Yo Blizzard Screwed Up - Here's some awesome fourth spec ideas

[slank]

Update: This post is coming from someone who plays on a lot of private servers from Classic to MoP. I'm not really familiar with most of the retail specializations because retail wow is hot fucking garbage.

There should have been an additional specialization added for each class when they decided to purge the talent trees back in MOP. If they're going to remove customization, they should have at least somewhat increased player choice. I've added below concepts for them to possibly implement, or things they could have implemented in the past. Each class here has at least four specializations, some have a fifth or sixth possible specialization. (That doesn't mean I think they deserve more than four)

Warrior
1. Arms
2. Fury
3. Protection
4. Gladiator = Sword and board dps
5. Medic - Non-magic healer, triage and combat medicine. Playstyle includes building rage based off of damage taken by self and group members, and channeled abilities.

Paladin
1. Holy
2. Retribution
3. Protection
4. Exorcism - Shockadin style ranged dps, holy damage dealer. Playstyle includes building and spending holy power(only paladin spec to use it). Heavy burst emphasis.

Hunter
1. Marksmanship - No pet.
2. Survival - Melee dps, with pet sacc option. (One will inevitably be meta, but that's okay).
3. Beast Mastery - Melee pet focused tank, 2 pets. Playstyle includes a unique approach to tanking; Shifting aggro and damage between the hunter and his pets, having pet dps and pet healers. Ultimately a strong solo tank specialization, which would fit hunter theme of solo play well.
4. Woodsman - Similar to old survival, think a magical archer. Playstyle includes dots, cc, and old survival abilities.
5. Bombardier - Tech style ranged dps. Playstyle includes explosives, traps, aoe heavy. This satisfies tinker demands without a stupid tinker class.

Rogue
1. Combat
2. Subtlety
3. Assassination - Ranged dps/Melee dps hybrid. Think sniper with knives. Playstyle includes ranged openers, gap closers, and hit and run tactics.
4. Guile - Class that plays similar to assassination
5. Control - Melee tank. Playstyle focuses on avoiding, diverting and deflecting damage. Think successful ability procs enabling evasion CD resets for example. Smoke bombs and special CC that can control even the strongest of boss fights.

Priest
1. Holy
2. Discipline
3. Shadow - Ranged, mobile burst dps. Playstyle involves shadow orbs, insanity, and mind spike spam. Reworked to expand on the old vampiric abilities, and provide off healing.Incredibly powerful in solo play, but offers a good backup support role in groups.
4. Reconciliation - Ranged holy dps. Playstyle includes a classic mage/warlock sustained direct ranged dps to provide a cloth caster that does holy damage.
5. Monastic - Melee cloth dps with intense damage mitigation. Not tankable but the priest balances inner will charges with damage output. Ability to burst as a glass cannon and give up defense, or able to sacrifice damage for a tank level damage mitigation.

Shaman - Ultimately I see two paths here: Separate a shaman by elements, or do an approach where all specs have some kind of cross elemental play. Regardless, the class would play similarly, it's a matter of aesthetics. Totems should be a serious expanded feature.
1. Restoration
2. Storm/Elemental
3. Lava/Enhancement
4. Earth/Spirit - Tank spec. Playstyle includes 2h melee, shield dancing based on need, earthquake instant procs, healing rain instant procs. The shaman tank is a tank that should be formidable in a group setting, in that he can tank and offer support to his teammates. This contrasts say a Prot paladin or blood dk, which is mostly self contained.

Mage
1. Fire
2. Frost - Expand on the water elemental, or sacc it.
3. Arcane
4. Time(Chronomancer?) - Healer spec. Playstyle inspired by stagger mechanic - Reverse damage, expunge damage, and change the course of combat. Mix in debuffs on enemies to mitigate damage on allies.

Warlocks
1. Destruction
2. Affliction
3. Demonology - Tank, similar to MOP tanking with proper glyphs.
4. Sacrifice - Hybrid healer/dps. Playstyle focuses on draining enemies, and even mixing debuffs on allies with heals, (ex: reducing an allies dps so the tank can receive more damage mitigation, or applying a life transfer between an ally and tank). Intensely strong in five mans due to chaotic playstyle, but backseat in raids. Strong in battlegrounds due to the constant dying of teammates, but weaker in arenas.

