Comments on: Of Heroes and Villains part 1

By: iLLiTHiD

iLLiTHiD — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:02:42 +0000

At the moment, there is only 1 ranged physical class, the hunter. What if there was another, say like a swashbuckler/bard. With a focus on the Great Sea most likely in the next expansion, having a pirate like class could fit a possible nautical theme. You could model the class to require a mix of both melee *and* ranged attacks to help pull off attacks or buffs. Rapid firing throwing weapons, combined with *Offensive* auras, so as to preserve paladins with their defensive ones. Auras that only affect enemy targets, you could call them rowdy songs, that lower casting time or make them more vulnerable to certain types of attacks. Leather to chain transition for its armor system would be logical.

Other possibilities are monk, which, based of a D&D model would be using staves (hooray for melee stave), throwing weapons (skuriken anyone?) 1 handed weapons , such as daggers or swords (no duel wielding). You could possibly make some abilities require a 2h sword/staff, other abilities only able to be used with a 1h weapon (sword, dagger), to bring variation and balance to the stats difference between a 2h and a 1h. Their resource system could be ki or chi (whichever you call it), it could fit the bill of offensive attacks to buff / debuff as a support class, to help as dps, tank or heal.

It could be unique in its armor, either cloth or leather only, relying on a unique avoidance threat system (could call it Frustration: for each attack dodged, causes increased threat, uses both passive and active abilities to enhance its avoidance). Low armor class tank? Totally left of field, but we need something exciting like this to make them unique.

Also could do healing too with Chants or Mantras/Sutras, with focuses on channelled healing as its niche, the longer it channels the stronger the heal becomes.

Anyhow, I often muse over how Blizzard will take this game, and think back to the older Warcraft titles to see if something will be reborn. There’s my rant, make of it what you will

By: rusquel

rusquel — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:18:46 +0000

A new class? Or maybe a new race(s)? Sure they’ve done both before, but do Blizzard really want to trot out some more of the same for their next (cataclysmic?) expansion? DKs brought a fairly different playstyle with them (runes+runic power vs rage, combo points, or mana). That takes a bit of dev time. How could a new healing class (for example) really feel different to the current ones? Blizzard seem to have a hard enough time to balance encounters to make all healing classes useful in most situations.

So far we have:
3 plate wearing classes (all can DPS/tank, one can heal)
2 mail wearing classes (one healer/melee DPS, one ranged DPS)
2 leather wearing classes (one DPS, one hybrid)
3 cloth wearing classes (one healer/ranged DPS, the other two ranged DPS)

I know it’s an over-simplification but bear with me.

This adds up to:

4 tanking classes
4 healing classes
5 melee DPS classes
5 ranged DPS classes

Remember that some classes can act in multiple roles (such as our Druid friends). Pre-WotLK we saw a definite lack in tanks, since only 3 classes could fill that role. Currently, though, they all seem fairly evenly spread. Adding another pure DPS class would seem unlikely; adding another tanking class so soon after DKs became the scourge of Dalaran seems unlikely too. Which leaves us with a healing class *or no new class at all*.

Only time (and possibly BlizzCon 09) will tell…
EDIT: spelling
.-= rusquel´s last blog ..Clothies are *hard* =-.

By: Tubalcain

Tubalcain — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:04:34 +0000

Shadow Hunters don’t sound at all like Shaman. I’d like to see some playable Shadow Hunters–possibly with shape shifting abilities similar to Druids.

By: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:10:02 +0000

I think the big problem Blizzard are going to have is how they work in the races with the hero classes. The Death Knight is really an evil class imo although they did a good job working it in with the lore but if every hero class from now on can be played by any class it’s going to diminish the point of having race/class restrictions in the first place.

Personally I’d like to see 2 hero classes in the next expansion and give them race restrictions.
.-= We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog´s last blog ..Exploring EVE Online =-.

By: Qi

Qi — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:00:41 +0000

My guess would be a Demonhunter as he seems to be the most unique on the list after a quick glance. Most of the other classes are all present in some class or another and so look too much like them imho. Like someone said, DK is melee, so casterhero is imminent. A Lich springs to mind but he is just as (un)dead as a DK is, so I give that little chance.

The problem is (in my eyes at least) that most of these are just souped-up versions of regular classes that already excist and don’t seem worth the while to recreate as heros. Blizzard will probably find something to make the unique though.

The class I would like to see? Wc3 Warden meets Wc2 Ranger. Although this would seem to be a rogue/hunter combo without stealth and a pet I loved the Warden in Wc3 and the Ranger is just one of my fav classes in any fantasy world

By: Thales

Thales — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:04:18 +0000

I'm feeling some sort of caster hero class is comming up. I think there has been a lot of expression for a mage-like caster hero class, and espcially with the melee class of the DK's, I can see this being likely. .-= Thales´s last blog ..Best-In-Slot Versus 4-Piece Tier 8.5 =-.

By: Apoptygmaa

Apoptygmaa — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:31:30 +0000

New races? Check.
New class? Check.
…howabout a new faction?
.-= Apoptygmaa´s last blog ..Druids training complete =-.

By: Honorshammer

Honorshammer — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:18:08 +0000

I doubt it will happen, but I would LOVE to see the Goblin Tinker added as a Hero class. Speculation is that Undermine (the Goblin Capital) will be a neutral city in the Maelstrom expansion when that comes. It seems an ideal place to add the Goblin Tinker, but I worry there would be too much overlap between the Tinker Class and the Engineering profession. .-= Honorshammer´s last blog ..Me and 24 of My Best Friends =-.

By: thatsabigfro

thatsabigfro — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:32:34 +0000

i’d like to see a support healer that sacrifices his own health for others’ health. his dps has a sort of lifesteal component. maybe he can also lifelink with a member of the party to take some of their damage as his own and also provide that person with health from his lifesteal abilities.

he would have abilities to mitigate a percentage of the damage received through his lifelinked target and similar abilities to amplify the health he gives to that target. he could have a 51 pt talent that allows him to use his lifelink on all party members with pretty huge mitigation for the dmg he receives and nice healing.

i dunno, just some thoughts…

By: Jonneh

Jonneh — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:16:12 +0000

Personally I’d love to see the Demon Hunter. It could be integrated very easily into the story with them being able to be played by night elves or blood elves and they could start out at level 65 in Black Temple as Maiev is attacking Illidan. This would end with Illidan biting the bullet (giving a definative ending to that chapter) and the Demon Hunter being level 68 and moving to northrend the same way Death Knights went straight to outland.

In reality I think it will be the archdruid as it fits the emerald dream theme. Guessing they will do all their training in the emerald dream setting up the expansion (the same way the liberation of the Death Knights gave you a lot of the backstory to WotLK) with it culminating in them waking up in moonglade in Barrow Dens or whatever it’s called.