[IDEA] Class Ascensions

Community General Discussion
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EDIT: Yeah, I’m Tyraerole and Vyndelea in the replies btw lol. Just me bumping my thread and also facilitating a way to put out other ascension ideas!

Hey guys! I’m currently working on a project that asks, “what if Blizzard did a world revamp expansion?” Not making a private server or anything since that’s against the ToS, obviously. Just an expansion concept.

General Introduction

The entirety of EK/Kalimdor would be revamped. Sure, it’s unrealistic, but that’s why it’s a concept! It’d focus on merging zones into larger areas called regions, and the terrain/landscape would be much more realistic (think how Draenor was done from the ground up rather than re-doing Outland).

Furthermore, the technologically advanced ruins of an ancient society known as the Azotha (an actual tribe in WoW lore!) would rise up (some lorecrafting I did where Zovaal makes structures connected to the First Ones.

Each class ascension would be based on Azothan culture. The goal of class ascension would be to maintain the general idea of each class while adding new fantasy/mechanics to it. So, for example, even if the Priest class ascension (Astromancer) has an astral-magic basis, it’s worked in so the astral magic works with the existing light/shadow spells. There’ll also be the ability to retain the original spell appearances.

Class Ascensions

To keep the post relatively short, I'd just like to provide a few examples of what each class ascension would look like. I'll give a general overview of five ascended classes. I'd like to note that each class ascension can retain the appearance of their original abilities if they so wish.

NOTE: I've chosen these five ascended classes to show off because it provides a general idea of the lore background that I'm trying to accomplish here. You'll notice that some ascended classes were subjugated or against the Azothan Empire, while others served them as its most powerful protectors.

Death Knight → Runebreaker

Chosen by the Azothan military for surviving their Wall Hadeon construction project, the original Runebreakers were chained to the wall that they so arduously built, forced to suffer as runes were burnt into their skin so that they might one day serve as weapons for the Azothan Empire.

Now, as Wall Hadeon rises once more, the Runebreakers who remain chained to it seek to learn why the wall was constructed, as well as what the Azothan Empire sought to achieve by using them as powerful military weapons.

Demon Hunter → Glaivesworn

An elite group of engineers, the Glaivesworn were an independent organization who were infiltrated by the Azothan military general Atiesh. Imprisoned in their own sanctum, the advanced glaives that they had so dilligently worked on were carved into their arms, making them one with their own blades.

Now, seeking vengeance not for the pain inflicted upon them when impaled with their own blades, but the technological innovation that was ended when their sanctum was besieged, the Glaivesworn seek to hunt down the remaining members of Atiesh's squadron. This story also explores why Atiesh was killed, and why he was transformed into a demon.

Paladin → Vanguard

Charged with defending law and order within the Azothan Empire's greatest cities, Vanguards righteously protected royal and state affairs with a little-known form of white light magic known as "albis," which differed from the more widely-used golden holy magic.

These Vanguards took refuge in pristine sanctums built especially for them by the military atop hills in major population centers. As two Vanguard groups fight over what the next course of action should be (whether to stay loyal to Azotha and continue working on the secret duty they were charged with or to team up with other ascended classes), what the Azothan Empire sought to achieve unveils itself, and the Vanguards fight off an archaic sense of duty.

Priest → Astromancer

The Astromancers of Azotha operated from the great Jzea'ra Observatory, which served not only as an observatory but a grand library as well. Here, the knowledge collected by the Azothan Empire was collected, and the Astromancers who wielded ancient astral magic discovered by the Azothan Empire conducted research for the military, even if it was morally questionable.

With the Azothan military and state apparently being gone in the modern day, the surviving Astromancers who were buried underground and rose up with the Jzea'ran Observatory aren't really interested in loyalty, but rather which organization can provide them with the best means to continue their research. Priests who join this sect will infuse their existing holy/shadow abilities with astral magic, and will gain new astral spells to use.

Rogue → Shadowblade

One hired by the elite private bankers and traders of the Great Exchange in the city of Byn'daal, Shadowblades are samurai-like protectors (not actually an eastern samurai, just the way they use their swords/daggers) who passed down their teachings for many generations. When Aalister Ravenholdt (ancient ancestor of Jorach Ravenholdt) became the leader of the Shadowblades, however, he was briefed on the corruption that existed in the Azothan military that was funded by the wealthy elites that they had protected.

