A Proposed Class Revision for World of Warcraft 2.
I spend a lot of time theorycrafting, and world building in my work — heck, I spend a lot of time theorycrafting, and world building for fun… but lately, being between gigs, I’ve found myself less inclined to actually “work”, aside from hunting for my next big thing, and there’s always the fear that if you don’t keep sharpening your tools, they’ll be too dull to function when the time comes.
With that said, I decided to take a crack and reimagining the World of Warcraft class design, perhaps for World of Warcraft 2, in ways that make sense to me. If this is well received, perhaps it will be the first of a series of posts.
I hope you enjoy.
Above, I’ve included the a brief summary of the current World of Warcraft class/spec offerings — 39 specs, spread across 13 classes. For a game that has been out as long as WoW has, that’s a decent variety of things for a game that needs to balance “staying the same” enough for some people, and “trying new things” for others. There’s a fine line in design between change for the sake of change, and change for the sake of improvement; this isn’t always obvious to some people.
Now the first thing I notice looking at that image is that several different specs share the same name. The very next thing I notice is that the number of specs isn’t distributed evenly. Lastly, the distribution of roles is a bit off when you line all the classes/specs up side by side.
So the first thing we’re going to do with this revision is fix and balance this; actually the first thing we’re going to do is say goodbye to the some of the classes — well, sort of… I’ll explain that later ;-)
Alright then, now if you’re an experienced WoW player you’ll probably notice these are all core classes the game started, and that all the hero classes are gone. The main reason for this is to simply streamline, but as you’ll see below the hero classes aren’t “gone” per se; they’re mostly absorbed into existing classes.
Mostly.
Power Source Selection
Yup, this is our first big change, upon character creation, depending on your class you choose the source of your power. Is it The Light? Ley Lines? Loa? The Emerald Dream? These choices should be thematic and affect what your abilities, transmog, and architecture default to, and while part of me wants to say, “and restricted to races”, I think we’ve had enough of that already. You want your Tauren Druid to have been trained by the Zandalari? Go for it, Loa-guy! Is your Orc a steam-powered engineer? Whelp…ok then.
You’ve got your non-magical, and magical power sources, (3 and 4), 7 in total, but more power sources can be added at a future date, increasing the diversity of existing appearance/class/specs without needing to code entirely new classes, races, and abilities. I could see the respective Dragonflights being Power sources, or the Sun/Anshe, for example.
Power Sources: Steel (Human Default medieval sharp steel, brick houses, polished design), Savagery (Orc Default skins, furs, fangs, jagged look, raw/primal design), Steam (Gnome Default, clockwork, tinkered, gears, wires, mechanical), Ley Lines (Order, Titan-based, Pinky-blue “arcane missiles” Kirin-Tor), Fel (Chaos, Legion-based, Green/Black, Fire/Demons, Spikes), Loa (Wild, Ancestral magic, spirit-based, animal-based), Emerald Dream (Nature, healing, elemental, benevolent), Light (Light, powerful, structured, unyielding, glowy white/yellow aesthetic), Void (Dark, mysterious, black/purple aesthetic, cold, dangerous), Fire, Earth, Air, Water (Elemental forces, oppositions can’t co-exist, primal/not polished/should feel raw and possibly overwhelming), and Death (Necromancy, Skulls, blood, Black/Green/Purple/Red, gothic and frightening)
After each class I’ll list what I think are the most appropriate Power Sources for each, sometimes followed by an example of who would take that.
Classes
Fundamentally, the Warrior class stays the same, with just some realigning and reimagining for their third spec. The Protection spec is renamed Champion, and their role in a group is either Tank or Melee DPS — depending on what stance they activate. As Tank, they use 1-Hander/Shield, and as DPS they Dual-Wield. This is your stoic knight, the plate wearing damage sponge who holds the line against oncoming foes.
The Arms/Fury specs are combined into one, called Berserker — they Dual Wield, or use a 2-Hander, as they like. I want to get rid of Titan’s Grip as a class ability, and get back to actually dual wielding 1 handed weapons — or, using a single 2-hander. (If there’s a place for Titan’s Grip, it’s perhaps a racial for a big/strong race.) The stance they can activate is their Berserker frenzy, which increases their damage output, at the expense of their defence (personal hero/bloodlust). Dual-wielding applies bleeds/dots, while using a 2-hander front loads the damage and allows cleaving. Perhaps they use mail instead of plate?
The big change to Warrior comes here, the Ranger spec. This isn’t your camouflaged Night Elf hunter, sniping people from the treetops, this is your down in the dirt, crossbow/rifle wielding grunt, right up there behind the Tank line, taking pot shots at the enemies. Hunters have held the monopoly on ranged weapons for too long, and it doesn’t make sense. Being an Archer, Crossbowman, and especially a Rifleman, doesn’t inherently require you to be woodsy or interested in nature — some people just like to shoot things. This spec is purely Ranged DPS, with some limited melee abilities for when things get too close. They could potentially be limited to mail or leather.
