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

[Femininity]

Surprised they didn't add some reaper-y thing with Shadowlands.

[Flatspriest]

The next new class for WoW will be Janitor. Your role is to go in behind other players and clean up the messes they keep making everywhere they go.

[Traveler Voltin]

There's a hot new batch of Twilight Dragon eggs uncovered as of BFA, right? So not 'all' Dragons are sterile clearly.

Playable Drakonid would be sweet because if the class worked like the Worgen racial transform in combat. No matter what race you choose to play the Dragon class you always revert to being Drakonid in combat.

the 5 main dragonflights are sterile. (blue, Bronze, red, green, and black)

[Teriz]

the 5 main dragonflights are sterile. (blue, Bronze, red, green, and black)

Yep. Netherwing, Twilight, and Storm are still pumping out eggs. Infinite might still be fertile too, and a new chromatic dragon popped out of nowhere in BFA.

Obviously Blizzard could just make up new dragon types as time goes on.

[TheRevenantHero]

At the end of BFA after you defeat Nzoth, you find some Twilight dragon eggs in the carapace of Nzoth that are highly corrupted. Wrathion actually clears the corruption from them and talks about forging a new future where his kind aren’t used as tools of the old gods.

So yeah, it would appear that Wrathion has the power to reverse Old God corruption. I guess he’s Dragon Jesus.

No. Wrathion clears the corruption of SOME OF THEM. He doesn't fix all of them.

[Revamp Man]

Demon Hunters were from WC3, which predates WoW. And despite getting tons of new lore, Blizzard still retconned old lore and dismantled the spec of an existing class to bring Demon hunters into WoW. If Blizzard were interested in creating brand new, never before seen concepts, why not just create an original demon-based class that has nothing to do with Illidan? Why not create a completely new death class? You really don't believe that Blizzard couldn't come up with ANY death class concept that could fit Shadowlands do you?



But the evidence shows exactly that.



Blizzard does whatever they want to do. They control the game, and they control the lore. Further, they already designed the template with Alexstraza, Chromie, and Deathwing in HotS, and Wrathion, Nefarian, Onyxia, Kalecgos, Kairozmordu, etc. in WoW. You have the characters and mechanics in place, so instead of starting from square 1, you're starting from square 50 with a concept that is already wildly popular.

In all seriousness if you were a developer, which way would you go?

Do you go with the riskier idea of creating a completely new concept with no lore character to tie it to, and zero history in any Blizzard game? If you need an example of this, check out the very well done Bard concept that most respondents say "doesn't fit WoW".

Or do you go with the safer bet that already has the class structure in place, is full of well known and beloved lore figures that have been in WoW since the beginning, and players have experience with gameplay wise through HotS?

Wrathion has a strong fan base full of people drawing art, writing stories, and attempting to make their characters look like him.

Your "dragon knight" class does not.

That's something to think about.

blizzard does do whatever they want

so a dragonsworn class is likely thank youuu

[Teriz]

No. Wrathion clears the corruption of SOME OF THEM. He doesn't fix all of them.

The point is that the very fact that he can do that is pretty significant. The discovery of “thousands” of twilight dragon eggs, and Wrathion being able to clear corruption just shows how loose and changeable the lore can be.

[Imperator4321]

Do you have an example of that in any playable form in any of Blizzard's video games?

Blizzard is not adverse to taking from other properties or concepts (whether that be from themselves or others) or taking related related concepts to make something more interesting or defined.

Lets look at the Monk Class in WC3 it's a very clear take on the Drunken Boxer martial arts archetype from Chinese culture, he fights with a quarterstaff, comes from a china analogue of the setting (pandaria), all of his abilities besides one (Storm, Earth, Fire) revolve around either being drunk (drunken brawler) or using alcohol in some manner (Breath of Fire and Drunken Haze) to fight, when the Monk class was being designed they didn't make it a Brewmaster class who exclusively dps/tanked/healed with alcohol they looked to other martial arts archetypes such as the more hand-to-hand/footwork oriented styles of martial arts or eastern mysticism side of martial arts which are concepts that went into the Windwalker and Mistweaver specs, they also took things from Chinese culture like the Cardinal Guardians and made them the inspiration behind the themes of the specs (white tiger for windwalker, jade serpent/red crane for mistweaver and black ox for brewmaster).

