So, what is a spellblade? It’s not just a warrior throwing spells, it’s not just a mage who picked up a sword, it’s a totally different type of fighter who integrates magic into everything they do in combat. They’re not a hulking monster who smashes things, they’re not a frail wizard, they’re a sort of duelist who uses magic to augment their finesse.
In WoW, there’s a few examples of spellblades. The Nightborn have a whole military regiment of them, and the Blood Elves have the spellbreakers. So it’s not unheard of to mix magic and melee in WoW, yeah?
Anyway, let’s get into my idea of how a spellblade might work, and how it could set itself apart from other melee specs and from mages.
Flavor and Fantasy
So, I imagine a renaissance duelist; fancy, flippant and full of themselves. They would use a one-handed weapon with an open off hand (with a passive to give stats equivalent to an off-hand for parity), and they would be the first melee class to wear cloth armor and scale off of intellect (I forgot hpal is a thing while writing this, they don’t count). They would combine flashy swordplay with close range magic in a hectic, but controlled, fashion with a flair for style and unnecessary explosions.
Originally (insert class name here) were fighters trained to fight for the Nightborn as a special military group. They were mostly nobles, and becoming a (insert class name here) was a sign of honor/power/etc and others looked up to them. They mostly operated as a protecting force, and developed a sense of attachment to the people they cared for. Over time, as factions broke out, some of them left with who would then become the Night Elves / High Elves / Blood Elves, as they felt they should protect the people they were sworn to instead of falling into madness and isolation. After leaving the Nightborn, they continued being protectors of the people for some time before falling into obscurity. This lead to the creation of groups such as the Spellbreakers (and some equivalent among Night Elves and High Elves).
After the Night Elves found a new home, they began training warriors to protect it. (Insert NPC here who was a royal guard back in the Nightborn days) offered to train a new regiment of (insert class name here), as they were some of the strongest fighters the Nightborn had. Night Elven leadership agreed, and they also welcomed other races as they did not create their new home on their own, and felt they should repay some of their debt. Thus, the (insert class name) class was born. A few years after the events of Dragonflight, they had finished their training, and were sent out into the world to help defend the homes of others.
Mechanics and Gameplay
(Insert class name here) is a class that is focused on both melee, and magic. They are acrobatic fighters who have faster, but weaker, magic than a traditional mage – smaller in scope, but higher in precision and potency, they almost dance across the battlefield.
Their magic would be shorter range like an evoker (some spells would require melee), and their melee attacks will, obviously, require melee range.
As they are not solely focused on magic, they do not specialize in one single school of Order magic (the same kind mages use), and will instead combine all three along with swordplay to create new effects based on the combinations they perform.
Magical combination meter
(Insert class name here) will focus on combining multiple schools of magic, augmenting their weapon attacks and allowing them to unleash it in a burst of magical power. You will have a resource you generate for the three schools of Order magic, with those being fire, frost and arcane.
When you cap out on a meter by casting magic associated with that school, you will augment your weapon attacks with that element for a short time, adding bonus damage and special effects like burning DoTs from fire, slows from frost, and spacial manipulation from arcane magic, after which your gauge will return to 0.
You will also enable the use of a “finisher” move that expends filled gauges (returning them to 0) to unleash the built up magic with explosive effect.
For example, let’s say the finisher is an overhead slashing attack that does heavy damage to a single target:
- Combining fire and arcane, you can change a normal overhead slash into you teleporting above the enemy and slamming down with fire, adding explosive AoE damage and mobility onto the ability.
- But let’s say you combine fire and frost? You then shoot out a beam of frostfire energy as you swing that ignites and slows enemies you hit with it, combining the burning / AoE of fire with the control of frost.
- But what if you do arcane and frost? Well then you root enemies in place with a frozen slash as you teleport away from them / teleport them away. Combining control and mobility.
- And what if you do all three? Then you do something like Elemental Blast from shamans, and you merge all the elements into one and do a super powered slash that does a ton of damage, but would incur a cooldown period as you’re exhausting yourself doing so.
So optimal gameplay will come from maximizing use of the magic combo system, encouraging the use of different schools of magic to create the desired effects.
Magic
As we are a melee class, we would not focus on magic that a normal mage would use, we’d focus on magic that helps us fight in melee. These would be quicker or instant cast spells that are weaker on their own, but augment our melee-ness. Things like:
- All the touch spells from D&D (but tailored for WoW’s world), which WoW is heavily based on. Melee range bursts of elemental damage that can sometimes bring an effect with it like burning, freezing, knockback, etc.
- A shorter range version of blink that is targeted, allowing you to teleport to your enemy to fight them directly.
- Magic shields, similar to mage barriers but shorter duration and perhaps only blocking from the front.
- Magically augmented weapon swings.
- A small amount of projectile magic, like a minor pyroblast or a frost bomb or arcane projectile.
Swordplay
But not everything is about magic, we’re also a skilled duelist! We would have martial abilities too, like:
- An attack that does a fast series of attacks while rooting yourself in place, with talents to optionally increase parry while doing so.
- Bleeds from precision attacks.
- Lots of small dashes / jumps due to our duelist nature.
- The ability to parry (block) an incoming damage event (with exceptions) and then activate a special ability to riposte (or automatically do it) to turn damage back onto enemies.
Obviously, there would be talents to encourage interplay between magic and melee.
Specializations
(Insert class name) would be able to DPS and tank.
The DPS version is an offensive duelist that has a lot of mobility and fast damage. You could split the DPS into two specs, with one focusing more on magic, and one focusing more on melee weapon attacks.
The tank version would focus more on protective magic (to augment their cloth armor as a tank) and be able to parry / dodge attacks. They would also excel at crowd control and manipulating enemies.
Hero Talents
For hero talents, we would have themes that focus on the different factions of spellblades throughout history:
- One hero talent tree could focus on the Nightborn, being a royal guard. These (insert class name here) would have more protective magic, and excel at supporting allies through temporary elemental augments and shields (not a support class, more like lightsmith). Available to the magic DPS and the tank.
- One hero talent tree could focus on the Spellbreakers (Blood Elves). They’re more of an antimage, and would excel at debilitating effects and debuffing enemies to strike hard. They would lean more into the melee aspect of the class, and empower their weapon attacks and disruption. Available to the melee DPS and the tank.
- Then another hero talent tree could focus on the High Elf version, and would focus more heavily on magic, and empower the magic combo meter and make casting magic more readily available / stronger. Available to both DPS versions.
This class would be available to most, if not all, races. As said above, they would wear cloth armor and scale with intellect. They would use one handed weapons with an open offhand, and a passive ability would give them stats to make up for the missing offhand (and could even give the same secondary stats as their mainhand). The class is a tank and two forms of short-range / melee DPS.
And that’s it. Sorry for the wall. I know it’ll never happen, but I’d love a melee mage, and this is my idea of how it could work out.
