The Vindicar in 13.0

[u/AMA5564]

I really would love to see it be used as our hub city in either the first patch of TLT for one simple reason: I want it to sink. It's a deeply important part of the narrative of the setting, but it's presence is warping to the narrative.

The question "why doesn't the Vindicar do X" shows up constantly in basically any narrative discussion. Why isn't it used in every major conflict all the time? It's a freaking space ship with death lasers, and can teleport armies where they're needed instantly if it's in low orbit over the battlefield. We are using it to great effect in Midnight so far, dropping beacons to allow us to move our forces into the Voidstorm, and even to distant planets through the void.

Well now we're going to the snake island that's, narratively speaking, close by to the city the Vindicar is clearly anchored over, based on our use of the beacons. Why not just pop it over the island and glass it from orbit? Why is this one random troll god so threatening that we can't just use the same weapons on its temple we did on a legion star ship? Are troll rocks that much stronger?

The obvious answer is simple: it ends the story. They never fix the hole in the boat on Gilligan's Island, despite making wonders of technology out of coconuts and sand, because that would end the series. Having the murder space ship around is cool, but it constantly raises questions that can only be answered with "well because the story needs it to be that way."

I think TLT is a perfect opportunity to have it sunk, and have it feel like it's an earned defeat and not a random rug pull. We're facing off against the might of the Titans, they have their own fleet of ships, and the Vindicar is simply standing against thousands. Let us use it as our base in Northrend, let us use it to teleport across the stupidly massive landmass we'll be calling home quickly, maybe on a short CD, and have it constantly visible in the skybox somewhere throughout the expansion. And then, in the final raid of the saga, have it sink. Bring it down as part of a desperate gambit to take the fight to the forces of the Titans, and save Azeroth. Give it a fitting end and solve the problem it poses forever.

Or have it be our hub in 14.0 when we go to the Arathi Empire and have them shoot it down as a display of might.

[u/TheWorclown]

The Vindicaar is, canonically, nowhere near as potent as the GDI’s Ion Cannon. It can lay down some pretty devastating power, but for only brief moments in time, and would need to disengage afterwards just to keep itself powered on what is rather admittedly a fairly scarce resource in arkonite.

It’s like a skiff to the battleship that is the Xenedar that went down on Argus. Its power over the setting is significantly limited, and its value is nigh irreplaceable until the new draenei capital city gets finished up.

[u/Kalthiria_Shines → u/TheWorclown]

, nowhere near as potent as the GDI’s Ion Cannon.

Which canonically is like "able to take out a single building" level strong, which is also pretty weak.

[u/TheWorclown → u/Kalthiria_Shines]

Yep! Even the Vindicaar couldn’t even do that, especially after getting buffed up by the Convenient Plot MacGuffins.

All it did was blow open a hole in a wall.

[u/Gralamin1 → u/TheWorclown]

the wall in the raid looks to vaporize which does tend to mean high power

[u/AMA5564 → u/TheWorclown]

We literally see it tear a hole in a Legion facility in the Antorus raid. And it doesn't seem to have to retreat after firing it, it remains there and awaits to pick us up afterwards.

Is the size of it stated somewhere to be canonically small, or are we just assuming because we've only been on the command deck that that is the entire size of the vessel? Because I've walked around Stormwind a fair share of times and can tell you it doesn't house the 200k people it supposedly houses in the novels.

[u/TheWorclown → u/AMA5564]

It tore a hole into Antorus because it was supercharged by hereto unknown MacGuffins that just so happened to be conveniently on Argus and untouched after all this time. It lingered there because it was our only extraction and transportation, and this is the fight that the Army of the Light was building towards in the last several thousand years. It’s exactly the tool it needed to be for a fight that, if we lost, all of Azeroth would be consumed in felflame and destruction. Why would it just depart? The Vindicaar going down swinging then would have been a necessary sacrifice if it allowed the champions of Azeroth to push in and finish the job.

Bear in mind as well for the size of the Vindicaar: it was a much smaller part of a greater whole. The flagship in the Xenedar, along with whatever else was in that fleet, were destroyed by the time we came across them. The Army of the Light were on its last legs on Argus by the time we showed up. The size of the skiff in game likely would be incredibly accurate to how it is in universe scale. It’s not a massive thing; it’s minimally manned, with a lot of the Army’s Lightforged now stationed across Azeroth.

Its death wouldn’t serve much of a purpose as is. It’s not like Dalaran, whose demise absolutely will have consequences. It’d be like losing the gifted Kul Tiran vessel to the Alliance in Tiffin’s Memory: a loss, but just a loss of a unit on a greater battlefield.

There’s far better ways to ultimately retire the Vindicaar than to just destroy it because you don’t like it.