Look at the Death Knight which in WC3 was a also a very blatant take on the Anti-paladin (which the unit was even called in previous versions of WC3) archetype common in the fantasy (Paladins in D&D tend to have strict requirements for conduct and could "fall" and become an evil version with unholy/evil powers instead of divine/good ones) all Death Knights in WC3 are fallen Paladins, all of his powers are mirrors/evil counterparts of the Paladin units abilities, Death Coil heals undead and harms the living, Animate dead raises up to 6 units, Unholy aura is a defensive aura, Death Pact is a defensive spell that can only be used on the Death Knight, it's a fairly clear take on the concept of a fallen paladin. Compare to WoW where the concept of fallen paladin was dropped (instead replaced with a more general "fallen hero" background), the unholy powers are expanded to include frost and blood manipulation which the hero unit never showed the ability to use.

Both of these expansion classes show a clear expansion of a theme/fantasy (from a drunken boxer to a general martial artist class, from a anti-paladin to a general dark knight) to make them work better as a class. If Blizzard likes the concept of a "Dragon Class" theres nothing restricting them from taking the fantasy trope of the Dragon Knight which has appeared in multiple other works such as Dragoon's from Final Fantasy, Dragonknights from Elder Scrolls: Online, Dragon Knight from DOTA2 and putting their own spin on it, could be a Dragon taking mortal form or could be a concept similar to a Dragonsworn, mortals sworn to service of the Dragonflights, theres nothing restricting them here.


By the way weren't you arguing earlier in this thread that Necromancers can't use poison because no Necromancer in Warcraft has shown the ability?

You said this in response to Ielenia saying Death Knights can't use poison magic

Neither can Necromancers.

And this when they brought up a Scourge/Cult of the Damned member Grand Widow Faerlina

Grand Widow isn't a Necromancer, she breeds spiders to extract their venom for experiments.

yet now it's fair game as long as it's shown up in a playable form in a "any of Blizzard's video games", if thats the rule now then what about the Diablo 2 and 3 Necromancer class who have an entire skill tree (Poison and Bone Spells in Diablo 2) or multiple skill runes (Diablo 3) dedicated to the use of poison spells, and the Xul the Necromancer in HotS can use Poison Nova, is this take or something similar to it not a viable route to take a Necromancer class to add it to WoW?

I should also note the Diablo 3 Necromancer was added to the game even though Diablo 2 already had a class with many necromancy style abilities in the Witch Doctor yet the Necromancer was added despite that overlap because of differences in fantasy and gameplay, if the Witch Doctor and Necromancer can co-exist why can't a Necromancer and Death Knight given they have different gameplay styles (ranged spellcaster vs melee) and fantasy (Dark Knight vs Dark spellcaster)?

[Teriz]

Blizzard is not adverse to taking from other properties or concepts (whether that be from themselves or others) or taking related related concepts to make something more interesting or defined.

Lets look at the Monk Class in WC3 it's a very clear take on the Drunken Boxer martial arts archetype from Chinese culture, he fights with a quarterstaff, comes from a china analogue of the setting (pandaria), all of his abilities besides one (Storm, Earth, Fire) revolve around either being drunk (drunken brawler) or using alcohol in some manner (Breath of Fire and Drunken Haze) to fight, when the Monk class was being designed they didn't make it a Brewmaster class who exclusively dps/tanked/healed with alcohol they looked to other martial arts archetypes such as the more hand-to-hand/footwork oriented styles of martial arts or eastern mysticism side of martial arts which are concepts that went into the Windwalker and Mistweaver specs, they also took things from Chinese culture like the Cardinal Guardians and made them the inspiration behind the themes of the specs (white tiger for windwalker, jade serpent/red crane for mistweaver and black ox for brewmaster).

Look at the Death Knight which in WC3 was a also a very blatant take on the Anti-paladin (which the unit was even called in previous versions of WC3) archetype common in the fantasy (Paladins in D&D tend to have strict requirements for conduct and could "fall" and become an evil version with unholy/evil powers instead of divine/good ones) all Death Knights in WC3 are fallen Paladins, all of his powers are mirrors/evil counterparts of the Paladin units abilities, Death Coil heals undead and harms the living, Animate dead raises up to 6 units, Unholy aura is a defensive aura, Death Pact is a defensive spell that can only be used on the Death Knight, it's a fairly clear take on the concept of a fallen paladin. Compare to WoW where the concept of fallen paladin was dropped (instead replaced with a more general "fallen hero" background), the unholy powers are expanded to include frost and blood manipulation which the hero unit never showed the ability to use.

