That Rune Master type of class has been in the D&D style WoW RPG for a while if I recall. I remember seeing some art of them years ago. Monk is one of the usual RPG class archetypes that WoW lacks, too.

Do they want another melee though? Bosses backsides are getting quite crowded as it is. I assumed if they did add one it would be a healer/ranged type to balance out tank/melee of DK.

WotLK did a good job of balancing out needs, 4 Classes that can tank, 4 that can heal, 4 that bring pure DPS. I would not count on them adding another class. The development time of a new class is a very drawn out process to begin with, at least with 2 new races you get 2 starting areas, a few racials, and you're done, the story fleshes itself out at the end-game.

What I would hope however is for starting areas with these new races to be of Death Knight quality in story telling, presentation, maybe even leveling to 20(Or higher).

If you consider all of the small changes added recently and in general to WotLK(Heirlooms, mount changes, etc) Blizzard might be future proofing their content for just such an occasion and rerolls, or you can assume they went and added these things to make leveling easier for the heck of it, you decide.

You may be referring only to this expansion and not the entire future of WoW, but I believe they must have plans to add more classes. What's the point of introducing a "hero class" and never expanding it beyond DKs?

Another question would be do they intend to increase the character creation sheet to include said new "Hero Class", as there must be a large amount of folk out there who are sat on 10 characters now and I can imagine would not be impressed if they had to delete a char to play the new class.

While on the subject of a possible new "Hero Class", there is the possibility of Battle Mage or Techno Mage, I beileve they were 2 of the favourites pre Death Knight anouncement of possibilities along with Necromancer and Monk.

On increasing the 10-character limit: This same argument came up when DKs were announced. I really don't expect them to change their stance.

On the new Hero Class: The Blizzcast quoted earlier mentioned how a lot of the abilities for Necromancer were rolled into Death Knights, which makes sense. I would imagine given a) the existence of the Runemaster as a class in the PnP RPG and b) the relatively recent serious development of it as the Wrath Hero class, that grounds the Runemaster as a very solid possibility.

The only issue is whether or not it fits with the new expansion: truth be told, Runemaster would likely only fit with a Titan-centered expansion, and the glut of Titan material in Wrath means we're unlikely to get as much again. Archdruid fits perfectly with an Emerald Dream-centered expansion, but then there are the whole issues of how you balance Druid with Uberdruid or Mage with AwesomeMage. With so little known about the Maelstrom or what a Maelstrom-centered expansion would entail, it's hard to say what Hero Class would fit with it.

A new hero class is a massive selling point of a new expansion, as well as a huge driving factor for further altism, i.e. reasons for people to keep playing. It doesn't matter if the developers don't like balancing a new class or if the game doesn't need it, it will be put in for business reasons regardless. Remember, TBC effectively gave us a new class as well (shaman for alliance, paladins for horde). An expansion without a new class will just not get the required buzz, especially now they have no famous enemies left.

On top of that, the new class will be as overpowered to start with as DK's where. The new class has to be 'cool' and 'flavorfull' but we all know what that really means.

I'm at a loss to figure out what new hero class they'd add, if not runemaster. Like other people have said, deathknight fit an archetype and a set of WC3 lore that wasn't covered by the existing classes. We didn't have an undead class, we didn't have a black-cowboy-hat tank/melee class. Now that that niche is covered, all the other options just retread old ground.


Necromancer - This would have been a strong ranged/healer candidate, but now it shares a lot of design space with existing classes. Take a warlock or shadowpriest and give him deathknight tooltips, and you've got a necromancer. Besides, adding a necromancer class after Arthas is dead is pretty lame.

Demon Hunter - Boat's sailed on this one too. If we were getting a demon hunter class it would have been in TBC, when Blizzard deliberately created lore to support blood elf (horde) demon hunters in addition to night elves. Regardless, the last thing this game needs is another pure melee class. We're pushing the chain-lightning cap already.

Blademaster - now an Arms talent.

