Whether it was a response to feedback or simply oversights on the part of the team, the announced classes for the upcoming allied races were revised.
Zandalari Trolls no longer have access to Warlocks. The argument is that Zandalar never really had access to fel magic. I'm not sure I totally buy that - Warlocks are generally not something a culture as a whole pursues, but is more of an individual's choice. On the other hand, Warlocks are not terribly wanting for race representation. But I don't think they needed to get rid of them.
Kul Tiran Humans will, as it turns out, get access to mages. While the post points out that they don't have a strong arcane tradition (I guess they really are just priests and shamans among the Tidesages) there's obviously one very prominent Kul Tiran mage, and so it makes sense that, especially given her ascendence from pariah to leader, the Kul Tirans might start studying arcane magic.
I'll still contend that Kul Tirans ought to have access to Paladins, though I suppose there's some logic to the notion that their priests are really more about the animistic/shamanistic view of the ocean rather than worship of the Light. I still think the Order of Embers is exactly the sort of organization that should be producing paladins (and if we start getting class-themed gear again I'd love to see a dark "burn the witches" style paladin set,) but you can't win them all.
For the fun of it, let's do a race/class combo count! (I'm counting Pandaren separately when it comes to factions rather than double-listing them.)
Warrior: 21 total, 10 Alliance, 10 Horde, 1 Pandaren (Warriors are easy to count.)
Paladin: 8 total, 5 Alliance, 3 Horde (given the events of Legion, I'm really wondering when the hell we're going to get Night Elf Paladins - we got two NE class champions and not a single dwarf!)
Death Knight: 12 total, 6 Alliance, 6 Horde (and until they change the starting experience, probably never getting more)
Hunter: 21 total, 10 Alliance, 10 Horde, 1 Pandaren (I think every allied race can be them, and with gnomes added in Legion they're just as universal as warriors.)
Shaman: 12 total, 4 Alliance, 7 Horde, 1 Pandaren
Rogue: 17 total, 8 Alliance, 8 Horde, 1 Pandaren (With a base race and allied race on both side for hooved people, it's an even split among those who don't clomp around.)
Druid: 7 total, 3 Alliance, 4 Horde (Horde gets more, but it's just two sets of related races, whereas the Alliance has more varied Druids.)
Monk: 18 total, 8 Alliance, 9 Horde, 1 Pandaren (for some reason Monk skills are apparently very easy to pick up, I guess. Or perhaps it's just a less popular class and they don't want to put a lot of restrictions on it.)
Demon Hunter: 2 total, 1 Alliance, 1 Horde (another hero class, this would probably be hard to add new races to.)
Warlock: 12 total, 6 Alliance, 6 Horde (an even split, now that Zandalari don't get them.)
Mage: 10 Alliance, 8 Horde, 1 Pandaren (Tauren seem to be the only ones to shun arcane magic.)
Priest: 10 Alliance, 9 Horde, 1 Pandaren (the Highmountain don't have Sunwalkers, so no priests nor paladins.)
Assuming I got the counts right, this means that the Alliance has 81 total race/class combinations (or 88 if you count the Pandaren) and the Horde has 81 as well (again, 88 if you count Pandaren.)
Well, that looks pretty balanced, and probably intentional. I suspect that the rearrangements of classes might have been meant to balance these numbers (again, assuming I counted correctly.) I think that flavor should be the first consideration, but I also understand Blizzard's desire to appear evenhanded between the factions on such fundamental gameplay matters (can the Alliance get some inner conflict that the Horde has to worry about for a change?)
Even though we're twelve years past Paladins and Shamans being exclusive to one or the other faction (at least until Classic goes live,) I still do feel that the Alliance ought to have greater access to Paladins and the Horde should have more Shamans, and that holds true. Druids used to be the class that was very carefully balanced between the factions, but this is an area where they really have gone more with flavor than balance, and that's fine. Those dinosaur forms are very cool and all, but I am so excited about the terrifying wicker beasts the Kul Tirans get that it makes up for having one fewer Druid race.
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