Draenei: Paladins and Shamans?
by Elizabeth Harper 
Jul 26th 2006 at 8:15PM
When the Draenei race was initially announced, a Blizzard poster said that, tentatively, Draenei could be warriors, priests, mages, hunters, and paladins. With the more recent announcement that Draenei would be able to become shamans, many (myself included) wondered if they would still be able to be paladins. However, Tseric recently confirmed that Draenei will still be able to play paladins - which seems fair, as it would leave the Alliance with three paladin races and the Horde with three shaman races. Lore-wise it seems somewhat murky territory - weren't the Draenei supposedly a shamanistic society before their integration into the Burning Crusade, when it was revealed that they were introduced to the Light? I was never much of a loremaster myself, so the changes that seem to be getting made to the history of Azeroth continue to baffle me...
Filed under: Paladin, Shaman, Expansions, Draenei
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Thominalaska Jul 26th 2006 10:30PM
Personally, I think that the expansion is going to throw everything off ballance. Paladins are already a very heavily broken class, and with the expansion, the alliance is going to destroy everything - sort of fighting fire with fire.
limerick Jul 26th 2006 10:46PM
I expected as much, seeing that the Alliance lacked one pally race. The lore would be stretched again, of course.
Zell Jul 27th 2006 1:53AM
Face it, Blizzard killed faction identity.
maybe Thrall will become a pally too.
Matt T. Jul 27th 2006 1:53AM
I am upset,the shammy class is now broken,and pallys are STILL broken.Warlock and Warriors aren't broken thouight
boneyard Jul 27th 2006 3:22AM
the expansion doesn't throw everything off ballance, it just forces a lame sort of balance without having a real difference anymore.
blood elves getting pallies isn't that lore technical sound either, but well blizzard can rewrite (or not care about) that when they want to.
djr Jul 27th 2006 4:53AM
Looking past the initial introduction of the new Draenei (where Blizzard has admitted there was some rewriting), could somebody clarify what lore has been rewritten in order to accommodate the Blood Knights?
Elüna Jul 27th 2006 5:17AM
Fun facts from World of Warcraft.com
---
:::Lore page:::
"The eredar, an insidious race of devilish sorcerers, used their warlock magics to invade and enslave a number of worlds. The indigenous races of those worlds were mutated by the eredar's malevolent powers and turned into demons themselves. Though Sargeras' nearly limitless powers were more than enough to defeat the vile eredar, he was greatly troubled by the creatures' corruption and all-consuming evil. Incapable of fathoming such depravity, the great Titan began to slip into a brooding depression. Despite his growing unease, Sargeras rid the universe of the warlocks by trapping them within a corner of the Twisting Nether."
And further down the same page: "Once Sargeras saw that his armies were amassed and ready to follow his every command, he launched his raging forces into the vastness of the Great Dark. He referred to his growing army as the Burning Legion. To this date, it is still unclear how many worlds they consumed and burned on their unholy Burning Crusade across the universe."
:::BC page:::
"Nearly twenty-five thousand years ago, the eredar race arose on the world of Argus. They were extremely intelligent and had a natural affinity for magic in all its myriad forms. Using their gifts, they developed a vast and wondrous society. Unfortunately the eredar's accomplishments caught the attention of Sargeras, the Destroyer of Worlds. He had already begun his Burning Crusade to eradicate all life from the cosmos, and he believed that the brilliant eredar would be pivotal in leading the vast demonic army he was gathering."
Talk about screwing up the lore though. :)
djr Jul 27th 2006 8:00AM
Ok...
So, looking past the initial introduction of the new Draenei (where Blizzard has admitted there was some rewriting), could somebody clarify what lore has been rewritten in order to accommodate the Blood Knights?
Urthona Jul 27th 2006 10:17AM
I'm no loremaster, and I don't really care what made Sargeras ca-razy. If you gotta blame someone, and the Eredar gotta be that someone, why not say SOME Eredar were eeeeeevil, while some others weren't. Like all the rest of the races in Warcraft. The Good ones included immortal prophet Velen' mages and warriors, and the bad ones included Kil'jaeden and Archimonde' warlocks, diabolists and sorcerers.
