I think that’s more than a little disingenuous and paranoid.
I think it would be great if we had the sleek caster healer Dracthyr and the buff melee tank Drakonid. 
1 Like
Indeed.
The Dracthyr are the first time I agree with the haters that Blizzard is pandering too much to the far left. They just don’t fit the style of WoW and its very obvious. They just don’t.
Especially when you look at how they’re drawn in the animated shorts, far more “WoW Shaped” with the broad shoulders and more muscular frame, compared to how they’re portrayed in-game, you can tell the Dracthyr are not “correct” to this setting.
5 Likes
Didn’t I see that same female in the Wrong Turn series of movies?
I will agree that it skews toward the modern WoW aesthetic in a departure from the foundational high-fantasy-meets-heavy-metal aesthetic. I do not understand why that would be political, though.
1 Like
Forced inclusion at the cost of aesthetic or setting are far left goals. It’s fine when these things slot in naturally, but there is an ideological push to go beyond what makes sense and include them in spite of the contrasting / dissonant style.
It should be noted that I say this as someone who leans left. I thought some of the inclusion worked fine, like the married horse bros, but they felt Warcraft-like, whereas the Dracthyr do not.
I’m not understanding this part. Blizzard has gone to pains to move away from the muscleheaded, armoured brutes that have typically dominated the narrative - the sleek and svelte Dracthyr are an extension of that. And given the design goals of creating a race/class that leans into the high-flying, spell-casting aspects of the draconic fantasy, I don’t see how it clashes with that goal. Dracthyr look like agile, mobile spellcasters.
I could see your point if we were talking about, say, Blood Elf and Gnome Warriors. Both of those strain the credulity of the setting. Honestly, the only thing I liked about Blood Elves when they were implemented was that they didn’t have access to the Warrior class, strengthening the racial fantasy that they needed magic to make up for their lack of physicality.
Speaking of which… Drakonids are the fulfillment of that physicality when it comes to playable dragons. I see a lot of people asking for “beefier” Dracthyr, but to make good on that request would be true pandering. Hell, body type 4 is already pandering and diluting the core fantasy.
1 Like
They have?
You didn’t notice? The shift completed at the roughly same time they retired Thrall and villainized his successor.
Huh.
I mean, I look at the Stoneborn, the Goliaths, the Drust, Muehzuela, Zovaal, most of the Mawsworn, the Necrolords as a whole and I see Brute characters dominating the landscape. Even Anduin beefed up when he was Zovaals meat puppet.
They are more of a warrior type of class. I guess they could make a drakanoid. Insert proper Tank/DPS spec names and Class name. I know they have casters as well but that would require a lot of work.
Sylvanas being the flagship character for the better part of a decade must have been a fever dream, I suppose.
Bulky characters exist. But they’re hardly “dominating.” Particularly in non-antagonistic roles.
1 Like
Absolutely not. No more single-class races. It’s bankrupt creatively and incredibly lazy.
Expand Dracthyr class selection, make Evoker (and DH) wider in availability, and expand Body Types for ALL races. This isn’t hard.
Sylvanas is just the female counterpart of the bulky male physique. She has the heroic ideal of the female form - sexy while still agile and athletic. The Amazonian warrior archetype.
What? Drakonids would make sense with a wide variety of classes. Warrior, Paladin, Shaman, Hunter, even Mage, Monk, Priest and more. Who is pitching otherwise? Did you read the OP?
Certainly more sense than contorting Dracthyr to functionally fill the design space that is already filled by Drakonid, playable or not. If you want to play as a draconic humanoid that ignores that they have inherently draconic features like breathing fire and flying… why play the race and class that is entirely predicated on using those features?
If you want to play a flightless, bulky Dracthyr with access to a wide variety of existing classes… you’re describing a Drakonid.
There is nothing Amazonian about her physique.
1 Like
She’s not shredded like Tyrande, but neither is Wonder Woman in most portrayals to be honest.
Every time I see one of these in game, I think to myself, “If this was the model they used for Dracthyr, I would have actually made one!”
2 Likes
I made a Dracthyr, and I’m pretty happy with him, but the more I see those Drakonids the more I wish that’s what my character looked like. I hope Blizz adds them.
3 Likes
I did read the OP, and Draknoids becoming playable would be a weak justification to keep Dracthyr single-class, which is abominally stupid.
Right now, the (incredibly flimsy) lore justification is that they’re ‘freshly awakened’ so they don’t know the mortal races’ ways of combat. Nevermind that this deprives an entire race of a role in combat, this also infers that they’re incapable of learning from their peers, which is also not a terribly glowing endorsement of their capabilities. These are dragon-people, not robots.
EDIT: Literally minute one of coming off the hot air balloon, the Pandaren taught every single one of Azeroth’s races (at the time, except for Worgen and Goblin for stupid reasons) how to be Monks, despite the class not existing prior to our arrival. Yet the dragons can’t learn martial technique because…?
Tone down Dracthyr racials if you’re worried about Evoker losing its tone as ‘the dragon class’. Make Soar a ‘Flying Wild’, or just give them a baseline ‘flap’ double-jump if they’re not Evokers, and make current Dracthyr racials Evoker abilities that any race that gains access to the Evoker class would have access to.
I should be describing a martially-oriented Dracthyr.
A Dracthyr with toned down racials is just a Drakonid, though.
But you aren’t. A martially-oriented Dracthyr, at their peak, is an Evoker. That’s the fulfillment of their potential.
A Dracthyr that takes up a sword, ignores flight, holds in their breath weapon, refuses to cast their inherent spells, and gets right in the face of the enemy would not be a Warrior. They would simply be a moron.