We will probably see a new Class during the Worldsoul Saga

[Polybius]

There is no getting behind their heads because it's always inconsistent and based in their current choice of direction.

How they designed X class back then might not have rhe same design goals or limitations as today. It's all on a whim as far as our perception of design goes.

Like Dark Ranger becoming a Hero Talent is likely salvaging a scrapped Class that they couldn't get working in Shadowlands. We've seen the cosmetics and boss abilities and everything suggesting the possibility of a scrapped class concept. And they possibly decided Hero Talent was the way to go. No one could have gotten unto their minds to see that as a possibility. To us, it's all whims of change, a direction we could not anticipate.

Tinkers have been so long expected and so long held back that they could be literally anything, possibly following no pattern or precedents at all. That is why the Survey suggesting Titan themed Tinkers isn't all surprising.

And that affects current classes today being opened up to more races. They have given up on keeping consistent, coherent lore for the sake if adding customization. Most new Warlock races still don't have ample lore covering the choices

I wonder what abilities they are, and if some were baked onto Evoker.

[FossilFree]

i can see them going E.T.C. for bard for a spec. But i hope not for the tank spec, as i would rather have a bard tank that uses a shield, rather than a two-handed weapon

They could even add a Wardrummer spec for the Horde inclined as well. It's totally lore-appropriate with the kodo beast unit from WC3 too (as seen in the intro):

@1:04

[Nightshade711]

Let'S talk about Bard then for a bit shall we?

And here i take the bard from the survey. According to it, bards have a tank, healing and support spec. I think healing and support are rather straight forward to a bard. But tank? That is such a random thing to have on a bard, it makes one think what way they want to design the bard to achieve that.

I personally would prefer Bard to not have a tank spec - but I think E.T.C in HOTS was a tank (even though with Evoker they've shown to not use HS as much of a basis) so in theory it could work.

But I would prefer them to be a DPS - I think they could have ability combos (maybe combo sets could be called riffs to fit in) that could do different types of damage/damage. Like one certain combo/riff could give a DoT themed around face melting.

[Trazzle]

I’d be shocked if bard had a tank spec. I’d put money on a translation issue or something, “Buffs Tanks”, rather than implying that that’d actually be the tank themselves.

I’d love to see bards in WoW, classic fantasy trope that some people connect with. Easy to grasp concept, music is powerful.

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I’d love to see bards in WoW

Of course only after Tinkers :3

[Nightshade711]

Of course only after Tinkers :3

Tinker Bards using their built electric guitars and amplifiers.

[Enrif]

I’d be shocked if bard had a tank spec. I’d put money on a translation issue or something, “Buffs Tanks”, rather than implying that that’d actually be the tank themselves.

Not a translation issue. It literally stated in the first sentence:

German: Unterstützer, Heiler und Tanks, die sich das Lied von Azeroth zunutze machen...
English: Supporters, Healers and Tanks, that utilize the Song of Azeroth....

We use in german also the word tank for tanks.

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By the way, assuming the survey is real, it'd be kind of weird having a class without a true DPS spec. I guess it kind of fits Bards, and support and healing are definitely appropriate roles, but I really hope that they'll have at least one spec that's good for solo content so I don't need to gear up an alt for stuff like Zekvir.

I leveled a second evoker in DF once augmentation was released. It was not bad to level that. But i just recently hooped on that augmentation evoker and it felt supper weak now. Balancing is needed, but a supporter can be good for leveling. Also tanks are among the best specs to level and do solo content.

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We don't need it.

Blizzard can easily just let the bard use regular weapons, and then give some of their spells a special casting animation, like the paladin sometimes flips pages of their libram when casting something.

yeah, i think most people soured on exclusive item types after demon hunter, like they soured on the concept of race restricted classes.

[Nightshade711]

yeah, i think most people soured on exclusive item types after demon hunter, like they soured on the concept of race restricted classes.

To be fair for the DH exclusive warglaives - there are a multitude of non-DH classes/races that use glaives. They should've made them usable by at least Warriors, Rogues, and Hunters (if/when Survival gets dual wield).

I don't personally see another class needing to use instruments. But I'm on the fence, it would be cool to have instruments be transmogged for greater customization. But then again they could just have them come out for abilities like the paladin books.

[Enrif]

To be fair for the DH exclusive warglaives - there are a multitude of non-DH classes/races that use glaives. They should've made them usable by at least Warriors, Rogues, and Hunters (if/when Survival gets dual wield).

I don't personally see another class needing to use instruments. But I'm on the fence, it would be cool to have instruments be transmogged for greater customization. But then again they could just have them come out for abilities like the paladin books.