Now this is the part of the Lore that Warcraft hasn't talked about: How the Good Eredar left Argus. We know the Naaru were involved, so maybe the Naaru followed Sargeras to Argus before the Good Eredar left home. Good versus Evil as Sargeras's Eredar and other demonic forces battled the Naaru and Velen's Eredar. Losing the battle, the Naaru outfit the Good Eredar with a shiftship and the knowledge of dimensional travel. Velen and crew arrive on Plymouth Rock, I mean Draenor.
So the heavy magic of the Good Eredar became focused around the philosophy of the Light, due to the Naaru's "blessing" their burgeoning new culture. They then renamed themselves "Draenei". So far in the lore, I see Good Eredar having the classes Mage, Priest (Naaru-Light), Warrior, and Hunter.
Years go by, and the Bad Eredar find the Good ones in a dimension next door. They corrupt the orcs, an indigenous Draenor race. The war against Demonic-powered Orcs causes physical devolution among the Draenei. The still-Eredar looking Draenei run further away, leaving the deformed Draenei to faction off and become "The Broken". The even worse ones faction off and become "The Lost Ones".
The Broken include an ex-priest named Nobundo, and a leader type named Akama. Nobundo has a crisis of faith and has a shamanistic experience. He teaches shamanism to The Broken, and then looks for the Good Eredar Draenei, and teaches shamanism to Velen and others. So now the Draenei have five classes, Mage, Priest, Warrior, Hunter, and Shaman.
Five classes is the average for races in WoW, but word is Paladins will, in fact, be a class choice for the Draenei.
Now the Paladin class is seemingly anti-Undead, a race that the Draenei, in all its forms, has never met. As the Blood Knights are Paladins of a different color, I'm assuming that Draenei Paladins are similar. Merely Priests that spend a lot of time in the gym. Whether or not the Draenei Paladins will have "Detect Undead" ability remains to be seen.
Next question?
PsyClerk Jul 27th 2006 10:24AM
In my opinion, gameplay should always trump lore in MMORPGs. There are times when changes need to be made for the good of the players, and those changes aren't easily explained lore-wise. This is a good example of one of those changes.
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't run around in-game thinking "What?!? A Tauren would never do THAT!" and the like.
Brian Jul 27th 2006 12:23PM
i totaly agreed with PsyClerk thats what i was about to post, gameplay is what matters when people pay you to play your game. ALSO if people want to do lore, blizzard should make RP servers not have draenei pallys
Urthona Jul 27th 2006 2:25PM
Well, right. Like I've said in other threads here, the Lore isn't the most important part of the game. It's just a great thing that Blizzard is trying to give something substantial to support a game that we all love playing.
But I get tired of people that fret over Lore inconsistencies. It'll change; of course it will. But it's fun and interesting, and the least you can do is try to imaginatively reconcile it.
On another point: If you would suggest denying the Paladin class for Draenei to RP servers for the sake of "The Lore", ...would you also support opening every class for every race to PvP servers for the sake of "The Game"?
Matt McMillan Jul 27th 2006 4:56PM
I cant WAIT for the bloodelves to be released. Im looking forward to playing one.
djr Jul 27th 2006 8:58PM
See my question is there because I haven't seen anyone anywhere say how the lore has been rewritten to accommodate Blood Knights.
The introduction of the new Draenei involved some rewriting. This is undisputed fact. Eluna's post demonstrates the changes. In this instance Blizzard have admitted that established lore was rewritten, and the old lore (that the Eredar corrupted Sargeras) has been replaced by the new lore (that Sargeras corrupted the Eredar).
I'm probably not looking hard enough (and am certainly not familiar enough with the lore), because I haven't been able to find where lore has actually been rewritten for the Blood Knights, as so many people seem to claim.
What I can see is that the lore has been added to. Extended. Established lore is 'what has happened' and the additions for Blood Knights is what 'is happening'.
Personally I like the lore explanation for the Blood Knights. It feeds into the Blood Elves' 'desperate crack addict' demeanour. Also it gives the Alliance races a reason to be quite pissed with them.
