For the record I think Tidesage lore is really fascinating. But sometimes I’m not sure how I feel about it, and would love to hear what others think.
It’s cool to see races have their own spin at non-traditional classes (e.g. Troll Paladins) partly because I’m a big sucker for lore. Much like the Thornspeakers, the Tidesages come at things from a different angle. Their practices and beliefs focus more on a single element (water) and asking for its blessing because so much of Kul Tiran life is focused on the sea–and I completely buy that.
Having the proficiency to call the Spirit of Water should be sufficient to call the other elements too, yes? On a lighter note, during the Kul Tiran unlock quest the shipbuilder NPC says to the player, “What’s a Shaman?” while she’s literally having elementals construct the Alliance flagship.
It would be better if Blizzard gave us glyphs that would re-color all the Fire spell effects to look like Water or Lightning… little things like that can add a lot of flavor to a race/class combination. They take that extra step to give Druids unique forms/animations based on their race… they should do it with other classes as well. A priest’s Holy spells being re-colored to appear as Water effects would be pretty awesome for RP’ing a Tidesage. Troll Paladins should also have different spell effects that aren’t just a copy & paste from what is the traditional Eastern Kingdoms culture. Same for the Sunwalkers.
Kul Tirans don’t recognize “Shamanism” in the sense that the Orcs/Tauren/etc. do. Some Kul Tirans just have a strong link with the elements, many of them become Tidesages or Tideguards… others become shipwrights.
I think it was enough to give humans druids, they didn’t need to give them shamans too.
The Tidesage stuff just makes me question why there aren’t any other human shaman. It’s weird that Kul Tirans are the descendants of the Gilneans but there is no such thing as a Worgen Shaman.
iirc, druidism fell out of favor with Gilnean culture some time ago (prior to Warcraft 1, probably) and didn’t resurface again until their crops started dying after the Greymane wall was constructed. So shamanism might have been in a similar situation. It was dropped from their culture and without a reason for it’s return, it remained discarded.
In contrast to Kul Tiras, who decided to keep their old beliefs and cultures intact.
Kul’tiras questing specifies that a lot of people are born with the inherent talent of being a Tidesage.
There’s that one story about the girl’s brother who was adept at maneuvering ships through water and then there’s the shipbuilder from the Kul Tiran recruitment quest that has her not even understand why she can command the elements as she talks about her inherent connection to the ocean.
It’s likely that something with Kul Tirans–either by blood or by proximity–causes them to be more tuned with water.
The Gilnean explorers who first found Kul Tiras did so by following the whispers they heard from the tides. So from the very beginning it seems like either the first generation of Kul Tirans were gifted their abilities by the elements, or people who already had latent shaman-leaning abilities were drawn by the Tidemother to Kul Tiras. I almost don’t even want to call it shamanism, since it’s very much a unique version that the Kul Tirans practice.
I’d also point out that we’ve known since a looong ago Ask CDev that early humanity had shamans, and a proto-form of druidism. Those beliefs and practices were eventually supplanted by the religion of the Holy Light. The only exceptions to that seem to be:
The harvest witches in Gilneas, which were explained as being a small number of practitioners who barely still existed in the current era, only doing so due to Gilneas’ penchant for isolationism even pre-Wall.
The Tidesages and Thornspeakers in Kul Tiras. Since the Holy Light never really took hold in Kul Tiras outside of some pockets in Drustvar, the elemental religion of the Tidesages remained dominant. The Thornspeakers seem much smaller, composed of individuals who feel a calling to nature. Which makes sense, given that presumably most Kul Tirans have some degree of Drust ancestry. Those who hear nature’s call would be the minority who have more Drust in them than the rest of the population.
There’s not any reason for there not to be playable Worgen Shaman. Same with Worgen Monks. Blizzard’s excuse was the Worgen weren’t around when the Pandaren traveled to teach the other races. Yet the Pandaren came and taught the Nightborne and Mag’har. So there aren’t really any practical lore reasons for why there aren’t a large number of more playable race class combinations. Shamanism doesn’t seem particularly difficult to take up. Kul’Tirans do it without even knowing what Shamanism is.
I always found it interesting that it was always alluded that humans could be shaman. The draenei shaman trainer said she went to Stormwind to try and teach shamanism but no one was apperently interested.
Worgen and Goblins becoming playable predate monks. This logic kind of gets muddy with death knights but they have a different origin story than other worgen and goblins anyways.
I love shaman lore in war craft and have tried to read up on when possible like reading rise of the horde.
But kul tiran being shamans doesn’t fit in my opinion. Just like it does for goblins, pandas and Dranies(broken would be fine). It was said that to be a shaman you have to be one with the environment. In simple terms you can’t be very civilized, as if you are civilized you don’t maintain a balance.
It would of been better if tide sages were more of a arcane mage thing.
The only thing I find irksome about player tidesages is watching them hurl lava bursts. Their npc versions are basically shaman/mage hybrids. I would have been totally comfortable with them being the first hybrid class in the game, though I get that that would be a real challenge to implement. I’d settle for race specific visual effects for the race/class combos that truly call for it, like tauren and zandalari paladins.
I would love to see special adjustments made to certain race/class combos to fit their lore better, Kul Tiras shamans (tidesages) being one of them. More focus on water, lightning, and wind would be better for them. Perhaps a different travel form other than a wolf.
Lightforged Priest should get holy themed damage abilities for their dps spec (they can keep it shadow damage for balance reasons).
I always thought troll druids should get something other than a moonkin form.
Ghost Wolf should really be ‘Spirit Animal’ and change based on race. Trolls get raptor, tauren get tallstrider, dwarves get bear, draenei get talbuk, etc…