New Race/Class Combos for 10.0 that have been "Established" in the Lore?

Community WoW Community Council
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I posted this last year in General Discussion, but it deserves to be brought up again, as other than a few random Hunter races, we haven’t had new race/class combos since Cataclysm. Twelve Years Ago

Meanwhile, in those 12 years, lots of race/class combos have either been established, or heavily hinted at. These are the ones I can think of, including explanations for why I say them, (though I’m sure there are other viable ones I can’t think of and I ask others to bring them up.)

Alliance:

Human Shaman & Druid - Unlike the other races on this list, this is more a flavor thing - people want a “skinny” Kul Tiran option, but there are people like me who are vehemently opposed to that for our own reasons. This would enable people to play the fantasy of a Skinny KT druid/shaman, without taking away representation from the gamers who don’t have a “typical” body. They would just use the same Shaman Totems and Druid forms as Kul Tiran, because they are Kul Tiran. If you can code it, maybe give them Kul Tiran Racials as well.

Night Elf Paladin - The Paladin Order Hall established that not only is this possible, it is possible for them to use the Light and not Elune.

Draenei Rogue - There is an entire platoon of them on Draenor, and some in MI:7.

Dwarf Druid - With the Wildhammer Tattoos, thus comes the Wildhammers officially into the Alliance. In the RPG (which I know is non-canon, though other things from it have been made canon, like Jaina’s brother Tandred), Wildhammer Druids exist. In WoW, they have a severe connection to nature, so it still would be easy to write.

Someone on reddit (here) made some nice Dwarf Druid concept art that honestly feels like the druid class and dwarfish:

Lightforged Shaman and Monk - Lightforged should have the same classes as the base Draenei (sans the one I’m mentioning in a second) They’re just Draenei who underwent a ritual. We literally witness this in the Lightforged recruitment quest.

Worgen Monk - LONG overdue and zero reason it shouldn’t have happened long ago.

Draenei Demon Hunter - We need more Demon Hunter races, Draenei and Orc are the only two that make sense from around that time period, as both Draenei and Orcs were on Outland. Both also have Red Fel-Corrupted skins they could use.

Kul Tiran Paladin - I don’t think this really needs explaining.

Horde:

Highmountain Tauren Warlock and Priest - There would be some Feltotem who went back to Mayla to ask for forgiveness, and Mayla being the benevolent leader she is, would cautiously accept them. (At one point in questing, she still tries to get some Feltotem to change their mind about joining the Legion) They should still have a connection to the Fel, as their bodies were saturated with it. This could open up Feltotem horn customization for HMT as well. The fact they can’t be Priest is very weird, as most other races that have a connection to a diety like An’she/Elune/etc. can.

Vulpera Druid - I was surprised this wasn’t a base class combo. They literally live in the wild with the Loa. They are the biggest candidate for druid out of all of the races.

Goblin Monk - Like Worgen Monk, long overdue.

Orc Priest - With the addition of the Mag’har in the Horde ranks, some of them would likely learn the art of the void from the Mag’har. Much like Mag’har, I imagine lorewise they’d all be Shadow.

Troll Paladin - With Vol’jin being reborn as the new Loa of Kings, it makes sense that his own people would be able to draw power from him.

Orc Demon Hunter - See Draenei Demon Hunter.

Tauren Mage - Thunder Bluff literally has an entire cavern dedicated to the Magecraft. Why are they not playable?

Blood Elf Shaman - There is a High Elven NPC in Hyjal (previously Winterspring) that is studying the elements. https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Earthcaller_Franzahl - It goes to reason that after the years that have passed, he’d have learned enough about the elements to learn Shamanism - and as such, pass that knowledge on to the Blood Elves. There is also a Blood Elf Shaman, Elementalist Starion, in the Earthen Ring.

Neutral:

Pandaren Druid - It has been established in multiple sources that the Celestials of Pandaria are Wild Gods, AKA Loa. So it makes sense there would be Pandaren Druids, just, like the Zandalari Druids, they would draw power from different loa - being the Celestials. Oxen form for Bear, Tiger form for Cat, Crane Form for Healing, and Cloud Serpent for Moonkin, but as they also now know the races of Azeroth, perhaps still have them use things like the Bear Skeleton, but with Oxen Horns, the Moonkin, but with Cloud Serpent face, etc. As that way they’d essentially be combining the two types.

And now for the suggestion I have 0 doubts will be controversial, but I truly believe it fits.

Void Elf and Forsaken Paladin

Before anyone reads this and screams “The Light would make Void Elves Explode/Turn the Forsaken to Ash!” - I’m not talking about the Light.

