Thanks dude!
See my biggest fear with this is that, if we do not get the saberon as the cat race, and instead something new instead… I’m worried they’d be all cutesy and furry. Not the bad a-, you know what I mean, savagery that is the saberon.
How do you mean?
There are many things to think about with the whole Botani Saberon war thing. Lately, I was wondering about Alliance involvement.
Obviously, the main thing here would be in the Barrens, which the Horde would have issues with the Botani up to no good right outside their door. I was wondering if the Alliance would be part of this event as well or if they would have their own event.
The Alliance have a vested interest in what would go on with the Botani gathering power. I mean, the majority of Night Elf lands are forests, which I assume Botani would have some ability to take it over once their sphere of influence grows past the Barrens. Not really a fun thought for the Alliance in general.
However, I am wondering if they would also take part of the event or have their own somewhere else.
I’ve brought up the portal equipment and various supplies likely abandoned in that one Botani dungeon, where you use the portal to port right behind Stormwind to take on a genesaur. One option I thought was that Saberon came with the Horde and Botani during the Mag’har Orc unlock scenario while Arakkoa managed to come across the leftover portal stuff and may have been able to manipulate it to transport themselves to Elwynn Forest while escaping the Lightbound…along with some Botani and Botani spores.
This would cause some problems in the local area, but could give Alliance their own event to work with, leading into playable Arakkoa. Not entirely sure where this event would take place, as the Wailing Caverns has that nightmare power that would really do something with Botani, whereas I don’t seem to recall anything like that in the human leveling areas.
It’s just a random thought. I imagine to save resources, the whole event could just take place in the Barrens, whether as a pre-expansion event or if it is part of an old world (of Warcraft!) revamp. There aren’t any Arakkoa there at the moment, however, so if we got playable Saberon from it, either they would be neutral or we could get a good version of Botani, which would be different from evil Botani, or maybe it would be a good time to get Furbolg as an Alliance race, since their home would be really threatened by the evil Botani grow in nightmare power.
As I said, there is a lot to think about with the different directions you could go with this idea. All of which would need more fleshing out. But I figured Alliance involvement or having their own area was something to bring up, especially if we were getting new playable races out of it.
I’ll continue to post more thoughts as I can flesh them out more. As I said, a lot to think and discuss about, given all the potential with the Botani and Saberon thing if given the time and care to implement.
—9 days until Blizzcon starts (Nov. 3rd)!—
–Playable Saberon would be grrrrrrrreat! 
Could possibly be a way to have the alliance lose Stormwind, which I wouldn’t mind. Assuming we got it back but better.
The alliance could possibly fight this infection back, but a large portion of stormwind is now basically a jungle. Can go the route of “Some of them got out of Stormwind and are now infecting the surrounding area.” Imagine Duskwood having an overhaul, still a dark forest of course, but now overgrown even further… OR the Botani could run to Stranglethorn. I believe that could work quite well, as imo it’s a zone that needs revamped.
I’m kinda out of it at the moment, so grammar may be worse and some thoughts may end up not coming out properly.
Saberon could be in the Barrens or Ashenvale, maybe even Felwood, there are many, many zones that could work… But a thought that just came to mind, what if the Botani were drawn to the World Tree in Hyjal? Could be an expansion based in the old world, we face them in Kalimdor, Barrens, Ashenvale, Felwood, and Hyjal. Step in, see each of these zones having been affected in different ways by the botani, maybe in the Barrens we see the Saberon holding a front against the Botani, and quite well. Then in Ashenvale or Felwood, we see Furbolg doing the same thing. I think giving the alliance Bear people who are attuned with nature, and horde who are more shamanistic, could be quite fun.
Edit: Do you think that getting Furbolg alongside the Saberon would work, let alone make sense in a story? In my mind, if Blizzard did something like this, then it would allow them to update bits and pieces of the world. “Oh these four or five maps in the old world are part of the expansion? Cool we’ll update those, and the ones connected as the expansion comes to a close.” because personally, I think a world overhaul done all at once could be too much work, and cause alot of problems. Better to take it step by step right? If this were to happen, how do you think we could unlock these races?
Seven days until Blizzcon O_O
I’d actually love to see the Botani, added as an enemy, given a “horror movie” treatment.
I remember doing the opening scenario for Worgen and finding parts of that REALLY frightening (I absolutely love werewolves).
Imagine a quest chain where we keep getting short cutscenes of spores, dropped… spores taking root… Botani precursors… and eventually ,Botani invading Stormwind? (maybe)
Damn, they could REALLY go the horror route with this.
