If they made a new class in the future, what would it be?

[Triceron]

It doesn't. It's a Diablo 3 Demon Hunter ability.

Then it has zero relevance to Dark Rangers or WoW.

I'm not asking for examples of possibility, you should very well know who you are talking to and what my stance is on Dark Rangers. I am not a Dark Ranger denier that needs to be convinced that abilities could be added to represent Sylvanas' power. I'm pointing out that Blizzard has indicated zero interest in doing so for the Dark Ranger narratively, as if they ever would then they should have by now when it's most narratively relative to associating those powers with all of the class.

Dark Rangers do not have the priveledge of having as distinct a definition as Demon Hunters did. Even now, the Dark Rangers represented in WoW have been purposefully associated with Hunters to the point where Blizzard intentionally avoids giving them proper uniqueness, for whatever reason they have not to.

Rather than make a greater distinction between Hunter and Dark Ranger, they actively bridge it. Rather than share Sylvamas' traits with the other Dark Rangers, they keep it relative only to her.

I am pointing out that the idea that another Death Knight and Demon Hunter scenario happening for Dark Ranger class is increasingly slim as we approach the end of Shadowlands. We will reach a point where it becomes counter intuitive for Blizzard to put any effort at all in designing it as its own class while writing a story that intentionally separates Dark Rangers thematically and narratively from Sylvanas, and then write off a majority of her powers as being borrowed power from the maw and transferrable to Legendary items for Hunters.

This is far different from Illidan because Demon Hunters were always going to remain on the table as we knew an eventual return of the Legion and Sargeras was planned for the future. That isn't what we're getting with Sylvanas, where she has been playing a major role for multiple expansions and with less and less connections to the class she's most associated with, to the point where the class itself has zero relevance to the ongoing plot moving forward. Dark Rangers have no narrative significance to being introduced to the Alliance and the Horde, because they are already a part of it.

I wouldn't consider Blizzard actively developing Dark Ranger as the next or incoming playable class because I interpret them writing out the Dark Ranger and giving them a less significant role in the future. They had the prime spot to be the main focus of the Shadowlands expansion, and Blizzard chose not to pursue that route. Dark Rangers did not join the Alliance and Horde to act out vengeance or redeem themselves as a class. They are sitting out the very expansion where we deal with Sylvanas.

What I see is Blizzard giving Dark Ranger abilities to Hunters through weapons _because_ they have no intention of making the class right now. Just like Meta was given to Warlocks, excepts it seems no one is actually intending internally for Dark Ranger to be playable, otherwise they are repeating the same mistake of giving out Dark Ranger abilities as Borrowed Power rather than intentionally holding out for a Dark Ranger class to be made. We know why it happened to the Demon Hunter, we know why it happened to Death Knight. The game was still at a time when it was too early to design them as new classes, and the excuse of 'give out their abilities for now' made sense. So what is the Developer's excuse for pawning off iconic Sylvanas abilities from HOTS to the Hunter right now?

It indicates they have no intention of making a Dark Ranger class right now, for the near future.

I'm aware of it. As are all other classes that are being pushed into existing classes. Warlocks had the Death Knight's Death Coil. Priests had the Demon Hunter's Mana Burn. Rogues have the Demon Hunter's Evasion. Dark Ranger's Black Arrow was a Hunter ability. Warriors have the Blademaster's Bladestorm. Druids have the Priestess of the Moon's Starfall. Rogues have the Warden's Fan of Knives. The Shaman has the Shadow Hunter's Healing Wave and Hex. You see, the Demon Hunter is not a special case. They just put more effort into it.

The Demon Hunter served two major purposes. It is a fan favourite that fit the narrative of the expansion they wished to pursue, and they are a hype machine that players were actively asking for because Illidan is a hot sell.

Dark Rangers only have a Sylvanas connection being a hot sell. Blizzard has narratively written them out of the story, and places the NPCs in a tertiary role in the lore where they can literally pass off as Forsaken Hunters since the connection to Sylvanas and her unique powers is being actively severed. Yes, we can have a flashback questline that sets them up with unique powers just like we had for Demon Hunters, but what relevance will they have in the narrative when we actively see them being brought back into the Forsaken in BFA? It's not an outsider being brought into the Alliance and Horde, it's a faction that has been _given_ a narrative conclusion before we even set foot in Shadowlands.

If you want to convince me of a playable Dark Ranger, present to me how they would fit in the narrative after being written out of it, even though they were FRONT and CENTER of most of BFA! By all means, this is not how you go about hyping up a new class. The eventual shift towards Shadow vs Light does not indicate that Dark Rangers would have a significant role to play in all this.

Does it matter when it happened? Do classes need to gain veteran status over the years to justify an ability added to them? They, probably, just hadn't thought to add that ability at the time. Very much like we weren't these god-like characters up until recently. Did we not deserve to be? no, we killed badass characters before. They just hadn't thought, back then, to make us such. That doesn't invalidate anything.

And I'm not invalidating anything. I am pointing out that what could happen would not be happening so soon after Sylvanas' fall. Narratively speaking they're doing the opposite of Demon Hunters. They built hype of the Legions return, which makes sense to usher in Demon Hunters as a class. They are concluding Shadowlands and we are moving towards Shadow vs Light, where Dark Rangers will have much less significance to the overal plot.

They won't repeat the Demon Hunter with the Dark Ranger, because:
1. it would not just be the Dark Ranger. It would, most likely, include the Priestess of the Moon and Warden in it.
2. Hunters would be revised to something like this, that completely lacks archery, magic or ranger:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...s)-should-have

Sure, you can say all this. You can believe it if you want. There's zero connection between POTMs and Dark Rangers right now other than them using a bow. It's as bad as connecting them to Hunters for the same reason.

The Nightwarrior is ending next patch, if you weren't aware. Tyrande gets redeemed as if Night Warrior was just a phase she was going through. Again, Blizzard writing narrative dead ends.

Yes, they would. It's like saying defeating N'zoth would have abolished Azshara's Old God powers, or defeating the Legion would have abolished Gul'dans Fel powers.

No, it's more like me asking you when Dark Rangers would be most relevant to a future expansion where they fit into the story as well as Demon Hunters fit into Legion. Remember, the reason they aren't playable right now is because Blizzard said they didn't feel a class jumped out at them as DH did for Legion, so if Dark Ranger wasn't significant to the literal Shadowlands where Sylvanas has sourced much of her recent powers, then when would they be significant in the near future?

We're talking about -far future- if we are talking about a return to the Shadowlands or some future undead expansion.

I'm blind to what's going on?
Jesus christ... read the surface. There's no need to show Sylvanas and her abilities for 3 (4, even) consecutive cinematics when it causes fatigue. There's no need to tie-in Wardens to Dark Rangers with War of Thorns. There is no need to expand Tyrande's story with the Night Warrior and give her glaives. There's no need to set Vol'jin to be reborn. There's no need for Mekkatorque, specifically, to be a raid boss with what seems like Tinker abilities.

And where has that headed narratively?

Dark Rangers were being set up strongly at the start of BFA. We had strong possibilites of connections to Night Warriors and Wardens. At the start of BFA.

But it's pretty clear that whatever plans they could have had for Dark Ranger, they've shelved it and gave them the Necromancer/Runemaster treatment, by purposefully writing out narrative possibilities and passing off abilities to existing classes rather than save room to narratively explore in the future. This is happening specifically to the Dark Ranger and Necromancer with Shadowlands, considering Covenants has completely replaced the need for more Undeath Classes by giving out Undeath themed Borrowed Power.

This hasn't happened to the Tinker, from a narrative or thematic point of view. Mekkatorque wasn't dropping legendaries that gave out Tinker abilities to players. Tinkers aren't narratively being written out of the story. We don't have an Undermine expansion where they deliberately withheld the addition of new classes that would be relevant to the setting and story. I'm not favoring Tinker at all here, I'm pointing out that Blizzard has not narratively written themselves into a hole for this potential class with what they've done with Mekkatorque as a Raid Boss. We know they put him out of commission in order to build up the Mechagnomes introduction and ties to the Alliance, in reviving Mekkatorque and giving him a mechanical heart.

It'd be one thing if I were to write the Dark Ranger out of the story with the hopes of adding them back later, and another to significantly diminish a Dark Ranger's relevance in the story to the point where there's no need to give them an elaborate introduction because they already returned, and all the while passing out their unique abilities to an existing class. The last time they did this for Demon Hunters, we had to wait 10+ years until the next relevant story/setting for Demon Hunters to enter the fray.

"They're concluding Sylvanas' story" - how pretentious of you. We don't even know if she dies in the end. She is getting a new book just as she is about to be eliminated for good?

Yes, she's getting a new book. Did you look into it at all? It's a record of her early history similar to the Arthas novel. It has nothing to do with continuing her story in the future.

And I said her story is ending. If she's dropping her bow for players to pick up and use, it means she's defeated. If she's defeated, then the Jailer isn't going to be keeping her around as a useful pawn; she would have simply served her purpose. Whatever story is left for her remains to be seen.

Of course it's still possible for Blizzard to make a Dark Ranger class. What I'm focused on is Blizzard is actively giving away the Dark Ranger's unique design space to the Hunter right now. That alone might not seem significant if not for the context of the narrative that also coincides with this all; Hunters are getting these abilities *because Sylvanas is going to be defeated*. Contextually, there is not much room for Dark Rangers to be introduced as their own class when one of the primary reasons for them to join (revenge against Sylvanas ala DK; or patronage under Sylvanas ala DH) will very likely be concluded by the end of the expansion.

Had we not gotten all this information about Sylvanas' bow and quiver, of her being a raid boss, and of her seemingly being defeated by the end of the next raid, I would still have considered Dark Ranger a strong contender as a potential class. But like I said, I update my predictions based on information we gain through the story and the intentions of the devs, and honestly I don't see where they would go with a Dark Ranger class if they're doing all these things right now that are counter-intuitive to a (near future) Dark Ranger class.

[Varaben]

Not really. Blademasters are just as different from Rogue/Warrior as DHs are from Rogues.
The same with Tinkers and Hunter (shooting guns)/Shaman (planting turrets/totems).
The problem with the Necromancer is more gameplay (Warlock is too close) but not thematically.

It just depends on making the flavor different enough from the others even if they share some aspects.
Why people focus so much on this when we have druids with spec that are copies of other clases is beyond me.

As another poster pointed out, the line between class and spec is pretty blurry right now. It's like a blademaster probably is its own class, but because each spec is so different they now each seem like classes themselves. Before "specializations" when we just had talent trees, the bonuses were mostly passive. So a assassination rogue played extremely similar to a combat rogue just with different weapons and maybe a different spender or builder. but each spec basically had access to all the same skills. But now the toolkits are totally different (sometimes in name only), so Assass rogue is really a different class than outlaw rogue. They both use combo points (which monks and ret pally uses too) and slice and dice and some of their big cooldowns, but it's more like 80/20 (different/same) whereas in the past it was the inverse.

[Ielenia]

"Reading the map" is a figure of speech. Stop taking everything literally.

In other words, it's something that does not exist. Something you made up. This is an admission of confirmation bias.

Ignoring/dismissing what doesn't? what, exactly, am i ignoring/dismissing?

How this non-existent "map" applies to basically almost all fan class concepts. How none of the present expansion classes ever had a "map" to begin with.

If i was so biased i'd say they are setting the Blademaster, as well, but i don't have anything to back that up.

That goes with what I said above, regarding confirmation bias. There is plenty of evidence to construct a "so-called map" for the blademaster, that has been presented in this thread, alone.

Would it?

Bonestorm
Talent
10 to 100 Runic Power
Instant cast 1 min cooldown
Requires Death Knight (Blood)
Requires level 50
A whirl of bone and gore batters up to 8 nearby enemies, dealing (19.65% of Attack power) Shadow damage every 1 sec, and healing you for 3% of your maximum health every time it deals damage (up to 15%). Lasts 1 sec per 10 Runic Power spent.
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...-bonestorm.jpg

Bone Shield
Instant
Requires Death Knight
Requires level 23
Surrounds you with a barrier of whirling bones, increasing Armor by (70 * Strength / 100).

Each melee attack against you consumes a charge. Lasts 30 sec or until all charges are consumed.
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...one-shield.jpg

Yes. Yes, it would. Because the blood spec's theme is not bone. It's blood, with a few bone abilities added for flavor. That's like saying the blood spec is a "frost" spec because it has Icebound Fortitude and Lichborne.

They can add Diablo 3's Necromancer's Bone Spikes, Bone Spear, Bone Spirit and Bone Prison.

Not really. Those abilities go against the blood spec's theme. The theme of the spec is not bone. That's like saying the windwalker monk's spec is based around drinks, not martial arts.

Any of Diablo's necromancer incarnations.

And that's a fallacy, considering I specifically mentioned the Diablo 2 necromancer when I spoke of bone magic.

Also, if you're going to post dozens upon dozens of images in a single post, I ask you to either scale them down to a less spam-crazy size, or start linking to them, instead.

[username993720]

Then it has zero relevance to Dark Rangers or WoW.

Of course it has. Don't you see the similarities between Diablo 3 Demon Hunter's appearance and abilities to that of the Dark Ranger?
Heck, they we've got overlapping abilities from both games, be it Barbarian and Warriors, Wizards and Mages or Crusaders and Paladins.
Don't you find it a bit suspicious that both abilities are shadowy arrows that chain their targets?

I'm not asking for examples of possibility, you should very well know who you are talking to and what my stance is on Dark Rangers. I am not a Dark Ranger denier that needs to be convinced that abilities could be added to represent Sylvanas' power. I'm pointing out that Blizzard has indicated zero interest in doing so for the Dark Ranger narratively, as if they ever would then they should have by now when it's most narratively relative to associating those powers with all of the class.

Same was said about the Demon Hunter in TBC. That it was, probably, its best and only option to be added.

Dark Rangers do not have the priveledge of having as distinct a definition as Demon Hunters did. Even now, the Dark Rangers represented in WoW have been purposefully associated with Hunters to the point where Blizzard intentionally avoids giving them proper uniqueness, for whatever reason they have not to.

What?
Death Knights NPCs had Warlock and Warrior abilities before their addition. Does it mean they were represented by them?
Warlocks had the Demon Hunter abilities. Does it mean they represented them?
That sure doesn't sound like you, at all. You know better than this.

Rather than make a greater distinction between Hunter and Dark Ranger, they actively bridge it. Rather than share Sylvamas' traits with the other Dark Rangers, they keep it relative only to her.

Same as with other class NPCs. Did Death Knight NPCs had Arthas' capabilities? did Demon Hunter had Illidan's? They are unique NPCs in that they are the representatives of their respective classes. You can't expect them to share their abilities, or background, with other low-significance NPCs.
What happened to you? you know all that.

I am pointing out that the idea that another Death Knight and Demon Hunter scenario happening for Dark Ranger class is increasingly slim as we approach the end of Shadowlands. We will reach a point where it becomes counter intuitive for Blizzard to put any effort at all in designing it as its own class while writing a story that intentionally separates Dark Rangers thematically and narratively from Sylvanas, and then write off a majority of her powers as being borrowed power from the maw and transferrable to Legendary items for Hunters.

Nothing separates her from Dark Rangers, as much as Death Knight NPCs were separate from Arthas or Demon Hunter NPCs were from Illidan. You don't seem to get the point of big-name characters, like them.
I see those powers as a way to expand upon the Dark Ranger concept. Giving more abilities and talents for them to utilize.
The Hunter bow is useful to pump-up players for the possibility of playing one.

This is far different from Illidan because Demon Hunters were always going to remain on the table as we knew an eventual return of the Legion and Sargeras was planned for the future. That isn't what we're getting with Sylvanas, where she has been playing a major role for multiple expansions and with less and less connections to the class she's most associated with, to the point where the class itself has zero relevance to the ongoing plot moving forward. Dark Rangers have no narrative significance to being introduced to the Alliance and the Horde, because they are already a part of it.

What?
You are talking in hindsight. You never knew that Demon Hunters were on the table and that the Burning Legion was set to return after TBC. Illidan was seen as a done deal after Black Temple, as we dealt with him in a raid. No one expected him to be revived and TBC lore to be retconned. Blizzard saw the community's affection for him, so they acted on it. Almost everyone discarded the possibilty of playable Demon Hunters as nothing more than wishful thinking. So, don't try to act all wise right now that we have Demon Hunters.

Less and less connections? She's the perfect representative of the class. What? is Nathanos what a Dark Ranger should be? or one of these unnamed NPCs people use here as examples?

Already a part of the Alliance? none of them are.

I wouldn't consider Blizzard actively developing Dark Ranger as the next or incoming playable class because I interpret them writing out the Dark Ranger and giving them a less significant role in the future. They had the prime spot to be the main focus of the Shadowlands expansion, and Blizzard chose not to pursue that route. Dark Rangers did not join the Alliance and Horde to act out vengeance or redeem themselves as a class. They are sitting out the very expansion where we deal with Sylvanas.

*Cough* Illidan in TBC *cough*

What I see is Blizzard giving Dark Ranger abilities to Hunters through weapons _because_ they have no intention of making the class right now. Just like Meta was given to Warlocks, excepts it seems no one is actually intending internally for Dark Ranger to be playable, otherwise they are repeating the same mistake of giving out Dark Ranger abilities as Borrowed Power rather than intentionally holding out for a Dark Ranger class to be made. We know why it happened to the Demon Hunter, we know why it happened to Death Knight. The game was still at a time when it was too early to design them as new classes, and the excuse of 'give out their abilities for now' made sense. So what is the Developer's excuse for pawning off iconic Sylvanas abilities from HOTS to the Hunter right now?

Just because you don't have an idea why they do it now, because they didn't release a blog about their hindsight of the addition of Dark Rangers, doesn't mean it's not the same case as the Demon Hunter and Warlock. Especially when we're talking about an equippabble item and not actual abilities like the Warlock had. Nothing more temporary than that.

It indicates they have no intention of making a Dark Ranger class right now, for the near future.

It indicates nothing about the future of the class. I can claim that they use it as a way to excite the playerbase. What makes you more right than i am?

The Demon Hunter served two major purposes. It is a fan favourite that fit the narrative of the expansion they wished to pursue, and they are a hype machine that players were actively asking for because Illidan is a hot sell.

