Where's the Balance Druid really in lore?Is it more kaldorei magic than real druidic?

[Mace]

The Stars, Moon, and especially Elune are most certainly all part of druidism. Cenarius, the original teacher of druidism, is regarded in all the cultures he taught as the son of Elune and the Tauren revere him, Elune, and Malorne as part of their traditional culture. In fact the Highmountain are even especially blessed by Malorne himself.

What is confusing you is the fact that as a nocturnal race these aspects are also part of Night Elf society more broadly, but in this regard I would recommend you look at the Tauren: yes they have a sun-focus due to being diurnal, but the worship of Mu'sha and Apa'ro were still present even before the reintroduction of formal druidism. Saying that these associations are exclusively Night Elf makes as much sense as arguing that Sun-walkers are really using Blood Elf magic because of how sun-based Quel'dorei society became.

The arcane thing is more tricky, but with both Balance Druids and Priestesses the spell descriptions make it clear that the arcane energy they are using is associated with Elune and the Moon. Why would it be out of the question for a Tauren Druid to be able to draw the same power from their worship of Mu'sha? Yes, Elves have a natural affinity for arcane magic but that doesn't mean that all arcane magic is uniquely Elven.

Did the tauren ever worship Mu'sha and Apa'ro? I thought they acknowledge them as from the Earthmother who they worship in a sense (if you could call it worship since worship implies religion they didn't have and until the sunwalkers - but it is a worship of sorts, and we're not really sure what the Sunwalkers worship, - is it the light or the sun? is it AN'she? I've never had clarification on that.. I know initially there's is like the native American Indians view of nature and the Earth - it is not the same way as say Christians and Jews worship God), - but I could be wrong here. I thought they worshipped the ancestors, and revere the Earthmother

[Aucald]

Did the tauren ever worship Mu'sha and Apa'ro? I thought they acknowledge them as from the Earthmother who they worship in a sense (if you could call it worship since worship implies religion they didn't have and until the sunwalkers - but it is a worship of sorts, and we're not really sure what the Sunwalkers worship, - is it the light or the sun? is it AN'she? I've never had clarification on that.. I know initially there's is like the native American Indians view of nature and the Earth - it is not the same way as say Christians and Jews worship God), - but I could be wrong here. I thought they worshipped the ancestors, and revere the Earthmother

I would say the Tauren venerated Mu'sha and Apa'ro, the same as they do the Earthmother - but they don't really seem to worship these entities in the same way the Trolls worship their Loa, for example (e.g. building elaborate temples, shrines, demanding sacrifices, etc. etc.) The Tauren don't seem to have any form of codified religion, preferring a web of more animistic and pantheistic beliefs - the Sunwalkers probably cleaving more toward the latter with the Tauren Shaman more toward the former.

[ravenmoon]

The Stars, Moon, and especially Elune are most certainly all part of druidism. Cenarius, the original teacher of druidism, is regarded in all the cultures he taught as the son of Elune and the Tauren revere him, Elune, and Malorne as part of their traditional culture. In fact the Highmountain are even especially blessed by Malorne himself.

Thank you, @Mace - look, stars, arcane and moon are the core part of original night elf culture - transcending their whole society - priest/mage/ druid - which is why you see such things in both Priestesses of the moon and Highborne/Nightborne mages, but you also do in druidsm.

It's not some mis-representation of half presentation, it's fully part of their kit, because it plays a part in their race, and their race invented druidsm and largely was the only one who practised it till recently. If Warcraft races took priest religion from night elves, we'd see star/moon spells in their toolkit, but they don't. And Mages although invented by night elves, take the outlook defined by the high elves who in many ways re built the discipline since their people had lost most of the ancient knowledge due to the great sundering. When the Shen'dralar and Nightborne and Moonguard return, they bring many of the lost elements to the Thalassians and Darnassians of the kaldorei cultural version of the arcane in its highly advanced state. This is why you see Nightborne & Moonguard with Moon lance, star
lance based arcane spells in addition to other ones) bringing the kaldorei flavour that is unique to the night races of elves but not others.


Elune is not involved in druidsm, but druidsm is involved in aspects of Elunism.

What do I mean? Elune isn't about nature and wild gods - she is a goddess, her priesthood wields light, arcane and void - not nature. However Cenarius is her son, and he is the master of nature magic, chief amongst the demi gods, as such his magic isn't necessarily 100% nature, and will retain parts from his mother.

