting, by having those as the "exceptions" that allow for more unusual options (again, such as introducing Broken or Man'ari Eredar, who might have access to Warlocks or Rogues, but no Paladins or Priests).

I agree that there would be something lost in the action of this removal, but I feel like it could be offset by adding in racial flavor to the classes.




This conversation would have been way different prior to the introduction of allied races, but with their inclusion as well as new lore written to fit the new Paladins/Shamans/Druids it has become clear that Blizzard is willing to blur the lines to accommodate new options.


If new lore was sufficiently created to backup and introduce all of these new options, can on really say the world-building would suffer as a whole? I'm of the opinion that it would make the races a lot more dynamic if we saw them breaking their racial stereotypes more often, because some races already do this a lot (trolls.)

There is merit in restricting certain practices to certain races, and I agree it does add interesting elements, but I feel this type of gameplay doesn't really translate well into an MMO, because we're creating player avatars that can by and large be completely different than what their race originally represents, Tauren in BFA for example, can do some really horrible things that the race would never be depicted as doing.

[Cosmic Janitor]

In the past I would have said no, since physical limitations. But since classes like rogue have been pretty much watered down to pirates and the grimtotem already had kinda stealthy brawlers, yea what ever. DH is still a bit of an exception due to the origin, but all it takes is a half-assed scenario like AR DKs get. From a fundamental RPG PoV I'm in favor of our characters being special and there is almost no hard limitation when it comes to learning.

My character is already touring the world and sticking his nose in every disaster that occurs. Be it the school of magic being on fire, be it the forge of the titans having frozen over or the gods of the forest having suddenly started going into heat. Why would an adventurous spirit like the one of my character not also be able to learn magic despite the raice not being big into it, why shouldn't I be able to befriend elemental spirits and why shouldn't I fornicate with a tree like the the other elf and cow hippies? Blizzard can keep the focus on certain races with the NPCs, but for the player character I simply no longer care, let me be what I want to be.

[shade3891]

I want a mechagnome paladin

[Nerovar]

The WoW universe is not static though, the Nelves have done many things and have had many things done to them since their debut, they literally were almost all wiped out at the start of BFA, traumatic events like that would def leave even the most devout questioning themselves. Furthermore, if they put their lives on the line for the allies multiple times what makes you think it would be out of the question to do something far less costly (explore the religion of your allies)? The night elves very clearly care deeply about humans and the rest of the alliance and the other races just as much, its literally a core tenant of the faction.

I find it far more boring to act as if the WoW races shouldn't ever change because of how they were traditionally released.

Obviously there should be at least some justification for it rather than just a silent enabling but it wouldn't be very awkward at all for some Night Elves to mix the magics of both Elune and the Holy Light, allowing Nelf Paladins.

Lmao. If anything, the burning of Teldrassil drove them away from the humans because Anduin refused to help them get their revenge.

I want a mechagnome paladin

Mechagnome druid aka autobots assemble. Don't let your dreams be memes.

[ercarp]

While there are still a fair share of reasonable race-class combinations that they could unlock, there's about three times as many combinations that make zero sense, no matter how you try to twist and turn it to make it seem feasible.

Just to put things into perspective, there are currently 61 possible race-class combinations that they haven't unlocked—and that's not even counting Demon Hunters.

The following combinations make sense to me. I'm a strong advocate for all of these.

• Pandaren Druid
• Kul Tiran Human Paladin
• Night Elf Paladin
• Undead Paladin
• Orc Priest
• Draenei Rogue
• Draenei Warlock
• Mag'har Warlock
• Zandalari Warlock
• Worgen Monk
• Goblin Monk

But these ones? Not so much.

• Dwarf Druid
• Dark Iron Druid
• Lightforged Druid
• Goblin Druid
• Orc Druid
• Undead Druid
• Mag'har Druid
• Pandaren Paladin
• Orc Paladin
• Tauren Rogue
• Night Elf Shaman
• Nightborne Shaman
• Blood Elf Shaman
• Undead Shaman
• Void Elf Shaman

I obviously didn't list every possible nonsensical combination as otherwise this post would get stupidly long. But the point is, there are more lore-breaking race-class combinations than actual viable ones. Therefore, no, it's not time to remove all of the restrictions.

[Sharby]

While there are still a fair share of reasonable race-class combinations that they could unlock, there's about three times as many combinations that make zero sense, no matter how you try to twist and turn it to make it seem feasible.

Just to put things into perspective, there are currently 61 possible race-class combinations that they haven't unlocked—and that's not even counting Demon Hunters.

The following combinations make sense to me. I'm a strong advocate for all of these.

• Pandaren Druid
• Kul Tiran Human Paladin
• Night Elf Paladin
• Undead Paladin
• Orc Priest
• Draenei Rogue
• Draenei Warlock
• Mag'har Warlock
• Zandalari Warlock
• Worgen Monk
• Goblin Monk

But these ones? Not so much.