We’ve seen multiple examples of Paladins pulling power from things other than the Light - Tauren pull it from An’she, and Zandalari pull it from the Loa.

Who’s to say that Void Elves and Forsaken couldn’t pull it from the Void? With the addition of High Elf options for Void Elves, and the knowledge we have now that some Blood Elves and High Elves are joining the Void Elves - why wouldn’t some learn to wield the void how they wielded the Light before the conversion? Likewise, Calia is the de-facto leader of the Forsaken right now, and could teach them how to wield the void like the Light, as she is a priest.

So, simple thing - make Forsaken and Void Elf Paladins available, but instead of Light based spells, change the spell animations similar to Green Fire - they will be void colored. Perhaps add glyphs for it to be the normal color, for those who want that, but lorewise it wouldn’t be canon. Likewise, lorewise, they couldn’t heal, as the void can’t restore - but much like Mag’har Priest and such, lorewise, they’d all be retribution paladins, crusaders, if you will. This is reinforced as possible by the presence of Tyrant Velhari, a boss in Hellfire Citadal. She is a Paladin who exclusively channels the Fel.

There is even concept art of this, courtesy of Keyboardturner (wowhead article about all the races)


To note: Riftblades are already in the game in Telogrus Rift.

They wield a sword and shield, 2h weapons, and have mana. Only Paladins can do this. So it implies Void Elf Paladins already exist, in the form of Riftblades.

Combinations That are Possible, but No Living Examples Exist:

Blood Elf Druid: High Botanist Freywinn in The Botanica is a Blood Elf who uses Nature Magic and turns into a Tree. Unfortunately, we kill him, and no other Blood Elves using Druidic Magic have been seen.

Worgen Paladin: Commander Springvale in Shadowfang Keep is a Gilnean Paladin. The fact he exists lends merit to the idea that some Gilneans would have become Paladins before Gilneas shut themselves off from the world.

Nightborne Druid: High Botanist Tel’arn in Nighthold is similar to Freywinn - he essentially turns himself into a tree and uses Nature Magic (as well as Arcane/Fire). Though no other Nightborne with this power appear, the existence of him, despite being dead, shows it’s possible.

Draenei Warlock: There’s too many to list specific examples, but there are a ton of bosses, trash mobs, etc. that are, in essence, Draenei Warlocks. Most are enemies, however, with the dissolving of the Legion, they may seek out allies. There IS one living example of a good Draenei, however, he is broken. Fel-Caller Guloto in Shattrah. As he isn’t corrupted - it’s proof Draenei CAN wield the fel without falling to corruption.

Note: If you do end up adding new combinations, you will notice there is one core race not mentioned: Gnomes. Gnomes currently are missing Demon Hunter, Druid, Shaman, and Paladin. Out of those classes, the ones that would be easiest to write would be Paladin or Shaman. Though there is no basis for any of them in game (to my knowledge) currently.

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I posted this on a similar topic, but I think the classes should be open to more races and to explain this there should be a small quest line to take us back to our class hall to explain that during the battles with the Legion / BFA / Shadowlands that our order needs new members. Maybe a short but fun questline in which we train some new recruits and have to show them how to use their new skills.

I would love to see more class / race combos and yes I know there are lore reasons that make some combos difficult to understand or impossible but surely there must be ways to explain these or as mentioned above change some of the skills depending on the race using them

As for implementing theses race combos, just force anyone that makes one to play through the new starting zone of Exiles Reach, that way the old starting zones don’t need any extra NPCs added or extra quests etc.

And though this would never happen, but would be extremely cool if it did, Gnome and Goblin Druid…with Robotic Animal forms…yea it’s a bit of a stretch but hey as a Goblin player I do like my Mechs / Robots!

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Honestly, I would’ve liked to see all classes being available for all races at some point. Lore isn’t a massive hurdle in the long run, because lore is malleable and can grow and change. There are a couple of exceptions, things that make very little sense at this stage, like void elf paladins and lightforged warlocks, but even those lines can be erased given enough time.

WoW has gotten so thoroughly multicultural over the years that it makes a lot of sense that someone would want to start studying under another culture’s way of doing things. This is how we got monks, after all, there were no tauren or gnomes that did meditation on the August Celestials before Mists of Pandaria, yet that was a class they got to play more or less immediately.

What exactly is stopping a draenei from being a warlock, for example? Draenei have a history of being very much against warlocks, sure, so it’s not really something they would encourage - but we have also seen plenty of draenei warlocks over the history of WoW. Just look at the Sargerei in Warlords of Draenor, many of the warlocks there were regular draenei that were converted. They have the capability of embracing these classes, and this logic extends to more or less every race and class.