So druidsm that Malfurion creates both from Cenarius and his cultural/racial heritage is bound to have star, moon and sun based magic. Because it is interwoven. The priesthood doesn't do anything with nature, but the druids do have things to do with Elune, and we can see that , because both Night elves and Cenarius are tied to Elune and the arcane is a core part of them.

What is confusing you is the fact that as a nocturnal race these aspects are also part of Night Elf society more broadly, but in this regard I would recommend you look at the Tauren: yes they have a sun-focus due to being diurnal, but the worship of Mu'sha and Apa'ro were still present even before the reintroduction of formal druidism. Saying that these associations are exclusively Night Elf makes as much sense as arguing that Sun-walkers are really using Blood Elf magic because of how sun-based Quel'dorei society became.

Exactly, or that either of those are using Arrakoan magic because it is sun based. Sure there is probably a connection, I'll give him that, but hey people from completely different zone or walks can reach the same conclusion or connect to the same power. The arcane is the arcane, whether you learn it on Azeroth because you're created by the arcane blood of a titan or you learn it on Argus. The sun, moon and stars shine everywhere, most planets have suns and moons and those on them can see the stars at night, so hey people on different planets as well as different races on the same planet can connect to the same source of power, though their methodology and understanding as well as belief structure around those things may vary.

The arcane thing is more tricky, but with both Balance Druids and Priestesses the spell descriptions make it clear that the arcane energy they are using is associated with Elune and the Moon. Why would it be out of the question for a Tauren Druid to be able to draw the same power from their worship of Mu'sha? Yes, Elves have a natural affinity for arcane magic but that doesn't mean that all arcane magic is uniquely Elven.

Actually, the spell descriptions of the arcane energy abilities don't have elune in them, what they do tell us is that their source is the stars and moon and that it is arcane based. But this makes total sense because the night elves discover arcane magic, and master it. The priests discern Elune through the Well of Eternity, so their is an intrinsic connection for them between arcane and the Goddess.
@Mace is where I got the explanation from, and it made sense in that, the priestesses look at the arcane and the Well from a spiritual point of view, not just spells and not applications. MAgecraft is the one that goes oh, well if this power can do all kinds of things, let's see what things we can use it for practically. So they used the arcane and magic to make things, improve physical standards, while the priests focus is more spiritually and martially based. WE have parallels in real life too, and the two groups won't necessarily see eye to eye all the time. Especially when the highborne caste was abusing the magic - that would have been something akin to a great sin or blasphemy to an order that views it as sacred and something you shoud have the utmost respect and reverence for handling properly and with thehighst of skill. Which Kaldorie magecraft will have been doing well I most parts of the kingdom, like Nar'thalas, Eldret'halas, Zin'Azsarhi, Suramar etc, and led ell by the highborne until they went overboard - went reckless and abusive, driven by the Queen to push crazily deeper and faster.

[Mace]

I would say the Tauren venerated Mu'sha and Apa'ro, the same as they do the Earthmother - but they don't really seem to worship these entities in the same way the Trolls worship their Loa, for example (e.g. building elaborate temples, shrines, demanding sacrifices, etc. etc.) The Tauren don't seem to have any form of codified religion, preferring a web of more animistic and pantheistic beliefs - the Sunwalkers probably cleaving more toward the latter with the Tauren Shaman more toward the former.

Yes, I noticed that too, and agree on that one, it seems based on certain types of culture that view these things just as matter of fact part of life. You honour the land, because it sustains you, the sun cos it gives you warmth and light, the moon and stars because they guid you at night.. Like native americans, you don't deface the earth recklessly and carelessly, you honour the burial site of your ancestors as sacred, but you don't do the sort of bowing down, all consuming love and devotion , building elaborate temples and communicating with divine entities like Elves and Trolls do, or Christians/Jews and Muslims do.

The difference I think is largely because elves worship an actual divine entity, the Loa the trolls worship are also actual entities, they interact with - the Tauren view is different - perhaps think it more like we think of fate or kharma or the universe or nature - not an individual actually but like this all encompassing thing we at least acknowledge we are supported by.

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Keep in mind that Thalassian druids were a thing in Warcraft 2. It means that night elves didn't need to be the only ones. Sylvanas used starfall in Warcraft 3.
Also, moon based arcane magic for high elves is still canon. Ban'dinoriel was charged by three mooncrystals that later became verdant spheres.

