Some specialization splash arts don't fit

Community General Discussion
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The reason, why this is important, is, because it establishes an atmosphere regarding the game and your class.

Am I alone thinking that a lot of the Spec Splash Arts in the talent trees simply do not fit? I know it’s a very very weird and minor inconvenience.

Marksmanship Hunters have some orc, but Orcs are usually associated with being BM hunters. Why not just put a windrunner elf there as the splash art? For example Vereesa or Sylvanas Windrunner would be perfect.

Arms warriors have a draenei for example. It’s not a fitting choice at all considering how many options there are for this. If they just put Garrosh there, it would be insanely cool. Another cool option could have simply been Gorgonna (fixed error) or Grommash. For Fury warrior clearly Varian* (fixed error) Wrynn or Magni Bronzebeard would have been a very very nice choice.

Same with the Paladin ones. Who is this person? Why not just put a well-known character there with a lot of story? For the prot paladin one you also could have easily used a splash art of this blood knight leader Liadrin, or a similar character. For the Ret Paladin obviously Tirion Fordring or Tyr.

It does feel like instead of making it cool, blizzard tries to reinvent the wheel and be super creative for no reason. Stuff like this matters a lot, because it messes with the atmosphere of the game. The BM Hunter splash art could be Durotan for example, or a very classic warcraft-themed night elf.

The survival hunter splash art is perfect though, but why not do that for every spec? The splash arts probably already exist, so I kinda recommend to just swap those lines of code out.

I know this seems like I’m nitpicking and complaining about very tiny detail, but it really is part of the whole picture and how I feel when playing the game.

They could also easily just make it based on the faction you play, so every faction has their own splash arts.

Edit: Someone suggested that we should be able to choose, and I agree it’s the best solution.

Do you agree, and if yes, what splash arts do you think don’t fit at all?

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I had the idea for an addon to change these to custom pictures, based on your current char’s race and/or gender, or ‘global’ replacements, but there’s several issues to consider:
I don’t think addons can determine whether art files (e.g. one for female Orc Rogues) are “there”, so it would require typing file names, and you can’t really ship “presets”, as that brings copyright issues.

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By splash art you mean the background art?

Garona is a rogue.

Varian had one sword until Legion (insert joke about Varian dying because he went Fury)

Rexxar was always a beastmaster, until they shoehorned him into Survival in Legion because he’s a melee hunter and they decided Survival will be the melee hunter, even though thematically Beast Mastery was the better choice for a melee hunter (again they were melee in Warcraft 3).

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The coolest thing they could do would clearly be to make it change based on the race you play, or simply let us choose from a list. As said, marksman ship hunters can be associated to many things like Gnome Snipers, 7th legion, Winderunner, and so on, but I feel like the current ones often give an atmosphere that I don’t like or don’t think fits at all.

Yeah, I didn’t mean Garona, I meant gorgonna, edited it out @gnome above me. I always confuse these 2 names. Broxigar would clearly be the coolest, because he’s my favourite char in the story, but I don’t wanna appear biased.

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I have no idea who that is, not nearly as recognizable as Garrosh, Varian or Saurfang.

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I suggest gorgonna, because Blizzard has a diversity metric, and I thought it’s at least realistic and fits more than what we have now lol… Yeah, if I decided, I would put Broxigar or Garrosh in the Arms splash art, Varian in the fury splash art. For protection I’m not sure, but that’s why I think it would be cool to be able to decide ourselves.

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Couldn’t he always just get the two swords if he wanted to though?

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If he wanted to die? Sure. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Some specs got amazing background art and well known characters but some just feel so random, almost like they were supposed to be placeholders.

  • Holy Priest - The Vortex Pinnacle (What does place full of air elementals have to do with holy priests)

  • Frost Mage - Some random elf and Ice Crown? And that elf looks more like a death knight.

  • Arcane Mage - random gnome

  • Fire Mage - Random Draenei

These are just some on top of my head, there are so many others that feel out of place.