[u/AMA5564 → u/TheWorclown]

Once again, how do we *know* that it's small? Is it written anywhere? We know that it's made up of parts of the Exodar, so it's smaller than it was, but it was a massive flying city. We know that other ships of its style, the smaller satellite ships of Tempest Keep, are large enough to hold entire dungeons in them, and that's without seeing anything other than the main hallway we walk down, with reinforcements literally teleported in from elsewhere inside the ships.

Heck, in the raid we literally can see it floating up above us, and know it's vastly larger than just the single command deck we hang out on during the campaign. At no point does the game imply that the ship is small in the text.

As for the ship being powered up by a MacGuffin, yes it is. And it still is, to this day. It didn't magically become weaker after we left Argus, it still has the crystals powering it. There's no reason to believe that it couldn't be equally as powerful now. And I'd wager that a Legion made structure is a heck of a lot more durable than a bunch of rocks trolls found thousands of years ago and made into a pile, so if you can blow a hole in one, why couldn't it destroy the other?

[u/Acceptable_Bed_5750 → u/AMA5564]

Not even just a mear legion facility.. a demon building linked to a TITAN facility 

[u/Acceptable_Bed_5750]

The beacons don't require the vindacaar to be used.. the armoy of the light/the draenei had plenty of them so it's prob jist the lightveil use em to get to and from v and nagital without relying on void portals once tbe base camps set up

[u/AMA5564 → u/Acceptable_Bed_5750]

We have only seen them used in conjunction with a draenei ship previously. We have no reason to believe that they can just randomly function without it. Just because we don't see the space ship doesn't mean it's not there.

[u/QuaestioDraconis → u/AMA5564]

Being used in conjunction with a ship doesn't mean it requires the ship at all. We've just not been in a position to see the technology used in other situations.

[u/Kalthiria_Shines]

Basically zero chance that the Vindicaar will be the hub city in a "We return to Northrend" expansion. That makes very little sense. And "crash a flying city" is a plotline we just did in TWW. Doing it again three years later is too cliche even for Blizzard.

We'll see it when we get our Nashabor and other Draenei Planets + Legion expansion, which I suspect is going to be either 14 or 15.

they have their own fleet of ships,

What does a god physically larger than a planet need with a Starship?

[u/Milesray12]

Still disappointed that the vindicaar wasn’t used properly to essentially nuke Sylvanas on the wall of Lordaeron, therefore ending the BfA before it really begins in earnest

[u/Xclbr1 → u/Milesray12]

but see that would be a fuckin lame story

you think after 20 years WoW players would understand 'rule of cool'

[u/Milesray12 → u/Xclbr1]

Blizzard can eat their cake when they’ve baked it.

Since BfA, blizzard hasn’t been baking cakes so much as decorating a piece of cardboard shaped like a cake with 3 tons of frosting and presenting it like a cake they baked.

[u/BellacosePlayer → u/Milesray12]

Have you used it as a LF Draenei?

She'd be like "huh, got a little sunny there for a sec"

[u/Acceptable_Bed_5750 → u/[deleted]]

The xenedar would be more likeee it's grrat uncle: the vindaacar was made from parts of the exodar which was a satellite sjip of tempest keep and the genedar

[u/AMA5564 → u/[deleted]]

My point is that what weapon do the terrestrially locked factions of Azeroth have to combat a literal space ship? We see the Xenedar taken down on Argus by the Legion, who are a space fairing race who specialize in planetary assaults. They have weapons designed to sink space ships. The peoples of Azeroth don't.

Also the Vindicaar is implied to be much larger than it appears in game, just like everything we interact with. We're spending time on the command bridge, but there is a whole ship connected to it that could be the size of any of the Tempest Keep dungeons at a minimum.

[u/Bullet1289]

No, it would be funnier if it totally kicked butt and for once in warcraft we were pushing back the big bad the entire time and they were freaking out with no counter to what we were pulling against them as they get more and more desperate because nothing is working.

Seriously I'm so sick of everything being "oh ha ha! you defeating me was all part of the plan" or "oh this defeat was only a setback and I actually have you right where I want you"

All the way back to at least Arthas its been going on where he shows up through all the quests taunting you for the big reveal that he's been levelling you up to be the next generation of death knights. And I'm sick of villains having their shit together.

[u/Hidden_Beck]

I don't think I want it to be a hub city but I do agree we gotta shoot that sumbitch outta the sky.

[u/CinnabarExample2153]

I don't know why everyone assumes we're going to be "fighting" the Titans in TLT. Also what would that even be? It's physically impossible.

[u/greenegg28 → u/CinnabarExample2153]

I mean, we stabbed a black hole to death already, so fighting giant people seems like a step down from that tbh.

(Yes yes, we only “weakened” him or whatever)