Spellblade would be a melee-midrange class (I’d even take 4th Mage spec, though I’d prefer a whole class) utilizing cloth armor and instant/short cast time spells and empowered strikes.
“But Sam!” You might say, “That’s just DK!”
WRONG
DK is plate, melee, and DUMB. The fantasy of DK is based around disease, whereas the fantasy of Spellblade is based around flashy spells and magic combos.
The closest analogy would probably be Enhancement Shaman, but Shaman is dumb too. I don’t want lightning bolts, I want POINT BLANK FIREBALLS TO THE FACE.
I also want it to be a class because defensively weaving magical shielding as a tank is cool.
I would appreciate it if this was made Blizz’s number one priority, thanks.
As a more serious answer:
Bring back ‘On Next Melee’ for fire/frost empowered hits. So the FIREBALL TO THE FACE would give an empowered next melee hit of a fire DoT, with the frost spell or empowered melee interacting with that DoT in some way.
The resource could be fire/frost/something else? charges a la old DK runes, where they’re charged either via some other action or over time.
Primary combat mobility could be an antiblink based on Transcendance, where they can lay out shorter duration teleport zones, or something like a Door of Shadows delayed blink as a class ability.
There’d be overlap, because every class has overlap, but Shaman and DK both have elements to them and their playstyle that I just don’t find fun and leaning more into a mage flavor is just something I find very appealing. I’m neither intelligent nor a dev… But I want it.
I’d love to see a spellblade, but if I were to design it I would probably focus primarily on an arcane/melee theme and not have point blank damage spells to avoid it basically just being a reskinned Elemental Shaman.
I really want point blank fireballs to the face. SHAMAN DON’T DESERVE THEM THEY’RE NOT COOL ENOUGH
But really I feel like there should be a way for these things to exist without stepping too much on each other. Rogues get to cast Gun without it robbing from Shaman, so there has to be some ground where they’re comfortably separate.
Eh, like it or not mixing fire/cold with melee is already an Elemental Shaman thing.
Which there is overlap between classes sure, but what you’re asking for here is basically just Elemental Shaman 2.0. Especially being that you’re just asking for Lightning Bolts to the face to be replaced with Fireballs to the face.
If they’re gonna make a new class that already kind of close to a current spec in theme, they should at least try to make it different.
Yeah, definitely agree! I mean it could lean more into the combo side of things, like Fire-Frost-Fire triggers a cool detonation or something. If Shaman is Primal Fury, then what I’m asking for would be more of an intricate, smooth combat style. Words are hard. But I think there could be lots of room to differentiate by people much smarter than me!
SHAMAN DON’T DESERVE THEM THEY’RE NOT COOL ENOUGH