Both of these expansion classes show a clear expansion of a theme/fantasy (from a drunken boxer to a general martial artist class, from a anti-paladin to a general dark knight) to make them work better as a class. If Blizzard likes the concept of a "Dragon Class" theres nothing restricting them from taking the fantasy trope of the Dragon Knight which has appeared in multiple other works such as Dragoon's from Final Fantasy, Dragonknights from Elder Scrolls: Online, Dragon Knight from DOTA2 and putting their own spin on it, could be a Dragon taking mortal form or could be a concept similar to a Dragonsworn, mortals sworn to service of the Dragonflights, theres nothing restricting them here.

This line of thinking only works if you also ignore the general design of the classes themselves. Yeah, Blizzard used general martial arts tropes for the Monk class, but purposely put them through the filter of the Pandaren Brewmaster and the Pandaren race, making it a rather novel take on your typical Monk class.

With Death Knight, I would agree that the WC3 unit was an inverse of the Paladin class, however the eventual DK class took elements from the entire undead WC3 faction and created a class that embodied the concept of undeath and necromancy into one concise package. Again, creating a rather unique take on the Necromancer class and concept.

You're simply reaching the wrong conclusions with your observation. There's pretty much zero chance that Blizzard would bring in a Dragon class from FF or Elder Scrolls. They simply don't operate in that fashion. What they do is that they create a unique Warcraft take on a RPG trope, like the Pandaren Brewmaster, and construct a class around it. If you doubt this, look at the Final Fantasy Monk versus the WoW Monk;




Just on surface level alone you're looking at two very different takes on the same trope.

With that, why would you believe that Blizzard would take ideas from other games for a Dragon class concept when they already have a unique and robust concept of their own? Further their unique and robust concept is extremely popular with their fanbase.

By the way weren't you arguing earlier in this thread that Necromancers can't use poison because no Necromancer in Warcraft has shown the ability?

You said this in response to Ielenia saying Death Knights can't use poison magic


And this when they brought up a Scourge/Cult of the Damned member Grand Widow Faerlina


yet now it's fair game as long as it's shown up in a playable form in a "any of Blizzard's video games", if thats the rule now then what about the Diablo 2 and 3 Necromancer class who have an entire skill tree (Poison and Bone Spells in Diablo 2) or multiple skill runes (Diablo 3) dedicated to the use of poison spells, and the Xul the Necromancer in HotS can use Poison Nova, is this take or something similar to it not a viable route to take a Necromancer class to add it to WoW?

Because Xxl is a Diablo character. Alexstrasza and Chromie are Warcraft characters.

I should also note the Diablo 3 Necromancer was added to the game even though Diablo 2 already had a class with many necromancy style abilities in the Witch Doctor yet the Necromancer was added despite that overlap because of differences in fantasy and gameplay, if the Witch Doctor and Necromancer can co-exist why can't a Necromancer and Death Knight given they have different gameplay styles (ranged spellcaster vs melee) and fantasy (Dark Knight vs Dark spellcaster)?

Because again, that's Diablo. We're talking about Warcraft. They're not the same type of game. in addition, WoW has the Warlock class, which pretty much makes a Necromancer pointless unless it's melee, which is why the Death Knight class is melee.

[Triceron]

Because Xxl is a Diablo character. Alexstrasza and Chromie are Warcraft characters.

That doesn't sound like a reason considering Paladins in Warcraft 3, and by extension in Vanilla were heavily influenced by the Diablo 2 Paladin, the master of Auras. The Paladin class had the widest selection of auras by far compared to any other class, which may have had only one or two. This of course changed over time, but the connection to Diablo character influence was pretty clear.

Because again, that's Diablo. We're talking about Warcraft. They're not the same type of game. in addition, WoW has the Warlock class, which pretty much makes a Necromancer pointless unless it's melee, which is why the Death Knight class is melee.

Why would a Warlock infringe on a new spellcaster class that uses Necromancy and Poisons? Warlocks use Fel Magic while Necromancers do not.

[Imperator4321]

Do you go with the riskier idea of creating a completely new concept with no lore character to tie it to, and zero history in any Blizzard game? If you need an example of this, check out the very well done Bard concept that most respondents say "doesn't fit WoW".

Or do you go with the safer bet that already has the class structure in place, is full of well known and beloved lore figures that have been in WoW since the beginning, and players have experience with gameplay wise through HotS?

Wrathion has a strong fan base full of people drawing art, writing stories, and attempting to make their characters look like him.

Your "dragon knight" class does not.

That's something to think about.

Mortals being in the service of or gaining power from Dragon isn't new in Warcraft, the RPG had the Dragonsworn, Drakonid's are former mortals empowered by the dragonflights and lore can always been changed or altered.

