Undead ‘Dark Ranger’ customization for Blood and Night elves

Yes PLEASE

It’s not about what’s not edgy. It’s about what’s needed. And we have had 3 new classes, two of which use leather and all 3 are melee (except the monk healing spec). I think we could do with a ranged class. My vote is on the necromancer.

I bet they don’t have idea either. :slight_smile:

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I figured these images by Moira would make a fine addition to this thread.

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It’s lore cannon, it looks freakin awesome and people want it. Why not? We should have had these a long time ago.

If Night elves actually get that they at least have a reason to thank Sylvanas.

Don’t shoot, was just joking :joy:

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Joke or not, I would quite agree about that.

Fingers crossed that some lurking Blue takes notice and passes on the suggestion, I guess! :wink:

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In the beta the demon hunter skins are broken, suddenly the dark ranger toy is experiencing the same issue as demon hunters (it used to not , and the eyes used to be more red than usual).

8.1.5 had a Dark Ranger Velonara quest where she was missing it did not make it to live, and suddenly she is not in her spot in Orgrimmar which is outside the allied race hub.

Also during datamining purple eyes/ red eyes were datamined as npc, but the purple went to the void elves.

With Exile’s Reach coming what more incentive for players to test it can they give if not an allied race.

Personally I would prefer red eyes on the belf/nelf default , but as an allied race that would be more in depth with voicelines etc.

Gamescon is soon so fingers crossed its all I want in wow tbh!

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Looks at thread
thinks about gnomes and hopes there will be a leper option one day
realises this probably will never happen
lies down
uses T.E.A.R (Tear Enabling Augmentation Robot)
cries

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The only problem with that artwork, and it is a good piece of work, credit where credit is due, is that it breaks it down into too many options, which would -easily- be seized upon by the ‘too many elves’ crowd.

Some of them are also unnecessary.

There’s not -really- a difference between a regular Kaldorei and a Highborne. It’s a caste, not a different race. Sure, they may be paler, and dress less rustically but you can already do that. Likewise the Night Warrior option listed makes no sense. That is already an option, and it looks exactly like a Kaldorei with black eyes, because thats what they are. Illidari are just Demon Hunters, so there is no need for a seperate option, its a -class- So the only one on the Night Elf bit that makes sense is the Dark Ranger option as a separate thing, but I’ll come to that.

The Blood Elf one is the same, however there is a lore error there as well. Thalassians is the Species. Again, Illidari is pointless because it is a ‘Class’ not a subsect of the species. Quel’dorei is a daft one. Sin’dorei can and do have blue eyes, it does not turn them into a Quel’dorei. It is just a standard Thalassian thing, choosing your eye colour, like for every other playable race, so there is no need for a Quel’dorei option at all. It is also misleading as no Thalassian citizen is calling themselves Quel’dorei these days, no, they honour the fallen and all call themselves Sin’dorei. The only people calling themselves Quel’dorei are the exiles licking the boots of humans. The lore problem with Sunsworn is simply that it isn’t a thing. Battlegroup Sunsworn in WoD was just that, a Battlegroup. Thats how the Sin’dorei go to war as we have seen since TBC, they interestingly seem to be one of the few races of Azeroth who can really get behind the idea of Combined Arms operations in War, where you assemble differing troop types and assign them to a battle group. It has nothing to do with golden eyes, which again are just a character choice issue. A Sin’dorei can have blue, green or golden eyes, why the need for them to be viewed as some sort of separate option, when lore-wise, they are one and the same. So no, Sunsworn makes no lore sense, that is just a name of a particular battlegroup that operates together, like the Sunhawks of Bloodmyst Isle, the Sunfury that followed Kael’thas, and for that matter the Sunreavers.

They’re identical to the ‘Thalassian’ option listed on that mock up.

So lets go back to my main bugbear on both of those, the Night Elf one and the Blood Elf one.

(Just to reiterate, I actually think the work that was put into them was great, just some of it doesn’t make sense)

Dark Rangers.

Dark Rangers would be one of the worst things that could happen as a playable option. I’ll explain why.
Blizzard have already made a hot mess of their own lore and seem to keep having blackout drunk lore moments.
So. We learn in Cataclysm that Night Elves cannot be raised from the dead without the Helm of Domination hence the Seventh Legion soldiers sent to Pyrewood are primary Kaldorei and Gnomes. “Oopsie!” says Blizz “We forgot our lore and changed it so that any old person can do it”
We learn since the very start of the Warcraft Franchise that a Dark Ranger is a Banshee that has repossessed their body, like the first one to do so, Sylvanas. We know that Banshee’s are the spirits of dead -Female- Elves. “Oopsie!” says Blizzard “We forgot our lore again, and have popped in the occasional male Dark Ranger too, despite them being lore impossible because dead male elves become Spectres, not Banshees,and Spectres can’t possess things!”

It really is like some of their creative types just got out a flip chart and wrote “Dark Rangers” as a heading, and then got all the interns in to just write down ideas without any of them having read the established lore.

Male Dark Rangers are lore breaking. (No, thats not what Nathanos is, he is an entirely unique entity created in a different way)
Kaldorei Dark Rangers are lore breaking (Night Elves can’t be raised that way, except when they can, who knew Wisps can possess dead bodies)

It just doesn’t make sense, plus consider the essential problem here.