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“Those guys like blue right? Put the blue game things in!” - Some blizzard middle manager

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I think mine are quite fitting, I don’t think it matters if they are a different race, they just give off big pala vibes

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I am mostly fine with the background art for specs, but these two have irked me since they were introduced. An Orc MM hunter? No.
And a Blood Elf, who are heavily associated with fire, for the Frost tree? I don’t think there is a single NPC Blood Elf mage in the entire game that uses frost magic.

It is especially egregious when they have the perfect characters for these two spec trees. Alleria for MM (or even someone like Nesingwary) and Jaina for Frost. Then put Rexxar in the art for BM. Jobs done.

I agree these are much more fitting. Except for Tirion being in the art for Holy when he is basically the poster child for Ret.

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Can’t say for sure but I think they wanted to use existing art. The brewmaster art is that of the Youthful Brewmaster from hearthstone (technically young Chen).

I bet some people would prefer the characters depicted to be random nameless ones, but if I had to choose lore characters to represent Classes it would probably be something like this

Death Knight:

  • Blood - Koltira
  • Frost - Arthas/Thassarian
  • Unholy - Darion Morgraine

Demon Hunter:

  • Havoc - Kayn Sunfury/Kor’vas
  • Vengeance - Illidan

Druid:

  • Balance - Celestine
  • Feral - Zen’tabra
  • Guardian - Broll/Hamuul
  • Restoration - Malfurion

Evoker (probably the hardest as they aren’t really established in the lore):

  • Augmentation Emberthal
  • Devastation - Sarkareth
  • Preservation - Viridia

Hunter:

  • Beast Mastery - Rexxar
  • Marksmenship - Alleria/Sylvanas
  • Survival - Huln Highmountain

Mage:

  • Fire - Kael’thas
  • Frost - Jaina
  • Arcane - Medivh/Khadgar/Azshara

Monk:

  • Brewmaster - Chen
  • Mistweaver - Li Li
  • Windwalker - Aysa/Ji

Paladin:

  • Holy - Uther
  • Protection - Yrel
  • Retribution - Tirion/Liadrin

Priest:

  • Discipline - Whitemane
  • Holy - Anduin/Velen
  • Shadow - Zabra Hex

Rogue:

  • Assassination - Valeera
  • Outlaw - Edwin/Vanessa Vancleef
  • Subtlety - Taoshi

Shaman:

  • Elemental - Drek’thar/Magatha
  • Enhancement - Thrall/Rehgar
  • Restoration - Nobundo

Warlock:

  • Affliction - Cho’gall
  • Demonology - Wilfred Fizzlebang
  • Destuction - Gul’dan

Warrior:

  • Arms: Garrosh
  • Fury: Varian
  • Protection: Muradin/Magni
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I really love this idea and would love for Blizz to take the idea on board, it will never happen mind you, sadly :confused:

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Which to me is a bit disappointing and sad in all honesty.

You have a game system that is essentially new/massively changed, that every single player is going to look at multiple times, an integral part of the “new” WoW experience and we get.

“Meh, let’s just throw in some hearthstone pngs, it’ll be enough.”

Kinda demonstrates the complete lack of pride in their own work the team (probally more senior level decision makers) seems to have these days.

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I am pretty sure all of them are from Hearthstone. I recognize almost all of the spec background art from hearthstone cards. Although i am not sure if their origin is the Hearthstone cards, or if the art were repurposed for tha too.

The sole exception seems to be the artwork of Valeera, which is notably in a very different artstyle than the rest, for the Assassination rogue tree.

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I’m completely fine with that, hearthstone art is honestly amazing but they could’ve used more fitting artworks from it

This feels like some random intern who hasn’t been playing WoW went through hearthstone artworks and just thought “oh this looks cool” and picked it.

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You trying to tell me garrosh was anything other than a fury warrior.

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Broxogar as he kept into the portal to smash sargarras in the toes would have been so cool

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