I like Undead Paladins and Dwarf Shaman, but that’s just like… My opinion man.
Also quit fighting on the AV bridge, the archers are messing you up.
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I see people touting for undead paladins a lot here recently.
I am not a lore nut, but does this even make sense? Paladins traditionally are anti-undead specialists, and Warcraft is no different as far as I know.
And shamans were part of Orcish culture.
Also homogenization and seeking absolute parity between factions sucks and is not a way to improve vanilla. This is one of the great aspects of vanilla, that the retail game lacks.
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That’s a valid argument. I can see undead paladins being more lore friendly than dwarf shaman, after all, shamanism is pretty much the orcish religion.
There’s a few undead paladin themed things in classic, although I don’t know if one was ever explicitly mentioned during vanilla, but I can see a dead Lordaeron citizen who has faith in the light until his dying day being able to wield it in undeath.
Dwarf Shaman is just there to balance the argument, although you are correct in stating that the exclusivity of the factions helped define the game.
Lots of folks on here getting in a tizzy about balance when we’ve seen only a fraction of what the first 25 levels hold. Glad to get a levelheaded contribution.
Oh interesting, well yeah that’s the funny thing about undead. They’re not really undead, but forsaken, and there is a slight difference. They still have memories from when they were human, etc. as far as I know. It’d be badass I agree, but the big issue is faction uniqueness being marred.
I always like to think about starcraft brood war when it comes to balance. Although it’s hard to do when factions don’t mirror one another, it is still possible to achieve. When it works, it’s the greatest thing and leads to endless possibilities and strategy/discussion/debate. The fact that we’re still talking about it is a testament to Vanilla, and shows that it has achieved that pretty well. Not as good as brood war, not perfect, but still pretty darn good. It’s a form of player expression too which is really important too in an RPG. If factions lose their identity, player expression is impaired, and the game ultimately becomes less immersive.
I am honestly not a big fan of some of these SoD runes, giving either faction access to iconic abilities that were once faction exclusive. Like Windfury, or blessings. I guess now is the time to mess with it though. I’m trying to keep my very old and protective of vanilla-brain open to ideas…
I think there’s room to keep the identity and share some of the advantages. The Shaman Dire Maul book is still gonna be called “Frost Shock and You” after all.
They’re walking a difficult tightrope of what folks want without getting rid of what folks liked. I like the idea of shaman not being delegates to chain heal duty, I like the idea of a dangerous paladin if he’s got his bubble up.
I have faith in the SoD team, I wasn’t expecting classic-esque warcraft to get any love this year, so I had the biggest grin when I saw what they had to show us.
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Yeah totally, the class improvements are much needed to give this game the facelift it needs to continue to be hyper interesting in the coming years.
It would be great to see the old “meme” specs being not just viable, but maybe desirable in raids. And cool to see alternative ideas for tanks and healers.
I’m also looking forward to new PvP metas and learning how to counter completely new things with a completely new warrior toolkit, but still in the Vanilla world.
No undead paladins. Even in the lore they cannot simply due to their mentality. They are all as evil as the original Horde was back in WC1.
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When I read Tides of Darkness back in the day, Turalyon beats the Orcish Horde in Burning Steppes with the Light after realizing that the Light surrounds his world, and the Orcs cannot feel it because they are not of his world. Forsaken can be priests and wield the Light just fine because they originated in Azeroth and know it from their days among the living.
The original five Paladins founded the Order of the Silver Hand to fight Orcs and their Fel magics. Not undeath; although I suppose an argument could be made that Undeath came from the Fel magic introduced from Mal’ganis in W3
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There is literally an undead Paladin in Naxx.
See above.
I’m strictly against Horde Paladins and Ally Shamans in Classic. That faction identity is one of the things that makes the game great, picking your faction is an important decision based on how you want to play endgame.
Either way, Dwarf Shamans don’t make sense in Classic because it’s the Wildhammer Dwarves who show up in Cata that teach them how to be Shamans. (Yes I know Wildhammer is technically in Classic but they would need a complete overhaul to be something useful and I don’t see that happening.)
Is Zeliek a Paladin? I always thought of him as more of a Priest, considering he doesn’t melee at all and only has powerful holy spells.
Wasnt Grand Crusader Dathrohan a pally who used holy magic but turns out to be a demon. So undead pally aint that far off. Also not all undead were evil they even tried to go back to there homes/familys but were shunned. Also the silver hands that were for the light yet they were evil trying to purge everyone. ALSO this is for SoD not classic era, Now for shamans thats when someone does a contract with the elements and if you dont follow the rules you loses your power. Just like what happend in WOD. Thrall cheated by using elemant magic and the Elemant lords took there power back. And there are other ways to make pally take a look at the Blood elfs they did it.
I’m not a Warcraft lore buff but I understand the Wildhammer Clan canonically has shamans, and dwarves in general in WC3 had some very shamanistic traits (using hammers and lightning bolts, connection to earth, etc.).
I don’t know much about the Silver Hand but since Paladins had to be Lawful Good alignment in AD&D / 3.5, and WoW Paladins are based Paladins of that era, so UD Pallies seems incongruent to me, personally.
I’m always astounded to see these conversations. Everyone always forgets sir Leonid Barthalomew the Revered, the Forsaken paladin currently residing in Light’s Hope Chapel itself. There’s a handful of others as well of varying friendliness, one scarlet crusader even I believe, but she might not be the same kind of undead.
Leonid Bartholomew was a Paladin in life and crusader for the Argent Dawn in undeath, but is there anything to suggest he is still a Paladin now that he is Undead?
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I think he’s referring to Alexandros Mograine in vanilla Naxxramas who was a Paladin fighting every step of the way against undeath. He was replaced by Baron Rivendare in WotLK
I hope they leave em the way it is. I dont want Sham’s on alliance side and Paladins on horde side.
I’m thinking of rolling a Sham and would love nothing more than to kill Paladins. =)
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I’m thinkin’ the same. Elemental Shaman is gonna be good fun.
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He was a paladin possessed by a demon, similar but different. The demons cant use the light, but they can take over someone who could.
Here we are talking about lore and tradition, yet we’re cool with mage healing and rogue tanking lol.
For the record, I’m not lol. Rogue tanks and mage healers are the dumbest additions to the game just about ever. Warlock tanks are way too retaily too. Shaman tanks, ehh sure whatever fine.