Remarks from former WoW designer gives insight on WoW's classes

[qwerty123456]

It's confusing to me how you can grasp that concept... but for some reason cannot grasp how a spellcaster or bow-wielding spec for the demon hunter would change their concept into something that it's not.

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Because demon hunters have never been depicted as spellcasters or utilizing any weapon other than warglaives save for one specific exception, AFAIK, that exists for one very specific reason.


Yes. Yes, it can. Because it still fits fully into the singular concept of the demon hunter that has been presented to us since its inception.

You do realize half their skills are spells in warcraft 3 right? The other 2 are "natural" abilities dodging and unleashing the demon within. But no they have never been depicted as casting spells lol.

And why would they need to use bows? Why not still use glaives? They already have a glaive toss skill they could easily build a spec around multiple different throws and some fel stuff and if it was a perma demon transformation ranged spec it would still fall within the lore and concept of the demon hunter.

I'm not sure why you are so intent on dying on this hill you have been wrong on multiple points about demon hunters already.

[babalou1]

Blizzard in 2021 will make you pay $25 bucks for it.

I have no doubt of that. At all.

[heldok]

Wouldn't that be a fair statement though, considering that they possess all the abilities of the Necromancer

What does that mean all of the abilities of the necromancer? Death Knight doesn't play like a necromancer at all. A necromancer would have only caster abilities and play like a caster, and have much more of a focus on summoning minions.

[Teriz]

What does that mean all of the abilities of the necromancer?

The Death Knight class absorbed a multitude of abilities from the Undead scourge faction in WC3. This included the Necromancer unit.

Death Knight doesn't play like a necromancer at all. A necromancer would have only caster abilities and play like a caster, and have much more of a focus on summoning minions.

Correct, and that is the Warlock class. Since the Warlock class plays like a traditional Necromancer would, Blizzard made their Necromancer class into a heavily armored fighter with necromantic spells, since another dark caster that focuses on summoning minions is too much like the Warlock class.

It also isn't the first Necromancer they've taken in that direction either. Xul in HotS is another example of a melee Necromancer designed by Blizzard.

[LorDC]

Okay, just my two cents.

The original design intents and goals have absolutely zero bearing on decision making of current team. Those are different people with different goals working in a different company serving a different product to a different audience. Vanilla WoW had to build upon WC3 success. Modern WoW is a thing of its own and I dare say that most of its current and potential audience doesn't care about what happened in WC3 and how that game worked.

You know how would an actual decision about adding new class work? Something like that:

Head of Marketing: Okay gentlemen, our research shows that new class in next expansion will increase sales by 10% and ARPU by 1%. Can we make it?
Game Director: So, what do we need, guys?
Lead Game Designer: Depends on the class. We have some different concepts in different stages, but that's around 200 man-hours initially, plus around the same amount to work out all the kinks, plus we'll probably need another man full time to support everything.
Lead Artist: Yeah, that's 50 man-hours from our concept guys, 100 hours from 2d-artists and 200 of 3d-artist work.
Lead Programmer: Don't really know, depends on what crazy ideas you will want to implement. Shouldn't take much, 99% of the tools should be in place.
Game Director: Okay, to sum it up: 200 grand and a two week delay on our deadline.
CEO: Okay 10% sales will cover it up. Go for it. Details you can work out yourselves.

[heldok]

The Death Knight class absorbed a multitude of abilities from the Undead scourge faction in WC3. This included the Necromancer unit.



Correct, and that is the Warlock class. Since the Warlock class plays like a traditional Necromancer would, Blizzard made their Necromancer class into a heavily armored fighter with necromantic spells, since another dark caster that focuses on summoning minions is too much like the Warlock class.

It also isn't the first Necromancer they've taken in that direction either. Xul in HotS is another example of a melee Necromancer designed by Blizzard.

Warlock is not a Necromancer, give it up.

[cparle87]

There really isnt an excuse I can make for Blizzard anymore for why the next expansion wouldn't have a new class. It's been 2 expansions since a new class. Maybe they want an even numbered 12 and not 13. The classes and specs today are absolute shells of what they once were so I'd wager balancing isn't even an issue either. Expac after expac they toy around with so many different abilities and procs that disappear never to be seen again so them running out of ideas isn't a case either.