I’d love to see heavier armour impose a movement penalty game-wide.
Power Sources: Steel (Human, Dwarf), Savagery (Orc, Troll), Steam (Gnome, Goblin)
Paladin gets some big changes, much more than their Warrior-kin.
Their first spec is the Knight spec, a Tank/Melee combo, which changes whether they are channeling Holy, or Unholy power. That’s right, our first big change is rolling the Death Knight, or elements therein, into the Paladin class. Wielding 1-Handed weapons with Shield, or 2-Handed weapons, this spec is essentially the Protection Paladin and the Blood Death Knight rolled into one. The player gets to choose whether they tank through blocking, or parrying simply by their weapon choice (1H/S, or 2H), and while the Holy Knight may lay on hands, and heal others, the Unholy Knight can use the same abilities to inflict harm, or heal themselves through damaging others. Plate Tank all the way.
Next, we see sort of a combination of Retribution and Frost, in the Templar Once again, the player has the choice of channeling their power — either Justice or Vengeance. They have the choice of dual-wielding 1 handers, or a big old 2-hander, and again the difference being largely between speed vs power in their damage output. Bleeds vs Raw DPS. When choosing Justice, the spec functions well as melee dps, maybe even a half-decent off tank (always bothered me Ret/Frost couldn’t tank in the slightest), and when choosing Vengeance, their damage output increases, but at some personal cost — perhaps they receive less healing in this stance, but generate less threat?
Lastly, the Spiritual spec, which combines the Holy and Unholy specs from Paladin and Death Knight. The choice here is pretty binary, if you’re channeling Holy you’re a traditional Paladin Healer, and if you’re channeling Unholy you’re a necromantic DPS. The Unholy player still “heals”, but they do so through dots, inflicting damage to others, and self-sacrifice to heal others, whereas the Holy player is a pure beacon of light pumping out those numbers you expect from a Holy Paladin. I’d like both specs to have a pet that can tank for them in solo play, or help with heals DPS, depending on the pets stance (are you picking up a lot of stance play in this redesign yet?) — what the holy pet could be though is pretty broad, as we don’t want to step on the Priest class (spoilers), but also it needs to be something as cool and interesting as the undead abomination the Unholy folks get. Something like a Squire, or a Warhorse seems too mundane?
Power Sources: Light, Void, Loa, Death, Emerald Dream, Death
Currently the Hunter class works well for what it does. It’s monopoly on controllable pets and ranged damage needs to go, but otherwise the only thing the class is missing is more support and perhaps even a new role?
We’ll start with the biggest change, the Warden spec. Here we’re taking the inspiration for the Demon Hunter class, and taking a lot of those demon hunter abilities, and giving Hunter it’s first Tank spec. With this spec you’re going to see a dual-wielding, glaive throwing, agility based tank that parries and jumps around, and uses a combination of traps (replacing DH sigils) and maneuverability to control the battlefield. This is our first non-plate tank on the list of revised classes, and as a brief aside, I’ll mention my classifications for Tanks in general here = There are two types: Mitigation (You prevent damage through armour/blocking/soaking), and Agility (You dodge/parry/riposte attacks) — This spec would be our first Agility tank.
Next we see the Marksman, largely unchanged, but no longer someone with pets. In place of pets we see the Marksman get some magical, nature/elemental based abilities, Druidic/Shamanic tricks that help here and there. I’m talking minor heals, cures, buffs, letting them carry the load equally with the party rather than being a “pure dps” spec that doesn’t have to help out with horrible dungeon affixes ;-) Marksman's strength is in its utility — great single target, great AOE, one shot one kill, blocking out the sun with a rain of arrows, etc.
I’m reimagining the BM spec as a combination of BM and Survival, in so much as their ranged weapons are gone, and the majority of their “attacks” are through their pets in melee. They also help out with a stab here and a poke there (no more ranged weapons for BM, they’re right up their with their best boys), and I’d like to see the pet really be an extension of the character at a fundamental level — as you level up and grow in power, so does your pet, and that should be customizable and reflected in the pets appearance. I’d also like to bring back pet talent trees for the BM Hunter — really drive home the, “It’s all about the Beasts” aspect of the spec.
Power Choices: Emerald Dream, Loa, Elemental, Steel, Steam, Savagery, Fel
For Rogue, we’re seeing 2 of the 3 specs change. First, what’s staying the same?
