I know that there are still some classes that would be pretty hard to justify being given to all races (mainly Druid, DH and Evoker,) but I’m struggling to understand why Paladin and Shaman are still being restricted.
All throughout Dragonflight we saw The Primalists, which were people who had elemental (shamanistic) powers. Even races like gnomes were a part of the Primalist roster, and they are definitely NOT in tune with the elements. So why cant a player play a gnome shaman?
In a quest, Investigator Erima states “They (this being the Primalists) offer elemental power, and in return they expect adherence to their destructive designs.” So why couldn’t a player character Gnome, Night Elf, Blood Elf, etc be given elemental power to fight for Azeroth? It just doesn’t really make sense to lock Shaman down to certain races when we’ve seen in game NPCs break those restrictions.
For Paladin, we’ve seen examples of races be Paladin’s that the players can’t play (Looking at you Nelf Paladin from the class order hall.) It’s a well known fact that anyone can use the light so long as they believe they can. Races like Tauren are able to be “Paladins” in the form of Sunwalkers. So why couldn’t Nelf’s be Paladin’s in the form of Elune’s Warriors?
Every single race in Azeroth can be a warrior (Dracthyr Warriors coming in TWW) and every race can be a priest (Dracthyr Priest presumably coming in TWW,) so why can’t they be Paladins? Even races like Void Elves make sense because we’ve seen Twilight Vindicator’s in the past who “bend the light” to their will.
Maybe there’s some stuff I’m missing here, but I just can’t really see why Shaman’s and Paladin’s are being so closely guarded still.
At this point the answer is pretty much “because they haven’t added it yet”.
A lot of the original restrictions existed less because lore prevented it but more because of cultural differences of the races, but they’ve more or less thrown that out by now.
I guess for Shaman they’d also have to go through the process of making unique totems for each of them. I wouldn’t think that would take a huge amount of time, but for a major developer probably 10x longer than you’d think cause they gotta have 50 meetings that could have been an email about it first.
Well, lets just get the awful retcons and bad lore ideas put into the game… I guess the lore has already been butchered, might as well finish carving, eh?
But worry not, you’ll eventually get your way… every class will probably end up being available to all races.
I really want a night elf shaman. I like my troll well enough, but night elf is my favorite race, and I think I would play shaman a lot more if my favorite race could be one.
Yeah, currently that’s what stops me from playing a Shaman or a Paladin. Gnomes, Nelfs and Velf’s are my go to’s. I’m just honestly not a fan of any of the other races (i only play Alliance, otherwise Vulpera would be my go to.)
For Shaman, my options are Dwarf, Dwarf (but edgy), Alien goat, Fat human, and Panda. To be fair, I don’t hate Pandaren, but I hate how the only options for male Pandaren are fat. I think the last time I played Shaman was in Legion, but stopped because I just didn’t like the race options.
For Paladin my options are again Dwarf, Dwarf (but edgy), Alien Goat, Alien Goat obsessed with the light, and Human. I play Human because I like Paladin, but it’s like why would I want to play a Human in a fantasy game?
Maybe I need to reach out more with my race choices, but I just simply don’t like Dwarves or Draenei. There’s nothing wrong with them but they’re just not my choice for my character.
The druid lockout is because they don’t want to make all the new forms for each race, likely to be the slowest class to get unlocked for every race.
As far as Shaman goes, dragonflight had a bunch of stuff to do with the elementals and would have been a perfect time to add the class to every race with a little mini lore quest to go along with the unlocking of the class.
If waiting for a good lore moment was the reason behind the current lockout of paladins (and shamans) then it is likely that this or next expansion would have been a great time to give a lore reason for the unlock.
But the real reason is probably just that making all the animations for every race is very low priority, and will be done whenever there is a long enough gap in other animation work for some dev time to be put on it.
Paladins got their unique race-mounts for their divine steed
and Shaman have their unique race-totems.
Personally for Shamans — I feel Blizzard should had just implemented the Primalist totems to all the other races until they’re eventually able to design the race-specific ones.