I don't see it much different to Sylvanas' case. You might not like her that much, but that doesn't mean she isn't as popular. As for the narrative, the guy featured in two expansions that may have served as an ideal one for its class. But, only one made it in.

Dark Rangers only have a Sylvanas connection being a hot sell. Blizzard has narratively written them out of the story, and places the NPCs in a tertiary role in the lore where they can literally pass off as Forsaken Hunters since the connection to Sylvanas and her unique powers is being actively severed. Yes, we can have a flashback questline that sets them up with unique powers just like we had for Demon Hunters, but what relevance will they have in the narrative when we actively see them being brought back into the Forsaken in BFA? It's not an outsider being brought into the Alliance and Horde, it's a faction that has been _given_ a narrative conclusion before we even set foot in Shadowlands.

Demon Hunters NPCs were nothing more than just Night elf/Blood elf NPCs with Metamorphosis. Some of them even helped us through quests. Heck, we had en entire questline about a Warlock turning into a Demon. So, basically, Blizzard was pushing for the Warlock Demon Hunter in both abilities and story.
Did these NPCs, which had almost none of Illidan's abilities, invalidate the Demon Hunter class? no, it didn't. So, stop using them as examples.

If you want to convince me of a playable Dark Ranger, present to me how they would fit in the narrative after being written out of it, even though they were FRONT and CENTER of most of BFA! By all means, this is not how you go about hyping up a new class. The eventual shift towards Shadow vs Light does not indicate that Dark Rangers would have a significant role to play in all this.

1. Saying Sylvanas is a done deal is mere hypothesis as of right now.
2. You're forgetting the Night Warrior and Wardens that could serve as leverage for the class.
3. Light and Void would not add them. If it would add anything it would be a Shadow Hunter. I'm gonna go with an ancient Kalimdor expansion, which actually adds Zin Azshari and Dire Maul as they are depicted in the chronicles for such an Elf-centric class.

And I'm not invalidating anything. I am pointing out that what could happen would not be happening so soon after Sylvanas' fall. Narratively speaking they're doing the opposite of Demon Hunters. They built hype of the Legions return, which makes sense to usher in Demon Hunters as a class. They are concluding Shadowlands and we are moving towards Shadow vs Light, where Dark Rangers will have much less significance to the overal plot.

*Or Dragons.
You're right. That would not be the orthodox way of adding a class. All i can say is Death Knights were not hyped before WotLK and Monks were not before MoP. Besides, you possibly have to account for Priestess of the Moon and Warden, too, which they haven't been hyping up as much as Sylvanas.

Sure, you can say all this. You can believe it if you want. There's zero connection between POTMs and Dark Rangers right now other than them using a bow. It's as bad as connecting them to Hunters for the same reason.

Not really.
With Elune being the sister of the Winter Queen she has a conncetion to the Shadowland and Death, and might be an Eternal One. Secondly, they are connecting Wardens to Dark Rangers, who are believers of Elune like PotM. Night Warrior being a dark entity and being used by other Shadowlands' denizens hints at further connection.

The Nightwarrior is ending next patch, if you weren't aware. Tyrande gets redeemed as if Night Warrior was just a phase she was going through. Again, Blizzard writing narrative dead ends.

The Night Warrior is not going anywhere. There is no point in introducing that concept in the first place. Again, speculating too soon off of PTR, like the assumed death of Sylvanas.

No, it's more like me asking you when Dark Rangers would be most relevant to a future expansion where they fit into the story as well as Demon Hunters fit into Legion. Remember, the reason they aren't playable right now is because Blizzard said they didn't feel a class jumped out at them as DH did for Legion, so if Dark Ranger wasn't significant to the literal Shadowlands where Sylvanas has sourced much of her recent powers, then when would they be significant in the near future?

Told you what i think is plausible. an Elf-centric expansion that would account for Wardens and PotM, as well

We're talking about -far future- if we are talking about a return to the Shadowlands or some future undead expansion.

It doesn't have to be a death expansion.

And where has that headed narratively?

Dark Rangers were being set up strongly at the start of BFA. We had strong possibilites of connections to Night Warriors and Wardens. At the start of BFA.

But it's pretty clear that whatever plans they could have had for Dark Ranger, they've shelved it and gave them the Necromancer/Runemaster treatment, by purposefully writing out narrative possibilities and passing off abilities to existing classes rather than save room to narratively explore in the future. This is happening specifically to the Dark Ranger and Necromancer with Shadowlands, considering Covenants has completely replaced the need for more Undeath Classes by giving out Undeath themed Borrowed Power.

Any Dark Ranger abilities in the covenant system?

This hasn't happened to the Tinker, from a narrative or thematic point of view. Mekkatorque wasn't dropping legendaries that gave out Tinker abilities to players. Tinkers aren't narratively being written out of the story. We don't have an Undermine expansion where they deliberately withheld the addition of new classes that would be relevant to the setting and story. I'm not favoring Tinker at all here, I'm pointing out that Blizzard has not narratively written themselves into a hole for this potential class with what they've done with Mekkatorque as a Raid Boss. We know they put him out of commission in order to build up the Mechagnomes introduction and ties to the Alliance, in reviving Mekkatorque and giving him a mechanical heart.

Where are Tinkers in the Shadowlands?
They would have fitted perfectly in either WoD or BfA due to the heavy technological themes.

It'd be one thing if I were to write the Dark Ranger out of the story with the hopes of adding them back later, and another to significantly diminish a Dark Ranger's relevance in the story to the point where there's no need to give them an elaborate introduction because they already returned, and all the while passing out their unique abilities to an existing class. The last time they did this for Demon Hunters, we had to wait 10+ years until the next relevant story/setting for Demon Hunters to enter the fray.

Could happen with them. Who knows.

Yes, she's getting a new book. Did you look into it at all? It's a record of her early history similar to the Arthas novel. It has nothing to do with continuing her story in the future.

Why do you need a background added to her? isn't she, already, a very fleshed out character?
Yeah... food for thought (Illidan's novel).

And I said her story is ending. If she's dropping her bow for players to pick up and use, it means she's defeated. If she's defeated, then the Jailer isn't going to be keeping her around as a useful pawn; she would have simply served her purpose. Whatever story is left for her remains to be seen.

-_-

Illidan dropped his glaives.
We got thrall's hammer.
We got Alleria's bow.
None of them were a sign of them being retired.

Of course it's still possible for Blizzard to make a Dark Ranger class. What I'm focused on is Blizzard is actively giving away the Dark Ranger's unique design space to the Hunter right now. That alone might not seem significant if not for the context of the narrative that also coincides with this all; Hunters are getting these abilities *because Sylvanas is going to be defeated*. Contextually, there is not much room for Dark Rangers to be introduced as their own class when one of the primary reasons for them to join (revenge against Sylvanas ala DK; or patronage under Sylvanas ala DH) will very likely be concluded by the end of the expansion.

What, a bow with one or two abilities accounts for an entire class? yeah... that's like equating the Warlock to a Demon Hunter off of 2 abilities.
Ever heard of a redeem story?

Had we not gotten all this information about Sylvanas' bow and quiver, of her being a raid boss, and of her seemingly being defeated by the end of the next raid, I would still have considered Dark Ranger a strong contender as a potential class. But like I said, I update my predictions based on information we gain through the story and the intentions of the devs, and honestly I don't see where they would go with a Dark Ranger class if they're doing all these things right now that are counter-intuitive to a (near future) Dark Ranger class.

We knew of her being a raid boss before.
The bow and quiver are, really, your cut and done deal of the class?
That's like Alleria's bow and quiver as Marksmanship Hunter artifact weapon. Lasted an expansion.

I'm once again asking, stop writing as if you're writing an article. It's exhausting.

In other words, it's something that does not exist. Something you made up. This is an admission of confirmation bias.

You know Drax of Guardians of the Galaxy?
yeah... he couldn't get metaphors, as well.

Now, for real. Do you not know what reading the map means?

How this non-existent "map" applies to basically almost all fan class concepts. How none of the present expansion classes ever had a "map" to begin with.

All? it doesn't apply to Blademasters, Necromancers, Bards, Dragonsworn and others, as of right now.

The Demon Hunter had. With the heavy demonic hints of MoP and WoD. Death Knight and Monk didn't, though.

That goes with what I said above, regarding confirmation bias. There is plenty of evidence to construct a "so-called map" for the blademaster, that has been presented in this thread, alone.

Like what? (expansion-wise)

Yes. Yes, it would. Because the blood spec's theme is not bone. It's blood, with a few bone abilities added for flavor. That's like saying the blood spec is a "frost" spec because it has Icebound Fortitude and Lichborne.

Blood and bone go together. They are internal organs and fluids. You've got Marrow(rend), which is the stuff inside bones, and Ossuary which is a container for bones.

Not really. Those abilities go against the blood spec's theme. The theme of the spec is not bone. That's like saying the windwalker monk's spec is based around drinks, not martial arts.

It does, actually. Because blood and bone go together. same as tissue, muscles, veins and other organs.
What? you example is like saying it belongs to the Unholy, because there is a drinking spec for the Monk (which, isn't so far-fetched, as undead and bone are closely related).

And that's a fallacy, considering I specifically mentioned the Diablo 2 necromancer when I spoke of bone magic.

I was referring to blood being used to heal allies.

Also, if you're going to post dozens upon dozens of images in a single post, I ask you to either scale them down to a less spam-crazy size, or start linking to them, instead.

How do i do that?

P.S. - am i the only one getting stuck at page 328 when it shows that there are 331 pages?

[Ielenia]

Now, for real. Do you not know what reading the map means?

It means "engaging in confirmation bias". Because this "map" is literally something you constructed by putting together all the evidence that supports your already established conclusion, while dismissing or ignoring everything that does not.

All? it doesn't apply to Blademasters, Necromancers, Bards, Dragonsworn and others, as of right now.

It does, though. A "map" can be made up for any of those class concepts.

The Demon Hunter had. With the heavy demonic hints of MoP and WoD.

It didn't. Really, it didn't.

Like what? (expansion-wise)

How about the fact we get to meet the Burning Blade clan and their blademasters, finding out they can manipulate fire, and in Hellfire Citadel, a blademaster boss has abilities reminiscent of the WC3 abilities, and in BfA we have another blademaster who can manipulate fire.

Blood and bone go together. They are internal organs and fluids. You've got Marrow(rend), which is the stuff inside bones, and Ossuary which is a container for bones.

Again, no. The theme focus for the spec is blood. Bone is tangentially related to blood. That's like saying wind magic and frost magic "go together" because of stuff like blizzards, winds cool things down, etc. No, the death knight's tank spec is themed after blood. Which leaves any new class (or potential fourth spec) to be bone magic-related.

I was referring to blood being used to heal allies.

And I never referenced any of the Diablo necromancers for that. My idea for blood healing is completely within Warcraft.

How do i do that?

Just drop the links to the images instead of posting them.

[Triceron]

Of course it has. Don't you see the similarities between Diablo 3 Demon Hunter's appearance and abilities to that of the Dark Ranger?
Heck, they we've got overlapping abilities from both games, be it Barbarian and Warriors, Wizards and Mages or Crusaders and Paladins.
Don't you find it a bit suspicious that both abilities are shadowy arrows that chain their targets?

We're not talking about Diablo 3.

Let's get things straight. I said that Cinematics are not a good way to gauge what Blizzard will choose to make as a new class, and that they are not bound to represent everything they show in the cinematics in playable form in WoW. If you then point me to an ability in another game for another class that has no direct relationship to the Dark Ranger, then I'm dismissing that example on the basis of it having zero relevance to the context of my argument.

I've been talking about how the cinematics are a bad way to gauge what goes into WoW, and that Blizzard simply picks and chooses what they want to design as a class regardless of the cinematic media content. Your example has nothing to do with how Banshee form has not been actually reflected in WoW other than on a singular NPC for Raid Boss purposes. Diablo 3's Shadow Power has nothing to do with my point, so I'm not sure why you felt it was convenient to bring up. As I said, I am not arguing that Blizzard could not invent new mechanics or be creative and create a Dark Ranger class, I am making a point that they are not bound to having to reflect what they show in cinematics as playable class mechanics.

Same was said about the Demon Hunter in TBC. That it was, probably, its best and only option to be added.

Yes, and there was a 10-year gap between what happened and an actual Demon Hunter class. We never had a situation where they inserted some 'hints' then suddenly got a new class by the next expansion. Can we agree on this point?

What?
Death Knights NPCs had Warlock and Warrior abilities before their addition. Does it mean they were represented by them?
Warlocks had the Demon Hunter abilities. Does it mean they represented them?
That sure doesn't sound like you, at all. You know better than this.

It's difficult to use those as examples because yes, Blizzard *DID* intend the Warrior to represent Death Knights and Demon Hunters.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Hero_class

"For example, a night elven warrior could specialize into wielding two one-handed weapons and essentially be a demon hunter, while a dwarven warrior could fulfill the fantasy of a mountain king,[5][6] or a undead warrior could become a death knight.[7]"
This could be a reason why NPCs were designed with Warrior abilities; the other explanation simple being that they were too lazy to design new ones for a bunch of mooks.

However, what we are dealing with is the *modern* design team taking this approach, and simply giving the reason that they're doing this because they're doing a super-special raid boss event for Sylvanas (Ion in Preach's recent interview)
If they planned a Dark Ranger class in the near future, they wouldn't be pawning away its unique abilities to the Hunter class through legendary weapons. It's counter intuitive.

Feel free to disagree here. I'm just pointing out what seems obvious to me.

Nothing separates her from Dark Rangers, as much as Death Knight NPCs were separate from Arthas or Demon Hunter NPCs were from Illidan. You don't seem to get the point of big-name characters, like them.
I see those powers as a way to expand upon the Dark Ranger concept. Giving more abilities and talents for them to utilize.
The Hunter bow is useful to pump-up players for the possibility of playing one.

That's not how design works.

Read up on how the previous new expansion classes have been developed in the past. Read the developer post-mortems. There's no situation where they actively 'test' out a new class by pawning off their abilities onto other classes and 'building hype'. They only do that if they never intended to create that class in the first place.

Xelnath's own blog illustrates how he made a literal example of taking and using the Demon Hunter's abilities because there were no plans at the time to develop a Demon Hunter class. He shared this insight with other developers like Corey Stockton when approaching the design of the Death Knight, and which is a big part of why it had absorbed Necromancer and Runemaster concepts into its own.

Yet that design philosophy has gone away with the formal introduction of a new Demon Hunter class, and how Legion revamped certain Spec concepts to better suit the class fantasies. Demon Hunter was not an amalgam of different concepts, it is a *close to pure* Demon Hunter concept. They could have given it Warden style Avatar of Vengeance summons or give it a 3rd spec that has some Spellbreaker themes to go along with the anti-magic themes they had; but they did not do that. They stuck with one hero identity - the Demon Hunter.

At no point was Metamorphosis or Glaives of Azzinoth handed out to existing classes *for the purpose of hyping up a standalone Demon Hunter class*. We must be clear that the design reasons those abilities and features were pawned off was directly because *they had no intention of making a standalone Demon Hunter at the time*

We should also regard that TBC was when that trend of handing out weapons and RPing as another class first appeared, and we also know the original plan for 'Hero Classes'.

Less and less connections? She's the perfect representative of the class. What? is Nathanos what a Dark Ranger should be? or one of these unnamed NPCs people use here as examples?

Contextually, she has become more and more disconnected from the abilities a Dark Ranger *should* be capable of, because she is touting borrowed power from the Jailer and the Maw. She has become god-like, and the lines between what is borrowed power and what is sensible as a class mechanic is absolutely blurred.

Already a part of the Alliance? none of them are.

Agreed. I will rephrase to just the Horde, and to an extent, the Unseen Path which is a neutral Hunters Class Hall/faction.

I don't see it much different to Sylvanas' case. You might not like her that much, but that doesn't mean she isn't as popular. As for the narrative, the guy featured in two expansions that may have served as an ideal one for its class. But, only one made it in.

I didn't say I didn't like her. I said people are fatigued on her being at the forefront of the story after this long. That is an observation and a interpretation, considering even Blizzard is moving towards concluding her story. And yes, even Christie Golden and Danuser are big Sylvanas fans, but I doubt they would draw out her story or suddenly redeem her at this point when she's already pitted as a Raid Boss who will be defeated and dropping her weapons for the players. I personally see this being a big deal for the lore, like Fall of Arthas big. I don't see this as another 'merely a setback'. We already had that happen in BFA.

Demon Hunters NPCs were nothing more than just Night elf/Blood elf NPCs with Metamorphosis. Some of them even helped us through quests. Heck, we had en entire questline about a Warlock turning into a Demon. So, basically, Blizzard was pushing for the Warlock Demon Hunter in both abilities and story.
Did these NPCs, which had almost none of Illidan's abilities, invalidate the Demon Hunter class? no, it didn't. So, stop using them as examples.

Stop saying I'm invalidating them then. I've told you again I'm talking about plausability of Blizzard considering a Dark Ranger playable class in the near future. There's nothing I've said that invalidates them as never being playable as a class because of the NPCs. It's their intentional direction with the narrative that I'm talking about here.

It indicates nothing about the future of the class. I can claim that they use it as a way to excite the playerbase. What makes you more right than i am?
---
1. Saying Sylvanas is a done deal is mere hypothesis as of right now.
2. You're forgetting the Night Warrior and Wardens that could serve as leverage for the class.
3. Light and Void would not add them. If it would add anything it would be a Shadow Hunter. I'm gonna go with an ancient Kalimdor expansion, which actually adds Zin Azshari and Dire Maul as they are depicted in the chronicles for such an Elf-centric class.

It's a possibility for Nathanos to come back in the Shadowlands and start training new Dark Rangers too, but just because it's a possibility does not mean it's likely to happen in the narrative. Do you see the difference here? I'm literally pointing at certain events and saying 'Look here, they killed Nathanos, so it probably means he's not gonna train more Dark Rangers' while you're here arguing 'You haven't considered the possibility he could come back in Shadowlands and train new ones!'. At some point, the simply premise of a possibility is going to be disconnected from the actual intentions of the plot.

If they want Nathanos to train new Dark Rangers, then the most sensible thing to do is *not kill him in the first place*.

If they want Sylvanas to be redeemed into having some future role involving Dark Rangers as a class, then the most sensible thing to do is *not make her a villain and have her abandon all her loyal followers*.