Shadow Hunter - Assuming you can figure out a way to drop in alliance shadow hunters, the iconic shadow hunter abilities are Chain Heal, Hex, and thrown weapons. Shadow hunters are shamans with a ranged weapon slot. If Blizzard ever wants to put in shadow hunters, we'll get a new 1-point talent in the Enhancement tree.

Archdruid - Remember the part of Alice in Wonderland where Alice is drowning in a sea of her own tears? That will be the reaction from all the "non-arch" druids if this ever sees the light of day. Blizzard knows better.

Spellbreaker - If I remember right, spellbreakers were in the leaked/fake TBC information but were never mentioned by Blizzard. Speaking of tears, WC3 spellbreakers were warriors who were immune to magic, which means no one would even have to write new forum posts to QQ about them. Just necro your old posts from Wrath and find-replace "DK" with "spellbreaker." No thanks.

Battle Mage - Plate-wearing tank/melee hybrid who AoEs by casting spells. We've got two of those already, and the two we have aren't using warmed-over mage abilities. Also, battlemages might actually want spellpower plate, which could cripple the game's abyss crystal supply.

Technomage - "Engineering: the Class" sounds awesome, but engineering is already a profession.


The last option I see is runemaster. Aside from having a melee spec, a runemaster can be whatever the game needs without too much departure from lore. Most of the lore for them is from the tabletop game, which isn't canon anyway. A caster or healer spec that uses rune tattoos wouldn't be a hard sell, we've got a rune resource system in the game already, and it'd be an opportunity to make the class distinct from existing caster/healers. There are some problems with runemaster - how do you justify them using gear as much as other classes, assuming they do wear armor in every slot how do you keep their tattoos visible - but they're the only option I see that doesn't step on an existing class's toes.

My thought for this based on existing WC heroes, especially if we have an undermine expansion, is a goblin tinker/alchemist. Basically a class where all the spells have special effects that seem as if they come from engineering or alchemy. Ranged DPS (rockets, napalm squirters, et cetera), traps (mines), no pet, and (maybe melee-range-only) heals and buffs (pour a vial down someone's throat).

But yeah, that's a bit of a stretch.

Yeah, it's a cool idea. Engineering always felt to me like a class that got nerfed down into a profession. You could just take the engineering profession, take away the long cooldowns, failure chances, item slot requirements, and most of the material costs, and buff the hell out of all the damaging abilities. You'd almost have a fully functional ranged DPS class. It'd have enough different nukes to have a proper rotation, it'd have CC, AoE, pets, burst CDs, and tons of utility spells. It'd have as many buttons and as much complexity as a mage or hunter.

Unfortunately the time to do that would have been five years ago, before engineering was already in the game.

Anyone able to download the 3.2 PTR file yet? Time to start digging for sound files.

Sound files are typically not added in that initial build.

It'll be a few updates before we get the juicy stuff.

If they do choose to add a new hero class, I'd imagine it would be a Monk or Rune Master type. Whatever they chose, it probably needs to wear Mail or Leather armor. If it does do physical dps, I'd imagine they'd do it with staves and fist weapons. Monk would be an interesting healer/physical DPS hybrid using fist weapons and staves to DPS and "zen" like healing. Runemaster could be shaman-esque in putting runes on the ground that give buffs, or creating runic circles, etc. Think full-metal alchemist, hehe.

The only problem with adding a new hero class is that they've really exhausted what they had left from Warcraft 3. Death Knight seemed fitting and was guessable for their first added class. But it seems all "classic" classes from the strategy series have been taken by giving their abilities to other classes.

Regardless of what the hero class is, there's almost no doubt that it would have to be a viable healer and probably not be a tank. I wouldn't be surprised if they went down the road of healer/caster dps similar to how death knights are tanks/melee dps. It could be very interesting to have a class that does caster-dps and healing through energy rather than mana. As Douglas mentioned, it'd also be interesting to have a healing class that has to stand VERY close to their target (imagine a healer running around and touching people to heal them).