Monk - Could have been separated by celestials.
1. Windwalker
2. Brewmaster
3. Cranedancer - Fistweaving spec. Healer.
4. Mistweaver.
5. Spirit - Ranged dps utilizing a dark and light chi system. Playstyle revolves around chi bombs and mental fortitude. Agile, high damage avoidance/mitigation. Inverting the mistweaver channel style by utilizing that same style with jade lightning and revolving chi spending around that.

Druid
Duh

Death Knight
1. Blood
2. Frost
3. Unholy
4. Necromancy - Plate ranged dps. Yes I know it would be strong. I am sorry but DK's should just be strong. That is the point of them. Playstyle integrates runic system.

Demon Hunter
Cringe class, remove it from the game.

[username993720]

Warrior
5. Medic - Non-magic healer, triage and combat medicine. Playstyle includes building rage based off of damage taken by self and group members, and channeled abilities.

How's medic a Warrior?

4. Exorcism - Shockadin style ranged dps, holy damage dealer. Playstyle includes building and spending holy power(only paladin spec to use it). Heavy burst emphasis.

I agree. Had the same idea.

1. Marksmanship - No pet.

I agree.

2. Survival - Melee dps, with pet sacc option. (One will inevitably be meta, but that's okay).

No pet. That domain should be of the Beast Mastery.

3. Beast Mastery - Melee pet focused tank, 2 pets. Playstyle includes a unique approach to tanking; Shifting aggro and damage between the hunter and his pets, having pet dps and pet healers. Ultimately a strong solo tank specialization, which would fit hunter theme of solo play well.

Sounds reasonable.

4. Woodsman - Similar to old survival, think a magical archer. Playstyle includes dots, cc, and old survival abilities.

Magical archers would be Dark Rangers and Priestesses of the Moon (and Sea Witches). But, i get your point. The standard Elven Ranger archetype. Should still be reserved for a "Ranger" class.

5. Bombardier - Tech style ranged dps. Playstyle includes explosives, traps, aoe heavy. This satisfies tinker demands without a stupid tinker class.

Should be combined with Marksmanship. But, i like that you didn't forget that aspect of the Hunter.

3. Assassination - Ranged dps/Melee dps hybrid. Think sniper with knives. Playstyle includes ranged openers, gap closers, and hit and run tactics.

Should remain poison heavy. And even contain Crimson Vial. Basically, an alchemical expert.

4. Guile - Class that plays similar to assassination

Why do you need another Assassination?

5. Control - Melee tank. Playstyle focuses on avoiding, diverting and deflecting damage. Think successful ability procs enabling evasion CD resets for example. Smoke bombs and special CC that can control even the strongest of boss fights.

I agree. Had the same idea since Rogues used to wear bucklers back in Vanilla's Alpha/Beta.

4. Reconciliation - Ranged holy dps. Playstyle includes a classic mage/warlock sustained direct ranged dps to provide a cloth caster that does holy damage.

The domain of Discipline.

5. Monastic - Melee cloth dps with intense damage mitigation. Not tankable but the priest balances inner will charges with damage output. Ability to burst as a glass cannon and give up defense, or able to sacrifice damage for a tank level damage mitigation.

I agree. Had the same idea. A traditional Monk, not a Pandaren one. like Diablo 3's Monk and Overwatch's Zenyatta.

2. Storm/Elemental
3. Lava/Enhancement

The other way around:
Lava/Elemental
Storm/Enhancement

4. Earth/Spirit - Tank spec. Playstyle includes 2h melee, shield dancing based on need, earthquake instant procs, healing rain instant procs. The shaman tank is a tank that should be formidable in a group setting, in that he can tank and offer support to his teammates. This contrasts say a Prot paladin or blood dk, which is mostly self contained.

Agreed. The spirit can be ditched in favour of a Shadow Hunter.

4. Time(Chronomancer?) - Healer spec. Playstyle inspired by stagger mechanic - Reverse damage, expunge damage, and change the course of combat. Mix in debuffs on enemies to mitigate damage on allies.

The domain of Arcane.
The element WoW mages lack is Lightning magic. Present in both the WC2 mage, Medivh and Diablo 3/4 Wizard/Sorceress.

3. Demonology - Tank, similar to MOP tanking with proper glyphs.

Sounds reasonable.

