I am still very hopeful we will see C'thun and Yogg Saron again. I don't honestly think we killed them in a weakened or imprisoned state due to the lack of fall out which followed after.
When the titans killed Y'Shaarj the destruction and death rattle was catastrophic causing the well of eternity, this is why I believe we haven't seen the last of the remaining three.
The well of eternity was created because he was ripped from the surface and his last breath cursed the land, C'thun's corpse still whispers and if the events in Ulduar at the beginning of legion is any indication yogg's corruption is still around there as well. So there is a good chance they are dead, ever since chronicle was introduced they became basically the equivalent of titan keepers for the void lords, so don't expect them to be extremely powerful.
Much like the skull of guldan the heart held a fragment of the dread gods power. Which garrosh fully and quickly exhausted entirely.
- - - Updated - - -
We destroyed cthun and yogg from the inside. Yasharraj was the strongest and was literally ripped FULLY out and squished in the planets sky. Its no surprise there is no similar effect from the other 2
Really ruins them for me. Originally the Old Gods were considered to be the strongest beings at full power due to speculation. Yes Sargeras was considered the final boss of WoW, but the fact that these guys had an ever lingering presence and threat to always return was always such a threat. Now we got these random Void Lords that just seem a tad boring.
It fits in with the Lovecraft inspiration. Cthulhu is inconceivably powerful to mortals, yet even he is less than a dog to some other cosmic beings.
Their lore kind of has been "ruined" for some time. If you give something a health bar, it loses a lot of the Lovecraftian aspect.
As said before, a lot of what kept them interesting was the mistery. We knew very little about them, now we know a lot.
Except for N'zoth. He is the one old god who is still very misterious. Where is he imprisioned? Who are his followers? When will he break free, and how?
And then came those whispers.
Five keys to open our way, five torches to light our path. The king of diamonds has been made a pawn. At the hour of her third death, she will usher in our coming.
More questions. More mistery. The old gods are still interesting, for now.
Plus we see something of Yogg Saron respawning in one of the quarries in Icecrown and what is directly below ICC itself.
Blizzard said themselves they wished they spent more time making the connection between Yogg Saron and the Lich King clearer.
I actually really enjoy all the new Lore about the Void and Old Gods that has been coming out more and more recently.
"Who watches the Watchers in the Dark"
Look, people:
The Old Gods have ALWAYS been weaker than the titans. What Krasus said during the WOTA was hyperbole. Besides, I find the Void Lords More Or less like The Outer Gods, than I do With the Old Gods (AKA Their Avatars).
Also, ALL of the Old Gods We've killed so far, ARE DEAD! Blizzard even said that in a tweet. (Not even going to Ask AquaMonkey For the tweet).
Also, An Old Gods Heart is just a left over presence of an old god, it doesn't mean that it's still alive. For all we know, Y'sharrj might've lost all of his energy, even though his heart was still pumping...barely...
But, from what lore states, ALL THE OLD GODS ARE DEAD EXCEPT FOR N'ZOTH!
"We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
The reason the other can whisper as well, is that their corpses still corrupt around them and are very much autonomous. The three Old Gods are dead, but even as Yoggy himself says, his corpse will fester and corrupt, hence the whispering in Ulduar and the minions that still serve.
Our power relative to the lore is something that really pushed me away from Warcraft. Old Gods were once very unclear in regards to how powerful, and how many existed. The direction they went in more recently made them somewhat harmless in the grand scheme of things. They are easily killed by titans, their physical forms vanquished, and the fifth nearly discarded altogether. While I'm not writing off C'thun or Yogg as completely gone, it's still a little disappointing that something that had so much discussion over the years was reduced to "Y'Shaarj is already dead, C'thun and Yogg or basely gone for good and N'zoth doesn't really matter with the strength you have now".
It's not just the old gods though. I'm still bitter that Archimonde was just pushed off like that. WC3 and BC depicted them in a stronger light in my eyes and to see them reduced to being overpowered without any sort of plot device is jarring. The titans? Completely destroyed. Aggramar? Dead. At that point, it's hard to take any kind of 'power level' seriously anymore.
With both the Eredar lords and the Old Gods, it seemed like you could always argue "well, he was attempting to pull himself through the portal" or "well, that was just a fraction of his physical form made material". Now it seems like we'll suddenly be able to handle any problem regardless of how it was depicted prior.
While lore on all of this was sparse, Blizzard always seemed to depict them in the game in a way that made them seem as if their full strength was still well above their own. At some point, it feels like Blizzard just gave up on that and said "no, you can kill these forces with your current power"
Can somebody link me to an explanation of this whole old god / void lord / whatever stuff? Is this from a novel or something? There's so much lore I'm clearly missing out on as I have no idea what's going on.