Class Skins would add many new classes and be a major draw for a new expansion

[AKCephalopod]

This forum and many others have forever been filled with endless discussion over what class should be added next. At any given time, you can find at least one, if not more, thread on a concept for a new class that should be added.

Adding a full new class takes a lot of time and effort on Blizzard's end as well as commiting to supporting and balancing that class for all future expansions. That's a lot. Add on to that the sheer number of classes that people repeatedly ask for and make concepts for, Tinker, Necromancer, Dragonsworn, and Bard all come to mind instantly, though I'm more than certain there are others.

So I think the best idea is to add in Class Skins as a system so that Blizzard can add new classes at any time as well as a massive dump of new classes without having to commit to any additional balancing.

How would this work exactly though?

The idea of a class skin is that mechanically, you are still playing one of the existing classes, but your abilities have their names and visuals changed to match the theme of a new class as well as the name of the class being changed.

For example, the Necromancer could be a skin for a Warlock where your "summon demon" spell becomes "raise undead" and your demons become various types of undead. I'd add on to this that, like allied races, each class skin should add a transmog set for the class, thus allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the fantasy of the new skin.

Some examples of class skins for each class could include:

Warrior -> Gladiator
Paladin -> Spellbreaker
Death Knight -> Mawsworn
Hunter -> Dark Ranger
Shaman -> Dragonsworn
Rogue -> Ninja
Monk -> Lorewalker
Druid -> Druid of the Flame
Demon Hunter -> Warden
Mage -> Blood Mage
Warlock -> Necromancer
Priest -> Cultist

Building on this idea, class skins can help to loosen the race/class restrictions. For example, Void Elves could be Paladins, but only if they use the Spellbreaker skin. Night Elves and Blood Elves could be Shamans, but only as the Dragonsworn skin. Along with this, race specific class skins could be added, allowing for more specific class fantasy. For example, Orc Warriors could be Blademasters or Night Elf Demon Hunters could be Night Warriors or Kul'Tiran Priests could be Tidesages.

Along with this whole system, I'd also advocate that one final class be added: the Tinker. This class is the most requested one I've seen and I think people would rejoice at its introduction. And with the class skin system, I'd add that Bard be a generic skin for Tinker and Apothecary as a race specific Tinker skin for Undead.

Overall, I think a system like this would make it much easier for Blizzard to add new classes at any time and to add a great deal more character customization to the game. Plus how big of a draw would it be if blizzard announced so many new and fan requested classes getting added to the game? I think it is a solution that can satisfy a lot of people.

[Thestrawman]

All this work just to make a tinker thread? I don't know if I should be impressed or pity you.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I mean the thing is that if you go for the idea of Class Skins, then Tinker could just be a Class Skin for Druid, with their different mechas being forms.

The whole point of a Class Skin is to add flavor and fantasy without having to worry about balancing the gameplay, which means they are the concern of completely different development departments.

If you wanna make a "New Class" Post sure, but the whole point of Class Skins is about immersion, not gameplay, so it's kinda about talking about completely different things.

Class Skins could be amazing, but knowing full well that they would be an entirely cosmetic improvement.

[Triceron]

Druid -> Tinker
Monk -> Runemaster
Priest -> Bard

Those are what I would modify.

[Teriz]

I mean the thing is that if you go for the idea of Class Skins, then Tinker could just be a Class Skin for Druid, with their different mechas being forms.

The whole point of a Class Skin is to add flavor and fantasy without having to worry about balancing the gameplay, which means they are the concern of completely different development departments.

If you wanna make a "New Class" Post sure, but the whole point of Class Skins is about immersion, not gameplay, so it's kinda about talking about completely different things.

Class Skins could be amazing, but knowing full well that they would be an entirely cosmetic improvement.

The Tnker doesn’t work as a Druid class skin. The Tinker has unique abilities that simply can’t be replicated within the Druid class.

[Preliatus]

I doubt Blizzard would follow this in any regard.

It's a player suggestion and they simply can't listen to their player base.

Great idea though; Tinker is a unique class and should be it's own thing while at the same time removing the Engineering profession to prevent class/profession overlap.

[Ealyssa]

The Tinker has unique abilities that simply can’t be replicated within the Druid class.

Tinker doesn't exist thus can't have unique abilites...

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Why is a portion of this OP copy + pasted from this thread?

[FlemmMinis]

And it's contaminated.

Sadly. I like the Idea of class skins though.

[Triceron]

Why is a portion of this OP copy + pasted from this thread?

Cuz it seems like a thinly veiled Tinker thread :P

[Temp name]

Why is a portion of this OP copy + pasted from this thread?

I swear this is the third time I see the same list of "class skins".. But I can't find one of them, so maybe just misremembering

[username993720]

This forum and many others have forever been filled with endless discussion over what class should be added next. At any given time, you can find at least one, if not more, thread on a concept for a new class that should be added.

Adding a full new class takes a lot of time and effort on Blizzard's end as well as commiting to supporting and balancing that class for all future expansions. That's a lot. Add on to that the sheer number of classes that people repeatedly ask for and make concepts for, Tinker, Necromancer, Dragonsworn, and Bard all come to mind instantly, though I'm more than certain there are others.

So I think the best idea is to add in Class Skins as a system so that Blizzard can add new classes at any time as well as a massive dump of new classes without having to commit to any additional balancing.

How would this work exactly though?

The idea of a class skin is that mechanically, you are still playing one of the existing classes, but your abilities have their names and visuals changed to match the theme of a new class as well as the name of the class being changed.

For example, the Necromancer could be a skin for a Warlock where your "summon demon" spell becomes "raise undead" and your demons become various types of undead. I'd add on to this that, like allied races, each class skin should add a transmog set for the class, thus allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the fantasy of the new skin.

