This subject has had quite a few entries, some of the ideas are borrowed from them (reference posts at the bottom)
TLDR VERSION
There are a lot of really cool fantasies in wow that would make for an awesome class to play, unfortunately, gameplay wise they feel like they would be too similar to existing class/specs and would lead to class bloat and/or homogenization.
THE SOLUTION?
Class Skins. Essentially a full recolor of spell effects, new icons, and a few small tweaks such as change of school of magic (ie: shadow to light). The class will mechanically perform just like the class it stems from. If a nerf/buff is applied to the root class, it automatically translates to the skin as well. This would permit the expression of multiple aforementioned fantasies without the nightmarish balance requirements.
And remember, these could all always be optional…
DRAWBACKS
Reading through previous posts I couldn’t find any particular argument against it, besides one. Some of the proposed class skins are too awesome not to be a standalone class.
EXAMPLES
Tauren paladins and priests always sounded a bit clunky… Tauren Sun Walkers and Sun Priests sound awesome, and perfectly explained within the lore. The reskin here would convert all the holy light and justice themes into a more tribal sun worshiping aspect. Pair that with some extra heritage armors, and you got yourself something that finally makes sense and is unique.
Night elf priests have been around since vanilla. Once again the, holy light theme feels clunky on them when they’re very much followers of Elune. One simple and elegant skin, changing spells into the moon, stars and Elune themes and you’ve got yourselves some great lore consistent night elf priests.
During BfA, we learned a lot more about the Loa and troll religion in general. Troll druids and priests can very much be reskinned to be more consistent with Loa themes as opposed to Cenarius and holy light themes. This is a great opportunity to explore witch doctors and shadow hunters, two particularly strong themes presents ever since WC3.
You clearly can’t write a post about class skins without talking about Necromancers… I’d like to expand this though over all 3 specs of the warlock though. Destruction will have the least amount of tweaks as both use shadow magic. The fire spell though could be reskinned to be more frost driven, chaos bolt could become a very fat death coil type thing (DK ability). Affliction sees its curse theme very much be embellished by diseases. And of course demonology becomes the zombie raising one. Where things get a bit more tricky with this one is things like order halls. I know they’re not considered current anymore, but it would very much be odd to be able to visit the Dreadscar as a necromancer and not the Ebon Hold. Some elaboration is needed here. Would the skin be something that can be toggled at any time on a live character, or is it an irreversible choice during character creation?
A slight twist to the subject. Draenei Warlocks. Or should I say, renegade Eredars? The legion very much had its butt handed to them. What would stop some Eredars to shamefully attempt at rejoining the ranks of their former “compatriots”? What would be important here is to give them unique fel customization to clearly separate them from other Draeneis, as they would clearly never want to be warlocks themselves. Mini tangent here, I still don’t know why warlocks in general don’t have class specific customizations like DKs and DH. Give them fel eyes (red or green) fel cracks on their skins etc…
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Spellblades: reskinned warriors or death knights into what is essentially is a melee mage (would look fantastic on all elven races)
Blade Masters or Blade Dancers: essentially a fury warrior who’s had its rampaging barbarian theme changed into an elegant dual wielding sword master who does fancy pirouettes (another fantastic choice for elves).
Light themed dps priests: Because light forged draenei being shadow makes 0 sense.
Dark Ranger: Night and blood elves, hunters and rogues, essentially reskinned to be a bit more dark / shadowy. I’d dare say that rogues wouldn’t really need anything done to them. MM hunters just need some thematic tweaks to look more shadowy and less animal/nature inspired.
Tidesage: Them Kul’Tiran essentially water/sea themed shaman or mages?
Drusk Druid: The Kul’Tiran druids clearly have nothing to do with the traditional Tauren/Night Elf Cenarius created ones. Give them the choice to be more like what we saw in bfa.
Void Priests and Paladins: There are clearly good void users out there, this would make so much sense for void elves and others who wish to explore this fantasy.