Illidan died and dropped his Warglaives for players because they *DID NOT* have intentions to create a Demon Hunter class back in TBC, and continued to have no intentions to make one well into Mists.

There's nothing that makes me *more right* than you, but you have to consider how much sense the claim actually makes in the context of the narrative. Imagine if they released Wrath of the Lich King without DK's, would it be then sensible to claim we could still have playable DK's in the expansion that follows? Narratively speaking, it's disjointed to suddenly introduce a class that revolves around a connection to Arthas after we've concluded his whole story. The time to introduce them is *during* the ongoing conflict.

Dark Rangers have that opportunity right now, and if it's not now then they'd have to wait for the next big narrative opportunity to join. Remember, I'm operating this logic based on Blizzard's own intentions of with-holding a new class *because it does not fit the story and setting as well as Demon Hunters did for Legion*; meaning that if Dark Rangers weren't even considered relevant to Shadowland's story and setting, then the question is *what future expansion setting* would they actually be MORE relevant?

The way I see it, they've missed the biggest window of opportunity right now, and Blizzard has deliberately intended not to have this class and deliberately continued on with a narrative that involves a Death-themed setting, with continuing and potentially concluding Sylvanas' story, and by making heavy use of borrowed power that will likely remain exclusive to Shadowlands.

Besides, you possibly have to account for Priestess of the Moon and Warden, too, which they haven't been hyping up as much as Sylvanas.

I don't believe I do, because this is your personal wish fullfilment class concept, not an actual thing in Warcraft.

If you'd like to discuss these classes separately, I would be fine. But as long as you're going to regard them as an extension of the Dark Ranger, then I honestly don't need to regard it at all any more than if you were one of the people who regarded POTM or Dark Ranger as an extension of the Hunter. And let's be honest, we know there are people who do believe Dark Rangers are just Hunters, and I choose not to regard that opinion as legitimate to the lore.

As long as Blizzard treats Dark Ranger as its own entity, then I will not regard it as having a shared concept with any other class, be it POTM, Warden or Hunter. It's not even a matter of 'what if' for the future, because we're never really given any scenario where they ended up taking two distinct class concepts and merged them into one.

Even the Death Knight is just a Death Knight, and not an actual Necromancer or Runemaster archetype despite taking up some of their abilities and themes.

Why do you need a background added to her? isn't she, already, a very fleshed out character?
Yeah... food for thought (Illidan's novel).

We know the book itself is a lead up to what happens in this raid. It's about her reflecting on her actions leading up to the corruption of Anduin, touching on events from Warcraft 3 all the way up into early WoW.

"While some World of Warcraft novels are about bridging the gap between expansions and wrapping up certain stories, Sylvanas will likely be closer to Arthas: Rise of the Lich King or Illidan, in that it will be a character study. The book goes back to Sylvanas’ early life and tracks her progression through Warcraft 3 and early World of Warcraft, before sharing her current status and goals." - Polygon

"The power to achieve her goals has never been closer, as Sylvanas works alongside the Jailer to liberate all Azeroth from the prison of fate. Her final task? Secure the fealty of their prisoner—King Anduin Wrynn.

To succeed, Sylvanas will be forced to reflect on the harrowing path that brought her to the Jailer’s side, and reveal her truest self to her greatest rival. Here, Sylvanas’ complete story is laid bare: from the breaking of the Windrunner family and her rise to Ranger-General; to her own death at the hands of Arthas and her renewed purpose in founding the Forsaken; to the moment she first beheld the Maw, and understood the true consequences of what lay beyond the veil of death. But as her moment of victory draws near, Sylvanas Windrunner will make a choice that may ultimately come to define her. A choice that’s hers to make." - Official website


It's not a book about the future of WoW beyond the point of the next Raid.

[username993720]

It means "engaging in confirmation bias". Because this "map" is literally something you constructed by putting together all the evidence that supports your already established conclusion, while dismissing or ignoring everything that does not.

What it means is "looking at what's going on". Say, if i'm so biased, why won't you tell what's going on?

It does, though. A "map" can be made up for any of those class concepts.

Go ahead. Do it.

It didn't. Really, it didn't.

That's what called "turning a blind eye". If the Legion was hinted so strongly throughout two prior expansions, what do you think they would have added, class-wise?

How about the fact we get to meet the Burning Blade clan and their blademasters, finding out they can manipulate fire, and in Hellfire Citadel, a blademaster boss has abilities reminiscent of the WC3 abilities, and in BfA we have another blademaster who can manipulate fire.

That's just pointing at one aspect of an expansion. It didn't coincide with the demonic themes being spread all over.

Again, no. The theme focus for the spec is blood. Bone is tangentially related to blood. That's like saying wind magic and frost magic "go together" because of stuff like blizzards, winds cool things down, etc. No, the death knight's tank spec is themed after blood. Which leaves any new class (or potential fourth spec) to be bone magic-related.

You want a fourth spec?
Go see my thread about it, where i suggest a first generation Death Knight or a fire Death Knight spec:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...pecializations

And I never referenced any of the Diablo necromancers for that. My idea for blood healing is completely within Warcraft.

Is it? can i have a source for that?

Just drop the links to the images instead of posting them.

I mean, how do i make them smaller?

We're not talking about Diablo 3.

It doesn't matter. When creating a class concept, you have to be open to more ideas and sources, otherwise you're very limited. And it so happens that the Demon Hunter of D3 fits rather smoothly with the Dark Ranger (ranged, hooded, red eyed figure with shadowy powers).

Let's get things straight. I said that Cinematics are not a good way to gauge what Blizzard will choose to make as a new class, and that they are not bound to represent everything they show in the cinematics in playable form in WoW. If you then point me to an ability in another game for another class that has no direct relationship to the Dark Ranger, then I'm dismissing that example on the basis of it having zero relevance to the context of my argument.

It would be true, but you seem to be unaware of the differences between current cinematics and old cinematics. Blizzard, clearly, has been shifting their cinematics, in some way, from general entertainment to more predictor ones.

I've been talking about how the cinematics are a bad way to gauge what goes into WoW, and that Blizzard simply picks and chooses what they want to design as a class regardless of the cinematic media content. Your example has nothing to do with how Banshee form has not been actually reflected in WoW other than on a singular NPC for Raid Boss purposes. Diablo 3's Shadow Power has nothing to do with my point, so I'm not sure why you felt it was convenient to bring up. As I said, I am not arguing that Blizzard could not invent new mechanics or be creative and create a Dark Ranger class, I am making a point that they are not bound to having to reflect what they show in cinematics as playable class mechanics.

Are you, seriously, not seeing the similarities between the two abilities?
Furthermore, why are you using in-game NPCs as examples? we've, already, established that that's bullshit.

Yes, and there was a 10-year gap between what happened and an actual Demon Hunter class. We never had a situation where they inserted some 'hints' then suddenly got a new class by the next expansion. Can we agree on this point?

Really? they haven't?
Look at MoP's and WoD's Burning Legion hints and then come back and tell me that that's not what's going on.

It's difficult to use those as examples because yes, Blizzard *DID* intend the Warrior to represent Death Knights and Demon Hunters.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Hero_class

It was a concept, not implemented in WoW.
It further supports my argument that other classes are just there to serve as vessels in the meantime for non-existent classes. Look at the Dreadnaught gear and the hungering cold weapon of vanilla. If Blizzard wasn't intending on Warriors to roleplay as Death Knights with that, then i don't know what they intended:

"For example, a night elven warrior could specialize into wielding two one-handed weapons and essentially be a demon hunter, while a dwarven warrior could fulfill the fantasy of a mountain king,[5][6] or a undead warrior could become a death knight.[7]"
This could be a reason why NPCs were designed with Warrior abilities; the other explanation simple being that they were too lazy to design new ones for a bunch of mooks.

1. They used Warlock abilities, as well. How do you explain this?
2. Exactly. If they were too lazy to design special abilities for mook NPCs, why are you using Dark Ranger NPCs as examples of Dark Rangers being different from Sylvanas? You've just contradicted your own argument.

However, what we are dealing with is the *modern* design team taking this approach, and simply giving the reason that they're doing this because they're doing a super-special raid boss event for Sylvanas (Ion in Preach's recent interview)
If they planned a Dark Ranger class in the near future, they wouldn't be pawning away its unique abilities to the Hunter class through legendary weapons. It's counter intuitive.

Why not? It's an equippable item, discarded once it's not useful anymore. Heck, we've seen how you can easily get rid of Demon Hunter abilities in the Warlock, being used for so long, and give them to a Demon Hunter class. I don't get this mindset that everything is set in stone and is immovable.

That's not how design works.

Read up on how the previous new expansion classes have been developed in the past. Read the developer post-mortems. There's no situation where they actively 'test' out a new class by pawning off their abilities onto other classes and 'building hype'. They only do that if they never intended to create that class in the first place.

-_-

*Looking at the Demon Hunter in the Warlock*

And yeah, i know it was a dev pushing for integration, but we both know how that ended up.

Xelnath's own blog illustrates how he made a literal example of taking and using the Demon Hunter's abilities because there were no plans at the time to develop a Demon Hunter class. He shared this insight with other developers like Corey Stockton when approaching the design of the Death Knight, and which is a big part of why it had absorbed Necromancer and Runemaster concepts into its own.

Again, a weapon changing your abilities vs abilities being given as baseline.

The Death Knight can absorb the Necromancer and Runemaster due to its Death and Rune themes. How can a Hunter absorb necromancy and manipulation into its core themes when its wilderness (or explosiveness) based? Do you propose archery would be in the Hunter while the Death would be delivered to the Death Knight?

Yet that design philosophy has gone away with the formal introduction of a new Demon Hunter class, and how Legion revamped certain Spec concepts to better suit the class fantasies. Demon Hunter was not an amalgam of different concepts, it is a *close to pure* Demon Hunter concept. They could have given it Warden style Avatar of Vengeance summons or give it a 3rd spec that has some Spellbreaker themes to go along with the anti-magic themes they had; but they did not do that. They stuck with one hero identity - the Demon Hunter.

Why would you give it a Warden aspect? because of glaives? Maiev, literally, hunted Illidan. Talking about counterintuitive. And spellbreaker? That's part of the Blood elven magic proficiency. You're just assigning random archetypes based on loose connections. For example, i didn't connect the Warden, initially, to the Dark Ranger. Yet, after seeing Blizzard's attempt i now know that the Sea Witch is less likely.

At no point was Metamorphosis or Glaives of Azzinoth handed out to existing classes *for the purpose of hyping up a standalone Demon Hunter class*. We must be clear that the design reasons those abilities and features were pawned off was directly because *they had no intention of making a standalone Demon Hunter at the time*

No. But, we still had them so people could pretend they're Illidan. So, stop using a weapon to invalidate a Dark Ranger.

We should also regard that TBC was when that trend of handing out weapons and RPing as another class first appeared, and we also know the original plan for 'Hero Classes'.

Wrong. Vanilla had the dreadnaught armor set and cold hunger weapon.

Contextually, she has become more and more disconnected from the abilities a Dark Ranger *should* be capable of, because she is touting borrowed power from the Jailer and the Maw. She has become god-like, and the lines between what is borrowed power and what is sensible as a class mechanic is absolutely blurred.

What? what do you know what a Dark Ranger is or what it can or cannot do? That could, easily, be an attempt to expand upon the Dark Ranger repertoire, the same way Night Warrior expands upon the Priestess of the Moon. Of course we would not be as powerful as her. Just like Death Knights aren't as powerful as Arthas or Demon Hunters as Illidan. I thought you knew that.

Agreed. I will rephrase to just the Horde, and to an extent, the Unseen Path which is a neutral Hunters Class Hall/faction.

Therefore, we are yet to have them in the Alliance. Don't you see the attempt with Night elf Dark Rangers and Dark Wardens to introduce them to both factions? Dark Rangers are Horde-exclusive and Warden were Alliance-exclusive. Night Warrior having more races than just Night elf shows it further.

I didn't say I didn't like her. I said people are fatigued on her being at the forefront of the story after this long. That is an observation and a interpretation, considering even Blizzard is moving towards concluding her story. And yes, even Christie Golden and Danuser are big Sylvanas fans, but I doubt they would draw out her story or suddenly redeem her at this point when she's already pitted as a Raid Boss who will be defeated and dropping her weapons for the players. I personally see this being a big deal for the lore, like Fall of Arthas big. I don't see this as another 'merely a setback'. We already had that happen in BFA.

Exactly. Why would you put her for 4 consecutive (almost) cinematics? They saw how players were fatigued about Orcs and Demons with MoP and WoD or WoD and Legion. So, keeping her front and center for so long is counterintuitive for keeping subscribers.
I wouldn't compare her to Arthas, as she isn't the big bad boss of the expansion. I would compare her to Azshara (the sidekick of the big bad). And where is she? went to another place after we dealt with her in her own raid and in a raid where she was being tortured.

Stop saying I'm invalidating them then. I've told you again I'm talking about plausability of Blizzard considering a Dark Ranger playable class in the near future. There's nothing I've said that invalidates them as never being playable as a class because of the NPCs. It's their intentional direction with the narrative that I'm talking about here.

Fair enough. Never said it has to happen right now.

It's a possibility for Nathanos to come back in the Shadowlands and start training new Dark Rangers too, but just because it's a possibility does not mean it's likely to happen in the narrative. Do you see the difference here? I'm literally pointing at certain events and saying 'Look here, they killed Nathanos, so it probably means he's not gonna train more Dark Rangers' while you're here arguing 'You haven't considered the possibility he could come back in Shadowlands and train new ones!'. At some point, the simply premise of a possibility is going to be disconnected from the actual intentions of the plot.

Why does it have to be Nathanos or Sylvanas? maybe their going to make Velonara a big shot character in the future. You know, after their leadership is missing, so someone has to fill it.

If they want Nathanos to train new Dark Rangers, then the most sensible thing to do is *not kill him in the first place*.

1. We haven't killed him in the Shadowlands yet.
2. It doesn't have to be him.

If they want Sylvanas to be redeemed into having some future role involving Dark Rangers as a class, then the most sensible thing to do is *not make her a villain and have her abandon all her loyal followers*.

That's the whole point of redemption.
Wasn't Illidan a villain in TBC turned to a misunderstood protagonist in Legion?

Illidan died and dropped his Warglaives for players because they *DID NOT* have intentions to create a Demon Hunter class back in TBC, and continued to have no intentions to make one well into Mists.

Yet, they gave players the opportunity to play 'imagine' that they are Demon Hunters with that.
And, i disagree about MoP (unless you have a source) because they were, heavily, hinting at the return of the Burning Legion then.

There's nothing that makes me *more right* than you, but you have to consider how much sense the claim actually makes in the context of the narrative. Imagine if they released Wrath of the Lich King without DK's, would it be then sensible to claim we could still have playable DK's in the expansion that follows? Narratively speaking, it's disjointed to suddenly introduce a class that revolves around a connection to Arthas after we've concluded his whole story. The time to introduce them is *during* the ongoing conflict.

You are right. That is unorthodox. Yet, i haven't claimed it needs to happen right after Shadowlands. Especially if we're going to a Light/Void or a Dragon-themed expansions.

Dark Rangers have that opportunity right now, and if it's not now then they'd have to wait for the next big narrative opportunity to join. Remember, I'm operating this logic based on Blizzard's own intentions of with-holding a new class *because it does not fit the story and setting as well as Demon Hunters did for Legion*; meaning that if Dark Rangers weren't even considered relevant to Shadowland's story and setting, then the question is *what future expansion setting* would they actually be MORE relevant?

If they are brought alongside a Priestess of the Moon and Warden, then i guess an Elf-centered expansion like ancient Kalimdor.

The way I see it, they've missed the biggest window of opportunity right now, and Blizzard has deliberately intended not to have this class and deliberately continued on with a narrative that involves a Death-themed setting, with continuing and potentially concluding Sylvanas' story, and by making heavy use of borrowed power that will likely remain exclusive to Shadowlands.

I guess we'll have to see.

I don't believe I do, because this is your personal wish fullfilment class concept, not an actual thing in Warcraft.

No, it's not. I first thought of the Sea Witch, but saw that they were going a different way. Why would they make Dark Wardens if there are no intentions to relate them to Dark Rangers? There could have been Dark Sentinels, Dark Druids, Dark 'whatever', but they purposefully chose Wardens.

If you'd like to discuss these classes separately, I would be fine. But as long as you're going to regard them as an extension of the Dark Ranger, then I honestly don't need to regard it at all any more than if you were one of the people who regarded POTM or Dark Ranger as an extension of the Hunter. And let's be honest, we know there are people who do believe Dark Rangers are just Hunters, and I choose not to regard that opinion as legitimate to the lore.

1. Introducing the Dark Ranger on its own is not enough.
2. Introducing a bow using, magical arrows shooting and spellcasting class after the introduction of a Dark Ranger is highly unlikely, so combining the PotM with Dark Ranger seems natural to me (and so is Sea Witch, but they probably not going to introduce playable Nagas as i thought).
3. Introducing Wardens on their own is probably not enough, as well.

As long as Blizzard treats Dark Ranger as its own entity, then I will not regard it as having a shared concept with any other class, be it POTM, Warden or Hunter. It's not even a matter of 'what if' for the future, because we're never really given any scenario where they ended up taking two distinct class concepts and merged them into one.

1. Dark Wardens is a shared concept with the Dark Ranger.
2. They combined some of the Lich and Dreadlord Hero units into the Death Knight. So, they did do it in the past.

Even the Death Knight is just a Death Knight, and not an actual Necromancer or Runemaster archetype despite taking up some of their abilities and themes.

And, where do you think their Blood and Frost aspects came from?

We know the book itself is a lead up to what happens in this raid. It's about her reflecting on her actions leading up to the corruption of Anduin, touching on events from Warcraft 3 all the way up into early WoW.

Sounds like an attempt at redemption.

"While some World of Warcraft novels are about bridging the gap between expansions and wrapping up certain stories, Sylvanas will likely be closer to Arthas: Rise of the Lich King or Illidan, in that it will be a character study. The book goes back to Sylvanas’ early life and tracks her progression through Warcraft 3 and early World of Warcraft, before sharing her current status and goals." - Polygon

Exactly. Illidan. Who was turned into a protagonist in Legion after being a villain in TBC. and Arthas, who's being hinted as having redeemable qualities now that we know of the Jailer's domination magic. Look at the PTR and how Uther is regretting treating him that way (throwing him into the Maw).

