The Timewalkers: What Might We Expect

While I still don't think it's a 100% guarantee that we're heading to a past version of Draenor (though I'm not ruling it out,) I think we can probably assume that the Timewalkers will play some role. After all, Burning Crusade was certainly not a "time travel expansion," but it did introduce the Caverns of Time dungeons. There's always some tangential stuff.

The Timewalkers first appeared in the now-defunct Collectable Card Game as a small faction made up of mortals who are basically taking over for the Bronze Dragonflight now that Nozdormu has lost his Aspect powers.

Or did they? (Dum-dum-dum!)

The Timewalkers have a distinctive Tabard with an Infinity symbol (kind of an odd choice, given the connotations "infinity" has to time travelers in WoW.) Timewalkers come from all walks of life, from Paladins to Mages to Hunters to Death Knights. But this tabard is what really identifies them as a member of the organization.

For Horde players, early on in your exploits through the Jade Forest, you encounter Lorewalker Cho. He tells you about his ancestors before asking about yours (it's kind of sad the Alliance doesn't get to do this, as you get a cool little peak into your character's past.) The very subtle thing that you could easily miss is that one of the images of the Pandaren that Cho presents to you is wearing a tabard - a tabard with an Infinity symbol on it.

The Timewalkers have essentially four jobs, and you encounter each on the Timeless Isle. Historians have a fairly mundane task - they research history. Though given their organization, I imagine Timewalker Historians are held to a somewhat higher standard of accuracy. Watchers are the spies of the Timewalkers, slipping into other times to keep an eye on the events of history. Wardens are the Timewalkers' protectors, serving essentially as security to the others, and Weavers are the Chronomancers who actually manipulate the fabric of time itself to heal any rifts or, presumably, erase paradoxes.

So far, the Timewalkers have shown up as a quasi-faction in game. You cannot gain reputation with them, and really they mainly serve as flavor NPCs for the Timeless Isle. But I could very easily see the Timewalkers becoming a major faction, not unlike the Earthen Ring or the Kirin Tor.

More radically, some have suggested that Timewalkers could become a class. Whlie currently the Timewalkers appear to belong to existing classes - pretty much all of them - the various Timewalker jobs almost seem like they could be the names of specs.

Imagine, for example, Wardens as Tanks, Weavers as either healers or caster DPS, and Watchers as melee dps.

It actually doesn't sound that crazy, though flavor-wise, it would be stepping on the toes of Mages a bit.

There have been a lot of fakes out there, and just for the record, I'm pretty sure this one is fake too, but someone put forth the idea of a plate-wearing class that uses shields, with Warden, Watcher, and Weaver as the three specs.

Generally, the prevailing theory is that the next class has to use mail armor, because all the other armor types have three classes each. Yet on the other hand, no one but Holy Paladins use intellect plate, and Mail shares the Agility stat with Leather. There are already eleven specs that compete for agility rings, trinkets, necklaces and cloaks. Compare that to eight that use Strength. Perhaps it's not so crazy to imagine a new plate class. Sure, using intellect plate would not really help matters much, but it would mean more classes that could use both caster and tanking shields.

I'm VERY skeptical about the prospect of a Timewalker class, but if this does somehow get announced tomorrow, it could very easily become my favorite class in the game (at least in terms of flavor.) I always wanted a battlemage (a plate-armored class that combines Arcane magic with melee) and this looks like the closest thing you could get to such a thing.

Anyway, Blizzcon is now I believe 20 hours away. We'll find out soon.