Dragonsworn vs Dragonkin vs Dragonborne

[Teriz]

Well with the announcement of 10.0 coming soon, and many predicting a dragon based expansion, and many still desiring a new class and/or a new race with the new expansion, multiple concepts have emerged over the last few months revolving around a Dragon class and/or a Dragon Race.

Discussions around these concepts have become heated, so I thought it would be a good idea to do a poll and see where MMOChampion stands on the debate. This will be a three-way contest, and no I'm not putting "I don't want a new race or class" option in the poll. I will link the relevant threads of the concepts so that way each idea will get good enough representation, and we can see which concept is on top. So without further delay, here are the options;


Dragonsworn (Class)



This class concept comes from WoW TTRPG. Here is an excerpt;

For centuries, the great dragonflights have noted the potential of younger races. In a few select cases, they choose a creature of another race to be one of a select few with the privilege of directly serving a dragon or an entire group of dragons. Such devotees dedicate their lives to the protection and service of their dragonflights and reap the benefits of the great knowledge and power that their draconic masters share.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Dragonsworn

Essentially Dragonsworn are mortals who pledge their allegiance to dragons, and in doing so are granting powers and abilities from their sworn dragonflight. So a mortal sworn to the Blue dragonflight would get arcane powers, while a mortal sworn to the bronze dragonflight would get temporal powers. One major example of Dragonsworn are the Timewalkers from the Timless Isle who showed up in MoP.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Timewalkers

Dragonkin (Race)




This concept doesn't require too much explanation since it's a race instead of class. In this concept, you're a Drakonoid, a servant of the dragonflights who now decides to join the Alliance or the Horde. Available classes are open to discussion. Some ideas being tossed around is that this race would be able to take on human form. Here's a recent thread about it;

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...e-Concept-Idea

And information about the race;
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Dra...20dragonflight.


Dragonborne (Class)



So this class concept revolves around the idea that you play as a dragon who, like the dragons of WoW, can take on a mortal guise (i.e. play as any race) and blend in with the mortal races. However, unlike the mere mortals you fight with, your abilities allow you to transform into a dragon and use your draconic abilities. The mechanics for this class can be found in HotS with the heroes Alexstraza, Chromie, and Deathwing. You can shift from one flight to the next because you are a chromatic drake, and are capable of taking on the powers and abilities of different flights.

Here are the class threads that discuss the idea in more detail;
3-spec concept;https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...s-Concept-2022
5-spec concept; https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...pt-2019-(long)

I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

[Kiria]

I'd honestly love to be dragonborne.

[CalamityHeart]

Dragonsworn > Dragonkin > Dragonborne are my order of desire for giving something dragon-based to players, in the event that the next expansion is about dragons.

[Auburst]

1&2 and 2&3 aren't mutually exclusive. Drakonids would make a cool playable race regardless of dragontype class. Both Dragonsworn and Dragonborne are great in muh opinion.

[Teriz]

1&2 and 2&3 aren't mutually exclusive. Drakonids would make a cool playable race regardless of dragontype class. Both Dragonsworn and Dragonborne are great in muh opinion.

Yeah I agree. I gave it it's own separate category though because there are people who only want the race, and don't want new classes.

[Nightshade711]

While I doubt it’ll happen
I’d like it if they did 1&2 together.

We haven’t had a new, unique race since MoP so I would be surprised if we didn’t get a new unique race next expansion. (Still could go the AR route with having to unlock them, but I’d still prefer them to be a core race that you can play from the start)

For classes for the Drakonid race, we’d certainly have:
Warriors, Hunters, Mages, Shamans & Druids (Dragonsworn too obv if they’re added)
But I could easily see Rogues, Monks, and DKs being a thing too.

Paladins/priests probably wouldn’t be a thing unless/until an eventual Light/Void expansion bc Velen had visions of the dragons fighting in the Army of the Light, which would logically include their followers like the Dragonspawn/Drakonids/other Dragonkin

[Sugani]

With how much dragonclass and tinkerclass have been talked about, I hope neither happens.

[FossilFree]

I like all the options. First choice would be dragonborne, second dragonsworn, and third dragonkin. Though I think you could have dragonkin work with either class option too.

[Revamp Man]

Class vs race vs abortion

[Rockefellah]

A 4th version could be the dragonborne as a race. You are a chromatic dragon and choose a mortal race skin (after all its a simple illusion).

The dragon aspects are racials akin to the worgen (perhaps with an occasion transformation in combat). Instead of a flying mount you learn to master flight as a dragon (and in group players can mount you).

[Teriz]

With how much dragonclass and tinkerclass have been talked about, I hope neither happens.

