4th spec suggestions once again. This time with lore.

[chemicader]

This thread is to discuss the very very very very impossiblish (Yes, I made that word up.) 4th specs from a lore point of view especially not about it going to get ever implemented, not the actual game mechanics, not how they resemble other classes and not how stupid a healing spec for mages would be in WoW.



First things first and I want to point out that I made a new thread for this to focus on the lore aspect of these new 4th spec suggestions. Every single time you look into a 4th spec suggestion thread, you will notice people fighting about the specs fitting to the WoW universe. I have not at this point thought of a 4th spec for every class and I am actually making some of this up while typing, and if this thread keeps alive I will update them with better ideas with more thinking behind them.

I will start of with mage.
Chronomage: A healer mage with abilities to protect his allies from harm by bending the fabric of time. The special and unique aspect of this spec would be spells which focus on returning the target to a state they were in a fixed time ago, instead of just healing them up.
Maybe it could be expanded towards using the light trough arcane attunement? Sounds actually weird in my own ears but give it a go if you want to expand on it.

The story behind this spec is the change of time period towards the Age of the Mortals. The bronze dragonflight is very concerned about the future of their time controlling magic. (No pun intended) They decide to bless some experts of arcane arts with their gift and knowledge, but limiting it for only to be used on allies to preserve their life.
Like pointed out the magi already have a limited power over time, but the bronze dragonflight teach them how to use it more precise, and in completely new ways.

Next up is death knight, with propably the most common suggestion - Runecaster, a healer who controls the lifeforce of enemies and allies through manipulating blood of the enemies and allies.

This spec is quite self explanatory so I will cover it very very briefly. Heal, but cause corruption. Vampiristic traits to transfer life force from enemies to friendly targets. Transfer health from an ally to another ally.

I chose the spec to be the Runecaster, since they already exist in WoW and are quite tightly knit into similar lore. They are not technically death knights,(my own additions here) but some have risen in the ranks of the Ebon Blade and started sharing their arts with fellow death knights, until it became a very common specialization.

Shaman: Earth-Warden, a specialization using mainly the element of earth to empover him/herself to endure damage. This is also a very common source of discussion so I am more interested in hearing your thoughts instead of sharing my own, but I will share my thoughts briefly.

The Earth-Wardens have been very secretive about their specialization in their arts, and they have been shunned for using shamanistic abilities in such masochistic way. It does hurt after all when a dragon claws you even though you wear some mail armor. They are the masters of earth, and posess also healing powers through the elements of water, and the wild.

I am going to stop this here and wait for your suggestions. I left the explanations very short because I rather discuss the possible additions with you instead of just writing them down for you to read.

[greatestlockever]

i hate having 2 specs.

it limits me to 2 specs pretty much per patch.

what i would like: 4 specs... 2 for pvp and 2 for pve. if blizz wants us to do pvp so much why dont they let us have this???????????????????????????

as a warlock i plan on having at least 2 raiding specs for MOP raids. possibly even 3 if i like destro enough itll be a 3rd. so whenever i wanna do pvp i have to redo all of my talents... absolutely ridiculous

right now i enjoy demo and affliction. i have 6 specs that i like 2 for demo pve, 1 for demo pvp, 2 for aff pvp and 1 for aff pve.


if i didnt have to respec every time i would play all 6 specs.

[Darnassian]

Im not really liking the idea of transferring health from one player to another or the "restoring a character to the state they were in 3 minutes ago". It seems easy to grief with and not very reliable. For the shaman, going inline with the lore of the game already, with wind being associated with enhancement, water associated with restoration, and fire associated with elemental (primarily), *earth* would make sense for tanking. A warder is better than primalist, calling upon the power of earth and rock to mitigate damage and generate lots of threat. Rockbiter would be their imbue, since it already taunts for unleash elements.

[StationaryHawk]

Mages already have a very basic control over time as it is. It's doubtful that they need blessings from the bronze dragonflight to continue doing so. Some shamans already use their abilities in very offensive manners, such as summoning droves of elementals to combat their enemies in large-scale fights. I can't see a healer that needs to steal health from an enemy to heal an ally as anything but unbalanced (unless said healing was 100%+ more than the health stolen).

Regardless, I just don't like the idea of four specializations as it is. Three work just fine as it is, and with the changes being made to talents, I don't see the need for a fourth (with the exception of feral druids).

[Sinndra]

will pure dps specs get yet another dps spec? if not then while it may not be an issue for lore... it would be a player issue.. some players actually prefer to have pure dps classes.. and not your "healing mage" idea. or a tanking warlock. why do we all need a 4th spec? why not just change one of the specs we already have, to fit a new playstyle? does having a 4th spec for all classes, mean that we still retain the right to choose 2 of them.. or is this a camouflaged way of pushing for classes to have all specs open, and eliminating the need for respeccing? something else im against as it takes away from having to choose. i actually wish they would increase the amount of gold it costs to respec, making it seem more important again.

[eschatological]

I would love a legit tanking hunter where you tank via your pet and do almost nothing yourself. Beastmaster on steroids, iow.

[Deleted]

Reverse Time: A basic healing spell, but instead of healing a fixed amount, it returns the target to a state they were in 3 seconds ago.

This wouldn't probably be very problematic and often return the tank to a point where he had less or about the same health as when the spell was cast.
Example: Tank drops from 50% to 10%. A paladin casts Lay on Hands, putting the tank at 100% health. The mage's Reverse Time goes off, putting the tank at either 10% or 50%, depending on how long time has passed.