After receiving word about activities such as the forced creation of the Runebreakers and the infiltration that led to the creation of the Glaivesworn, the Shadowblades besieged the Great Exchange that they had once so tediously protected, slaying the elites that they defended and turning the Great Exchange into an independent base of operations for their battle against Azotha.

Leveling and Ascension Levels

You're probably wondering: how would leveling work in this hypothetical expansion? I think I came up with a pretty neat solution that would make this experience extremely alt-friendly.

First Time Leveling

The first time you level a character from 1-60, you'll be able to level in any expansion from Classic to Shadowlands. You can do any dungeons, battlegrounds, and I even thought it'd be cool to have a viable raiding option for leveling in legacy raids. You'd also be able to level in Torghast, solo island expeditions, Warfronts, and scenarios.

When you reach level 60 for the first time (or if you're level 60 and it's your first time leveling in this expansion), you'll level your ascended class from ascension level 1 to ascension level 60 in the revamped world, replacing certain abilities and unlocking new ones (as well as new customizations) as you go along.

Leveling Alts

If you've reached ascension level 60 on a character, you'll be given the option to level your ascended class from the get-go. As soon as you make your new character, you'll be able to level to ascension level 60 as you level to level 60 in all the ways described above, including the new revamped regions in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor.

Conclusion

So, what do you guys think? I can share the rest of the class ascensions if you'd like. I just shared those five to keep things short. Thanks for reading!
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This is actually a really cool idea! I especially like the idea of the Glaivesworn, and it kind matches with the Demon Hunters as well: using the things that they were scarred with to defeat their enemies. Also, just the gruesome idea of them fusing their warglaives with their arms after being impaled with them… that’s neat.

I’d especially like to see what you’re doing with Atiesh. Definitely not much is known about him prior to his appearance in Stratholme, and all we know about the staff is that it was born from “the seed of hate.” It’s cool that you’re implementing a fairly well-known character with almost no development like that into the story.

As a druid main, I’d like to hear more about your plans for them!

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Thanks! Glaivesworn can also choose to make it look as if their warglaives aren’t impaled in their arms (just to give some customization choice). The Glaivesworn idea that I came up with is one of my favorites. WoW needs more dark stuff like that.

For sure, and expect a lot of the ascension questlines to mix with each other. In life, as an Azothan military general, Atiesh was a Soulshaper, which is the Warlock class ascension. Everyone gets an idea of each ascension’s questline, but the Astromancers, Glaivesworn and Soulshapers will focus on Atiesh a bit more heavily.

Sure! My idea for druids are Spiritwalkers, who were actually a force in the Azothan military. Essentially, the Astromancers actually disrupted the cycle of death back in the day as well, siphoning the souls of dead beasts, creatures and soldiers (ally or foe) to research. They sent these souls to be physically manifested back into the world as extremely tormented beings bound to Soulshapers as the first demons.

Similarly, the Spiritwalkers bound themselves to souls provided to them by Astromancers, a painful ritual for both the Spiritwalker and the soul, but allowed them to embody the form of all kinds of ancient beasts. Life and death certainly are related, and the life magic and naturistic shapeshifting that druids wield today comes from the Spiritwalkers binding themselves to ancient beasts.

The Ancients that remain today are actually the remaining spirits that the Astromancers drew from dying bodies that failed to fuse with Spiritwalkers, turning them into those immortal beings and completely wiped of their memories.

Spiritwalkers will also have all kinds of neat customization. You can use the existing druid forms you have, as well as all kinds of new beast/creature forms.

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I have to be honest, I just skimmed your post. However, what I read knocked it outta the park, friend!

I definitely like where you’re going with this, especially since I am really tired of the borrowed power system. I think it’s a solid alternative.

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First, looks like you put a lot of thought into this, and its a pretty cool idea overall. The thing I like most is that this would feel more like a character advancement then a borrowed power system like we’ve had for 3 xpacs.

However, I’d rather see a system like this more as an “add on” to existing classes rather than through replacing certain aspects or leveling them beyond the typical WoW experience. For example, maybe add 3 new talent rows that would add new spells or amplify existing ones, both in power and also in RP flavor. This way they would be spec specific rather than class - healers would get healing improvements, dps would unlock dps boosts, etc… They would all need to be balanced as well, which shouldn’t be impossible.