You hope neither happens because people like the concepts and talk about them frequently?

That's a strange reaction, considering that you're on a forum where the purpose is to talk about stuff.

- - - Updated - - -

A 4th version could be the dragonborne as a race. You are a chromatic dragon and choose a mortal race skin (after all its a simple illusion).

The dragon aspects are racials akin to the worgen (perhaps with an occasion transformation in combat). Instead of a flying mount you learn to master flight as a dragon (and in group players can mount you).

While certainly a possibility, I don't feel that a race really encapsulates the full experience and power of being a dragon akin to Wrathion, Chromie, Kairozdormu or others. Only a class could do that. With that, I don't see Blizzard going through the trouble of trying to balance the concepts you mention within a racial ability set. I believe they would simply jump to a class concept at that point.

[Rockefellah]

I was more thinking of Belnistrasz in RFD, who for all practical purposes is a human mage, but his name and dialogue hint at him being a red dragon.

The only difference would be that a char like this would not have human racials, but instead 'Chromatic Dragonkin' racials.

I had mentioned worgen solely for the purpose of character creation, where you both customize the human and worgen forms. In similar fashion you can customize the dragonkin and his or her non-dragon form of choice.

As for racials, let's stick with the worgen example:


Aberration: Reduces Shadow and Nature damage taken by 1%.

Chromatic dragon flight would lorewise get something against the classic dragon magic types: fire, frost, nature



Altered Form: Enables Worgens to switch between human and Worgan forms

Read: non-dragon of choice and dragon forms respectively




Darkflight: Activates your true form, increasing current movement speed by an additional 40% for 10 sec.

Instead of a speed buff I'd envision this to be a time cycle, akin to some trinkets, which for a brief second shows the player in dragon form and casts a breath attack.




Flayer: Skinning skill increased by 15 and allows you to skin faster.

A profession buff: I'd suggest alchemy, Chromatic dragons being the result of experimentation themselves.




Running Wild: Drop to all fours to run as fast as a wild animal.

Change to dragon form out of combat, run (and fly) as fast as a mount.




Two Forms: Turn into your currently inactive form.

Stays the same.



Viciousness: Increases critical strike chance by 1%.

2% critical spell strike instead, or for balance purposes a utility/movement since the cycling breath would already be a damage increase.



Bonus: if the dragon race is allowed to be a death knight, the dragon form is a frost wyrm or plague dragon instead.

[shoc]

Draokind is a pretty horrible idea. It's a compromise nobody asked for and nobody wanted.

Dragons disguised as mortals is the purest to Warcraft form.

[Rusken]

I'm not a fan of Drakonids as a playable race. They would look awful in any gear that's not designed around their skeleton and there's very specific reasons the Dragonflights stay neutral to the Alliance vs Horde conflict. Hell they've been a majorly prevalent enemy for a lot of the game's lifespan.

Dragonsworn probably makes the most sense to add as a Class since it's much easier to fit into existing races, although it's a stretch lore-wise as there's only anecdotal evidence and speculation that they even exist in WoW. The very page you linked on them says it's non-canon and all the WoW NPC's are speculated to "may be transformed dragons" or "might match the criteria for being Dragonsworn". Your example of The Timewalkers is irrelevant, none of their members are Dragonsworn, they're lead by Bronze Dragons and the rest are just sworn to defend the timeways, research or recording of events. Nothing in any of the individual members' pages mentions anything about any of them being Dragonsworn.

Dragonborne I don't really understand how you could make a class out of. You're just a regular dragon that is for whatever reason siding with Alliance/Horde. You have 2 abilities, Elemental Breath and Melee or you transform into a Humanoid and become a Warrior or something. There's no basis for a playable class here (Yes I read through your concept and it's all horrendously OP for the sake of being "cool dragon abilities"). You're also completely ret-conning what the Chromatic Dragonflight is and is capable of to justify a Dragon being able to change colours (Not what a Chromatic dragon is at all..)

"The chromatic dragonflight of Blackrock Spire was created by Nefarian's magical experiments, using the blood of dragons from the other dragonflights.[1] These experiments were largely considered failures; many whelps died before hatching, and those that survived were unstable, short-lived, volatile, and/or deformed.[2] Those that reached adulthood were artificially aged by Nefarian's twisted magics.[3]" (https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Chromatic_dragonflight)

Doesn't exactly sound like the basis for a powerful Hero Class now, does it?

I'm not at all convinced that the next expansion is going to be Dragon themed just because of some reddit post months ago. I'm expecting more cosmic-type bullshit after that end cinematic for the Jailer fight. I don't think we'll get a new Class, just some more Allied races most likely. Probably a few more shades of Elf. Call me pessimistic, but Blizz hasn't exactly earned anything else.

