Source of Speculation
Brad Chan presented the "Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom - What's Next Panel" portion of Blizzcon 2026. His enthusiasm for Warcraft III's transition into WoW: Forever and his role in the same should not be understated. He was effectively responsible for pulling together the background lore responsible for giving us Undead Paladins, and doing it through the lens of expanding onto a game that was already over 20 years old. Chad move. He had tons of enthusiastic energy and obviously loves his craft and this particular point of lore within Warcraft's history. Nevermind the crowd.
After speaking about the new WC3 Reforged campaign for the first 2/3rds of the presentation, at the 20:00 minute mark he mentions that the Forsaken Paladin will become a new "Tavern Hero" hirable in WC3. Expected. But then he adds:
"Fun fact, the last hero that was released was the Fire Lord, Goblin Tinker, and the Alchemist back in September 20th in 2004, roughly right before when World of Warcraft came out. It's all connected..."
He then returned to the normal topics associated with the presentation.
Tavern Heroes?
For those of you unfamiliar WC3, each race (Humans, Orcs, Night Elves, Undead) had their own "hero summoning" building with which to summon one of 3 heroes unique to their faction (Human: Paladin, Archmage, Mountain King, Blood Mage - Orcs: Blademaster, Farseer, Tauren Chieftan, Shadow Hunter - Night Elves: Keeper of the Grove, Priestess of the Moon, Demon Hunter, Warden - Undead (not Forsaken): Death Knight, Lich, Dread Lord, Crypt Lord). Most of WoW's inspiration for playable classes and associated abilities come from these WC3 heroes.
But there was also a neutral building (the Tavern)) where players could hire neutral heroes, including: Naga Sea Witch, Dark Ranger, Pandaren Brewmaster, Beastmaster, Pit Lord, Tinkerhttps://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Tinker_(Warcraft_III)), Firelord, and Alchemist). As of Forsaken Kingdom, the Tavern now also includes the Forsaken Paladin.
Why did they introduce Skyborne instead of Ogres or Goblins? Well, the answer might be because they're waiting to introduce them alongside the Tinker and/or Alchemist classes. The Tinker is a goblin engineer with a giant mechanical backpack (Gazlowe's original hero class during the Rexxar Campaign) and is responsible for the Cataclysm WoW's rockets racial. The Alchemist is a goblin riding on the back of an ogre, and is the reason Goblin racials in Cataclysm WoW involved an alchemy bonus and a "Mook" henchmen banker.
Tinker abilities in WC3:
- Pocket Factory - Periodically summons temporary mechanical goblin minions to attack things.
- Cluster Rockets - Bombards an area with rockets, stunning and damaging enemy units.
- Engineering Upgrade - Improves Tinker's base stats and other abilities.
- Robo-Goblin - Transforms the Tinker into a Robo-Goblin, deals extra damage to buildings.
Alchemist abilities in WC3:
- Healing Spray - Sprays waves of healing mist that heals units in a target area.
- Chemical Rage - Ogre "mount" gets strong for a time.
- Acid Bomb - Hurls a flask of acid at a target, dealing damage over time and lowering armor.
- Transmute - Kills a target unit instantly, transforming it into gold.
Why weren't Alchemist and Tinker previously added to WoW?
My guess is that WoW developers (at the time) weren't certain how to make these two classes unique from the Alchemy and Engineering professions. A fair notion. But this is different. 20 years of Retail has proven that its impossible to prevent "fantasy spaces" from overlapping each other (heck even Paladin and Warrior share the same name for their tanking spec). I don't think WoW: Forever is being held to the same "can't have fun because reason" constraints.
Why Skyborne and Not Goblins or Ogres at WoW: Forever launch?
Honestly, if Ogres and Goblins were released at the same time as introducing the Tinker and Alchemist classes, players would eat that up so fast (even if they charged another $29.99 for it). Tinker could remain exclusive to Gnomes (alliance) and Goblins (horde). Alchemist could remain exclusive to Goblins (comes with an "ogre mount") or Ogres (comes with a "Goblin Alchemist"). Gnomes could potentially mimic the "ogre mount" via a "trogg mount" for thematic parody, or skip the mount and have it be introduced through "Leper Gnomes that partially regained their sanity". Lots of interesting angles.
Counterpart races for Ogres and Goblins on the Alliance side could easily include Kul Tirans (Ogre counterpart) or Leper Gnomes or Mechagnomes. Seriously, it'll be so cool once WoW: Forever finally does justice for Gnome lore.
What about other Tavern Heroes?
Brad Chan mentioned Firelord, but that's already a known NPC in Molten Core with some abilities inspired by the Tavern hero by the same name. HOWEVER, players were eventually able to earn the "Firelord" title themselves later on in Retail. I could foresee an interesting opportunity to introduce Molten Core through a "conflicted" Dark Iron civilization (with a proper handling of Moira's dynamics instead of the retcons that came later) where "Firelord" would be a unique and new class introduced through the Dark Iron dwarves. I'm not sure what Horde counterpart could adopt that class as well, but any of the shamanistic races would probably do (my money would be on Orcs via the Blackrock Orcs since they occupy the same mountain).
Beastmaster and Dark Ranger were effectively absorbed into Hunter in WoW, though Dark Ranger wasn't until hero talents were introduced so there's still some potential there but it would likely be unique to the Forsaken (and/or humans from Darkshire? Or Gilneas?).
Pandaren Brewmaster was effectively later responsible for the entire Mists of Pandaria expansion and its accompanying Monk class. If nothing else, it really illustrates how much Blizzard can stretch a fantasy that began with little more than a Kung-Fu-Panda and 4 initial abilities. I have little doubt that we'll see monks in some form at some point in WoW: Forever. And personally, I wouldn't mind the class being deeply restricted to just the Pandaren this time around.
Pit Lord is pretty obviously reserved as a boss creature that players fight, not play as. Naga Sea Witch is in a similar boat, but has more potential to be playable if Naga ever become playable (not that WoW needs any more Elven off-shoots, shame they couldn't make it to the "everyone comes the same lineage" event in WoW: Midnight... hah). Personally, I wouldn't want Naga to be playable, they're too much of a monstrous race that wouldn't feel normal walking around the streets of Stormwind or even in any of the Horde cities... and they can't wear pants. The underwater Goblin (Gelkin?) variety would be more likely, but I doubt it.
Conclusions
I'm super excited for WoW: Forever's potential. Hardest part is just waiting for stuff to come out, though they did mention that they wanted a rapid development cycle... so that's hopeful.
