Demon Hunters will be the new class

[Thimagryn]

However... with that being said. If they do go the route of removing Meta from warlocks in favor of giving it to demon hunters, I still feel like Warlocks should have some form of it, because I look at it like it's their next step in evolving. They should get a replacement spell where they like merge with one of their demons and get heightened powers / unique ability or whatever based on which demon they merge with for X time period.

TBH I see it as two different paths of the same concept. Druids and Shamans can both shapeshift into animal forms and they have different uses for it. I think it could be interesting if Blizzard expanded on the ghost wolf to involve it more into combat, similar to Rehgar in Heroes of the Storm.

[Lorelol]

Until the ability to summon other players is given to at least one other class, this non-sense of warlocks losing their unique identity is just that, non-sense. Meta was added later, the ability to summon has always been solely a lock ability from day 1 (summon stones don't count as those aren't player abilities but stones near the dungeon, which were added later as well.)

[Dasani]

What makes you so certain it won't be? We have no evidence that says it will, but also none against it, and it is a reasonable assumption. I don't think the game needs another melee class and I'd hope for something more creative, though.

Reasoning is what makes it an impossibility.

Of the two classes we've gotten since release, both were of an underrepresented armor type. Cloth has always been at 3, leather was at 2, plate was at 2, and mail was at 2. DK's added a third plate, monks added a third leather, now each type has 3 except mail. Mail seems the most likely armor type to be used by a new class, demon hunters are leather users, at least all items in-game thus far which were created to be similar to demon hunters have all been leather items including cursed vision of sargeras.

New classes thus far have also been melee dps that are tank capable. It's unlikely the third new class will be yet another melee when there are already far too many of them and they are the least desirable members of a raid. Ranged seems far more likely.

Then there are the abilities they are based on... Demon Hunters in Warcraft 3 had Immolate, Mana Burn, Evasion, and Metamorphosis. Two of those abilities went to warlocks, one to priests which is now defunct, and one to rogues. They completely cannibalized the demon hunter to fuel the creation of wow classes from the very beginning. It's the same reason you won't see shit like Chieftan or Blademaster classes, because they were taken apart for their components and used to create "Warriors". Demon Hunter was a big component in the creation of warlocks and rogues, right from the beginning. All of WOW's classes are created from these cannibalized abilities. Shaman are a combination of Far Seer, Orc Shaman, Witch Doctor, and Shadow Hunter. Far Seers, witch doctors, and shadow hunters aren't playable wow classes, they were cannibalized to instead create a generic Shaman class that encompassed all of these abilities just as rogues and warlocks were created with bits and pieces here and there. Adding demon hunters is as ridiculous as adding blademasters or Far Seers. Their defining abilities are already in use by existing classes.

Then there is the lore perspective and justification for their inclusion. Why demon hunters? Why now? Death Knights were created when Arthas started his war and started his invasion on the living. They made sense. Monks already existed for who knows how many thousands of years, we just didn't have knowledge of them or access to them, after discovering pandaria there was reason for us to suddenly learn of them and have access to that knowledge to train our own monks. It made sense. But demon hunters? Makes no fucking sense any way you slice it. It has been who knows how many in-game years since warcraft 3 to the present, hell it's been over 10 in reality and not a peep out of a single demon hunter that seemed at all interested in training anyone or helping in the world at large. Illidan brought demon hunters to outland and was training blood elves to be demon hunters but we kinda killed them all and they were working for the bad guy anyway. Did any demon hunters try to join the alliance or horde and try to help kill anything any of the demons in outland? NOPE. Did any demon hunters ever say "hey, i care about what happens to this world, i should go help kill deathwing or ragnaros or the old gods or fucking anything else threatening to end all life on the planet!"? NOPE. Hell, even when Sunwell was released and they had a brand new sunwell which was always a big deal to demon hunters and it was literally infested with demons, did any demon hunters show up to contribute anything? NOPE.