4. Sacrifice - Hybrid healer/dps. Playstyle focuses on draining enemies, and even mixing debuffs on allies with heals, (ex: reducing an allies dps so the tank can receive more damage mitigation, or applying a life transfer between an ally and tank). Intensely strong in five mans due to chaotic playstyle, but backseat in raids. Strong in battlegrounds due to the constant dying of teammates, but weaker in arenas.

You just described the Affliction Warlock. Excels in drains and cursing.

5. Spirit - Ranged dps utilizing a dark and light chi system. Playstyle revolves around chi bombs and mental fortitude. Agile, high damage avoidance/mitigation. Inverting the mistweaver channel style by utilizing that same style with jade lightning and revolving chi spending around that.

There's no August Celestial for this one.

4. Necromancy - Plate ranged dps. Yes I know it would be strong. I am sorry but DK's should just be strong. That is the point of them. Playstyle integrates runic system.

Already taken by the Unholy spec.
I was thinking more along the lines of WC2 Death Knight. More of a dark magic caster than a melee fighter.

[saixilein]

I would be fine when blizz would rework some specs and bring more old mechnics/spells back, that make me playing this class. I really miss my Cata Fury Warrior, i Miss the Brewmaster, Winklwalker and Mistwaever Monk from MoP, i miss the Legion SV Hunter, i miss the Cataclysm Deathknight, i miss the MoP Shaman... And i really miss my Cata Arms Warrior pre 4.3.

[God Save The King]

Druid
Duh

Yes. In the first major overhaul of class mechanics since Mists of Pandaria, druid players should be shafted. No other animals or playstyles exist outside bear, cat, and owlkin. That's the entire WoW bestiary.

[Aphrel]

i still want a mage tank spec, just amke it some arcane anomaly transformation build.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

Not bad. What do you think about adding Bard or Astromancer classes? I like the Chronomancer idea. Healing mage, oh yea.

[Beefhammer]

Warrior - Gladiator. Make it a full on spec like you said. No need for them to have a healing spec.

Paladin - agree with the ranged spell casting. I'd make it similar to the Legion holy with a 2h weapon(mace specifically) that can be used to create a magical shield(bubble).

Hunter - some old school survival melee/shield mixed with some medium range ranged abilities. Agree BM should be full on tank.

Rogue - evasion tank only if it uses a buckler.

Priest - I'd prefer to see a staff wielding melee that would work similar to how mistweaver was initially supposed to be, some healing while hitting.

Shaman - full on earth 1h/shield tank spec. No need to stance dancing on Shaman.

Mages, Warlocks, Monks, and DHs are fine.

DK need to go back to each spec being viable tanks or DPS based on talent choice.

[slank]

- - - Updated - - -

username993720
username993720 is offline
Herald of the Titans

Just want to thank you for engaging the post; I had to retype it because I forgot my password five times.

Some of those classes you've found to be redundant, so I'll explain myself a bit better on what I think of them and why I feel they're necessary. In some cases, such as the Rogue or Hunter, the redundancy was more to provide options, rather than necessarily saying they need this class absolutely.

1. Warrior - The medic is, in my head, a non-magical healer. Or one with very slight abilities. I see the fantasy as a support character similar to a doctor or surgeon. I know they tried satisfying that with gnome priests, but I felt that broke the lore of the priest class. I see this as the more average person's answer for healing.

2. Hunters - For Survival, I think the pet option is important. I don't like removing the hunter's pets where avoidable; Ultimately having the sacc option will say, make having no pet the only reasonable option in PvP and high level PvE, but if they'd like to have the companion fighting fantasy in the open world, I see no harm. For Woodsman, you nailed it in saying I was going for the eleven ranger archetype; Though I didn't want to gate it behind a race specific aesthetic, especially when there are so many non-elven races with their own magical archers. And on bombardier, I don't know if you have played SWTOR, but in my head I'm thinking of the trooper or agent; Gnome/Goblin or Dwarven style, with lots of technology. Ultimately I thought of combining specs, but when that was done in my head it would detract from one of these three's aesthetic fantasy. I could be wrong.

