New pala, lock, druid , DH and shaman race class combos

[Mace]

Rather contradictory...I'm reading your post as "anything goes" for race/class, but lament homogenization.

I don’t want homogenisation - as in the same class concept for every race. I however am fine with the play styles each class brings available to each race in unique and race lore affirming and advancing specific ways.


So if we must have it, and I can see why people desire this, let it be done in a way that doesn’t remove the distinct racial lore and fantasy. By making the lore good, feasible and appropriate. Develop races where they need to in a way that follows their story which may allow them to gain a new class.

Where this isn’t feasible or appropriate there are other things like making certain factions playable within the races where that race has never nor will ever follow that path, there would be a means that players picking that race can access that class even if the class option is not part of the main race’s group just like how it is for DHs and DKs

[Aleksej89]

I wanted night elf shamans since vanilla.

[Jujudrood]

My favorite argument against class/race combos is "but the lore!", and my response is simple: who cares?
Blizzard creates the lore because it's fiction, it's fantasy, it's whatever they want it to be.
They can wake up tomorrow and say "you know what, gnomes and nelfs have hung out so long that some gnomes have adapted and learned a connection to nature, so they can shapeshift into wee little bears and maul shit now", and if they did that, the world would keep turning and everything would be the same.
The lore is whatever they feel like making.

"But that's homogenization!", and my response: nope.
What is the rotational difference between a nelf boomie and a tauren boomie?
Nothing. There's no difference. The race itself matters veeeeeeery little.
Sure, the cow can stompstun things every now and again and the nelf can foodstamp-vanish, but does that really change the complete dynamics of the class? Nope.
If a human boomie broke a stun, does that break the entire concept of druid? Not in the slightest.
Maaaaybe PVP looks slightly different, but even then, nominal to anyone who's not top 0.5% (read: the vast majority of the playerbase).

Open all races to all classes, make some totem skins and shapeshift forms, and let people play whatever they want.

[Shadowferal]

If this many people didn't care about the lore when WoW began this game would have been dead in vanilla. And deservedly so.
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I don’t want homogenisation - as in the same class concept for every race. I however am fine with the play styles each class brings available to each race in unique and race lore affirming and advancing specific ways.

Well, you know where I stand regarding lore...and as close to some lines I get to with "bridging classes" and "exceptions" in my personal rewrite of the lore, there are some race/class combos that I'm adamant against.

[Triceron]

Rather contradictory...I'm reading your post as "anything goes" for race/class, but lament homogenization.

It's the difference of theme coming from a Race, or coming from the Class.

Priest lore derives from their Race and culture. Trolls are using Loa and Voodoo to derive their powers of light and shadow, Tauren draw from the power of the Sun, Draenei from the Naaru.

Monk is an example of Class-centric design. All races are learning Pandaren techniques, and revere the August Celestials, and draw from the same teachings as the ancient Pandaren. Same can be applied to Mages and Warlocks, who are all learning a singular style of spellcasting, rather than deriving it from a cultural background.

Class-centric lore is what Mace means by homogenization.

[Mace]

My favorite argument against class/race combos is "but the lore!", and my response is simple: who cares?
Blizzard creates the lore because it's fiction, it's fantasy, it's whatever they want it to be.
They can wake up tomorrow and say "you know what, gnomes and nelfs have hung out so long that some gnomes have adapted and learned a connection to nature, so they can shapeshift into wee little bears and maul shit now", and if they did that, the world would keep turning and everything would be the same.
The lore is whatever they feel like making.
.

You gotta care though, the lore is there to make things interesting, it is the source of the iconography and the fantasy, and ultimately the point of entertainment tell a story, in a video game , you are the protagonist at the heart of that story, it's fun because you can control your character in interesting ways and do interesting things, but the idea, especially of roleplaying is that you're the one doing these things, and the things you do have meaning as interesting things unfold.