We have fought demons many, many times. There are pockets of demons all over the world that still cause problems. There have been countless reasons and excuses for demon hunters to pop up and want to contribute something or say "oh fuck, the threat of the legion which wiped out most of our planet ten thousand years ago is still out there, maybe i should train somebody how to fight demons better". But they never did. Of the handful of remaining demon hunters that still exist, they have had literally 10,000 years to train people to be demon hunters as well as more than a decade to actually contribute their training towards trying to fight demons trying to end the world but they haven't. They either aren't willing or aren't capable.

There is absolutely zero justifiable excuse to suddenly have players able to make demon hunters. The most bullshit excuse blizzard could cough up would be they dug up some night elf prison like the one illidan was in that just happened to have some demon hunter master in it who totally wanted to train people and was locked away all this time so he couldnt before now. But then how do you reconcile that against everything else? Why would night elves say "oh you know what, we locked all these dudes up for eternity for their past crimes but you know what, its ok, let em out and we'll give them a pass cuz... REASONS?" Hell tyrande had to straight up MURDER the wardens who held illidan in prison to get him out and then he turned around and did more evil demonic shit and just proved they should have left him locked up.

The handful of demon hunters you do actually encounter in WOW are more nods towards warcraft 3 than meaningful characters. That's all they are and all they ever will be. There is simply no place for such a class to exist. Rogues already cover all the physical combat aspects of demon hunters and warlocks cover all the magical aspects, there's seriously nothing left for them without just straight up creating all new abilities based on NONE of the original content. And if you were going to make a class with all 100% original abilities based on nothing from warcraft 3, why not make an original class instead of calling it demon hunter and having nothing in common with their warcraft 3 counterpart?

None of it makes any sense. Demon hunters MIGHT have been possible, at one point, before metamorphosis was given to warlocks. But after warlocks got that, it was the nail in the coffin for them. Demon Hunters cannot exist as long as warlocks have meta because that was the biggest, most defining feature of the entire demon hunter hero. They would have to have it and it just doesn't make sense giving it to two classes. The one and ONLY time that has ever been done was giving Death Knights the Death Coil ability when warlocks already had it. The big difference though is DK's still had 3 more abilities that no existing class used: Death Pact, Army of the Dead, and Unholy Aura. And they built a class on those remaining abilities and also said fuck it, we'll give them death coil too. But demon hunters have nothing left. There is absolutely NOTHING to build upon to create a class for them aside from the fact they are blind dudes and dual wield glaives and that is exactly what rogues did during burning crusade, they dual wielded warglaives and had the blindfold on to give the feels of being a demon hunter.

And how would demon hunter weapons work? Add a new weapon type only usable by them? Inflate the loot table with more shit only one class can use like hunter weapons do? No. That would be stupid. Or maybe add glaives that ANYONE could use? Well then you'd have warriors and rogues running around with warglaives and you'd lose your demon hunter feels anyway. Or maybe they should just use any one hand weapons but get special demon hunter glaives they can transmog to. But would that one set please you forever? How long till you start demanding a fancy new transmog look for your glaives every raid tier?

Demon hunters are just too ridiculous to work. Far too many issues. It is never going to happen and people just need to accept it. But instead they come back in full force before every new expansion saying it's gonna happen this time. Every single time.

[Belisaurio]

DH used ranged casting in WC3, never mind WoW. It might not be their primary focus....but they can and do cast.

That's not true. DH had a form to do ranged dmg. Never casted (so, a skill that required some cast-bar to be used) anything. It's like warriors at vanilla, yes, they could use ranged weapons, but nobody played them like a ranged character? And btw, the last DH kit is from Illidan in HOTS, that they removed all their ranged abilities to be more hit and run tactics with some healing. Btw, I don't have any problem if they give them some magic spells.

Until the ability to summon other players is given to at least one other class, this non-sense of warlocks losing their unique identity is just that, non-sense. Meta was added later, the ability to summon has always been solely a lock ability from day 1 (summon stones don't count as those aren't player abilities but stones near the dungeon, which were added later as well.)

+1 From day 1, Warlocks summon demons (and that's their signature feature).

[rosebull]

Reasoning is what makes it an impossibility.