A dragon-class doesn't literally have to be a dragon to have those characters represent them, Arthas is on a entirely different level of power from a standard Death Knight (being the Lich King who can control the entire scourge), Illidan is on a entirely different level of power from a standard demon hunter (permanently being a demon), I don't see why Wrathion, Alexstraza, Chromie, Ysera, ect can't represent a mortal dragonsworn-esque class since as actual dragons they represent an entirely much higher level of power than for instance a Mortal who say can only temporary manifest draconic abilities/traits, and lore can always be changed or new things introduced to allow for things such as mortals being aligned with multiple dragonflights, mortals taking on dragon forms, ect.

Dragons passing on their power to mortals is also much more fitting with the story and lore that we've been presented so far, cataclysm expansion literally ends with Alexstrasza saying that the Dragon aspects have fulfilled their "great purpose" to Azeroth and that Mortals are Azeroth's guardians now ("age of mortals"), a class whose entire thing is "you are literally a dragon" would conflict with that, BFA even continued this by having the aspects empower the heart of azeoth, and by extension mortals with power instead of using it themselves, if we get a Dragon Isle expansion wouldn't a Hero Class who are mortals empowered by the combined flights make more sense with the Dragon aspects story as it's been so far than a Dragon taking on a mortal guise? (of course this fading of the dragonflights could also be reversed as a story beat which could lead to the "dragon in guise of mortal" angle working

This line of thinking only works if you also ignore the general design of the classes themselves. Yeah, Blizzard used general martial arts tropes for the Monk class, but purposely put them through the filter of the Pandaren Brewmaster and the Pandaren race, making it a rather novel take on your typical Monk class.

Pandaren culture and history is mostly just references to chinese culture and history with the serial numbers filed off, they have a great wall to keep out invaders, Lei Shen is based on Qin Shi Huang, their martial arts & philosophy are based on real world martial arts/philosophy like tai-chi, zuì quán, Heihuquan, being panda people is obviously reference to the panda being china's national animal, their names and language are also obviously inspired by china, the Pandaren Brewmaster is a blatant take on the Drunken Boxer (even his use of a quarterstaff and actually being drunk is a thing in chinese literature related to fictional drunken boxer's like Wu Song), the August Celestials are literally the four cardinal guardians with a few minor changes (black tortoise swaped for black ox, azure dragon swapped for jade dragon)

You're saying that they filted a common fantasy class who's style is already inspired by Kung Fu tropes and East Asian martial arts (and has been like that since Advanced Dungeons and Dragons added them in the 70's) by filtering it through a fictional race who are also mostly inspired by chinese culture? and are literally anthropomorphic pandas who are China's national animal, the Monk class is not an original take on a Monk class, it's pretty stock at it's core.

With Death Knight, I would agree that the WC3 unit was an inverse of the Paladin class, however the eventual DK class took elements from the entire undead WC3 faction and created a class that embodied the concept of undeath and necromancy into one concise package. Again, creating a rather unique take on the Necromancer class and concept.

That's the point, they took a premise and expanded it, regardless of what was previously there or if it fit the original concept such as turning a Drunken Boxer into a general martial arts class, or a Anti-Paladin into a general "dark knight" class

You're simply reaching the wrong conclusions with your observation. There's pretty much zero chance that Blizzard would bring in a Dragon class from FF or Elder Scrolls. They simply don't operate in that fashion. What they do is that they create a unique Warcraft take on a RPG trope, like the Pandaren Brewmaster, and construct a class around it. If you doubt this, look at the Final Fantasy Monk versus the WoW Monk;

I never implied Blizzard would copy the concept of the FF dragoon or Dragonknight from ESO, my point is that "Dragon-Knight" is a concept that transcends any particular piece of media and has been interpreted differently in multiple ways, at it's base level it's "fights using draconic or dragon-evoking abilities " Those games and settings have different takes on what a dragon-class would be in relation to it's setting, Dragoon's are dragon hunter's who's fighting style is meant to counter dragons, Dragonknights use the setting's asia equivalent (akavir) ancient martials art, both are different takes on the same concept (Dragon-Knight), Warcraft's take would be no different since these tropes naturally have to recontextualized to fit their specific settings in Warcraft's case the "Dragon-Knight" concept could be recontextualized to be a Mortal sworn into the service of the Dragonflights or it could also be a Dragon who takes a mortal form.