The gnome tinker, goblin sapper, goblin alchemist, the ace, bombardier, essentially all those WC3/RTS classes can be rolled into Tinker. Blizzard actually put a ton of time and creativity fleshing out gnomes and goblins better than we ever saw in WoW where they became a more comic relief race (same with night elves at this point though hahaha)

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That'd certainly hushen the dark ranger crowd, a demon hunter ranged spec.

Or they might be worried about a reverse survival hunter backlash. Lots of hunters be like "I rolled this class to be ranged, why you make survival melee?" Maybe they're woried "I roll this class to be melee, but why would I do that now if there's a ranged option, everyone prefers ranged over melee if they can do it."

[Triceron]

Or they might be worried about a reverse survival hunter backlash. Lots of hunters be like "I rolled this class to be ranged, why you make survival melee?" Maybe they're woried "I roll this class to be melee, but why would I do that now if there's a ranged option, everyone prefers ranged over melee if they can do it."

Odd logic. If you imply everyone prefers ranged over melee if they can do it, then no one would roll a DH in the first place. So clearly not everyone prefers ranged over melee, otherwise no melee DPS class would ever be played.

This doesn't make sense if we're addressing someone who already made the decision to play a DH despite any worries over it not being ranged DPS

[Teriz]

Okay, just my two cents.

The original design intents and goals have absolutely zero bearing on decision making of current team. Those are different people with different goals working in a different company serving a different product to a different audience. Vanilla WoW had to build upon WC3 success. Modern WoW is a thing of its own and I dare say that most of its current and potential audience doesn't care about what happened in WC3 and how that game worked.

You know how would an actual decision about adding new class work? Something like that:

Head of Marketing: Okay gentlemen, our research shows that new class in next expansion will increase sales by 10% and ARPU by 1%. Can we make it?
Game Director: So, what do we need, guys?
Lead Game Designer: Depends on the class. We have some different concepts in different stages, but that's around 200 man-hours initially, plus around the same amount to work out all the kinks, plus we'll probably need another man full time to support everything.
Lead Artist: Yeah, that's 50 man-hours from our concept guys, 100 hours from 2d-artists and 200 of 3d-artist work.
Lead Programmer: Don't really know, depends on what crazy ideas you will want to implement. Shouldn't take much, 99% of the tools should be in place.
Game Director: Okay, to sum it up: 200 grand and a two week delay on our deadline.
CEO: Okay 10% sales will cover it up. Go for it. Details you can work out yourselves.

That isn't necessarily true. In many organizations present team members will do everything they can to honor the design goals of the original creators. So if the original intent was to bring every RTS hero into WoW, new team designers could continue that design goal.

Further, if you look at class implementations over the course of the game's lifespan, it's following right along the track of bringing in only the RTS heroes;

2008: Death Knights

http://classic.battle.net/war3/undea...thknight.shtml

2012: Monk

http://classic.battle.net/war3/neutr...ewmaster.shtml

2016: Demon Hunter

http://classic.battle.net/war3/night...onhunter.shtml

We can also look at the lack of a class addition in Shadowlands as a continuation of this design goal, because the RTS heroes/class concepts that would fit the Shadowlands expansion are already in the class lineup. Blizzard clearly did not expand outside of that paradigm to introduce a new class. Instead the gave Death Knights some new perks, and they gave Hunters some Dark Ranger concepts.

[Candlewick]

Or they might be worried about a reverse survival hunter backlash. Lots of hunters be like "I rolled this class to be ranged, why you make survival melee?" Maybe they're woried "I roll this class to be melee, but why would I do that now if there's a ranged option, everyone prefers ranged over melee if they can do it."

Survival strikes me a lot like arcane in that it is one of those red headed step child specs that blizz had a hard time settling on. It's kit just lacks something to make it work.

[Ielenia]

Hearthstone has already with bow-wielding Demon Hunters.