Again, I don't think they'll add another class. They still haven't really tuned Death Knights well yet. Adding another class to iterate through could be killer. The options for the next expansion are endless.






While we're on the topic of "what IS the next expansion?," I'll bet that they shake things up quite a bit. I wouldn't be surprised to see no level cap increase, or a level cap increase of only 5. I also wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of dominating PvP factor. They could move in the direction of DAoC or some other "realm versus realm" thing where it's a conquest against the other side.

Point is, I doubt that their next expansion will be "normal." A new class, another 10 levels, a new race - we've seen it before. They'll likely find some new way to wow us (hehe pun) with the expansion. Blizzard generally doesn't create "same old same old."

I know some people might think I'm naive for saying this, but I do trust Blizzard's track record when it comes to designing quality games and not just churning money in.





Anyways, back to lore...
This colleseum really leaves the titan storyline untouched, and it might stay untouched for the remainder of the expansion. 3.2's end boss is likely to be Bolvar, corrupted/controlled by Arthas who makes a surprise appearance at the tournament. I wouldn't be surprised if you briefly fought against Arthas only to have him retreat again into Icecrown. We haven't see Arthas in a while, after all, and he has to play in there somehow. I doubt it's just "do the tournament then go to Icecrown" - there will have to be some lead in.

Even more so, I wouldn't be surprised to see Arthas make his main appearance in the 5man rather than the 25man. I remember Blizzard saying that WotLK would be a "3 part act." Well, they've got act 1 (Wrathgate), and they've got act 3 (Icecrown), so I wonder what act 2 will be. They've also said that "everyone will get to fight against Arthas," but having Arthas be an end-boss in 25man raiding goes against that statement.

3.3 would then be set up for Icecrown, and who knows what's really left in there. I'd bank on Icecrown being 9-10 bosses. (I'm also going to bet rated Battlegrounds go here, based on the battleground PvP Q&A).

3.4 has a lot of options left open, though I bet it'll have some "lead in" to the next expansion. My personal theory is that 3.4 will be a bunch of the chambers of aspects, and we learn that some of the dragonflight is being corrupted, and some message was sent to the titans about corruption, or something like that. It could also be something troll based - no surprises there. 3.4 could also be Uldum. We took a break from the Titan storyline, and now we're going back to it.




The next expansion, in my opinion, really has to be something to do with the seas. While the Emerald Dream seems plausible, it doesn't play well to Blizzard's core base. All of the major locations seen thus far were locations in WC3 or WC3:FT. Northrend, Outlands, all major locations. The only other place we've really seen that isn't in Northrend is the islands between the two continents. There was a significant amount of lore in the WC3 line, and it'd really open the door to also finally opening up the currently closed zones (Uldum, Grim Batol, etc.) They could add back in water-mounts or something similar.

The real problem, in either case, is that we still have no idea who the final end-boss will be of the next expansion, and there really aren't any good canidates. We KNEW Illidan was going to be the big "end boss" for most people in Burning Crusade. We KNOW Arthas is going to be the big "end boss" for most people in WotLK.

Undermine also seems likely for the last major city left. We know it's sitting there in the Southern Seas. Seems like a good place for them to hit up.

Guess we're waiting for the announcement.

A thought has just struck me, with the Black Knight coming back from the dead and us Following the continued story line as the saga unfolds before us. Would anyone put money on the Black Knight being Bolvar?

Witchdoctor.

As far as I am concerned it fits into most themes we need.

1.) There is a prominent Witch Doctor in Maelstrom who is friendly with both Alliance and Horde. Rastakhan - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

2.) It's a healer class. There was a tanking hero class, Blizzard has stated they wanted to rework healing mechanics. Seems like an expansion dedicated to changing healing is inevitable, and with such an overhaul a fifth fleshed class can be slotted in.

3.) Witch Doctor class thematically uses a lot of poisons and brewing. While Rogues also do this, there is room for a healer or caster class to do this too.