[Teriz]

I'm not a fan of Drakonids as a playable race. They would look awful in any gear that's not designed around their skeleton and there's very specific reasons the Dragonflights stay neutral to the Alliance vs Horde conflict. Hell they've been a majorly prevalent enemy for a lot of the game's lifespan.

Dragonsworn probably makes the most sense to add as a Class since it's much easier to fit into existing races, although it's a stretch lore-wise as there's only anecdotal evidence and speculation that they even exist in WoW. The very page you linked on them says it's non-canon and all the WoW NPC's are speculated to "may be transformed dragons" or "might match the criteria for being Dragonsworn". Your example of The Timewalkers is irrelevant, none of their members are Dragonsworn, they're lead by Bronze Dragons and the rest are just sworn to defend the timeways, research or recording of events. Nothing in any of the individual members' pages mentions anything about any of them being Dragonsworn.

Dragonborne I don't really understand how you could make a class out of. You're just a regular dragon that is for whatever reason siding with Alliance/Horde. You have 2 abilities, Elemental Breath and Melee or you transform into a Humanoid and become a Warrior or something. There's no basis for a playable class here (Yes I read through your concept and it's all horrendously OP for the sake of being "cool dragon abilities"). You're also completely ret-conning what the Chromatic Dragonflight is and is capable of to justify a Dragon being able to change colours (Not what a Chromatic dragon is at all..)

"The chromatic dragonflight of Blackrock Spire was created by Nefarian's magical experiments, using the blood of dragons from the other dragonflights.[1] These experiments were largely considered failures; many whelps died before hatching, and those that survived were unstable, short-lived, volatile, and/or deformed.[2] Those that reached adulthood were artificially aged by Nefarian's twisted magics.[3]" (https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Chromatic_dragonflight)

Doesn't exactly sound like the basis for a powerful Hero Class now, does it?

Well the basic concept for chromatic dragons is a dragon that has the ability to take on the powers of other dragonflights. So I disagree that I'm completely retconning the concept, I'm merely going on the basis that Nefarian's goals eventually were achieved.

With that said, we did run across this Chromatic dragon in BFA;

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Chromitus

Indicating that we don't know everything about Chromatic dragons.

Finally, the point of creating the Dragonborne class concept is threefold; 1. It has a basis in HotS, giving it a mechanical foundation for a class, 2. If we're making a class based on draconic abilities, we might as well use dragons themselves, 3. Dragons disguising themselves in humanoid form is ridiculously common, and dragons have proven not to be some demigods that are hard to kill. Garrosh killed the bronze drake Kairozdormu simply by stabbing him in the back.

I'm not at all convinced that the next expansion is going to be Dragon themed just because of some reddit post months ago. I'm expecting more cosmic-type bullshit after that end cinematic for the Jailer fight. I don't think we'll get a new Class, just some more Allied races most likely. Probably a few more shades of Elf. Call me pessimistic, but Blizz hasn't exactly earned anything else.

Well allied races are doubtful since the purpose of allied races was wrapped up in the lore of BFA, where the alliance and horde were literally looking for allies to fight their new faction war. The other issue is that there really aren't many good racial options left. A Dragonborne class would handle both the new race and the new class deficit at the same time.

[Syegfryed]

I myself, want another MOP scenario, where we get a race and a class, anything less than that will be a massive disappointment after those two shit expansions without both.

I want a drakonid race, with different colors for different factions and a class based around mortals gifted dragon powers.


I honestly would preffer if it was a worgen like situation, were a mortal race transform into drakonid, in this case, dragonmaw orcs, turning into drakonids, since they already do that in outland, but i guess this is like pandaren and they will not want to tie then to only one faction and do another neutral race bs.

[AngerFork]

Of the three options, Dragonsworn just barely takes the top spot to me over Dragonborne with Dragonkin/Drakonid being a far distant third.

Drakonid I feel would be one of those races that sounds cool at first, but feels like it fits in worse as I think about it more. They aren't exactly one of the prettier races, Dragons tend to be pretty neutral to Alliance & Horde, gear doesn't seem to look great on them in model viewer, and it's hard to see them really fitting in well with the story beyond any sort of Dragon Isles expansion which would give us another race that is story stuck to go into the future. This feels like a cool announcement that would feel like more of a burden as the game progresses.

Between Dragonsworn & Dragonborne, I feel like each could work...yet I feel Dragonsworn works slightly better. Play-wise, I feel they'd probably be about the same. And realistically, either can be added to any race now or in the future. Perhaps this is a small thing, but being called a mortal or the like as we constantly are in this game would feel OK as a Dragonsworn (as that's what we would be), but it would feel weird to say that to a Dragonborne.

[aceperson]

i view drakonid as more of a cooldown than the basis for the class. dragonsworn, empowered by dragons, eventually become powerful enough to permanently alter they physical body to resemble dragons.

[Rusken]

Well the basic concept for chromatic dragons is a dragon that has the ability to take on the powers of other dragonflights. So I disagree that I'm completely retconning the concept, I'm merely going on the basis that Nefarian's goals eventually were achieved.

But we killed Nefarian. Twice. Who's continuing the research to achieve a perfect Chromatic dragon that then for some reason joins the Alliance/Horde? It stands to logic that anyone that might continue Nefarian's work would be working for the same, evil reasons Nef was.

With that said, we did run across this Chromatic dragon in BFA;

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Chromitus

Indicating that we don't know everything about Chromatic dragons.

Hmm, I'm not sure on this one. A single Chromatic dragon that's seemingly working with the Black Flight isn't evidence enough for a fleshed out Chromatic Flight. It's certainly possible that a few of Nefarian's experiments survived and would of course be working with the Black Flight. Although I can't think of any possible reason that they would join up with us without some seriously awful retcon of previous lore surrounding Nefarian and the Black Dragonflight.

Finally, the point of creating the Dragonborne class concept is threefold; 1. It has a basis in HotS, giving it a mechanical foundation for a class, 2. If we're making a class based on draconic abilities, we might as well use dragons themselves, 3. Dragons disguising themselves in humanoid form is ridiculously common, and dragons have proven not to be some demigods that are hard to kill. Garrosh killed the bronze drake Kairozdormu simply by stabbing him in the back.

Having some Dragons be playable in a different game means nothing, to be honest. I never touched HotS so I can't comment on how any abilities might translate, and I'd be more open to the idea if there was an actual Dragonborne character instead of just plain Dragons. Do they transform in HotS? Do they have special abilities for different forms? I'd assume they don't because they're never supposed to fight in their Humanoid form.

Well allied races are doubtful since the purpose of allied races was wrapped up in the lore of BFA, where the alliance and horde were literally looking for allies to fight their new faction war. The other issue is that there really aren't many good racial options left. A Dragonborne class would handle both the new race and the new class deficit at the same time.

That's fair, I am hopeful for a new race and class to be added. I just don't see the Dragon theme working as well as some people seem to think. It's all wrong lore-wise and feels like people want them simply because Dragons are cool and they want to play as a Dragon. Tinker is a much better concept for a class and something I can see actually happening and fitting well within the current specs. It's also less theme-locked and could be introduced with basically any expansion concept.

[Teriz]

But we killed Nefarian. Twice. Who's continuing the research to achieve a perfect Chromatic dragon that then for some reason joins the Alliance/Horde? It stands to logic that anyone that might continue Nefarian's work would be working for the same, evil reasons Nef was.

I have no idea, but the chromatic dragon in Island Expeditions might hold the key.

Hmm, I'm not sure on this one. A single Chromatic dragon that's seemingly working with the Black Flight isn't evidence enough for a fleshed out Chromatic Flight. It's certainly possible that a few of Nefarian's experiments survived and would of course be working with the Black Flight. Although I can't think of any possible reason that they would join up with us without some seriously awful retcon of previous lore surrounding Nefarian and the Black Dragonflight.

The point is that we have an example of a stable chromatic dragon that’s working with Bkack dragons. That alters the history of the flight significantly.

Having some Dragons be playable in a different game means nothing, to be honest. I never touched HotS so I can't comment on how any abilities might translate, and I'd be more open to the idea if there was an actual Dragonborne character instead of just plain Dragons. Do they transform in HotS? Do they have special abilities for different forms? I'd assume they don't because they're never supposed to fight in their Humanoid form.

Well HotS abilities entering WoW and influencing class design is pretty common. Shaman, Death Knight, Demon Hunters, and a few others. As to your question, the main mechanical blueprint for the class would be Alexstraza HotS, and yes she fights in humanoid and dragon forms in HotS, and yes she transforms. And when she enters dragon form, her standard abilities are enhanced.

That's fair, I am hopeful for a new race and class to be added. I just don't see the Dragon theme working as well as some people seem to think. It's all wrong lore-wise and feels like people want them simply because Dragons are cool and they want to play as a Dragon. Tinker is a much better concept for a class and something I can see actually happening and fitting well within the current specs. It's also less theme-locked and could be introduced with basically any expansion concept.

That’s fine and understandable.