In terms of identity, it was nice to have paladin being exclusively Alliance and shaman exclusively Horde. As well as the classes being tied to their own faction identity. Its sad to see that this uniqueness has become blurred due to cross faction balancing and allowing races such as Tauren and Zandalari Troll to be paladin. Where as shaman has been treated rather conservatively and can only be played by tribal races and furries.
Through the lens of evolution and integration both classes have not received equal treatment. New playable options that have been added over the years seem rather arbitrary than lore based, many added options did not have any relevance in the lore at all, at the time they were introduced. Yet Ion Hazzikostas dears to claim they will only add new options when they make sense at the time of the storyline.
Imo it should have been Night Elf that should have been given paladin as class option, long before ever giving tribal races such as Tauren and Zandalari Troll access to paladin. Especially after the paladin class hall story line, in addition to Night Elves being Alliance and more of a logical choice after years of being a member of the Alliance.
What I would like to see, is to have the old concept faction class identity restored. Which from my point of view can only be done by making each class widely available to the races of each of its own faction. This would result in adding the following race / class combinations.
For the Alliance:
Kul Tiran Human Paladin
Dark Iron Dwarf Paladin
Night Elf Paladin
Void Elf Paladin
Gnome Paladin
Worgen Paladin
Pandaren Paladin (Alliance only)
New race / class options are long overdue when it comes to racial evolution, integration, faction culture and balancing. There should have been new introductions in Shadowlands in the first place, as Shadowlands was supposed to be the expansion that would highlight personalization and customization. This has only been applied by a bare minimum. Disappointing, considering there has been a clear demand of some options for years among the playerbase.
Blizzard clearly never listens to their players, but do let me know what you think.
Would be cool, I personally wouldve liked to see Dark Ranger as a class option or Necromancer. But they already lack resources to properly balance with the few classes they have added, many specs have not been getting attention for years. Adding more will probably damage the game more than it will do good. Would expect a company like Blizzard to have a dev for each class, this is hardly the case from what I know.
A carcrash it is, but one they have been getting away with for many expansions. They’ll simply continue crashing, just because they can. State of the game only gotten worse over the years.
All nice ideas though, but afraid its wishful thinking
To be honest, i don’t see this as a good idea given how the faction differences already gifted us a delicious unbalance, little as they are regarding classes even.
But this idea is even harder to support looking at some of the class + race combos you presented.
Dark Irons can be Paladins already.
Void Elf Paladin: Nope, unless they make a Shadow themed Paladin spec which i think is dope but will never happen.
Worgen Paladin: Nope. Human Kingdo, ok, but honestly Paladins don’t fit the thematic of Gilneas.
Pandaren Paladin: Eh… I’m not sure about that.
Forsaken Shaman: Big nope.
Blood Elf Shaman: Nope nope nope nope, just no. They have access to 10 classes already, including Demon Hunters which are exclusive to them in the Horde, they are also the most played race in the game by far, the last thing we need is to give another incentive to play the most played race in the game. Not to mention the race have virtually no relations to Shamanism, even Worgen Shamans make more sense than Blood Elf Shamans.
What’s wrong with alliance shaman? And horde paladin?
Dwarves should have always been able to be shaman and KT fit shamanism very well given their pagan-esque roots within their culture and the fact that KTs are generally more superstitious than regular humans (so having shaman whom treat with natural forces and spirits makes a lot of sense).
Echo the above regarding belf and NB shaman, these make absolutely no sense. To remove totally plausible ally shaman races to then grant shaman to races with very little natural affinity, a complete lack of spirituality of the sort involved in shamanism and lastly no real reverence if any for natural forces, that is just bonkers.
So in your effort to restore faction identity you decided it’d be best to achieve that by butchering several races and two classes.
A better way to restore faction identity bar a costly world revamp is to root out the Horde and Alliance elements in the enemy factions and abandon the narrative tool of telling H/A stories through the lens of a handful of overpowered superhero characters.
Fair enough. Though imo players should not be restricted to play what they want, just for the sake of some some sense of forced diversity in the game.
Also, some options have existing NPCs in game and have no reason to keep restricted either. For example Elementalist Starion, a Blood Elf Shaman in Twilight Highlands. Since Tidesages are considered Shaman in WoW, this would also include Thomas Zelling. Forsaken Tidesage from BFA, making it canonically possible for Forsaken to be Shaman.
Not in your revamp though, because if shaman are horde only , tidesages can’t be Shaman, which means Zelling isn’t either. So for your reason to work, KT must be able to be shaman. Which means the classes can’t be faction specific.
Assuming that’s what you meant anyway? If you just meant making the class more faction popular. It is? Only 4 races on alliance can be shaman versus 9 on horde, and 5 alliance races can be paladins versus the hordea 3. So a couple more ally races as paladins (like KT, Drustvarians worship the HL after all) and it’s sorted
There is a misconception that must be mentioned here.
In World of Warcraft, the playable “races” in reality don’t represent races, but rather factions, nations, kingdoms, tribes. etc. Political units. This is why Kul’Tirans aren’t customization for Stormwind Humans, because they’re a different Kingdom, or why Humans from Stormwind can’t transform into Worgen, because it was the Humans from Gilneans who were cursed.
The playable Blood Elves are Silvermoon Blood Elves, not Argent Crusade Blood Elves, not Scryer Blood Elves (thus why Blood Elf NPCs from these factions are friendly to Alliance players) and most importantly not Blood Elves from the Twilight Hammer, which is the organization the Blood Elf you mentioned is from. If that Blood Elf being a “shaman” (it’s a fair point you made regarding Tidesages, Elementarists should be considered Shaman if they were to be playable through a race) is a case for Blood Elf Shamans, then almost every playable race should be able to play a Shaman because there are Twilight Elementarists of all races.
Similarly, Forsaken are exclusively a faction of Undead Lordaeranians, it doesn’t include Kul’Tirans, Zeilling is an exception and doesn’t work as a case for Forsaken Shamans because he is a Kul’Tiran, was because he’s gone by now. Also, that would create a plot hole, because how does a single dead Tidesage explain how suddenly the whole faction of Undead Lordaeranians learned how to become Tidesages? Tidesages are exclusively a Kul’Tiran thing.
Thats great and nothing will change about being a horde pally. Whether its the bloodknight lore of belf paladinism u like, or the reformed ones that now practice paladinism as traditionally known, or aesthetic or whatever other reason. Thats all set in stone and shouldnt be touched.
I might not have been clear enough in my post, but I want to keep everything exactly as it is. Cant turn back time. Rather, give all Horde races access to Shaman and give all Alliance races access to Paladin.
This changes nothing, only adds something to accentuate the classes that were formerly known as faction classes. By doing so I think it would bring back the old concept of faction classes that has been blurred out by balancing. However, without changing anything about the Alliance shaman or Horde paladin races that already exist.
I agree and what Im suggesting is 100% in line with what you are saying.
There are reasons why there are no more factions specific classes, or even faction specific spells, like seal of blood being way superior to its Alliance counterpart that Blizzard is enabling both seals on both factions…
They should be allowing nelfs to become paladin, since taurens can be, that’s sure. But if they were to make class locked in a given faction, that might end up killing Alliance Pve scene, which is already struggling.
Imo they should just make racials stronger again anyway, racials from tbc are more meaningfull. Or give the most popular races the weakest racials for balancing. The meta focussed players will take more undesireable races, the rest who prioritises aesthetic will prolly take those already popular and poof itll balance out. Personally dont care about this forced diversity that ppl try to cling on to, but making popular racials weaker would solve that problem.