“In The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm, there were Grimtotem assassins attacking Thunder Bluff, as well as technicians that set out bombs. There are also a number of Grimtotem mobs that use Stealth and other Rogue like abilities, indicating that the infamous Tauren rogues can be found amongs their ranks.”
They seemed to have learnt it just fine.
The Grimtotem tribe [2] (also known as the Grimtotem clan,[3][4][5] or simply the Grimtotem tauren [6][7]) is one of the mightiest tauren tribes. They stand as an aggressive extreme of the usually pacifistic tauren, wishing to eradicate the “lesser races” from Kalimdor and retake the tauren’s long lost ancestral holdings.[8] The Grimtotem tribe fights to eliminate the enemies of the tauren; to the Grimtotem, almost all races are enemies of the tauren.[9] They are known for unprovoked attacks, slaughter and mayhem, in great contrast to the peaceful, spiritual nature of the other tauren clans.
From early childhood, while other tauren their age learn the rites of the Great Hunt and to be in harmony with nature, the Grimtotem are taught how to fight each other. They learn to kill quickly and cleanly with hands, horns, and whatever weapon they can get their hands on. In any given conflict, the odds are with a Grimtotem to emerge victorious. They do not fight honorably; they fight to win.[2]
Ordinary Grimtotem warriors have different titles depending on who you ask. Other Horde members, like the orcs, use the term “raiders” or “bandits.” They don’t necessarily understand the cause the Grimtotems fight for; to the Horde, the Grimtotems seem to be an undisciplined, bloodthirsty mob, which isn’t too far from the truth. Individuals outside the Horde who have dealings with the Grimtotems use the term “brute” or “mercenary” to identify Grimtotem tauren. Most of these individuals have never heard the name Grimtotem; they don’t use clan names at all. Among themselves, Grimtotems call their fighters “warriors” or “hunters” without any extra distinction.[27]
Some enemy Grimtotem mobs are sorcerers and bandits (possessing the ability to stealth like a rogue).
This shows the different philosophies of the various groups in relation to Grimtotem members.
The male version of the title “Elder Crone” is “Elder Sakem”.[25]
Yes there culture embodies assassination and outlaw rogues.
There were no retcons involved in making shamans available to the Alliance.
And lore remains valid until Blizzard specifically retcons it. You want an all races/all classes MMO, go play Final Fantasy.
Muting this thread, because I’m tired of dealing with people who want to sabotage the lore.
So in other words you don’t care as long as Daddy Blizzard makes it a retcon? Why are you even arguing in this thread after making this statement?
Velens son would disagree. He was tortured into submission as petty revenge on Kil’jaedens request. After being betrayed by a family friend who sold him and his mother to Kil’jaeden.
That being said, he is the only case that we have of an Eredar who rejected the gift joining the Legion via force so far.
The agruement about shamanism being reconned for the alliance in BC (and later Cata) fails when you remember that the Draenei learned shamanism from the Broken.
Essentially when the Broken lost the Light, there were many, like Farseer Nobundo, who turned to the elements for answers. This makes sense since the Draenei did live with the orcs for a long time and relatively in peace until Gul’dan corrupted them, so the Draenei did have knowledge of the elements. And these Broken shaman taught it to their unmutated cousins, and Velen welcomed all the shaman into his people.
The dwarves becoming shaman makes sense because the Wildhammer had shamans, and they taught it to the Bronzebeards. Not to mention the Dark Iron have shamans due to their long connection to Ragnaros and the fire element in general.
Kul Tirans have shamans because they revere the ocean, so they have contact with the water elementals.
In general, the races that don’t have shamans are usually those who just never went out to revere the elements (such as SW humans, all elves in general, and gnomes).
Regular timeline orcs that don’t have priests because they’re a shamanistic culture and don’t have the reverence to generate the Light. Mag’har have them because they were taught by the Draenei and the Shadowmoon clan before the Draenei of their timeline turned into crazed Light zealots.
Like I said before, the only classes that make most the sense to be for everyone are the physical-focused ones (warriors, hunters, and rogues) and death knights. The former is because you don’t need any innate ability or even a specific trainer for it (as one can be self-taught) and the latter because you just need to be raised up by a Lich King after you die.
The special magic ones are iffy because of cultural beliefs and such. A draenei wanting to learn warlock magic will not find anyone within his own people to teach him due to the stigma against it (In fact, they may even lock him up for that). This isn’t like “kid dresses Goth and listens to heavy death metal to spite his uptight religeous parents”
Some races may not even have the apitute to learn said magics. There’s no prominent tauren mages I know of, so its likely they have no ability to learn the arcane (The Feltotem gained their warlock abilities from the Legion directly).
And the agruement “D&D lets every race be any class” falls when you consider this: D&D gives players absolute freedom in their character backgrounds and that they are freelance adventurers teaming with others. But WOW doesn’t give you that full freedom. You can argue about Exile’s Reach, but generally your character is an adventurer that is also conscripted to serve in your faction’s military. Your background is generally based on your racial background: if you’re a Draenei, you’re from Velen’s ship; if you’re a Goblin, you’re a member of the Bilgewater Cartel; if you’re a (SW) human, you’re from Stormwind
This has basically being a thing since Wrath. I mean the Alliance side of Borean Tundra begins with you formally enlisting into the military. Although your past deeds gets you a free ticket to see the General.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Enlistment_Day
Draenei the race that was entirely retconned and then had several smaller ones throughout the years? The broken were random killable mobs in the swamp of sorrows before retconned to relevancy in TBC with the whole separation of light thing. The funny thing is that isn’t even the biggest one Blizzard has done.