4.) It's entirely possible for Witch Doctor to be the "Combo point healer". Using brews and concoctions as pseudo-combo points. Witch doctor - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

That would be pretty lame/anti-climatic considering we already beat him in the most normal of quests.

Any new class introduced to the game would have to be a Mail or Leather wearer. The Spellpower niches of both these Armor types are fairly exclusive, so it'd make sense to introduce some kind of Healer. As others mentioned above, it'd be great to see them expand on poisons and offer them to a 2nd class, combining them as a method of generating attacks. (Ie. The Mix feature of the Final Fantasy series, whereby a character (such as Rikku) combines a Grenade with a Health potion to create an AoE Healing Ability. Some kind of Brewmaster(?) whom combines two different kinds of Poisons/Vials to either deal damage to a target or heal an ally would be a pretty exciting and potentially limitless opportunity; especially with the way they're taking character customisation these days. (Dual-Spec, Glyphs & Shaman Totem management) One vial could be enchanted, whilst the other could be tainted, providing alternate results when mixtures are brewed within them. Ahhhh, dreaming is fun.

One thing that people need to stray from though, is looking at the list of Heroes in WC3 and ticking off which abilities haven't been used yet. These heroes were the basis of WoW's initial classes - anything they come up with now will be fairly unique.

Update for those who cared.


WORLD OF WARCRAFT #23
Written by Walter and Louise Simonson
Art by Mike Bowden
Cover by Mike Bowden & Tony Washington

Following an attempt on Med'an's life, Garona and Meryl team up to take out the ogre Cho'gall. Meanwhile Med'an, Valeera and Maraad travel to Kharazhan to speak with the shade of Med'an's father. Further explore the world of the best-selling MMORPG in this hit comic series!

Nice to finally get some confirmation, even if it was fairly obvious.

I've been doing some pondering, and the sudden decision to allow Rogues to use Axes seems fairly redundant. Sure, it gives levelling Rogues more options, but end-game Combat Itemisation has always been fairly substantiated. (Not to mention they kinda stopped producing 1H Axes after TBC, there's like 1-2 in all existing WotLK Raid content?)

So could this be a hint into the next expansion? Perhaps each class will recieve the opportunity to break into a specialist class/role, and to better facilitate this, Rogues needed to be able to wield axes? Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Maybe the next end-tier Combat Talent will allow the Rogue to wield 4 weapons or something, and Sword/Dagger/Fist/Mace just wasn't enough!

Rogues needed to be able to use 1H axes for itemization reasons. Let me explain. Rogues really want slow, hard-hitting MH weaps, but for our OH, the faster the better (for almost all specs).

Due to this, combat rogues were the only group of raiders that had ANY use for slow 1H swords.

The logic currently stands that swords will all become fast (so tanks and rogues can still use them, and hunters really don't care about speed anyway). Fists will become generally slow, since shaman want slow on both hands, and rogues can get fast daggers for their OH. Axes will fill the slow MH issue (since it will share Hack and Slash specs with swords).

Anyway, it's a really good decision, in that light.

How about we also look at the fact Daggers are the most dropped weapon and only used by one spec? But itemisation issues for another thread.

A mail spell power user would be okay I guess, as it could also use leather too. I still think it would have to be a ranged/healer hybrid and I don't see it coming the next expansion. Some sort of runemaster if it was ranged only,

On the no levelling thing I just don't buy it. Levelling occupies players for along time and at least for me is the most enjoyable part of each new expansion. People were predicting no or 5 levels for WotLK and it never came to pass. I don't see it for the xpac either, I guess we'll know at Blizzcon.

Witch Doctor is a very interesting suggestion. Personally, I feel like it would end up having a great deal of crossover from the new Diablo 3 Witch Doctor, and that might seem like Blizzard's milking a voodoo pony for two out of three franchises, and they should be able to be more innovative than that.

But in terms of a hero class that could be made dynamic and different enough from other healing classes, have a DPS method, and fits with an expansion, it really hits all the notes.