Tossing out what I’ve gleaned from this conversation: I think this would be a different discussion if Dracthyr had more classes attached to it.
I think what people want is Dracthyr Mages, Warriors, and so on. They want to be a dragon by happenstance, but they do not want to play as an Evoker, which is a class thematically founded upon playing as a dragon.
I would completely understand someone not wanting to turn into a dragon in combat when playing as a Dracthyr Mage. Their draconic nature is not an intrinsic property when in combat as a Mage. This makes sense.
But when the class is all about flying around, breathing fire, and the sheer physicality of being a dragon? It only makes sense to be a dragon.
All that being said… I’m all for Dracthyr getting access to more classes. It just doesn’t seem like the actual Evoker class is for everyone, and that’s okay.
It absolutely affects me, as it affects the integrity of the game’s world, which in turn affects my investment and immersion.
Well, it might be easier if you took away what people were actually telling you instead of inventing your own motivations for total strangers, but I guess that works too.
Just ingnore them a lot of Blood/Void Elf players on the forums are basically just super entitled and toxic like surprised they’re just asking to fight in visage form and not for Evoker to be given too Blood/Void elves
Man, I remember Worgens asking for this back in the day. The response on the forums was a loud “No! Also, you are stupid! Just play a Human!” from what were called white-knights at the time. There were some good popcorn moments in those threads. Hopefully this one can get the same level of traction.
This makes even less sense though? No one would want to play a dracthyr mage but then cry that it had to look like a dragon. They can (probably) already play mages on their preferred race.
This is an issue specifically because Evokers can only be Dracthyr. So you’ve kinda got the whole thing backwards. But also Dracthyr Visage forms are the only ones possessing all their own really neat customization options, so you’d still have people clamoring for those without wanting to be a full-on dragon. Which I told you twice already …
How does it affect your immersion, when they don’t even exist yet, and we’ve seen plenty of dragons fighting and living in humanoid forms before?
That’d probably be the simplest solution to pleasing about 90% of the people, but there’s no reason the remaining 10% cannot have the options to play in a way that makes them happy.
Are you worried you’d never see any Dracthyr Evokers in Draconic form? If so, perhaps your time would be better spent analyzing why that is a concern, and how it could be addressed?
Evoker is predicated on being a dragon. Unfortunately, since it’s so tied up with the Dracthyr race, all of the associated aesthetics are tied up with that specific class, which necessitates being a dragon.
If you detach that necessity, by decoupling the race from the class, you have access to all those aesthetics with even more options for how they are expressed in different classes. But if you do not believe that the physicality of the Evoker class is appealing… it probably isn’t for you.
Just as I don’t play Demon Hunter and Warlock because I don’t like the demonic stuff.
Nor Paladin or Priest because the Light is boring to me.
And why I gravitate to Shaman, because I like the Elemental stuff they’ve got going on.
If you just want to be a spellcaster that happens to be a dragon… why contort the Evoker class to suit that purpose when a Dracthyr Mage would be a better job of achieving that fantasy?
And we can do so! Until it comes time to (as an Evoker) unleash the full potential of our draconic power, which requires the physicality of the dragon form. Krasus in combat, in visage form, was not an Evoker, but a Mage.
And things like Void Elves being devoid of any Void thematics, or Orc Priests as Holy because the Shadow spec justifies the Priest inclusion, or any number of other things where the world is contorted to slap a band-aid on something… these take me out of the game. They’re reminders that there are external pressures and politics affecting the rules of the game’s world. Thus, it lessens their integrity, and thus lessens my immersion and investment. Why should I care about the rules of the world when the developers themselves do not respect them?
People like the mechanics of the new class. People like the customizations on the visage form. Some of those people don’t like being a big dragon, they just like those other things.
This is not complicated.
I’m gonna move on from this conversation, because if you don’t get it by now, you never will.
I’ll keep throwing my hat in for permanent visage form in combat too.
“But they breathe fire out of their mouth and fly across the field!!” - ok, fine. Treat it like a Demon Hunter when they use their eye beam or breath attack. Their character goes into demon form, and then they leave it after they’re done breathing/eye-beam’ing. Dragon-boy flies across the room breathing magic stuff, and when it’s done, they’re back in visage form. Blizz doesn’t have to change any of the attack/spell animations then.
Some of the healer spells are already castable in visage form. Idk, it just seems like such an easy solution.
I want people who suggest this to understand that 90% of your abilities make you go into dragon from. A few don’t, and only one of those spells is used regularly. You’d basically only not be popping into dragon form for living flame, which isn’t cast a whole lot outside of red build.
No reason some of the regular fire ball attacks can’t just come out of their hands like a mage fireball. Like I said, a lot of the spells are already castable in visage form. The filler spell is just some magical claw attack. No need to be in dragon form for that.
The attack where you fly across the field and breathe down is a 1 min CD. I think the big frontal attack is a decent CD too? I mean, it’s just an option. DH’s go into demon form pretty often too, but it’s still an option.
Much of the gameplay is centered around using those basic attacks to proc the breath attacks and the like. When you’re “on a roll,” you’re casting them pretty frequently. At least for the DPS spec - I haven’t seen too much of the healing yet, to be honest.
Would it not be better to play as a Dracthyr Mage? Priest? Shaman? With the ability to stay in visage form the entire time?
Are you saying there’s a way to use horns, scales, etc for Blood Elf customization? This isn’t like Worgen who’s second form is just Human, Dracthyr Visage form has a LOT of unique customization not available to the race it is based on.