[Deleted]

No.
/10 char

[Gorthezar]

I really only need 2 specs so this has never been a problem for me.

[demonskies]

The time mage healer sounds horrible, Dks runecaster just sounds like a horrible knock off necro,lock,healer. The only one that might make some sort of sense is the shaman but also not that great. The system seems to work fine as is with 3 specs.

[Mormolyce]

I think Blizzard adding another spec to any class, especially one that allows it to perform a new role (tank/heal/dps) is extremely unlikely. If anything I think they regret having as many specs as they do, they'd probably like to remove some.

But I think this is pretty much the most reasonable lore explanation you could come up with for some new roles. DK is a bit of a stretch, Mage is fairly reasonable (surprising since the concept is kind of weird) but would require a heck of a lot of tuning, Shaman tank is probably the most solid.

[Darnassian]

I think Blizzard adding another spec to any class, especially one that allows it to perform a new role (tank/heal/dps) is extremely unlikely. If anything I think they regret having as many specs as they do, they'd probably like to remove some.

Im not really sure what you're basing this off of. Adding an additional spec to a few classes, like they did with druids, making guardian (bear) completely different from feral cat is the trend. Adding a spec to certain classes allows new things to be brought to the table without implementing an entirely new class which is a balancing pain.

[chemicader]

So, it seems only one or two has actually read the OP... This thread was to discuss the very very very very impossiblish (Yes, I made that word up.) 4th specs from a lore point of view especially not about it going to get ever implemented, not the actual game mechanics, (althought my examples seem to mislead people, thinking of removing them) not how they resemble other classes, not how stupid a healing spec for mages would be in WoW.

Now, after lecturing the ignorant posters who have completely misunderstood this thread, (though possibly most of the fault lies withing me, with my messy examples about game mechanics) I shall move on to discuss with the few posters who actually contributed into this thread.
Yes, mages already have very basic control over time, but in no way is it exact or precise, which would make it a very unreliable source of healing someone. I am not downright scrapping this, although I admit you pointed out some major flaws in that idea. I think I should rephrase the Bronze Dragonflight involvement... What I meant was that they give some insight to the magi to enhance their time controlling abilities.

And to the next part: I just decided to call the shaman specialization "Primalist" since it actually describes the element of earth very well in my opinion, though I admit something along the lines of "Earth-Warder" "Elemental Warden" sound more logical, I shall give it some thought.

The Runecaster idea mainly came from a necromancer, but a plain necromancer does not really fall into the death knight category because of the usage of runes. Runes are the main source of power for the death knights, since they use it often in their necromantic magic.

[Deleted]

Hmm...

I like the theoretical idea of a 4th spec, and like the ideas so far. The runecaster can do something close to the green drake from The Oculus - have a spell leeching health from target, and then using own and other health to heal stuff, or something like the runecasters from Northrend, Placing healing runes on the ground. Could have new interesting uses of Anti-magic shell/zone.

Paladins could get something like 'Exorcist' or 'Inquisitor', which can be a range DPS. Having some connection to the Scarlet Crusade would be fun, Light and blood and so on.

Hunters could have a trapper spec, which can turn them to rather bulky melees with some CC, or a petless spec.

Monks obviously, although new, could get a spell DPS spec, based on the Red Crane. (The chicken guy needs some loving, people.)

Warriors could get a ranged weapon using spec, since they're the only one that can reasonably use one at this time, maybe called Commander, using more shouting and just dishing out tons of ordnance in the target, unlike hunters and their poisons, traps, magical arrows and beasties.

Warlocks... I can't really see what can be done with warlocks for a fourth spec.

Druids already got a fourth one, and I really can't see what other thing can they do, beside range physical DPS (Hydralisk form please!)

Rogues, they could get a swashbuckling spec perhaps, tanking based on crippling the damage the boss deals to you, sipping grog and grabbing attention of bosses by shouting profanities in sailor lingo.

Priests, I can't really see what kind of spec priests can get, for a while a monk spec was considered in some forums, but that's not really an option now, is it?

I think that covers all of my ideas, but the reason a fourth spec is pretty much 'imposibillish', is that it's going to cause way too much homogenisation, such as,
-> Pick a role.
-> Magic DPS
-> Would you like demon summoning guy, light summoning guy, elemental summoning guy, shadow summoning guy, red chicken summoning guy or nature summoning gu... manbearpigchicken?
-> Uhh, what?
-> Warlock, Paladin, Shaman, Priest, Monk or druid.

I'd love to see a fourth class, but I'm afraid that homogenisation will become too prevalent and the classes will not have this class-defining feel they had before and still have now.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

If you require lore, this is impossible.

The simple fact is most pure DPS classes will require a lorelol to get a 4th spec.

[the0o]

Death Knight , necromancer - ranged caster with summon adds. Int Plate (Suck it holy paladins)

[Laukkanen]

As long as they make it possible for me to play as a keeper of the grove Druid I'm totally fine with this.

[Deleted]

necromuch?

lore wise several classes already have a "4th spec" which currently npc's are the only ones who can do it atm, so i don't think lore reasons are needed for many.

your shamy one almost points to making shamans one "element" instead of one "spec" which would be a cool change and makes sence -> earth,fire,wind,water,
earth -> tank
fire -> ranged dps ( so you don't burn yourself!)
wind -> fast attacking (melle) dps
Water -> healer

[chemicader]

If you require lore, this is impossible.

The simple fact is most pure DPS classes will require a lorelol to get a 4th spec.

most, but this was the topic of discussion.