With Troll & Draenei being some of the last races (except Pandaren and Dracthyr) to get heritage gear, I noticed that although it hasn’t been officially announced for the 10.2.5 road map, they’re suspiciously getting customization updates which typically coincides with heritage quests. (Fingers crossed! )
Personally, I’d love to see the Draenei one have more of a Krokul/Broken presence and mention more Shamanism among the Draenei with less emphasis on the Light/Naaru since we’ve seen that facet of Draenei culture pretty clearly. I suspect there may be some commentary on the recent addition of repentant Man’ari, I’m curious to see if prominent characters like Nobundo have anything meaningful to say. Perhaps something about the unification of all Eredar would be cool!
Appearance wise, I really hope it’s a jazzed up version of their concept art gear. Something slightly lower key with crystalline additions.
For the Darkspear, I’d love to see some further story threads about Vol’jin’s Wildseed nap, and get more of an explanation on what that means for the Darkspear. Maybe we can see Rokhan get more of an official ascendance as Chieftain as well. Would love to see some more Darkspear specific Loa involvement too.
It’s bound to have a sweet Tiki mask for a helm, but I hope it has Shadowhunter vibes with lots of bones and skulls.
I have a pie-in-the-sky dream for Broken and Forest Troll skins, but I know that’s more wishful thinking than anything.
That being said, what are your hopes for these? What story beats would you like to have addressed for either or both? What do you hope the sets will look like?
I’d actually rather that the Darkspear heritage not be about Vol’jin, because the Darkspear really need fleshing out of characters beyond him. I’d argue the Darkspear are the worst off in terms of “only their leader matters and nobody else”, even worse than the Forsaken are and that’s quite a feat. Give us more of Bwemba, Vanira, Rokhan, and Gadrin doing stuff. That’s not to say they should just completely ignore Vol’jin, but the living Darkspear cast getting fleshed out feels like it should be a bigger priority.
For the draenei, I’m hoping it’s gathering the Ata’mal crystals. I wouldn’t have expected it until the recent eredar questline brought them back when they hadn’t been mentioned since BC, so I’m hopeful we’ll get the rest then.
This is going to sound horrid, but I have no hopes for the Darkspear questline because they don’t really seem to have much, if any, heritage to explore (that separates them from the NPC Gurubashi tribes)?
They started out by being “the good ones” of trolls, which is kinda bad optics for a fantasy race nowadays in the first place, but that’s since been walked back. I don’t think they’ve ever been shown worshiping any of the Gurubashi loa, and the one that used to be in their pocket (Bwonsamdi) is now the royal loa of the Zandalari.
I imagine the questline would have to create a bunch of stuff out of whole cloth for them, if it’s going to be anything beyond “where is Vol’jin” and that’s not an evergreen topic.
I’m still waiting for Forest and Frost Troll customizations. It’s baffling that we got Sand and Dark Trolls in Shadowlands, but we’re still waiting for Forest and Frost. My hopes for the Darkspear heritage is we get to reunite the Troll tribes under the Zandalari banner and that’s when we get Forest and Frost Troll options.
And Pandaren. But that’s okay, even Blizzard forgets the Pandaren.
It’s hard to divest the Darkspear lore from Vol’jin at this point because the Darkspear are experiencing a crisis of faith after their rejection of Bwonsamdi as a patron Loa. I would actually like them to explain more about the history of Bwonsamdi and how he was a priest who was elevated as a follower of Mueh’zala.
As for the Dreanei, I hope they realize Velen is a false prophet, a mirror of Sargeras who appeared to the Drenaei as a being of Light, twisting them to the Legion. I think that can be a way that they merge the new Eredar with self reflection.
I won’t dare speak for any Trolls out there because besides some minor looks I know nothing about them but to have a Heritage Quest be about being taken over by some “superior tribe” would be bad.
On the other hand, their Heritage Quest should empasize on their independance from other Tribes. To be recongnized as a full mighty clan instead of a small tribe that once parted ways from a bigger one.
I love Trolls, they’re the best Horde race IMO but as others have mentioned, Darkspear lore is unfortunately lacking.
I think if done right, they could shift the non-Zandalari trolls into an all-encompassing group to include any members of tribes that wish to fight under the Horde banner. I think this could really offer fresh lore for Troll fans and diversify the group under the Darkspear banner. It could also offer a clear avenue to introduce long-time fan requests for Drakkari and Revantusk (Forest) Troll models.
Although, on the flipside it may also further add to the problem of ‘no Darkspear lore’, but in reality they are displaced Jungle trolls, so their history has always been shared with the other Jungle troll tribes as well as the main Horde narrative since they’ve joined.