And these quests (chains)) could be absolutely unique to Alliance.
Horde only need to get told what happened.
In the same way that the Horde basically know nothing about what happened in Gilneas. (the details, I mean)
Unless you’ve actually played Worgen, you haven’t gone through that scenario and have no idea of the horrors. So any purely Horde players wouldn’t know anything about the experience… It could be the same with Botani? (unless they did something similar near Orgrimmar for the Horde side of things)
Of course! Granted, it wouldn’t have as much meaning if Arakkoa were paired with them, but Furbolg are definitely workable.
After all, several tribes live on Kalimdor, so when there is a big kerfuffle next door involving evil plant people that could be fueled by the nightmare within Wailing Caverns that could potentially overtake the Horde and start marching to your home in the forest would likely cause them to go “OH CRUNCHBERRIES!” in a panic and go to assist the Alliance who would also help in the area. Night Elves would also have a vested interest since the Botani would buy up their property in a hostile takeover and would make for terrible landlords.
So definitely workable. However, with Arakkoa, there is the storyline potential of working with Saberon, putting aside differences with their history with each other, to escape AU Draenor to MU Azeroth. Then you have things like how Saberon have to work with the AU Mag’har Orcs (like the Laughing Skull Clan hunting them for their hearts) and the Arakkoa would have to work with the Lightforged Draenei that would work as parallel storylines. Obviously, several groups would have to learn the true meaning of Winter Veil to make it work, but there is pretty big storyline potential with it.
I’m sure something could also be written for a good faction of Botani to be playable as well, while still having an evil group for us to beat up. I’ve seen some people on the forums mention an interest in playable Botani, so it’s only fair I mention that as a possibility as well. I mean, if Mogu of all races can perform a face turn with the Rajani, I’m sure something could be done with Botani. And if I had to consider playable Botani, I’d put them on Alliance. Seems more fitting and they can be part of the Night Elf storylines in general.
It also could be that the Alliance gets something else in a completely unrelated event while the Horde get Saberon while dealing with the Botani threat. Not sure what would be best here, since there are plenty of races you could put here when it isn’t directly tied to AU Draenor, but I do think having Arakkoa fits well because of the theme and possibly to reintroduce the Lightbound coming to Azeroth as a threat for an expansion.
And I suppose Neutral Saberon could be a thing as well. However, while I’m not against neutral races, I feel like it’s something that should be used sparingly since it kinda dilutes faction identity when several races can be both. Neutral is great for several races in my own personal opinion (Etherals, Sethrak, Tuskarr come to mind), but I don’t know if this would fit Saberon. I mean, I wouldn’t be angry with it at all if this is how we’d get playable Saberon of course. I just lean towards the potential of getting Arakkoa alongside them more is all.
Definitely several ways you could go about this with new playable races involved. I don’t know realistically what would be done, but there are still some awesome things you can do with it.
I don’t see an overtaking of Stormwind if Botani got to Eastern Kingdoms via that portal, going with our Arakkoa idea.
I imagine the Botani, here and the ones in the Barrens, would run off to gathering their bearings and start doing stuff to regain power before becoming a threat again. This likely would be an area that is a bit far from Stormwind, like how Wailing Caverns would be a big distance away from Orgrimmar.
The issue is that I don’t know where they would go to. And with something like Wailing Caverns, that nightmare power thingie makes Botani a HUGE threat to Orgrimmar, but I don’t think there is anything similar on Eastern Kingdoms near Stormwind (if anyone knows of such a thing, please let me know,)
I imagine it would be a sudden issue and discovery by the Alliance, similar to how the Horde would discover it, and cause a massive panic Call-to-Arms thing to stop it. However, I don’t know where the best place for it to be.
Thus why I’m wondering it this could be a pre-expansion event that has the Horde and Alliance fending off Botani in the Barrens and each getting a playable race out of it. It would save on dev resources with one area focused.
This would be one of the biggest things that would make this whole thing memorable.
Botani attacking and taking people to become plant food or become plant zombies and mustering power from the Wailing Caverns to evolve into something nightmarish would be a…well, huge nightmare for the Horde and even the Alliance if things go south for the Horde there.
It would also be a nightmare for Saberon, who may settle in the Barrens somewhere and be having the same problems that the Horde is having with losing members to the Botani. Throw in a revamped Wailing Caverns dungeon, complete with whatever horrific stuff the nightmare Botani are doing, and it really can work well with the horror theme.
