This thread is about the request for forest trolls being playable on the Horde in the form of customization for Darkspear, which is much more likely, or possibly as a unique race, which would be much more appropriate. Sadly, unlike what many think, forest trolls were not confirmed for Shadowlands, and did not end up becoming playable.
Contents
- Why they aren’t confirmed, or suggested by datamining
- Why they should be playable
- As a unique race, opposed to customization
They weren’t ever confirmed, nor suggested via datamining
At BlizzCon 2019, as we all know, new customizations were shown off as a new feature for Shadowlands. Customizations were shown for four races; dwarves, trolls, undead, and humans. There were three new troll skins shown off, and they are thus confirmed. The first of those skins is the same used by Farraki sand trolls. The middle one is similar to a dark troll skin (it’s darker than the current one we’ve seen used by a dark troll). The third skin is a light blue jungle troll skin, ice troll skins are much lighter. None of the three were forest trolls. Nothing official regarding troll skins has been shown since, so forest trolls are not confirmed. Here’s the three skin tones shown off:
However, the main reason people believed that forest trolls were confirmed is because of the Wowhead datamining post regarding troll customizations. (For one, remember datamining =/= confirmed.) The post did indeed show a forest troll skin, however, it was only shown for female war paints. No new female troll skins were datamined, as none were shown under the playable skins area. There were three male skins datamined though, and they were the ones shown off at BlizzCon.
There’s another dataminer who was datamining new customizations, her name is Keyboardturn. You can find her Twitter here.
Ever since she began datamining customizations, she started a YouTube channel where she showcased what she’s found. She made a video about trolls, and in the comments she stated that she hadn’t found any evidence that those forest troll skins will be playable, and that the Wowhead post just used them to better showcase war paints. Here is an image of the comment where she says this:
The green skin was sadly just previewed on wowhead for the purposes of showing the tattoos and I believe many were mislead to believe it would become a player option. I’ve not found any evidence yet that the green skin will be a player option. They really should be however, considering the Revantusk and even the tenuous alliance with the Amani and Zandalari.
And here is the video where she says this:
This was further confirmed by a Wowhead mod saying it wasn’t datamined yet either.
There is no evidence of the skin tone - the staff team chose to display the skin tone for models, sorry for misleading
Taken from here.
So, forest trolls weren’t not confirmed, nor was anything besides lore suggesting they’d be playable.
That leads me into the main part of the post, why they should be playable.
Why they should be playable
There are several reasons:
- Reason One: Forest trolls have been a part of the Horde in the past, they’re very iconic.
- Forest trolls were a part of the Horde in the Second War. There was an old article by Blizzard regarding troll tribes, it gave a list of all troll tribes and a brief summary. Under the summary of almost each forest troll tribe, it says all forest trolls allied with the Horde in the Second War, so it wasn’t just the Amani.
This article was deleted when the WoW website was remade, but you can find it on Wayback here.
In the WC2: Tides of Darkness ending cinematic for the Horde, you can briefly see forest trolls when they rush into the keep after it’s breached.
- Reason two: forest trolls are still allied to the Horde
- Forest trolls are still allied to the Horde, contrary to what many think. There is still one tribe of forest trolls still with the Horde, that tribe is the Revantusk in the east Hinterlands. They, like all forest trolls, joined the Horde in the Second War, and left after Doomhammer decided to go for Lordaeron instead of sieging out Silvermoon. During the period between the Second War and Classic their fate is unknown. However, in Classic, they agreed to a pact of mutual cooperation, and since at least Cataclysm have been officially allied with the Horde, according to this quest dialogue. There’s also plenty of dialogue that shows that they’re a very loyal tribe, as shown here, from BfA.
That’s just scratching the surface. There’s even more dialogue from the Hinterlands. Here is a post containing all of that dialogue.
- Reason Three: Alliance are getting Wildhammer options for dwarves
- The Wildhammer live in the Twilight Highlands and Hinterlands. However, their capital, Aerie Peak is in the Hinterlands, where the Revantusk live. According to that old article from earlier, the Revantusk and Wildhammer are long standing enemies, and since the Cataclysm revamp of the Hinterlands you can see the two fighting. Wildhammer dwarves and Revantusk forest trolls would make an excellent pair, they’re both from the Hinterlands and both enemies, even if the Horde and Alliance are at peace now. Revantusk are to Wildhammer as orcs are to humans.
