Voice lessons: what a WoW bard might look like

Alright, let's talk classes for a minute.

Thus far in the game we have:

• Nine DPS caster specs;
• Six healer specs -- five caster-type healers and one battle healer;
• Five tanks -- two sword-and-board, one great-weapon, two dodgey;
• Five agility melee DPS;
• Five strength melee DPS;
• Three ranged physical DPS;
• and one gish.

We also have three cloth classes, three plate classes, three leather classes, and two melee classes.

So let's assume that Blizzard, were they to add a new class, would want to "round out" some of the under-represented archetypes.  Obviously there are plenty of DPS casters.  Five tanks with a lot of flavor among them.  Lots of melee DPS.  Where are the holes?  Well, there's only one battle-healer, only one gish, and only three ranged physical DPS, all of which are of the same class.  Also, mail seems to be the odd man out as far as armor types go.

WoW is also missing one specific archetype that shows up in many other fantasy games: the "controller," or the "mezzer."  The controller is a character who specializes in, well, battlefield control -- debuffing and hindering enemies while buffing and enabling allies.  There are plenty of classes who dabble in mezzing -- pretty much every class has a CC now -- but none that truly specialize in it.

Therefore, ideally, a new class would need to be a mail-wearer, and have three specs: battle-healer, gish, and controller.  (For those who don't know what a gish is, think mage-knight -- a melee combatant that uses spells.  Right now, the enhance-shaman is the only true gish the game has.)  To fill this niche, I present the following:

The Bard

The bard is a master of the subtle magics inherent to song and dance.  He has spells that heal, spells that harm, and spells that sway the mind.  There are three sorts of bard: the beguiler, the battle-dancer, and the song-mender.

Let's face it, LOTRO pretty much nailed the "musician" class with their Minstrel.  Any attempt to introduce a similar class to WoW would simply be required to incorporate the Minstrel's ability to play music.  This would obviously be the defining flavor characteristic of the bard class.  As a baseline, all bards would have some ability to heal, a few short-term buffs and debuffs, and a single-target stun CC.  By default, bards would wear mail, use shields, and wield daggers and one-handed swords.  

Bards would all use mana, but they would have a secondary resource called rhythm.  Certain attacks would build rhythm and other attacks would expend it -- sort of a cross between a monk's use of energy to build chi, and a demonology warlock's demonic power.  However, the wrinkle for bards would be that all of a bard's attacks would be stronger the higher their rhythm was, so optimal timing of abilities would be key to mastering the class.

Battle-Dancer

Think dual-wielding daggers or swords or using polearms or staves.  AGI-based mobility class using powerful shouts to harm, confuse, and weaken their enemies.  Their combat would be a mashup between an enhancement shaman and a combat rogue, with some debuffing thrown in.  It would have to be flashy, involving casting songs to build rhythm for the shouts.

Beguiler

I envision the beguiler as a true battlefield controller.  They'd use ranged weapons and have a huge bag of buffs and debuffs -- things to slow, confuse, daze and weaken enemies, or hasten and strengthen allies.  Their focus wouldn't be damage-dealing -- instead, their presence would serve to amplify the abilities of everyone else in the party.

Song-mender

I'll be honest, I've never even looked at Mistweaver so I have no idea how they work.  I suppose I see the song-mender as using shields and maces and suchlike, getting all up into melee to build rhythm and then expending rhythm via their heals?  I'm not a healer, I don't have too many good ideas where this is concerned.  I just feel that the bard fits the battle-healer archetype pretty well so it makes sense for the third spec.

This might all be too close to how LOTRO does it -- I'm not sure, I haven't looked at the game in a couple years and I was only about level 13, so all I really remember about the Minstrel is that it they could play a bunch of instruments.

Still.  If WoW is to get a twelfth class, I think that this version of the bard makes a lot of sense -- it fills in a few niches that are somewhat under-represented, it has a mechanic that is just different enough from the existing mechanics to stay interesting, and overall I think it'd be a hell of a lot of fun to play.