Blizz going toward no class/race restrictions

Lore Story Forum
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So Blizzard is clearing going toward eliminating class/race restrictions. It started all the way back in Cata when Blizz gave giving warrior to blood elves and hunter to humans, undead, and gnomes, essentially making every race able to be warrior and hunter, which stayed with every new race. Then I believe it was end of Legion when DKs were made available to everyone with the new starting zone. Now in the last year, Blizz has made priest, mage, rogue, monk, and soon-to-be warlock available to all races.

All that’s left is 5 out of the 13 classes: paladin and shaman (the OG of faction classes), druid (the OG of race-limited class), demon hunter (the newer race-limited class), and evoker (the new ultra-race-limited class).

Paladin, Shaman, and Druid: These classes have been around so long there’s absolutely no reason that some paladins, shamans, and druids wouldn’t start teaching other races. I feel like the hold up with these are the race-specific elements of charger, totems, and forms. This is so easy to fix: give each one a default starter based on a similar race, then allow them to change their totem/charger/druid form to other race’s forms in the barbershop, just like current druid forms (plus racials) and the upcoming warlock pet customization in the barbershop.

For instance, the starting totems should just be themed after either tauren (the original totem) or draenei, based on the race’s theme–all the elves would start off with the draenei totems, and just about everyone else would start with the tauren one. An argument could be made for humans to get the dwarf one instead–that’s fine, too. This same logic goes for chargers - anything humanlike gets a red or blue charger, and anything beastly gets a kodo. And the druids already have such great variation. Humanlikes should get worgen forms, elves get night elf, orcs and pandaren get tauren, vulpera/goblins get troll, and undead get Kul’tiran. Even dracthyr could get zandalari if they decide to open that up.

Demon Hunter: the real reason I came here. Illidan’s not in charge anymore. If the new lich king can raise more DKs, then the new Illidari can train more DHs. Period. We don’t need a lore reason like “the legion is returning” similar to the lore reason of getting more DKs just before Shadowlands. Some people are just desparate for power and want to vanquish evil - so give a basic starting quest that lets you prove your dedication to sacrifice, and you have your very obvious lore reason.

The only race-specific problem is the demon forms…but are they really race-specific? They’re just purple and red demons…one of them even already has forms, perfect for races like the tauren. With the original warlock metamorphosis, everyone changed into the same, lean, humanlike demon, regardless of how misshapen your race was. Let it be the same.

Evoker: I’m baffled why they would make these moves to eliminate race/class restrictions then make the dracthyr evoker. Regardless, here’s what I think they’ll do. At the end of the expansion, when the dracthyr “find their place in the world” or whatnot, which will let them do two things: 1. Dracthyr can be all classes, and 2. Visage form can be every race. Sure, every class will get access to a slow fall through Glide - but that barely comes into play in endgame competitive combat; it’s no more gamebreaking than people thought the Zandalari heal-to-full racial would be.

At the same time, they’ll let dracthyr visage forms be any race, faction-specific. So all the races won’t literally be able to be evokers, but the dracthyr will be able to look like any race out of combat. Forms are tied to voices, so they’d even sound like their visage race out of combat too.

Do you guys have any other ideas of how they’ll do this? Or do you think they’ll continue to restrict just 5 of the 13 classes?

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I’m keeping myself tempered since the slow pace on heirtage armor and they’ve made no promise it’ll all be avaiable.

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I recall Blizzard flatly stating that they plan on doing this for most classes, with Druids and Paladins being on the tail end, as they require the most “work” - probably graphics and lore.

Demon Hunters and Evokers are curious cases. I see the roll outs for those combos going thusly:

Demon Hunters might be held out for an appropriate expansion - perhaps the next one.

Dracthyr Evokers being allowed the visages of all the Playable Races as a Hook, maybe at the end of Dragonflight, perhaps even the prepatch of the following expac.

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I have a transmog set all ready in case they allow Void Elf Demon Hunters.

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Some classes are more likely than others to spread to other races. The three least likely to spread are Death Knights, Demon Hunters and Evokers.

Death Knights are aware that their existence is one of suffering. They are either agents of Lich King Arthas who were freed of his control or made by Lich King Bolvar (with help from the Deathlord in some cases) to combat major threats. With the destruction of the Helm of Domination, I don’t think new Death Knights can be made. If they can be, without a major threat and given their isolationist tendencies outside of war, I think there is no drive or reason to make more Death Knights.

Demon Hunters’ purpose was specifically to fight the Burning Legion and demons, who are not the threat they once were. Plus, the process of becoming one involves difficult training and unholy procedures (including imprisoning a demon they have a grudge against within their body) with an 80% death rate. There is no reason to become a Demon Hunter, especially with safer alternatives like paladins and warlocks if demon-killing is the goal.

I think the Evokers’ abilities might be tied to their race/biology. Yes, they are supernatural powers, but they are combined with draconic features and magic, so they might be limited to the Dracthyr. If they could, I don’t see why the Dracthyr would teach these powers to other Dracthyr when regaining a new identity for themselves is the main focus of their story.

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How Blizzard handled the lore for Orc Priests certainly does provide some hope for how they’ll continue adding new class combinations to races. If new classes are used to unlock different flavors of these classes, and expand on racial lore and culture, I’d say that’s a win.

Granted there are also options to expand on existing lore that I wouldn’t want to see passed up. The Gilnean Harvest Witches, for example. If Human Druids emerge in Stormwind picking up on the teachings of the Old Ways, that could be fascinating. Who knows but that we might see Westfall restored to the fertile fields it once was.

Where Druids are concerned, Blood Elves and Nightborne have Botanists to draw inspiration from, and I think that it would be fascinating to see that lore expanded on, particularly if it means the healing of the Ghostlands (or parts of it), or even the Nightborne finding a way to create another Arcan’dor.

