Restoring & Extending Class Identity in WoW

Community General Discussion
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I feel over the years — or within the ‘Legion’ expansion especially (via order-halls), a handful of class-identities or the lore revolving around particular classes have been either:

  • Homogenised
  • Over simplified.
  • Diminished
  • or just outright forgotten & ignored …

I’d like to make this thread towards discussing the facets of various classes and what could be brought forward or emphasised in the class identity to bring back some long-missed or hoped-for identities within them …

:pray: :sparkles: Priests

I made another thread recently discussing a handful of my irks with the class-identity with priests specifically, but I’ll try keep the subject of priests short in this thread — I feel a promising matter to restoring or improving priests class identity would be:

  • Shadow: To bring back ‘Shadow’ as its own individual thing, separate from the void. Whether that’s various dark magics, voodoo and mysterious powers of the infinite nether untouched by demons or perhaps even tapping into other hidden realms.
  • Light: As per above, bringing a semblance of something seperate from the typical light (Naaru & their alignment) and more on the lines of divinity, whether it’s Elune, An’she, the Loa, the light gifted from the elemental spirits or other deities.

Bringing back a sense of the divine, mystical and summoning powers that others can scarcely believe but behold witness towards, nonetheless … Ultimately bring back something more on the lines of priest-class fantasy than a lightbulb mage or purple-lightbulb mage. :joy:

:volcano: :cloud_with_lightning_and_rain: Shamans

Shaman I feel in terms of elemental potential, they’ve had some cool things here & there – but they rarely touch basis on the 5th element they tap into … Spirit

  • Shadowlands had a book ‘Shadows-Rising’ which was meant to be a tie-in to the expansion, which foreshadowed shamans detecting an “unrest amongst the spirits” – but failed to touch base on that … In fact DEATH KNIGHTS were more spirit guides than shaman were, which kind of took a sloppy dump on shamans spiritual side of things …
  • In the orderhall for shaman, there wasn’t really any ordeal of tapping into the element of spirit to calming or helping bring clarity to elemental spirits – or even helping the handfuls of spirits we encountered throughout the Legion expansion.

So I’d love to see them recognise that shaman are more than simple primitive magi. :sweat_smile:
:person_shrugging: Getting some Primalists come into the fold as allies & perhaps give us some story-potential through them could be a good way to start as well.

:skull_and_crossbones: :vampire: Death Knights

Given the ordeal of Shadowlands sort of shoehorning all their power having derived from the Shadowlands, I’ve heard handfuls of players feel their class identity feels cheapened – having it all come from floaty islands that were 3D printed by a machine in another realm ruled by empowered AI robots … That and the ordeal of what they did to Arthas :joy:

  • I feel a good lore thing to do would be discussing they learn that ‘The Shadowlands’ was built by the first ones as a defensive barrier to the ‘true’ afterlife and its truly infinite & immense powers it holds – such power that Kel’Thuzad sought to claim …
  • Then state their time in the Shadowlands has taught them how to bypass some of the defensive measures to tap into a small degree of its mysterious power, and that the story of their true power and potential … Is just beginning.

:sparkles: :shield: :sparkles: Paladin

Similar to priests, having powers held beyond the typical tropes of light would be pretty neat – especially depending on what race you are.

  • Take Zandalari Prelates for example. Tapping into the powers of the loa & carrying out their teachings to bestow justice on those who have it coming.
  • You also have the Tauren Sunwalkers.

Who knows, if they extend paladins to more races – You might have other NEW generations of paladin with their unique identities & lore, like having Night Elf paladins being “Knights of Elune” or something.

:fire: :smiling_imp: :fire: Warlocks

Having warlocks go beyond “Just demons and demon magic” — Towards them dabbling in forbidden magics and that which is considered taboo or grim would bring a cool feeling back to the class for me personally.

  • For instance, Gul’dan was the one who created the first generation of Death Knights via Necromancy – So giving warlocks necromantic spell visuals & undead pet skins in placement of their demonic ones, could be a really cool feature to add into the game — Especially with the right questline to earn such powers :star_struck:
    (Like the green-fire questline)

:beers: For BOTH the Demon Hunters & Warlocks however:

Having a questline where their services are needed to prevent the Legion from making a comeback or unleashing threats that could still spell doom for Azeroth, even without Sargeras – would be a neat way to bring back some relevance to their classes.