Of the two classes we've gotten since release, both were of an underrepresented armor type. Cloth has always been at 3, leather was at 2, plate was at 2, and mail was at 2. DK's added a third plate, monks added a third leather, now each type has 3 except mail. Mail seems the most likely armor type to be used by a new class, demon hunters are leather users, at least all items in-game thus far which were created to be similar to demon hunters have all been leather items including cursed vision of sargeras.

New classes thus far have also been melee dps that are tank capable. It's unlikely the third new class will be yet another melee when there are already far too many of them and they are the least desirable members of a raid. Ranged seems far more likely.

Then there are the abilities they are based on... Demon Hunters in Warcraft 3 had Immolate, Mana Burn, Evasion, and Metamorphosis. Two of those abilities went to warlocks, one to priests which is now defunct, and one to rogues. They completely cannibalized the demon hunter to fuel the creation of wow classes from the very beginning. It's the same reason you won't see shit like Chieftan or Blademaster classes, because they were taken apart for their components and used to create "Warriors". Demon Hunter was a big component in the creation of warlocks and rogues, right from the beginning. All of WOW's classes are created from these cannibalized abilities. Shaman are a combination of Far Seer, Orc Shaman, Witch Doctor, and Shadow Hunter. Far Seers, witch doctors, and shadow hunters aren't playable wow classes, they were cannibalized to instead create a generic Shaman class that encompassed all of these abilities just as rogues and warlocks were created with bits and pieces here and there. Adding demon hunters is as ridiculous as adding blademasters or Far Seers. Their defining abilities are already in use by existing classes.

Then there is the lore perspective and justification for their inclusion. Why demon hunters? Why now? Death Knights were created when Arthas started his war and started his invasion on the living. They made sense. Monks already existed for who knows how many thousands of years, we just didn't have knowledge of them or access to them, after discovering pandaria there was reason for us to suddenly learn of them and have access to that knowledge to train our own monks. It made sense. But demon hunters? Makes no fucking sense any way you slice it. It has been who knows how many in-game years since warcraft 3 to the present, hell it's been over 10 in reality and not a peep out of a single demon hunter that seemed at all interested in training anyone or helping in the world at large. Illidan brought demon hunters to outland and was training blood elves to be demon hunters but we kinda killed them all and they were working for the bad guy anyway. Did any demon hunters try to join the alliance or horde and try to help kill anything any of the demons in outland? NOPE. Did any demon hunters ever say "hey, i care about what happens to this world, i should go help kill deathwing or ragnaros or the old gods or fucking anything else threatening to end all life on the planet!"? NOPE. Hell, even when Sunwell was released and they had a brand new sunwell which was always a big deal to demon hunters and it was literally infested with demons, did any demon hunters show up to contribute anything? NOPE.

We have fought demons many, many times. There are pockets of demons all over the world that still cause problems. There have been countless reasons and excuses for demon hunters to pop up and want to contribute something or say "oh fuck, the threat of the legion which wiped out most of our planet ten thousand years ago is still out there, maybe i should train somebody how to fight demons better". But they never did. Of the handful of remaining demon hunters that still exist, they have had literally 10,000 years to train people to be demon hunters as well as more than a decade to actually contribute their training towards trying to fight demons trying to end the world but they haven't. They either aren't willing or aren't capable.

There is absolutely zero justifiable excuse to suddenly have players able to make demon hunters. The most bullshit excuse blizzard could cough up would be they dug up some night elf prison like the one illidan was in that just happened to have some demon hunter master in it who totally wanted to train people and was locked away all this time so he couldnt before now. But then how do you reconcile that against everything else? Why would night elves say "oh you know what, we locked all these dudes up for eternity for their past crimes but you know what, its ok, let em out and we'll give them a pass cuz... REASONS?" Hell tyrande had to straight up MURDER the wardens who held illidan in prison to get him out and then he turned around and did more evil demonic shit and just proved they should have left him locked up.