Hearthstone also has Ragnaros being an elemental of the Light, as well as death knight Jaina, Uther, Garrosh and others. Hearthstone is not a good argument to make.

Also, just because it was never depicted doesn't mean anything. Paladins were never depicted with Shields, Shamans never depicted with Totems. And they are not generic concepts, the Paladin is absolutely as specific as a Demon Hunter is.

I'm sorry, but that is just demonstrably false. The paladin is a generic concept, of the warrior of the light, that mixes up the inquisitor, the defender, and the healer, concepts that exist throughout fantasy media. The demon hunter, on the other hand, is a specific concept, through and through.

Then so can spellcasting or ranged gameplay.

It can't. Because, as I mentioned multiple times, we have never been shown the demon hunter concept to work as anything other than a melee combatant. We never saw demon hunters fighting at range, using spells or ranged weapons. At best, they would throw their warglaives before engaging in melee.

Your argument is tantamount to being 'I can accept Vengeance form and Tanking, but I can't accept Spellcasting because reasons'.

False. I have given concise and specific reasons why a bow-wielding or spellcasting specs cannot work with the demon hunter concept. You, on the other hand, apparently is arguing from an "anything goes no matter how crazy or nonsensical it is" perspective.

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You do realize half their skills are spells in warcraft 3 right? The other 2 are "natural" abilities dodging and unleashing the demon within. But no they have never been depicted as casting spells lol.

You do know that "having spells" does not translate into "spellcaster spec", right? After all, just look at the Death Knight in WC3: three of its four abilities are "ranged spells". But the WoW class is fully melee.

And why would they need to use bows? Why not still use glaives? They already have a glaive toss skill

Tossing those big-ass glaives all the time as an auto-attack? It's one thing to say that the hunter just "has enough bullets/arrows" considering how small those items are, but big-ass warglaives? Don't you that might break suspension of disbelief a little?

Not to mention, again: no demon hunter has ever been depicted as a ranged combatant in the history of Warcraft, as far as I know.

I'm not sure why you are so intent on dying on this hill you have been wrong on multiple points about demon hunters already.

The only point I was wrong, so far, was in the 'meta gave short ranged attacks' part. That is hardly "multiple points".

[Triceron]

I'm sorry, but that is just demonstrably false. The paladin is a generic concept, of the warrior of the light, that mixes up the inquisitor, the defender, and the healer, concepts that exist throughout fantasy media. The demon hunter, on the other hand, is a specific concept, through and through.

What are you using to draw that comparison? You're literally making shit up right now considering nothing defines a Paladin as being generic while a Demon Hunter is specific.

Again, your argument falls flat when considering Demon Hunters have Vengeance tanking spec, which never existed in the specific Demon Hunter from Warcraft 3 that never had Tanking abilities or Vengeance Demon Form.

False. I have given concise and specific reasons why a bow-wielding or spellcasting specs cannot work with the demon hunter concept. You, on the other hand, apparently is arguing from an "anything goes no matter how crazy or nonsensical it is" perspective.

You have provided an opinion.

That you think it doesn't work does not make it a fact. I am debunking your claims to anything beyond being your opinion, that you are stating things as reasons as though it were valid as factual. Nothing you're saying here is factual.

Calling Paladins generic while Demon Hunters specific? Not factual. Simply your opinion.

On what basis is a class generic compared to specific? Where did you come up with Paladins being inquisitors? Who defines this? You're telling me something that isn't factually verifiable under Blizzard's own definitions here. Again, you're providing nothing but anecdotes about what you personally think defines certain classes, nothing more.

You, on the other hand, apparently is arguing from an "anything goes no matter how crazy or nonsensical it is" perspective.

I'm calling you out for being a liar and a bullshitter. Do you understand?

I am debunking your claims that it is not part of the Demon Hunter concept despite there being no hard definition of what is or is not part of said concept. I'm not making any argument towards there having to be a spellcasting or ranged bow-using representation for Demon Hunters, rather that I'm pointing out that there's absolutely nothing excluding those particular things from the Demon Hunter concept.