Its a Class, not a racial subsect. We don’t see any Dark Ranger Priests, Mages or Warlocks, They’re Hunters, possibly Rogues, Warriors or at a stretch Monks, even then Warriors and Monks don’t get the Stealth abilities that Dark Rangers have. Dark Rangers are specifically described as having lost their Nature abilities and instead having Necromantic ones, how would that even work for say an Arcane Mage?

Undead Elves is one thing, Dark Rangers is another.

They would be an absolute disaster for RP realms offering up yet -another- dark and brooding type of Elf, because Death Knights and Demon Hunters weren’t enough already. You’d end up with Death Knights, Demon Hunters and Dark Rangers trying to have an ‘evil off’ against each other whilst the people playing actual Sin’dorei and Kaldorei get thrown under the bus.

I can see the work that went into it, and it looks very slick, but I still think it would be an awful thing if implemented. Sorry.

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this is undead customization, or a stand alone customization not night elf option can we at least all agree on this?

storywise kaldorei dark rangers are horde now, despite no one forsaking them, and tyrande pleading them to stay with the kaldorei.

I think there may have been a misunderstanding. Sure, the suggested feature name may be misleading, but the term ‘races’ has always been used very loosely by Blizzard as well. So allow me to explain that in the case of the thread I picked the art from, it just means ‘customization sub-set’. Totally free to argue that the proposed list is too broad / they are not necessary by any extent, but for the sake of clarity, I will mention that they could be easily just called anything else that worked as an easy to grasp name for:

  • Belf customizer with all options available for the player to choose
  • Quick creation template for Elite fighter belf with markings
  • Quick creation template for Fel-infused belf
  • Quick creation template for blue-eyed belf
  • Quick creation template for undead belf

So in the end it would be just a QOL features making the character customization screen feel richer while actually not really adding much new stuff. The selection of a template would simply filter out some options so that the randomizer button can be used accordingly.

HOW to use said templates is totally up to debate… but personally, even with just a couple of templates per each ‘race’ and not even all races having one, I think it would be an awesome feature.

Then on to the main subject: Dark Rangers.

I get what you are saying, sure… but we all know that Blizzard retcons and/or plain rewrites stuff all the time, and there’s quite a lot of stuff that would have to be removed from the game to fix that. My personal take on this (and I have been playing for 12 years) is that either one decides to fight for the correction of all mistakes, quits playing the game because the Lore is crap, or goes for suspension of disbelief and intentionally disregards applying unnecessary logics and critical thinking to a work of fiction in order to enjoy it.

I chose the latter… and since you are also playing the game as is now, I assume you also do, at least by some extent.

My point being… since Blizzard won’t be removing the questline with Calia meeting the Kaldorei Dark Rangers and the toy from the game, there’s nothing to ‘save’ any more. So why stress so much about some details that are ALREADY in game anyway?

Even the Red Shirt Guy doesn’t see any harm with this, and is actually supporting the idea:

But to each their opinion, sure. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I want a Dark Ranger customization on belf or allied race more than anything ! They datamined a mount called Warstitched Darkhound those were the mounts the Dark Rangers used on the ptr when Calia/Lilian met its on youtube, on live they changed it, also Nathanos rode one in the battle for lorderon .

It can either be an allied race mount or the reward for sadly Spoilers

killing Nathanos in the prepatch.

Since Void Elves got a secondary theme (High Elves) with their customization, why not do the same with Blood Elves and give them a secondary theme aswell (Dark Ranger)? Seems good to me.

Same for Night Elves and Nightborne, give the Nelves the Dark Ranger customization and Nightborne a secondary theme in customization too, maybe Nightfallen or Felborne customization.

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I might be little crazy, but somehow i would like to have again alliance specific class and also horde.

Alliance - Warden
Horde - Dark ranger

I know this will never happen and it would make both sides cry about what class other faction gets.

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For blood elves ONLY

This is to give them something unique since VElf will have their skintones AND the fact that Nightelves are not horde, lore wise Dark Rangers has always been connected to forsaken and sylvanas. Nightelves do not make the least sense!

That actually makes more sense then OP

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Yes ! We need this for the blood eves with or without Sylvanas, Velonara stated the forsaken/Sindorei are her kin, I mean Dwarves got Wildhammer , we want Dark Ranger skins

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You may want to check the mockup on the Withered thread.

Things can change. It would be very easy to imagine this questline leading to the reconciliation of the Night Elven Dark Rangers with their kin through Calia’s meddling.

Besides, honestly: once Sylvanas is gone, why would the Night Elf Dark Rangers want to keep fighting for the very people who killed them and their families, burning their home tree?

She may have been persuasive to start with - we have seen how she was willing to brainwash the recently-raised undead to her will regardless of it being against everything she is supposed to stand for - but things won’t be the same now that she is gone.

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To use Sira Moonwarden as an example, as she’s the main character among the kaldorei dark rangers, she rejects Tyrande and Elune out of the belief they abandoned her, wouldn’t surprise me if the others felt the same way. I’d be interested to see if the Alliance would accept undead dark rangers into their ranks these days, though. I’ve probably missed something lore-wise - has Tyrande suggested she would accept these dark rangers back? I can’t remember.

I don’t want to spoil the book for you but there’s been hints that this could happen in the future (depends on Tyrande’s arc in Shadowlands).

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