The handful of demon hunters you do actually encounter in WOW are more nods towards warcraft 3 than meaningful characters. That's all they are and all they ever will be. There is simply no place for such a class to exist. Rogues already cover all the physical combat aspects of demon hunters and warlocks cover all the magical aspects, there's seriously nothing left for them without just straight up creating all new abilities based on NONE of the original content. And if you were going to make a class with all 100% original abilities based on nothing from warcraft 3, why not make an original class instead of calling it demon hunter and having nothing in common with their warcraft 3 counterpart?

None of it makes any sense. Demon hunters MIGHT have been possible, at one point, before metamorphosis was given to warlocks. But after warlocks got that, it was the nail in the coffin for them. Demon Hunters cannot exist as long as warlocks have meta because that was the biggest, most defining feature of the entire demon hunter hero. They would have to have it and it just doesn't make sense giving it to two classes. The one and ONLY time that has ever been done was giving Death Knights the Death Coil ability when warlocks already had it. The big difference though is DK's still had 3 more abilities that no existing class used: Death Pact, Army of the Dead, and Unholy Aura. And they built a class on those remaining abilities and also said fuck it, we'll give them death coil too. But demon hunters have nothing left. There is absolutely NOTHING to build upon to create a class for them aside from the fact they are blind dudes and dual wield glaives and that is exactly what rogues did during burning crusade, they dual wielded warglaives and had the blindfold on to give the feels of being a demon hunter.

And how would demon hunter weapons work? Add a new weapon type only usable by them? Inflate the loot table with more shit only one class can use like hunter weapons do? No. That would be stupid. Or maybe add glaives that ANYONE could use? Well then you'd have warriors and rogues running around with warglaives and you'd lose your demon hunter feels anyway. Or maybe they should just use any one hand weapons but get special demon hunter glaives they can transmog to. But would that one set please you forever? How long till you start demanding a fancy new transmog look for your glaives every raid tier?

Demon hunters are just too ridiculous to work. Far too many issues. It is never going to happen and people just need to accept it. But instead they come back in full force before every new expansion saying it's gonna happen this time. Every single time.

You're going to look really stupid when demon hunters are announced thursday

[Pua]

Arguing against demon hunter is like arguing religion, it is so taxing.

I'll tell you what, Dasani.

I'll make a bet with you - I believe demon hunters are going to be in the next expansion.

I believe this, because it'd be a fan service that might entice players back into the game. Much of what you've said is thoughtful and eloquent, but I believe it'll be overridden by an attempt to bring people back.

So, here are the terms:

1) If a demon hunter isn't announced as a new class on Thursday, I'll buy you an in-game pet of your choice from the store.
2) If a demon hunter is announced as a new class on Thursday, you buy me an in-game pet of my choice from the store.

Up for it?

[rosebull]

I'll tell you what, Dasani.

I'll make a bet with you - I believe demon hunters are going to be in the next expansion.

I believe this, because it'd be a fan service that might entice players back into the game. Much of what you've said is thoughtful and eloquent, but I believe it'll be overridden by an attempt to bring people back.

So, here are the terms:

1) If a demon hunter isn't announced as a new class on Thursday, I'll buy you an in-game pet of your choice from the store.
2) If a demon hunter is announced as a new class on Thursday, you buy me an in-game pet of my choice from the store.

Up for it?

Can i get in on this? He seems pretty sure about it. I'd like a pet

[Deleted]

Blizzard must know that having Queen Azshara as the nemesis of the next expansion, Illidan coming back to settle old scores with her (is she working for the Old Gods or the Legion? We don't know!) and having him lead/train the new Demon Hunter hero class would bring back all of the players.

Illidan has history with Azshara, and with the Well of Eternity beneath which she has her underwater capital, so demons don't have to be an overt threat at the start of this expansion to have him and demon hunters make sense, as long as there's a suggestion that Azshara is perhaps trying to open a new portal for Sargeras et. al. to come wreck Azeroth.

Illidan might be of the mind that we need to be ... PREPARED ... for a Legion invasion. He might even be mates now with a certain black dragon prince who is also a fan of being prepared.

So the only question is: Does Blizzard hate money?

[Deleted]

We shall see.
Demon hunters as a new hero class done in deathknighty way would perhaps even get me to resub.
Which means it ain't gonna happen. The sheer cool factor is several orders of magnitude beyond anything Blizzard could dream of pulling off after Cata.