The lore is there precisely to create interesting ways that you can experience those classes. The lore is not an impediment to you getting more class/combos, but rather the means for you to get them in a way that makes sense and keeps all the great facets of the story so far, the unique feel that has been created ofr the world and the races as you roleplay or play a role thorough an avatar that belongs to people or a group, has a purpose and has a function.

the gameplay determines the style you operate, and it determines whether what you play is fun., but the vast majority of the inspiration for playing it comes from the fantasy that the lore generates. it is important, and should be important, even if some people don't care about it.

It influences more than you think. Without lore many of the cool gear sets, looks, fantasies, variations, races etc won't exist, the story unusually determines all those things. Based on the story and the setting it provides, the entire look is determined and artistically imagined then drawn. It influences a hell of a lot

[VinceVega]

I agree with shamans/warlocks for all races. There is nothing holding them back here really.

DH? No... there is no reason for it and nor DH would ever make MORE DH without the Legion being a problem.
Druid is also difficult imho but expandable. Humans of course becaus they allready can via the fat ones. Every Furry race because they allready are animals and have connections to wild gods anyway. Also i would love to see a panda-moonkin. Or a mini fox moonkin.

You can use new lore to justify nearly everything. But it doesn't mean it is good. bringing back the legion just so we get eredar? No thanks....

Edit: And if for whatever werid reason gnomes get druids. NO mechanical stuff... its druids. Nature. Not engineers.

[Mace]

I agree with shamans/warlocks for all races. There is nothing holding them back here really.

DH? No... there is no reason for it and nor DH would ever make MORE DH without the Legion being a problem.
Druid is also difficult imho but expandable. Humans of course becaus they allready can via the fat ones. Every Furry race because they allready are animals and have connections to wild gods anyway. Also i would love to see a panda-moonkin. Or a mini fox moonkin.

You can use new lore to justify nearly everything. But it doesn't mean it is good. bringing back the legion just so we get eredar? No thanks....

Edit: And if for whatever weird reason gnomes get druids. NO mechanical stuff... its druids. Nature. Not engineers.

exactly, Orc mages was new lore - they learned from books - but that was not very good. If they had said something like an orc mage is very rare, but some inspired by their forsaken and blood elf allies are individuals who decided to explore this field of study and master it. However there is no arcane community amongst the orcs and the study continues to be shunned due to it's excessive involvement with alliance and alliance-like races.

that would have been a little better, if they had even gone on to say orcs in general struggle iwth the arcane or look down on it because of the ogres, that would have helped.

Another avenue could have said that orc mages are actually Kirin'tor aligned orcs, though very rare, the Dalaran community was amazed to find an orc with the affinity to study the arcane, since then a few more individuals have taken that upon themselves, but due to cultural prejudices against the arts and many of the arcane using races, it still remains very very rare occurrence and seems almost exclusively confined to outgoing orcen adventurers.

Another option could have been via Ogre magi, and create a story where either some orcs were student to some ogre magi and have joined the orc communities, or learnt it in secret under ogre enslavements and escaped, and now hone their art, /Or the ogre magi that joined the horde do occasionally but rarely have orc apprentices that in time became fully fledged magi, it is somewhat looked down upon for an orc to apprentice to an ogre for anything.

While the truth is any reason could do, not every reason is good, and while the reason of an individual (not a faction of a race or the entire race) can be far more plausible to learning a new class can sometimes work, you can't and shouldn't use that for every unavailable race/class combo, because sometimes it's just too antithetic to that race.

in other cases you'd need a neutral faction like Dalaran or the Ebon blade, or Illidari to be the source of the new race being able to become that class, or generate a new faction relevant to the expansion, like the Primalists been the source of new elf shaman - on the condition that the shaman you play is part of that faction not the main faction, like it is for the DK you play or the DH you play. there are cases that works.

