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Strippling - I agree with Vaedan here, in fact , it's better the Void knight be a separate class in lore, and this type of thing, that started in classic then Moon Priests and Loa Priests were given Light priest kits and Rangers in lore were actually hunters in class because blizzard idn't adapt the core class concept to race. They continued with Blood Knights, Sunwalker paladins/priests, Goblin Shaman, Kul'tiran tidesage shaman, druids and Zandalari druids and mages.
That's a lot of examples. But if it allows you to play a class on a race, with specific lore aside to it, then I'm all for it.
There is distinction between the gameplay class and the lore class if you hadn't noticed.
so Void Knights - not Paladins (it's the paladin class you are picking)
Night warriors - not paladins (also uses the paladin class)
This can extend to more race/class combos.
Elemental mages - not shaman (for all elf shaman class selections)
Botanists - not druids (for blood elf druids)
Valewalkers - not druids (for Nightborne druids)
What would really be cool is if blizzard took the time to just rename the class and redo some of the FX. Model animation behaviour might be too much work, unless you wanted to do something special like a Warden - which would be a rogue skin. i.e. class skins.
It helps players know that:
Sunwalkers, Void Knights, Night Warriors, Blood Knights - aren't traditional paladins, but it's a similar concept - just like you Islam, Buddhism, hinduism etc aren't Christianity but similar enough to be called religions.
Botanists, Valewalkers, Drust, Loa changelings - aren't traditional druids - they are more a sub-class
Elemental Mages, Tidesages, Goblin shaman - aren't traditional shaman, they achieve the same thing through different methods and philosophies.
For me this is fine, and actually preferable, I feel races have the levle of individuality and diversity that can allow for different classes, that fit the mechanic or theme/spell style of an existing class that has a lore that doesn't fit that race.. yet, that race can offer a class of their own, that is similar in concept/application.
Void Knight is a perfect example, it's not a paladin, but it is essentially the same class that uses the void insetad of the light. I''d use the same to give Elven shaman, but htey won't be elven shaman, they'd be a unique type of Elemental mage, that specialises in using the arcane to wield the elements, and ofc, they also specialise moreso than your average mage in summoning elementals, and they can use water magic to heal, a technique the elves lost after the sundering, but the Moonguard and Duskguard in Suramar brought back to the Darnassians and Thalassians. Same with the Night warrior paladin.
They just have to be a little creative, and this beats saying elves became tribal shaman. just like it was better for Tauren to be Sunwalkers than adapt the rigourous Light religion. the problem with Sunwalkers is they never really explained them and set up a system for them. The concept was fine, the execuction was terrible. All of a sudden Taruen could be paladins and priests, in a culture that doesn't have that concept - except the Sunwalker isn't a traditional priest or paladin, but without an explanation of what it is, we are left cluelss.
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Me too, I really liked it, and it's predecessor post on Class identities.