[Triceron]

I never implied Blizzard would copy the concept of the FF dragoon or Dragonknight from ESO, my point is that "Dragon-Knight" is a concept that transcends any particular piece of media and has been interpreted differently in multiple ways, at it's base level it's "fights using draconic or dragon-evoking abilities " Those games and settings have different takes on what a dragon-class would be in relation to it's setting, Dragoon's are dragon hunter's who's fighting style is meant to counter dragons, Dragonknights use the setting's asia equivalent (akavir) ancient martials art, both are different takes on the same concept (Dragon-Knight), Warcraft's take would be no different since these tropes naturally have to recontextualized to fit their specific settings in Warcraft's case the "Dragon-Knight" concept could be recontextualized to be a Mortal sworn into the service of the Dragonflights or it could also be a Dragon who takes a mortal form.

I think this is a pretty strong archetype as well. The Dragon Knight in DOTA2 is very iconic, and practically in similar vein of how Warcraft heroes were designed if we consider the DOTA Allstars version would have fit in perfectly as a Warcraft 3 Hero. A mortal knight that has martial abilities themed on Draconic abilities and an ultimate ability to turn into a Dragon; that's practically the same fantasy as what we'd expect from a Dragonsworn class.



I'd personally prefer them to be able to use 2H Polearms in one hand and a shield in the other, like a Lancer or a Dragoon. Those are the type of fantasy 'Dragon Knight' concepts I like the most.

[Imperator4321]

I think this is a pretty strong archetype as well. The Dragon Knight in DOTA2 is very iconic, and practically in similar vein of how Warcraft heroes were designed if we consider the DOTA Allstars version would have fit in perfectly as a Warcraft 3 Hero. A mortal knight that has martial abilities themed on Draconic abilities and an ultimate ability to turn into a Dragon; that's practically the same fantasy as what we'd expect from a Dragonsworn class.



I'd personally prefer them to be able to use 2H Polearms in one hand and a shield in the other, like a Lancer or a Dragoon. Those are the type of fantasy 'Dragon Knight' concepts I like the most.

I'm not a huge fan of the archetype (guess i just don't like dragons enough for it to really wow me) but i think a WoW Dragonsworn works as a reinterpretation of it most "Dragon-Knights" (as in evokes the image of or uses the abilities of dragons) i see in fiction tend to be either:

1. Dragon Hunters who steal or gain their power (i.e Dragoon, DOTA Dragon Knight, Divinity II Dragon Slayer/Knight)
2. Uses abilities that evoke dragons or dragon-like powers without any other relation (i.e ESO Dragonknights, Dragoons again depending on the final fantasy game)
3. Dragon Riders (i.e Dragon riders from the inheritance cycle, Targaryans from A Song of Ice and Fire)

Only example i can think of "gains power from alliegance/pact with dragons" would be the various dragon covenants from the Dark Souls games and i guess the Dragon Cult/Draugr from the Elder Scrolls.

[Teriz]

That doesn't sound like a reason considering Paladins in Warcraft 3, and by extension in Vanilla were heavily influenced by the Diablo 2 Paladin, the master of Auras. The Paladin class had the widest selection of auras by far compared to any other class, which may have had only one or two. This of course changed over time, but the connection to Diablo character influence was pretty clear.

That really has nothing to do with what we were discussing. The person I was quoting was asking me why I don't consider the Diablo character in HotS to be similar to the dragon-based Warcraft characters in terms of being playable examples of a concept. There's a host of reasons why that is the case, and Xul being a diablo character is one of them. Besides, there's already a melee Necromancer in WoW.

Why would a Warlock infringe on a new spellcaster class that uses Necromancy and Poisons? Warlocks use Fel Magic while Necromancers do not.

Because Warlocks utilize a wide variety of Necromancer abilities like life drains, afflictions and curses. While Necromancers don't do fel, they do Shadow magic, and Warlocks have an entire spec dedicated to Shadow magic that would be infringed upon by a Necromancer class. Remove Destruction and change the demonic summons into undead summons, and you have a Necromancer.

[Imperator4321]

That really has nothing to do with what we were discussing. The person I was quoting was asking me why I don't consider the Diablo character in HotS to be similar to the dragon-based Warcraft characters in terms of being playable examples of a concept. There's a host of reasons why that is the case, and Xul being a diablo character is one of them. Besides, there's already a melee Necromancer in WoW.

My point wasn't that Xul is a blueprint for a Necromancer class my point was that if something needs to in "playable form in any of Blizzard's video games" the fact that Xul and the Diablo 2/3 Necromancers use poison abilities is a playable form of a poison-using necromancers and is therefore fair game for the concept being translated into WoW.

