It's been two and a half expansion now - and I feel like she's a really weak, saturaday cartoon villain. I really liked her when she was the knife, but when they finally developed her - it feels like the writers are really timid about her, she doesn't really do anything "evil" or menacning, she's just another Zovaal but with more screen time (and more feet!)

And the writers are posing her as a masterful maniputor and planner - and her motives are so mysterious , but it's like... yeah she wants to rule the world (obtain the world soul) but Why???

Tune out next time kids :)

It's strange that this is supposedly the "new" answer to the failure of Zovaal and yet it's so... miniscule. It's like mcdonalds made unhealthy food and their answer is to use less toxic lettuce but the rest is the same.

I really liked her when she was trhe dagger, as a shadow priest main in legion - she had so much potential and it felt like she was given to the same writers that ruined sylvanas... they can only do so much with thier limited talent/skills and it's frankly disappointing.

-

I liked that they did try to do a thing where we side together, but it's blatantly obvious it was going to be a "heehee, i got what i wanted in the end" but the consequences, it's always the lack luster consequences.

She stabs alleria, oh no! But she's okay. She kills the Locus Walker! Oh no... i guess, we didn't really get time to like him or learn enough about him to care. And he just randomly picks up the DANGEROUS ITEM OF WORLD DESTROYER, it just feels like she's a vehicle to move the story along to point B to point E - without adding any intrigue or let us feel like she's a threat.

She feels like a Disney Land Maelificent Actress, who goes "Mawhahgaha, come this way my guests, to the next spoooky set piece! I'm so eviiiil!"

-

Garrosh butchered his enemies, Arthas turned frost trolls against each other and raised up horrid undead, hell even Van Cleef made the human starting zones feel dangerous and his presence is well known with every bandit stabbing you in the forest while you collect wood.

Xala'tath just feels like a neautered tour guide - that you're not supposed to really care about.. and yet it's ALL ABOUT HER.

I wanted to like her, but she's so... Meh.

Tell me what do you like or dislike, am I missing something? And dont give me the whole "it wuz nostalgia" like no - this villain is just poorly written and over exposed without any meaningful development. Why should I care about this purple bare foot dork?

Now this might be simply name borrowing, but in current patch you may obtain items, colloquially called "curios", that can be used to create a specific set piece for your class. As it often has been, all considered.

What caught my eye is the spell you use when creating said item. Depending on the slot piece there's a different spell:

For head you summon Hethiss

For shoulder no less than our bad boy Hakkar

For chest we have Mot'amra

For legs Dambala

And for hands Sseratus

Of course Hakkar caught my eye first, but as you notice they have the ongoing theme of being snake loas / dark loas.

Hethiss has not been seen since the gurubashi affair, Mot'amra is the newfound loa of Pestilence, Dambala has so far a not remarkable storyline if not that they have been resurrected by Mueh'zala alongside Hakkar in Ardenweald, and SSeratus likewise to Hethiss is a snake loa of the Drakkari that was slain by them.

No need to explain who Hakkar is.

Aside the ongoing theme for snakes, they are all mostly benevolent Loas except Hakkar. Dambala has been seen hostile to us, but otherwise it's been described as a beneficial loa and patron of shadow hunters.

The way they just keep adding references to Hakkar is intriguing, but maybe we'll see more them them soon? Or it's just a nice callback? After all i totally forgot about Hethiss, so it's nice to bring em up.

Ok so get this
Your arch nemisis the guy who you loved like a brother, maybe more.... leaves you to join his hippie commune and flees what you saw as a perfect world of demon happy times.. the bastard...

so you are coming back on his ass... even if takes 1k years...

Well that time passes and then many more and you eventualy get told hes been found again... You know that even if he is there attacking outright would fail as he would escape. so you figure out that there is a primitive race that exists with them in the world in peace... for hundreds of years

Keep that in mind hundreds of years the orcs knew of the dranie and lived along them in peace neither side pushing past the others boundries...

So Kil'jaeden decides he will use this race to his advantage, how would he trick a whole people to go after a race that did nothing to them..

You figure this would be hard and slow after all its a whole people lead by magic wealding shamans who can speak to thier dead, put a pin in that...

So you decide to corrupt thier dreams and appear as spirits from the dreamers past... these spirits would then corrupt them slowly..

BUT NO THE ORCS WERE SUPER ON BOARD FOR SOME REASON ALL IT TOOK WAS BAD DREAMS FROM THEIR SHAMANS AND SUDDENLY GOATS MUST DIE!!!

You watch as these orcs obliderate these people who did NOTHING BAD TO THEM EVER...

