This is not a matter of ‘but I want HIGH ELVES’. This is a matter of ‘Dracthyr are not robots’.
Again, Evokers are the culmination of draconic ability and practice. A non-Evoker Dracthyr’s wings wouldn’t be strong enough to carry them for long distances, but they might be able to get a double-jump ‘flap’ out of the deal. A non-evoker Dracthyr’s natural weaponry wouldn’t be strong enough to be truly weaponized because they haven’t practiced with it. Meanwhile, their talents rise from other disciplines; a Warrior Dracthyr can stand in a fight MUCH longer than a Evoker because, well, they know how to take a hit and keep going. A Rogue Dracthyr knows how to capitalize on distraction and opportunity far more than an Evoker. A Mage Dracthyr may decide to supplant their draconic ability with raw Arcane power.
There are many facets that Evoker does not cover that a Dracthyr should be able to not only logically do but specialize in. This decoupling also opens the possibility of Evoker migrating to other races. Dragon transformation, communion, investiture of power, these are all things that can and have happened in WoW.
Except when they do, for all the reasons you choose to ignore.
Dracthyr were literally invented to be precisely what they are. Both in-universe and on a meta level. If you don’t like them, that’s fine. Drakonid already exist to be precisely what you want to contort Dracthyr into for some reason I am still unable to discern.
Both are disingenuous questions, the answers to which you have already drawn your own conclusions. But that does not mean that those are the only conclusions one can come to.
They are not, but they are precisely what they were designed to be - a race that combines the powers of all five dragonflights to support the black dragons. To become “more perfect” would be to lean more strongly into this existing foundation and integral theme, not to drop their core fantasy and pick up a sword and hack off their wings.
And ultimately, their flaw was that Neltharion could not control them as strictly as he desired to due to extenuating circumstances. Not because of anything inherent to the Dracthyr themselves.
Not at all. But this does not mean that they would ignore their inborn natural abilities in order to pick up a trade that is a pale imitation. I would be open to adding to the Evoker class to give them a melee and/or tanking spec that serves to flesh out and explore the Dracthyr fantasy more fully, because that is the only way to do so that doesn’t violate the entire concept.
They could learn other schools magic, but they already have a potent, inherent brand of spellcasting that is integral to their very being. They could pick up a sword or dagger, but again, they’d be ignoring their inherent abilities. And due to the mechanical nature of the classes, they’d also be ignoring other aspects of their biology like their wings. Again, this is what would make no sense.
In short, give us all the one race/one class combinations in the world if it means they can deliver on a concept as tightly as they did with Dracthyr Evoker. You can’t add a dragon-analogue race without taking advantage of draconic abilities. Nor can you add a class with draconic abilities without adding a playable dragons. It works perfectly.
I suppose you’re just not a fan of the race and/or class, and it’s difficult to come to terms with? Personally, I can’t stand Demon Hunters conceptually. I don’t like Elves, but the fantasy is inherently Elven. So I don’t play the class. And that’s okay. It’s also okay for other people to enjoy them.
Here’s the thing - I bet you’d like Dracthyr a lot more if Drakonids had been announced alongside them. WoW players already had a pretty specific vision of what a playable draconic humanoid would entail, mostly because we’ve been seeing a specific type of draconic humanoid in the game ever since Blackwing Lair.
Drakonids.
When we didn’t get them? The dissonance between what was expected and what was presented was huge. That, in and of itself, I’m certain was the source of much of the backlash. People took issue with what the Dracthyr were specifically because of what they were not.
AKA: I don’t want to answer these questions because my answers are destined to be horrible.
They wouldn’t hack off their wings, they would re-evaluate their purpose. Neltharion obviously screwed up. Evokers aren’t perfect. The Dracthyr would realize this and go ‘hey, our boss was a screwjob and our process doesn’t address certain threats.’ That sounds like something you, as an intelligent and independent being, would want to lean further into?