Most importantly though, what PsyClerk said. Gameplay trumps lore. All lore has ever been is background for the gameplay. Sure it's branching out to establish itself as it's own commercial entity (the books) but the needs of the game come first.
(Mainly it's the 'rewritten'/'added to' distinction that really bugs me. Still, if anyone can point out something that has been rewritten to accommodate Blood Knights, I'd appreciate it.)
Urthona Jul 27th 2006 11:54PM
I'm not sure anything's been rewritten.
The whole Tempest Keep stuff was vague to begin with. Now, apparently, a few Naaru were in the ship when it arrived on Draenor. And when Kael'thas and crew invaded it, took one prisoner and sent it home as a plaything. Belf mages realized it was the source, or at least a conduit, for Light based magics, and learned how to route that source into heavy melee operatives. Hence, Belf Paladins get the subhead "Blood Knights".
Solari Jul 31st 2006 2:10AM
I gotta open this with the fact that I'm looking forward to both races and both sides getting these classes. Alot of people are going to roll them but what alot of people dont seem to realize is not every one is going to stick with them. So its not going to be that bad, I think, number-wise. Although it does mess with the uniqueness factor of the factions and I feel that the racial traits are alittle over powered
But on the subject of lore though is something different. I totally agree the game is more about gameplay then lore but even some one who played WC3 and the frozen throne can see how stretched to a near impossible limit the lore is on these to races have become. My real problem, I guess you could say, is that theres a much simpler answer to the lore of the Draenei being shamans and Blood Elves being pallies that doesnt turn any of the past lore on its head:
The Blood Elves were allied with the humans during the happenings of WC3 and the frozen throne. It would be impossible for them to have NOT noticed pallies and their powers, magic addicted or not, and since they are addicted to magic they would have jumped at the chance to learn this new form for themselves. Its simple enough to say that they learned from the humans even if the humans werent so happy about teaching it (many of the humans acted like creeps to the light skinned elves). Lore states that the same elves supplimented humans with the arcane lore the mages uses in the first place ages before, so I'm sure they could have traded something to gain knowlege of the "light" that at least even a small group of humans would have wanted. Of course then the Blood elves could have twisted and used it as they needed to. Also considering that the "light" pallies use is much the same as the "light" priests use (in the case of humans and dwarfs its the same exact power) it wouldn't have been hard for them to adapt it for a different use, Hell in that case the Night Elves could have done the same if they truely wanted to and tack some schpeel about Elune on it and call it a day... This means no need for a vague explanation of how they got pally powers from one single Naaru and how they were somehow able to supply this power to a large amount of their people.
The Draenei were, for all effective purposes, the "nextdoor neighbor" to the Orcs when they lived peacefully on Draenor before the Crusade sacked it. The Orcs were shamanistic and even though they specificly say the two races kept mostly to themsleves it would be extremely hard for a race to survive on a totally new planet (since the lore states that the world they came to call Draenor wasnt their original home) with out the help of a native body of people. pretty much the pilgram effect (only nicer). During this time the Draenei could have defenetly learned a form of shamanism to help them survive on that planet and would have certainly taken it with them when they had to flee when the crusade came and turned the Orcs. Its like a neighbor barrowing the weedwhacker and then taking it with him when he needs to move cause you've flown into a bloodthristy rage... It allows them to keep their ship, and all the light lore the way it was since they still had to face demoms but no strange encounters with the wind. no lenghty meditation by a never before heard of leader of the race that devolved into a Broken before he gained the knowlege and thus wasnt a member of the Draenei community any more (which leads to me wondering why Velen listened to him regardless of the vision of his people taking a turn for the worse). What it is though is just more race relations.
And thats the thing about this new lore, the race relations are almost completely gone. It seems like Blizzard (or lore master Metzen rather)is alittle afraid to have these two races know the races that they knew when they knew them (tounge twister) which would defenetly have lead them to have a damn good reason to join the sides they did. Considering that races taught other races things all the time, this doesnt seem like such a problem so I dont really know why it was messed with so much.