3. Rogue - You have some good suggestions; I ultimately did hobble the rogue together a bit merely because it's a bit hard to specialize a rogue when hes supposed to be the trickster killer master all around. I think the discrepancy between assassination/subtlety being so fine for so many years shows even Blizzard had this difficulty. The Guile spec would be to keep assassination's melee style in the event that they overhaul assassination; I think assassination is merely a more fitting name for the distance/melee hybrid. I absolutely love your idea about the alchemical expert.

4. Priest - I specifically chose not to make Discipline the balance healer/dps they did with Legion. I think a priest being the archetypal healer was well served by having two healing specializations; A tremendous amount of complexity is there for them to choose from. Holy is conventional heal the damage, Discipline is the fun bubble spam. I ultimately see the Reconciliation priest as playing similarly to mages or warlocks; You have your smite filler, some instants, and then your unique flavor. Priests to me feel as a sort of classic specialization, one of the core five (Warrior, Priest, Mage, Hunter, Rogue) you see in say, that Deadmines vision, that Blizzard built a lot of the early game around. They felt skimped to me not having a classic style holy dps. Discipline as a dps bothers me because it reduces the power and uniqueness of the bubble boys. Glad we agree on the monk! I cannot believe it never made it into the game!

5. Shaman - Ultimately I don't think we disagree but just wanted to say I feel lightning/wind being more in line with the ranged dps provides a unique flavor; We already have two fire specializations in game between Destruction and Fire Mages. I always saw the elemental shaman as stormy, calling on the non-wind elements in their most violent form (Fire = Lava, Water = Ice, Earth = Rock). But then that raises the issue of Enhancement; Which is why I'm not really a fan of separating the shaman by the four elements unlike most people who talk about their fourth spec. Every shaman should have cross element proficiency, but it's how they use the elements that defines them, with one element being the main point that influences others. The spirit option is just a naming convention to reduce that "split by element" naming, since Blizzard has mentioned the fifth spirit element.

6. Mage - I think we will differ here because something that feels very unique to WoW over WC3 is the breadth of lore behind the Bronze Dragonflight. I wouldn't be opposed to a lightning Wizard specialization as you say, in fact, its a great additional option to add to the list. But giving the mages the time/chronomancy option would be a natural expansion of WoW's lore. I don't see arcane as necessary being the main aesthetic feature here, honestly arcane/lightning magic would probably be well served being put together. Arcane's old playstyle of mana management was a pretty fun way to play I wouldn't want to see burned.

7. Warlock - Put together last minute, totally in the dark on how you could make them even more specialized. They always felt like a "dark mage" to me, so specializing them kind of feels tricky. I was hoping with Sacrifice it would focus more on spreading general corruption across a battlefield rather than specifically the diseases of affliction. Crush enemies with rain of fire, and then drain their croaking bodies to heal allies, a sort of Warlock MMA healer.

8. Monk - I didn't explain myself well this time; In my original post before I had to retype it, I went into how monk players might be annoyed that mistweaving and fistweaving aren't in the same spec like in MoP. In that case, cranedancer and mistweaver could be re-combined, and a spirit specialization, which actively emphasizes the monk's inner abilities over the celestials, could be an option. If a mistweaver mists, and then instant casts while channeling, a spirit monk could jade lightning and instant chi bomb an enemy while doing so. If that mistweaver can also swap on demand to some fistweaving, a spirit monk can also jump in from ranged dps to melee dps as well if needed. Sort of mirroring the mistweaver, intellect user as a damage class.

9. DK - Hobbled together, I admit. Ultimately just seeing Unholy as your plaguebearer melee dps, and necromancy as a specific ranged dps.

- - - Updated - - -

Not bad. What do you think about adding Bard or Astromancer classes? I like the Chronomancer idea. Healing mage, oh yea.

I don't feel that necessarily fits the WoW lore too well.

Yes. In the first major overhaul of class mechanics since Mists of Pandaria, druid players should be shafted. No other animals or playstyles exist outside bear, cat, and owlkin. That's the entire WoW bestiary.

I'm not saying that a Druid doesn't get any updates. This post is focusing on specifically creating new specializations. Notice I didn't update gameplay for 75% of the specs already in game for other classes either?