Wardens: Not sure what class they would be based on, warrior or rogue? Feels too unique to be a skin, but then again, only night elves have them.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
I’m sure Blizzard can keep surprising us with brand new classes. I’m not going to lie, I’m not that impressed with the Dracthyr. I don’t have a particular connection with their lore as they’re basically a brand new addition. Death Knights, Demon Hunters and even Monks, all had famous characters to lead their fantasy, that were with us for multiple years before we got play them ourselves. I’m concerned that the more the years pass and the more classes and specs are added to the game, the more difficult balancing will become (something which seems to already be quite problematic. Hopefully the lack of borrowed power systems will start curving this issue slightly). I’m really hoping that something like class skins can simply solve this problem.
Quite a few other ideas out there, feel free to come up with more.
Basically the same thing is already going on with paladins and priests. They kinda do show that both can be a class by itself at the same time. Also a cool thing about necromancers would be that they basically don’t have to be undead, which is also very interesting from a roleplaying perspective.
But as you mentioned a class-skin could limit itself to the point where it can’t fulfil its fantasy due to limitations of the core-class.
The core-class could also end up being limited when it comes to future changes by the class-skin.
Gonna use Necromancer as an example here.
BFA and SL added a lot to the necromancy fantasy in warcraft.
Necromancy is not limited to the original scourge necromancers so limiting the theme to a skin for warlocks would take away from a very possible healer necromancy spec.
What I would like to see instead or an approach similar to allied races.
Take mechanics and specs from different classes, reskin them and build a new class from that.
Take the demonology spec and reskin it to a summoner necromancer.
Pair it with a reskinned discipline blood themed spec.
If we are going for a third spec, reskin frost mage to use bone themed spells.
Then give it it’s own unique class tree for utility.
This way the specs will play the same as the original spec so they should be easy to balance but the class will have its own identity.
It would also give players who like only one spec of a class to play another class with the same playstyle but with other off-specs.
I like mistweaver monk, but I can’t stand BrM or WW.
I like Outlaw but not Sub or Assassin.
So I don’t play these classes.
If I could take those two specs, reskin them and combine them into a new class I would play it.
But I would settle for simple class-skins over nothing though.
Wicker summoning witch for kul’tiran warlocks would be pretty neat. Also some races could have special effects for their more basic classes like lightforged draenei could have some light/holy themed effects for their hunters/warriors/rogues and void elves could have shadow/void themed effects for theirs. I mean Blizzard could do a lot more in this field.
That is actually a pretty cool idea the way I read it! Almost reminds a bit of that famous private server that lets you do whatever class/spec combination you want, but obviously in a bit more controlled environment.
That would solve other classes too, for example, the Spellblade would be a good port of a paladin, but I can’t seem them being healers, but fury, frost dk or enhancement as a third spec could be done.
Care to elaborate? I really fail to see how this would be the case. Especially with Hildisvini’s addition in mind. How does having light forged Draenei, with a dps priest spec that is light themed, makes a human or undead shadow priest look weaker?
Moon Knights? I swear I’ve heard this somewhere else before…
But yes, in the same vein of Night Elf priests becoming Elune/moon themed, I absolutely don’t see why we couldn’t have Knights Of Elune, especially considering Tyrande’s recent Elune shenanigans!
Hell, you could even extend that over to hunters, pay homage to the Original hero unit and huntresses of WC3!
I think this is an awesome idea.
The last thing we need is new classes as I think the game has enough and they are difficult enough to balance as it is!
However class skins would be a way to refresh existing classes and give players some cool new options.
Not to mention how much fun it would be from an RP perspective!
I don’t RP myself, but I 100% see that being a very good thing for the RP community!
On top of that, it would be a great opportunity to design more cool armor sets that are following those themes. Have a look at an artist called Handclaw (Arthur Lorenz) on instagram, artstation or whatever other platform he has. Heritage armor sets are still some of the coolest ones in game imo.