Because Warlocks utilize a wide variety of Necromancer abilities like life drains, afflictions and curses. While Necromancers don't do fel, they do Shadow magic, and Warlocks have an entire spec dedicated to Shadow magic that would be infringed upon by a Necromancer class. Remove Destruction and change the demonic summons into undead summons, and you have a Necromancer.

And Holy Paladins and Holy Priests are holy light-using healers they are differentiated by Fantasy (Paladin vs Priest/Cleric) and Gameplay (Frontline healer vs Generalist Healer) along with the differences in their respective base classes (mind powers, melee abilities, blessings, dispels, ect). Both Shadow Priests and Affliction Warlocks are shadow-based spellcasters who use damage over time effects they are different in themes, fantasy and gameplay enough to be seperate.

Necromancers and Warlocks despite similarities (dark magic spellcasters) are different in themes and fantasy (undeath vs demonic, hellfire vs poison/bone, shadow/fel magic vs death magic)

[Teriz]

Mortals being in the service of or gaining power from Dragon isn't new in Warcraft, the RPG had the Dragonsworn, Drakonid's are former mortals empowered by the dragonflights and lore can always been changed or altered.

So where is the playable version of this in the video games?

A dragon-class doesn't literally have to be a dragon to have those characters represent them, Arthas is on a entirely different level of power from a standard Death Knight (being the Lich King who can control the entire scourge), Illidan is on a entirely different level of power from a standard demon hunter (permanently being a demon), I don't see why Wrathion, Alexstraza, Chromie, Ysera, ect can't represent a mortal dragonsworn-esque class since as actual dragons they represent an entirely much higher level of power than for instance a Mortal who say can only temporary manifest draconic abilities/traits, and lore can always be changed or new things introduced to allow for things such as mortals being aligned with multiple dragonflights, mortals taking on dragon forms, ect.

Again they certainly could, but why would they when there is the option to allow the player to play an actual dragon akin to those characters? Of course you wouldn't be as powerful as they are, but you would be the same type of creature.

The ironic thing about your argument is that you're asking for something that is the exact same thing as I'm requesting only with a lore difference. You want a Human character who can breathe fire out of his mouth, transform his hand into a dragon paw and swipe someone, or sprout wings out of his back and fly around. I'm asking for a dragon character who can disguise themselves as a human and transform into a dragon to perform the dragon characteristics. Mechanically it's quite similar, but the difference is that Blizzard actually created a playable version of what I'm requesting and has never produced a playable version of what you're requesting.

Dragons passing on their power to mortals is also much more fitting with the story and lore that we've been presented so far, cataclysm expansion literally ends with Alexstrasza saying that the Dragon aspects have fulfilled their "great purpose" to Azeroth and that Mortals are Azeroth's guardians now ("age of mortals"), a class whose entire thing is "you are literally a dragon" would conflict with that, BFA even continued this by having the aspects empower the heart of azeoth, and by extension mortals with power instead of using it themselves, if we get a Dragon Isle expansion wouldn't a Hero Class who are mortals empowered by the combined flights make more sense with the Dragon aspects story as it's been so far than a Dragon taking on a mortal guise? (of course this fading of the dragonflights could also be reversed as a story beat which could lead to the "dragon in guise of mortal" angle working

No, because we actually have multiple characters who are dragons who take on a mortal disguise. It's something that we've seen quite often. Wrathion, Kalecgos, Rhea, etc. Can you point to an existing lore character in WoW that embodies the class concept you're talking about?

Pandaren culture and history is mostly just references to chinese culture and history with the serial numbers filed off, they have a great wall to keep out invaders, Lei Shen is based on Qin Shi Huang, their martial arts & philosophy are based on real world martial arts/philosophy like tai-chi, zuì quán, Heihuquan, being panda people is obviously reference to the panda being china's national animal, their names and language are also obviously inspired by china, the Pandaren Brewmaster is a blatant take on the Drunken Boxer (even his use of a quarterstaff and actually being drunk is a thing in chinese literature related to fictional drunken boxer's like Wu Song), the August Celestials are literally the four cardinal guardians with a few minor changes (black tortoise swaped for black ox, azure dragon swapped for jade dragon)

You're saying that they filted a common fantasy class who's style is already inspired by Kung Fu tropes and East Asian martial arts (and has been like that since Advanced Dungeons and Dragons added them in the 70's) by filtering it through a fictional race who are also mostly inspired by chinese culture? and are literally anthropomorphic pandas who are China's national animal, the Monk class is not an original take on a Monk class, it's pretty stock at it's core.