So, forest trolls make perfect sense to be playable for the Horde.
I’ll finish off this post by humoring the idea of a unique forest troll AR even though I know it’s extremely unlikely to happen. But, it is the better solution over customization, even if it is the much less likely one.
As a separate race instead
Seeing as forest trolls are culturally and historically very distinct from the Darkspear jungle trolls we have playable (and the Zandalari, too), it’d make much more sense to have them as a unique race, rather than customization. The things that’d come from them being their own unique race instead of customization includes:
- Having their own voicelines, which includes stuff like flirts and jokes.
- Having their own racials.
- They could have their own racial capital.
- They could have their own set of classes.
- Their own racial mount.
- They’d have an opportunity for more unique forest troll based customization.
Here’s my ideas for everything:
Racial abilities
I don’t have many ideas, only two. What I propose:
- Extra resistance to nature damage, called something like “Natural affinity”
- An entropic embrace style of berserking. Whenever you do damage/healing, you have a chance to berserk, and randomly throw axes at nearby enemies in combat with you for damage.
Racial capital
A racial capital is not a requirement for races, because of several races, like Mag’har or Lightforged Draenei. If the Revantusk were to get a racial capital though, the best candidate I see is Jintha’alor.
In the Hinterlands storyline, with the help of the Horde, the Revantusk did attack and probably conquer Jintha’Alor. The only reason we don’t know if the Revantusk did actually conquer Jintha’Alor is because Alliance do the same quests as Horde, just without their quest givers talking about claiming it at the end as Primal Torntusk does for the Horde, and because nothing is ever reflected in game after you do those quests as Horde. (Explained better here)
Available classes
My list:
Warrior, hunter, rogue, priest, shaman, druid, death knight, and monk.
Hunter starting pet
Forest trolls are known to tame lynxes, dragonhawks, bears, and crocolisks, but seeing as blood elves start out with dragonhawks those are ruled out.
Shaman totems
Having forest troll shaman totems have vegetation such as moss or algae growing on them would be one way to distinguish forest troll totems and make them quite unique. Forest trolls are known to have moss, algae, and other small forms of vegetation grow on their skin. We know this from an archaeology artifact, and that old article from earlier.
Druid Forms
Ideas from myself and others in this thread:
Cat form:
Lynx
Bear form:
A unique forest troll style of bear
Moonkin form:
- A thunder eagle of some sort, stemming from the loa Akil’zon. Currently Akil’zon has no thunder element, but lore could be expanded.
- A bat style of moonkin, similar to Zandalari.
- A dragonhawk form, as Dragonhawks have some celestial nature.
- A unique forest troll form of moonkin. There are moonkin in the Hinterlands, where the Revantusk are from, but they have no relation currently. This is an area where lore would need to be expanded for it to make sense.
Aquatic Form:
- Eel
- Salmon
- Otter
Land Travel Form:
- Possibly raptor, I haven’t been able to come up with a better idea.
Flight Form:
- Dragonhawk, if not used for moonkin.
- Bat
- Eagle
Racial mount
Since all races come with a mount(s), forest trolls would need one too. My vote, lynx, since it’d be very unique since we have no lynx mount yet. Dragonhawk is ruled out since it’s a flying mount, and AR/core reputation mounts aren’t flying mounts. Crocolisks and bears are also a possibility.
Unique forest troll customization
- Since forest trolls’ green skin comes from the moss and algae growing on their skin, getting larger growths of that and darker green spots (sort of like freckles) would be cool.
- Unique nature related jewelry, like bones mixed with vines and bark.
- Unique hair styles, in particular, the Zul’jin style mohawk, it’s already used by forest trolls in game and is very iconic to them.
- Talon-like fingers, a few forest trolls have been seen with this feature.
- A larger variety of skin tones, instead of just one or a small few tones.
- Beards, but this should be for all trolls.
- The muscular, burly model most forest troll in game have. Doomhammer described forest trolls as having the size and strength of ogres, which means lorewise forest trolls are around roughly tauren or Zandalari height, and currently, the bulky model is orc sized. The bulky model as of right now is male only too, females should get a bulky model as well.
- Golden tusks, the upgraded troll axe thrower unit in WC2 had them in their unit icon, but this should be expanded to all trolls like beards.
- Unique forest troll war paint. Example from Reddit of what it could look like. (Original page here.)
- Ear size, but this should be for all long eared races.