It would be! If you’re interested, you can see the type fun playable Furbolg would be in the Furbolg megathread:
They would make for an awesome playable race. 
So much potential, so many things to discuss! 
—6 days until Blizzcon starts (Nov. 3rd)!—
–Playable Saberon would be grrrrrrrreat!
If we get an expansion where we have to fight the light, then honestly that’d work just fine as well. Could very well be a situation of the Army of the Light turning on us, because of Yrel from AU draenor somehow came here. I mean I highly doubt Blizzard would just leave that in the dirt, the possibilities for it are nearly endless.
I honestly don’t think Saberon being neutral makes much sense personally, and also believe that Arrakoa would be the best thing to pair Saberon with around the time they become playable. Simply due to their history with one another and possible interactions/story we could receive from it. However it’s still a possibility Blizzard won’t give Arrakoa alongside the Saberon, we could get them two expansions apart in all likelihood. Also, had no idea there was a good faction of Mogue, didn’t really play BFA all that much after Nazjatar.
Duskwood, now while my knowledge is limited on the subject of it’s corruption, as it’s been a very long time since I’ve touched the quests there… But if I’m not mistaken the land was corrupted after the death of Medivh. It’s an incredibly dangerous land that’s crawling with undead, nightbane worgen, and massive man eating spiders. However if I’m not mistaken, I do believe that corruption is due to the fel, so unless they do some kind of corruption story with that, don’t see much happening. Although I am curious to see what would happen to a botani corrupted with wicker or fel magic, or even necromancy, think that would be neat to see but hard to execute. To be honest the area I think the Botani would be most interested in, that is closest to Stormwind… Would be Stranglethorn. It’s already a jungle, so assuming they flee south and find this land, what’s to stop them from trying to take it over? But again, that’s a bit of a stretch. May honestly just be better to provide them with a different threat.
See, I am a massive fan for horror, and adding to what Bagzak said, having a dungeon where we see the true horrors of the Botani would be really cool. We KNOW Blizzard can pull off that Horror aesthetic well, I mean look at Drustvar and the Blood Trolls, now toss in some botani and there you go. I’d want the dungeon to be very gritty and bloody, I can picture a pulsating biological plant thing that is just oozing the blood as it absorbs or crushes it’s victims. The Botani have always been terrifying, but that horror was never fully realized was it? Most of their areas are actually quite beautiful, yeah their actions were horrible, but… Where’s all the blood and gore?
I’ll check it out, I wouldn’t mind getting Furbolg as a playable race but they’re not really a race I want. Only races I personally want are Saurok (Sethrak if we dont get them), and Saberon. Love the more beastly races who still have some savagery in em… And we know both of these races can be friendly.
Nah but, the thought of Botani taking a more Horror themed route to me, is so fun. To be honest, when I saw the Lords of War episode for Kilrogg, then got to Gorgrond, in all honesty I assumed the thing they were so afraid of, WAS the Botani. It just made sense to me. Anyway, excited to see what we’ll get next expansion, fingers crossed for Saberon!
With the Saberon on the Horde territories (Kalimdor) I don’t see how the Alliance could help them. They could help the Horde to fight the Botani or try to find a way with the Horde to get a new home in the Barrens or in Durotar.
Happy Halloween! 
Whatever your plans are for today, please have a fun, happy, and safe Halloween! 
—3 days until Blizzcon starts (Nov. 3rd)!—
–Playable Saberon would be grrrrrrrreat!
TOMORROW is the day folks, TOMORROW is the day WE GET TO SEE, THE NEXT EXPANSION!!! LES GOOOOO!!
What do you all think we can expect? Some people have theorized a Elemental themed expansion, others a Light vs Void, and some people something entirely new, a return to the old world… Or Avaloren. Personally, I’m leaning towards the latter, hopefully with some returns to the old world as it is missed. But, if we go there, how do you think Blizzard could introduce the savage cat men we all know and love as a playable race, the Saberon? Or would they make an entirely different group of Saberon who happened to get to this island, or even a completely different kind of cat men… Hopefully of the non furry variation.
Give me your thoughts, and please tell me what you hope for in the next expansion the most!
While I have my usual hopes, I’m trying to keep an open mind so I don’t potentially get disappointed.
The only reasonable expectations I have are that we don’t get a Shadowlands calibur of an expansion and that if we get any new playable races, they’re ones that people have been requesting for quite some time as opposed to brand new ones coming out of nowhere. I’m not against new races being created and becoming playable of course, but I feel like adding in ones people have been requesting, not referring to any specific race to be clear, would go a long way in showing Blizzard is listening and getting some good will back. But we’ll see what does or doesn’t happen tomorrow.