"The power to achieve her goals has never been closer, as Sylvanas works alongside the Jailer to liberate all Azeroth from the prison of fate. Her final task? Secure the fealty of their prisoner—King Anduin Wrynn.

We, already, know she gave up on that and dominated Anduin with domination magic.
Besides, i see her 'altruistic' motive as a redeemable quality. Even the rest of the Shadowlands, like the Kyrians, are starting to realize that she's probably right (questioning their 'Path').

To succeed, Sylvanas will be forced to reflect on the harrowing path that brought her to the Jailer’s side, and reveal her truest self to her greatest rival. Here, Sylvanas’ complete story is laid bare: from the breaking of the Windrunner family and her rise to Ranger-General; to her own death at the hands of Arthas and her renewed purpose in founding the Forsaken; to the moment she first beheld the Maw, and understood the true consequences of what lay beyond the veil of death. But as her moment of victory draws near, Sylvanas Windrunner will make a choice that may ultimately come to define her. A choice that’s hers to make." - Official website

Sounds very sympathetic, if you ask me.
Besides, bringing back Alleria and reuniting them just to get rid of one sister doesn't seem right, to me.

It's not a book about the future of WoW beyond the point of the next Raid.

It's not supposed to be. That'd be spoiler. It's supposed to be like Illidan's novel, explaining the motives behind her actions and redeeming her in the eyes of the readers.

[Triceron]

It doesn't matter. When creating a class concept, you have to be open to more ideas and sources, otherwise you're very limited. And it so happens that the Demon Hunter of D3 fits rather smoothly with the Dark Ranger (ranged, hooded, red eyed figure with shadowy powers).

It matters when I'm talking about cinematics having little relevance to Blizzard choosing a class to design and not talking about how they go about designing a class once they've decided on one

There is a big disconnection in our discussion here, because you want to talk about the actual class as of the decision has already been made, while I am talking about the process for Blizzard deciding on a class (by using cinematics) is flawed.

I am aware they could make a Bard class with abilities from any number of sources including Naga Sirens, Sylvanas' Laments, Warsong Clan's War chants, etc. If we are discussing how there's no real indication that Blizzard has any real regard to make a Bard class, then none of these examples are relevant to actually proving that there is an interest from them to pursue an actual Bard class.

Understand? It's not about the possibilities, it's about the plausability.

We could talk about an Ogre race in the game and what racials it could have, but if the discussion was 'We should have playable Murlocs because we saw them in the original WoW cinematic!' and I make a point that this isn't how Blizzard pocks and chooses theor races, then telling me your ideas for Nurloc racials isn't relevant to what I'm talking about. You want to talk Murlocs, when I'm pointing out there isn't any indication that Blizzard would make them playable in the first place, and definitely not for the reason that 'they are in the cinematics!'.

I honestly think you have taken my argument quite out of context, so I will let you reflect on this, since I'm honestly not interested in arguing how Dark Rangers could be playable when I've always argued that Dark Rangers could be playable.

The more I tey to point out and focus the discussion on evidence and plausability, the more you bring up examples that do not reflect the current situation and narrative, and we're really not having the same conversation here.

None of your arguments cover _plausability_. Give me evidence that lends to Dark Rangers actually having relevance in being made as a class, and without piggybacking Nightwarriors and PotMs. There really isn't any strong potential for it any more.

It's not that Blizzard couldn't create a Dark Ranger class, it's that Blizzard has intentionally moved away from it with no real indication that they have an interest to revisit it as a standalone class. And yes, this is a standard that would have affected a Demon Hunter, yet we KNEW that the Legion was going to invade when Wrathion talked about it during MOP. That is what opened up the _plausability_ for Demon Hunters.

I am pointing out that the current narrative _does not_ have this kind of indication for Dark Rangers. I am talking about plausability, not possibility. Just as there is no indication in the narrative that Blizzard wants to make Murlocs or Bards as playable race/class.

Consider how Vulpera were plausible as a new allied race. We can say they are plausible because we know they had a connection to the Horde, as well as from a technical point of view they share the Goblin skeletons. These are facts we can use to base a guess. Same with Light-based Forsaken, which even though did not happen were still plausible because of rhe existence of Calia providing a precedence. This doesn't blanketly apply to any and all races, and there isn't a precedence for Murlocs as an allied race just because you can come up with some ideas for its racials and customization options. There is no narrative significance, no precedence for it to happen. It's just a wild guess more than anything.

I have no problems with wild guesses, and that is not what I spoke out against. I spoke out on the fallacy of using patterns such as Cinematics as a basis for what new class should be playable. Please understand that you replied to me without this context, and I have absolutely no reason to argue with you since we're both on the same page on what is possible, and for the most part we have our disagreements on what is plausible due to our different interpretations and beliefs on lore. There's really nothing left for us to discuss on the matter.

[Alkizon]

Varaben
So a assassination rogue played extremely similar to a combat rogue just with different weapons and maybe a different spender or builder.

(I played with most in assassination build during period of normal talent design, combat was strong option for pve, but I didn't like its playstyle, sub at that moment was difficult for me to master and seemed less balanced in terms of priorities/being more situational, albeit not weak, gameplay; there were many such people who were not guided by d/hps metric, this didn't have current catastrophic scale of distribution, namely, by its non-mediated participation in process, but all "specializations" somehow had their strong and ardent representatives = gameplay was different enough; in fact, argument is not mine, but my interpretation of one of discussions of old forum, with friend's participation; this argument won't have that weight in current game situation, outcome is too corrupted)

Well, this is something I don't quite agree with. I'll going to try to explain why. Gameplay between specializations as a whole differs primarily in abilities you prefer, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have right to use “neighbor” toolkit, it's available to you, especially functionally relevant secondary effects of abilities. You're absolutely correct about talents giving passive modifications, so area of ​​specialization is "designated" by priority of using upgraded by talents/glyphs abilities. Yes, you use them much more often than others and it's they who set the beat of your gameplay... but you don't lock yourself on them as the only ones available to you, you don't forget about "everything else" if necessary and for greater flexibility/variability. But now everything else is completely inaccessible for you, all previously available mechanics/class features are cut into 3 parts (and another piece from each is nibbled for PvP talents) and this is all, that you have. At the same time, most of talents provide "mandatory" active abilities for filling, and not passive ones, which means that choice between them is often too obvious and by making it you yourself limit your toolkit ≈ imposed by devs. Therefore, speaking of a toolkit, you need to understand that it's not so much different (wrong word), but one-sided, circumcised and partially veiled by "cosmetic substitution", which means, in essence, "same defective" for each of representatives.

(eg: mages had 3 shields, each of which had its own separate area of application/functionality, each of branches gave bonuses to one of them, but, if necessary, mages still changed them according to situation, since even basic "different one" was more useful in certain situations than talented one... but that opportunity was taken away = same toolkit as shield, but different, moreover, which is only third of original functional)

Should I also additionally mention here current design/degree of influence of "borrowed powers"

You choose not between passive properties of all abilities/mechanics available to your class, but between what was your momentary choice during the battle - now it has become long-term one, completely cut off from you.

Еven simpler: you have 3 talents in front of you, which are 3 buttons of abilities/mechanics, having previously made choice of one of them, you gave this ability/mechanic a slight advantage in your set (well, you like it more than others, it will be more useful for you more often), but now you completely lock yourself in this single button.

I don’t think you didn’t understand this, it's more just again for outlining concepts... so, difference between gameplay was imposed by choice of passive talents, they were responsible for priority of abilities and how they interact with each other, BUT this doesn't do gameplay between specializations "similar". Gameplay between specializations was very different (basic functionality was similar, yes, but not playstyle, which was different even for those who chose different talents within !same branch!), the most striking and wild example of this delusion were (and are to this day in discussions about old "specializations"; in general, I'm talking about period of "final" result in classical trees' development, not about raw vanilla, but rather about WotLK) hunters. Three absolutely different types of gameplay, with completely clear designation of priorities of abilities, but with full complex and variable toolkit, regardless of chosen specialization - gorgeous design. DK of WotLK period - gorgeous set of passive talents for choosing with having same toolkit... since we started talking about trees - boundaries of branches as a whole aren't really necessary for good talents' design/organization of different playstyles, they could absent and everything still will look holistic, full-fledged and functionally fulfill its role in hierarchy (some very light parody of this approach to talent existed in MoP).

Why did they cut off it all?
Balance? - not, nothing like that at all, it's much easier to balance on basis of general situation, instead of poking around with many too "valuable"/influential small elements. Result is no full-fledged balance, the whole metric revolves around d/hps logs, real players and their "actions" have long been forgotten.
(Already proven by time)
Playstyle? - not, no less stupidity, given their attempts to completely bind specializations within framework of "roles", do you know how many of them? - that's right, there will not be enough "separate" ones for each class, some classes aren't even quite enough if being the only consumer. Now, just imagine that 36 classes needed "individual" gameplay. Have you estimated the scale of disaster? Result is different icons and effects (cosmetics, still even those didn't get full way permission, and it seems to me that reason lies precisely in possible involuntary emphasis of obviousness of this paragraph's conclusions), while gameplay is more and more unified.
(Already proven by time)
Then may be...
Tear off growth of character's strengths from its real progress, thereby freeing hands of their "department of sick ideas" in terms of fee, getting them opportunity to legally "remove" all traces of their destructive actions, simplify work of automatic systems, and devalue as much as possible influence of player's real choice on final result, to make it as direct/predictable as possible, thereby cutting off all "unwanted" consequences. (I'm probably a little gloating that even these most obvious reasons for the most part have "failure" outcome, nevertheless) I tend to them as to root causes.

Oh yes, the topic!.. it's not about this, well then once again reminder:
dear devs, I'm waiting bards from you, not so much for play them, rather just to make fun of result, I don’t believe in you, you don’t give me a single reason to different attitude. My stingy regards

[Ielenia]

What it means is "looking at what's going on". Say, if i'm so biased, why won't you tell what's going on?

And "look at what's going on" is, again, confirmation bias. Because you're making your own interpretation of "what is going on" to fit your pre-conceived narrative for the dark ranger. Blizzard does not "get stuff going on" to prepare for future classes. None of the current expansion classes had "stuff going on" for them before their implementation.

Go ahead. Do it.

I literally did it in that exact same post you responded to:

How about the fact we get to meet the Burning Blade clan and their blademasters, finding out they can manipulate fire, and in Hellfire Citadel, a blademaster boss has abilities reminiscent of the WC3 abilities, and in BfA we have another blademaster who can manipulate fire.

I can even use your own logic to say that Blizzard added pennants and the Burning Blade banner toys as well as the ability to transmog invisible chest pieces as a "test bed" for blademasters.

That's what called "turning a blind eye". If the Legion was hinted so strongly throughout two prior expansions, what do you think they would have added, class-wise?

Hinting an expansion does not mean hinting a new class. And what other new classes could Legion have brought? Option one: none. Option two: runemasters. As for demon hunters, I'll remind you that, as far as we knew at the time, Illidan died at the Black Temple, and has been dead ever since, with barely a mention of him ever since.

That's just pointing at one aspect of an expansion. It didn't coincide with the demonic themes being spread all over.

WoD was not the only expansion I mentioned.

You want a fourth spec?

No. I don't. I think fourth specs are dumb.

Is it? can i have a source for that?

Source for what? Blood healing magic? I mean, you could read the link in my sig. On the very first page I say where I got the basis for my necromancer's blood healing spec.

I mean, how do i make them smaller?

Upload your image to an image hosting site and check their tools.

[username993720]

It matters when I'm talking about cinematics having little relevance to Blizzard choosing a class to design and not talking about how they go about designing a class once they've decided on one

Ask yourself this:
Has any other character, who represents a class, been featured in 3 consecutive (4, even) cinematics?

There is a big disconnection in our discussion here, because you want to talk about the actual class as of the decision has already been made, while I am talking about the process for Blizzard deciding on a class (by using cinematics) is flawed.

They're not using cinematics to choose a class.
They're using them to hint at their plans.

I am aware they could make a Bard class with abilities from any number of sources including Naga Sirens, Sylvanas' Laments, Warsong Clan's War chants, etc. If we are discussing how there's no real indication that Blizzard has any real regard to make a Bard class, then none of these examples are relevant to actually proving that there is an interest from them to pursue an actual Bard class.

Naga Sirens use water magic.
The thing is, there are already hints toward the Bard. Ask lelenia. Though, i don't think it will be a class, but rather a profession.

Understand? It's not about the possibilities, it's about the plausability.

It's plausible. The question is when.

We could talk about an Ogre race in the game and what racials it could have, but if the discussion was 'We should have playable Murlocs because we saw them in the original WoW cinematic!' and I make a point that this isn't how Blizzard pocks and chooses theor races, then telling me your ideas for Nurloc racials isn't relevant to what I'm talking about. You want to talk Murlocs, when I'm pointing out there isn't any indication that Blizzard would make them playable in the first place, and definitely not for the reason that 'they are in the cinematics!'.

You need to distinguish between old cinematics and new cinematics. Sylvanas wasn't there in the background, like those Murlocs in TBC. She was front and center.

I honestly think you have taken my argument quite out of context, so I will let you reflect on this, since I'm honestly not interested in arguing how Dark Rangers could be playable when I've always argued that Dark Rangers could be playable.

You seem to wonder how. So, i'm providing you with options.

The more I tey to point out and focus the discussion on evidence and plausability, the more you bring up examples that do not reflect the current situation and narrative, and we're really not having the same conversation here.

I don't have to. You're asking hypothetically, since you can't see how the narrative will introduce them after 9.1.

None of your arguments cover _plausability_. Give me evidence that lends to Dark Rangers actually having relevance in being made as a class, and without piggybacking Nightwarriors and PotMs. There really isn't any strong potential for it any more.

Was there evidence for Death Knights? for Monks? they just popped up one day. Again, using Sylvanas to such extent, without doing anything about it, is kind of a waste of time.

It's not that Blizzard couldn't create a Dark Ranger class, it's that Blizzard has intentionally moved away from it with no real indication that they have an interest to revisit it as a standalone class. And yes, this is a standard that would have affected a Demon Hunter, yet we KNEW that the Legion was going to invade when Wrathion talked about it during MOP. That is what opened up the _plausability_ for Demon Hunters.

Moving away from it? how do you know what the future holds? because she is being dealt with in 9.1?
Yes, knowing the Legion would invade 5 years after Illidan had his spotlight. We didn't even finish Shadowlands and you're, already, making conclusions as to what will happen with her, years in advance.

I am pointing out that the current narrative _does not_ have this kind of indication for Dark Rangers. I am talking about plausability, not possibility. Just as there is no indication in the narrative that Blizzard wants to make Murlocs or Bards as playable race/class.

You have to lay out the cards on the table. Which classes are plausible? Dark Ranger, Priestess of the Moon, Shadow Hunter, Tinkers and Wardens have all been relevant to the story in these past years. The question, as of right now, is what will be coming next and when. Their plausibility is not so much in question than the question "when is their time to shine?".

Consider how Vulpera were plausible as a new allied race. We can say they are plausible because we know they had a connection to the Horde, as well as from a technical point of view they share the Goblin skeletons. These are facts we can use to base a guess. Same with Light-based Forsaken, which even though did not happen were still plausible because of rhe existence of Calia providing a precedence. This doesn't blanketly apply to any and all races, and there isn't a precedence for Murlocs as an allied race just because you can come up with some ideas for its racials and customization options. There is no narrative significance, no precedence for it to happen. It's just a wild guess more than anything.

Calia and Derek -like Undead are still plausible and will happen (i strongly believe). Go look at my speculation threads (not simply "i want that race"):
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...e-allied-races
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...l-future-races

I have no problems with wild guesses, and that is not what I spoke out against. I spoke out on the fallacy of using patterns such as Cinematics as a basis for what new class should be playable. Please understand that you replied to me without this context, and I have absolutely no reason to argue with you since we're both on the same page on what is possible, and for the most part we have our disagreements on what is plausible due to our different interpretations and beliefs on lore. There's really nothing left for us to discuss on the matter.

Should? no. Would.
Take a look at how WoD cinematic heavily hinted at Legion with its heavy demonic themes. And what class can you add to that? Demon Hunter.

If you ask me, narrative-wise, BfA cinematic hints at a Light vs Void expansion, which can only introduce a Shadow Hunter if it adds a class, and Shadowlands cinematic hints at a dragon-themed cinematic, which you can argue for a Dragonsworn, but i don't believe so.

And "look at what's going on" is, again, confirmation bias. Because you're making your own interpretation of "what is going on" to fit your pre-conceived narrative for the dark ranger. Blizzard does not "get stuff going on" to prepare for future classes. None of the current expansion classes had "stuff going on" for them before their implementation.

-_-

I, already, showed you they did with the Demon Hunter. Massive hints of a demonic invasion in MoP and WoD.

I literally did it in that exact same post you responded to:

They were not pushing the Blademaster. They expanded a bit on it. If it was front and center or a repeating theme, then it would have been a hint. That's like taking the Maldraxxian Necromancers or Wrathion's new looks as evidence for a Necromancer or Dragonsworn. It's quite minor. And, i'm telling you that as a Blademaster advocate.

I can even use your own logic to say that Blizzard added pennants and the Burning Blade banner toys as well as the ability to transmog invisible chest pieces as a "test bed" for blademasters.

Nice try. But no.
I wish Vol'jin's serpent toy was a hint at Shadow Hunters, but it isn't. Demon Hunters, already, have lots of bare chested sets. Unlike these, Vol'jin being set to be reborn is a hint, because it's unnecessary once he's dead, unless...
I can only say for Blademasters that their most important character, Samuro, is not in-game and, therefore, it is due to add him at some point.

Hinting an expansion does not mean hinting a new class. And what other new classes could Legion have brought? Option one: none. Option two: runemasters. As for demon hunters, I'll remind you that, as far as we knew at the time, Illidan died at the Black Temple, and has been dead ever since, with barely a mention of him ever since.

Cinematics do not, always, hint at classes because they don't add a class every expansion. Runemasters? what do they have to do with Legion? besides, it was integrated into the Death Knight years before.

