Burning Crusade gives WoW players Alliance shamans, Horde paladins

by Ross Miller { Jul 21st 2006 at 4:25PM }

In the beginning, Blizzard gave each warring faction its own unique class. For the Alliance, Blizzard gave paladins -- for the Horde, shamans. The impending expansion pack, however, is set to remove those restrictions.

Blizzard has announced that the new races in Burning Crusade will have access to the opposing faction's unique class. In other words, we shall now see Blood Elf Paladins fighting for the Horde, and Draenei Shamans on the Alliance's side -- there will be faction-specific abilities, however. Blizzard has written the lore to explain the faction-class crossovers, and a developer posting on WoW forums gives more behind-the-scenes reasoning behind the decision.

In a game where the primary focus is on teamwork, we understand this decision -- especially when the forum poster promises dungeons that now utliize the unique abilities of shamans and paladins. Our WoW Insider brethren seem optimistic about the inherent game balance. However, with the Battlegrounds pitting factions against one another, does the lack of a unique class bother any WoW players?

[Via WOW Insider; thanks, Eric Fox]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Amos @ Jul 21st 2006 4:30PM

If anything, the lack of unique classes will tone down whining. A few might complain...but eh. I just think it's kind of a cop out, personally. Where's the *new* specialty classes? That would've been more interesting...guess we can expect them right after a server stays up 24 hours straight.

Eih'Beir @ Jul 21st 2006 4:30PM

Umm...No.

john @ Jul 21st 2006 4:31PM

i personally dont mind this new development. however im not keen to hear the kiddies spamming how their life is over etcetc

Jake @ Jul 21st 2006 4:32PM

This is a horrible move on Blizzards part. The reason Blizzard is doing this is because there has always been a large gap between Horde and Alliance because of Paladins. Paladins make the dungeon and PvE content MUCH easier than their Shaman counterparts. The two classes have NEVER been equal. Blizzard screwed up, can't fix it. So they are simply giving up and doing this.

On top of all of this, it removes any sort of unique interest in one faction or the other. With the expansion, there will really be no reason to choose horde or alliance anymore. Just close your eyes and pick one.

kris @ Jul 21st 2006 4:34PM

Paladins bother WoW players.

Eih'Beir @ Jul 21st 2006 4:40PM

The only people this bothers are the Hordies, because their favorite class to gank with is no longer unique to them.

While the addition of Paladins to horde PvE raids will help slightly, the Shaman addition to alliance PvP is huge. The horde know that Shaman are an advantage that they are losing. Thus, the Whaaambulance will be making quite a few rounds today.

Byron @ Jul 21st 2006 4:47PM

There has been constant whining on both sides regarding the respective classes. On any given day Paladins are better than Shamans or vice versa, (though I admit I hear more often how overpowered they Both are) and this should ease some of the tension. I for one look forward to playing a Blood Elf Paladin and Draenei Shaman. I was debating what to play next, and having never played either class, it's a great oppurtunity to do so.

Sizer @ Jul 21st 2006 4:52PM

I think the real question here is how they'll make Horde paladins actually not suck and how they'll nerf Alliance shamans. You can already see it starting with '[Blood Elf] paladins will get some unique abilities.'

Jake @ Jul 21st 2006 5:05PM

You alliance players are pathetic if you actually think Alliance is getting the raw end of this deal. You don't realize that Paladins almost totally trivialize the need for Shamans in PvE content. Most of the Shaman are going to be replaced. Pretty poor if you ask me.

Ryan @ Jul 21st 2006 5:14PM

Note to self: Don't bother re-activating my account for crap like this.

DORKDORK @ Jul 21st 2006 5:30PM

Now all they have to do is remove the 2 factions entirely and the game will be worth playing. Going by a city faction like EQ1 did is a whole hell of a lot smarter, and allows a greater pool of people to interact with each other.

Paul P. @ Jul 21st 2006 5:32PM

I'm still pissed they didn't make Goblins playable. Goblin should be available, for either faction, as "mercs".

PayTheMan @ Jul 21st 2006 5:36PM

Quite a sloppy fix to a big problem on Blizzard's part. Sure they mention certain side-specific skills, but what is the point of choosing either side to play on now?

WoW's huge player base (6 million) is not only its boon but apparently its bane as well. The only way they feel they can appease everyone is by making everyone equal. How boring.

beatgeek @ Jul 21st 2006 5:59PM

No problem here. At one swoop they've fixed the whining on both sides about the other ("Pallies make Alliance overpowered in PvE!!" "Shamans make Horde overpowered in Pvp!") and cast existing content in an entirely new strategic light. Since there's only a single race on each side that can play the new classes, the population of each will go to fairly low levels after the initial surge of novelty has worn off. Yes, the lore is screwed up (I would have gone with Night Elf shamans and Orc paladins myself if I was a dev, but obviously I'm not), but then again lore contradicts itself fifteen times a day in any case. The expansion just made things a whole lot more interesting as far as I'm concerned...