• Dwarf Druid
• Dark Iron Druid
• Lightforged Druid
• Goblin Druid
• Orc Druid
• Undead Druid
• Mag'har Druid
• Pandaren Paladin
• Orc Paladin
• Tauren Rogue
• Night Elf Shaman
• Nightborne Shaman
• Blood Elf Shaman
• Undead Shaman
• Void Elf Shaman

I obviously didn't list every possible nonsensical combination as otherwise this post would get stupidly long. But the point is, there are more lore-breaking race-class combinations than actual viable ones. Therefore, no, it's not time to remove all of the restrictions.

The problem with these 'lore-breaking' arguments is that there are plenty of lore-breaking combos that already exist. Void-Elves, for example, are able to be holy priests, do the holy priest artifact campaign to its fullest and receive one of the most powerful holy priest weapons. And during said events they never refer to your race once, so it wouldn't matter if you were another race like green-Orc priest or not.

If Blizzard wants prominent NPC's to remain locked to preserve racial identity on the surface that's fine, I'll accept that, but as for PC's their race should never limit their gameplay and currently, they do.

Much like Void Elves, all it would take is a quest or two to justify any combo in game. And the world would still remain in-tact. Because the player characters aren't even canon to begin with, so it wouldn't matter if a Tauren or Draenei deviated from their race and became a warlock because it would never be reflected in any of the official lore.

Lmao. If anything, the burning of Teldrassil drove them away from the humans because Anduin refused to help them get their revenge.

Mechagnome druid aka autobots assemble. Don't let your dreams be memes.

Except that they were canonically assisted by Greymane and other humans in taking back Darkshore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGgfgKNVquQ

[cparle87]

Tauren warlocks already exist via fel totem.

Vulpera's can be warlocks and death knights. I dont see how a vulpera DH is any more lorebending.

Hell Forsaken have been able to be holy priests since vanilla when lorewise it shouldnt be possible iirc?

The rules have already been broken a long time ago, some combos might be unusual, but nothing more game breaking than what is already there.

It's a matter of numbers and lore. The feltotem are not the playable tauren, the tauren of mulgore are. Lorewise, nothing is stopping forsaken from being holy priest, they just need to deal with suffering pain when they use or have the light used on them. The rule for death knights used to be you had to exist in appreciable numbers in areas the Scourge were operating in up to the events of early Wrath. That's why that one pandaren death knight follower was an outlier.

[Sharby]

It's a matter of numbers and lore. The feltotem are not the playable tauren, the tauren of mulgore are. Lorewise, nothing is stopping forsaken from being holy priest, they just need to deal with suffering pain when they use or have the light used on them. The rule for death knights used to be you had to exist in appreciable numbers in areas the Scourge were operating in up to the events of early Wrath. That's why that one pandaren death knight follower was an outlier.

Yes but that's exactly the point, the player character is an outlier, your achievements are never credited to your race, in fact that only time your race is ever acknowledged is during heritage quests.


If our characters are completely non-con, then it shouldn't matter that they do or play as things that no one else in their respective race can do, because we already do things like that hardly anyone else can anyways.


Pre-Legion arguments against it could've had more ground to stand on, but if our characters are strong enough to wield the most powerful weapons in the Warcraft universe and defeat the Burning Legion then they absolutely could deviate from traditional racial molds and do unorthodox things with little lore-consequence because again, the PC isn't canon, it would have as much impact as the random follower Panda DK did in WoD.

[Kyphael]

Goblin Druid with rat forms would be hilarious and awesome, I got to say.

Dark Irons as Druids of The Flame would be fitting.

I cannot get behind the idea of a Draenei Rogue because of the hooves. Hooves can't flex, so a Draenei can't possibly stealth without sound when walking in any way.

[Sharby]

Goblin Druid with rat forms would be hilarious and awesome, I got to say.

Dark Irons as Druids of The Flame would be fitting.

I cannot get behind the idea of a Draenei Rogue because of the hooves. Hooves can't flex, so a Draenei can't possibly stealth without sound when walking in any way.

Draenei and Tauren can both use the spell camouflage as hunters without any issue, which is essentially the same thing.

[Kaver]

Shouldn't the Horde have been dead when undead were added, then? Though I'm sure some feel the Horde died when Thrall was added...

Nope. The Horde died because 90 % of the players are female Blood Elves and that is not the Horde.

[sillag]

nothings ever gonna be as retarded as orc mage so imo throw it all open

its not like they actually care about this stuff when vulpera can be literally everything but paladin and druid despite there being absolutely nothing to suggest there are vulpera mages or warlocks in existence.

[dewd]

i dont care anymore. i have every class on max level and im sure as fuck not gonna throw money at them for race changes

[Hyeonh]

Some restrictions should still be there, but some class restrictions need to be lifted already. Where are our Worgen and Goblin Monks?!

I cannot get behind the idea of a Draenei Rogue because of the hooves. Hooves can't flex, so a Draenei can't possibly stealth without sound when walking in any way.