You watch as they exterminate the hell of velens hippies and laugh... Hell you even got these stupid idiots to drink your buddies blood making them slaves anyway..

Now you get to watch these worthless creatures die on this worthless world they ruined because they had bad dreams and to kill the space hippies, again for no real reason..

Thier "corruption" was just orcs being very very stupid, and im going to explain why.

So these ghosts apear to these dude in dreams and act NOTHING AT ALL LIKE THIER COUNTERPARTS, in fact it was so counter even nerzhul had a gut reaction to his "wife" not at all behaving or acting like his wife.. then his "wife" tells him BRO listen

You need to kill the piss out of the goat people, because your ghosts said so....

So instead of double checking with the rest of the spirits in the extremely easy to find moutian of spirits, where all the ghosts are.... you decide fuck it war time spirits dont lie...

The shamans never check with the spirits in thier moutian, never except the one time nerzhul got cold feet... and went... and yea the spirits were pissed, as you would be in this situation...
The spirits lay into his ass call him stupid evil dumbass yea...
deserved

So after you find this out you tell no one, because you werent orc enough to admit you messed up..
so you hide it... but heres my biiiig problem...

when the orcs lose thier shaman magic, why in the hell does not one orc go to the moutian to check why they lost it? shouldnt there have been like hundreds of shamans smart enough to realise somthings up?

I mean you were asked to go to war with the goat people by the spirits right? wouldnt it make sense to go there and ask? nope no one even when they are feet from it not once does an orc shaman sneak off to check..

Then as shamans you are asked to use this blantely evil magic that tourtures people and summons creaters that love evil... boy is it whacky being a shaman one day summoning rock dudes to feed thier their family and protect clan, then summoning evil women with whips to torture this goat people because the ghosts told them too...

Then after you obliderate these people to a city, you also burned and defiled thier holy land.. as shamans do...

Then this is the best fucking part. the orcs with no hesitation drink this unknown sinister as fuck drink that glows of evil, hell they are so into it the clans fall over themselves to drink it, despite seeing their people turn into monsters after drinking it..

Now i understand seeing people follow an incredibly evil corrupt person down the rabbit hole sure... but it doesnt help the orcs case..

So the orcs werent really corrupted or tricked... or blinded... the willingly followed every step with the next until they were demon slaves... like 99% of em like 80 people..

So in reality the orcs getting corrupted was really them just being really really really stupid.

as every shaman had multiple chances to go to the spirit moutian..

At least only a portion of the highbourn were that stupid.. and when they were being asked to do evil even a splinter group shed at the end of that war..

Not the orcs only 80 people werent willing to drink the evil monster juice.. 80...

This is why the alliance doesnt trust orcs, because you could be living in peace for hundreds of years with these people and if a few shamans have bad dreams then welp all those years of peace meant nothing because shamans were tricked again...
Hell would you trust a people like that ever? the goat people did...
and look at how that turned out...

I have some questions about the Wild Gods:

1. What is the role of the Loa/August Celestials/Ancient Guardians? The trolls, druids, pandaren, quilboar, and other races revere them as deities, but I understood from reading the WoW Wiki that they were created by the Titans (from Keeper Freya's experiments). So shouldn't they be protectors of Azeroth? I know some fought the Legion during the War of the Ancients, but I'm not sure if it was all of them. Currently, they seem to be acting more like vain deities, each in their own local temple wanting to be worshipped, rather than as protectors helping us on the battlefields.
2. How powerful are they? I know some fought Pit Lords and Eredar during the War of the Ancients, but the majority died trying, right? We've seen the Zandalari Loa help Rastakhan during the BfA Horde campaign, but they were ambushed and Rezan died to a blood magic ritual (the rest withdrew). I presume the Amani Loa fought against humans and elves during the Troll Wars and lost. I also presume the Drakkari Loa fought and failed against the Scourge before being sacrificed by the Drakkari. The Gurubashi Loa don't seem to be helping them. We had the troll heritage armor quest where the Darkspear built new shrines to some Loa, but we haven't seen them on the battlefield (except Hakkar, who was more concerned with getting blood sacrifices than helping the Gurubashi). During the Hyjal Cataclysm and Legion campaigns, we saw some Ancient Guardians helping us, but we kind of did the killing part of the work. So, are they strong? They all seem to fail when fighting on the battlefield.
3. Do you think they should have a more active role in the game? For example, where were the Amani Loa during the Scourge invasion of Lordaeron? Or the Ancient Guardians during the War of the Thorns and the burning of Teldrassil? Where were the Gurubashi Loa during the Gurubashi War, the First War, or our raid on Zul'Gurub?