I think a better question on this topic is, what race/class combos doesn’t make sense.

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To play the other side of this… why do we need more combinations?

Sure, there are other combinations that “make sense”, but why do we need them? It’s not an issue of power level gains, or equalization, or anything like that. I dont see the need to have Night Elf Warlocks and Orc Demon Hunters etc.

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It’s mostly a question of customisation and player choice. If someone wants to be a night elf warlock, an orc demon hunter, or anything else, I think it’s at the very least worth considering more options, because these are reasonable questions to ask.

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Sure, its customization, but it removes an aspect of uniqueness to me. When they added more combinations in Cataclysm it was cool, but it took away some of the uniqueness. Not everyone needs to have everything IMO.

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I don’t really think it removes uniqueness that much, because a race/class combo is pretty unique on its own. A human warlock feels very different to play than that of a goblin warlock. A night elf druid doesn’t feel the same as a highmountain druid. Every race would bring something new and unique to the table in each of their respective classes, and I think that adds much more than it takes away. Races don’t feel unique because of the classes they can’t play.

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I guess I’m just of the opinion that not everyone should be able to do everything. They can’t use every weapon in the game, or effectively use every armor type, etc.

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People want them. The extension of your avatar as yourself and character customization matters a ton to the players. It’s personal and something the game should always be striving to improve. There’s nothing more requested than features that allow you new ways to customize your character and make them your own.

As for the topic of this thread, there is nothing that really won’t work in lore. I’ve already run through the scenarios and there are plenty of things that would work. Warcraft lore is MASSIVE. Tremendously so. There’s really absolutely nothing that can not work here. On top of that it’s always changing, the world grows and evolves over time.

As for the ‘uniqueness’ Argument. This adds more permutations and options. I think you can easily argue you are making things more unique and not less unique in many aspects.

Even if it did make things less unique (which I don’t think it does), being unique is also something I really care about that much. Again, personally speaking. I respect your opinion and understand why some people do feel that way. However, I’d rather everyone be able to be what they enjoy than worry about taking things away and keeping them for myself. We’re already unique in what decisions we make and that’s more than good enough for me.

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I mean, Blizzard can create any lore they want to justify anything they want. I was mainly trying to focus on things that either are already implied or were established.

Forsaken/VE Paladins are the two I listed that would require extra work to make sense, but the implications are still there. Though, there are Paladins in the Twilight Hammer https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Twilight_Vindicator - so we know a Void based Paladin is plausible in the established lore. (Yes, they use holy damage, but they’re old god followers, so it’s more likely Blizz just didnt wanna make unique spell animations for trash mobs lol) There is also Tyrant Velhari, a Paladin who uses exclusively Fel. Which means Paladins can indeed draw power from the other forces, including one not known to be able to heal.

I mean, we have Lightforged Death Knights, which is very confusing to me.

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So Holinka just announced on stream that rogues, mages and priests will be available for all races - and that they are working towards eventually making all classes available to all races. Thank you for listening, Blizzard :>

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Can’t wait to get ganked by Tauren Rogues :smiley:

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I may not agree with that in particular, but I won’t complain about options lol.

That said - why are Monks and Warlocks not included in this? Warlocks were all Mages originally, so if Mage is available to all races now, shouldn’t Warlock? (The existing warlock-less races that have mage like Night Elf and Draenei are due to cultural reasons, but if we know the plan is to eventually make all of the combos possible, why hold off?)

And as we all know, Goblin and Worgen Monks don’t exist because they simply didn’t wanna deal with the animations at the time of MoP launch. (Something that is a moot point now as they have all the animations) And Lightforged Monks don’t exist for… some reason? (Still don’t understand that)

I do understand waiting on Shaman, Druid, and Paladin though. Not only would it be better to tackle that in some sort of story, be it a short story on the website or something, but there’s also Totem Models, Druid Models, and Paladin Mounts to consider.

Demon Hunter… would require probably a whole new rework of the Demon Hunter creation like Allied Race death knights vs base race, as well as making animations for wings, blade dance, etc. for every race (as currently only NE/BE have them, which is noticeable if you use a toy to turn into another race) So that’s understandable as well.

I don’t quite see the reason to hold off on Warlock or Monk though.

All this said, I have 2/3 of every class on my alliance realm (with like 8 level 1/10s planned to level), and don’t see myself making more. Lol. So despite people’s beliefs - this thread was never for selfish/personal reasons. :stuck_out_tongue: I managed 3 of each allied race and 2ish of each regular race, though demon hunter threw that off. Lol.

