What aspects of your character does your WoW class fantasy come from?

The World of Warcraft development team released a new blog post yesterday on Hero Talents, and while it didn’t go as in-depth as previous articles it does a nice job of summarizing all 39 flavors of new class fantasies. Some of them are derived from long-standing Warcraft archetypes like the Dark Ranger and Mountain Thane while others are simply extensions of in-game concepts like the Druid of the Claw or the San’layn. Reading through the choices it got me thinking, though: did we really need these class concepts made explicit, or are players going to build them through other means?

Take the Dark Ranger, for example. Back before transmog was even a game feature you’d see characters cosplaying as Dark Rangers almost as often as you’d see Demon Hunters. For those who wanted to actually play as that type of character they would spec Survival Hunter — when it was still a ranged spec — so they could fire off Black Arrow. Then in Shadowlands patch 9.2.5 you could complete a quest chain in Lordaeron that added Dark Ranger customizations for Blood, Void, and Night Elves as well as a transmog set for Hunters. One begins to wonder why we even need a Hero Talent class fantasy for Dark Rangers in the first place.

Not to say that the new Hero Talent tree doesn’t go all-in with the concept; besides the return of the iconic Black Arrow there is a talent that summons the dark hounds that typically accompany the NPCs. I just find it hard to believe that players who wanted to play a Dark Ranger haven’t found a way to do so long before now.

Of course 39 is a lot of class fantasies, and I’m sure there are many in the list that are new and therefore inspirational for role players. At the same time I wonder how many of these Hero Talent trees will be leveraged into new class fantasies by the playerbase. MMOs tend to attract a lot of people with deep imagination and I have to think we’ll always push the borders of creativity beyond what the game natively provides.

Where do you derive your class fantasy? Is it ability-based — relying on iconic spells or playstyles to act the part? Or do you not worry about what you’re casting but instead what you’re wearing? Or are you content to simply headcanon a toon in a certain class fantasy role and not worry about whether there’s anything in-game that corresponds to it? And have the new Hero Talents inspired you?