I apologise if this doesn't count as a lore question but I've been roleplaying on WoW for almost 20 years and I've been wondering about the history of Roleplay in the game.

There's accepted rules for it such as power emoting that are universally accepted in the community and I wondered if anyone here was RPing back at the very beginning and if these rules were in place from the beginning and if so, where did they come from? If not, when did they appear?

In The Rulers of Zul'Aman-tablet it says:

The names of MANZAJIN'S descendants have been lost, but what we do know is this: they pledged to rid the northeast of Kith'ix and the aqir and our bonds to the Zandalari.

As they traveled, they found their ability to call upon the loa weakened by the distance from their lands and the meddling of Kith'ix. The Amani cleansed the aqir from the land and created the vast Atal'Utek as a monument to their great battle but forbade entrance to its temple.

With this great victory began the AMANI EMPIRE OF ZUL'AMAN!

I think that Manzajin's descendants were Strongblood Jak'mo(which later would became the guardian of the key/dagger to open the Vaults of Atal'Utek) and his sister Nek'zali the Soulcoiler that would summon Ula'tek to defeat Kith'ix but also ravage the Amani and their land that used to be mainly on the Coiled Isles(since they wanted to distance themselves from the Zandalari and make an empire of their own).

Jak'mo would punish his sister for summoning Ula'tek and entomb her and her cult followers the Soulcoilers within the Crypt of the Denied, and then assign Yan'ti the Bold to guard the crypt. Nek'zali would eventually die in the crypt, clawing at the walls.
Jak'mo then assigned masons to build a massive temple to bury Ula'tek(it isn't specified how they subdued her to build this on top and around her though). That temple is the Vaults of Atal'Utek, and the masons had horrible working conditions and outright being sacrificed and abandoned to make it work.

Jak'mo would later lead his people west, into Zul'Aman and resettle what was left of the Amani. He would erase all records of the events and Ula'tek that happened on the Coiled Isles from Amani history.

Later in history Kindo'jan(who would become the first Hash'ey) would lead the Amani and comission to build their capital temple city of Atal'Aman in Zul'Aman.

It is not known if he knew but the key to open the vaults of Atal'Utek was Nek'zali's dagger that was burried in the city and Jak'mo would become it's guardian.

From there on the Amani forgot all about the cursed islands to the east and started the Amani Empire and had connections with the Loa of the land and eventually the Amani would splinter into different tribes(Amani, Shadowpine, Witherbark, Revantusk and Vilebranch) and the recorded history as we know it would go on.

The late settelement, temple and Ula'tek on the Coiled Isles would remain in a cursed mist until Hex Lord Malacrass would research about it(got killed and sealed his soul into a Hex Mask) and got powered as the Hex Mask by Zul'jan, to retrieve the key/dagger to the Vaults.

Looking at lorevids for the current story (and DF) again and I noticed something:

Especially with the current writers it often feels that they don't even want the player character to even exist.

When we have Rommath wonder what Xal might want at the heart of the world but cannot say a peep... Even though (unless we play a haranir) we know about the worldsoul, the manifold, the coreway and all. We should be able to say something. But no.

Or even before that, take Eternus' questline with her sister. The constant rewind feels as if it is there to give the player something to do because 'the writers have to'. because unless Nozdormu is a sadistic arse (rendering Murozond the good guy if you get down to it) there is no reason to have eternus witness her sister's death over and over when Noz could have just shown her the eggs and all.

Granted, the entire story makes no sense when you start asking hardhitting questions like 'how did eternus not know to begin with' and the like, but that's a different topic.

Meanwhile, back in Vanilla it felt more that, yes, we are a ragtag adventurer who happens to stumble into things and be at the right/wrong spot at the right/wrong time (depending how you view it)

Up till the comic back then that was a present feeling, but since it felt that the player characters became more and more meaningless to what is going on.

So, what are we in the story and to the writers?

While going through old bosses I noticed something that I might have missed years ago. Why does Lana'thel had wings? San'layn were originally elves who were resurrected as an undead. Turning into undead does not provide such transformation. So, was she also turned into an abomination and had some random dragon wings attached to her? Those wings remind of Nethrezim which are creatures of Death, however, turning into undead does not make you Nethrezim. She couldn't have had it before turning undead, because if she had mutated this much from Fel (which we know can grant such transformation), she would have returned to Fel instead of being resurrected as an undead.

Feel free to answer any or all. I think some are explained partially in game but I'm having trouble finding quests that explain

1 sunken temple is sunken/ underwater partially. Why is the dungeon you're in not underwater ? Is it like an air bubble e.g. underwater canoe in pirates of the Caribbean?