And tauren druids aren't a big stretch either. There were only three tauren units so you couldn't fully show tauren culture until WoW.

Oh, I did not know that. Sylvanas used starfall in WC3? ANd I 've always known Thalassians to be nature lovers.. nature love is part of the elven toolkit, as much as magic is - and I am aware when they presented the night elves they were set as more intense in all these things because these are non-humanised elves - the pure elf so to speak. So Thlaassian druid don't surprise me, , I know the RPG books do mention them, but as they were de-canonised, since a lot of material there is changed or at least contradicted the game/novel lore (even though a lot more isn't ).

The lore does show the Thalassian wanted a place where all magic could be practised freely and safely (this specifically includes the arcane because the long vigil society had banned that) but people forget it is not limited to the arcane, and not once are the Thalassians mentioned as hating nature or nature magic at all, - it's the long vigil kaldorei group that they feel erroneiously, and un-necessarily banished hem for doing or pushing for something that the elves needed to push for is what really disgusted them. They lost faith in Elune (just like they would lose faith in the Light after the scourge attack), and dissociated themselves from many kaldorei based things not wanting anything to do with them. The distances did not apply to knowledge though, so arcane and nature magical knowledge from the past as Kaldorei is maintined. You don't change education or knowledge.. science doesn't change because you split from your people or form a nation. Knowledge is stil lthe same, they weren't going to reject any knowledge, scientific or magical just because it was kaldorei - but they would reject the people, the customs, the goddess who is an entity, that they can reject, they can even change their waking patterns and appearances may be modified, words and language can have changes, but knowledge is knowledge, and discovery or re-discovery is what prompts its change only.

[Rozz]

From what I've seen and others stated, they're just priests of Elune cobbled into a druid spec. I assume it's for simplicity's sake, but it doesn't feel great to have all druids feel like NE weaboos.

[Tharivor]

Did the tauren ever worship Mu'sha and Apa'ro? I thought they acknowledge them as from the Earthmother who they worship in a sense (if you could call it worship since worship implies religion they didn't have and until the sunwalkers - but it is a worship of sorts, and we're not really sure what the Sunwalkers worship, - is it the light or the sun? is it AN'she? I've never had clarification on that.. I know initially there's is like the native American Indians view of nature and the Earth - it is not the same way as say Christians and Jews worship God), - but I could be wrong here. I thought they worshipped the ancestors, and revere the Earthmother

I would generally avoid trying to import real-life Abrahamic standards of religion into WoW- only Night Elf Elune worship comes close to the idea of a transcendent deity and even that is debatable.

In so far as Tauren "worship" anything, I think its accurate to say they worship Mu'sha, An'she, and the Earthmother at least- although perhaps revere is a better term. In any case they seem comfortable enough with their involvement in the world to give them personalities and invoke their names as blessings (.i.e. "An'she guide you", "Earthmother watch over you", ect.).

My point is that I don't think a Tauren Druid would find it weird or particularly "Night Elven" to call down Mu'sha's light on his enemies anymore than a Tauren Paladin would find it weird channelling An'she's blessings- especially if he had been taught to do so by Cenarius who even in Tauren mythology in Mu'sha's son.

[Beloren]

I would generally avoid trying to import real-life Abrahamic standards of religion into WoW- only Night Elf Elune worship comes close to the idea of a transcendent deity and even that is debatable.

In so far as Tauren "worship" anything, I think its accurate to say they worship Mu'sha, An'she, and the Earthmother at least- although perhaps revere is a better term. In any case they seem comfortable enough with their involvement in the world to give them personalities and invoke their names as blessings (.i.e. "An'she guide you", "Earthmother watch over you", ect.).

My point is that I don't think a Tauren Druid would find it weird or particularly "Night Elven" to call down Mu'sha's light on his enemies anymore than a Tauren Paladin would find it weird channelling An'she's blessings- especially if he had been taught to do so by Cenarius who even in Tauren mythology in Mu'sha's son.

However all these races are based on real life cultures and peoples, including Abrahamic ones.

I am also not sure about the Tauren worshipping Muu'shua or Anshe, they are only mentioned in text.. they speak far more f the Earthmother, and whiles I have heard them say Anshe, I don't think i have ever seen them refer to Mu'shua directly except for the mythology records.

