Poll: Do you support bringing back the Vanilla racial-based "priest abilities"?

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  1. #1

    Question Do you support bringing back the Vanilla racial-based "priest abilities"?

    I wasn't a Vanilla player, but I've learned that all the original priest classes had special unique "race"-based abilities, for example, blood elves had "Consume Magic" and night elves had "Starshards". Basically, do you think they were a beneficial perk to the gameplay and possibly the lore? Would you prefer to bring them back, given the chance?

    https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Pri...cial_abilities
    https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Con...riest_ability)
    https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Starshards

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOfELglfnQ
    "You see, there is balance in all things. Wisdom etched in our very fur: Black and white. Darkness and light. When the last emperor hid our land from the rest of the world, he also preserved...our ancient enemy, the mantid. So it is with your Alliance and your Horde. They are not strong despite one another; they are strong BECAUSE of one another. You mistake your greatest strength for weakness. Do you see this?"

  2. #2
    I don't, because inevitably one priest race will become the meta.

  3. #3
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    I rather then get those things and redesign around "racial skins" for classes.

    Like if you pick a priest as night elf the spells are silver white because elune, and if you pick tauren is red and gold because the sun/anshee

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Syegfryed View Post
    I rather then get those things and redesign around "racial skins" for classes.

    Like if you pick a priest as night elf the spells are silver white because elune, and if you pick tauren is red and gold because the sun/anshee
    Why not have some class-unique abilities though? There are different racials for every race already, and this could make priests far more interesting. Not everything has to be perfectly streamlined and exactly the "same" as each other, some gameplay diversity could be really interesting.
    Last edited by OwenBurton; 2022-05-02 at 12:52 PM.
    "You see, there is balance in all things. Wisdom etched in our very fur: Black and white. Darkness and light. When the last emperor hid our land from the rest of the world, he also preserved...our ancient enemy, the mantid. So it is with your Alliance and your Horde. They are not strong despite one another; they are strong BECAUSE of one another. You mistake your greatest strength for weakness. Do you see this?"

  5. #5
    They'd need to bring back the lore. Then I'd be all for it.

  6. #6
    The Insane Syegfryed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OwenBurton View Post
    Why not have some class-unique abilities though? There are different racials for every race already, and this could make priests far more interesting. Not everything has to be perfectly streamlined and exactly the "same" as each other, some gameplay diversity could be really interesting.
    Because racials are already a problem, this would be even worse, people would start picking only one race because the abilities are stronger and you would need to do something similar to other classes as well, and blizzard can't balance that

  7. #7
    No thanks. Either these racial spells would be meaningless (like racials in pve) or too powerful (like racials in pve for the most part).

    Racials don't really have a place in modern wow, where everything is calculated and optimised on the first day and you end up being gimped if you go with flavour rather than meta.

  8. #8
    No.

    And honestly, racials should be reworked, or removed.
    Race should solely be picked on a cosmetic basis.
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  9. #9
    I would like it but more in the sense of class skins... because no matter what they do one of these races will be better or more usefull than the others and everybody will need to play this race. Then teh same people who wanted that complain, that they can't run dungeons if they are not this race. Whine whine whine. Blizz removes it again.

  10. #10
    That is sure way to make almost every Priest player play that one race. Most players just about meta, so RP elements like that wouldn't work with current player base.

  11. #11
    No thanks, IIRC, back in Vanilla Dwarven priests had the advantage because they had a spell that countered fear effects, and it would just be the same all over again.

    I get it, homogenization isn't very "RPG-ish", but for a playerbase that's absolutely obsessed with min-maxing *everything*, that's the only way to avoid unforeseen side-effects. (Alliance and Horde racials were slightly uneven years ago, and here we are with a lopsided playerbase for high-end content...)

  12. #12
    With cross-faction instancing being a thing...maybe. But I think this particular RPG-flavor was a bit too weird for my taste.

  13. #13
    yes and do the same with all classes, esp if they are opening up more classes to more races
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  14. #14
    Considering they're loosening up racial restrictions, i doubt anything of that kind will happen in the near future.

    At best, i could envision a glorified extra talent tree for Priests that basically works like the Zandalari Racial, where by choosing to worship a given deity, you gain a specific ability.

  15. #15
    I think it would be better to cosmetically alter some of their abilities based on race but shouldn't be flat out different abilities like in Vanilla.

    That or add a new ability that's changes based on race. If a Night Elf casts its "Blessing of Elune" but if troll casts it will become "Blessing of the Loa" or something.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Considering they're loosening up racial restrictions, i doubt anything of that kind will happen in the near future.

    At best, i could envision a glorified extra talent tree for Priests that basically works like the Zandalari Racial, where by choosing to worship a given deity, you gain a specific ability.
    This would just present another opportunity for players to engineer the fun out of a feature.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by FiveBy21 View Post
    I don't, because inevitably one priest race will become the meta.
    This is what it comes down to.

    Either the racial spells are a total joke to the point where none of them even have niche utility, and they're purely thematic and most people never use them because they're a waste of hotbar space.

    or

    One race will inevitably come out as the "meta" and the rest seen as inferior.

    The same will happen with any other classes getting race-specific abilities. If people desperately wanted race-specific stuff, I'd suggest visually re-skinning stuff, perhaps with a race-specific glyph or something, rather than screwing with balance. Classic exists if people want to "turn back time".
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  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    This would just present another opportunity for players to engineer the fun out of a feature.
    It's what players do with everything, same with SL's Covenants, there was a "Join this covenant or suck"-list out before the expansion hit live, and almost everybody stuck to that, if there's any numerical difference at all between gameplay choices, players will immediately divide the options between one that's "Best" and the rest, "Trash".

    And of course after that, they go to forums and whine about Blizzard homogenizing everything.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by OwenBurton View Post
    I wasn't a Vanilla player, but I've learned that all the original priest classes had special unique "race"-based abilities, for example, blood elves had "Consume Magic" and night elves had "Starshards". Basically, do you think they were a beneficial perk to the gameplay and possibly the lore? Would you prefer to bring them back, given the chance?

    https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Pri...cial_abilities
    https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Con...riest_ability)
    https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Starshards

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOfELglfnQ
    Nah man. Fear Ward was so strong, you would literally bring level 58 dwarf priests to Onyxia as long as they were attuned just so you had enough Fear Wards for the tanks. When they launched WoW Classic, something like 75% of priests on Alliance side were Dwarves.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by mysticx View Post
    No thanks, IIRC, back in Vanilla Dwarven priests had the advantage because they had a spell that countered fear effects, and it would just be the same all over again.

    I get it, homogenization isn't very "RPG-ish", but for a playerbase that's absolutely obsessed with min-maxing *everything*, that's the only way to avoid unforeseen side-effects. (Alliance and Horde racials were slightly uneven years ago, and here we are with a lopsided playerbase for high-end content...)
    Yeah. Such flavour differences work in D&D because its generally meant to just be fun and the DM will generally adjust everything to suit their party. You dont have D&D groups comparing who beat which module and how fast. Your party isn't making charts of every fight to see who is doing the most damage.

    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    With cross-faction instancing being a thing...maybe. But I think this particular RPG-flavor was a bit too weird for my taste.
    I imagine it'd make it even worse actually. Lets say, using a classic example, dwarf priests have the best racial. Now all priests, regardless of faction, are pressured to go dwarf to keep up.

    I think as others have said, racially skinning abilities would be cooler and help bring out race/class fantasy more than tieing a cosmetic preference to power levels.
    Last edited by Myradin; 2022-05-02 at 02:40 PM.

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