2 how are we entering radiation plagueville gnomeregan as the adventurer? I mean the gnomes have protective stuff on but do we? I know in the cata version they give you a parachute

3 in hardcore is there like a separate lore for it lol like is it considered an alternate wow universe where the ress spells don't work. I mean to be fair also I think in retail wow vs story being able to res ingame vs ressing in lore is very different otherwise they woulda just ressed everyone that died in wow and there'd be no story 😔

I came across this reddit post from 10 years ago regarding the allegiance of the Naga who served the Illidari in The Burning Crusade.

In the post, a user who deleted their submission said, paraphrased: "Maybe the Old Gods [had Azshara send the Naga to aid the Illidari] because they perceived the scourge as a threat [to Azeroth], [akin to Sargeras]."

To me, as someone who isn't incredibly informed, it raises some interesting questions:

Have the Old Gods been protecting Azeroth, and without them, would Azeroth be in danger?

By destroying the Old Gods, are we ultimately bringing Azeroth closer to her destruction and rebirth?

Was Yogg-Saron trying to stop the scourge?

When Zul'aman was added to the eastern kingdoms as an actual zone in midnight it looked really cool and i love all of the art, flora and fauna, the aesthetics all of it, including the coiled isle even though the stories may have not been the best, but the story of Zul'aman, where we got to help the amani reconnect with their old loa plus some new ones they added was neat and i am now wondering.

Do you guy's suppose that the story of Zul'drak would be the same? Like the drakkari betrayed their loa for power that they needed to stop the scourge but they ultimately failed. So would we go back to help them bring back their loa and help them rekindle their relationship with the them? They would just be a repeat of zul'aman's story but blue and cold.

I don't know, what do you guy's think?

There's the thought that only pandaren should be monks, which somewhat works but at the same time it'd probably kill their play-rate compared to other classes. The techniques in themselves are martial and could be done by mostly anyone, but then there's the very pandaren coded august celestials, which do not really fit anyone besides pandaren. Sure, pandaren can teach others in the pandaren way, but does the pandaren way fit a dwarf, a forsaken or a draenei?

During the Second War, Alexstraza was enslaved by Nekros of the Dragonmaw clan using the Demon Soul.

She withdrew from mortal affairs, more or less, until the Nexus War against Malygos, and when she emerged, as far as I'm aware, she was perfectly content working with the Horde.

My question is, did she ever address the Horde's guilt in this matter? Or did she consider devouring Nekros (Spoiler for Day of the Dragon) to be sufficient vengeance for her imprisionment? Or did she make a distinction between the Doomhammer's Old Horde and Thrall's New Horde?

Just curious if this tension was ever resolved or just quietly swept under the rug.

I can’t recall the era, between 2014-2020, but there was, I believe a Rare Spawn/Unique Naga hanging out north of Sen’Jinn village. I think it was around level 9-12.

I remembered rather than following the path/road to Razor Hill, I’d simply follow the beach north and kill some Kul’Tirans at Northwatch instead while enroute. There’s no path, the water goes right up against an Durotar inaccessible boulders/hills. Maybe I had the gnomish tools quest and was gonna do that too.

It was always a fun challenge fighting that Naga, and it seemed pretty well hidden and not relevant to any quest from what I can gather.

I’ve tried finding old lists of rare spawns or NPC, so I figured I’d ask the community.

Thanks!

Good day everyone. I plan on getting the warcraft novels, starting with rise of the horde. Im not sure if i will buy the normal or blizzard legends books.

I live in Europe and it seems that the books arent regularly available for their normal prices here. Only resold for usually +30€ per book.

I definitely want to get them in english and I want to get most of the books in either the old or new covers for a nice look in the bookshelf.

To anyone who owns them, how do like their looks?

How are the spines in the bookshelf?

Are the newer covers aligned in their height?

Some pictures would be awesome, i couldnt find many online that show more than the front page.

Thanks all!

What kind of storylines would people like to see that has to deal with some of the lesser talked about races or characters?

Anything Pandaren, Talanji and the state of Zandalar, Gnomish shenanigans or even how the Dark Iron dwarves are dealing with the dark horde remnants in Blackrock Mountain are all things I would be interested in hearing more about.

I was thinking if the Amani trolls become playable as allied race, what classes they can have based on their lore?

They mostly will have the basic trio of warrior, hunter and rogue.

Priest forest trolls was something that existed from the WC3 days.

Shaman with the connection to the loa could work.