And there are also cases where you can progress the lore of a race easily to now be able to play the new class.. Nightborne druids is easy, because of their night elven nature routes, we saw the Nightborne botanists using druidic magic and then the Arcan'dor now the source of their life and their salvation,, with druids and nature magic greatly respected - it just makes sense that Nightborne really take to balance druidism in particular, but others also, because the class being elven in origin has a lot of arcane elements.

In others still a group of that race becoming the new class is plausible, for example, void elves who love nature it makes sense for a group of them to be really into studying the void affect on nature, and eventually in a storyline working together night elven druids to solve the nightmare problem, which leads to some of them becoming void elf druids.


What you use for each can vary enormously, and they actually have a basis for a lot of new combos to happen if not. But some you have to be careful . I know you said shaman and warlock should be easily available to all, but Draenei and night elf warlocks can't just happen without lore and consistency damage, so you would have to make provision for them.. using the Illidari faction is an easy way to do this, in that night elf warlocks are part of the Illidari and not the Darnassians, just like the demon hunters, you would make this obvious if night elf warlocks also had access to the demon hunter customisations which are Illidari look. and for Draenei you would also give the warlock class Eredar customisations, as the draenei warlock would be man'ari Eredar who had joined Illidan in his fight against the legion though they were quite few. This stops you making two races who's main faction have moved away form anything demonic or fel, which is largely the main point about them.


It shows you care.

[Jujudrood]

You gotta care though, the lore is there to make things interesting, it is the source of the iconography and the fantasy, and ultimately the point of entertainment tell a story, in a video game , you are the protagonist at the heart of that story, it's fun because you can control your character in interesting ways and do interesting things, but the idea, especially of roleplaying is that you're the one doing these things, and the things you do have meaning as interesting things unfold.


The lore is there precisely to create interesting ways that you can experience those classes. The lore is not an impediment to you getting more class/combos, but rather the means for you to get them in a way that makes sense and keeps all the great facets of the story so far, the unique feel that has been created ofr the world and the races as you roleplay or play a role thorough an avatar that belongs to people or a group, has a purpose and has a function.

the gameplay determines the style you operate, and it determines whether what you play is fun., but the vast majority of the inspiration for playing it comes from the fantasy that the lore generates. it is important, and should be important, even if some people don't care about it.

It influences more than you think. Without lore many of the cool gear sets, looks, fantasies, variations, races etc won't exist, the story unusually determines all those things. Based on the story and the setting it provides, the entire look is determined and artistically imagined then drawn. It influences a hell of a lot

The lore is more about the world-building.
If I am a true player and in control, why can I not be the exception to the rule?
Why can't my gnome dedicate his life to the light? It's not that far of a step to go from priest to paladin.
Taurens, known to be large and hoof-footed, have learned to sneak and goblins, known to be greedy and selfish, have learned to centered their chi.
It's not that far of a stretch.
you can keep the lore NPCs in their boxes if you want, but playing the game and being part of the story are two different things, especially when everyone just refers to you as 'champion' or 'hero' which is done in a very nondescript way.

[Kellorion]

DH? No... there is no reason for it and nor DH would ever make MORE DH without the Legion being a problem.

The Legion is still out there
Sargeras is still being held by barely powered Titans and a Jailer 5000 levels below him
there are still demons on Azeroth and Outland

[Shadowferal]

The lore is more about the world-building. If I am a true player and in control, why can I not be the exception to the rule?

Because you aren't in control of the lore. More importantly you are NOT the exception anymore than anyone and everyone else.

[VinceVega]

The Legion is still out there
Sargeras is still being held by barely powered Titans and a Jailer 5000 levels below him
there are still demons on Azeroth and Outland

Lorewise every demon we kill now stays dead. And nearly every demon on Azeroth was/is part of a kill quest.
I don't think they really are a threat anymore for Azeroth.
The lost basically all of their leaders, their immortality and they have a light faction on their mainworld.
The Burning Crusade is done and crippled beyond repair.
They have been a threat because they were unkillable and worked together despite their nature due to an overpowering force on the top. Which is gone.

[VeraeliaBlack]

Given the current trend, I'm almost fairly certain most classes will be available for everyone soon.

This leaves the lore intensive classes, which I doubt would remain unchanged, but I also doubt will go to everyone.

What are the most likely and/or desirable new additions you reckon we will get for these special classes?

Lock - this will prob get the biggest class race combo jump, I can see everyone but Night elves , Draennei and the two Tauren races getting those altho

1. Highmountain have the blood totem to draw from
2 . Night elves could instead have Illidari night elves able to be warlocks instead of normal ones.
3. Dranaei however would need Eredar customisations to make this happen.


Pala: nightborne, night elf for sure via blood elves etc. In fact the only race imm nit sure will get them are Vulpera.

Druid. Pandas, Nightborne, void elves, human and blood elves - I cant see forsaken or gnomes getting the . Orcs do have a way through the Draenei thing but they are like mortal enemies, so I doubt it.

Demon hunters : void elves and nightborne off course. Orcs and Draneei as well as High Mountain - again for Draenei, those Eredar Man'ari customisations

Shaman: Night elves, Humans, Nightborne, Void elves (entropy), Blood elves and Gnomes I can see getting them - in fact I can see every race being able to once goblins could. You dont even need the Pri alist revival to do so, but that has ope ed the door for everyone.


Your guesses ?

There are already Night Elf Paladins in the game as NPCs. In the Well of Eternity, they protect the walkway leading up to Azshara (complete with HoJ and Consecrate). You also help a Night Elf become a Paladin in the Pally class hall in Legion. And they would learn from the Humans/Quel'dorei, not the Blood Elves. Especially after what just happened with Teldrassil/Sylvanas. Pretty sure there will be negative interactions with Blood Elves in general post that cluster.

Kul Tirans are already Human Druids. So they'd probably just branch it off as a genetic thing/being 'of the same bloodlines' or something.

Night Elves technically have Warlocks for the same reason - Nightborne. I haven't played the Tauren/Draenei Rogue garbage yet (sorry, it's ludicrous, how do you sneak up on something when you have hooves...), so they'll probably do the same thing with Night Elves. And like Tauren/Draenei Rogues, I'll gloss over them and pretend they don't exist.

But my Blood Elf is becoming a Night Elf Paladin the SECOND that goes live lol. Been waiting forever for that, it'll be nice to finally be able to stop playing Horde completely.

As far as DHs go, I can't see them breaking their own lore enough to do everything with that particular Hero Class. They'd have to bring Illidan back, I think, before that got released. Especially with this whole 'the legion is gone' thing they have going. I figure they'll do it eventually, but it'll probably be one of the later ones.

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Why Do you exclude DHs from that list? The process of creating DHs is applicable to all races. There is literally no lore reason at all to not have this ffa.

There's no reason to make them. The Legion is 'gone', and Illidan is dealing with Sargeras. Until he comes back, there's pretty much no reason to have them race-jump. There's also the whole Arcane/Fel resilience/capacity to think about. It's hard to devour/bind yourself to a demon essence if, as far as Lore is concerned, there's no more demons to use for that xD.

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If this many people didn't care about the lore when WoW began this game would have been dead in vanilla. And deservedly so.
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Well, you know where I stand regarding lore...and as close to some lines I get to with "bridging classes" and "exceptions" in my personal rewrite of the lore, there are some race/class combos that I'm adamant against.

I'm right there with you. The fact they did Draenei/Tauren Rogues is absolutely ridiculous. As soon as Misha showed up in Panda-land, I knew the dumpster fire was lit. "NOTHING TO SEE HERE *clop clop clop clop*" Come on, man. They're everywhere on Moon Guard (as Wyrmrest Accord has been slow for RP since the server-killing raids), and I just basically ignore them. They don't make sense as far as Lore. Right there with Night Elf Warlocks (I'm sorry, as much as DHs were exiled by their own, them welcoming Warlocks, when DHs literally kill demons, is just as illogical as the Rogue bridge). There's a lot of combos they pretty much blatantly did to get more people to spend money on race changes/game playing time, and it's frustrating to people who actually care about the Lore.

