I think hero classes were a bad idea. Romantic as they were, I think they elevated the status of player characters too much. It makes sense that there are hundreds of rogues and mages running around, but hundreds of Mountain Kings and Demon Hunters and Liches? These positions are too prestigious to be generic.

Also when they originally proposed hero classes, it was at a time when level 60 looked like the be all and end all, but since they're probably going to spike the level cap with every expansion, they can't really institute it until they DO reach their be all and end all level cap.

However there was a time when I didn't think so, and then, I proposed that Demon Hunters be extrapolations of the night elf or blood elf priest. Becoming a Demon Hunter would completely change the way the character was played, and so, not many people would be willing to sacrifice their familiarity for the prestige, keeping their numbers low. And of course the feats required to attain such status would be difficult on its own.

Hero Classes would mean that casual players get their arses handed to them even more than before - unless everyone gets it. Then it won't really be a hero class though, just some new talents or something.

I doubt we will ever see hero classes and I don't mind that fact too much. Player housing would suck too since you can't do jackshit with the environment. Your house would be utterly useless because you can't... do anything with it. Storage? Use the bank.

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That's all I could say about this subject.

On other words: QFT.

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Co-creator of UFS, a joint urban fantasy setting.

Also note that, in any raging discussion on the WoW General Forums (should one choose to brave them) pertaining to Hero Classes, nobody seems capable of establishing just what a Hero Class is. For some it's simply "I wanna be a Demon Hunter!" while others seem to think it means they'll be soloing Ragnaros and Kel'thuzad at the same time.

Besides, consider this: One can only imagine the ungodly horror that would ensue as Blizz suddenly found themselves faced with balancing several new classes all at once without completely nullifying the validity of the existing ones. Hmm, why bring along any melee classes or warlocks when a Demon Hunter's basically both at the same time without sacrificing either of their strenghts?

I've come around to thinking, perhaps, Hero Classes could manifest as something along the lines of a thing available to every existing class which, once chosen, becomes permanent and prevents the player from changing roles. Like Demon Hunters could be a title granted to the Warrior, Mage, Priest or any other class which gains it, and is accompanied by a few additional spells which grant a useful, but not massive, edge against demonic opponents. Otherwise the class remains unchanged, but has a bit of a boost when faced with killing demonic mobs.

Making such a thing an overhaul of your existing character would not only grossly unbalance things, it would also turn the entire process of playing normally a meaningless grind as everybody tried to burn through everything as fast as they could to become a Hero Class. Nobody would bother learning to play their current class, because they'd view it as an irritating speed bump between them and their uber Hero Class at the end and because doing so wouldn't even protect them against others who already achieved their goal.

It'd take some sort of brilliant game mechanic to implement Hero Classes without just bluntly removing any advantages gained from PvP, and I've yet to see anyone out there come up with something foolproof enough.

The way I imagined Hero Classes long ago before I realised they were an impossibility, was this:

Every class gets three hero classes. Once you get to the max level of the time they are released, you have to choose one. You complete an awesomely hard and interesting chain of quests and get your hero class.

The hero classes come with Builds. For example Mage Hero Classes would be Pyromancer (fire), Arcanist (Arcane) and Glacimancer (Frost). Speccing to that hero class gives you new spells, talents and permanent effects of your tree, but disables the ones of other trees.

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Co-creator of UFS, a joint urban fantasy setting.

That's what I imagined. In effect, if a warrior became a Fury Hero, then he would have the prot tree disabled but further points, talents, and abilities that pertain to damage. And, it may come with slight gameplay differences, for example, a fury warrior may have his atk spd increased, atk power inc, and a couple of other things but is limited to mail armor. There wouldnt be an overpowering amount of new abilities, but there would be a slight increase in power and abilties in one aspect of your class.