I'm saying that it being filtered through the Pandaren Brewmaster makes the class unique among monk classes in fantasy games. That's the point.

That's the point, they took a premise and expanded it, regardless of what was previously there or if it fit the original concept such as turning a Drunken Boxer into a general martial arts class, or a Anti-Paladin into a general "dark knight" class

No, they took the premise and put a Blizzard spin on it as well as expanded it. Again every WoW class has a very distinct Blizzard flavor, especially the expansion classes. This is why you had a Bard concept on the forum that everyone thought looked nice but didn't fit the game. This is because Blizzard only introduces a class that has significant presence in the WoW universe. The problem with your dragon knight concept is that it has even less of a presence than the Monk class did before its implementation in MoP (because it's nonexistent in WoW or Warcraft games in general).

I never implied Blizzard would copy the concept of the FF dragoon or Dragonknight from ESO, my point is that "Dragon-Knight" is a concept that transcends any particular piece of media and has been interpreted differently in multiple ways, at it's base level it's "fights using draconic or dragon-evoking abilities " Those games and settings have different takes on what a dragon-class would be in relation to it's setting, Dragoon's are dragon hunter's who's fighting style is meant to counter dragons, Dragonknights use the setting's asia equivalent (akavir) ancient martials art, both are different takes on the same concept (Dragon-Knight), Warcraft's take would be no different since these tropes naturally have to recontextualized to fit their specific settings in Warcraft's case the "Dragon-Knight" concept could be recontextualized to be a Mortal sworn into the service of the Dragonflights or it could also be a Dragon who takes a mortal form.

Again, where is this concept currently in WoW? The Dragon concept I'm discussing is embodied in Wrathion and countless other characters. What WoW character embodies this dragon knight you speak of? My point is that Blizzard would never introduce a class into WoW that has zero presence in the Warcraft universe, regardless of its presence in other games.

- - - Updated - - -

My point wasn't that Xul is a blueprint for a Necromancer class my point was that if something needs to in "playable form in any of Blizzard's video games" the fact that Xul and the Diablo 2/3 Necromancers use poison abilities is a playable form of a poison-using necromancers and is therefore fair game for the concept being translated into WoW.

But again, Xul is not a warcraft Necromancer, so what he does is moot.

And Holy Paladins and Holy Priests are holy light-using healers they are differentiated by Fantasy (Paladin vs Priest/Cleric) and Gameplay (Frontline healer vs Generalist Healer) along with the differences in their respective base classes (mind powers, melee abilities, blessings, dispels, ect). Both Shadow Priests and Affliction Warlocks are shadow-based spellcasters who use damage over time effects they are different in themes, fantasy and gameplay enough to be seperate.

Necromancers and Warlocks despite similarities (dark magic spellcasters) are different in themes and fantasy (undeath vs demonic, hellfire vs poison/bone, shadow/fel magic vs death magic)

And Shadow Priests utilize abilities taken from Old Gods while Warlocks utilize abilities taken from Demons. The problem is that when Blizzard designed the Warlock class they purposely incorporated concepts from traditional necromancers like curses and life drain in order to create a full Warlock class.

In all seriousness if you ignore the Destruction spec and simply replaced demons with undead minions in the Affliction and Demonology spec, what would be the difference between a Warlock and a Necromancer? What key Necromancer abilities would the Warlock class be missing?

[Froggy]

I've always wanted Bard but I doubt it will happen

[Triceron]

That really has nothing to do with what we were discussing. The person I was quoting was asking me why I don't consider the Diablo character in HotS to be similar to the dragon-based Warcraft characters in terms of being playable examples of a concept. There's a host of reasons why that is the case, and Xul being a diablo character is one of them. Besides, there's already a melee Necromancer in WoW.

If that's what you were interpretting, then I'd say you should probably read again, otherwise I believe you're the one who is making points that have nothing with what was being discussed.

Xul was brought up as an example of an archetype of a Necromancer that uses Bone and Poison abilities, an archetype that would fit in expanding the Warcraft Necromancer's identity. This would fit considering we have those Poison and Bone connections through Naxxramas and Scholomance, through the use of alchemical Plagues, through magical means of spreading Poisons, through creatures that are imbued with the effects of Blight, through creating magical and alchemical waves of poisonous Plague to splash on their opponents. The mechanics may not be exactly the same, but the archetype and themes are.