I still see people who ignore Shadowlands entirely, because of how bad that turned out.

Edit to add: Mace your avvie is GORGEOUS O.O

[Mace]

The lore is more about the world-building.
If I am a true player and in control, why can I not be the exception to the rule?
Why can't my gnome dedicate his life to the light? It's not that far of a step to go from priest to paladin.
Taurens, known to be large and hoof-footed, have learned to sneak and goblins, known to be greedy and selfish, have learned to centered their chi.
It's not that far of a stretch.
you can keep the lore NPCs in their boxes if you want, but playing the game and being part of the story are two different things, especially when everyone just refers to you as 'champion' or 'hero' which is done in a very nondescript way.

Fair enough, I just think maki g interesting lore for new race class combos potentially makes them much more interesting and desirable

[Triceron]

exactly, Orc mages was new lore - they learned from books - but that was not very good. If they had said something like an orc mage is very rare, but some inspired by their forsaken and blood elf allies are individuals who decided to explore this field of study and master it. However there is no arcane community amongst the orcs and the study continues to be shunned due to it's excessive involvement with alliance and alliance-like races.

I was never a fan of Orc Mages, still aren't.

IMO, Shamans are already Orc Magi. That's the role they originally played in the RTS games, as spellcaster counterparts to the Alliance Magi, who equally had mastery over the elements.

I feel like the lore behind having all Mages use Arcane magic was unnecessary. Simply keeping it as different methods of harnessing the elements would have been fine, and Orc Mages could easily be adapted as Shamans who prefer to focus on one particular element, while 'Arcane' is merely an abstraction of harnessing energy (using Shamanism) of Leylines that are native to Azeroth.

[Syegfryed]

Now they said they will do every race every class, i bet they will just do it for dragonflight, and will completely forget about this in the next expansion.

With is bullshit, since WoD i want an orc druid after seeing one in asharan

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exactly, Orc mages was new lore - they learned from books - but that was not very good. If they had said something like an orc mage is very rare, but some inspired by their forsaken and blood elf allies are individuals who decided to explore this field of study and master it. However there is no arcane community amongst the orcs and the study continues to be shunned due to it's excessive involvement with alliance and alliance-like races.

Thats because that wasn't what happened... The lore about orc mages is how Garrosh started employing orcs to study arcane arts with the forsaken and blood elves so they could stop relying on warlocks who to him, are a memory of the legion and their enslavement. they were made and trained for combat.

The whole bit about Garrosh in cata was how he used any tool as his disposal into the war, it would be dumb to not make orcs learn the arcane.

that would have been a little better, if they had even gone on to say orcs in general struggle iwth the arcane or look down on it because of the ogres, that would have helped.

I bet you would like if all races but elves struggled with arcane am i right.

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Lorewise every demon we kill now stays dead.

? no? they still return to the neather and reform there, the argus soul was used to speed up their regeneration:

When Sargeras expressed displeasure with the time it took for his armies to regenerate in this manner, the nathrezim suggested that they could infuse a nascent titan world-soul with Death energies to great a so-called "resurrection engine" that would allow slain demons to return almost instantaneously. The result of this scheme was the death titan Argus, through whom all soldiers of the Burning Legion would return upon their death

But after that they would still reform there, they only stay dead if you kill on the neather, or in a place saturated with fel energy. They are very much a threat.

Besides, even if they weren't, other threats exist, and their focus is to protect the world, to do that, they need more numbers, and they can only do that by making more.

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There's no reason to make them.

By this logic, there is no reason for then to exist, and they should delete the class from the game....

And yep, there is reason, their goal is to protect azeroth, even if the enemies are not demons, they need more to acomplish that.