There's already confirmed Draenei rogues in the Rangari and the existence of Mishka. I swear people never heard of wrapping cloth around to dampen sound.

[FuxieDK]

It's Shaw. Matthias Shaw.

Mathias Shaw is literally mentioned as "master spy"

[ercarp]

The problem with these 'lore-breaking' arguments is that there are plenty of lore-breaking combos that already exist. Void-Elves, for example, are able to be holy priests, do the holy priest artifact campaign to its fullest and receive one of the most powerful holy priest weapons. And during said events they never refer to your race once, so it wouldn't matter if you were another race like green-Orc priest or not.

That's not a very good example as the reasoning for Void Elves to be able to play Priests is that there is a Shadow spec. Yeah, Holy might not make much sense the way it's currently presented, but as long as one of the specs does, it's enough of a reason to allow them to play as that class.

The examples I gave don't have a single spec that would make sense without breaking the lore.

[Kyphael]

There's already confirmed Draenei rogues in the Rangari and the existence of Mishka. I swear people never heard of wrapping cloth around to dampen sound.

I have, but it's not a permanent solution. The cloth would wear and tear, especially walking over gravel, and stone, but just because it doesn't make sense to me, doesn't mean it can't happen, it's just my opinion. Tauren Paladins don't make sense to me either, doesn't stop people from playing them.

[Sharby]

That's not a very good example as the reasoning for Void Elves to be able to play Priests is that there is a Shadow spec. Yeah, Holy might not make much sense the way it's currently presented, but as long as one of the specs does, it's enough of a reason to allow them to play as that class.

The examples I gave don't have a single spec that would make sense without breaking the lore.

I feel as though if a class can be a Shaman or Druid they could be the other easily as they are very similar(same spec name aside.)

[luciano]

Yes.

Every race should be able to play every class.

[Claymore]

The WoW universe is not static though, the Nelves have done many things and have had many things done to them since their debut, they literally were almost all wiped out at the start of BFA, traumatic events like that would def leave even the most devout questioning themselves. Furthermore, if they put their lives on the line for the allies multiple times what makes you think it would be out of the question to do something far less costly (explore the religion of your allies)? The night elves very clearly care deeply about humans and the rest of the alliance and the other races just as much, its literally a core tenant of the faction.

I find it far more boring to act as if the WoW races shouldn't ever change because of how they were traditionally released.

Obviously there should be at least some justification for it rather than just a silent enabling but it wouldn't be very awkward at all for some Night Elves to mix the magics of both Elune and the Holy Light, allowing Nelf Paladins.





I agree that there would be something lost in the action of this removal, but I feel like it could be offset by adding in racial flavor to the classes.




This conversation would have been way different prior to the introduction of allied races, but with their inclusion as well as new lore written to fit the new Paladins/Shamans/Druids it has become clear that Blizzard is willing to blur the lines to accommodate new options.


If new lore was sufficiently created to backup and introduce all of these new options, can on really say the world-building would suffer as a whole? I'm of the opinion that it would make the races a lot more dynamic if we saw them breaking their racial stereotypes more often, because some races already do this a lot (trolls.)

There is merit in restricting certain practices to certain races, and I agree it does add interesting elements, but I feel this type of gameplay doesn't really translate well into an MMO, because we're creating player avatars that can by and large be completely different than what their race originally represents, Tauren in BFA for example, can do some really horrible things that the race would never be depicted as doing.

I dunno; Blizzard seems horribly inconsistent with itself, so I can see what you mean about they themselves blurring the lines of some of these restrictions.

In all honesty, part of me almost feels like the best thing Blizzard could do is flat-out remove the non-Lore-friendly choices, and just offer free race-changes to those characters.

Still, I see what you mean. I feel like that shift (no restrictions vs. tight restrictions) represents a fundamental different between WoW and, say, FFXIV. I love both worlds, but FFXIV's races are fundamentally quite different. In WoW, one's race isn't just "how they look", but represents a lot about who they are, and what culture they hail from.

I agree, adding lore can help "sell" a lot of those kinds of options. I think there can be major problems there too, though.

Take Tauren Paladins. They aren't even Paladins in terms of lore, but "Sunwalkers", which are effectively Sun-worshipping Druids. That is so fundamentally different, is winds up doing a disservice to the Paladin class. And to those who play and enjoy Paladins, they are left feeling their class was "watered-down" for the sake of "more options".

Now, Zandalari Paladins, on the other hand, were brought in with a little more backstory. Even though their brand of "Light" is still quite different from other Paladins', there is enough analog that it feels far more organic. Furthermore, they still make the attempt to adhere to similar "themes" that define the Paladin, with their heavy emphasis on Gold, with bridges the gap between "traditional Paladin" and the Zandalari's Mayan influence.

I think there are probably instances Blizzard could add a *few* more options. For example, maybe a Draenei Demon Hunter isn't off the table, or a Tauren Warlock from the Grimtotem tribe. But there is a definite risk those options could also muddle what defines some of those races, as well.