Warglaives should absolutely be able to be used by more classes, the easiest solution would be to make them just 1h swords.

I don't think there is much value in instruments as a weapon type. We got a bunch of instruments as Offhands already, and i would rather see them use instruments like the paladin books for spells.

[Vaedan]

There's better bard concepts in Russell Brower and Hearthsinger Forresten than the Darkmoon Faire musicians who, y'know, are just musicians, not really bards.

I mean, yes? There was also a skeletal minstrel during Necrolord assault on the Maw - you could select him as your companion, he followed you and played lute to create sonic waves to damage enemies.

New Radiant Song lore and theming gives way more credibility to a WoW bard concept than ever before.

[Enteroctopus Magnificus]

OP would be ok if I post here my fel archer concept for the demon hunter that I've been working on a bit?

[Enrif]

OP would be ok if I post here my fel archer concept for the demon hunter that I've been working on a bit?

i don't mind

[Eldryth]

New Radiant Song lore and theming gives way more credibility to a WoW bard concept than ever before.

Definitely. I'd considered it very unlikely up until recently, but after Siren Isle, it seems like one of the most plausible candidates right now. They've absolutely made a point to establish empowering musical magic as a thing, and learning to use Azeroth herself's power fits the overall Saga very well.

[Enteroctopus Magnificus]

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Like it or not, I don't think you can say it's not in the Demon Hunter theme. The explosive arrow is almost a copy-paste of the original hunters' explosive arrow, whose feel I particularly liked before they completely ruined it with a stupid timer. For the demonic impulse, imagine Hanzo's jump in Overwatch. For Annihilation rays, imagine Sova's ultimate in Valorant, where you charge several large death rays with your bow. I also wanted to add a glaive ability and make it relevant, because demon hunter. I also wanted some fire/shadow flavor to contrast the green fire kit (and that's already been seen with sargeras' antorean molosses in the argus raid). Anyway, here goes. It's not as complete as some who build entire talent trees, but it gives a bit of the direction I'd like Blizzard to take if a new specialization were ever to see the light of day.

[Vaedan]

Definitely. I'd considered it very unlikely up until recently, but after Siren Isle, it seems like one of the most plausible candidates right now. They've absolutely made a point to establish empowering musical magic as a thing, and learning to use Azeroth herself's power fits the overall Saga very well.

I would say they were reinforcing music elements slowly since Shadowlands (Bastion, Ardenweald, Zereth Mortis) and also DF had few additions on that matter - there were several magic stones in Zskera Vault for your annulet which had music/sound powers and there was also a short questline with a vulpera composer NPC in Eon's Fringe.

Radiant Song and direct Azeroth's influence is the largest factor, I agree. Considering Azeroth is imprisoned and reach out to mortals to free her, empowering and altering them (thraegar) in the process makes introduction of bards very natural.

I would not like to see a merge of bards and tinkers, though. Both deserve their own class.

[alex wolf]

We should get new weapon types independent of classes imo, twin blades is an obvious missing weapon type (outside a handful of pole arms that do not look good when used in animations) and separating flails from maces could help improve their animations id also love for Tonfa to be a new weapon type splitting off from fist weapons, though mostly I see this as a customization wing and in many cases there are a decent number of existing weapons that could be converted

Also this fel archer concept is literally exactly like havoc game play wise, you have chaos strike, demon bite, eye beam and sigil of flame, may as well make fel burn "every x seconds (reduced by haste) your chaos shot radiates an immolation aura from the first target hit" and I guess volley from marksman hunters in devastating blast

Which is exactly why I think this would be totally fine as a hero talent allowing havoc to equip a bow

It's just especially baffling when we have stuff that's disappeared from the spec completely and had interesting mechanical considerations that are gone now, like fury of the illidari and being able to use it to funnel damage by having ads die before the cast ends with its damage storing explosion mechanic which already lends itself heavily to being a major chunk of a talent tree, giving you FoTI, giving it the damage storage/explosion mechanic, some kind of choice node for uptime considerations, like two charges/you can cancel early for a partial credit refund etc, along side the throw glaive talents and returning stuff like chaos cleave for our primary spam attack, could even build off th glaive work pattern concept in the AR hero tree and transition the hero talents to improve that mechanic which would reinforce the mechanical identity of the spec of being highly reactive to the current situation you're in, both in the movement mechanics (expanded on later) and the glaive work patterns allowing you to react in real time, this could even serve as a further mechanical differentiation by being the fury dump, in being a stance you activate that drains fury per ability uses and causes each ability to buff the next ability you use until you run out of fury, and then has a large payoff at the end somewhat similar to the mop demo warlock build spender style of shifting in and out of meta