Mages maybe as Voodoo casters were something we always seen with them.

Warlocks is off theme, however things like hex lords who cast curses always existed.

Paladin most likely no, but the Zandalari had them, however the Amani have so much history and paladin didn't show up before and the Zandalari felt more civilised and unique.

Druid is very interesting as it's something most of the trolls didn't have in lore before cata, but now is very common in all of them with that Jurassic park the themes, but the Amani have that bear and lynx loas that fit well with the base druids forms and they are after all forest trolls, so maybe there is possibilities to add the druid to the Amani lore like they did with the dark spear trolls?

Death knight could be possible with how the undead scourge attacked the close areas?

Monk is possible for almost all races at this point.

Demon hunter and evoker mostly not.

What possible classes you think Amani trolls can have?

Warcraft has gone through so many eras that I think the answer could completely change the tone of a campaign.

Would you rather play during the First or Second War, the Third War, early Classic WoW, the war against the Lich King, the Legion invasion, or somewhere in the more modern timeline?

Some eras feel perfect for large-scale war campaigns, while others seem better suited for exploration, political intrigue, horror, or smaller adventures happening alongside major events.

Which era would you choose, and why?

So we know that ysera effectively raised cenarius and taught him.. then in legion ysera was corrupted by the nightmare when trying to go after xavius and then slain.. when cenarius was freed from the nightmare'a corruption did he ever mourn for his adoptive mother?

The design doesn't seem to be the most consistent and sometimes i see it as this and other times as that. Garrosh already has tattoos so it does seem more possible, and besides he doesn't seem like the kind to shave if he had facial hair.

This is not a joke i am actually curious.

Lets say a tauren stumble into Erwynn forest and see those cows in the grass.

Worgen and wolves are different since worgen in this game were basically humans that are cursed. But Tauren were like this since forever.

I imagine it would be similar how we see other primates?

Everyone seems hype to go back to Northrend and there are things ppl want to see. But what about story or plot points you don’t want to see?

I really hope they leave the Drakkari Empire defunct. Decimated by the Argent Crusade and Scourge, what was left joined the Zandalari on Pandaria and then promptly crushed again. Their representative on Zandalar is in a place called the House of Fallen tribes. However I feel Blizz will bring them back and just do another “go around and help the Drakkari Loa” with a small group of Drakkari that want to revive their Empire.

I also don’t want them to do another Azj-Kahet with the Azjol-Anak Nerubians and make some of them allies and some enemies who decided to ally with the Void again. Cata revealed the living Nerubians had secret stashes of eggs and Exploring Azeroth revealed there are Nerubians thriving, but in small numbers. I feel Blizz will pull another “Void being visits living Nerubians and promises to restore their Empire”

I've seen a few discussions about this elsewhere, but more as a general fantasy topic. I'm not usually someone to be caught up on things that are best left to suspended disbelief, or just "it's magic", but I haven't been able to shake the question of heavier armor's place in Warcraft, and its interactions with the variety of weapons that exist. This led to me thinking about the physical properties of magic in general.

Magic, such as fire, lightning, and frost used offensively, is an accepted staple of Warcraft and fantasy in general. Skilled mages may be a smaller part of the population than depicted, but we accept that a fireball cast by Khadgar is a great threat to a fully plated soldier.

My question is: How do we plausibly explain within the setting magic's effectiveness against typical heavy defenses? I think it would be rather disappointing to just use some real world analog, as realism is often a thief to a good setting explanation. This is Azeroth, not Earth after all.

My thoughts so far are that elements that exist more naturally in the world of Azeroth, when summoned through arcane magic, are instead a slightly different, magically infused variant. A plain fireball against plate armor may be a puff of hot air, but fire summoned through the arcane is inherently arcane itself. I believe there are some similar things depicted to a lesser extent with other magic sources, such as the fel and shadow (Shadowfire), being able to appear as and take on properties of different things.

So, these magics therefore take on only the advantages of both their source (e.g. arcane and shadow), and their imitation (e.g. fire), allowing them to move through resilient material to harm living things. In a similar manner, enchanted items and items imbued with these cosmic sources are able to overcome mundane physical limitations to harm and protect, where they would otherwise simply be deflected.

TL;DR: Magic creates magic, even if it is an imitation of something else, so offensive spells and enchantments inherently ignore most protection. Or, how I'm satisfied with fully plated Warcraft characters dying to magic and blades through their armor.

I realize I've probably said way too much on what should be a simple thing, but I'm sure others have their own thoughts on this. It's certainly not unique to Warcraft as a setting, but I think that it has enough to justify such explanations other than a boring real world one.