:dracthyr_blob_dance_animated: Ultimately –

:diamonds: Giving classes something beyond their limited secluded ordeal & pushing the boundaries of their potential is something I’d love to see. Not just for our classes, but for bettering the overall story of the game & allowing both new threats and new allies to come forward in the future. :slight_smile:

I haven’t added all classes here, so if you have something you’d like to add, or your own irk with your class that wasn’t on the list – Feel free to post for discussion bellow as well, alternatively feel free to discuss your thoughts & extensions upon the ideas above that you’d like to see come to fruition. :blush:

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The mysticism has definitely been rotted out and replaced with a six-color mage pie. It’s hard to put the Genie back in the bottle when it comes to this kind of thing though. “Shadow” magic doesn’t really exist at this point - its either Death Magic or Void Magic. Shadow Magic is just a primitive attempt at dabbling with one or the other.

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Eh, they can always introduce ‘new’ lore – or at the very least make old lore relevant again via emphasising & emboldening it into the current.

As I’ve always said:

:diamonds: If the story is good, or the questline is grand — The rest will work its :sparkles: magic :sparkles:

Because if it’s fantastic & receives great feedback - They tend to extend upon it & broaden it out in various horizons … Plus as I said, extending the lore brings forth new story opportunities, villains and heroes that can come into the mix later on.

  • Applying such with extensions to shadow magics, divine (‘holy’) and give more infinite mysterious undeath / spiritual elements, origins & sources would be a fantastic start.
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With the return of the Auchenai priests in the Draenei heritage quests we once again have non-insane non-tentacle worshiping shadow priests in the lore. Hopefully that’s a sign Blizzard is moving away from the whole old god worship garbage they forced on shadow priests in Legion.

Shamans lost most of their Spirit spells when Blizzard turned all the healing spells into water based spells. Healing Wave and Chain Heal weren’t originally water spells.

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I think broader class fantasy is fine

what’s not doing so hot is race-class identity. Most races version of a class is VERY different from the generic concept of that class.

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I which they would give us new special class quest similar to the rogue legendary quest!
Something specially design to fully use you class ability! While we did have class hall quest back in Legion they weren’t really challenging and were just easy story quest which barely require anything more then the basic class knowledge!

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It would be nice if Monks were given more attention pertaining to the non-Pandaren practitioners and their peculiarities in relation to the class itself. There are arguable hints of it here and there, but very little compared to other classes, to say little of the general homogenization of Monk appearances into the Pandaren mold at MoP’s release; most notably the retcon of the Scarlet Monks being indirectly Pandaren trained.

On a somewhat related note, I’ve wanted the return of class quests for more or less this very reason. Beyond their mechanical contributions, they narratively provided bits of nuance in class lore that has since been sorely lacking after their removal. We have a minor return to such quests in places, such as Exile’s Reach, but I really wish they were more prominent.

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The monks that existed prior to the introduction of pandaren seem to have been quietly retconned.

The Scarlet Monks being a good example. They already existed since classic, but in MoP got updated to learning it from pandaren.

Another example is the Auchenai monks that were present in BC but did not reappear in WoD or in the Draenei heritage quest along with the rest of the Auchenai.

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:person_shrugging: I honestly don’t mind the whole old god / void stuff for Shadowpriest … :unamused: but what I DON’T like, is it being the sole-singular avenue & take on it …

Especially when they either create races with obvious contradictions to particular cosmos powers such as:

  • Lightforged Draenei with the void
  • or Void Elves with the light

But even MORE so when they apply schisms in races that shouldn’t need a problem with them, such as:

  • Mag’har orcs with the light.
  • and Blood Elves with the void.

:diamonds: The second list particularly, because they obviously don’t need a schism with whatever power / cosmos faction etc – but have it applied anyway … So it sort of soft-retcons the player-identity of using whatever-said power in their whatever-class on their race, which sucks for Roleplayers.

So as stated earlier,

Having another avenue to go down for tapping into powers for whatever class / spec & race, would be highly beneficial to the game for both the lists above – and also for broadening the story & paving the way for new characters to come into the game. :partying_face: