Although I read the forums often, I’m more of a lurker than a poster and this idea may have been brought up before. I know there are many that fall on both sides of the fence regarding opening all classes to all races. I have also seen many requests for new classes as well. My thought is to combine both of these ideas into a new feature: Allied Classes.
Allied classes might not be the best classification, but it goes hand in hand with allied races, so there is already a precedent in the naming convention. Basically my thought is to create sub classes for races whose lore doesn’t quite fit into allowing them to be part of the parent class. I’m looking directly at you Undead Druids and Void Elf Paladins. These allied classes would function identically as their parent class so there would be no need to balance a bunch of new classes and specs while at the same time providing a bunch of new options without stepping on the lore enforcers’ toes.
Let’s look at this on a class by class basis, starting with Druids:
First, I would propose opening regular Druids up to the following races: Human, Pandaren, and Vulpera. None of these seem like a far stretch based on existing lore. Of course, they should get their own racial models for Bear, Kitty, and Moonkin.
I propose adding three sub-classes for Druids: Tinkers, Elementalists, and Necromancers.
Tinkers will be Gnomes, Mecha Gnomes, Draenei, Light Forged Draenei, Goblins, Blood Elves, and Nightborne. I propose 3 different power suits that mimic Guardian, Feral, and Balance entirely in function but look completely different (or even just robot bears, kitties, and boomies). For the healing spec, they can shoot hypodermics, antidotes, and the like. Again, they would function identically to their nature-y counterparts but would not be Druids as their spells come from inventions and tech. Each race would have spells and forms that fit with their race’s aesthetic, such as Draenei shooting lasers in Moonkin form or Blood Elfs using the mana robot things as their Guardian form (can’t remember the mobs name from their starting zones).
Elementalists would be both flavors of Dwarf and both flavors of Orcs. Instead of morphing into animals, they would become elementals. Earth - Bear. Air - Kitty. Fire - Boomy. Water - Healer. Each of these specs would get spells based on the proper element and shared spells could pull from any of the four.
Necromancers would be Undead and Void Elves. Where the Forsaken would transform into different undead models, the Void Elves could be all void-y and tentacal-y. Admittedly these two are the least fleshed out in my mind (pun intended) but I hope you can see the potential.
Next up are Shamans. First I think the following races should just be included under the normal Shaman umbrella: Human, Night Elf, and Worgen. They all seem to fit well enough into the lore (as far as I can tell, but admittedly I’m no lore guru).
With the inclusion of Primalists in Dragon Flight, I say just make the other races “Primalists” which are functionally the same as Shamans, but with new spell visuals and something to replace totems. Gnomes, Mecha Gnomes, Void Elves, Undead, Blood Elves, and Nightborne would all fit into this category. Or just open up Shaman to all the races and forgo the allied class treatment here. If not, for lore purposes, the Primalists don’t work WITH the elements, but rather they force the elements to work FOR them. If that is the case, then I also say Goblins should lose Shaman as a class, but can become Primalists instead.
For Warlocks, I would add Draenei and Lightforged Draenei to the roster along with Zandalari Trolls. I don’t see any of these being game breaking and I believe there is precedent (just add red flesh tones for the Draenei). This only leaves, Pandaren, Night Elves, and both flavors of Tauren. I propose adding the Naturalist as an allied class. Their spells visuals would all rotate around nature themes and they could summon various animals instead of demons. Or maybe other nature themed races like Treants and Dryads or the Botani and Fungarians (if the hunters get upset about losing their animal tied class fantasy). DoTs could be swarms of insects or venoms. Chaos bolt could be an attacking bird or snake. Etc. They could also reassign some of the Warlock enabled classes over to the Naturalists like Vulpera, or make some races able to choose either like Humans or Trolls.
I would open up plain-old Paladins to Gnomes, Mechagnomes, Kul Tirans, Pandarens, Trolls, Nightborne, Highmountain Tauren, and Vupera.
I would add Shadow/Moon Knights for the remaining races: Night Elves, Worgen, Void Elves, Orcs, Mag’har Orcs, and Goblins. Essentially they are identical to Paladins but with void and/or moon related visuals. Maybe the majority of races could choose light or void on creation?
Of course, these allied races could be expanded upon, possibly even race/spec specific combos like a Night Elf Warden being an allied class for whichever class and spec is the closest in game play with visuals changed up. Or a barbarian Orc based off a Retribution Paladin with tribal type abilities instead of all the holy stuff.
Additionally, I’m sure there are some lore gurus out there that have better fitting ideas along these lines. I feel that this could be a viable path to open up all race/class combos without stepping on the toes of Lore, as well as adding some new flavor without needing to balance numerous new specs.
I don’t post often, but thought I would share.
TLDR: Instead of adding a bunch of new classes in an already unbalanced game, and in order to please those that have issue with all race/class combos available because of lore restrictions, Blizzard could add allied classes. These are classes that function exactly like their parent classes but have different visuals and possibly spell names/icons that do fit into lore (or at least are more easily justified through lore).