Exactly. So, if Illidan can come back, so can Sylvanas (if she dies). We know Vol'jin will be back at some point.

WoD was not the only expansion I mentioned.

Then, what else?

No. I don't. I think fourth specs are dumb.

Why?

Source for what? Blood healing magic? I mean, you could read the link in my sig. On the very first page I say where I got the basis for my necromancer's blood healing spec.

Is it so hard to write it here?
*sigh*... fine, i'll go have a look.

Edit: so, Blood Trolls and G'huun? do they have ally blood-healing abilities (can you link them here)? do they fit the necromancer? I'd say they fit the Shadow Hunter more (they even have a blood totem as an archaeology reward). My concept has the Shadow Hunter summon Locust Swarm and Acid Cloud, based on the powers of G'huun (who is also considered a loa) which, in turn, is based on D3 Witch Doctor's abilities.

Upload your image to an image hosting site and check their tools.

Too much work.

[Ielenia]

-_-

I, already, showed you they did with the Demon Hunter. Massive hints of a demonic invasion in MoP and WoD.

Again: that is confirmation bias, because a Legion invasion =/= demon hunter class. Hinting toward a possible future demon-themed expansion does not guarantee the demon hunter would be added as a playable class. The Legion expansion could have very well gone through without the demon hunters being added as a class.

They were not pushing the Blademaster. They expanded a bit on it.

Again, this is your confirmation bias showing. Because everything you call a "map", or "Blizzard setting it up" or "getting stuff going on" for the dark rangers, I can just as easily say Blizzard is "not pushing the dark ranger, just expanding on it."

That's like taking the Maldraxxian Necromancers or Wrathion's new looks as evidence for a Necromancer or Dragonsworn. It's quite minor. And, i'm telling you that as a Blademaster advocate.

Why not? Why are those examples not evidence for those aforementioned classes, but Sylvanas' new looks are evidence for dark rangers? Again, confirmation bias.

Nice try. But no.

Why not?

I wish Vol'jin's serpent toy was a hint at Shadow Hunters, but it isn't.

Why not?

I can only say for Blademasters that their most important character, Samuro, is not in-game and, therefore, it is due to add him at some point.

Why is the most important blademaster Samuro, and not Jubei'thos?

Cinematics do not, always, hint at classes because they don't add a class every expansion. Runemasters? what do they have to do with Legion? besides, it was integrated into the Death Knight years before.

Why are you talking cinematics, considering I never even mentioned cinematics?

Exactly. So, if Illidan can come back, so can Sylvanas (if she dies).

It's irrelevant. The point is that, as far as we knew, Illidan died at the end of TBC, meaning technically most of the chances of the demon hunter class becoming playable died with him, since he is the "prime demon hunter".

Then, what else?

It's right there in the post you quoted.

Why?

Because it takes away ideas and concepts from possible future classes and shoe-horns them into classes that don't really fit the mold, like "dark rangers" for hunters, "shadow hunters" for shamans, etc.

Edit: so, Blood Trolls and G'huun? do they have ally blood-healing abilities (can you link them here)? do they fit the necromancer? I'd say they fit the Shadow Hunter more (they even have a blood totem as an archaeology reward). My concept has the Shadow Hunter summon Locust Swarm and Acid Cloud, based on the powers of G'huun (who is also considered a loa) which, in turn, is based on D3 Witch Doctor's abilities.

Because blood magic is part of necromancy, and because of this ability. Blood necromancy is a big thing for the trolls of Nazmir, too, and none of the blood trolls look and/or act like shadow hunters.

Too much work.

Considering you seem to believe "one click and three pages scroll down" is too much work as well, I believe you.

[username993720]

Again: that is confirmation bias, because a Legion invasion =/= demon hunter class. Hinting toward a possible future demon-themed expansion does not guarantee the demon hunter would be added as a playable class. The Legion expansion could have very well gone through without the demon hunters being added as a class.

It doesn't?
What other class can you add in that expansion (if you add a class)?
It doesn't guarantee a class, but we got one.
And back then it was a class every other expansion, so it fitted that pattern.

Again, this is your confirmation bias showing. Because everything you call a "map", or "Blizzard setting it up" or "getting stuff going on" for the dark rangers, I can just as easily say Blizzard is "not pushing the dark ranger, just expanding on it."

You could say that.
Yet, there's no need to shove it down our throats for so long.

Why not? Why are those examples not evidence for those aforementioned classes, but Sylvanas' new looks are evidence for dark rangers? Again, confirmation bias.

Nah... Sylvanas got her looks updated twice now. It's not what's hinting. Her featuring so prominently is.

Why not?
Why not?

Because these are fun little things. Unless you take Teriz's Pandaren Monk pet as a hint toward Pandaren Monks becoming playable. Anyway, it could serve as hints. I just don't really see it so, as it is not that consistent with other hints or themes.

Why is the most important blademaster Samuro, and not Jubei'thos?

Because Samuro was the concept art Blizzard relied on to create the class in the first place.
Because Samuro is the representative of the class in HotS and Hearthstone, and not Jubei'thos.

Why are you talking cinematics, considering I never even mentioned cinematics?

My bad. Assumed you were referring to that. I meant themes. They don't, always, guarantee a class. But, if a class is added you can bet your ass it has something to do with those recurring themes.

It's irrelevant. The point is that, as far as we knew, Illidan died at the end of TBC, meaning technically most of the chances of the demon hunter class becoming playable died with him, since he is the "prime demon hunter".

So it would seem. and look where we ended up. This kind of revival can apply to other characters, as well. So, anyone relying on the premise that X is gonna fall tomorrow as a basis to no Y class, has to recheck his facts. Heck, it's Kel'thuzad's what? third time, already?

It's right there in the post you quoted.

You mean the toy banner and hide chest option? Personally, i'd love it if they turned out to be hints. They just don't seem significant enough for me.

Because it takes away ideas and concepts from possible future classes and shoe-horns them into classes that don't really fit the mold, like "dark rangers" for hunters, "shadow hunters" for shamans, etc.

Not really. Have you seen my thread? none of the possible future classes are being taken.
I wouldn't shoot myself in the leg like that.

Because blood magic is part of necromancy, and because of this ability. Blood necromancy is a big thing for the trolls of Nazmir, too, and none of the blood trolls look and/or act like shadow hunters.

They don't look like necromancers, either. Let's see... are they listed under necromancers?
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Necromancer#Known - No.
Other than raising the dead, it also shares characteristics with demonic magic:
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blood_magic
By the way, if we supply the Shadow Hunter with D3 Witch Doctor abilities, then necromancy is part of their kit.
Point is, blood trolls are more tribal and primitive than anything. You won't see them studying books about necromancy like Kel'thuzad. They use G'huun's powers much like a Shadow Hunter would call upon a loa.

Considering you seem to believe "one click and three pages scroll down" is too much work as well, I believe you.

Great humor.

[Ielenia]

It doesn't?
What other class can you add in that expansion (if you add a class)?

Who said we have to have a class? Because it's an odd-numbered expansion patch? Shadowlands proved that this isn't the case.

It doesn't guarantee a class, but we got one.
And back then it was a class every other expansion, so it fitted that pattern.

Which Shadowlands has shown that this is nothing but our own brains seeking patterns that don't exist.

Yet, there's no need to shove it down our throats for so long.

Again: confirmation bias. They're not "shoving" anything down our throats. And they're not "pushing" for any concept to be a class, at all.

Nah... Sylvanas got her looks updated twice now. It's not what's hinting. Her featuring so prominently is.

That's meaningless. Important NPCs get updated looks once in a while, especially when they are to be featured so prominently. Anduin also got updated twice. From child to young adult priest, and then from wearing robes to wearing plate. Tyrande also got updated twice.

Because these are fun little things. Unless you take Teriz's Pandaren Monk pet as a hint toward Pandaren Monks becoming playable. Anyway, it could serve as hints. I just don't really see it so, as it is not that consistent with other hints or themes.

I can say the exact same thing for everything you used for this so-called "map" of yours: they're just fun little things. Again, this is confirmation bias.

Because Samuro was the concept art Blizzard relied on to create the class in the first place.

Class? Which class? There is no Blademaster class in WoW

Because Samuro is the representative of the class in HotS and Hearthstone, and not Jubei'thos.

I'm talking about Warcraft, though, not HotS or Hearthstone.

My bad. Assumed you were referring to that. I meant themes. They don't, always, guarantee a class. But, if a class is added you can bet your ass it has something to do with those recurring themes.

Why, it was never the case? Arthas didn't show up in a cinematic before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Or Chen Stormstout. Hell, Chen Stormstout never ever showed up on the actual WoW game aside from a tiny handful of side mentions. And Illidan showed up in the TBC cinematic because he was set up as the 'big bad' of the expansion.

So it would seem. and look where we ended up. This kind of revival can apply to other characters, as well. So, anyone relying on the premise that X is gonna fall tomorrow as a basis to no Y class, has to recheck his facts. Heck, it's Kel'thuzad's what? third time, already?

That is not my argument. Your argument is that "Blizzard has been setting up the dark ranger to become a playable class", and my counter-argument to that is that Blizzard has never done any "set up" for future classes, and cited Illidan dying in TBC as an example of Blizzard going against that, by literally killing their icon that represented the demon hunter class.

You mean the toy banner and hide chest option? Personally, i'd love it if they turned out to be hints. They just don't seem significant enough for me.

Re-read your own statement, then re-read my answer to it.

Not really. Have you seen my thread? none of the possible future classes are being taken.
I wouldn't shoot myself in the leg like that.

I don't need to see your thread to give my own opinion regarding 4th specs. Not to mention adding one spec for every class is literally the same work, or even more so, than adding three classes at the same time.

They don't look like necromancers, either. Let's see... are they listed under necromancers?
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Necromancer#Known - No.

Yes.

Other than raising the dead, it also shares characteristics with demonic magic:
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blood_magic

So what? It still fits the theme of necromancy. After all, the death knights do have a blood spec that uses blood magic?

Point is, blood trolls are more tribal and primitive than anything. You won't see them studying books about necromancy like Kel'thuzad. They use G'huun's powers much like a Shadow Hunter would call upon a loa.

And what stops studious necromancers from studying the blood magic used by the blood troll necromancers and using them for themselves, just like studious warlocks studied Illidan and copied his transformation?

[Triceron]

Ask yourself this:
Has any other character, who represents a class, been featured in 3 consecutive (4, even) cinematics?

It's plausible. The question is when.

We had Illidan front and center of multiple cinematics and we didn't get Demon Hunters until after Monks.

If we're talking about the question of when, then realize that I've been talking about that, and you've been simply dismissing all my reasoning rather than actually addressing the question.

Every time I talk about the relevance to the plausability of the near future, you simply reply with examples of things that happened much earlier in WoW's life, like at the Demon Hunter. And I've explained pretty clearly that the Demon Hunter was a pretty well known case of Blizzard having not kept room open for it as a class because they never intended to make it a class well into Mists of Pandaria. Even if they had planned it as far back as Wrath, it would have only been as a consideration that never made it past concept. We know they had dozens of Hero concepts lined up for Wrath, but the one they ultimately chose is the one that set a standard for how they want to present classes in the future - as relevant as possible to the setting and story of an expansion.

When I talk about plausability, I am trying to make an argument to differentiate hints and facts from the game and lore which we can formulate an educated guess from simply taking a wild guess at something out of our imaginations.

An example is Dragon Isles - we know this has been planned since the beginning, and has been established in the lore, and is still in the works to be brought into the game because of direct references from the game itself. This is very plausible, very likely.

K'aresh is also a place that is likely, because it is a planet that has ties with the Void and gateways to other places. The link is the Light and Void. If not for the Light and Void, then K'aresh would remain fairly neutral as 'a place that exists in the lore but isn't any more likely than any other place'.

Undermine - We've only been to a small section of Kezan and haven't actually been to Undermine. There's quite a bit of potential to explore here, but no direct indication in recent lore other than Gallywix having escaped. It remains fairly established since we know the Devs have been planning this one (like the Dragon Isles) since Vanilla, just never really fully formed. It remains to be seen whether they will give it a main expansion treatment. I almost see them treating this place more like Emerald Dream and Nazjatar, as a secondary setting to some bigger expansion plan.

Zin Ashari - Aszhara is still on the loose, so it's definitely a loose end that would need to be filled. However, Zin Ashari is simply a city within Nazjatar in the lore, and we've explored Nazjatar. What expansion setting are we looking at here exactly? Zin Aszhari itself as a continent? It's possible, but again no real hints towards this being a future setting yet. Just like Undermine, I would consider it plausible but not likely, especially so close after having explored Nazjatar and dealt with Azshara in BFA.

Nathrezim Homeworld of Xoroth - this one is up in the air, because it seems Nathrezim have been given a new origin story and Xoroth remains a Legion-based planet in the lore. On one hand, Nathrezim have been brought back into the lore, on the other Xoroth is a Legion homeworld, so it's both likely and unlikely at the moment depending on whether Blizzard will give more hints at the planet in the future, or simply let the Nathrezim's origins be 'retconned' and have a passing relevance to the story simply through the Shadowlands. I personally don't see narrative hints towards exploring their homeworld yet, and I don't think many other people do, so I would chalk this one up more towards being a 'wild guess'.

They're not using cinematics to choose a class.
They're using them to hint at their plans.

Except they're not.

Illidan having been featured in cinematics was not a hint towards a Demon Hunter class, considering the times he was ever featured in a cinematic matches the timeline when no Demon Hunter class was ever actually planned to be made. Again, Xelnath illustrates this.

We are seeing this again now with Sylvanas being in multiple cinematics, and again with Blizzard making no moves *towards* a Dark Ranger as a playable class. Every move made in the narrative has actually gone in the other direction.

It's like if we were to discuss what hints there are in the game that Blizzard intends to add Murlocs as a race, I would be focused on looking for hints and directions in their design to have them playable. There's not just *one singular* thing to look at, it's looking at the full picture. For Murlocs, they don't have a narrative or lore problem for being added to the game, since it's pretty easy to just make up a reasoning similar to Goblin and Worgens having been refugees. Even being accepted into the Alliance and Horde is no problem since we've had fairly weak reasons for Pandaren to join. The problem of Murlocs comes from a visual and technical standpoint - they don't mesh as a playable Race. They don't talk, they don't fit the mold of wearing standard armor, they don't have visible gender differentiations, plenty of reasons why it would be unlikely (not impossible) to be added as a race.

The way I see your argument is as if someone were trying to counter this analysis by saying there's nothing in the lore stopping Blizzard from adding them, and that there's hints that they would be playable because they are slaves of Azshara and we would be fighting Azshara in the future. And yes, all of that would be *possible*, but nothing about this is actually being hinted at or intended by Blizzard to happen in the first place. Instead of making a proper analysis based on what we know, this argument is formulated on taking a wild guess at what *could happen* to make Murlocs a playable race. And I'm not talking about what conditions *could* be created for a Murloc to be playable, I'm talking about what intentions Blizzard has to *make* them playable in the first place. As a whole, would Blizzard go out of their way to resolve all the visual and technical issues of a Murloc in order to make them playable, and if so what is the reason for them to devote all their resources to do so. It's simply unlikely because we already know the direction they take for Murlocs - they're intentionally designed to be creatures and creeps that we fight, and not as a playable race.

When I take a look at the Dark Ranger and how it would be deemed playable, we should address the full direction that Blizzard is intending for them. I'm looking at a bigger picture.
- Who would lead or train Dark Rangers? Well they've severed the Nathanos and Sylvanas connections. I mean, we're looking at a much smaller list of candidates, like Delaryn Summermoon and Dark Ranger Anya and Velonara.
- What races and factions would be Dark Ranger? BFA opened up Night Elves so we have a good Alliance connection, but the story had them all join the Forsaken with the rest of the Dark Rangers...
- What is their motivation to join the Alliance and Horde? Well traditionally, revenge is the strongest motivator for the Dark Rangers considering the origin of WC3 and how Sylvanas was driven to oppose Arthas; and now we have a situation where Dark Rangers were abandoned and betrayed by Sylvanas. Yet Blizzard chose to do nothing with this plot point, leaving the Dark Rangers without any real purpose in the story.
- What expansion setting could they introduce the Dark Ranger in the future? Yeah, about that....
- What special traits makes a Dark Ranger unique as its own class? There's plenty to build here like using Sylvanas as a prime model! And they're giving away two of her HOTS abilities to Hunters, while keeping her Banshee form and Maw-based powers exclusive to her, and having severed her connection to the other Dark Rangers all the while....

Overall, the picture is pretty bleak. It's not full of potential, it's full of dead ends.

If we look at something like the Tinker, we don't have these same types of issues in the way. If we look at the Bard, we don't have these same types of roadblocks in the way. These are fresh concepts with little known backgrounds, so Blizzard can build it up however they see fit. The Dark Ranger is different because _it is already an established faction_ that is part of the Horde, which has not splintered itself to both the Alliance and Horde, which remains to have zero purpose in the story. It's not like they can freshly re-introduce them with a new purpose. And when we consider that there's nothing really in the works for a future Dark Ranger-centric Expansion setting, the whole thing just doesn't seem worth Blizzard putting more resources into developing. Why go with Dark Ranger now when so much effort was put narratively to disconnect them from being playable?

Should? no. Would.
Take a look at how WoD cinematic heavily hinted at Legion with its heavy demonic themes. And what class can you add to that? Demon Hunter.

If you ask me, narrative-wise, BfA cinematic hints at a Light vs Void expansion, which can only introduce a Shadow Hunter if it adds a class, and Shadowlands cinematic hints at a dragon-themed cinematic, which you can argue for a Dragonsworn, but i don't believe so.

And what expansion setting are we looking at would support a future Dark Ranger class being added? One that we can see in the near future?

Like I said, there's nothing to draw from cinematics here that would be relevant to the Dark Ranger situation, because it's already written itself into a hole and I don't think Blizzard is actively interested in digging them out of it. They've actively placed them there after BFA, even though the beginning of BFA set them up to absolutely be playable.

This is why I say they are not very plausible, and why the cinematics themselves are a poor way to construct an argument for them because it wholly ignores all the other pieces of information (as I have analyzed above) that formulate a bigger picture for what is likely or unlikely as a near-future playable class.