But I haven't look at it in great detail so maybe I'm wrong

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From what I've seen and others stated, they're just priests of Elune cobbled into a druid spec. I assume it's for simplicity's sake, but it doesn't feel great to have all druids feel like NE weaboos.

Oh you mean, they sort of gave a the night elf Moon priest spec in the druid? I can sort of see how this makes sense, but why would they do that?

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Back in Vanilla, when each priest race had unique spells, Night Elves used to have Starshards and Elune's Grace.

Oh as for the "star/moon Loa" for the zandalari or even regular darkspear... https://wow.gamepedia.com/Lun%27alai

Yes they did.

Not sure why blizzard just didn't call the same spells a different name and give them a different colour or effect.. bingo, lore satisfied.

@Mace, @ravenmoon - maybe the druid balance spec overlaps with night elf priest and night elf mage stuff - and we see it mostly in the druid because the vast majority of the class is based on the night elf, whereas priest and mage classes are based on the human/high elf versions rather than the night elf versions even if the night elves invented it.

[Tharivor]

However all these races are based on real life cultures and peoples, including Abrahamic ones.

I am also not sure about the Tauren worshipping Muu'shua or Anshe, they are only mentioned in text.. they speak far more f the Earthmother, and whiles I have heard them say Anshe, I don't think i have ever seen them refer to Mu'shua directly except for the mythology records.

But I haven't look at it in great detail so maybe I'm wrong

That's why I specified "Abrahamic"- there are plenty of shamanistic and animistic cultures in the real world that don't have the same distance between "worship" and "veneration" that we're used to in monotheistic religious contexts.

And they definitely venerate An'she- he is invoked casually by both Highmouintain and regular Tauren ("An'she guide you" and "May the eternal sun shine upon you" respectively) and the short story "Bleeding Sun" gives a further insight into his prominent role in the Tauren worldview.

I agree that Mu'sha seems to be more actively invoked by druids, but that's hardly surprising considering that Tauren are diurnal so obviously the sun is going be play a bigger role. However she appears mythologically to mirror her brother An'she so if they honour him it can be assumed they honour her, even if to a lesser extent.

Edit: Actually doing some research so it seems that some Highmountain do say "Sun and moon light your way." (though I can't remember hearing it myself?) which backs up what I said about Mu'sha being an acknowledged, if not as regularly honoured, partner to An'she.

[bloodmoth13]

It was a mistake imo. Balance probably should have been a priest spec in place of discipline. Disc only recently got its own theme which was literally balance between light and dark.
Id rather have a true nature mage too with thorns and stuff.

[ravenmoon]

It was a mistake imo. Balance probably should have been a priest spec in place of discipline. Disc only recently got its own theme which was literally balance between light and dark.
Id rather have a true nature mage too with thorns and stuff.

I dunno, we know the following

in general blizzard dind't give races any proper representation and customisations for specs of a class they typically have in lore. So if forsaken were shadow priests, they could be priests, and have access to holy and discipline even though using the light is harmful to them.

Blizzard also didn't adapt classes to races with unique names of spells or visuals - an option they could have done, as another example, the night elf priest has nothing about Elune in her spell set, because again she is given the standard priest class set - whcih is a Holy Light priest, same goes for Zandalari loa priests and paladins. Tidesges is a similar thing, seeing they are shaman/mage/priest combination yet the shaman class they can roll has nothing changeda bout it to reflect that.

Basically in lore each race would have versions of the class you can play, and while the player has access to the 3 specs they give, remember even the specs aren't actually a lore thing, they're just a means for you to play, so are really an approximation.

I look forward to when they decide to give class identities or skins that actually have lore faithful representations like Rangers, Moon Prists, Star Augurs, Blademasters etc where teh names of spells, visuals and aesthethic is altered to fit the racial theme these guys are from.


So they just took the bog standard one type of a class and gave it. I disagree with you an Mace on that one, I don't think what is the balance spec should be the priest discipline spec, although I wouldn't mind if there was aunique one ffor night elf priests and night elf mages that involved their racial star/moon spells.