These new talents could be flavored by one of the major cosmic powers. so you could add a little shadow to your Pally or some Death vibes to your Druid (I’m in love with the MTG black and green druid aesthetic…)

I’ve often thought creating a 1-50 path through old raids as means of giving the community a speed leveling path would be a great idea - while allowing casual levelers like me to have more satisfying leveling experience.

Also some of the names your using feel too FF-ish to me.

Great concept though. Cool to think about.

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Thank you! I really appreciate it!

Likewise. Obviously, borrowed power just isn’t really engaging, as a lot of it is just flat passive upgrades to things that are separate from your character’s abilities.

More importantly (I think), they have to end up balancing all of those things with one another. Not only do we have conduits, but we have legendary abilities, Covenant abilities, and now domination gear as well.

One of my goals with creating this concept was to provide a new, satisfying gameplay experience that doesn’t create 20 million different things to balance. Since this is more class-based, there’d be much less to balance than in the past few expansions for sure.

Thank you, and for sure (for the reasons I mentioned above, hehe).

That’s fair, and obviously it’s much more realistic in terms of scope of what Blizzard would be able to do to maintain their 2-year expansion cycle. I should mention that ascended classes do try to maintain the general feel of the existing classes, so it’ll really just be additions to existing abilities with a couple of additional abilities being added on.

I think the only area where our idea would be at odds is the leveling portion, which I completely understand. It’s not very WoW-like to do what I proposed, but I also did make this concept (and am working on this project) as an idea of what Blizzard could do to shake up the game and make things feel refreshing again.

That’d be really cool! Definitely something I’m gonna look into as I add more customization options to each of these ascended classes, especially since this project makes the Azothan Empire an advanced civilization that worshipped the First Ones.

Yeah! I didn’t even think of raid leveling until now, but it’d be fun. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the more legacy content Blizzard opens up to leveling – no matter the type of content – the better. More options is just overall better.

Yup. I’m personally a bit iffy about Astromancer. I’d like a better name for that class. Shadowblade was inspired from the title you get in the rogue class hall, but I couldn’t think of anything better for that either, but I do agree.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and will definitely be adding some cosmic-esque customization in there!

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Meh.

Seems like another borrowed power system with a fancier name. Blizzard can prune anything, so this idea that a system is “permanent” only depends on whether it is both popular and cost-efficient to maintain. Even if a Genie made you the “Big Boss” of World of Warcraft for two years, your successor could just as well huck your work into the bin. This idea that a system is temporary or permanent is not something that can be decided “in the moment”. I’m sure the guy who came up with Challenge Modes, after seeing it appear in a subsequent expansion, thought it would be in the game forever, only for it to get hucked in the bin in Legion.

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That’s a fair criticism, and I completely understand where you’re coming from. Perhaps I can provide some thoughts behind me making this concept that would show that not only is it not a borrowed power system, but it seeks to break the cycle of the crappy borrowed power stuff that has been in the game for so long now.

For one, these new abilities would be earned by leveling (via ascension level). Ascension level 1-60 is fully intended as this expansion concept’s form of leveling, and is essentially leveling that opens up the game to more leveling possibilities.

Furthermore, this would be something that Blizzard would hypothetically keep if this concept were to happen? Would they even make this in the first place? Probably not. Would things be thrown in the bin? Probably. But at the end of the day, this concept looks at ascended classes as a permanent fixture beyond this expansion. I’ll admit that it’s an optimistic concept, not necessarily a realistic one.

I think the alt leveling system I proposed kinda helps keep it in place, too. Since you get to max ascension level on an alt by doing all forms of content from all expansions, it’d be something to make progress towards, and it’d be abilities that you’d keep. If Blizzard were to remove this if it were in the game in the first place, it’d remove another leveling option, which the team seems to be trying to expand nowadays.

Yup. I mean, I liked M+ in Legion, but I much prefer Challenge mode as a long-term fixture compared to M+, especially with how much worse it got (imo) in BFA and Shadowlands. I found it way more interesting, and it’s unfortunate that they gutted it.

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Cool concept! Especially like how ascended classes aren’t all buddies with each other. It’d be interesting to see class factions with conflicting interests overcoming their differences. Perhaps an attempted insurrection among the Vanguards by one of its leaders who still wants to follow the old ways of the Azothan Empire, and the new sect of Vanguards teaming up with the Shadowblades or Glaivesworn to make amends and drive out the insurrectionists? That seems to be what you’re getting at, which is cool.

I’d like to know what you’ve got going for Warrior. Seems you’re a warrior, after all (my main is a warrior too).