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Just to mention, this brings the unique Horde combinations up to 107, compared to 103 for Alliance. (Whereas it is currently even, at 101 combinations each)

If they added Human Shaman/Druid (using the Kul Tiran totem/druid models, which would fit the lore perfectly fine), and Lightforged, Goblin, and Worgen Monks, this would change that to 107 for Alliance and 108 for Horde.

If they wanted to even it out to 108/108 without adding any lore-breaking classes that they haven’t explained yet? There’s a simple solution as well.

Kul Tiran Warlocks. It fits the lore, and is the one race without Warlock that people shouldn’t have an issue with them adding without explanation.

In short, on top of opening Rogue, Mage, and Priest, if they also open up Monk, and add Human Shaman/Druid and Kul Tiran Warlock, they’d even back out the Faction Combos, without requiring extra lore to explain the additions.

Also, just something I’ve posted in a few threads in General Discussion, for those who believe opening up race/class combos fully is a bad thing:

There’s no real reason class combos for players need to exist in the lore. There’s outliers of every race and class in the lore. There’s a goblin that’s in the Alliance in SI:7. There’s a Draenei Warlock trainer in Shattrath, etc.

The thing is, the hero (us) are only canon as an unnamed hero. No class mentioned, no race, etc. Who’s to say we aren’t one of those outliers?

This would do wonders for RP players too. For instance, what if I wanted to pretend my character was a rebel gnome who joined Illidan, but then when she was freed in Legion, she wanted to follow the Horde? (People can say Illidan wouldn’t accept a gnome, but you don’t know that. We know he trained Naga, for instance, and he had Demon Allies even though he was trying to wipe out demons.)

This should be possible. (Which is why I’m also in favor of cross-faction pretty much everything).

Our character’s race/class doesn’t have to be canon to the story, and as such, OUR PERSONAL combination doesn’t need to follow the lore. Because there will be traitors who join the other faction. There will be say Draenei who defy Velen and delve into the Fel (just like the Void Elves defied the Blood Elves and delved into the Void). Etc.

The only real issue is when they canonize these combinations with named, tangible characters. For instance, they canonized a Night Elf Paladin. Prior to that, people considered NE Paladins lore-breaking as they don’t worship the Light. When they canonize things with named NPCs, it becomes a problem if they don’t explain it. But just player classes? They shouldn’t have to explain it because they’re just outliers, rebels, etc.

But, like, if they canonized a mechagnome demon hunter, but gave no backstory? That’s a problem. But a mechagnome demon hunter player, that the player can create a backstory for, and those who see them can create one of their own in their head? That encourages imagination and not taking the game as serious as some people do, as at the end of the day, it’s still a game.

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With all due respect… does this really matter? I have never thought to count how many combinations are available to each faction because it doesn’t matter to me. Night elves can’t be warlocks & paladins & shamans, ok. Cool. If I want to play one of those classes I just pick another race.

If you go back to Classic when Paladin & Shaman were faction locked, ok sure, that’s an issue. But I don’t see why its a big deal if horde has 4 more combinations when there are still over 100 available to each.

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Considering Blizzard went out of their way to hamper Alliance Allied Race class choices so they were even with the Horde (hence Lightforged not having Monk), yes, it kind of does.

EDIT: To note, Alliance had one more combination than Horde between Kul Tiran and Mechagnome release. This was only due to the fact people got mad they restricted Mage from Kul Tirans even though Jaina is a Kul Tiran mage and sourced many other Kul Tiran mages in the story. This led to them adding Mage to Kul Tiran, giving Alliance 1 extra combo for a patch until Mechagnome/Vulpera, where Vulpera had 1 more than Mechagnome and evened it back out. 1 extra combo is very different than 4 though. Lol.

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I don’t necessarily think lore is the main reason they’re not making the faction balance work that well with the new available classes, for some of the classes it’s definitely things like animations and models that require a bit more work. Lore is comparatively much easier to add.

I think it’d be great to have more race/class combos to even out the faction balance, but I do also think that if it does end up being imbalanced, it’s only going to last for a short while, as they have stated they want to work towards race not mattering towards class choice at all.

I’d rather wait to get more race/class combos than to get a half-baked one that doesn’t feel right - like human druid with KT druid forms, while that fits in the lore, it’s going to feel bad when all the other races get their own druid forms and humans and KT are the only ones that have to share one.

That being said, the sooner we get more choices for all races, both factions, the better :>

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