Mist of Pandaria gave us both a new race and class. It also increased the limit of characters to 11. As I am near completion in terms of leveling my monk, I have to ask the question whether or not introducing a new race/class in the upcoming expansion is worth it?
For myself, I want to say flat out no. I really don’t see a good enough reason to add yet another class to the game, especially if you have to start from ground zero. The monk had the benefit of the bonus experience and pandarens had increased rested experience. And while those aspects combined with BoAs, RAF and potions could make leveling easier, I feel that there really isn’t a great point in providing another class just to see content that you’ve already experienced (and in my case, experienced 10+ times).
Of course, you could argue that they could provide something like a Death Knight hero class where the character would start off around say level 80-85. But adding another hero class might end up surfacing the same dilemmas that the Death Knight in its original form caused. The one positive aspect of the Death Knight was that it was already in the lore and had a great purpose to make it a compelling class beyond the instant level 55. These days with the exception of a few rare cases, the Death Knight has lost a lot of its flair; so adding a hero class would end up making the class meaningless in the long run.
The only thing I can think of would be something that takes a few existing concepts, the armor and roles and deriving a new class from that. For instance, the class more than likely should employ either chain or plate armor for casters as paladins and shamans really have no rivals in this category. Another idea would be to redefine the hybrid idea such that this class would be doing two roles to a lesser degree simultaneously like healing and dps. Sure, we have classes like the enhancement shaman that can drop healing rain or chain heals, boomkins who can HoT up damaged allies (beyond themselves) or shadow priest who can use a healing cooldown. But these classes do this as an option rather than as part of their rotation.
Lore-wise, I can’t really see any type of characters that might fall under this umbrella. If anything, there really aren’t many options. Someone once mentioned a shadow hunter, so perhaps combining a rogue and hunter. Then there’s the necromancer. The necromancer seems like a good familiar class, but at the same time it overlaps slightly with the warlock (except dealing with undead).
More importantly, I can’t see any type of class that does something better than what exist. The shadow hunter sounds interesting but the idea of a ranged rogue might just be too overpowered. This is partly why I just feel that a new class makes little sense at this stage.
How about a new race? Again, the question is what benefits does creating a new race have? In Cataclysm, the lower level vanilla areas were redone. So re-rolling a goblin or worgen from level 1 did have some value as Blizzard probably felt the new race would create an incentive to check out the redone zones. In the case of the Pandaren, they had the rested experience bonus on top of many people wanting to play a monk (which had their own form of bonus experience through their dailies). So why would a new race be of any value here?
One thing to examine is the way the BoA weapons from Garrosh go up to level 100. If, indeed, the expansion allows people to cap at level 100, then having new races and classes without some experience benefit or fast leveling benefit would be moot. Another thing is that World of Warcraft isn’t designed to be played around a single class (the way say Bard’s Tale 2 and 3 were)
My preference in the upcoming expansion would be to focus on new ideas for the existing classes. Some people have pointed to triple specs but to me that’s more about flexibility for toons and the player in allowing people to choose any spec. But that really doesn’t hone in on what I hope in making classes more exciting.
Two ideas that exist are multi-classing (or dual-classing) and elite classes. Games like AD&D have pioneered the idea of multi/dual classing. While World of Warcraft does have the notion of specializations/specs/roles, it does not have the notion of true multi/dual classing. For instance, combining a rogue and a hunter or a warrior/mage. I honestly don’t know how such an idea would pan out in World of Warcraft since the classes use complex (and also rather boring) rotations rather than focus on single abilities that match the moment (except for a few like CC’s, stuns, etc.). My guess would be to eliminate many of the redundant abilities or create a combined style rotation. Personally, I favor eliminating the idea of a rotation, focusing on a few key abilities and going from there (such as a warrior/mage doing several melee attacks followed up with a fireball)
Elite classes are an idea that I’ve seen a few other RPGs do like Might and Magic. I have mixed feelings about these as their real purpose is to act as a quest catalyst and barrier. Most games end up balancing around the point where you obtain the elite status such as giving you access to more abilities, etc. So you can level but you just won’t be maxed out until you complete your class quest. In World of Warcraft, this idea would more or less just be something like attunement.
I’d prefer to have the idea of customizing my class more in the expansion. The glyph and talent system don’t really apply for the most part as they play out more situational rather than owing to a true individual’s preference. Either way, I don’t think just adding more classes will add that great of a depth to the game.
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