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The fact that you cannot distinguish borrowed power and a permanent change to your character makes your post hilarious and ignorant.

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Like i would love so much for a big depth layer added to character building and progression that offered real choice. We all know how it would turn out unfortunately.

For this game i say no more new fun ideas until they recapture the core essence of what playing wow is. That is the emergency that needs to be attended to before they should start getting cute again with game systems.

We all know if they would add ascension system under these developers you would be able to farm 500 ascension essence a day and need 100k to add a new ascension skill and you would have to choose a covenant to devote to with its own unique currency and limited selection of skills. I would hate it like this but this is the current state of retail.

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Prestige classes have been pitched since beta. I don’t really seem them changing their model to accommodate this.

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Any “permanent” change can be undone, and the fact you don’t recognize that fact makes your post hilarious and ignorant.

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Hey, and thanks!

Yup. That’s what I’m trying to get at. Old leaders who were in some sort of magical stasis surviving the Azothan Empire being buried will certainly recruit paladins as Vanguards, but some other surviving Vanguards might be having other thoughts since it’s like… tens of thousands of years after Azotha fell. The ascended classes eventually unite, but it takes a while, and their initial allegiances tell a much larger story about how things were like being in the Azothan Empire, and being against it.

Yes! Warriors would be good ol’ Gladiators. Their ritual site would be this awesome Azothan arena in Stranglethorn Vale based on the Colosseum. Obviously, all ritual sites are in ruins to some extent, so it’d be kinda like a savage, overgrown jungle-y arena.

The Gladiators… well… they weren’t sure where to stand during the feud between the Azothan Empire and other factions. They’ve got a lot of heavy-swinging ball-and-chain-esque abilities, and they essentially did their own thing. Some of them were guards in Azotha, while others were independent mercenaries. They would all come together at this arena on the coast to do battle, though, and the Gladiators hid an ancient secret in their arena from the Azothan Empire, which is a big part of their story.

Lots of cool blood/fighting stuff, though. Also, think of Gladiator Stance, too!

Yeah, 100%. That’s why I’m trying to capture this essence in this expansion concept. It’s essentially a soft reboot of WoW. You can already get an idea of the nature of the concept by the freedom of choice in leveling I proposed.

A vast, new open revamped world. No more systems upon systems upon systems that just pop up in dashboards (i.e. conduits, anima, missions). Oh, and a game that respects your time (flying in x.0 when you aren’t even max level yet).

Unfortunately… yeah. I mean, that’s literally what anima is when it comes to unlocking all the cosmetic rewards that Covenants have. I’m afraid what they’d do with something like this, too.

I doubt it, too. A man can dream :sweat_smile: hope you enjoy the concept though; it’s kinda like my last hurrah in acknowledging WoW before I detach myself from the game. Maybe if things get better I’ll come back, but right now I don’t really have the drive to play.

That still invalidates your argument. That means that any permanent changes they’ve made thus far can be undone. You’re essentially saying that everything is borrowed power.

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You seem to have no idea of what you’re talking about.

The more you post stuff like this the more you look like a stand up comic:

Next you’ll be telling me Warriors are being removed from the game.

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Yep.

WoW used to be the center of my gaming world. I want it to remain as such. But it has become so paint-by-numbers, so creatively bereft, so lacking in ambition in recent expansions… I can’t even force myself to pretend to enjoy it anymore.

But I still love the game, philosophically. I enjoy many in the community. So I’ll stick around for a while to continue to be a voice that hopefully steers the direction back to something that I can actually enjoy and have fun playing.

But if this next expansion is just 4 new zones with one endgame zone, a new raid, a few dungeons, 10 levels, and a new AP? Sorry, but I’m out.

WoW deserves to be something grander than what it has become.

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Anything given can be taken, yes. Using terms like “permanent” or “borrowed power” as part of an argument whether a new system will be good or bad is simply incorrect because you cannot make it be permanent.

They took Metamorphosis away from Demo Locks. You already lost this argument.

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Hey guys a skill was removed from a class so that makes OP’s idea of transforming classes meh.

LMAO.

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They took away the thing that made the spec the spec. They deleted a spec and replaced it with a different one. Survival Hunter had the same thing happen. This isn’t really a debate, I’m giving you the facts of what happened.

Nearly anything can be deleted if it suits Blizzard’s whims. These are simply facts.

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The fact is that you seem incapable of understanding the differences between a major change throghout the game and changes which change a spec.