Unique Abilities for Class/Race Combos like Priests.

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Natuaduck
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Unique Abilities for Class/Race Combos like Priests.

Post by Natuaduck » Mon Feb 03, 2025 9:43 pm

For example:
  • Undead Hunters getting a Shadow Arrow they quest for at 20, with upgrades at 30, 40, 50, 60. Simple as. Just a shot that deals shadow damage and applies a DoT. Nothing crazy, literally just flavour and a neat useful ability.
  • High Elf Hunters getting an improved arcane shot, Dwarf Mages having some kind of earth rupture spell, Orc Warlocks having some kind of fel blast that sacrifices health. Gnome Warriors having a "Low Blow" kind of attack that functions like a weaker Hamstring, maybe?
So on and so forth with all the classes. There's numerous possibilities to further add some uniqueness to a Class/Race combo that's just on-flavour but nothing that's drastically game changing.

Night Elf Priests now can wield Bows for instance, which is huge in terms of variety, but not insanely strong either.

amanagor
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Re: Unique Abilities for Class/Race Combos like Priests.

Post by amanagor » Mon Feb 03, 2025 9:55 pm

leveling is beyond irrelevant, why care about sinking dev time to irrelevant content?

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Whalemilk
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Re: Unique Abilities for Class/Race Combos like Priests.

Post by Whalemilk » Mon Feb 03, 2025 10:02 pm

Check out my hunter racial abilities in the link below

Atreidon
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Re: Unique Abilities for Class/Race Combos like Priests.

Post by Atreidon » Tue Feb 04, 2025 6:48 am

While it appears like a very flavorful addition to have extra racial abilities for each class, trying to implement it, so that every eacial has time to shine compared to one another, is a neverending task.

There is a reason fearward was made baseline. It was a very good racial ability. To the point where people picked dwarf not because they wanna play dwarf but because of an ability that comes with this choice.

In the example given by you for instance, gnome warriors getting a weaker version of hamstring is absolutely useless. Even with hamstring having a cd, the use cases for a second weaker version of the same spell are extremely few andrar between.

In the Orc Warlock example having a powerful hit that sacrifices life, every warlock who wants to deal as much damage as possible (e.g. all of them) will feel like they have to go orc. Since a full on DPS increasing racial is way more universally useful than some other situational racial.

I absolutely love the flavor racials provide. But it inherently makes the choice of how you wanna look be tied to gameplay. Crucially it also retroactively applies as such to everyone who already made their character

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Zeran
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Re: Unique Abilities for Class/Race Combos like Priests.

Post by Zeran » Tue Feb 04, 2025 9:36 am

They added race specific abilities to Shamans, but yeah would be cool for all classes. But it would also require some time and does make balancing more difficult within the scope of all the other abilities and talents.
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Akos1896
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Re: Unique Abilities for Class/Race Combos like Priests.

Post by Akos1896 » Tue Feb 04, 2025 11:36 am

For the fun of it, I'd join in. But I agree, the more class racials, the harder it is to balance the game.
On the other hand it's unfair that 2 classes have it, the others don't.
So not suggesting anything but liking the topic as long as it remains theoretical.

Will give some random ideas as they come, no structure.

Troll warlock: Passive racial. Automatically restores n% of your HP lost during a life tap. Works alongside their regeneration niche.
Orc warlock: A pet buff on CD. They have a similar racial but I think we can double-down on them. Orcs are stereotypical taskmasters, just imagine a whip in the hand.
Gnome warrior: On CD 'finding the weak spots' of the enemy, translating into an on CD crit increase. Like 'that part' of the current human perception racial.
Helf paladin: On CD ability which makes the buffs done by this helf n% stronger for a short period of time. For example this guy was responsible for kings. Every 3 minutes there is a 10 sec window where he 'amplifies his blessings', making his kings currently on his allies buff 5% more on everyone. Numbers are highly tweakable.
Nelf rogue: A high damage, high CD combo-point generator which can only be used from stealth.
Tauren hunter: A taunt. No kidding. If we ever do class racials, we also open up a lot of added support for niche playstyles. You wanna meme as a tank hunter? Go tauren. More HP, war stomp and class racial gives you a very basic toolkit for it. This logic can open up some niche playstyles without polluting the class skillset with questionable/weird abilities by itself.
Troll mage: Some kind of hasty casting in a weird, barbaric euforia -> Increased spell damage, reduced spell hit chance. Liking this idea flavor-wise but would be a hell of a balance.
Undead rogue: either an own poison or a poison-related ability.
Tauren druid: Feral stomp. If I recall well, war stomp doesn't work in feral forms.
Goblin warrior: An on CD bomb which does a really low DoT on the target but during the time of the DoT the target gets more bleeding damage.
Goblin rogue: Added money/loots for pickpocketing.
Gnome rogue: On CD ability raising their effective stealth level by 2. Unlike the nelves, it is not a passive, but it's even more effective when active. Eats up energy. Gnomes are small.
Troll rogue: Doubling their health regeneration for 5 sec after receiving a crit. Not stackable.
Goblin warlock: On CD ability, they get two mecha-arms for a very short period of time, doubling their casting speed for that time period. 2-5 sec, I guess. Idea is that mecha-arms help in with the casting.
Undead warlocks: Every time they fear a target, they get a 'fearful' buff which gives them a small HoT for the duration of the fear. Not stackable.
Dwarven rogues: Taunt. Same as tauren hunters. You want a niche tanking run ? Stoneform, taunt, threat poison level treshold reduced plus a taunt. Have fun, go dwarf!
Orc warriors: An own shout. Very fitting for them.
Human warrior: A passive CD reduction on retaliation, recklessness and shield wall (you can double down on improved discpilnies). Because of the disciplined nature of the human warriors.
Nelf druid: A passive, increasing their damage in cat form if the target has an arcane DoT on themselves.

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Steakhouse
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Re: Unique Abilities for Class/Race Combos like Priests.

Post by Steakhouse » Tue Feb 04, 2025 7:14 pm

This would be super cool but would require a tremendous amount of work and would cause a tremendous amount of bitching from the parsers and pvp community.
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