[Zankai27]

Some really good ideas here. I like the Exorcism Paladin (although a better name might be Purgation Paladin or something more in like with other Paladin specs)

But "Bombadier Hunter: Satisfies Tinker demands without a stupid Tinker class" really doesn't do what you say it does, and completely misses the point of why people want a Tinker class. Hunters have their own fantasy, don't shoehorn an entire genre in there just because *you* think it's stupid. People can fuck right off with that.

I do appreciate a fellow Triage Warrior spec chad though

Edit: Oh yikes "Demon Hunter: Cringe class, just remove it" is a really pathetic troll take with no basis in reality.

[slank]

Some really good ideas here. I like the Exorcism Paladin (although a better name might be Purgation Paladin or something more in like with other Paladin specs)

But "Bombadier Hunter: Satisfies Tinker demands without a stupid Tinker class" really doesn't do what you say it does, and completely misses the point of why people want a Tinker class. Hunters have their own fantasy, don't shoehorn an entire genre in there just because *you* think it's stupid. People can fuck right off with that.

I do appreciate a fellow Triage Warrior spec chad though

Edit: Oh yikes "Demon Hunter: Cringe class, just remove it" is a really pathetic troll take with no basis in reality.

Thank you for the compliments homie

I hate Demon Hunters, I'm sorry. Not from a lore perspective, but from a gameplay perspective. Blizzard needs to step in and take an active stance against the proliferation of elves in this damn game. They're a big part of it, don't get me wrong, but they have become unavoidable nearly everywhere. I do not want a class that encourages even more elf gameplay. EDIT: May I also add, their gameplay is just unnecessary

The tinker class people clamor for is already mechanically satisfied by shamans, but with magic instead of gears and bolts. I've heard people talking about building turrets, etc. This is just shaman totems reskinned. Tinkers would be another class that is parasitic because it would pull specializations away from existing classes (hunters, rogues mainly) without adding anything to the core game. Death Knights do not do this, they have entirely unique playstyles.

[Zankai27]

Thank you for the compliments homie

I hate Demon Hunters, I'm sorry. Not from a lore perspective, but from a gameplay perspective. Blizzard needs to step in and take an active stance against the proliferation of elves in this damn game. They're a big part of it, don't get me wrong, but they have become unavoidable nearly everywhere. I do not want a class that encourages even more elf gameplay.

The tinker class people clamor for is already mechanically satisfied by shamans, but with magic instead of gears and bolts. I've heard people talking about building turrets, etc. This is just shaman totems reskinned. Tinkers would be another class that is parasitic because it would pull specializations away from existing classes (hunters, rogues mainly) without adding anything to the core game. Death Knights do not do this, they have entirely unique playstyles.

Take your personal feelings out of it if you want to be taken seriously, my dude. Classes will never, EVER be removed from a game.

Tinkers do tons of stuff. Turrets are only a small part of it. Rockets, lasers, science healing, mechs for tanking, (basically everything the Tinker Island Expedition team, with a whole set of unique abilities, did.) The OG Tinkers were Melee and spawned endless numbers of robots. Reducing them to "turret guy" is needlessly reductive when Warcraft has so many rich tech sources and most of them don't tie to Hunters or Rogues at all. Shaman don't even have turret totems anymore so I dunno why they even factor.

Besides, you should *like* Tinkers; they're probably the class addition MOST likely to not have any elves attached to it.

Honestly, they firmly established a woodsman/wildsman fantasy for Hunters in Legion, I wish people would stop trying to shoehorn Tinkers and Dark Rangers into their kit just because they can't envision anything else possibly using ranged weapons properly.

[shadowmatrix]

How's medic a Warrior?

Shout spec medic.

Rogue - Medic I need healing.
Medic - GET BETTER!
Rogue - Thanks. Crap the tank died!
Medic - GET UP AND WALK IT OFF, IT'S JUST A SCRATCH!
Tank - Back in action baby!

[slank]

Take your personal feelings out of it if you want to be taken seriously, my dude. Classes will never, EVER be removed from a game.

Tinkers do tons of stuff. Turrets are only a small part of it. Rockets, lasers, science healing, mechs for tanking, (basically everything the Tinker Island Expedition team, with a whole set of unique abilities, did.) The OG Tinkers were Melee and spawned endless numbers of robots. Reducing them to "turret guy" is needlessly reductive when Warcraft has so many rich tech sources and most of them don't tie to Hunters or Rogues at all. Shaman don't even have turret totems anymore so I dunno why they even factor.

