What happened to this class and its skills in WoW?
Clearly, Blademaster is a type of warrior, but he has skills like Mirror Image, Wind Walk, etc, so blademaster looks like a duelist/samurai warrior.
Why don’t warriors have such a class? Mirror Image is an iconic skill from WC3.
WW Monks are closer to Blade Masters than Warriors will ever be.
They have mirror images.
The mobility.
Prayer beads.
Samurai theme.
Wind Walk
And we can just pretend Spinning Crane Kick is a Bladestorm. 
A lot of things in the RTS games ended up cut and on the floor when WOW was created. Maybe there will be an opportunity to bring them back. Maybe not.
Wait, monks have Wind Walk? Like, they become invisible?
Blademasters are like a Hybrid between Monks and Warriors. Any of the Two Classes can be Blademasters.
They should have made blademaster a hero talent in TWW. I think Blizzard forgot they exist though.
Okay, but warriors don’t have any skills that resemble the Warcraft 3 Blademaster. Grommash was a warrior and he had Wind Walk / Mirror Image
We still have Bladestorm.
They have some abilities referencing blademasters. In one of the betas (i think it was wod) arms even had a burning blade ability. But blademasters just aren’t straight up warriors as wow knows them. Any kind of stealth would be well out of place. And mirror image is a mage spell. They actually call out blademaster specifically as not really making sense:
“For iconic Warcraft character archetypes, we wanted to be sure that we could deliver on their fantasy with World of Warcraft’s classes. Blademasters just wouldn’t be Blademasters without abilities like Wind Walk and Mirror Image, but those abilities don’t fit in a warrior’s toolkit.”
I wish they would update the bladestorm animation though. I think it looked way cooler with Samuro in heroes of the storm.
They could have made it work as a hero talent but they were lazy.
Very iconic hero archetype and they don’t let us play one.
nah they just coil up and you stop seeing their feet move
Holy hell, YES???
Say what you will about it being weeby, that’s cool as all hell. I’d pick up Arms in a HEARTBEAT.
They became Arms warriors.
Mirror Image was given to mages, as that made more sense, and is more in-line with classic fantasy courtesy of D&D.
Wind Walk as an ability became Rogue’s stealth, but the movement speed would be left alone until Windwalker Monks received it as a passive.
And the whole duelist/samurai warrior style didn’t fit into the warrior archetype. It only ever worked with a particular kind of orc, with a particular kind of style, with a particular kind of background, making it a rather poor direction for Warriors which was a baseline class for all races until TBC when Draenei and Blood Elves couldn’t be warriors (as their type of “warriors” were Spellbreakers and Paladins/Vindicators respectively).
Mirror Image really isn’t that iconic of an ability from WC3. The only thing that Blademasters had that were an iconic ability was Bladestorm, which was an ability that did make their way to Warrior’s toolkits.
Basically … Blademasters were improved upon to such a drastic degree from Warcraft III that honestly, it is just pure nostalgia for the idea of a blademaster specialization that remain. Which is hardly a good way to build something meant to be far more universal rather than specialized.
All I’m thinking of imagining that is:
“My god, I wonder what kind of horrific abominable freeze frame creepypastas would come from seeing every race be distorted to try to have that fancy of an animation for something so basic.”
i see, thanks.
totally agree dude
I understand, but I still believe that at least Mirror Image could be something… interesting, having a copy of the warrior for a while that doesn’t deal damage but confuses the enemy, or at least Bladestorm like Samuro’s as mentioned above.
Kinda thought it would’ve been cooler to encounter an expanded Burning Blade clan with dangerous warriors, rogues, and mages. Instead it’s only been the warrior, warlock, and shaman in classic and warlords. 
True. The closest they get is they have Bladestorm but the theme of Blademasters is more of an agile samurai-type sword fighter while WoW Warriors are more of a typical brute-strength fighter.
You can make a transmog for an Arms Warrior that looks the part well enough, but they’d lack most of Blademaster’s more iconic abilities.
I don’t know where people get the idea that Blademasters are closer to Monk, a class based on NOT using weapons that has none of the Blademaster’s skills in their toolkit.
BMs are mainly warriors who wear little to nothing as armor. The Mirror Image is the idea that they move so fast, they can leave copies behind. Wind Walk is similar to a vanish+ambush from Rogues, but also based on speed. Chance to crit is clearly a Warrior theme. And Bladestorm is self-explanatory, being also quite similar to Whirlwind. It’s about blade techniques and fighting lighter and faster.
I mean, perhaps not in the traditional sense but uh … They have a spec entirely called ‘WINDWALKER’ 
Wind Walk renamed to Stealth and given to Rogues, Mirror Image to Mage, and Bladestorm to Warrior.