[Yig]

Far too much of the issue it seems for the advocates and the naysayers alike in this debate tends to rest on their personal taste and opinion of the demon hunter or what they seem to feel they are in an IP where that just isn't clear, when looking at the examples we've been given a class that is wide open for exploration in both lore and mechanics with a "cool" factor you can't deny, whether or not you see it as lame and derisive or not.

The issue is buried in fallacious comparisons that fall apart when you try to apply them to many of the classes we already have as arguments ruling out their existence and creation.

A more pertinent question is how much Blizzard wants to expand on the demon hunter and their lore story wise and mechanic wise, and how novel they want to push the mechanics of a ten yer old game.

It is important to keep in mind that everything we know and have established about the demon hunter still leaves us with only a skeleton of a figure.

Illidan is often mistaken as a compass here, but he has to be viewed as very distinct from what the player demon hunter would be born from, there is a ritualized order Warcraft 3 speaks of that paints a picture of individuals very different from Illidan or his Illidari. The military unit we see in Warcraft 3 makes no sense with the lore we were given in the Well of Eternity novels.

Who are the demon hunters we see in the lore existing in the past ten thousand years while Illidan was imprisoned and never had a chance to train anyone between his arbitrary inception of what we know as his visual theme and what and why they adopted it?

The visual identity and archetype of a damned or suicidal or ritualized berserker or demonic ninja will always go well with the handfull of Warcraft's unique adventurer niches who could be found questing around Azeroth in the traditions and gaming genres this game pays so much homage to and will always offer a popular draw for returning players.

The class is obviously full of potential intrigue and attraction, the number of these discussions is testament to that in itself, and the highly arbitrary reasons the naysayers end up hairsplitting over why something so obviously viable with possibility is not serves to demonstrate it's viability as something to explore as well.

The rogue was the intended demon hunter substitute clearly, it was only the novelty of metamorphosis making sense for a cool idea for warlocks we are even mired in this ridiculous notion that warlocks offer what it is people have been asking for with demon hunters since WOW's beta.

[Syncness]

If Tomb of Sargeras comes back with Azshara, then Demon Hunter's could have a lore role to play.

Although skill wise, the wall of text above makes a good point that most of the DH's skills went to other classes already.

[Kiradyn]

If Tomb of Sargeras comes back with Azshara, then Demon Hunter's could have a lore role to play.

Although skill wise, the wall of text above makes a good point that most of the DH's skills went to other classes already.

Yeah, Blizzard does tend to release generic classes instead of specific ones.

Instead of Blademasters and Mountain Kings, we got Warriors.

Instead of Brewmasters we got Monks.

Instead of Farseers and Shadow Hunters we got Shaman.

Instead of Archmages, Blood Mages, and Sorcerers, we got Mages.

It stands to reason that instead of Demon Hunters and Pit Lords, we got Warlocks; a generic demon-based class.

[XorMalice]

Yeah, Blizzard does tend to release generic classes instead of specific ones.

At launch, they strangely used the traditional fantasy (D&D) classes instead of their specific ones.

Instead of Blademasters and Mountain Kings, we got Warriors.

The mountain king was really just a warrior. The Blademaster was not. Blademaster would still be a cool class, but they would have too many problems fitting them in, as too narrow a niche. If you roll a male orc warrior, you'd have a hard time making him look like or play like a blademaster. If you roll a dwarf warrior, you'd have no problem at all doing everything the mountain king does.

Instead of Brewmasters we got Monks.

Frankly, it's fine, because they have a brewmaster SPEC. And the brewmaster spec has all the brewmaster powers except one, which is on windwalkers. This was a very good handling of the brewmaster, and even has a lot in common with them, rotationally. I don't think any brewmaster fans were let down by the monk- if that was your guy, he's been your main since mop launch. Maybe a die hard brewmaster guy will come in and say otherwise, but they seemed to capture the brewmaster in kit and mechanics, and gave him a great role as tank, and a lot of his abilities also are available in melee dps spec as well.

Instead of Farseers and Shadow Hunters we got Shaman.

