World of Warcraft: Forever’s new take on classic Azeroth is opening the door to all kinds of new ideas in the old-school version of Blizzard’s MMORPG, and new classes look to be one of them.
Blizzard, of course, has added a total of four new classes over the last two decades to the modern version of WoW: Death Knight, Monk, Demon Hunter, and Evoker. But an alleged leaked survey pushed to select WoW players via Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher is now asking about potential new classes for WoW: Forever, the recently revealed third version of the MMO that will introduce new quests, zones, and content to the “vanilla” version of WoW.
It’s not the first time Blizzard has conducted a survey this way, and while Blizzard asks participants not to disclose the survey’s details, their contents almost always find their way online. That’s the case here, as players were quick to share information about 11 potential new classes listed in the survey, and content creators like Bellular have gone as far as to provide a full breakdown. Information contained about each of these potential classes includes basic lore, what types of weapons they would be able to use, the armor class they would wear, the resources they would use, what roles they would fill, and even signature abilities. The classes listed in the survery are:
- Bard
- Death Knight
- Demon Hunter
- Illusionist
- Monk
- Necromancer
- Metalborn/Runemaster/Runeknight
- San’layn
- Tinker
- Warden
- Witch
Three of the new classes would essentially be “new,” old-school versions of existing WoW classes like Demon Hunter, Monk, and Death Knight. Considering how fast-paced classes like Monk and Demon Hunter are in the modern version of the game, their Forever counterparts would likely feel significantly different.
It’s the eight “new” classes that are the most exciting, however. Some of these are ideas that have existed in WoW lore for ages or ones that Blizzard even originally toyed with during the game’s early development. The Tinker, for example, is a class many expect to come to the modern version of WoW at some point but is listed in the survey. They would be the ultimate engineer, capable of using mech suits and gadgets to tank, deal damage, and support other players.
Another potential class, the Necromancer, was an idea Blizzard originally had planned for vanilla WoW, only for it to eventually be scrapped. In Forever, Blizzard is proposing a version of the class that seems like it’s taking some inspiration from Diablo 2’s class of the same name, with abilities like Bone Spear and Corpse Explosion. The survey additionally lists the San’layn, a group of vampires who broke free of the Lich King’s domination. This class seems like it would lean fully into the vampire fantasy, with a number of blood-based abilities that could make them similar to retail WoW’s Blood Death Knight specialization.
Two other classes steeped in WoW lore proposed in the survey are the Warden and Runemaster. Wardens are the iconic Night Elf faction famous for hunting down and imprisoning Azeroth’s greatest threats. How exactly that would work when it comes to Horde players is unclear, but the survey notes that the Wardens would open their ranks “out of necessity” in order to deal with greater threats.
Runemasters, on the other hand, are beings infused with power by the Titans who use a rune system that sounds similar to that of modern WoW’s Death Knights to heal and fight. That rune system itself was originally for an early version of the Runemaster class that was later scrapped and its core mechanic repurposed. This class appears to have been listed by multiple different names in various versions of the survey, also appearing by the name Metalborn and Runeknight.
Other classes seem almost entirely new. The survey lists classes like Bard, Witch, and Illusionist among potential additions. The Bard sounds about like what you would expect, a healer and support class capable of buffing allies, while the Witch and Illusionists are two new flavors of spellcasters. Illusionists would summon and conjure creatures and objects to aid them in battle, while the Witch uses dark powers like blood rituals and even the power of the old gods to buff allies and destroy their foes.
Whether or not any or all of these potential new classes will eventually make their way into Forever remains to be seen, but Blizzard does have, well, forever to make them a reality. In the meantime there’s plenty new for WoW: Forever players to discover, including over 1,000 new quests, four new zones, an account-wide Legacy perk system, and more. WoW: Forever’s beta is currently live until October 21, with Forever’s full launch set for November 4.