None of this has anything to do with a Necromancer being melee, considering the example was directly associated to the use of Poisons, not for the use of melee combat. Melee has nothing to do with what you should be discussing.

Because Warlocks utilize a wide variety of Necromancer abilities like life drains, afflictions and curses. While Necromancers don't do fel, they do Shadow magic

Necromancers don't do fel, that's the only thing that matters. Fel magic is not a part of their identity. This doesn't impact the Warlock whatsoever considering the Warlock has full mastery over all things related to summoning demons.

Asserting that you could change one class to another is irrelevant. You aren't even addressing the idea of Necromancers using Poisons in this argument, you're jumping straight to a completely separate concept of turning one class into another. Class Skins are a different discussion, and definitely not what Imperator was talking about.

A Necromancer that is themed on using shadow-based Necromancy and Poisons would be absolutely thematic to Warcraft, and some of the abilities could easily be influenced by other Blizzard games like Diablo and HOTS' Necromancers. None of these abilities operate the way Warlocks do.


Aside from this, we already have examples of Necromancer NPCs who command the use of poison abilities.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Krick_and_Ick

The diminutive necromancer Krick oversees the workers in the Pit of Saron. From atop the ghastly Ick, he can safely throw poison, explosives and dark magic at his enemies. From this vantage point, he has also learned dark secrets of Icecrown Citadel that could topple the Lich King.

Poison Nova — Krick orders Ick to unleash a poison nova, inflicting 15600 Nature damage and an additional 13650 Nature damage over 21 sec. to all players within 15 yards.

[TheRevenantHero]

That really has nothing to do with what we were discussing. The person I was quoting was asking me why I don't consider the Diablo character in HotS to be similar to the dragon-based Warcraft characters in terms of being playable examples of a concept. There's a host of reasons why that is the case, and Xul being a diablo character is one of them. Besides, there's already a melee Necromancer in WoW.



Because Warlocks utilize a wide variety of Necromancer abilities like life drains, afflictions and curses. While Necromancers don't do fel, they do Shadow magic, and Warlocks have an entire spec dedicated to Shadow magic that would be infringed upon by a Necromancer class. Remove Destruction and change the demonic summons into undead summons, and you have a Necromancer.

Necromancers EXCLUSIVELY use death magic. They don't touch the Void at all and therefore don't use shadow magic.

[Teriz]

If that's what you were interpretting, then I'd say you should probably read again, otherwise I believe you're the one who is making points that have nothing with what was being discussed.

Xul was brought up as an example of an archetype of a Necromancer that uses Bone and Poison abilities, an archetype that would fit in expanding the Warcraft Necromancer's identity. This would fit considering we have those Poison and Bone connections through Naxxramas and Scholomance, through the use of alchemical Plagues, through magical means of spreading Poisons, through creatures that are imbued with the effects of Blight, through creating magical and alchemical waves of poisonous Plague to splash on their opponents. The mechanics may not be exactly the same, but the archetype and themes are.

None of this has anything to do with a Necromancer being melee, considering the example was directly associated to the use of Poisons, not for the use of melee combat. Melee has nothing to do with what you should be discussing.

Naxxramas and Scholomance is scourge. We have a class based on the scourge and that is Death Knights. DKs don't do poisons because they do disease which serves the same function and purpose.

Why would Blizzard create an entirely new class just because of poisons?

Necromancers don't do fel, that's the only thing that matters. Fel magic is not a part of their identity. This doesn't impact the Warlock whatsoever considering the Warlock has full mastery over all things related to summoning demons.

Affliction Warlocks don't do fel either. They're masters of shadow magic.

Asserting that you could change one class to another is irrelevant. You aren't even addressing the idea of Necromancers using Poisons in this argument, you're jumping straight to a completely separate concept of turning one class into another. Class Skins are a different discussion, and definitely not what Imperator was talking about.

A Necromancer that is themed on using shadow-based Necromancy and Poisons would be absolutely thematic to Warcraft, and some of the abilities could easily be influenced by other Blizzard games like Diablo and HOTS' Necromancers. None of these abilities operate the way Warlocks do.

Again, why would Blizzard create an entirely new class just because of a lack of poisons? Especially when the main purpose of having a Necromancer is to have a class that does dark magic and raises the undead which is frankly what the DK class does. Your argument literally makes no sense.

- - - Updated - - -

Necromancers EXCLUSIVELY use death magic. They don't touch the Void at all and therefore don't use shadow magic.

Gameplay wise they're all the same thing.