If Vengeance is a valid part of the DH concept where it never formally existed prior to Legion, then your definition of 'nonsensical' would just as much apply to a "Diablo-esque Demon Form that Tanks". Your definition of there being only one singular Demon Hunter concept is contradicted by their Tanking spec.

The simple truth is Blizzard defines what the concept is and what the concept means. Not you. Not your correlations or observations. Blizzard defines this, so whatever you're trying to pass off as 'specific' or 'generic' or 'sensical' is just nothing but anecdotal bullshit. You're hiding behind fallacies in order to provide any response; that the Demon Hunter must be a melee-centric class because it only has 2 melee specs. That is not one singular Demon Hunter concept. There are TWO concepts that we're talking about here, Vengeance and Havoc; and Vengeance is being contradicted by your own explanation.

The argument you present here is no different than saying (for example) Demon Hunters can only be Elves because it is a singular concept. There is nothing in the concept itself that excludes any other race from becoming one. In Warcraft 3, that definition would be exclusive to Night Elves. TBC changed that concept completely, opening up to Blood Elves being trained as well. If you look now, there is nothing in the concept excluding the use of Spellcasting or Ranged specializations. You can't use correlation as evidence of there being only one singular concept. We're talking about ideas that haven't been formally incorporated in gameplay as a spec, that is all. You can say that they're not represented as a spec, that is fine. You can't really make any argument towards the actual Demon Hunter concept, because the concept is ultimately something Blizzard defines, and we already know that the Demon Hunter's concept has been linked to the use of Ranged abilities and Spellcasting since its inception as a Warcraft 3 class.


It's really no different than addressing Death Knights and healing. We can argue that the current Death Knight archetype is decidedly chosen to not represent any form of healing as a spec, but we can't say that healing was never a part of its original concept. Death Coil healed undead units. Unholy Aura was a healing Aura. Death Pact healed the DK themselves. At the core, healing is a BIG part of their concept, but one that was decidedly not focused on when abstracted as a WoW class. And when you consider that there are other Hero classes that did not have healing spells that ended up being Healers (Brewmaster/Monk, Shaman) then we can question the relevance of any 'singular' concept existing at all. Because it's clear that it isn't any singular concept. All WoW classes are abstractions of various themes and archetypes. They aren't singular adaptations of Warcraft 3 Heroes, otherwise the argument of any 'singular concept' means the DK should absolutely have a healing spec to represent all their healing abilities. That's not the case at all, and their combat role was decidedly focused on Tanking and DPS as well as expanding on themes they never had like Blood and Frost (which homage and represent Dreadlords and Liches). There is no singular concept.

Even the WoW Demon Hunter is not one singular concept. There were two completely different depictions of Metamorphosis/Demon Form in the game. Heroes of the Storm Illidan does not have any formal spellcasting at all, while Warcraft 3 still has Mana Burn. It's a mix of Warcraft 3 and Heroes of the Storm concepts, while adding plenty of new gimmicks like wing gliding, double jumps, eye beams, Vengeance tanking form and plenty more. This culminates to a new Demon Hunter identity that is currently being represented through two Melee-centric specs in WoW. And the Demon Hunter's gameplay is not a rigid definition of their concept, considering a non-melee 3rd spec is always going to be possible.

[Teriz]

Survival strikes me a lot like arcane in that it is one of those red headed step child specs that blizz had a hard time settling on. It's kit just lacks something to make it work.

I believe the issue with Survival was that the original concept was the dual axe-wielding Rexxar from WC3. In earlier iterations of WoW, Hunters could dual wield, harking back to that character. With the glut of DW classes in Legion, including the new Demon Hunter class, I can see why Blizzard decided to go with the polearm/spear route instead. I think their main problem is that they never went all the way with the concept, and tried to do too much when they should triple down on the spear/polearm aspect of the spec.

Terms of Engagement for example should be baseline, and the class should be full of spear/polearm based abilities.

[threads]

the next class will be dark rangers led by the redeemed fan favourite sylvanas.

[vsb]

the next class will be dark rangers led by the redeemed fan favourite sylvanas.