Not to mention the entire movement mechanics pillar of the spec that has been chipped away every constantly since its introduction due to being so divisive, which now with the 11.1 changes is basically completely gone, only using vengeful retreat as a buff activator, so from start of legion to 11.1 we went from fel rush usage being one of the corner stones of DH optimization to completely leaving the rotation, not to mention freeing up the talent tree space for havoc would allow things like sinful brand to make it's much requested return


Not to mention a huge amount of stuff in the spec tree is built around being a melee class, like the immo aura talents, fel blade, the hunt, the Parry talents etc

[FossilFree]

While a bow DH sounds kinda cool, Havoc is already a melee/ranged hybrid. They have enough ranged stuff, especially midrange, that a bow spec might be a little redundant.

I'd like to see a "Soul Harvester" spec that focuses completely on the DH soul shatter mechanic, only instead of healing themselves, they can channel those soul fragments into allies as a healing spec. It would be a bit like fistweaving, you'd have to dps in order to shatter souls from enemies and channel them at allies. It would be the first melee range healer too, using their metamorphosis for survivability and healing amplification.

[Triceron]

Why not just bring back the ranged style Warlock metamorphosis gameplay and adapt to DH? It should be easy for blizz to just ripoff GW2 Death shroud Necromancer for Demon Hunters.

[Enteroctopus Magnificus]

While a bow DH sounds kinda cool, Havoc is already a melee/ranged hybrid. They have enough ranged stuff, especially midrange, that a bow spec might be a little redundant.

Havoc is a melee and its “ranged” abilities are more anecdotal than anything else.
If the MM hunter redesign means anything, I'm sure it's to make way for a new class or specialization, and given the timing I'd opt for the second option.

Honestly, what does havoc do like a fel archer again? Absolutely nothing, all he does is throw a glaive from time to time, nothing more.

A fel archer would shoot fel arrows, some of which explode and burn their enemies, cornering them under the relentless volley of fire, in my concept even chaining opponents with a burning chain. They even use the Fel Hammer (Legion's class domain) to fire a trans-dimensional fucking strike, what the hell does that have to do with a demon hunter fighting with glaives?

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I'd like to see a "Soul Harvester" spec that focuses completely on the DH soul shatter mechanic, only instead of healing themselves, they can channel those soul fragments into allies as a healing spec. It would be a bit like fistweaving, you'd have to dps in order to shatter souls from enemies and channel them at allies. It would be the first melee range healer too, using their metamorphosis for survivability and healing amplification.

Honestly, a healing specialization makes no sense for demon hunters, no matter how you justify it. A demon hunter sacrificed himself to annihilate the Burning Legion, not to heal. With them, it's do or die, it's completely antinomic. In fact, that's what Blizzard said at the time.

Tank and dps is really what it's all about. And a third melee specialization would be so boring... Well, for me of course, because I think the two specs have already captured the fantasy. It's good enough. A ranged demon hunter would be more interesting.

Besides, you say that a ranged demon hunter would be a bit redundant, but then you propose yet another melee specialization. Everyone has their own opinion and preferences on the subject, but be coherent please.

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Why not just bring back the ranged style Warlock metamorphosis gameplay and adapt to DH? It should be easy for blizz to just ripoff GW2 Death shroud Necromancer for Demon Hunters.

A caster could be cool, but far too similar to a warlock.

[pacotaco]

Night Elves and Blood Elves are restricted as the only playable Demon Hunters, but lore-wise there are a few non-elven Demon Hunters. Murgulis is a murloc Demon Hunter appearing in Stormheim, involved in a canonical quest in the zone. Lil'idan is another murloc Demon Hunter who also shows up for a quest in Highmountain. There is also official concept art for a satyr Demon Hunter in the Legion key art. From a lore standpoint, there's also nothing restricting any other race from becoming a Demon Hunter if they enact and succeed in the ritual process that creates them, as detailed in the Illidan novel.

It's not a satyr DH, it's an early concept of DH customization (there are more concepts in the artbook that showcase them)

[Aucald]

It's not a satyr DH, it's an early concept of DH customization (there are more concepts in the artbook that showcase them)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpWuZhfV...jpg&name=large

That's possible, although I don't think that the key art I linked is tagged as related to existing Demon Hunter customization in the above manner. Not to mention that those customizations are very similar to existing satyr models, blurring the lines pretty readily.