Like you said, we have to make a differentiation on old and new cinematics, right? Well all the times we've seen Sylvanas in a cinematic is now old information considering the newest information regarding her is moving towards concluding her story. If we're talking about Dark Rangers being added as a class at the start of BFA or even the start of Shadowlands, then I would say they have a very strong likelyhood still. But after they've done things like kill off Nathanos, sever Sylvanas' connection to the other Dark Rangers, had all the Dark Rangers be integrated into one faction, and now give away some iconic Dark Ranger abilities to Hunters as borrowed power; all of this simply makes a Dark Ranger class much more unlikely to happen.

[username993720]

Who said we have to have a class? Because it's an odd-numbered expansion patch? Shadowlands proved that this isn't the case.

I said it's not a guarantee. But, if you do add a class, only the Demon Hunter fits Legion.

Which Shadowlands has shown that this is nothing but our own brains seeking patterns that don't exist.

Until Shadowlands it was.

Again: confirmation bias. They're not "shoving" anything down our throats. And they're not "pushing" for any concept to be a class, at all.

No? 3 expansions straight of Sylvanas? No other character got that much spotlight. The most was an expansion and a half.

That's meaningless. Important NPCs get updated looks once in a while, especially when they are to be featured so prominently. Anduin also got updated twice. From child to young adult priest, and then from wearing robes to wearing plate. Tyrande also got updated twice.

Exactly. That's what i said. It's not the updated models, it's their prominence.

I can say the exact same thing for everything you used for this so-called "map" of yours: they're just fun little things. Again, this is confirmation bias.

Never have i pointed at toys, customization or interface options.

Class? Which class? There is no Blademaster class in WoW

-_-

The concept for the WC3 unit.

I'm talking about Warcraft, though, not HotS or Hearthstone.

And i'm talking about the Blademaster. Jube'ithos is not nearly as prominent as Samuro.

Why, it was never the case? Arthas didn't show up in a cinematic before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Or Chen Stormstout. Hell, Chen Stormstout never ever showed up on the actual WoW game aside from a tiny handful of side mentions. And Illidan showed up in the TBC cinematic because he was set up as the 'big bad' of the expansion.

I, already, explained Arthas and Chen had nothing hinting prior to their addition. Illidan had, though. You can expect, going forward, the use of foreshadowing.

That is not my argument. Your argument is that "Blizzard has been setting up the dark ranger to become a playable class", and my counter-argument to that is that Blizzard has never done any "set up" for future classes, and cited Illidan dying in TBC as an example of Blizzard going against that, by literally killing their icon that represented the demon hunter class.

Yea, i was referring to Triceron's argument.
You forgot to say "and then added multiple Legion hints throughout two expansion to hint at their upcoming Legion expansion (which, added the Demon Hunter). So, killing the main character doesn't mean shit.

Re-read your own statement, then re-read my answer to it.

Stop being so vague about things and just spill them out. What other things beside WoD?

I don't need to see your thread to give my own opinion regarding 4th specs. Not to mention adding one spec for every class is literally the same work, or even more so, than adding three classes at the same time.

It would improve RP a hell of a lot.

Yes.

Would you look at that. Too bad they don't use any Blood healing spells.

So what? It still fits the theme of necromancy. After all, the death knights do have a blood spec that uses blood magic?

I suppose you're correct.

And what stops studious necromancers from studying the blood magic used by the blood troll necromancers and using them for themselves, just like studious warlocks studied Illidan and copied his transformation?

Warlock studied that as long as they had Metamorphosis.

We had Illidan front and center of multiple cinematics and we didn't get Demon Hunters until after Monks.

What? all i can recall is the TBC cinematic.

Undermine - We've only been to a small section of Kezan and haven't actually been to Undermine. There's quite a bit of potential to explore here, but no direct indication in recent lore other than Gallywix having escaped. It remains fairly established since we know the Devs have been planning this one (like the Dragon Isles) since Vanilla, just never really fully formed. It remains to be seen whether they will give it a main expansion treatment. I almost see them treating this place more like Emerald Dream and Nazjatar, as a secondary setting to some bigger expansion plan.

No one has ever thought of Undermine until Teriz has brought it up as a concept for the Tinker. And, i'm telling you as someone who made a thread about future places that includes Undermine. It is just an unexplored place. Nothing indicative as of right of its plausibility.

Zin Ashari - Aszhara is still on the loose, so it's definitely a loose end that would need to be filled. However, Zin Ashari is simply a city within Nazjatar in the lore, and we've explored Nazjatar. What expansion setting are we looking at here exactly? Zin Aszhari itself as a continent? It's possible, but again no real hints towards this being a future setting yet. Just like Undermine, I would consider it plausible but not likely, especially so close after having explored Nazjatar and dealt with Azshara in BFA.

So did i think. But, if you noticed, they added Zandalar based on the depiction in the Chronicles. And we have yet seen a Moonlit Zin Azshari or Dire Maul.

Nathrezim Homeworld of Xoroth - this one is up in the air, because it seems Nathrezim have been given a new origin story and Xoroth remains a Legion-based planet in the lore. On one hand, Nathrezim have been brought back into the lore, on the other Xoroth is a Legion homeworld, so it's both likely and unlikely at the moment depending on whether Blizzard will give more hints at the planet in the future, or simply let the Nathrezim's origins be 'retconned' and have a passing relevance to the story simply through the Shadowlands. I personally don't see narrative hints towards exploring their homeworld yet, and I don't think many other people do, so I would chalk this one up more towards being a 'wild guess'.

I would have thought so, too, when i thought they could be playable. But, now that they were revealed to be part of Revendreth and were given Metamorphosis based skeletons, the relevancy of Xoroth has diminished. And, its Nathreza, actually. Xoroth is the place of the Dreadsteeds.

Illidan having been featured in cinematics was not a hint towards a Demon Hunter class, considering the times he was ever featured in a cinematic matches the timeline when no Demon Hunter class was ever actually planned to be made. Again, Xelnath illustrates this.

Again, what cinematics, in plural, are you talking about?

We are seeing this again now with Sylvanas being in multiple cinematics, and again with Blizzard making no moves *towards* a Dark Ranger as a playable class. Every move made in the narrative has actually gone in the other direction.

How do you know when they make a move or not before a class is, actually, added?

It's like if we were to discuss what hints there are in the game that Blizzard intends to add Murlocs as a race, I would be focused on looking for hints and directions in their design to have them playable. There's not just *one singular* thing to look at, it's looking at the full picture. For Murlocs, they don't have a narrative or lore problem for being added to the game, since it's pretty easy to just make up a reasoning similar to Goblin and Worgens having been refugees. Even being accepted into the Alliance and Horde is no problem since we've had fairly weak reasons for Pandaren to join. The problem of Murlocs comes from a visual and technical standpoint - they don't mesh as a playable Race. They don't talk, they don't fit the mold of wearing standard armor, they don't have visible gender differentiations, plenty of reasons why it would be unlikely (not impossible) to be added as a race.

Like any sane person would.
None of this Murloc argument applies to the Dark Ranger.

The way I see your argument is as if someone were trying to counter this analysis by saying there's nothing in the lore stopping Blizzard from adding them, and that there's hints that they would be playable because they are slaves of Azshara and we would be fighting Azshara in the future. And yes, all of that would be *possible*, but nothing about this is actually being hinted at or intended by Blizzard to happen in the first place. Instead of making a proper analysis based on what we know, this argument is formulated on taking a wild guess at what *could happen* to make Murlocs a playable race. And I'm not talking about what conditions *could* be created for a Murloc to be playable, I'm talking about what intentions Blizzard has to *make* them playable in the first place. As a whole, would Blizzard go out of their way to resolve all the visual and technical issues of a Murloc in order to make them playable, and if so what is the reason for them to devote all their resources to do so. It's simply unlikely because we already know the direction they take for Murlocs - they're intentionally designed to be creatures and creeps that we fight, and not as a playable race.

Again, what do you have to counter Dark Rangers except for the narrative going forward?

When I take a look at the Dark Ranger and how it would be deemed playable, we should address the full direction that Blizzard is intending for them. I'm looking at a bigger picture.
- Who would lead or train Dark Rangers? Well they've severed the Nathanos and Sylvanas connections. I mean, we're looking at a much smaller list of candidates, like Delaryn Summermoon and Dark Ranger Anya and Velonara.
- What races and factions would be Dark Ranger? BFA opened up Night Elves so we have a good Alliance connection, but the story had them all join the Forsaken with the rest of the Dark Rangers...
- What is their motivation to join the Alliance and Horde? Well traditionally, revenge is the strongest motivator for the Dark Rangers considering the origin of WC3 and how Sylvanas was driven to oppose Arthas; and now we have a situation where Dark Rangers were abandoned and betrayed by Sylvanas. Yet Blizzard chose to do nothing with this plot point, leaving the Dark Rangers without any real purpose in the story.
- What expansion setting could they introduce the Dark Ranger in the future? Yeah, about that....
- What special traits makes a Dark Ranger unique as its own class? There's plenty to build here like using Sylvanas as a prime model! And they're giving away two of her HOTS abilities to Hunters, while keeping her Banshee form and Maw-based powers exclusive to her, and having severed her connection to the other Dark Rangers all the while....

1. There's nothing wrong with other class trainers. Yes, it is always better that the main character do it, but it's not game breaking.
2. Both Alliance and Horde. I'd wager it'd be more ranger-inclined races in life, but Death Knights was spread to every race, so who knows...
3. A common goal? like Monks joining the factions out of new beginnings or Demon Hunter joining to defeat the Legion (and not their former master). The thing is, Elves could rally together to take out Azshara, just like they did against Elisande.
4. Told you, an ancient Kalimdor expansion.
5. Already showed you there are many potential abilities to be added to the class with the link to the thread i made. You just chose to ignore it.

Overall, the picture is pretty bleak. It's not full of potential, it's full of dead ends.

Only narratively.

If we look at something like the Tinker, we don't have these same types of issues in the way. If we look at the Bard, we don't have these same types of roadblocks in the way. These are fresh concepts with little known backgrounds, so Blizzard can build it up however they see fit. The Dark Ranger is different because _it is already an established faction_ that is part of the Horde, which has not splintered itself to both the Alliance and Horde, which remains to have zero purpose in the story. It's not like they can freshly re-introduce them with a new purpose. And when we consider that there's nothing really in the works for a future Dark Ranger-centric Expansion setting, the whole thing just doesn't seem worth Blizzard putting more resources into developing. Why go with Dark Ranger now when so much effort was put narratively to disconnect them from being playable?

Of course there is, because Bard is not established in any prior sources.
Dark Rangers are not a faction. They don't even have one like the Knights of the Ebon Blade or the Illidari.
Why do you think they introduce Night elf Dark Rangers? only to have them in the Horde? they could have just remained Forsaken and High elves.
They can't? oh, please tell me what Blizzard can't or can't do.
Dark Ranger is not a theme of an expansion. It's a byproduct. So, you don't know what they're planning or if they're planning in that regard.
Nothing was put to disconnect them. Having a bow with a couple of abilities is not that a disaster as you see it.

And what expansion setting are we looking at would support a future Dark Ranger class being added? One that we can see in the near future?

If they do plan to combine with the PotM and Warden, then probably an Elf-centric one.

Like I said, there's nothing to draw from cinematics here that would be relevant to the Dark Ranger situation, because it's already written itself into a hole and I don't think Blizzard is actively interested in digging them out of it. They've actively placed them there after BFA, even though the beginning of BFA set them up to absolutely be playable.

Weird how they're not part of the Shadowlands, despite the prominence of Sylvanas.

This is why I say they are not very plausible, and why the cinematics themselves are a poor way to construct an argument for them because it wholly ignores all the other pieces of information (as I have analyzed above) that formulate a bigger picture for what is likely or unlikely as a near-future playable class.

It's not just the cinematics. It's my WC3 Hero unit analysis. It's the prominence of Sylvanas through 3 expansions straight (unheard of before in terms of character spotlight). It's introducing Night elf Dark Rangers both in War of Thorns and the promotional WC3 Sentinels picture. It's Dark Wardens being introduced for no real reason in particular. It's the Night Warrior, suddenly, popping out of nowhere into the lore to expand upon the Priestess of the Moon. It's showcasing Sylvanas using specific abilities and not just showing off her character, narratively. And it's, probably, much more that i can't remember right now.

[Ielenia]

I said it's not a guarantee. But, if you do add a class, only the Demon Hunter fits Legion.

Not really. If you're going to say 'fits the best', I might agree with you. But "only one that fits", I'll disagree, as one can make other class concepts work for it. Runemaster, for example, could be tailored to fit the story being told. I'm not saying the class would be about demons, but the runemasters could know of special runic magic that could help against the demons. For instance, look at the vrykul in Stormheim, and there were magic runes around.

Until Shadowlands it was.

It was always that way. We expected a class. We thought it was guaranteed, but in no way, shape or form there was any guarantee that a new class would be added every odd-number expansion patch number.

No? 3 expansions straight of Sylvanas? No other character got that much spotlight. The most was an expansion and a half.

No. Really, no. The only reason we got "three expansions straight of Sylvanas" (two, really, since she was only relevant in a single zone of Legion then never again) is because she is a pivotal piece of the story being told, not because Blizzard is planning on releasing a new playable class based on her. And even if that was actually Blizzard's plan... guess what? People are basically sick and tired of Sylvanas, now. Way to backfire.

Exactly. That's what i said. It's not the updated models, it's their prominence.

Again, irrelevant. Their prominence is because of the story being told, not because Blizzard is "prepping us for a new class based on the character". Again, you're engaging in confirmation bias, here.

Never have i pointed at toys, customization or interface options.

I never said you did. But they're on the same level of what you're doing: "fun little things".

-_-

The concept for the WC3 unit.

You do know Samuro literally did not exist before Warcraft 3, right? The WC3 blademaster unit was based off on an artwork of a D&D orc wielding a two-handed sword by Samwise Didier who was called "Grumok the wanderer".

And i'm talking about the Blademaster. Jube'ithos is not nearly as prominent as Samuro.

And yet Jubei'thos was the one Blizzard picked to be the blademaster boss in the Hellfire Citadel raid, not Samuro.

I, already, explained Arthas and Chen had nothing hinting prior to their addition. Illidan had, though. You can expect, going forward, the use of foreshadowing.

Illidan had nothing. As far as we knew, Illidan was dead, and has been dead since the end of the Burning Crusade expansion.

Yea, i was referring to Triceron's argument.
You forgot to say "and then added multiple Legion hints throughout two expansion to hint at their upcoming Legion expansion (which, added the Demon Hunter). So, killing the main character doesn't mean shit.

I didn't forget. I just didn't do it because they're irrelevant to the topic at hand. Giving hints to a demon-themed expansion in no way, shape or form means "hints of a demon hunter class".

Stop being so vague about things and just spill them out. What other things beside WoD?

Dear god, you're so lazy. I literally mentioned the BfA expansion in my list of blademaster "hints".

It would improve RP a hell of a lot.

Not really. I don't see any way how giving the present classes a fourth spec would "improve RP a lot".

Would you look at that. Too bad they don't use any Blood healing spells.

Now you're moving the goalposts. There are blood trolls necromancers who use blood magic, and blood trolls can use blood magic to heal.

Warlock studied that as long as they had Metamorphosis.

Are you agreeing with me? That it's possible necromancers would study the kind of blood magic the blood trolls use?

[Triceron]

What? all i can recall is the TBC cinematic.

I've included appearances in TFT, since we're talking about hype for classes. I would assume that Arthas' appearances in previous cinematics would have contributed to the idea of 'We saw this dude in a cinematic and we want to play as him', otherwise cinematics wouldn't apply to Death Knight at all.

And if cinematics don't apply to a Death Knight and Monk, then really we're talking about even less reason to use cinematics as a hint or indicator of future prospects.

No one has ever thought of Undermine until Teriz has brought it up as a concept for the Tinker. And, i'm telling you as someone who made a thread about future places that includes Undermine. It is just an unexplored place. Nothing indicative as of right of its plausibility.

Agreed, which is actually what I consider against the Tinker concept. It's lack of relevancy to the current narrative makes it so there's no real reason to bring TInkers into the fray, other than Blizzard's own will to do so. It's not wholly predictable, and I don't consider there to be a precedent other than an open loose end of not having explored the place.

As I'm explaining, I would not use Undermine as a reason to prop up Tinkers as being playable. There are plenty of other reasons that a Tinker could be likely, which do not involve Undermine in the conversation. It's simply there to be used if convenient.

We don't have this at all for Dark Rangers. Dark Rangers are left without a setting or a story to move forward to, right now. If Blizzard chooses to pursue one, then it would be one that has not been hinted at right now. And no, I don't consider Sylvanas being in cinematics as being a hint, because Sylvanas is a prominent lore figure who has since disconnected herself from her Dark Ranger followers, and has displayed unique abilities that only she has access to without any indication that she was training any underlings the way we knew Arthas and Illidan had done.

How do you know when they make a move or not before a class is, actually, added?

I'm making a point that we don't. These plans usually *aren't* hinted at, they're simply presented. Yet when we see indications of them specifically moving *away* then it's also safe to assume that it's not being planned.

For example, let's talk about how a Necromancer would fit into WoW. We have plenty of loose ends like Cult of the Damned. They're still around in the lore, no matter what happens to other lore figures. Yet if we're talking about their likelyhood of being added as a class, there's really nothing to indicate it happening. It's not a matter of 'It can happen because they haven't explored that option yet', because that's asserting a 'wild guess'.

Death Knight was unpredictable but assumed, because practically any and every playable class would have been assumed early into the series. We'd expected playable Demon Hunters, Death Knights, Wardens, Dark Rangers; anything and everything because the game was in its infancy.

Monk was a surprise, and completely unexpected. I would not consider this to have been predictable because they literally dug into left field to do so. Let's consider that there was nothing in the lore that was actively preventing Monks to be added to the game, only an assumption that China wouldn't have allowed playable Pandaren being the key reason why not to expect them.

Demon Hunter was also a surprise, yet it *could* be considered predictable in retrospect, because we were given signs of a return of the Legion since MoP. Is it a solid proof that it was going to happen? No. It's only in retrospect because it actually happened. In an alternate world, we could say this about any number of classes like Tinker or Shadow Hunter if they were added too; yet they haven't actually been added to the game. The Demon Hunter was. And its reason is because they deliberately created an Expansion revolving around the return of the Legion which would have necessitated a return of this important lore-based Class.