Again, Dracthyr racials are inappropriate as they are for general-use. The solution is to retool those racials and bring them in line with the other races. The old racials, like Soar, could easily be integrated into the Evoker class as an ability of that class. Instead, Dracthyr could have a ‘flying wild’ or a double-jump ‘flap’, because they haven’t trained their wings as rigorously as an Evoker might have. Their breath weapon wouldn’t be nearly as potent as an Evoker’s (or even accessible), nor would their tail slap be as powerful. Again, as you said, the Evoker is the expression of draconic power; if they don’t pursue it, they don’t develop strength in that regard. They develop other strengths instead. Kind of like Blood Elves that don’t use magic, or Night Elves that don’t use stealth, or Orcs that don’t use physical strength. It is entirely possible to go against your natural strengths for power sought elsewhere.
So they’re not perfect and might decide the path of the Evoker isn’t one that they want to follow, for a multitude of reasons; they might just want to wear heavier armor and use swords, they might want to focus on stealth and subterfuge, or they might not even trust the power they would otherwise have been gifted and knowingly abandon it because, again, their creator was a monster.
Dragons and draconic power have a 0% win rate against the ‘pale imitations’ that you so flippantly dismiss. Furthermore, an Evoker cannot handle every situation set before them.
With different strengths and weaknesses; the very crux of my argument. Evoker magic isn’t all-powerful.
Correct, their draconic abilities wouldn’t be as strong as an Evoker’s because their disciplines too them in different directions. That said, I’d like to see an Evoker stand face-to-face for the length of time a Warrior would.
THEN RETOOL THE RACIALS. AS I HAVE SAID SEVERAL TIMES.
What are you talking about? Yes you absolutely can. It’s like saying you can’t play a Tauren without the ability to Charge, because of course a bull would want to play to their natural strength, right? Because of course a fox would sneak around and be stealthy, so naturally every Vulpera is a Rogue, right?
The Dracthyr, as they stand, are completely one-dimensional and will be forgotten as the game progresses because their capabilities never expand, whereas new classes will open to the other races and keep them relevant.
What? There’s nothing ‘inherently elven’ about hunting Demons. Illidan is the most notable recent Demon Hunter, but it’s not an elf-only discipline, it’s just that Illidan didn’t think the other races could handle the training because of their short lifespans. Did he try? Did he not try? We don’t know until we do.
We DO know that mortals are capable of harnessing fel power, and Demon Hunters started mortal. So there is a pathway there for anyone capable of surviving the training. Just like for any class.
Demon Hunters have wings. YET THEY CANNOT FLY. Weird how that works!
Do the same with Dracthyr. Give them a ‘Flying Wild’ racial in place of Soar, make Soar an Evoker ability akin to Ghost Wolf for Shamans. Remove the dragon breath or make it a weak DoT for non-Evokers. The tail-slap would also scale down since the Dracthyr, say it with me, has not developed its strength unlike an Evoker.
Because of these adjustments, Evoker can now open to non-Dracthyr as well. Draconic communion, or grafting, or whatever else can impart draconic power to mortal races, including even brief transformations (like a reverse Visage form).
Regardless of aesthetic predilections, Dracthyr just feel very convoluted from a worldbuilding perspective.
Why couldn’t Deathwing make his experiments with Drakonids, thus we ended up with winged Drakonids able to have a visage?
I don’t dislike Dracthyr, but just a lot about them in terms of, well, everything, feels a bit unnecessary. If the current Dracthyr model had been a “Body 2” for a playable Drakonid model, IMO it would have felt so much better.
They exist as a compromise. Their design goal was to make dragons playable, wholesale. But in order for dragons to fit the playable humanoid race mold, the Dracthyr were created to realize (most of) those inherently draconic traits in a sleek package that played to the draconic spellcasting trope. They were purpose-made to be exactly what they are, both by Neltharion and the developers themselves, because wholesale playable dragons weren’t technically feasible.
In the doing, however, they sacrificed a good chunk of what makes dragons appealing, namely the size and the intimidation factor of their physical presence. And thankfully, the Drakonids already exist to exemplify those traits in a ready-made draconic humanoid.
