Some subjects are so big that eventually you will return to them to look at it from different angle. We’re gonna look on how Shadow Hunters should’ve been portrayed in game, and how by killing the most prominent one Blizzard missed oportiunity to release reigns of imagination to show this enigmatic class in action.
Now what is a shadow hunter?
A lot of people confuse it with just another version of in-game hunter class that just uses bow and a bit of black magic. Well, not really. Shadow Hunter is elite of elites among troll ranks, just like arcmage is a top for magi ranks. Shadow Hunters are excellent in melee and ranged combat, they’re using voodoo and elemental magic, but what makes them truly stand out is that they have terrific bond with Loas, they can reach out to any of them, become their vessel and carry out their will. This is what puts them above high priests (who are mostly devoted to specific Loa Gods), Witch Doctors (who aren’t that good in melee) or Warlords.
In novel shadows of the Horde we were told that they also bring chaos to battlefield.
Those are some raw informations that we know for sure, but it’s not something that was truly taken seriously in WoW to flesh out. One would argue- why bother? It’s not like it’s playable class. Many classes have been neglected for years or still aren’t well balanced, and I have to admit that when it comes to set of priorities those people are right.
But here comes cinematics, a wonderful opportiunity to do some small show off just to picture capabilieties of what this class has to offer. This is why I was so hopeful when Vol’Jin became a Warchief – that there was a huge chance he will appear in cinematic and will show what shadow hunter can do.
Ow, how wrong I was.
So I’m gonna give few examples of specific visuals that could’ve been used.
Here is the big one. Few days ago I had a chance to see “The Princess and the Frog” from Disney ( waaaait, lemmie finish : P ). I watched it because there were voodoo motives in it, so I mostly checked it for the sake of imaginative portrayal of voodoo/ shadow powers. And my god, it looked amazing!
Theres is a scene where the bad guy is asking “Friends on the other side” to send to him shadows to do his bidding. Let’s forget the context of it and focus purely on visuals, imagine shadow hunter to have this kind of skill/ spell to use in action (watch from 40th second) :
Creepy, eerie and looks impressive.
But I believe that also the sounds that said shadows were using adding to the “scary factor” – all of it combined gives a spooky athmosphere that dark misticism is about.
Imagine if shadow hunter had aura similar to Diablo 2 paladins (as it appears on the ground the character is standing) but instead of holy marks you’d have swirling shadows that sometimes whisper.
Another thing that imo should’ve been shown in cinematic would be that “chaos bringer” theme. How should it look like? I imaginated it that by using voodoo he would mess with minds of his oponents, strike fear (as if trolls by looking wouldn’t be scary to other races : P ) or mass confusion.
I think that visuals of Witch doctor from Diablo 3 were quite nice and coul’ve been mimicked in WoW universe.
Maybe there should be some glowing light that surrounds area and shows scary visage that makes people run in fear? Or just simply causes mass panic, this way the crowd would become vulnerable to strike, and this is when the melee combat would become quite handy. Imagine people running and screaming in disorientation and a huge, lean and agile troll to cut them easily in numbers like wolf assaulting sheeps.
And lastly, fast paced melee combat. Alas, the in game models even with tweaks to melee animations aren’t exactly showing the combat style that could be comparable to shadow hunter. And demon hunter is imo way over the top. When I was watching cinematic for Legion I couldn’t feel more than disappointed to see Sylvanas instead of Vol’Jin, it’s not about personal bias, but for the fact that she is just y’know… a ranger. We’ve seen both elves and rangers in action in plenty of franchises, you can’t be truly creative about this combo. Not to mention that both cinematics in classical WoW and TBC were featuring elves in action, so we have rough idea on how do they move. With trolls? They didn’t appear even in in game cinematic to show what they’re capable of – and I’m not counting Vol’Jin being stabbed like rookie, that wasn’t really showing him in any favorable way. So really it was a huge shame that even when troll is put on the highest position in game as a leader of faction, devs refused to use him, to show what he can do, what moves he has, what powers he can invoke. And so far I haven’t seen any hints that would show anything like that coming, now I know I won’t see troll in expansion intro, nor see him in a way Garrosh was battling Taran Zhu in 5.4. cinematic.
We all can admire Legolas 2.0 tho, should be nice, right?
Lastly, to end this article of mine – Loas. There should be at least one cinematic featuring them appear and intervene. And again, wouldn’t it be thrilling if they shown up, at the Broken Shore to make sure their champion makes out of it safe? Especially when Valkyr’s were featured in Stormheim anyway.
Pity, a huge pity.
Zandahan 