It would appear that in wow now, it is the druid and druid like casters that have the highest abnundnace of this, but they have never been exclusive to them as both Night elven Moon Priestesses and Highborne/Nightborne/Moonguard also have similar spells. Star Augur Ertaus and High Botnaist Tel'arn have a couple these spells (mage/shaman and druid) as more famous examples amongst other npc/mob units in Suramar City and Moonguard Stronghold. It does appear to be a night elf racial specialty though - no other race seems to use these sort of spells (except maybe Celestials)

[kendro1200]

It was a mistake imo. Balance probably should have been a priest spec in place of discipline. Disc only recently got its own theme which was literally balance between light and dark.
Id rather have a true nature mage too with thorns and stuff.

Original Balance was more of that.

The real problem with druids in WoW is shamans. With the way Blizzard wanted to make shamans there was a ton of overlap with traditional druid archetype abilities. Blizzard decided to just double down on differentiating the two by druids having a stronger focus on biological things, and shamans focus on elemental things. Which could have been fine and great, but then there were the Druids of the Talon, which were an obvious mage type, and needing to give druids something mage-like that wasn't elemental. So then they went and borrowed from the Elune concept and used some celestial arcane magic to flesh out the offensive caster spell list. Then for whatever reason in Cataclysm onwards Blizzard really tunnel visioned into the Eclipse system and making "Balance" be some sort of balance between solar and lunar energies.

What should have been done is the druid and shaman classes should have been faction locked, from the start. Two similar classes that flavored and built differently.
Paladins should have been a hero class that came out later, maybe in BC with the introduction of the Draenei and Blood Elves back into the story.

What is done is done though. The Druids of the Wild have been a real sore spot in lore, because only the PCs are Druids of the Wild, all other druids in lore split out in Claw, Grove or Talon.

In general the Night Elves have been butchered a lot to get them to fit within the Alliance and MMO class-types. PCs have no real connection to the Elune priesthood, Sentinels, Wardens or Cenarian Circle. Instead we get more Human versions of those things.
Night Elves aren't the only ones that got the short end of the stick though in the transition into WoW, Tauren and Forsaken did too. Night Elves just got the shortest of the short ends.

[ravenmoon]

Original Balance was more of that.

The real problem with druids in WoW is shamans. With the way Blizzard wanted to make shamans there was a ton of overlap with traditional druid archetype abilities. Blizzard decided to just double down on differentiating the two by druids having a stronger focus on biological things, and shamans focus on elemental things. Which could have been fine and great, but then there were the Druids of the Talon, which were an obvious mage type, and needing to give druids something mage-like that wasn't elemental. So then they went and borrowed from the Elune concept and used some celestial arcane magic to flesh out the offensive caster spell list. Then for whatever reason in Cataclysm onwards Blizzard really tunnel visioned into the Eclipse system and making "Balance" be some sort of balance between solar and lunar energies.

What should have been done is the druid and shaman classes should have been faction locked, from the start. Two similar classes that flavored and built differently.
Paladins should have been a hero class that came out later, maybe in BC with the introduction of the Draenei and Blood Elves back into the story.

What is done is done though. The Druids of the Wild have been a real sore spot in lore, because only the PCs are Druids of the Wild, all other druids in lore split out in Claw, Grove or Talon.

In general the Night Elves have been butchered a lot to get them to fit within the Alliance and MMO class-types. PCs have no real connection to the Elune priesthood, Sentinels, Wardens or Cenarian Circle. Instead we get more Human versions of those things.
Night Elves aren't the only ones that got the short end of the stick though in the transition into WoW, Tauren and Forsaken did too. Night Elves just got the shortest of the short ends.

Indeed, but I would say they took the Kaldorei race concept - both elune and mages (rather than say the Elune concept) - remember like the priest playable class model for all races is the human holy light Priest, the archetypical model for the playable mage too is Kirin'tor human/high elf based one, not the original more advanced Kaldorei pre-sundering based original magister (or the Draenei one we don't even know what that one really looks like), it would appear that the star moon spells are more racially based cos we later see highborne, nightborne and moonguard cast similar spells when they reveal kaldorei civilization in Suramar. The common denominator is not priest or druid or mage, it's that their Kaldorei based.

So their magic advanced to the level of stars and moon. And it fits the whole Moon goddess, Children of the Stars, Stars guide you ec aspect of them. Elune was discerned while studying arcane energy from teh well, while they learnt to master the well and use it to do many wonders, not since seen, it is evidenced that they developed ways to call down the moon and stars - and they all do it - Preistesses, Moonguard, Highborne, Druids, Nightborne.