With the amount of constant retconns blizzard does there really isn’t any reason why certain race class combos cant exist.
I generally fall in the “let everyone be everything” camp, but I also like to have lore flavor for various race/class combos. I really don’t think there’s a single race/class combo that couldn’t get its own lore explanation and flavor.
Nuuri still hasn’t been revealed 
Also I’m a big fan of the double agent that chilled in the Dalaran sewers.
According to the 10.0 leaks, the next race is Black Dragons and they can be only the original vanilla classes.
Taking this with a grain of salt, the leak says they have a humanoid form and a dragonic form (like the worgen), and it sounds like they’ll be a neutral race like pandas.
If by some chance we are getting dragons (and not a class as I have suggested as an idea), there’s going to be some lore explaining why they can be that.
Warrior, Rogue, Hunter: Easy. They’re physical-trained classes. No special magic, racial conditions, or cultures against them.
Mage, Druid, Priest: I’m guessing since Wrathion is behind the resurgence of uncorrupted black flight, he may have done a little experimenting, adding a touch of his cousins from other flights in the mix.
Shaman: A lot of dragon magic is similar to, if not actual, shamanism. So, this is no stretch in lore here.
Warlock: Wrathion is the type to do whatever it takes. So having his new brood learn fel magic isn’t too much of a stretch.
Paladin: Uh…I guess if a dragon can be a priest, they can be a paladin. There’s probably no mental or physical barriers to it.
And probably why they’re not the added classes since then:
Death Knight: Neither Arthas or Bolvar have raised a dragon that can be in humanoid form. (Arthas tended to keep his dragons icy and boney)
Monk: Wrathion has been probably doing this since Cata, so he probably never got a chance to snatch a monk trainer (the leak suggests he’s been kidnapping trainers all over Azeroth to teach his kin how to fight like mortals)
Demon Hunter: Easy. Wrathion doesn’t know how to make them, as only Illidan and the Illidari know and keep the secret to themselves.
Until this is confirmed or debunked, this is just my speculation.
I think this new Dragon Race is Blizzards answer to restriction free combos, if said race has two forms like Worgens and can come with the ability to fight in combat as either form, unlike Worgens who have the shift back, this essentially gives players the Race restriction free class they sort of been asking for with a slight twist.
Select Dragon Race, pick the humanoid race you’d like, just fight as the humanoid side.
1- Make each race have maximum 2-3 class restrictions. Ej: Draenei cannot be DH or Warlock.
2- Make racials to enhance 2-3 “signature” classes. Ej: Draenei Paladins & Discipline Priests shields are 10% more efective or your heals have a 3% chance to autocast Gift of the Naaru.
Follow the lore. Or at least it has to make sense, like you stated in your post.
But I do advocate for expanding specs/ adding more classes. Specially utility type. Doesn’t have to be top of the boards on healing/damage, but it boosts its raid/party to compensate. For example, wind fury totem in classic, shams ain’t op on the meters for dps…. But your dayumedddd sure that totem is up.
Honestly that is beyond a terrible idea. Just open more class/race combos.
This whole concept of being able to play as any race as a race that can choose their form would be insanely out of line with what Blizzard usually gives players in terms of aesthetics.
Assuming we do get dragonflights as a playable race I highly doubt this would be a racial because its absolutely insane. Most of them choose a more elf appearance in the lore so that is most definitely what you are getting.
How Far Should Classes Go For Race Acessibility?
No limits. It’s far past time at this point. They’ve already made questionable race/class unlocks at this point, let’s go all the way. Plus their soon-to-be brother ESO has no race/class limits either.
If you can support/like, and everyone else, would be much appreciated.
If we can what?
was in a rush and didn’t complete the text sorry haha
Ahh ok. I love the thread just don’t have a character on EU to like/respond. But yea I would love nightborne druids.
The Nightborne also tend to use summon elementals. They use water magic like shamans already to a degree.
Azshara’s weapon was a nice resto artifact weapon. The highborne seemed to have a shamanistic connection before they got turned to naga. Or at least using elemental magics. Not necessarilly the spiritual kind of shamanism of orcs but the magics. If you take a look around the starting nighthold on nightborne characters you see them already using water magics. I would love to use them as shamans, they most certsinly need more races that use that magic racial.
I support nightborne as botanists. I would like a more arcane take on druidism. As your thread mentions the drust which is also a more death based take on life.
Botanists would reflect more the arcane in the balance trees. Maybe botanists initially wanted to force nature magic via arcane magic. Then overtime learned to fully embrace nature magics as its own form and work toward a balance. I personally would love druid on nightborne since they are about stars and the sun. Solar magics and we saw them using star magics in the nighthold. Star augors and his wing you see all sorts of astral magics and then the nature based ones.
Would love a tel’arn like boomkin form.
An arcan’dor based treant form would be cool.
Mana saber and mana bear form would be cool.
A nice travel form would maybe be some of the sea life close to the nighthold. A big mana fish/koi maybe?
There seem to be stags nearby so that seems like a nice fit for a base travel form. In my mind I imagine a mana stag with mana crystal like structures surrounded or being its horns. The mana tattoos would be a nice touch on all the forms, maybe adding an ethereal sort of effect for the mana forms to show its more arcane based forms.
A botanist may also be considered a class skin which is an idea floating around the community. A non-tradtional way to introduce to other druidism to other races perhaps like gnomes, dark iron, humans, dranei, undead (although I think they should already get access to drust versians via undead kul tirans raised in the fourth war), orcs, blood elves, goblins, maghar orcs, vulpera.