The Shadowlands even leaves us more room for Forsaken Druids to exist, without it coming across as something that shouldn’t be possible. I mean, the idea of Druids of the Rot was always something that could’ve worked, but now Forsaken Druids could be a result of deeper connections to death. The Drust prove we wouldn’t even need to see Ardenweald druidism to make this work.

The races most likely to be problematic, would be those so steeped in cosmic powers that they’re essentially pigeonholed into what they are already. Namely, this means Void Elves, and Lightforged Draenei. With the Lightforged we can at least take the premise that they’ll delve into other powers to serve the will of the Light. In the case of the Void Elves, however, this grows trickier due to the nature of the Void. Blizzard could go the route of saying, “Well, any Void Elf Druid/Paladin/Shaman is actually a High Elf,” but then that feels like the Void Elf race loses out. At the same time, these classes have such strong racial themes that were Blizzard to decide Void Elf Druids were Nightmare Druids, you couldn’t exactly play a High Elf Druid, since they wouldn’t be.

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I actually think making Evoker the only class Dracthyr could play and keeping it exclusive to them was a stroke of genius.

I was around for BC and Wrath and still remember the population of Orgrimmar becoming 99% Belf then 99% DK respectively. And it never lasts long but it kinda kills the fantasy feel when abruptly the capitols become populated nigh exclusively by seven variations of the same dude.

Beyond that though I’m 1000% for abolishing the race class exclusion. I think it made sense for classic when WoW was fundamentally more of a strict fantasy adventure game where we played as one of the Joe Schmos you’d spawn from the loving wombs of barracks and send to their death by the hundreds in the RTS games.

At this point though the PCs are more super heroes than workaday grunts, footmen or ghouls. So the logic behind it being a cultural norm thing when every single PC is already a decidedly exceptional member of their culture just doesn’t add up to me.

But, and this is a big stinky butt, I’m only for it if they make the effort to make it work in lore.

Which frankly I think takes only minor to moderate effort. Ideally I’d like if every race class combo had at least the option for some unique spell/ability effects. Think heritage glyphs. Only I’d have them set to the default and you could opt out rather than making them something you have to unlock.

But on the bottom shelf end all you really need is a few new NPCs kicking around the capitols with a few pages of lore to explain-it-away.

Like oh that’s not a Forsaken Druid she’s a RAS Mycolomancer. That’s not a Gnome Paladin he’s a Battle Medic. And so on and so forth.

Which I don’t think is asking for much. But the explanation for the Dorkfallen, much less how their Paladins or Druids work, remains;

¯_(ツ)_/¯

So. Apparently we do at least have to ask for these things.

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That would make a lot of sense, being they are opening up the warlock, we may see draenei DH and similar fel history related races added to there roster :dracthyr_a1: I could see Orc DH being a thing.

Heck with light-forged warlocks its even plausible for light-forged DH :dracthyr_uwahh_animated:.
But that imo is a step too far like light-forged Warlocks weren’t already, but whose gonna stop em if they do :dracthyr_tea:

I could see evoker being opened up to other races, But its more likely we get Dracthyr opened to the older classes. :dracthyr_a1: also waiting for them to unlock full dragon flying with Dracthyr, it makes 0 sense why they haven’t

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Not sure if I should roll an orc, undead, or vulpera for druid. :thinking:

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I’d rather they put in effort to make a unique demonic model and demonic assets to each race

eg Fel Horns for Tauren, Satyr forms for Nelves, Fel Tusks for Trolls, etc

Evoker the class will probably not be added to each race due to the obscene amount of unique customizations

BUT

The workaround will likely be that any Dracthyr can pick any playable race as a Visage Form

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Death knights do not and have never required the helm of domination.

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Especially considering the first generation death knights were the souls of orc necrolytes stuffed into the bodies of dead human knights in warcraft 2

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Was that Gul’dan’s idea or was it Ner’zul’s? I can’t remember :thinking:

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The Evoker is the clear exception to this assessment as most of their class abilities are tied directly to what they are as a monster race.

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What’s odd to me is that far as we can tell, we’ve never seen a fel corrupted human.

Which is odd as two playable races are humans turned into something else by undeath and lycanthropy.

And we’ve seen mildly to HEAVILY corrupted Orcs, Elves and even Tauren. But no humans. Despite them having arguably the worst corruption track record. They’re constantly getting their strings pulled shoggotgs, liches, devils and dragons.

Weird nobody’s ever tricked them into drinking some bubbly green goop. When just IRL humans are the kings of sticking weird ish in their mouth.

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Blizzard is just going towards the path of no discernible coherent story. The no class restrictions are just part of that.

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And the squid people, K’thir

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I still wish the Velves had the option for that.

Maybe make it similar to the worgen or dracthyr stuff where they can poof into a more humanoid form out of combat.

Idk at any rate I was disappointed when I saw tentacles as a customization option and they were just kinda spooky poney tails.

Be neat if we could go more Mindflayer with it.

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They do play with the concept for the raid tier. Would be fun for a cosmetic. :robot: :+1:

edit: Kinda bothersome the set is on cultists for the blue skinned trolls which ruins the design.

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Oh yeah I have oodles of Cthulu mog stuff because I played the living crap out’ve Horrific Visions during Lockdown.

But I never really had a character to use them on. This toons Forgotten Shadow Cleric not a Void Cultist. His shtick is corvids. Three eyed crows at most. Tentacles don’t really vibe with that aesthetic.

So I’m hoping to eventually make a proselytizing Velf servant of the Void. Just standing outside the Cathedral of Light attempting to drown out their worship by scream-singing Cthulu Carols;

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