Next will be a range, mail wearing class.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

smells like a thinly veiled Dark Ranger class thread , lol

[TOM_RUS]

Yes bring back ranged survival hunter.

[Foolicious]

Personal loot gave blizzard the opportunity to ignore armortypes and weapons for new classes. It doesn't seem like perso loot is going away anytime soon, so we can't say for certain a new class will use bows/mail because they are the least used.
Also adding meeles and tanks doesn't seem a problem for blizzard either. It was time for a range class ages ago, but who knows if we will ever see another one.

[Teriz]

Tinker would be the best option for the next class.

Given that Blizzard is highlighting the Goblin and Gnome rivalry in 8.1 and 8.2, the possibility of an underground expansion in 9.0 that could introduce Undermine, and given Mekkatorque and the eventual connection to Mechagon, the next expansion would be the best time to release a Tinker class.

We'll see one way or another.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Tinker would be the best option for the next class.

Given that Blizzard is highlighting the Goblin and Gnome rivalry in 8.1 and 8.2, the possibility of an underground expansion in 9.0 that could introduce Undermine, and given Mekkatorque and the eventual connection to Mechagon, the next expansion would be the best time to release a Tinker class.

We'll see one way or another.

i would like to point out that mekkatorque is 100% being set up to bring in mecha-gnomes into the Alliance , how convenient that he has injuries sustained from BoD that Jaina nor priests of Stormwind know how to fix ... AND we 'll be going to Mechagon to see wtf is up with these mecha-gnomes

Mekkatorque is 100% going to become a mecha-gnome in order to save his life and then bring Mecha-gnomes into the ALliance as an allied race

[Fred Skinner]

I want a necromancer class in the next expac.

[Zyrinx]

Bards 10chars

[ro9ue]

If this was a race for president, Tinker would be polling at like 98%.

[Nevcairiel]

Personal loot gave blizzard the opportunity to ignore armortypes and weapons for new classes. It doesn't seem like perso loot is going away anytime soon

Even with personal loot, having a decent balance between armor types is somewhat important - at least to the players.

One key concept of perso loot is to still have the ability to trade gear if its of no use to you. But if you have an entirely unbalanced distribution of armor types, this becomes impractical for those players that play mail, and as such they are at a disadvantage.

[Florena]

See, once upon a time I thought the next class would be mail to balance out the armor types.

Then we got demon hunter, another mobile melee agility leather class, to make it 3/4/2/3.

Blizz doesn't seem super concerned with balancing the armor types.

ESPECIALLY with personal loot.

[TriHard]

People are saying tinker because of Mechagon shit and the book that you could find about tinkering. But they've already made it specifically clear that Tinker is not going to happen.

My money is on Necromancer, which to me, makes FAR MORE sense than anything else judging from the insane death theme we've worked through in Drustvar, Nazmir, with Bwonsamdi, Sylvanas and so on. The spell effects of Death have also been given the same color as the Diablo 3 necromancer, which is more of a green-ish light blue.

The closest we've been to Tinker has been the one gnome from the Island expedition that you play against as a Horde, the one that has tiny bots running around healing and damaging people, but I don't see that happening as a class unless they were to give it to the Draenei and Orcs as well. They wouldn't give a class to the two least played races of all time. There's just a specific group of people that like playing tiny races like that.

Also, I'm pretty sure they made it clear that armor type doesn't matter anymore, so it's probably going to be cloth, unless they go for Diablo 3-style Necromancers and give them mail.

- - - Updated - - -

Even with personal loot, having a decent balance between armor types is somewhat important - at least to the players.

One key concept of perso loot is to still have the ability to trade gear if its of no use to you. But if you have an entirely unbalanced distribution of armor types, this becomes impractical for those players that play mail, and as such they are at a disadvantage.

No, you don't speak for the players, it's not important to most players as long as the class is cool. What matters is if they are ranged or melee, and at this point, I'm pretty sure ranged is next, Necromancer is the only one that truly make sense, unless they make a void-specific class we've never heard about before

[Marrilaife]

We have forced personal loot now so armor type is not that important.

Yeah basically it takes 3 times as fast to gear a leather char than a mail, because it's so easy to make a leather stack group for m+ farm, and mail is super unpopular, nobody will trade you loot because next to no one plays mail classes.