The farseer is subsumed by the shaman, but not entirely. Essentially he's an elemental shaman, but the elemental shaman doesn't get the wolves. The split is distracting enough, but at this point we mostly even see Thrall treated as enhancement in game. A farseer doesn't make sense because his signature powers are already entirely contained in one class- it would just take some effort to put them all into one spec, which could be doable, and I think most farseer fans have an orc shaman and are ok with it. Shadow Hunters, on the other hand, don't really have their kit represented by shamans, even though they have all the abilities. Still, it's a pretty reasonable fit- a resto troll shaman can be claimed to be a shadow hunter without being too far off.

Instead of Archmages, Blood Mages, and Sorcerers, we got Mages.

Blood Mage isn't in game. His abilities were mostly eaten by warlocks. Flame strike is the only thing he gave to mages, and it's not that interesting. A warlock has a better claim to blood mage than a mage does, and neither accomplishes the kit or spells. Also importantly, neither gets the phoenix summon, a core part of the blood mage play.

Archmage and Sorceress are things in the mage class. All those spells are in the mage class, and you use them iconically. If those guys were your thing, you were good to go at vanilla launch.

It stands to reason that instead of Demon Hunters and Pit Lords, we got Warlocks; a generic demon-based class.

Nope!


Pit Lord is a monster class, we don't have anything like that in game.

Demon Hunters are a warrior type class, a fusion of physicality and sorcery. The big tells that you don't have anything like the demon hunter, is that nothing in game plays at all like a demon hunter, or has kit like a demon hunter. Warlocks don't blind themselves to gain a second sight, and then go melee with warglaives.


We got warlocks because the game has room for a dark version of a caster, a fallen mage who works with demons. Plenty of characters in the RTS and related to it had similar powers and kit, and it was well supported in the lore. It also has no connection to the demon hunters.


If you wanted to play a demon hunter, you rolled a rogue. To this moment, that's the closest thing to a demon hunter in game, even before they dropped warglaives and blindfold. And rogues don't have much in common except the ability to melee in a similar fashion.




Demon Hunters have always been destined for WoW. It's surprising that they didn't add them in BC, but they probably didn't know how to add a class yet. You can see that they sorta wanted to, but by the time the tech was there, it was Lich King time. You'll note that they didn't add death knight as a spec (to either paladins or warriors), but waited for them to be their own class. Likewise, they've resisted adding demon hunter as a spec for rogues this whole time (though it's possible they might add it as a fourth spec to warlocks or rogues, I still think they'll be wiser making them as their own class- unless they are holding out for a massive fourth spec dump, which would be amazing but I have no faith that they would or could do that). No one thought we'd see Demon Hunters in Cataclysm or MoP, but when The Dark Below was being discussed, it was an obvious assumption- the Demon Hunter is due. When WoD came along and took away the expac that we were *supposed* to get, that shoved aside demon hunters (and most development to be honest). Now that devs are on track (presumably), demon hunter is a very likely candidate.


If they don't add a demon hunter now, it will be a massive missed opportunity. WoW as a large and serious game isn't going to last forever, and if they announce another class instead of demon hunter, they will be punting their iconic and unique class to an obscure future, visibly tagging it as a way to drag out subscriptions in some distant future where the game is relevant to almost no one. I would hope they would avoid that and add the class while the game still has some life in it. It's been a joke that it's taken them THIS long.

[Thimagryn]

Blood Mage isn't in game. His abilities were mostly eaten by warlocks. Flame strike is the only thing he gave to mages, and it's not that interesting. A warlock has a better claim to blood mage than a mage does, and neither accomplishes the kit or spells. Also importantly, neither gets the phoenix summon, a core part of the blood mage play.

Kael'thas in Heroes of the Storm is based on the WoW Fire mage archetype, which is itself based on the Blood Mage. The Sorceress and Archmage in Warcraft 3 used Arcane and Frost spells, Blood Mage was the only hero that used Fire spells. His themes were split off into both Warlock and Mage WoW classes, but it's obvious that the Blood Mage is intended to be a Fire Mage representative. Well, at least Kael'thas is.