But yes, I think the reason the druid has more of this is because of the shaman overlap. What to give the shaman? Except many typical druid spells cos of their similarities - remember in WotA Malfurion causes an Earthquake and a Hurricane via druidic magic and can affect teh elements. In theory druids can but th eclass abilities don't really cover that much.

Instead they descided to focus on the balance between arcane and nature which si the duality of night elves - we don't think much of it now, but it comes up again in Suramar and ends up being the key to curing the addiction of the night elves that started in the pre-sundering days and affectedt eh nihghtborne the most because of how far they went. (I mean actually ingesting arcane energy for food and essentiallyreplacing things like clothes etc with arcane conjured stuff - totally unbalnaced them. Valewalker Farodin gives the explanation, and it fits in line with teh druid and highborne working together and a balancing effect occuring as this is what the Arcan'dor represents.

I'll also draw your attetnion to the fact that many Moonguard and highborne who picked up druidsm would likely have prusued this balance between arcane and nature, and are probably the reason why this aspect is in druidsm so strongly. We know the star/moon spells are about twice as much as the anture spells, reflecting the Kaldorei emphasis, however the class spec focuses on balance.

I wonder if blizzard decide to create presitge classes out of specs, what class can come out of the Balance druid's mechanic. Could be a Valewalker or Star Augur, or Starmancer. I would prefer a Star Augur to be a star/arcane adaptation of the shaman for elven classes in particular night elven ones, so I'd either go with Valewalker or Starmancer, another option is ofc a Moon Priest - but you can't really have that unless you make it a healing presitge class, adn tehw hole idea of a prestige class would be to take a spec like balance or Marksmanship and expand it, fill it up making more dynmic mechancis from it, then giving it a name like Valewalker or Ranger

[Razion]

It was a mistake imo. Balance probably should have been a priest spec in place of discipline. Disc only recently got its own theme which was literally balance between light and dark.
Id rather have a true nature mage too with thorns and stuff.

Discipline could have worked with going between Light and Dark as an Elune theme. Spells like New Moon and Full Moon, and previous resources of Balance Druids like teetering between the Sun and Moon gauge... almost seem like they were made for it. And heck, even Discipline's shtick of dealing damage to heal seems like it has a bit of a place in terms of the old Druid class fantasy of being that jack of all trades or utilizing all roles and adapting to the situation. But I think maybe there was potential for push-back from Balance druids who prefer to be damage-dealers and didn't want to heal (which, I guess, is maybe kind of silly considering how often they have and don't have Tranquility and Innervate).

I think they probably avoided it due to how available Priests were to other races. Like, they'd have to figure out how Undead or Trolls or maybe even Draenei or Blood Elves would revere a moon. (New moons? Blood moons? The Blue Child?) Of course, all these years later, with Balance Druids available to Kul'Tiran, Trolls, Zandalari, Worgen... it has all pretty much worked out. And, now with Legion out of the way, they don't really have to worry about Balance maybe feeling like "just another nature caster" to Restoration during an expansion that focuses on specs being as unique as possible. So, maybe the time can eventually come when Balance can turn to that nature mage role and Discipline can turn to that Elune light and dark phase balancing identity. And, now that I'm thinking about it more, Discipline has had some light blue color themes in the past, and the Blue Child kind of fits that motif a bit... and, Elune recently put a lot of Night Elves to sleep when the tree was burning, and Sleep was at one point an ability considered for Priests in early builds of the game (even if Hibernation is an ability Druids have now). So, maybe it has a lot of other cool hidden little appropriate moon themes that can still be pulled on..

[huth]

I wonder if blizzard decide to create presitge classes out of specs, what class can come out of the Balance druid's mechanic. Could be a Valewalker or Star Augur, or Starmancer. I would prefer a Star Augur to be a star/arcane adaptation of the shaman for elven classes in particular night elven ones, so I'd either go with Valewalker or Starmancer, another option is ofc a Moon Priest - but you can't really have that unless you make it a healing presitge class, adn tehw hole idea of a prestige class would be to take a spec like balance or Marksmanship and expand it, fill it up making more dynmic mechancis from it, then giving it a name like Valewalker or Ranger[/LEFT]

I think class kits would be a better choice. Not a power gain, but a cosmetic alteration. Kul Tiran Thornspeakers with a Life/Death duality would be a natural pick for Balance.