Really need more ranged specs in the game,

We do, but bet they'll just keep adding more melee specs to keep that space even more crowded. Like "warden" class, since now it makes sense to add it to both factions when Sira joined the Forsaken.

We already have a supply of melee dps vastly outnumbering demand in most content. I would also hope they stop adding tanks to the game because they clearly can't balance them and ran out of ideas.

[Nihilux]

With Darkshore Warfront, I would imagine Warden might become a hero class. Especially with how you have a Warden on alliance and a Dark Warden on horde.
Dark Ranger would also be great, or Spellbreaker (non-hero class), or Tinker.

Another option is adding specs and trying to work in additional classes as specs instead, to easier put in classes, just like Allied Races made it easy to put in races.

[Mister Cheese]

In all the expansions to date Blizzard have added no new ranged specs and removed one.

If anything I can see them rolling shaman and hunter into the leather category, and making all mail items leather.

That's a terrible idea.

[Akasha64]

just remove mail and make it leather then add a plate class

Removing options not a good thing. There will be too big of a gap between leather and plate then.

[Ielenia]

From all the ideas, wishes and speculations, we can dig something for sure, we still only have 2 mail wearing classes in the game, where plate, leather and cloth are highly represented.

It is a rather obvious thing that mail will either disappear or move on, it is a rare armor at this point as either leather or plate seem to make more sense.

TBH, I think 'mail armor' is a mistake. The concept of a shaman wearing mail armor always felt wrong, to me, especially when you consider the class' origins way back in WC3 and Vanilla. The orcs never wore mail. It was either straight plate or leather.

In my opinion, shamans should wear leather, but I guess Blizzard didn't want hunters being the only ones to wear mail...

So my bet is that it will be a mail wearing class. Also, DK = melee, Monk = melee and healer, DH = melee, chances are that Blizzard will compliment the game on that area and give us a ranger/caster who uses mail.

What are your thoughts?

Armor type is almost irrelevant, nowadays, with Personal Loot. Blizzard added, back-to-back, two leather-wearing classes, so I don't think 'armor type' is a big concern for the developers.

As for 'ranged/caster', yes, the game could use one more class of that type, but, again, people has been saying we needed a new ranged class since Wrath. But then we got another melee class. And then another. So, again, I'm not sure keeping a 'ranged/melee' balance is high up in Blizzard's priorities.

[Teriz]

i would like to point out that mekkatorque is 100% being set up to bring in mecha-gnomes into the Alliance , how convenient that he has injuries sustained from BoD that Jaina nor priests of Stormwind know how to fix ... AND we 'll be going to Mechagon to see wtf is up with these mecha-gnomes

Mekkatorque is 100% going to become a mecha-gnome in order to save his life and then bring Mecha-gnomes into the ALliance as an allied race

Yep, and adding Mecha/Junker Gnomes alongside whatever race they'll bring in as the Goblin equivalent would also make a Tinker inclusion more feasible, because then there would be more than two default Tinker races.

- - - Updated - - -

People are saying tinker because of Mechagon shit and the book that you could find about tinkering.

What book are you talking about?

But they've already made it specifically clear that Tinker is not going to happen.

When did they do that?

[TriHard]

Yep, and adding Mecha/Junker Gnomes alongside whatever race they'll bring in as the Goblin equivalent would also make a Tinker inclusion more feasible, because then there would be more than two default Tinker races.

- - - Updated - - -



What book are you talking about?



When did they do that?

There was a book found in the current expansion that was mentioning tinkering.
As for them stating Tinker would not happen, just look to one of the last blizzcons where they were asked this, Ion I believe, said they don't want to invalidate Engineering and that the class fantasy might not fit in current WoW.

[Lord Pebbleton]

I've always wanted a scavenger/pillager/pirate class that could use mail (or mail/leather at will to fit the scavenger fantasy) and that could equip one handed guns/crossbows, along with one handed melee weapons or just pure ranged traditional crossbow/bow/gun.
Hunters would also gain the ability to equip one handed ranged stuff, so things would get more interesting for both classes.
Sadly, since armor type now means very little because of how loot is handled, and since this expansion is probably the closest we'll ever get to the pirate theme, I have very little hopes.

[Echoherb]

During the blizzcon demon hunter announcement, they said they make classes based on story and whether it fits the theme of the expansion, and that armor type, etc. doesn't play into their decision at all.

It would be a bit silly for them to add yet another melee class though.