For the Dreanei, I imagine most will center around Azurmyst and Bloodmyst Isles with a story surrounding establishing Azeroth as their new home. Even going all the way back to Argus, pretty sure they see it as a lost cause trying to rehabilitate or reinhabit, similar to orcs and Dreanor. Maybe a few pilgrims to visit or expeditions to save culture and history but nothing permanent. I don’t imagine getting a new Exodar or city from this but thats where I’d like the story to point, really settling down on these couple of isles they can call home and make a new Shattrath/Karabor. They need to address identity post Legion too. We’ve had snippets, but nothing really concrete about who they are now as their whole shtick was defeating the Legion. How do you go from a single focused refugee population to just being normal again? IDK what heritage armor would look like tbh. We’ve gotten most all Dreanei used sets already so that’d have to be something new. Probably a lot of gems and Naaru symbolism.
For Darkspear I really have two different angles it could take.
Sticks around the Echo Isles and Durotar addressing all they’ve had to endure. Gives us a chance to spot light a lot of the other characters we’ve been talking about, talk about the seemingly ignored hardships of the Darkspear from leaving their home, creating a home, losing that home again, retaking that home, restricted to that home, their leader’s attempted assassination and subsequent occupation, rebellion, brief lime light as leaders of the Horde, and loss of their singular leader since Classic/WC3. Culminates in becoming a Shadow Hunter regardless of class - a true representation of the Darkspear’s cunning, tenacity, and perseverance, with a good ol’ “Darkspear never die” to wrap it all up. Then of course a nice Shadowhunter heritage set.
The Night Elf heritage quest shows you don’t have to stay in the starting area/zones to do a heritage quest. I think sending them us Stranglethorn for most of it would be the move and take over Zul’Gurub. Rokhan waltzing into the place and just “Im the captain now” with Talanji and crew behind him. Not too dissimilar to before, everything we’ve gone through to then ‘they kicked us out once, mind controlled Vol’jin’s kid, we beat them back three times, we’re now heirs to the Gurubashi empire.’ They can then go about reuniting the Gurubashi tribes.
Side request for any Darkspear quest - can Yenniku be officially saved? At least mentioned?
I view it more as the Darkspear earning a place of high honor within a united Troll society given that their chieftain, Vol’jin, is heavily implied to become the new Loa of Kings/Queens when he awakens from Ardenweald.
I’m hoping Blizzard really heavily leans into Vol’jin becoming the new Loa of Kings/Queens and elevating the Darkspear to a place of high honor among the other Troll tribes.
Yeah, the Darkspear are literally just a small tribe that was once part of the greater Gurubashi Empire before it fell and they were forced to flee Stranglethorn when all the infighting began. For all intents and purposes, the Darkspear are an off-shoot of the Gurubashi.
I feel like there’s a ton of draenei gear themed around paladin/priest. They’re almost in a Human/Orc situation where you could claim that sets like the Shat’ari Defender set and its Argus recolors are pretty close to the mark. But those sets are all plate and the belt is ugly.
I just hope the goofy addition of the man’ari penitents won’t hijack the heritage quest.
Yeah, I hope that the main focus isn’t Man’ari, but I think they’d be remiss not to at least mention them since it’s a massive elephant in the room if they don’t. I’d rather see more focus on the Broken, tbh. Maybe we can coax Hatuun out of his hovel on Argus or something. Nobody make any sudden movements!
Yess! That’s exactly what I’m referring to when I say their ‘concept art’ gear, I feel like it’s the perfect ‘low fantasy’ depiction of the Draenei that we sorely need among the blinding Naaru themed garb we currently have. I’d LOVE to see an elevated version of this set.
I hope the gear does something interesting with the boots/belt/legs. After Warlords they started to get clever with Draenei footware. Making cover, armored hooves and other interesting ideas.
From TBC through MoP foot armor for draenei meant just a scrunched ankle-warmer.
I think the gold standard for draenei armor is (somehow) the Arathi Warfront plate gear which I believe is the only armor in the game that actually armors up the tail.
Yeah I really, really don’t want any Zandalari presence in the Darkspear quest at all. It should be about the Darkspear, it’s their heritage armor and they’re in desperate need of some spotlight after the Zandalari took all their themes in BfA:
Armor Concept to work with: Quest Concept:
It is a crazy idea, but I think it be epic to teleport Eredath into orbit above Azeroth. It’s a shame such a pretty, modern, ready made Draenei zone has been sort of abandoned. Between the Ata’mal crystal (which we would recover the last piece of) and the Crown of the Triumvirate surely we have enough McGuffin power to pull it off once.
Reclaiming the long lost jewel of their civilization makes a lot of sense to me and sidesteps the fact that Azuremyst is likely not getting touched for the next decade. It also plays into their other shtick than Defeating the Legion–Being space aliens.
Darkspear Heritage
Armor Concept to work with: Quest Concept:
This one is tricky to me. As others have said the Darkspear are basically the weak nice jungle troll tribe everyone picked on so they ran away rather than fight back. I think they should lean into that history since it is what we have to work with. It is possible to wake up a spirit recuperating in Ardenweald early with the right rituals, so have the dark spear set out to collect the needed materials to do just that. Vol’jin awakens and becomes the Loa of the Echo Isles, patron and protector of the Darkspear who empowers them to be seen as equal to the far larger, more aggressive tribes.
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