[ravenmoon]

I think class kits would be a better choice. Not a power gain, but a cosmetic alteration. Kul Tiran Thornspeakers with a Life/Death duality would be a natural pick for Balance.

Yes, for sure. it always felt weird that Zandlari and Kul'tiran druids were casting kaldorie spells, or that TIdesges were dropping down what they called totems.

Class kit, Class skin, Class Idenity - it's a concept i hope comes to warcraft. how they do it coudl be awesome.. i think it's importnat they do it with a new class though, so people don't feel it is a replacement and that blizzard are going cheap, this will cause them to hate what is an otherwise very welcome change.

People would love to have their priest or hunter and mages etc play roles that fit their race a bit more, even those who don't know the lore would appreciate playing a ranger kit for their hunter - making them feel a bit more unique than all the other 1 million hunters out there..

Like allied race, they could role these out over time too. But they won't require long achievement unlocks. maybe an epic chain quest if that. The work load is also a lot smaller, well it is a lot larger for the FX department, especially if you're designing different visuals for the spells in a class. But they could borrow from a lot of existing assets out there. The only other department would be the creative team naming the versions of the abilities. And then the guys who program it in.



Huge bang for much smaller effort, but bring it in with a new class, like the Tinker or something, and also have the Tinker have kits/skin/identities

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Discipline could have worked with going between Light and Dark as an Elune theme. Spells like New Moon and Full Moon, and previous resources of Balance Druids like teetering between the Sun and Moon gauge... almost seem like they were made for it. And heck, even Discipline's shtick of dealing damage to heal seems like it has a bit of a place in terms of the old Druid class fantasy of being that jack of all trades or utilizing all roles and adapting to the situation. But I think maybe there was potential for push-back from Balance druids who prefer to be damage-dealers and didn't want to heal (which, I guess, is maybe kind of silly considering how often they have and don't have Tranquility and Innervate).

I think they probably avoided it due to how available Priests were to other races. Like, they'd have to figure out how Undead or Trolls or maybe even Draenei or Blood Elves would revere a moon. (New moons? Blood moons? The Blue Child?) Of course, all these years later, with Balance Druids available to Kul'Tiran, Trolls, Zandalari, Worgen... it has all pretty much worked out. And, now with Legion out of the way, they don't really have to worry about Balance maybe feeling like "just another nature caster" to Restoration during an expansion that focuses on specs being as unique as possible. So, maybe the time can eventually come when Balance can turn to that nature mage role and Discipline can turn to that Elune light and dark phase balancing identity. And, now that I'm thinking about it more, Discipline has had some light blue color themes in the past, and the Blue Child kind of fits that motif a bit... and, Elune recently put a lot of Night Elves to sleep when the tree was burning, and Sleep was at one point an ability considered for Priests in early builds of the game (even if Hibernation is an ability Druids have now). So, maybe it has a lot of other cool hidden little appropriate moon themes that can still be pulled on..

i would have kept the druids as between sun and moon, nature and arcane, but for hte priest done between full moon and eclipse, light moon and dark moon.

They should really change Solar wrath and Sunfire damage to fire damage - which is what it actually. I wouldn't mind the druid having fire, nature, arcane and astral damage as its quartet.

the way they did the druid class, they could literally split it into 3 classes.

• Feral could be it's own class The Shapeshifter- with Cat and Bear form forming 2 of the 3 specs, or they just give it 2 specs. I think cat can have two specs and bear 1. Or the 3rd spec be a new crea
• Balance it's own class, The Valewalker - a kaldorei based class fusion of the kaldorei highborne mage, druid and priest from that ancient special unit magical order created solve the crisis in the empire. Drawing elements from mage, priest and druid - which is exactly what it does atm, if you took away the forms and the non-mechanics class-wide abilities - you wouldn't think it was a druid, and it would work just as well
• Restoration could be The Druid or The Dreamer as we expect it. Nature heals, and nature damage abilities like insect swarm, vines and roots, summoning treants, hurricane, faerie swarm for their damage spec.
  
  
  Alternatively, keep the druid as is, and then spawn a class kit/skin/identity for feral and balance that reflect what they are showing. The Valewalker won't shapeshift into a form, but rather a mode, Astral mode. (i.e. astral form). The Dreamer would be able to turn into a tree only, no other form. Which means you replace flight form with a cyclone he summons for example. Both the Valewalker and Dreamer have alternative versions to what the main class uses forms for.