Intellect Plate Makes Me Cry - A New Hero?

We have no, raid ready, holy paladins in my guild.  Yes, I know it sucks.  Every time we down a raid boss and some sort of plate drops with intellect on it we have to almost cry.  To make matters worse, we had no enchanters in our raid last week.  So there was me saying, okay everyone roll for 24 gold.

As speculation would have it the next expansion would be the hero expansion if they decide to go that way again.  If they do decide to do that I would love to see something made that helps fill the holes in the game, gear wise at least.

A plate class that wears only intellect plate would be a fantastic addition for many reasons.

1) There would be someone to use the least used armor in the game.
2) An intellect plate class would mean another healer.
3) It could mean a new type of tank.
4) If it where just a tank and heal hero class it would solve the LFD drama.

What I am thinking would be something like what a paladin should have been.  A caster with plate.  Honestly someone with strength gear on throwing a heal while in prot or ret seems about as out of place, if not more, than a Hunter shooting volley.

If they really wanted to remove a Hunters use of mana, and volley, because it felt unnatural they should have removed the Paladins use of strength because it, as well, feels unnatural.  Being that is not going to happen the new hero class could easily fill that space.

I would figure the talent tree could be something along the line of design like a Priest.  Two healing spec and a Tanking spec, as opposed the the shadow spec.

The first healing spec would be single target centric, the other would be multi target centric.  Being there are so many healers that people are saying feel the same now something new would need to be done to make them more unique however and how would we go about that?

Well, first we would need to step back and find out who is this healer / healer / tank that will be wearing intellect plate in our groups.

There are many possible candidates in the game already but being the next expansion should bring us to a new world (I hope, instead of giving us more of the same) we can introduce a new type of class.  Remember, we need to have a reason for this being a hero class just like there was a reason there were death knights running all over northrend.

I am going to call our new class Shadow Walkers because I am not sure what else they could be.  They will be some sort of bastard child of a priest and a paladin reborn.  They are the natural inhabitants of this world.

As we where coming the help beat back the forces of evil in this new place they decided to help us in the best way they can while we use our sizable power (DPS) to kill the ones they have not been able to.  They offer us support in the best way they could think to.  They hold the bad guys back (tank) while we kill them and heal us as needed.

This would give us some background as to who they are and why they act in the rolls they act.

When they tank they will tank in a shadow state like the shadow priest does when DPSing.  Unlike all other tank specs they will not be about smacking things around with a huge sword, or paw, they will be able casting and heavy DoT damage to generate threat.

Like melee classes that have no cast timers they will not either as it would impair tanking, while casting you can not block, dodge and parry.  We do not really want a tank that does not block, dodge or parry. So their magic would have to be all instant or they will need to have an ability to limit push back.  Neither should really be a great deal of a design issue.

Being their gear would not inherently have block, parry or dodge on it there would need to be a mechanic like bears have where agility converts to dodge.  Their intellect could do the same. 

For the healing specs we would want a heavy HoT sort of thing going as well.  To give us another HoT class being there is only one heavy HoT class at the moment this would fill that role as well.

The single target healing spec would be about front loaded HoTs where there is a big burst heal followed by a steadily decreasing HoT as it ticks.  If you recast before the previous one has ended it will increase the initial heal and the subsequent HoTs applied by it or if you let it expire it would leave a bubble effect for 25% of the initial heal.. 

This means that spamming would be a good thing, but it would get costly if it is spammed too soon and timing it as to when to let it bubble or when to let it build would be an interesting play design in my opinion.  That would be the central idea of the style of healing it would have.  Of course there would be more variety, but this is what came to mind to start as their big deal of a heal.

The multi target healing would be based on the same thing with a little twist.  Whomever you target with the main heal will get healed and everyone around that person, within a 10 yard area will get an HoT applied to them for 50% of the base heal given to the target.  The target would not benefit of the HoT as it got the main, larger, heal.

Both healing specs will have a similar shielding concept to disc but not the same.  Each time someone is healed there is a shadow of the heal left over for a small number based on the amount what was healed.  The next time the person is hit, it will use the shadow shield first.  So the shadow shield leaves itself after damage is healed instead of preventing damage incoming and being put on as preventive to start.  Healing someone at max, or over healing, does not count toward the shadow shield.

This would create two different concepts of healing as well as a different concept of tanking bringing something new to the game.

Being it would be two healing classes and a tank class and it is a hero class you know everyone and their mother will make one.  This will help ease the pressure on the LFD system and some of those people that never wanted to try healing or tanking might realize they like it.

Of course I know nothing like this will ever happen.  We will most likely not even start getting leaks of what the next expansion will be until BlizzCon starts to get close.

But I can dream, I can dream that the day will come where every week when we raid we don't have to disenchant every piece of plate with intellect that drops, or on those bad days, roll for 24 gold.

Not to mention, I love this idea personally.  It sounds like it would be a fun class to play.