So while expectations are tempered, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for my wishlist items to become a reality. 
—1 day until Blizzcon starts (Nov. 3rd)!—
–Playable Saberon would be grrrrrrrreat!
The Q&A thread has opened and I asked a questions on behalf of a few race request megathreads. I’ll post a link to the post and the question I asked for this megathread below:
“Since it has been quite some time since Botani and Saberon came with us in the Mag’har unlock scenario, will we eventually deal with the growing Botani threat in the Barrens and work with the Saberon to get rid of it?”
Worth a try, even if it will likely not get answered.
I’ve got a lot to think of and word for different megathread posts with the recent announcements, especially since the Allied Race system is still being utilized. Makes me think that Saberon could work well as either a Core Race or an Allied Race.
Anyway, will post more later when I can.
–Playable Saberon would be grrrrrrrreat!
Alright so, with the recent announcements of the expansions, what do you all think? Right now the only way I can see us getting Saberon, would be in the Midnight Expansion, where we make a return to the Old World and face the void. The Saberon and Botani are on Kalimdor, and it wouldn’t be hard to do something with the void. We know the Botani are a race driven by a hunger to devour the world in a jungle, and the void to devour the world in darkness… SO, wouldn’t be hard to imagine the void corruption some Botani and making use of their own corrupting magic.
Saberon, honestly the past ideas we discussed of them fighting off the light can be used, just swap out the army of the light for the void. Boom, done. Would still like them to be waring with the Botani but, not going to cry if that’s not a part of their story. Still, there is alot that can be done to allow the players to have the saberon as a player race. What do you guys think?
like - Ancient, Primal, Animal, etc
Took a bit of time to think on some stuff, and I think I can talk about Saberon stuff now. Will keep things kinda brief since I spent most of the day doing yard work, so my brain is a bit jumbled to be detailed unfortunately.
First off, with the Allied Race system being utilized again, I could see Saberon being either a Core Race or Allied Race again. I assume that as an Allied Race, they may utilize the Worgen model skeleton, though with edited animations, such as no howling. I could also see the Botani threat event being used to work towards unlocking them as an Allied Race, but I can also see it leading to them as a Core Race. Hard to know what is more likely.
Second, given that the new Allied Race is neutral, I’m wondering if it may be likely that Blizzard would lean towards neutral races in general when applicable. If true, I could see Saberon being neutral, with the Horde and Alliance working together to fight against the Botani threat on Kalimdor. One area with one new race would likely save a lot on development costs. Or we could get Horde Saberon and Alliance Botani as well. Who knows?
Saberon could also learn to work with the Mag’har if Horde and Lightforged Draenei if Alliance, or the Botani or Arakkoa could fill that role with the Alliance if they somehow became playable, and it can tie into a return of the Lightbound as them warning both factions of what they’ve been up to and not to trust them. I don’t know if neutral is best for Saberon as a whole, but it seems like a possibility. Moreso now that we have Horde Dwarves…what a weird thing to type up.
Speaking of the Lightbound, who knows how they’ll be utilized if they come to Azeroth. We do have a Void expansion coming up in Midnight, so I don’t know if they’ll play a role to help fight the void or if they’ll also be antagonists or what. Regardless, Saberon could play a role if they became a playable race and that evil Botani threat would still be a pretty great event.
There is a lot more to discuss, and since we don’t know much about the latter two expansions, we’ll have a lot to speculate. I’ll type up more of my thoughts later on, but that is what I have for this post.
–Playable Saberon would be grrrrrrrreat!
An appropriate song for the upcoming patch. I imagine many Saberon on Azeroth want to find their own version of the Emerald Dream where they have a secure home and allies to help. While this is currently a dream, you can help make it a reality!
With the beginning of each month, I make in-game suggestions for each race I want to see playable along with a mention of their respective megathreads on these forums. While it is far from a guarantee of seeing our dreams come true, I do think every little bit helps, and doing it monthly I feel is reasonable and not that intrusive or annoying.
If you’re interested in doing the same for races you want to see playable, I made a little guide on how to do so in-game here:
Blizzard mentioned having 20 years of planning for WoW. Let us hope playable Saberon are within those plans somewhere!
–Playable Saberon would be grrrrrrrreat!
they can add the ninja class
…That’s sub rogue.