You’re absolutely right, I would have liked them a lot more if they had been announced together. Drakthyr are very slick casters, but man I wanted me some Drakonid beefcake dragon warrior.
I do agree that the desire for a more sleek spellcaster played a non-negligible role in this, because Drakonids aesthetically do run against the Evoker gameplay, otherwise Drakonids would have felt like the natural answer.
Still under those parameters, I can’t stop believing that the Drakonid model + a sleeker body 2 option could have fit the spellcaster lore, plus opening the door for a third tank spec. We could have had a wider fantasy that both encapsulated a sleeker spellcaster and a beefy elemental tank all in one, so it still feels like a missed opportunity at the end.
And this is not to say I dislike Dracthyr as a result, I like a lot about them, but it does feel everything about them is a bit too convoluted and overdesigned when there could have been more streamlined.
Winged Drakonid with two body types, one being basically the current Dracthyr model, with visages that could have been any race with just a few specific customizations (eyes, horns, markings) like Demon Hunters have, would have made the race feel so much better for me.
A narrower concept generally results in a stronger vision. Personally, I had been after a draconic class for years, the implicit understanding being that it would come packaged with the tank role. But I completely understand why they veered away from that.
Anyone can hit things.
But only dragons can do the things that Dracthyr do.
Those unique elements of the draconic fantasy leaned toward what has been encapsulated as the Evoker class. Instead of generalizing that fantasy, thereby diluting and weakening that fantasy, they leaned into it narratively, aesthetically, and mechanically. The end result certainly wasn’t what I (or anyone) was expecting, but I can respect an execution of a clear and concise vision.
To have simply given Drakonid wings would have similarly diluted their specific fantasy. It’s like giving Orcs the Paladin class - you can write lore to justify anything you want, but you absolutely lose some of the unique personality of those races when you contort them to fit into a tone they weren’t originally designed to represent.
Thankfully, both exist. We can have our cake and eat it, too. We just need them to pull the trigger on making Drakonids playable.
That’s the thing tho, a narrower concept can often be polarizing by its nature, specially when it runs against expectation. Regardless of how accomplished the execution of an idea is, if it veers too much into a niche, you risk alienating too much of the audience.
That’s the needle to thread at the end, and I do think that by the not overly enthused reception of Dracthyr, they didn’t quite hit the mark.
And I do think that if Dracthyr had had a wider concept at least aesthetically would have given players more choice, which would have made the reception warmer. Because I really don’t think that narrower concepts end up really delivering when the maxim becomes player choice. Why not give the most flavor while maximizing player choice?
Dracthyr could have been a class/race with more aesthetic variance without sacrificing fantasy by just not focusing on a narrow one and instead building a more comprehensive one.
If it means validating one-class races, then no to Drakonids.
This lazy nonsense shouldn’t be rewarded. What’s next? A brand of warrior only a gnoll can be, and that gnolls can only be? Naga-only archery with no possibility of other disciplines?
I don’t necessarily disagree with your premise. A narrower concept, by definition, has a narrower audience. When players were brainstorming ideas for an iteration of a playable draconic race and class, there’s a lot of design space created within those discussion that is left empty by Dracthyr. I simply think that it is a more elegant and effectual solution to fill that design space with multiple options (namely, Dracthyr and Drakonid) rather than contorting either of them to fill the space entirely on their own, thereby further compromising both.
True. The issue tho is that it presumes Drakonid as an option in the future, which might not be the case. So we come to the old “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” for me. I’d rather Dracthyr or whatever the drakonid race should have been named, had the most comprehensive approach rather than wait in the wings for the possibility of Drakonids as their own separate race.
Cool if it happens, but it might very well never happen.
The “bird in the hand” philosophy only applies if you have a bird in the hand. I can only assume that, given that we didn’t get the “expanded” options for Dracthyr being proposed, the overhead for both options would be similar.
We have Dracthyr - to build upon them in the proposed direction would necessitate the creation of new models for new body types, new skins, overhauled animations, and re-imagined racials. At that point, you may as well be creating another race entirely. Especially if separating the options into two races results in a stronger and more defined identity for both.