Besides, you should *like* Tinkers; they're probably the class addition MOST likely to not have any elves attached to it.

Honestly, they firmly established a woodsman/wildsman fantasy for Hunters in Legion, I wish people would stop trying to shoehorn Tinkers and Dark Rangers into their kit just because they can't envision anything else possibly using ranged weapons properly.

Bro you are UNHINGED

[BreakerOfWills]

Can non hunters stop throwing out the most popular spec in game as if it needs changes to playstyle and not just QoL fixes.

No one playing BM wants to be a tank

[Cracked]

Can non hunters stop throwing out the most popular spec in game as if it needs changes to playstyle and not just QoL fixes.

No one playing BM wants to be a tank

+1. Also, this class has had a pet for better part of 17 years. If you don't like having a pet, why the fuck are you playing a hunter???

[slank]

+1. Also, this class has had a pet for better part of 17 years. If you don't like having a pet, why the fuck are you playing a hunter???

Odd response. I've been playing hunters with or without my pet depending on my mood for the better part of that 17 years

[username993720]

1. Warrior - The medic is, in my head, a non-magical healer. Or one with very slight abilities. I see the fantasy as a support character similar to a doctor or surgeon. I know they tried satisfying that with gnome priests, but I felt that broke the lore of the priest class. I see this as the more average person's answer for healing.

Either wait for a playable Alchemist or apply it to the Hunter:
Mending Bandage PvP Talent
Tank Specs – Row 1 PvP Talent
15 yd range
Channeled (6 sec cast) 25 sec cooldown
Requires Hunter (Survival)
Requires level 20
Instantly clears all bleeds, poisons, and diseases from the target, and heals for 30% damage over 6 sec.

Being attacked will stop you from using Mending Bandage.

2. Hunters - For Survival, I think the pet option is important. I don't like removing the hunter's pets where avoidable; Ultimately having the sacc option will say, make having no pet the only reasonable option in PvP and high level PvE, but if they'd like to have the companion fighting fantasy in the open world, I see no harm.

I say it because i see Survival as a Headhunter more than anything. And it does not utilize pets.

For Woodsman, you nailed it in saying I was going for the eleven ranger archetype; Though I didn't want to gate it behind a race specific aesthetic, especially when there are so many non-elven races with their own magical archers.

I think magical archers are exclusively elven. Others are more typical woodsman.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Elven_ranger
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ranger

And on bombardier, I don't know if you have played SWTOR, but in my head I'm thinking of the trooper or agent; Gnome/Goblin or Dwarven style, with lots of technology. Ultimately I thought of combining specs, but when that was done in my head it would detract from one of these three's aesthetic fantasy. I could be wrong.

I'm thinking of a sapper. A Junkrat-styled archetype.
That way, Marksmanship can be dedicated to the gun, while rangers will utilize bows. Survival will use spears and Beast Mastery would dual-wield axes.

3. Rogue - You have some good suggestions; I ultimately did hobble the rogue together a bit merely because it's a bit hard to specialize a rogue when hes supposed to be the trickster killer master all around. I think the discrepancy between assassination/subtlety being so fine for so many years shows even Blizzard had this difficulty. The Guile spec would be to keep assassination's melee style in the event that they overhaul assassination; I think assassination is merely a more fitting name for the distance/melee hybrid. I absolutely love your idea about the alchemical expert.

Is the ranged aspect based on anything? Like the Diablo 4 Rogue?
I had an idea for a Hunter spec you may apply to a Rogue - the Bounty Hunter. A character that specializes in slaying different types of mobs, akin to a monster Hunter. Dual-wielding pistols or Croswbows would be its thing.

4. Priest - I specifically chose not to make Discipline the balance healer/dps they did with Legion. I think a priest being the archetypal healer was well served by having two healing specializations; A tremendous amount of complexity is there for them to choose from. Holy is conventional heal the damage, Discipline is the fun bubble spam. I ultimately see the Reconciliation priest as playing similarly to mages or warlocks; You have your smite filler, some instants, and then your unique flavor. Priests to me feel as a sort of classic specialization, one of the core five (Warrior, Priest, Mage, Hunter, Rogue) you see in say, that Deadmines vision, that Blizzard built a lot of the early game around. They felt skimped to me not having a classic style holy dps. Discipline as a dps bothers me because it reduces the power and uniqueness of the bubble boys.

