The focus of Wrath of the Lich King was the Lich King… and his wrath. Death Knights tied into that fantasy. Ulduar was not the focus of the expansion.
And Demon Hunter definitely stepped on the Warlock’s toes. In that case, however, it was justified - the Demon Hunter class is something relatively unique and iconic to the WarCraft setting. A Necromancer specifically, though? They’ve never been a key element of the franchise. That is, other than how they’ve been subsumed by the Death Knights.
As long as they can have shouts as skills.
Better start trying to save those Dragonborn names.
i’m down.
i want a flight form though.
full draconic mayhem
Cool concept, appreciate you taking the time to share it with us.
I personally really like the idea of mixed melee/ranged class that switches between the two constantly throughout the fight. Done in a way that it doesn’t over shadow the weaknesses that those individual archetypes would result in a pretty interesting class to play, especially if there were slight ways to moderate when you would swap (not complete control) where you could optimise as a skilled player of the class.
Concepts for healer and tank also sound interesting, I have concerns for how it would impact their balance on a lot of modern encounter mechanics (especially tank) which include reasonable movement. Although I’m sure if something like this eventuated that would be thought through with reasonable means of reacting around it. (otherwise certain encounters would simply make it unviable)
Nah, I’m convinced Tinker is next on the line. This is an extremely popular class stereotype that Blizzard still hasn’t filled after 15 years, its class fantasy has a lot of potential for awesome skills (how awesome would it be to have a flame thrower or a mech in WoW?), and it is deeply ingrained into the lore of several races (mainly gnomes and goblin, but dwarves and orcs have good engineering skills as well.) It would be a wonderful addition to World of Warcraft.
I think the game will be ripe for a completely new class concept (like your idea) once Tinker is out though. Bard’s class fantasy is too narrow (how do you make 2-3 specs out of just playing music??) and as you say Necromancer’s fantasy is already filled by Death Knight.
Thanks!
And yeah, I suggest scoping out FFXIV’s Red Mage for a close idea of what I have in mind for a DPS spec, as far as gameplay goes. As for the visual style, the Red Mage would embody precision and finesse, whereas the Dragonsworn would embody a primordial battlelust, but in terms of mechanics… that’s an avenue of gameplay we haven’t seen explored in WoW.
I would also like to see talents that drastically alter their gameplay. Once you have the feel for the ranged build and melee burn, offer talents that change it up a bit. Maybe one eliminates the need to enter melee, another extends melee uptime drastically.
As for the tank… my vision of that isn’t as easy to explain. Perhaps ensuring that they are more of a “ranged” tank than other classes - akin to SW:TOR’s Trooper or Bounter Hunter - would lend some flavour to them, particularly if they require that self empowerment to gain access to their ranged abilities.
But yeah, I’m more in it for the concept and lore behind the idea than any kind of actual class design. If anything, such an open concept, free of preconceptions, would allow the developers the freedom to do some interesting things.
I shall certainly take a look at the red mage.
One thing of note with you mentioning it being more of a “ranged” tank than others. Whilst a lot of people would love to see and ranged tank, and I think it would be a cool concept, it’s important to realise that it is not entirely feasible in todays gamescape (outside of specific encounters like Restless Cabal), strictly speaking, whilst you as a tank might want to be at range, the boss themselves are designed around wanting to be in melee.
Inevitably you would simply still be a “ranged” tank standing in melee with the boss.
True enough, but you would be amazed at how satisfying it can be to hit up any target with any of your abilities without having to worry about constantly closing the gap.
Bards is dumb, no playable bard type NPCs ingame anyway.
Tinker?
Possible, as Island expeditions seem to have some NPC with Tinker type abilities, continually putting out cannons and droids…things like that.
But not likely, as it is like an Engineer.
Necromancer?
We already have Warlocks.
Warlocks are like Necromancers anyway.
Dark Ranger?
Those are just Hunters.
We have have a Mail class using bows/guns.
I love everything about this. I love the dragon lore, and honestly have always wanted a draconic race/class. People are expecting a tinker class, but honestly I can’t imagine it filling any fantasy that isn’t filled by hunters. And with the draconic focus, MAYBE we can get wings that can function as a mount! please. blizzard. id give anything
The thing with Tinker is that we already have those things. I have several mechanical mounts, including at least one shredder. I can make Goblin Dragon Guns (ie. Flamethrowers). I can wear the goofy tech goggles, use a gun, and send robots into battle.
The fantasy is already there. It might not be in a form that people accept, but it is there nevertheless.
And I’ll eat my hat the day that Goblins and Gnomes are carrying an expansion thematically.
Survival is a primitive spear hunter(early humans like before guns and swords) with a crossbow for added effect. Hunters irl actually used this method early in history…using a spear as main weapon but a bow to slow target down.
Congratulations! You seem to have a better grasp of the specialization’s intent and concept than the developers!
I doubt that the next class will be something that a single player invented in a forum post, but I appreciate the time and effort you put into this. The most that would come of this is if they used your ideas as a general basis for a future class, without crediting you, of course. That would be a success, in my eyes, for the player base as a whole.
This is not a bad idea. We could get battle mages as fourth spec for mages, we could get a true second range spec for hunters, we could a sword and board spec dps spec for warriors, we could a pure necromancer-caster spec for DK.
Also we could get specifics fourth specs based on the lore of every race, for example:
Spellbreaker as a four spec for Blood Elves warriors.
Priestess of Elune as a four spec for Night Elves priests.
The already mentioned Tinker as a four spec for Goblins and Gnomes warriors.
And so on.
Will never happen. Never has, never will. Bring on more classes! Moar options are always better.
I’ve been thinking about a similar thing for years, but I called it dragonborne. They are more hybrid with dragons. The biggest negative is that I’m not sure they are in the Warcraft universe anywhere. The racial would be basically calling some form of dragon aspect, based on class or which aspect was chosen (like Embrace of the Loa).
The GREAT thing about it is that this could potentially SAVE the dragonflights if done correctly!
It’s less invention on my part, more speculation. Dragonsworn is already a part of the lore. They’re represented in a few places in-game. As for mechanics, that’s just a little indulgence. I’m no game designer.
Necromancer sounds cool and all…but wouldn’t the Death Knight already cover this??
I feel a lot of classes have a chewy or crunchy counter part and necromancers would continue this
Pali :: Priest
Demon Hunter :: Warlock
Monk :: Shaman
Warrior :: Mage (Because they are exact opposites)
Death Knight :: Necromancer