That would be so cool!

[qwerty123456]

You do know that "having spells" does not translate into "spellcaster spec", right? After all, just look at the Death Knight in WC3: three of its four abilities are "ranged spells". But the WoW class is fully melee.


Tossing those big-ass glaives all the time as an auto-attack? It's one thing to say that the hunter just "has enough bullets/arrows" considering how small those items are, but big-ass warglaives? Don't you that might break suspension of disbelief a little?

Not to mention, again: no demon hunter has ever been depicted as a ranged combatant in the history of Warcraft, as far as I know.


The only point I was wrong, so far, was in the 'meta gave short ranged attacks' part. That is hardly "multiple points".

First off the Death Knight has multiple ranged spells in wow. Second where were the blood and frost in their kits? They took from Arthas and other undead units which shows they are more than willing to modify a class to suit their needs.

Not really. You have gnomes tanking Rags hammer without being shot across the planet like a golf ball. And its already established they can and do throw them in combat. Now mix it with a few fel spells too and you got a fully ranged spec. Or like I said give them a perma demon form that is ranged. Lore already establishes that diff demon types give diff abilities.

There were multiple points you had wrong about demon hunters in Wow where either you thought Blur was part of the Vengeance spec or purposely tried to lie to prove a point because you thought it was all about dodging when its all about dmg reduction and healing.

And "xcept this is false as every single ability in WC3 remains the exact same even while in metamorphosis form." Which is totally false as they gain a new ranged attack.

So why would we entrust you as an authority on what a demon hunter is when you keep getting stuff wrong about them?

[Teriz]

the next class will be dark rangers led by the redeemed fan favourite sylvanas.

If that was the goal, we would have had Dark Rangers in this expansion. Her being "redeemed" really has no bearing whatsoever. In fact, it would be a hinderance, because it is doubtful that a redeemed Sylvanas would forcefully raise the dead to create more Dark Rangers that follow her.

I don't think we'll be seeing Sylvanas much (if at all) after Shadowlands.

[Candlewick]

If that was the goal, we would have had Dark Rangers in this expansion. Her being "redeemed" really has no bearing whatsoever. In fact, it would be a hinderance, because it is doubtful that a redeemed Sylvanas would forcefully raise the dead to create more Dark Rangers that follow her.

I don't think we'll be seeing Sylvanas much (if at all) after Shadowlands.

What would a dark ranger honestly do though to be frank? Would it just be a MM hunter with renamed spells? What is left for range dps to do that would fit into the game?

We have MM,and destro as plant your feet casters. Bm and demo as pet users and a host of specs fishing for procs or balancing resources or ramping for dmg.

When all is said and done what is left for a dark ranger to do?

[threads]

If that was the goal, we would have had Dark Rangers in this expansion. Her being "redeemed" really has no bearing whatsoever. In fact, it would be a hinderance, because it is doubtful that a redeemed Sylvanas would forcefully raise the dead to create more Dark Rangers that follow her.

I don't think we'll be seeing Sylvanas much (if at all) after Shadowlands.

no need for dark rangers in shadowlands tho. when we go fight the light we will need them and sylvanas will not need to raise more as she already raised tons in bfa including nelfs and humans that were being trained before she left. the intro leveling will take place in the past like demon hunters.

[cparle87]

Odd logic. If you imply everyone prefers ranged over melee if they can do it, then no one would roll a DH in the first place. So clearly not everyone prefers ranged over melee, otherwise no melee DPS class would ever be played.

This doesn't make sense if we're addressing someone who already made the decision to play a DH despite any worries over it not being ranged DPS

Did you read my post? People would be up in arms over the spec being ranged as much as people are about survival being changed to melee. "I rolled X class to be Y role, how dare you change it?"

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Survival strikes me a lot like arcane in that it is one of those red headed step child specs that blizz had a hard time settling on. It's kit just lacks something to make it work.

God knows they've tried, though. They've remade the spec pretty much each xpac. But the loudest voice is "I rolled hunter to be ranged and I'll never play this spec again until you fixed it and made it ranged again."