[Cairenn]

Shaman

The shaman is a combination of the Witch Doctor, Shaman, and Farseerer class from Warcraft 3.

In lore, the shamans were powerful warriors. The problem with the lore is that the details changed a lot, there was not one definitive “Shaman”. The final Shaman was a combination of the Warcraft 3 classes merged together… then adjusted for balance. In lore the shamans were basically warriors, in game balance they are mages first, and fighters second.

The totems evolved. Originally shamans did not have any Totems. This was not found to be interesting, so they added Totems, which fit perfectly in with the lore.

Originally you could drop all of your totems, resulting in instances looking like a forest of little stumps, it was over powered. The portable forest was a problem also since players would leave the totems everywhere. They then scaled it down to one totem at a time, but it did not work, and was not fun to play.

Finally they grouped the totems around the elemental groupings, as it currently is, and the right balance between power and fun was achieved.

Warriors

Warriors come from D&D and pretty much any RPG. Originally warriors did not have the rage bar, and were watered down paladins. The class was purely based on its cool downs. Playing a warrior was like a metronome, when a cool down arrived, you used that ability and moved to the next. When they were looking for a more interesting way of doing it, the idea of the rage bar came from fighting games. The more a warrior does stuff, the more ability they get to use and spend.

Stances were also added to differentiate the class. Different stances where for different times, making the play style more about strategy instead of simple button clicking. Different stances gave different advantages, and provided different abilities.

Hunter

The hunters came from the Head Hunter, the Ranger, and the Huntress classes from Warcraft 3.

In beta they had a “focus” bar. This was a bar of energy to use, and it would fill up when they were holding still. So a hunter would have to run into position, then hold still while they gained “focus” to use their abilities. As cool and different as this sounds… it was not fun. They moved the hunter to a mana based system.

The hunters are primarily a ranged based class, and focuses on doing damage at range.

The pet focus of the hunter was meant to be different from the warlocks. A hunter should care about his/her pet. Show interest in the pets, name and take care of them. That is why there is the emphasis on happiness and other maintenance.

The different pets in the same group where not supposed to have different stats. If they did this, then every hunter would want the “best” pet, and you would get various cookie cutter hunters. They wanted the hunter to pick and choose the pet based on style and model, and then customize the pets after that.

Rogues

There was no Warcraft 3 rogue equivalent. It came from traditional RPGs. And originally it was called an Assassin. While the idea of the assassin was “coolness personified” and fit with one of the core ideas of the classed, it severally limited the focus of the class. They changed the name to rogue, and expanded the focus to encompass what it does now.

The rogues started like the warriors, with no energy, just cool downs. Like the warrior, something was desired to make this “different”, to stop the metronome of playing a cool down based class. The combo point system was the big addition. Instead of combos from other games, where you have to do certain moves in a row, they wanted their combo system to be flexible. The rogue opens up with a move, does a couple builders, then does a finisher… allowing the player to adapt and choose the combos to use.

Warlocks

The warlocks were from the orc warlocks in Warcraft 3. Mainly the warlocks came from lore, not from any specific class in the games. The emphasis is on the demonic roots of the warlocks, and gave them to the alliance for a friendly happy group to get some evil.

Warlocks are evil. A warlock is all about fire and shadow.

Demonic pets went through many iterations of design. They did not want to put a pet progression in, where you would trade up to the better and better pet. The pets were supposed to grow with you, and each pet is supposed to fill a role, even the imp is important at 60.

One of the original ideas was to put each pet on a timer… it would last 5 minutes, and had a 15 minute cool down. Forcing you to use different pets in serial. This was nixed, mainly because combat could last longer than the five minutes, and it removed the flexibility that the warlocks needed.

The pet bar was originally designed for warlocks. Controlling pets became a problem, and began to take up the UI bar of the warlock, who already was full with caster items. The pet bar allowed the warlock to better control the abilities of the pet, and borrowed a lot of the design elements from how the player controlled the heroes from Warcraft 3.

The pet bar ended up being used for the hunters, and for the other classes, to deal with auras and other things of that nature.