[FelPlague]

I agree with shamans/warlocks for all races. There is nothing holding them back here really.

DH? No... there is no reason for it and nor DH would ever make MORE DH without the Legion being a problem.
Druid is also difficult imho but expandable. Humans of course becaus they allready can via the fat ones. Every Furry race because they allready are animals and have connections to wild gods anyway. Also i would love to see a panda-moonkin. Or a mini fox moonkin.

You can use new lore to justify nearly everything. But it doesn't mean it is good. bringing back the legion just so we get eredar? No thanks....

Edit: And if for whatever werid reason gnomes get druids. NO mechanical stuff... its druids. Nature. Not engineers.

Elementals are part of nature, we see druids become elementals, and bears and cats etc made of rock, wood, fire, and even metal. Gnomes and goblin's could simply become metal forms of such with tinker aesthetic.


Idk why this form is still going though, bliz themselves have said they intend to make ever race/class combo a thing (except evoker currently) and have been doing so.
Dks then mages then priests and rogues, and then of course monks. We also already have tons of the others.

However they will do the ones that require less work first and leave the hard ones till last.

Druid for their racial forms
Shaman for their racial totems
Demon hunters for their lore and racial metamorphosis
And paladins and their racial steeds

Now all that is left is warlock. Which will likely be next, however they have a lore issue to come over.

How the fuck do maghar orcs, which means uncorrupted orc, who when exposed to demonic energy become just normal orcs. Be warlocks (and dh) and not then just be normal orcs?
Same for draenei becoming eredar. But atleast there it's not already a playable race.

So warlock will very likely be next to get the "all races" treatment. But we will have to have some really weird lore shenanigans to let it.
Although with warlocks getting a "shadowlands fire" skin for their fire spells possibly, that might be what we need to let draenei and maghar be warlocks no problem.

I could also see shammies next cause we are dealing with the elements and stuff on dragonflight. Maybe something with the primalists.

[Nathanyel]

If this many people didn't care about the lore when WoW began this game would have been dead in vanilla. And deservedly so.

I can assure you, plenty of people "cared" about WoW introducing male NE Warriors and female NE Druids, or Tauren Druids etc.
And it didn't matter one bit, not just because the new story worked, but also because then and now, Blizzard's mantra is "Gameplay first".

Lorewise every demon we kill now stays dead.

Nope. We just destroyed their instant respawn. Demons still reform in the Nether if not killed there. Might take years, but eventually that Doomlord you killed will return.

I haven't played the Tauren/Draenei Rogue garbage yet (sorry, it's ludicrous, how do you sneak up on something when you have hooves...)

In a world where Rogues can sneak not just in the shadows, but in the open field between enemies, where some even slip into the shadows while engaged in combat, you'd think some Tauren or Draenei would have the idea of wrapping cloth or leather around their hooves. At least for sneaking on marble.
It's like a mask. For your feet!

Or just play Outlaw and use Stealth mostly as a gimmick.

[WowIsDead64]

How about "wrong game?"

I don't want to discuss it, because this coin has two sides, i.e. "wrong game" is subjective and such discussion will boil down to "Who is majority in this game?", that is wrong argument anyway.

Process is already started. And nothing can stop it. Only question is - when? I have just 2 classes left on my favorite race, that I don't have access to. Warlock and DH. Yeah, Blizzard have said, that they won't give Evoker to all races and that it's restricted to Dracthyrs forever. Well, they will. Some day. Yeah, at this point making class, that isn't designed with giving it to all races in ming - is bad game design. But Blizzard just want to make their development cheaper. New class = new animations and class sets. Restricting it to only one race = much cheaper development.

[Shadowferal]

But Blizzard just want to make their development cheaper. New class = new animations and class sets. Restricting it to only one race = much cheaper development.

Cheaper, and with little thought put into it. I mean expansions have even gone from a semblance of coherence and connectivity to, well, from WoD to DF.