What are hero classes anyways?Follow

I've never played the first three Warcraft games, if that helps.

Let's see:

1st Expansion: Outlands - level 70
2nd expansion: Northrend - level 80
3rd expansion: Southern continent - level 90
4th expansion: ?? - maybe we will see hero classes here in about five years.

As Webjunky said, it was a concept that was thrown about when WoW was launched. From what I've garnered, basically it was the way to advance after you hit the level cap. You would get a couple of options based on your race and class. If you've ever played Dungeons and Dragons (3rd edition or later), it was kind of like prestige classes.

Again, it's not something that's even in development. I seem to remember reading somewhere, after a rumor surfaced that hero classes were going to be in the BC expansion, that the devs have said they are definitely not pursuing this concept currently. I can imagine why: they've spent two years balancing the existing classes, and adding even one new class to the mix would change that balance.

hero classes = firefighter schools, police acadamies, and mursing programs

wakka wakka wakka

That's so sexist. That does it! I'm petitioning Al Gore right now to have him change it to Personbearpig.

Duh.

Double post.

Edited, Dec 22nd 2006 11:43am by Vitos

There used to be a ton of speculation about hero classes; people always love to speculate on things about which there is scant information. They were to be loosely based upon lore, previous WC games, and things you see from the game itself. Let's see if I get this straight...

For each class, there would be three possible hero classes. Each would follow a certain talent tree further. For example, if you were a Paladin who became a "Mountain King" (I think that was one of the ideas thrown around), you would gain an extended Protection tree. It would basically add those extra two tiers to your current tree, which you could then spend points in. I remember that there was also a bit of variance based on race, too. For example, Troll Mages would become Hydromancers (Frost), while Gnomes would be Archmages (Arcane). Humans would be either Archmages or Pyromancers. I was upset when this idea was out, because as a gnome mage, arcane was my least favorite tree :-P

I'm trying to remember other class/race combos...
Shadow Priests became Necromancers... maybe Warlocks, too?
Warlocks could become Blood Mages (this raised problems, because first of all, a blood mage ain't a warlock, it's a mage, and second of all, mages felt this stepped way too much into their domain).
Rogues could be Assassins, and a couple of others (they had really cool names, it's too bad I don't remember them).
Paladins were, I think, Mountain Kings (Protection), Templars (Holy), or Crusaders (Retribution). I had a Paladin and a Mage, so I paid most attention to those classes for info.
I think Druids would be something like Archdruids (Balance), Druid of the Claw (Feral), or Keepers of the Grove (Restoration)

OH! And I think one of the rumors said that depending on the race/class combo, you might end up with different classes as the same hero class. Like a rogue could become a Demon Hunter, but so could a hunter.

There were other hero classes, like Blademaster (Orc warriors), a bunch of sinister offshoots for rogues, and many other ideas. But that was the most coherent rumor that I heard.


It seemed like a fun idea, but like all fun ideas (Worgen from Gilneas, restored Gnomeregan, Ashbringer from a few months ago, etc), they don't amount to anything until Blizzard acts upon them.

I honestly hope they DO NOT decide to increase the level cap at evey expansion (which are supposedly coming out on a yearly basis).

Is this a standard practice (raising the level cap at every expansion) for other MMORPGs?

If the promise of Hero Classes was the only reason for you to play WoW then you shouldn't have played in the first place. The same can be said for any game that has things 'in development'. It's not uncommon for a company to scrap some things in order to move in a different direction.

They may come back in the future, but until I see them noticed in patch notes I'm not going to hold my breath.

They did it in EQOA too. This is going to tap into the depths of my memory since, I haven't played since before Frontiers was released, but you basically choose your path through quests, similar to the talent trees here, anyway, after the release of Frontiers expansion, they introduced their own hero classes, that were basically evolved forms of their base classes. I'm not sure on the specifics, because first it was so very long ago, and second I beta tested Frontiers but never actually bought the game, I got tired of playing it.

The hero class that I know might be those stones that shape like people
when you walk inside of stormwind.