[XorMalice]

Kael'thas in Heroes of the Storm is based on the WoW Fire mage archetype, which is itself based on the Blood Mage. The Sorceress and Archmage in Warcraft 3 used Arcane and Frost spells, Blood Mage was the only hero that used Fire spells. His themes were split off into both Warlock and Mage WoW classes, but it's obvious that the Blood Mage is intended to be a Fire Mage representative. Well, at least Kael'thas is.

I don't even buy that.

Here's the blood mage:

http://classic.battle.net/war3/human...loodmage.shtml

His abilities:

Flame Strike. Mages got this. This is the end of mage similarities.

Banish: Similar to, but harsher than, the warlock debuff.

Siphon Mana: Renamed to "Drain Mana" and given to warlocks, icon and all.

Phoenix (ulti): Not represented by any PC class.

Verdant Sphere: These magical orbs are available is a Warlock minor glyph. They are representative of blood magic.



Kaelthas in WoW does have some additional fire mage stuff (fireball and pyroblast), but also some more elementalist stuff.


In any event, nothing in WoW plays like a blood mage in WCIII, and at this point, the only one of his abilities that is in game and relevant is flame strike, a very generic fire aoe that, when given to mages, doesn't really act like the WCIII version.


The defining feature of the blood mage was blood magic, which mages definitely don't have. The verdant spheres, present on every blood mage and highlight as being especially powerful on KT, are absent entirely from mages (again, a warlock glyph seems to support the idea of a blood-mage based warlock to some small extent).


Also note: the mages in Warcraft II had fireball as their common spell. Certainly, fire magic was known and part of the games and the story well before the blood mages. The archmage specialized in frost magic, but the WCII mages cast fireball, blizzard, polymorph, slow, invisibilty, and flame shield (this became lightning shield in WCIII, for shamans). That's two fire spells out of a very small list.

[Skayth]

Just 2 days. With it, we find out if the chinese have been trolling this forum so hard, or that Demon hunters are really the next class.

I am on the side of demon hunters becoming the next class, mainly because of what they have been doing to demonology warlocks since the expansion began. They cut Glyph of Demon Hunting. They refuse to fix Glyph of Metamorphosis to allow green fire wings, and refuse to give the updated wings (Npc models) to this, just the static stand still ones. They refused to listen to the community on the problems of the class, during beta. They refused to buff the class during beta, to the point, the class was shit in highmaul, till everyone got on blizzards case, and then they finally buffed them. They then said they are killing demonology, and do not want us to play it, and that it will be revamped/redesigned next expansion. And then, for demonology, tier 18, they made is all about summoning massive amounts of demons and buffing them. Tin foil hat it up, but this basically screams demo is going back to demons and demon hunters are the next class (on top of the "chinese" leaks)

[Krazzorx]

Things like clashing with other classes aren't going to stop them from making a demon hunter if they want to. DH has quite a lot of vagueness that as long as they keep the core idea of what makes a DH a DH, loner who hunts demons and is somewhat insane, they can do just about whatever they want with class design.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm just glad that here in the U.S. I can basically wake up and watch the unveiling while you in Europe have to wait through a loooooong day.

[Skayth]

I'm just glad that here in the U.S. I can basically wake up and watch the unveiling while you in Europe have to wait through a loooooong day.

^ totally this

[Pua]

Can i get in on this? He seems pretty sure about it. I'd like a pet

Well, it doesn't seem as though Dasani's into it. Give him or her a bit more time, and then we'll talk.

[Talen]

You would deny another class an ability that it had before the warlock simply because you think warlocks need a unique ability to be kewl.

Yes - because said class does not exist as a player class therefore what it had in another game isn't relevant. Warlocks have the spell now. It is iconic to that class and many Warlocks players like it that way. There is no gameplay reason to remove that uniqueness...simply the arbitrary decision that another class is more important. All classes should have some unique or iconic ability or look. It is unfortunate for the idea of a standalone DH concept that for the Warlock, that is Meta. If Blizzard want to overlook the ramifications of such a class....well, that'd be their problem.

EJL