SO, my sweaty toxic pvper side has been coming out quite a bit recently thus… I decided to give League of Legends a try with a few friends. First, love the art style, however gameplay, imo boring unless playing with friends. BUT ANYWAY, with this I’ve looked further into the lore of the game and everything, tbh makes me want to play the upcoming RIOT MMO… Assuming I can make le cat man assassin, GIMME!!
Now, why do I choose to post this? Well, looking at the abilities our dear friend Rengar, a champion and playable character of the game, I noticed some of his abilities are similar to ideas presented for racial abilities for saberon. Abilities I wanna focus on are Savagery, Battle Roar, and Bola Strike. Will first say, that none of these abilities need be copied one for one from this character, but taking inspiration from other games seems to be a strength that WoW has displayed many times… So, no harm in continuing with this tradition yes?
The first ability, “Savagery”, empowers the next two basic attacks with bonus attack speed. Something like this could be used as a bloodlust type of affect for the saberon. Could also just be a slight boost in damage, three to five percent maybe? Tbh I’d hope for a boost to crit, even if it were just 2% it’s something, as lately it seems the allied races have some good racials.
Next ability is called “Battle Roar”, one iteration deals magic damage to nearby enemies, and bonus damage to monsters, also heals him a little. A roar ability people have brought up in the past was a fear, or buff for the party, but we could do something like this maybe. Say, a small dot(?) heal, some damage tossed into it, could POSSIBLY deal extra damage to beasts, humanoids, or elementals? The latter one being due to the possibility of fighting the botani in their lore. However, I’m still personally leaning more towards a fear, stun, or some kind of crowd control affect.
Finally we have “Bola Strike”, and this slows the enemy for a time and deals some damage. Basically the net idea we discussed in the past, due to the saberon’s past I think an ability involving a bola or net would be best. Make it root the target in place completely, OR a slow, either one works for me as PvP is King.
The other ability is a stealth, which I dont really see Blizzard giving another stealth racial ability out, as with the proper use, it can be pretty game changing. Especially in Arena if you use it right. Anyway, thoughts?
Saberon should be a neutral race. They could even be from AU Draenor or something.
Cat people, yes, Microsoft, see the money surge 
At this point, I can see neutral Saberon as a possibility.
While I would prefer to pair them up with Arakkoa or even Botani, I could see it being much easier to make Saberon neutral and have the whole Botani war thing as a way to introduce them to the Horde and Alliance afterwards. It seems like faction identity is unfortunately slowly breaking down, given the whole Rock Dwarves on Horde thing, and it seems unlikely we’d have another faction kerfuffle at some point, so it seems like neutral Saberon chances have risen recently.
I’ve seen some people wanting them on both factions in other threads, so if anything, it could please more people by doing that. And certainly, I can see things being written to have Saberon give warning about the Lightbound and what there were doing before the Saberon managed to jump ship to Azeroth, setting up a future meeting with the Lightbound in some fashion, as well as having a questline for the Saberon dealing with the Mag’har Orcs if Horde and Lightforged Draenei if Alliance, as I’m sure they’d be very dubious to both of them.
Honestly, I’d be fine with it if it meant actually having playable Saberon. As with any neutral race, I would always make at least the first character of that race Horde, since it is my preferred faction.
And speaking of that Botani War, while none of the questions I asked got answered (which I honestly expected), this was mentioned during the recent Q&A video:
"Clearing up any misconceptions - there’s no time travel in Midnight/The Last Titan. We recently healed the timeways in Dawn of the Infinite and have no reason to revisit that anytime soon. When Metzen said returning to the Old World, he meant seeing how familiar lands have changed and telling new stories within them. They want to ensure that future WoW storytelling keeps iconic settings relevant - we told the story of Northrend and the Lich King 15 years ago, keeping it stale and unchanging doesn’t really benefit the Warcraft universe.
So yes, we will be returning to the lands of Silvermoon, Quel’Thalas, and later Northrend - we’ll see how they’ve changed over time, expand, and reimagine them, but there’s no time travel, only moving forward. Those older spaces will also be updated to allow dynamic flying, with a seamless transition from EPL to the Ghostlands, etc."
So it is entirely possible that we could see the Barrens get revamped to reflect the Botani infestation that likely has been going on since BfA. Maybe as a pre-expansion event, maybe as part of an expansion, or perhaps that long waited old world (of Warcraft!) revamp that could come at some point.
Hopefully we’ll see something come of that at some point in the near future. Preferably with playable Saberon coming out of it of course.
–Playable Saberon would be grrrrrrrreat!