So what comes next? It would be a class that fits the story and setting of their next planned expansion (that introduces a new class). We can't predict what expansion they choose to do after Shadowlands, because it can literally be anything. However we can narrow down the possible future outcomes. They are not going to revisit another Undeath-related realm since that's what's being covered in Shadowlands. We can assume it's not another Legion expansion, since that arc was recently finished and we know we are moving towards Shadow vs Light with some room to explore other themes in between.

Aszhara and Trolls were just recently covered by BFA, and even if these loose ends haven't been tied, I would doubt they would be revisited again so soon. We're more likely to tap into new locations like Dragon Isles and Undermine more than another set of Troll Islands and Nazjatar 2.0 as a means to bring in Shadow Hunters and Sea Witches.

Again, I'm taking strong consideration that Blizzard has to consider a setting and story that ties in a new class that is as strong as Demon Hunters connected to Legion, because even Dark Rangers and Necromancers were unable to meet this criteria for Shadowlands. This means it's not just a matter of having Shadow Hunters or Priestess of the Moon be playable in a Shadow vs Light expansion because they have some loose connections to both themes. It means Blizzard has to consider a strong setting for them to be established.

Like any sane person would.
None of this Murloc argument applies to the Dark Ranger.

It's an example of the type of argument you've been presenting for the Dark Ranger so far.

What you have presented has not been hints towards a Dark Ranger being playable, what you've been presenting is a possibility for Dark Rangers to exist. The Murloc example is to illustrate how we can imply possibility, and at the same time render it as unlikely because it requires so much work to actually fit into the game due to the way Blizzard has intentionally designed them. It's to the point where we may as well look towards a different race that could be similar and did not have the same intentional design problems.

Just like how you've been talking about Shadow Hunters being more sensible than Dark Rangers. I would agree with that since Shadow Hunters don't have the narrative and design 'dead ends' that Dark Rangers are now facing. It's as if Blizzard had intended to make Dark Rangers playable at the start of BFA, but over time decided not to by the time they started developing Shadowlands, and completely pivoted in the other direction. This would explain why all these Dark Ranger loose ends have suddenly been tied shortly before Shadowlands arrived, and why we are seeing Dark Ranger abilities being added onto Legendaries rather than being reserved for a class. Take this with a grain of salt - I'm simply observing and making a hypothesis, not applying this as a matter of fact.

Again, what do you have to counter Dark Rangers except for the narrative going forward?

There's nothing to *counter*.

I'm not dismissing them as a playable class in the future.

If someone were to say Ogres would be playable in the future, then I would look at what conditions there are to have them playable in the future. I can analyze the current narrative, and the prospects of Ogres as a race, and conclude that there is no indication that they would be playable; it's just a wild guess. There is no information that leads us to believe this would happen. It doesn't mean it's impossible for Blizzard to make some reason to add Ogres, but I would point out that there's nothing that indicates they would be playable. It remains that they simply could be playable.

This isn't *countering* Ogres being playable, it's pointing out that there's nothing in the works to hint at them being added as a playable race. Does this make sense?

1. There's nothing wrong with other class trainers. Yes, it is always better that the main character do it, but it's not game breaking.
2. Both Alliance and Horde. I'd wager it'd be more ranger-inclined races in life, but Death Knights was spread to every race, so who knows...
3. A common goal? like Monks joining the factions out of new beginnings or Demon Hunter joining to defeat the Legion (and not their former master). The thing is, Elves could rally together to take out Azshara, just like they did against Elisande.
4. Told you, an ancient Kalimdor expansion.
5. Already showed you there are many potential abilities to be added to the class with the link to the thread i made. You just chose to ignore it.

You're not addressing the current narrative. You're implying creative solutions.

I'm not asking for solutions, I'm pointing out where the narrative has headed towards.

Only narratively.

Mostly narratively, also mechanically.

Everything special about Dark Rangers is being disconnected from Sylvanas in the lore, meaning it's going to be more difficult to present a Dark Ranger class that has all the Banshee powers we'd expect them to have without having established any connection to Sylvanas or the Shadowlands.

Even with a flashback scenario, how do we explain that Dark Rangers suddenly had Banshee powers all this time and never used it during the events of Legion up to now? Death Knights could do this because they were mostly in Northrend and training in secret. Demon hunters could do this because a special force was sent into other worlds during TBC. What reason exists here? All the known Dark Rangers were Sylvanas' personal elite soldiers, and all of them are accounted for. There's no case to build up some 'secret Dark Ranger group' that is carrying out her orders off-world; we're already seeing Sylvanas enact her plans using the Mawsworn and allying with the Jailer, and retaining the Val'kyr at most. She's been effectively cut off from every other Dark Ranger in the game, narratively. They do not serve her, and they do not wish to serve her any more.

So yes, it's mostly a narrative thing, but it has implications on the future explanation of connecting Dark Ranger tropes to the class.

Of course there is, because Bard is not established in any prior sources.
Dark Rangers are not a faction. They don't even have one like the Knights of the Ebon Blade or the Illidari.

Right, and all the Dark Rangers known are accounted for. There is very little case to assume that there is some secret order out there in the world waiting for a chance to join the Alliance and Horde and display their secret Banshee powers.

Why do you think they introduce Night elf Dark Rangers? only to have them in the Horde? they could have just remained Forsaken and High elves.
They can't? oh, please tell me what Blizzard can't or can't do.

My personal interpretation is that they had planned for a Dark Ranger to be playable, and at the last minute decided against it. As the decision to not be playable came into effect, they had to bench the whole setup and cover all the loose ends by simply not addressing them in Shadowlands.



Now, if we are talking about what Blizzard *could* do for Dark Rangers, the nmaybe while we are in Shadowlands they are secretly doing something to perpetuate a Shadows vs Light conflict against Turalyon and the Alliance in our absence. This is what we call a wild guess. This is not something we can call a hint, because there's nothing to indicate this would happen. There's nothing to hint that Blizzard is seeding the Dark Rangers to play a bigger role after Shadowlands, even if they could use them to further the plot in the future. We're at a point in time where the likelyhood of them being significant in the near future is quite low. Just like I would say in Legion, the chance for Yrel to come back in the plot would have been quite low. We *need* to be shown some information that actually shows us they're interested in revisiting Yrel before we should simply take it into account, like how Blizzard seeded her leading the Army of the Light for the Mag'har Allied Race introduction. That is what I call an indication, because she isn't back but we know that it's being set up.

Otherwise we're literally just throwing around wild guesses of what could happen. Blizzard could make Aszhara an ally because Void Gods are trying to kill her. But that's not something we should regard as a legitimate theory, because there's really no indication in the narrative to suggest this is actually gonna happen. It's a wild guess, not an educated guess. It's not a sensible prediction, even if I make it sound very logical. There's not enough information for me to root this as an actual plausible outcome; it's a wild guess.


I'm not talking about a situation where we should be open to possibilities to _be able_ to predict the next class or expansion. That's just a matter of throwing random ideas on a dartboard; there's nothing to actually discuss. If Blizz wants Aszhara to be an ally to make Naga playable, they very well could do that. But we shouldn't be operating on theories that Naga will be playable just because it's possible for Blizzard to make Azshara an ally. That's a wild guess that has no actual roots in the current narrative. Just because it could happen doesn't mean it would happen. If we're talking about what could happen, then the chance of playable Naga is rhe same as playable elephant-people. These are all wild guesses.

As much as you want to pass off your idea of ancient Kalimdor, it's not really relevant to Dark Rangers or the current story at all. You're operating off of a wild guess.

It's not just the cinematics. It's my WC3 Hero unit analysis. It's the prominence of Sylvanas through 3 expansions straight (unheard of before in terms of character spotlight). It's introducing Night elf Dark Rangers both in War of Thorns and the promotional WC3 Sentinels picture. It's Dark Wardens being introduced for no real reason in particular. It's the Night Warrior, suddenly, popping out of nowhere into the lore to expand upon the Priestess of the Moon. It's showcasing Sylvanas using specific abilities and not just showing off her character, narratively. And it's, probably, much more that i can't remember right now.

I'm aware of this, and if we're talking about WC3 Hero unit analysis then Tinker and Shadow hunter has far more potential right now than Dark Ranger, because both of these have not been written narratively into dead ends.

Like I said, I'm considering a full picture. I'm not disregarding a connection to Warcraft 3. I'm not disregarding a creative potential. I'm differentiating a wild guess from an educated one.

The potential for a Tinker and Shadow Hunter had grown significantly with BFA, and remains fairly strong because their narrative potential is left open. Even with Shadowlands, we know there is a realm where all the Loa and Trolls reside, so there is ample place room to explore. There is nothing to suggest they would be explored, but the narrative potential remains viable.

The potential for a Dark Ranger grew very strong at the start of BFA, and was seemingly concluded by the end of it, with all of the known Dark Rangers settled under Calia/Lilian Voss' care. Even if they brought Sylvanas back (from the dead?), the Dark Rangers have no reason to taker her back as their leader. Narratively speaking, they could have had the Dark Rangers scattered in the world with the potential of joining as a playable class when the time calls; but they didn't. Instead, they are all brought back to the Horde, and the Night Elf Dark Rangers are resolved by acknowledging their existence as Forsaken.

There's a very big difference here when we regard Dark Rangers now in the lore. It's not a matter of 'well Blizzard can do it if they wanted', because we are seeing right now that Blizzard are doing things that indicate they actively *don't want* to leave it as an open thread left to be explored in the near future.

[username993720]

Not really. If you're going to say 'fits the best', I might agree with you. But "only one that fits", I'll disagree, as one can make other class concepts work for it. Runemaster, for example, could be tailored to fit the story being told. I'm not saying the class would be about demons, but the runemasters could know of special runic magic that could help against the demons. For instance, look at the vrykul in Stormheim, and there were magic runes around.

-_-

Demon Hunter. What can be more obvious than that?
I can tailor anything if i want to to fit this expansion. Doesn't mean it does. Runemasters are as much a stretch as Naga Sea Witches, because Nagas featured in Aszuna.

It was always that way. We expected a class. We thought it was guaranteed, but in no way, shape or form there was any guarantee that a new class would be added every odd-number expansion patch number.

Nothing is guaranteed in this life. So, just giving up an saying we can't predict things is pessimistic. As of then, it was a class every other expansion. Shadowlands taught us it is not the case anymore.

No. Really, no. The only reason we got "three expansions straight of Sylvanas" (two, really, since she was only relevant in a single zone of Legion then never again) is because she is a pivotal piece of the story being told, not because Blizzard is planning on releasing a new playable class based on her. And even if that was actually Blizzard's plan... guess what? People are basically sick and tired of Sylvanas, now. Way to backfire.

1. She was named Warchief in Legion. Pretty significant part of Legion. Not to mention the Broken Shore.
2. No other character that was pivotal to the story got that much screen time. Not Garrosh, Not Arthas, Not Illidan. Why did she, in particular?
3. Exactly. If you're gonna produce so much fatigue of her featuring in multiple expansion, why not act on it? That's just a waste of storyline. We had better characters than her. It's not like she is the most, and only, popular character out there. You see, it's a waste of character to be used so much yet not introduce a Dark Ranger in the end. She would have best stayed in the shadows as the Forsaken leader until Shadowlands. There was no need for her to feature so prominently in other expansions, when there are other, better characters that could have been used. And, if you're gonna say they were trying to set her up as a villain:
1. You don't require that much screen time.
2. She's not the big bad boss, in the end, only a sidekick. Azshara didn't require that much. Neither Gul'dan.

Again, irrelevant. Their prominence is because of the story being told, not because Blizzard is "prepping us for a new class based on the character". Again, you're engaging in confirmation bias, here.

Because of the story... That lasts for 3 expansions in a row. Does it seem reasonable to you? to anyone? Garrosh only needed an expansion and a half. So did Gul'dan. Azshara only required a patch or so. So 3 god damn expansion? what's the point in that? Does Danuser went off the rails and is controlling everything that goes on there?

I never said you did. But they're on the same level of what you're doing: "fun little things".

*Doubt.

You do know Samuro literally did not exist before Warcraft 3, right? The WC3 blademaster unit was based off on an artwork of a D&D orc wielding a two-handed sword by Samwise Didier who was called "Grumok the wanderer".

"Samuro was originally based on an old image done by Samwise Didier for a Dungeons & Dragons character named "Grumok the wanderer". Originally "just an orc character with a sword", the character design eventually made its way into Warcraft III as an orc hero, similar to Didier's creation of Chen Stormstout and the pandaren race."

And yet Jubei'thos was the one Blizzard picked to be the blademaster boss in the Hellfire Citadel raid, not Samuro.

That's because he's not that important. They didn't give him much abilities, either. Not to mention that he's a corrupted Blademaster, and not a standard one. Samuro is on the same level as Sylvanas, Illidan, Arthas, Chen are for Dark Ranger, Demon Hunter, Death Knight and Monk. He is the representative of the concept. You can see that by him being picked for HotS, like the rest of them, and not Jubei'thos.

Illidan had nothing. As far as we knew, Illidan was dead, and has been dead since the end of the Burning Crusade expansion.

Himself, no. But the demonic themes could only mean one thing (if they were to add a class).

I didn't forget. I just didn't do it because they're irrelevant to the topic at hand. Giving hints to a demon-themed expansion in no way, shape or form means "hints of a demon hunter class".

Really?
How many time must i repeat that? If a class is due and so is a demonic expansion, what else can they do? Just put 1+1.

Dear god, you're so lazy. I literally mentioned the BfA expansion in my list of blademaster "hints".

What's in BfA?
Well, you don't have to answer to Triceron, as well, and that guy writes like he's about to publish a book. It's exhausting.

Not really. I don't see any way how giving the present classes a fourth spec would "improve RP a lot".

Really? you don't?
More archetypes and more playstyles would give your character more options to roleplay. Same as new classes and their specs.

Now you're moving the goalposts. There are blood trolls necromancers who use blood magic, and blood trolls can use blood magic to heal.

I think what you linked as a Blood-healing spell was that of a Blood Troll priest.

Are you agreeing with me? That it's possible necromancers would study the kind of blood magic the blood trolls use?

Hmmm.... i'm more inclined to think of a necromancer using a Scourge blood magic, rather than primitive Blood Trolls or Bleeding Hollow Orcs. But, i guess that if they have necromancers among them, that it is possible.

I've included appearances in TFT, since we're talking about hype for classes. I would assume that Arthas' appearances in previous cinematics would have contributed to the idea of 'We saw this dude in a cinematic and we want to play as him', otherwise cinematics wouldn't apply to Death Knight at all.

And if cinematics don't apply to a Death Knight and Monk, then really we're talking about even less reason to use cinematics as a hint or indicator of future prospects.

That's a different timeline and game. It'd be like me using the Warcraft movie as an indicator. No, i'm talking about recent times and cinematics.

Agreed, which is actually what I consider against the Tinker concept. It's lack of relevancy to the current narrative makes it so there's no real reason to bring TInkers into the fray, other than Blizzard's own will to do so. It's not wholly predictable, and I don't consider there to be a precedent other than an open loose end of not having explored the place.

As I'm explaining, I would not use Undermine as a reason to prop up Tinkers as being playable. There are plenty of other reasons that a Tinker could be likely, which do not involve Undermine in the conversation. It's simply there to be used if convenient.

We don't have this at all for Dark Rangers. Dark Rangers are left without a setting or a story to move forward to, right now. If Blizzard chooses to pursue one, then it would be one that has not been hinted at right now. And no, I don't consider Sylvanas being in cinematics as being a hint, because Sylvanas is a prominent lore figure who has since disconnected herself from her Dark Ranger followers, and has displayed unique abilities that only she has access to without any indication that she was training any underlings the way we knew Arthas and Illidan had done.

Really, didn't they team up with her?
Besides, Arthas or Illidan training their trainees wasn't expressed at all with their followers having the same abilities. We were just told they were trained under them. So, Dark Ranger NPCs not possessing Sylvanas' abilities is not indicative of anything.

I'm making a point that we don't. These plans usually *aren't* hinted at, they're simply presented. Yet when we see indications of them specifically moving *away* then it's also safe to assume that it's not being planned.

For example, let's talk about how a Necromancer would fit into WoW. We have plenty of loose ends like Cult of the Damned. They're still around in the lore, no matter what happens to other lore figures. Yet if we're talking about their likelyhood of being added as a class, there's really nothing to indicate it happening. It's not a matter of 'It can happen because they haven't explored that option yet', because that's asserting a 'wild guess'.

Death Knight was unpredictable but assumed, because practically any and every playable class would have been assumed early into the series. We'd expected playable Demon Hunters, Death Knights, Wardens, Dark Rangers; anything and everything because the game was in its infancy.

Monk was a surprise, and completely unexpected. I would not consider this to have been predictable because they literally dug into left field to do so. Let's consider that there was nothing in the lore that was actively preventing Monks to be added to the game, only an assumption that China wouldn't have allowed playable Pandaren being the key reason why not to expect them.

Demon Hunter was also a surprise, yet it *could* be considered predictable in retrospect, because we were given signs of a return of the Legion since MoP. Is it a solid proof that it was going to happen? No. It's only in retrospect because it actually happened. In an alternate world, we could say this about any number of classes like Tinker or Shadow Hunter if they were added too; yet they haven't actually been added to the game. The Demon Hunter was. And its reason is because they deliberately created an Expansion revolving around the return of the Legion which would have necessitated a return of this important lore-based Class.

So what comes next? It would be a class that fits the story and setting of their next planned expansion. We can't predict what expansion they choose to do after Shadowlands, because it can literally be anything. However we can narrow down the possible future outcomes. They are not going to revisit another Undeath-related realm since that's what's being covered in Shadowlands. We can assume it's not another Legion expansion, since that arc was recently finished and we know we are moving towards Shadow vs Light with some room to explore other themes in between.

Aszhara and Trolls were just recently covered by BFA, and even if these loose ends haven't been tied, I would doubt they would be revisited again so soon. We're more likely to tap into new locations like Dragon Isles and Undermine more than another set of Troll Islands and Nazjatar 2.0 as a means to bring in Shadow Hunters and Sea Witches.