There doesn't need to be a separation between healing and protecting. The Paladin's Holy spec already combines the two. I believe Discipline should be a holy DPS and Heal kind of playstyle, akin to Whitemane from HotS. The fantasy would be that of a judger of the wicked.

Glad we agree on the monk! I cannot believe it never made it into the game!

They actually had intended to make Discipline the "monk" spec, shown by Inner Fire increasing Armor and attack power.

5. Shaman - Ultimately I don't think we disagree but just wanted to say I feel lightning/wind being more in line with the ranged dps provides a unique flavor; We already have two fire specializations in game between Destruction and Fire Mages. I always saw the elemental shaman as stormy, calling on the non-wind elements in their most violent form (Fire = Lava, Water = Ice, Earth = Rock). But then that raises the issue of Enhancement; Which is why I'm not really a fan of separating the shaman by the four elements unlike most people who talk about their fourth spec. Every shaman should have cross element proficiency, but it's how they use the elements that defines them, with one element being the main point that influences others. The spirit option is just a naming convention to reduce that "split by element" naming, since Blizzard has mentioned the fifth spirit element.

I'm saying it because of these:

6. Mage - I think we will differ here because something that feels very unique to WoW over WC3 is the breadth of lore behind the Bronze Dragonflight. I wouldn't be opposed to a lightning Wizard specialization as you say, in fact, its a great additional option to add to the list. But giving the mages the time/chronomancy option would be a natural expansion of WoW's lore. I don't see arcane as necessary being the main aesthetic feature here, honestly arcane/lightning magic would probably be well served being put together. Arcane's old playstyle of mana management was a pretty fun way to play I wouldn't want to see burned.

You'll inevitably be taking away from the Arcane spec.
The thing is Diablo distinguishes, rather than combines, between Arcane and Lightning:

7. Warlock - Put together last minute, totally in the dark on how you could make them even more specialized. They always felt like a "dark mage" to me, so specializing them kind of feels tricky. I was hoping with Sacrifice it would focus more on spreading general corruption across a battlefield rather than specifically the diseases of affliction. Crush enemies with rain of fire, and then drain their croaking bodies to heal allies, a sort of Warlock MMA healer.

My idea was to expand upon its Void themes (Voidwalker). It could be the tanking spec, as it is a tanking pet. And it would differ from the Shadow Priest (who is based on Old Gods aesthetics).

8. Monk - I didn't explain myself well this time; In my original post before I had to retype it, I went into how monk players might be annoyed that mistweaving and fistweaving aren't in the same spec like in MoP. In that case, cranedancer and mistweaver could be re-combined, and a spirit specialization, which actively emphasizes the monk's inner abilities over the celestials, could be an option. If a mistweaver mists, and then instant casts while channeling, a spirit monk could jade lightning and instant chi bomb an enemy while doing so. If that mistweaver can also swap on demand to some fistweaving, a spirit monk can also jump in from ranged dps to melee dps as well if needed. Sort of mirroring the mistweaver, intellect user as a damage class.

But, then, it loses the entire point of separating between Mistweaver and Crane style. It's like keeping Feral and Guardian in the same spec. It's the last unrepresented celestial, so i think it has priority.

9. DK - Hobbled together, I admit. Ultimately just seeing Unholy as your plaguebearer melee dps, and necromancy as a specific ranged dps.

Not much different, as the themes of the Necromancer were combined into the Unholy Death Knight. Meanwhile, there isn't a dedicated first generation Death Knight spec (purple magic like Death Grip).

[Kumorii]

Glad to see someone realizes that Dark Ranger doesn't fit hunter as spec.

[username993720]

Glad to see someone realizes that Dark Ranger doesn't fit hunter as spec.

He's the only guy i've seen with some geuine suggestions. Looks like he did a research rather than just write whatever comes into his head off the bat.

[Dakhath]

Shout spec medic.

Rogue - Medic I need healing.
Medic - GET BETTER!
Rogue - Thanks. Crap the tank died!
Medic - GET UP AND WALK IT OFF, IT'S JUST A SCRATCH!
Tank - Back in action baby!

If you include handing out Motrin for any injury, you've just described medics in the Army.