Assassin, essentially, is now Assassination/Subtlety rolled into one. We’re talking daggers, poisons, and shadows. This spec should always be behind the target, stabbing, pickpocketing, garroting — if you like the classic Thief or Assassin archetype, this is definitely the spec for you. I’m ok with this spec not bringing much in the way of group-benefit, but they’d keep core abilities, like stealthing the whole party, etc. — and their sheer damage output should make them desirable. Also, lets see more function use from locks and traps in game content yeah? We’ll give a few classes and/or professions ways to deal with them, but not too many. There’s very little “Rogue” content for Rogues in current WoW, beyond stabbing. Of course, we’re sticking to leather/cloth armour only.
For the next spec, we’re combining the existing Outlaw spec with the Brewmaster Monk spec, and calling it the Swashbuckler. Yes, this is your Rogue tank, our 2nd Agility tank that relies heavily on dodge/parry and the monks old Stagger, now called Riposte, mechanics to survive. This spec should be flashy, fun, and fast — a tank that literally taunts their foes to gain aggro, and relies on speedy attacks with dual-wielded 1 handers to keep it. By switching stances, this spec can go from tanking to pure dps, and we probably give them various ways to drop aggro in their dps stance, related to their wit and agility.
Last, and yeah this is partly me dreaming, but we give the players what many of them (us) have been asking for for years — the Bard spec. This spec will play out a lot like the Augmentation Evoker, in that it’s a DPS spec that makes the rest of the party better. They choose with songs they’re going to sing, and that provides a group/raid wide buff that changes based on the stance they’re in — offensive or defensive, never both at the same time (balance). We could go two routes here, either a dual-wielder, or a instrument wielding spell caster that does ranged damage with their songs.
Power Choices: Steel, Steam, Savagery, Ley Lines, Emerald Dream
The Sorcerer is your Arcane practitioner. They weave their magic through wands and staffs, and they’re your pure ranged magical DPS source. We give them the ability to construct an Arcane Golem, or summon an Arcane Elemental, that will help with Tanking or DPS respectively, especially useful for solo play (and I’ve never understood why this isn’t offered in the current game), but summoning said Arcane helper costs them a ticking resource — a constant mana drain that reduces the size of their available mana for spell casting. Lastly, they remain the masters of Teleportation, Gates, and Conjured food/tools/utility.
Summoners, however… The very observant of you will notice that Warlock was missing from my revised class list. Mages and Warlocks are so similar in so many ways, it makes more sense to me to make them one class — sorry to all the Warlock Stans, @me on X if you’re mad about it. (It’s also never really made sense that either the Horde OR Alliance would employ Warlocks given the historical trouble they’ve been at the root of…)
So with this spec, we see, essentially, Frost/Fire/Demo/Destro all rolled into one spec. You choose what your power source is and off you go. You’re either summoning your power of Fire, Frost, or Fel — but you’re still shooting massive bolts of power, calling rain, or controlling minions.
Where the Fire Summoner might call down Meteors, Rain of Fire, and Fire Elementals, their counterparts of the other power sources have equally impressive arsenals of their own magic variety — or maybe you’re a Kul Tiran Tidesage, walking around with a massive Water Elemental doing your bidding?
Lastly, we see the new Mage spec, Chronomancer. The gist of the spec is support first, DPS second. Time manipulation, Charming, Buffing, the class will seem somewhat similar to the Bard in many ways, but with the Mage toolkit in their back pocket — ranged, spell-damage, and large scale crowd control, with party-wide assistance mechanics to boot. They’d take the shielding damage mechanics away from Discipline Priests, and throw their shields around like crazy to prevent, even reflect damage. I’d also like to give them an anti-wipe mechanic that allows them to roll back time, but that would require extensive testing obviously — I worry that it would create a “must have” spec for every party.
Power Sources: Ley Lines, Fel, Elemental, Death
Ok Druids, you’ve had 4 specs long enough — that changes now, sorry not sorry.
First off, there’s no real need to have *two* shapeshifting classes of different specs, so we’re taking Guardian and Feral and making them the Shifter spec. This spec does it all, depending on what form you take. Shift into your tank form? Congrats, you’re tanking. Shift into your dps form, you guessed it, no longer tanking; now you’re dps! This seems so simple, I have no idea why it’s not this way already — a Guardian spec druid who shifts into cat form is kind of pathetic, and a Feral spec druid who shifts into Bear is only doing it to stay alive — that should change, so when you’re in your form, you’re *IN* your form. And while we’re at it, lets make shapechanged forms make some sense yeah? Worgen druids, literally werewolves, turn into cats, instead of direwolves? Nonsense. Zandalari druids can’t turn into raptors instead of cats? Again, just silly. Your shapechanging forms should either be racial specific, or decided by whatever Druid tradition you choose at creation.