Again, I'm taking strong consideration that Blizzard has to consider a setting and story that ties in a new class that is as strong as Demon Hunters connected to Legion, because even Dark Rangers and Necromancers were unable to meet this criteria for Shadowlands. This means it's not just a matter of having Shadow Hunters or Priestess of the Moon be playable in a Shadow vs Light expansion because they have some loose connections to both themes. It means Blizzard has to consider a strong setting for them to be established.

You didn't, really answer my question. What moves are they making away from the Dark Ranger? the defeat of Sylvanas? Not introducing Dark Rangers this expansion?

What? How do Tinkers and Shadow Hunters fit Legion?

Undermine? You just said it was not relevant. You, probably, mean Ka'resh.

PotM have no connections, that i know of, to Light/Void. Shadow Hunters, on the other hand, are described as "walking the line between light and darkness".

It's an example of the type of argument you've been presenting for the Dark Ranger so far.

What you have presented has not been hints towards a Dark Ranger being playable, what you've been presenting is a possibility for Dark Rangers to exist. The Murloc example is to illustrate how we can imply possibility, and at the same time render it as unlikely because it requires so much work to actually fit into the game due to the way Blizzard has intentionally designed them. It's to the point where we may as well look towards a different race that could be similar and did not have the same intentional design problems.

Just like how you've been talking about Shadow Hunters being more sensible than Dark Rangers. I would agree with that since Shadow Hunters don't have the narrative and design 'dead ends' that Dark Rangers are now facing. It's as if Blizzard had intended to make Dark Rangers playable at the start of BFA, but over time decided not to by the time they started developing Shadowlands, and completely pivoted in the other direction. This would explain why all these Dark Ranger loose ends have suddenly been tied shortly before Shadowlands arrived, and why we are seeing Dark Ranger abilities being added onto Legendaries rather than being reserved for a class. Take this with a grain of salt - I'm simply observing and making a hypothesis, not applying this as a matter of fact.

Your Murloc argument vs the Dark Ranger

Are murlocs relevant to the story? no. Are Dark Rangers? yes.
Can Murloc speak anything but "Mrggglgl". No. Can Dark Ranger be part of WoW classes? yes.
Do Murlocs have a model and skeleton fit to be playable? no. Do Dark Rangers have enough potential abilities and talents to constitute a class/spec? yes.
Nothing that you said really invalidated the concept, except for the seemingly wrap up of Sylvanas' story.

There's nothing to *counter*.

I'm not dismissing them as a playable class in the future.

If someone were to say Ogres would be playable in the future, then I would look at what conditions there are to have them playable in the future. I can analyze the current narrative, and the prospects of Ogres as a race, and conclude that there is no indication that they would be playable; it's just a wild guess. There is no information that leads us to believe this would happen. It doesn't mean it's impossible for Blizzard to make some reason to add Ogres, but I would point out that there's nothing that indicates they would be playable. It remains that they simply could be playable.

This isn't *countering* Ogres being playable, it's pointing out that there's nothing in the works to hint at them being added as a playable race. Does this make sense?

Then, you've missed a lot of hints about them.
1. Stonemaul Ogres join the Horde alongside the Mag'har from alternate Draenor.
2. Rexxar uses a Kul Tiran skeleton that can be used for playable Ogres.
3. Maldraxxian Gladiators use a mix of Ogre and Kul Tiran animation rigs, or an Ogre with a different posture, that can be used for playable Ogres.
In conclusion, Kul Tirans were, probably, introduced as a new skeletal rig, unlike the other allied races, to introduce playable Ogres in the future.

You're not addressing the current narrative. You're implying creative solutions.

I'm not asking for solutions, I'm pointing out where the narrative has headed towards.

You're not looking at this from the perspective of a content creator, you're looking at this from the perspective of a fan who wants something made. From an authorial perspective, it makes no sense why Blizzard would actively dissuade adding the Night Elf Dark Rangers to the Alliance and instead have them denote themselves as Forsaken and remain with the Horde if the intention was to allow Dark Rangers on both factions. The move towards making Night Elves a Dark Ranger option has been creatively put into a dead end, because we are now shown that those Night Elves more closely associate themselves with the Forsaken than they would the Night Elves.

It's going to be counter-intuitive to rewrite again after they just established it.

So it would appear. But, what's exactly the point of introducing them if you're not going to make Dark Rangers playable? We know they expanded Dark Rangers to Forsaken to make them playable Hunters. The thing is, with Tyrande going through what she goes in the Shadowlands, she might forgive and repent those lost souls and accept them back to the Alliance. We just don't know her stance yet.

Mostly narratively, also mechanically.

Everything special about Dark Rangers is being disconnected from Sylvanas in the lore, meaning it's going to be more difficult to present a Dark Ranger class that has all the Banshee powers we'd expect them to have without having established any connection to Sylvanas or the Shadowlands.

Even with a flashback scenario, how do we explain that Dark Rangers suddenly had Banshee powers all this time and never used it during the events of Legion up to now? Death Knights could do this because they were mostly in Northrend and training in secret. Demon hunters could do this because a special force was sent into other worlds during TBC. What reason exists here? All the known Dark Rangers were Sylvanas' personal elite soldiers, and all of them are accounted for. There's no case to build up some 'secret Dark Ranger group' that is carrying out her orders off-world; we're already seeing Sylvanas enact her plans using the Mawsworn and allying with the Jailer, and retaining the Val'kyr at most. She's been effectively cut off from every other Dark Ranger in the game, narratively. They do not serve her, and they do not wish to serve her any more.

So yes, it's mostly a narrative thing, but it has implications on the future explanation of connecting Dark Ranger tropes to the class.

They do not?
One thing that can be done is creating a new generation of Dark Rangers, like there were 3 generation of Death Knights. These kinds of technicalities are mute, to be honest, and are in no way disrupting the addition of Dark Rangers. They could fart out whole specs for the Death Knight, Monk and Demon Hunter that weren't there before. Blood and Frost. Mistweaver and Windwalker. Vengeance. So, claiming all of this was, apparently, established before is bullcrap.

Right, and all the Dark Rangers known are accounted for. There is very little case to assume that there is some secret order out there in the world waiting for a chance to join the Alliance and Horde and display their secret Banshee powers.

Who said there is?
You know, Knights of the Ebon Blade was created, purely, for Wrath.

My personal interpretation is that they had planned for a Dark Ranger to be playable, and at the last minute decided against it. As the decision to not be playable came into effect, they had to bench the whole setup and cover all the loose ends by simply not addressing them in Shadowlands.

This seems to be effectively how Yrel was treated in the lore. I very much felt that they were going to bring her into the MU timeline with the rest of the characters, but instead they benched her back in WoD, and eventually touched her story again by tying her into the Shadow and Light conflict.

Now, Blizzard *could* do this for Dark Rangers, and maybe while we are in Shadowlands they are secretly doing something to perpetuate a Shadows vs Light conflict against Turalyon and the Alliance in our absence, but this is not something we *should automatically assume* because there's nothing to indicate this would happen. There's nothing to hint that Blizzard is seeding the Dark Rangers to play a bigger role after Shadowlands, even if they could use them to further the plot in the future. We're at a point in time where the likelyhood of them being significant in the near future is quite low. Just like I would say in Legion, the chance for Yrel to come back in the plot would have been quite low. We *need* to be shown some information that actually shows us they're interested in using Yrel as a potential character before we should simply take it into account.

Otherwise we're literally just throwing around wild guesses of what could happen. Blizzard could make Aszhara an ally because Void Gods are trying to kill her. But that's not something we should regard as a legitimate theory, because there's really no indication in the narrative to suggest this is actually gonna happen. It's a wild guess, not an educated guess. It's not a sensible prediction, even if I make it sound very logical. There's not enough information for me to root this as an actual plausible outcome; it's a wild guess.

Not everything will be considered predictable or likely. WoD, for example, would likely never have been predictable. Anyone who would have predicted we would visit alternate universe and timeline Draenor would have been operating off of a lucky guess, and not at something that was hinted at before. However someone predicting Legion could have done so with the information we had in retrospect, that Wrathion mentioned would happen back in MoP. That is an educated guess.

I'm not talking about a situation where we should be open to possibilities to _be able_ to predict a Warlords of Draenor. That's just a matter of throwing random ideas on a dartboard; there's nothing to actually discuss. If Blizz wants Aszhara to be an ally to make Naga playable, they very well could do that, but that possibility should not be regarded as a hint or indication that makes playable Naga more likely to happen. We shouldn't be operating on theories that Naga will be playable because it's possible for Blizzard to make Azshara an ally. That's a wild guess that has no actual roots in the current narrative. Just because it could happen doesn't mean it would happen.

As much as you want to pass off your idea of ancient Kalimdor, it's not really relevant to Dark Rangers or the current story at all. You're operating off of a wild guess.

Are you saying they just hatchet-chopped the class idea mid-way? And i'm the conspiracy theorist... It, usually, gets scrapped in theory, not in practice, while actually implementing so many Dark Ranger elements, characters and storylines. That's what happened with Necromancers and Runemasters. They didn't heavily implement them and then decided, mid-way, that they don't actually want them. All of this is done when discussing potential classes, not while you're creating expansion narratives. That's just de-legitimates the whole storyline, time and effort put into it. That's like wasting the whole Night Warrior storyline, or Dark Wardens as well. Heck, they devoted outside sources for them, as well, like books. Do you expect them to throw it all away, because they simply decided they don't want it anymore? very unlikely. You don't set up something in game only to abandon it half-way. People work on it, you know.

As for your examples. Yrel is, definitely, being set up with the Mag'har recruitment scenario, showing her leading the Lightbound. They didn't abandon her storyline.
Same as with Azshara. She escaped through a portal. Do you think they'll just throw it away?
It's not like the Mongrel Horde, for example, that was only in concept art stages. Or even the Emerald Dream, that was in Alpha or Beta stages. Those things are in the game and part of the storyline.

As for playable Nagas, their current models aren't suited for playability. Yet, drawing from the Sethrak could be proved useful for them.

I'm aware of this, and if we're talking about WC3 Hero unit analysis then Tinker and Shadow hunter has far more potential right now than Dark Ranger, because both of these have not been written narratively into dead ends.

Like I said, I'm considering a full picture. I'm not disregarding a connection to Warcraft 3. I'm not disregarding a creative potential. I'm differentiating a wild guess from an educated one.

The potential for a Tinker and Shadow Hunter had grown significantly with BFA, and remains fairly strong because their narrative potential is left open. Even with Shadowlands, we know there is a realm where all the Loa and Trolls reside, so there is ample place room to explore. There is nothing to suggest they would be explored, but the narrative potential remains viable.

The potential for a Dark Ranger grew very strong at the start of BFA, and was seemingly concluded by the end of it, with all of the known Dark Rangers settled under Calia/Lilian Voss' care. Even if they brought Sylvanas back (from the dead?), the Dark Rangers have no reason to taker her back as their leader. Narratively speaking, they could have had the Dark Rangers scattered in the world with the potential of joining as a playable class when the time calls; but they didn't. Instead, they are all brought back to the Horde, and the Night Elf Dark Rangers are resolved by acknowledging their existence as Forsaken.

There's a very big difference here when we regard Dark Rangers now in the lore. It's not a matter of 'well Blizzard can do it if they wanted', because we are seeing right now that Blizzard are doing things that indicate they actively *don't want* to leave it as an open thread left to be explored in the near future.

Tinkers as much as Shadow Hunters? I don't think so. There's no apparent technological expansion on the horizon, the same as there isn't an Elf one. We have Light/Void and Dragon Isles.

Weren't there Dark Ranger defectors that still stayed loyal to Sylvanas? i'm pretty sure they were portrayed in the Shadows rising book.

Again, for what purpose? to expand the Calia and Derek racial diversity? They're just night elf models with grey skin and red eyes. Calia and Derek were given unique models with unique hairstyles and could be used as an allied race. What purpose do Night elf Dark Rangers and Dark Wardens serve? Why is there a need to expand upon the Priestess of the Moon with the Night Warrior?

Once again, i'm begging you: stop writing book-worth of comments. Look at lelenia's: short and simple.

[pacotaco]

And yet Jubei'thos was the one Blizzard picked to be the blademaster boss in the Hellfire Citadel raid, not Samuro.

That's because Samuro has a special place in the WoW lore: he helped with the foundation of Orgrimmar (alongside Rexxar, Rokhan and Chen). And it seems Blizzard is saving him for something, because it's clear that they didn't forgot about him (he's on HotS and the new The Barrens expansion in HS), but you can't find him anywhere in WoW.

- - - Updated - - -

Demon Hunter. What can be more obvious than that?
I can tailor anything if i want to to fit this expansion. Doesn't mean it does. Runemasters are as much a stretch as Naga Sea Witches, because Nagas featured in Aszuna.

Confirmation bias. You know have the information that DH released with Legion, but the mere suposition of a demon-centric expansion doesn't warrant the it would have a new class and that it would be DH.
"If they publish a new Legion expansion, it would be the best moment to add Demon Hunter" != "The next expansion would have Demon Hunters because it would be demon themed"

1. She was named Warchief in Legion. Pretty significant part of Legion. Not to mention the Broken Shore.
2. No other character that was pivotal to the story got that much screen time. Not Garrosh, Not Arthas, Not Illidan. Why did she, in particular?
3. Exactly. If you're gonna produce so much fatigue of her featuring in multiple expansion, why not act on it? That's just a waste of storyline. We had better characters than her. It's not like she is the most, and only, popular character out there. You see, it's a waste of character to be used so much yet not introduce a Dark Ranger in the end. She would have best stayed in the shadows as the Forsaken leader until Shadowlands. There was no need for her to feature so prominently in other expansions, when there are other, better characters that could have been used. And, if you're gonna say they were trying to set her up as a villain:
1. You don't require that much screen time.
2. She's not the big bad boss, in the end, only a sidekick. Azshara didn't require that much. Neither Gul'dan.

Because of the story... That lasts for 3 expansions in a row. Does it seem reasonable to you? to anyone? Garrosh only needed an expansion and a half. So did Gul'dan. Azshara only required a patch or so. So 3 god damn expansion? what's the point in that? Does Danuser went off the rails and is controlling everything that goes on there?

You are seeing to much into it. She got more time because Blizzard wanted to give more spotlight to the existing women in the WoW universe. That's why they put so much a spotlight on Jaina and Sylvannas, and they killed Rastakhan to put her daughter on the front in BFA.

Himself, no. But the demonic themes could only mean one thing (if they were to add a class).

Not really. It's the best fit? Yes. It's the only fit? No. They could've added tinker and say "This time we won't rely on magic to defeat the Legion, because that's what it brought it to us in the first place. So we'll use now our technological marvels to defeat it again", and create a narrative around how we hijack Legion's technology to bring the battle to them instead of DHs spearheading the charge to steal the portal thingy.
Warcraft lore is pretty loose, so you can fit almost anything any time.

Really?
How many time must i repeat that? If a class is due and so is a demonic expansion, what else can they do? Just put 1+1.

Confirmation bias. Just look the previous note.

What's in BfA?
Well, you don't have to answer to Triceron, as well, and that guy writes like he's about to publish a book. It's exhausting.

BFA added:
- Blademaster Lightforged Draenei -> Blademaster on both sides -> Blizzard planting seeds to make it able to be playable in the future, if they want.
- Dark Ranger Nigh Elves -> Dark Ranger on both sides -> Blizzard planting seeds to make it able to be playable in the future, if they want.
- Dark Warden Nigh Elves -> Warden on both sides -> Blizzard planting seeds to make it able to be playable in the future, if they want.
- Tinker groups on Island Expeditions -> Tinkers on both sides -> Blizzard planting seeds to make it able to be playable in the future, if they want.

That's a different timeline and game. It'd be like me using the Warcraft movie as an indicator. No, i'm talking about recent times and cinematics.

TFT is not another timeline like WoD. What are you talking about?

Really, didn't they team up with her?
Besides, Arthas or Illidan training their trainees wasn't expressed at all with their followers having the same abilities. We were just told they were trained under them. So, Dark Ranger NPCs not possessing Sylvanas' abilities is not indicative of anything.

Nope, just a very small group. The bulk of the group stayed on the Horde or went with Calia.

You didn't, really answer my question. What moves are they making away from the Dark Ranger? the defeat of Sylvanas? Not introducing Dark Rangers this expansion?

I think it's 50/50 on Blizzard adding DRs. On 1 hand, they best fit a Death Theme expansion, and the current one was maybe the best fit. On the other hand. they can just justify it on a later patch, e.g.: "The Jailer's plan went OK and he scaped to Azeroth. And one of the groups best prepared to stop him, along the Death Knights, is the Dark Rangers"

PotM have no connections, that i know of, to Light/Void. Shadow Hunters, on the other hand, are described as "walking the line between light and darkness".

The light and darkness that's quoted there refers to the line between life and death. It would actually be closer to a Death Shaman with the current lore.
And Vol'jin being a SH and a Loa, it's also another thing that Blizzard seed to make it able to be playable.

Your Murloc argument vs the Dark Ranger

Are murlocs relevant to the story? no. Are Dark Rangers? yes.
Can Murloc speak anything but "Mrggglgl". No. Can Dark Ranger be part of WoW classes? yes.
Do Murlocs have a model and skeleton fit to be playable? no. Do Dark Rangers have enough potential abilities and talents to constitute a class/spec? yes.
Nothing that you said really invalidated the concept, except for the seemingly wrap up of Sylvanas' story.

Actually:
- Dark Rangers are currently irrelevant. They didn't even appear on the expansion so far (barring Sylvannas).
- There's at least one who can speak common: Sir Finley Mrrgglton. Yeah, it started as a joke character on HS, but he made his way into WoW, so... anything is possible. They can even make that the playable ones are special mutant ones, made more intelligent by being exposed to some magical artifact, like the Gorlocs in Sholazar Basin.

Who said there is?
You know, Knights of the Ebon Blade was created, purely, for Wrath.

Even if there isn't one, they can make it up, they just need Val'kyr to make them. But we now know that Val'Kyr are just pseudo-kyrian. So:
- Horde: still has the last Val'Kyr that created the DRs in Darkshore, I think. So that ground is covered.
- Alliance: make Uther (or another forsworn, but I think he's probably the best fit) to come back to Azeroth to help raise new DRs for the Alliance.