With the Primalists totems you would’ve also had a good lore-excuse for implementing shamanism across more races too via the Primalists & having them join us alongside Vyranoth towards the end of Dragonflight.
They are the two original classes designed around a fundamental cultural/religious theme more so than the other classes.
It’s similar to how the Druid Class is restricted to those races who have a cultural or similar general connection to the Emerald Dream/spirits of the Wild.
And how Demon Hunters are only Kaldorei (Night) or Sin’dorei (Blood) elves, but not the Ren’dorei (Void) or Shal’dorei (Nightborne). Because those are the only ones trained by Illidan to be Demon Hunters.
In order to be a Paladin, the person must have a certain level of devotion to their God/Goddess (The Light, the Loa, The sun God, etc) above and beyond just the normal. And similarly to be a Shaman, one must have a connection to the ancestral spirits and/or the elements above and beyond the average too. And in both cases, even those races who have a higher than usual level of connection or devotion to the appropriate cosmic force, not all of them have what it takes to be a paladin or a shaman.
All of the more restricted classes (Demon Hunter, Druid, Paladin and Shaman) have that cultural/social/religious aspect backing the limitations to their availability. Pretty much all of the other classes in WoW are more trained career paths than a religious or spiritual calling, and thus more widely available on an unrestricted level. A key example is how every race can pick Warrior, because literally anyone can pick up a sword and learn to fight regardless of their background, cultural upbringing, or innate magical talent (or lack thereof).
I don’t really understand why night elves can’t be shaman. The night elf starting area used to be full of whisp’s and ghosts of previous night elves. In fact night elf is probably the race we see the most of in spirit form across the game.
And they seem to have a strong connection with the elements and the earth. (A lot of quests that had to do with herbalism in classic ect). Thematically you would think that they could easily be shaman lorewise, especially as the night elves have somewhat lost faith in elune after the tree burning but still look towards the natural world.
The Night Elves don’t practice ancestor reverence/worship. Remember, they were actually immortal until the destruction of the Well of Eternity, and then lost it again with the conclusion of the 3rd War when Nordrassil was damaged.
And their connection is to Nature, Elune and the Emerald Dream. Not so much the primal elements that shaman tap into.
Which made sense when they were immortal. But as of current wow we’ve seen a lot of night elves lose faith in Elune, after the tree looking else ware for power. The primalist did this very thing.
We’ve also seen a lot of night elves die, which you would think would lead them as a people to try and connect with their lost loved ones.
I just think that the lore is there to expand the race and class.
And we can’t say they don’t know about shamanism as the night elves have been working with the horde for awhile now.
That still doesn’t change literally thousands of years of cultural influence. And also doesn’t change their connection to the Emerald Dream and the spirits of Nature.
Notice how all of the elementalist elves only get that way by being personally empowered by some elemental force (Ragnaros, Smolderon, Fyraak, etc). It’s never anything they develop themselves.
With the exception of goblins (which frankly never made any sense to me why the elements would make a bargain with them given how horrendously they treat nature and the elements in general), Shamanism isn’t only a connection to the elements (plural), but also requires that level of ancestral reverence. It’s both, not solely one or the other, outside of folks like the flame elves and the primalists (many of whom were shaman before joining those elemental factions) who are being personally empowered by (and used as pawns for) an elemental aspect.
Edit: Now that said, if there is a race that would be logical to get Shaman as a playable class at this stage of the game/story, it’s Night Elves. Specifically those ones who are disillusioned with Elune, but didn’t go all nutty enough to join Fandral or Tindral/Fyraak.
I’ve always thought night elves could and should be shamans. They already have a connection to nature in general, and they could learn shamanism from the Tauren who they have continual interactions with due to druid connections. The draenei weren’t originally shamans, after all–they learned shamanism from the Broken just before crashing yet another ship into yet another planet, don’t get me started. Great paladins, great shamans, lousy, lousy drivers.
every class will probably end up being available to all races.