Next, thank you Evokers, we see our Healing/Support spec — but we’re essentially rolling Restoration and the green elements from Evokers into one spec, keeping the Preserver name. This is your pure caster Druid, that heals and supports, but does one better than the other, depending on what power source they’re channeling. This would be a stance, allowing them to switch from support/dps to heals on the fly, changing their toolkit at the same time — switch to support, you lose your big heals, but get raid-wide cleanse, etc. I’d like them to mainly be Heal over Time healers, with big heals exhausting them in some capacity and requiring recovery time, perhaps reflected in a long cast timer for their non HoT heals? I could also see a mechanic wherein they pump people up with temporary hit points that absorb incoming damage first.
Astral is the spec formally known as Balance — this is your Starcaller, your Druid that brings down fire and sunbeams and doesn’t have any time or interest in being a healer. This spec should rival Mages and Assassins on pure DPS output, but shouldn’t have any access to the heals other druids get, or shapechanging abilities. They’ve devoted themselves to the stars, and that should be reflected in a fundamentally different toolkit than the other specs. The big shift for this spec should be whether they’re doing single target or AOE damage, shifting stances, between Sun and Stars. We also give them the ability to teleport and teleport their party to various places they have visited attuned to throughout the game — unlike Mage teleports though, these places must be wild, natural, or otherwise spiritually significant.
Power Sources: Emerald Dream (Night Elf, Tauren), Loa (Troll), Death (Kul Tiran)
Priests are the least changed of any class, just a realignment of their channeled forces and duties.
Light is our first spec, and essentially combines Holy with Disciplines offensive/healing powers, but dropping shields. You’re channeling the raw power of one of the most powerful forces in the Cosmos, whether you choose to use it for healing, or harm is up to your stance. This is your pure, single target healer, with some limited AOE healing, perhaps in the form of Beacons placed that players must interact with to heal themselves? If they forsake the ability to heal, switching stances, they become a pure conduit of Light based ranged damage, again, single target smites and holy strikes to flatten their enemies.
Shadow still remains a DPS spec, but also gains the ability to heal through inflicted damage — large scale, AOE dots that channel portions of the damage done into friendly targets. We get some of Disciplines offensive/healing spells, but only the ones that can logically work with Void (Penance, etc.). The spec needs more Void-based uniqueness, things like massive lock-down CC AOE abilities, perhaps even some fun random, group-wide teleports, and a group/raid-wide battle rez, that cost the priest their own life, thematically fit very well.
Balance becomes the third priest spec, and here we’re looking at an essentially reworked Mistweaver. This spec walks the fine line doing both DPS and Heals, with a pet to augment whichever one they’re not currently focused on. If they’re in their dps stance, their pet picks up the healing slack — if they’re healing, their pet is off laying down some quality dps. The spec is first and foremost a pet class, and their skills and spells should reflect that and harmonize/balance their respective HPS/DPS output. We could either give them access to both light/shadow abilities, or give them their own “harmonized” combination abilities (I prefer the latter).
Power Sources: Light, Void, Loa
Lastly we come to Shaman, the class I feel is almost always overshadowed by something else that does what it does, just a little better.
Primal is our first spec — this is our melee spec, and we’re essentially combining Enhancement with Windwalker. This needs to be a spec that is purely a melee spec, and their “shamanic” essence will come in the form of shouts, chants, and auras. They choose between dual-wielding 1 handers, or using a 2-hander, and they’re front line combatants, using their shouts to boost allies and harm enemies, chants to put persistent effects into play (similar to Bards songs), and auras to imbue themselves with different shamanic essences — storm aura to cloak themselves and their weapons in lightning, for example.
Elemental is still our second spec, still laying out ranged elemental damage, but accompanied by a persistent, controllable pet this time. The shaman can choose to dismiss their pet, which has a permanent cost attached to it while summoned, but it shouldn’t be an easy choice to make — the elemental they summon should be an intrinsic part of their spec identity and they should feel the loss when it’s not there. Their stance should be an elemental attunement that changes all their spells to the specific element, rather than the default of a variety of choices. Their skill tree should reflect the choice to focus or generalize, each with their own strengths and drawbacks.
Ancestral replaces Restoration, and offers you the choice of either healing or ranged DPS depending on your stance. This spec revolves around communicating with the ancestral spirits/ghosts of your ancestors, rather than playing around with the elements, while you still have access to the shaman toolkit, your spiritual abilities should make you a solid party choice for either heals or dps in a standard group. Ancestral abilities should seem/feel miraculous in nature — party wide invisibility, resurrection, heroism, etc. Group-wide Reincarnation would be just one of the perks this spec brings, but perhaps with a lower overall HPS to balance.
Power Sources: Elemental, Loa, Death
OBVIOUSLY…
…not everyone is going to like this — any of it; you might love all of it, you might hate the entire post, and you know what? That’s okay.
The beauty of theorycrafting is it’s imaginary, it’s just time, and you can’t hate time my friend. Well, I mean you can, but time doesn’t care if you hate it. It still owns you.
You can find me on X at @IvanMakesGames if you wanna @ me ;-)