Some examples of class skins for each class could include:

Warrior -> Gladiator
Paladin -> Spellbreaker
Death Knight -> Mawsworn
Hunter -> Dark Ranger
Shaman -> Dragonsworn
Rogue -> Ninja
Monk -> Lorewalker
Druid -> Druid of the Flame
Demon Hunter -> Warden
Mage -> Blood Mage
Warlock -> Necromancer
Priest -> Cultist

Building on this idea, class skins can help to loosen the race/class restrictions. For example, Void Elves could be Paladins, but only if they use the Spellbreaker skin. Night Elves and Blood Elves could be Shamans, but only as the Dragonsworn skin. Along with this, race specific class skins could be added, allowing for more specific class fantasy. For example, Orc Warriors could be Blademasters or Night Elf Demon Hunters could be Night Warriors or Kul'Tiran Priests could be Tidesages.

Along with this whole system, I'd also advocate that one final class be added: the Tinker. This class is the most requested one I've seen and I think people would rejoice at its introduction. And with the class skin system, I'd add that Bard be a generic skin for Tinker and Apothecary as a race specific Tinker skin for Undead.

Overall, I think a system like this would make it much easier for Blizzard to add new classes at any time and to add a great deal more character customization to the game. Plus how big of a draw would it be if blizzard announced so many new and fan requested classes getting added to the game? I think it is a solution that can satisfy a lot of people.

Class skins are a cheap replacement for actual classes. Therefore, they should only account for race/class combinations and never for a new class (like how allied races recycled skeletons for sub races).

Take for example the systems they recycle every expansion and slap a new name to it. Does it make it exciting? does it make the game better?

I believe not. New classes should be new classes. 4th specializations should be 4th specializations and class skins should be race/class combinations feature.

Druid -> Tinker
Monk -> Runemaster
Priest -> Bard

Those are what I would modify.

Druid = Tinker

Good one...

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

The Tnker doesn’t work as a Druid class skin. The Tinker has unique abilities that simply can’t be replicated within the Druid class.

Dude you can make that argument for pretty much every other Class Skin idea in your own list.

Sure it might be better as their own class, but you can't say stuff like "yes it works for other classes but not for the one I really want, that has to be a class" that's just hypocritical.

[Triceron]

Take for example the systems they recycle every expansion and slap a new name to it. Does it make it exciting? does it make the game better?

You could argue the same about Allied Races. Does it make it exciting? Does it make the game better?

And if someone, anyone thinks it exciting, does that mean we rather not have Allied Races at all?

[Paperfox]

I came across this concept was a Bellular video quite a while ago, I don't recall if he was the one who came up with it or if he was reacting to something he read.

[Spazzix]

Okay so just to get this straight:
*Adding new classes takes a lot of work and balancing
*It's better to put that work towards purely cosmetic "class skins" that don't add any actual gameplay or mechanical content (akin to pulling a raid designer off of encounter work so that they can do work on the art team because "raids are a lot of work")
*WE SHOULD ADD A NEW TINKER CLASS ANYWAY YAYYYYY!

There is a massive failure in approach here.
I think "class skins" are a great idea, but don't try to sell them to me—someone who is interested in gameplay—as classes.

Spell skins (basically a much wider implementation of the current glyph system with the goal of being able to skin most of a spellbook), cohesive transmog packages, flavorful emotes, and animations would all make great cosmetic rewards that could be used to create a "class skin". I think they would be solid additions to the game.

[Zyrinx]

All this work just to make a tinker thread? I don't know if I should be impressed or pity you.

Zero to Tinker, but with a side of... checks notes.... Bard? What a ride.

[Teriz]

Tinker doesn't exist thus can't have unique abilites...

The Tinker exists in both WC3 and HotS, and those WC3 and HotS abilities and traits would form the core of a Tinker class concept.

Just like Death Knights, Monks, and Demon Hunters before it.

- - - Updated - - -

Dude you can make that argument for pretty much every other Class Skin idea in your own list.

Sure it might be better as their own class, but you can't say stuff like "yes it works for other classes but not for the one I really want, that has to be a class" that's just hypocritical.

Like I said, the Tinker has abilities via WC3 and HotS and would form the basis of a Tinker class. The exact same thing occurred with DKs, Monks, and DHs.

The other examples don’t have the pedigree, or are too similar to existing classes. Dark Rangers for example have abilities that are actually in the Hunter class currently.

[FossilFree]

The paladin class skin should be Void Knights. Then they could add the Void Knight only version of paladins to Void Elves and Forsaken (maybe others where appropriate).

In fact, I would prefer it if they were all that way. Maybe not everyone has access to all of the skins, with certain races who have some kind of tie to the theme of the skin being able to access them. Like a headhunter throwing skin for hunters that both kinds of troll, and maybe dwarves for the Wildhammer options or something, can use. It could also serve as an avenue to adding new race/class combos that perhaps didn't quite fit before (e.g. Forsaken paladins).

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Like I said, the Tinker has abilities via WC3 and HotS and would form the basis of a Tinker class. The exact same thing occurred with DKs, Monks, and DHs.

The other examples don’t have the pedigree, or are too similar to existing classes. Dark Rangers for example have abilities that are actually in the Hunter class currently.

And Spellbreakers and Blood Mages also have unique abilities that would also be suited to their own classes.

Look, the point isn't that Tinker wouldn't make a neat class, but if that's what you wanna talk about... make a topic about that, and don't bundle it with the idea of Class Skins, which is all about not touching the gameplay and instead offering cosmetic options for more fantasy.