Ahms @ Jul 21st 2006 6:51PM

There's nothing really unique about the Warcraft universe anymore. Everything that made it Warcraft now finds itself at the mercy of untalented developers and repetitive grinding- it's become a homogenized world both in game and lore terms now

It's the raids that run the one grand Warcraft universe now. It's not Alliance vs. Horde anymore, it's Red Team vs. Blue Team

Personally I was getting very, very tired of raiding and the item-centric world over a gameplay-based world, and was hoping Burning Crusade would remedy that, but obviously the move to balance through sharing Classes was meant really for balancing raids- which I don't enjoy a future of partaking in anymore; you might as well ask someone to fold laundry 100x for an item

The loss of Warcraft itself, what drew me to this MMORPG beyond the others back in the day, combined with the incessant decisions on "Time Spent" over "Fun Had", is the last straw for myself and my friends. The only real difficult part is seeing that there's nothing else really out there at the moment (we're looking at Warhammer in the distance). Maybe it's time to explore the next-gen thing...

alternate_fire @ Jul 21st 2006 7:09PM

It's a small point, but note that the Blizzard forum post linked in the article isn't actually from a developer. Eyonix is a Community Moderator, and serves as an intermediary between the forum-going WoW community and the development team. When CMs make posts like this, it is generally understood that they are relaying the thoughts and intentions of the development team (with a few exceptions); but CMs are not actually developers.

Generally the development team does not directly communicate with the WoW community. They use the CMs as (scapegoats?) buffers (and who can blame them, as much of the customer base seemingly has no qualms with shooting the proverbial messenger?). The noted exception to this is lead designer Jeff Kaplan, who posts with some frequency in the WoW Raid & Dungeon forum under the name Tigole.

As to the content: Easing the development cycle of the game is a positive thing in the long run, for Blizzard and for their customers. This change will help remove weight from (but certainly not render weightless) the near-constant barrage of factional favoritism accusations in both PvE and PvP settings. In short, it's one less problem for the dev team to think about.

Do the players suffer in the short term? Maybe. It's difficult to remain objective on this point, as there is a part of me that believes that to log in to WoW is to invite a sort of insidious, seductive, wasting disease into your brain; a delicious crippling of one's perception that will blur the line between pleasure center and pain receptor.

So the players will suffer with or without this change. Whether or not their raid schedule allows them time to notice is the question.

Basheron @ Jul 21st 2006 7:28PM

Blizzard just took away the unique raiding features of alliance and horde. Shamans and Paladins defined a bold line between Alliance and Horde, and kept rivalries on most servers pretty strong. Perosnally I don't like this at all. What's more interesting is to see how they bend their lore to fit this in. It's just a cheap way to make whiners and complainers shut up.

Comtar @ Jul 21st 2006 8:56PM

A blood elf Paladin I can see working, but a little lost on the Shaman Demon. Their lore could have been remained intact if they perhaps had a Horde / Alliance spin on their abilities, like the Night Elf Paladin being more like say... a Dark Knight in FFXII, where instead of being a healer in Plate, you had an damage caster in Platemail. Same thing for the Shaman Demon guys.

I don't know... I just know I saw this coming a long time ago.

PsyClerk @ Jul 21st 2006 9:09PM

I was discussing this earlier today with my brother (before I heard that they were implementing this change). Due to the nature of Paladins vs Shamans, the only other solution to the PvE imbalance would have been to give different factions their own instances. The end-game instances (AQ40, Nax) as they are now require such precision and planning that it's not possible to just swap "shaman" in for "paladin".

This might have an indirect effect on PvP. With access to Paladins, Horde players might spend more time raiding rather than fighting in Battlegrounds.

josh r. @ Jul 22nd 2006 1:49AM

Blood Elf Pally's now become the most powerful class in the game... AoE silence FTW.

Vellocet @ Jul 22nd 2006 2:10AM

Note the Horde symbol on the Ten Storms armor, which is the armor they show the Draenei wearing (to see a Draenei in Ten Storms head-to-toe, go to the WoW homepage and click the link about this topic's lore).

If you can't see it, it's right above the belt and finishes right below the belt.

Just think, a Draenei running around in SW sporting a nice Horde symbol on their stomach.

Hahaha.