Who is Warmaster Blackhorn

[BuffaloSoldier]

So we've finally made it, along the way we've slain, to name a few:
-that first raging elemental you killed in Hyjal
-Siamat in the Lost City of Tol'vir and ultimately the rest of his kin (the conclave of the wind) and their lord Al'akir
-from Nefarian to Cho'gal to lady Sinestra (providing you were in a fairly hardcore guild)
-the fallen protector of the world tree, Fandral Staghelm and ultimately his lord, the great Firelord Ragnoros
Finally we reach the end of the destroyer!

but first we must defeat his minions, his final wall of defence
-while his underlings may not be the most enthralling characters produced by blizzard they generally have a degree of relevance if not depth of character
-the presence of the Old gods who corrupted deathwing is felt strongy in his underlings i.e. yorsaj zonozz
-Ultraxion is a fearsome beast, given its power by absorbing the essences of other dragons

THEN FINALLY

The Destroyer's final line of defence, his last remaining underling is

Warmaster Blackhorn:
-a tauren warrior who rides a dragon and is in the twilight hammer cult, with his current level of character development he seems a less than fascinating choice for deathwings final underling?

so the reason i post here is i am curios to learn more about this man, if there is more to know than the few lines wowwiki gives on his position as leader of Twilight Hammers elite drake riders. So if you know more please feel free to reply! or if you just want to comment go ahead!

[Brettshock]

He's completely knew to 4.3, he had no background outside of what was added in 4.3. That's one thing I hate about Dragon Soul, all of the bosses besides Deathwing have never been mentioned in Cataclysm. Icecrown had Saurfang, Sindragosa, Blood Council, and Blood Queen.

[elderamy]

Warmaster Blackhorn is not "deathwings final underling", the twilight cult is "deathwings final underling", since its above all an add fight with a stronger add named Warmaster Blackhorn...

He's completely knew to 4.3, he had no background outside of what was added in 4.3. That's one thing I hate about Dragon Soul, all of the bosses besides Deathwing have never been mentioned in Cataclysm. Icecrown had Saurfang, Sindragosa, Blood Council, and Blood Queen.

I also share your feelings, but this is a constant on Cataclysm... Only majordomo and Alystrazor had some lore on 4.2... 4.0 had some good bosses like chogal/sinestra/alakir... rest was also very unknown.... (not forgetting neffy - just think it was remake because it fitted, but all BWL had no real connection with cataclysm outside the father/son relation).


Lore is one of the strongest pillars in WoW, and I believe is neglecting this too much and lacking a long term planning (on lore). Like introducing some of the bosses (outside end bosses) at the beginning of the expansion and build the raids on top of that.

It's not hard to do that, as OP said, syndragosa, blood queen, blood princes, saurfang, hodir, mirmidon, freya, razorscale, thorim, all had lore, all were deeply related with the expansion and had a very epic feeling...

[BuffaloSoldier]

Warmaster Blackhorn is not "deathwings final underling", the twilight cult is "deathwings final underling", since its above all an add fight with a stronger add named Warmaster Blackhorn...

i was trying to be optimistic but this was what i was kinda thinking.... sigh

[shadowkras]

He's completely knew to 4.3, he had no background outside of what was added in 4.3. That's one thing I hate about Dragon Soul, all of the bosses besides Deathwing have never been mentioned in Cataclysm. Icecrown had Saurfang, Sindragosa, Blood Council, and Blood Queen.

The blood queen was introduced in 3.3 aswell. Same for Putricide.

But i dont see the second gunship as a "final underling", its just the remaining of the twilight hammer throwing a last assault at the heroes of azeroth.
They are merely a setback.

[Victoriaautmors]

Well first of all it makes for a cool scene, the raid chasing after wounded Deathwing on a Zepelin/VTol and then intercepted by a wing of elite dragonriders making for a cool sky battle, which is much more cool setting then most end boss fights.

As for the choice of the type of underling, i guess the fire and air elementals were decimated in previous raid tiers so they are probably recouperating in their own realms,while the twiligt hammer and dragonfligh were all but destroyed in Bastion of Twilight i guess the Deathwings elite bodyguard stayed with him the whole time and thus avoided death in Bastion of Twilight.

So the choice was between a twilight dragon which is not the best choice since then we would have 2 dragon fights in row, some servant of the old god whcih also wouldnt fit since the raid is is about Deathwing not the old gods. Finally there are the earth elementals in service of Deathwing like Morchok but generally golems are not that cool boses.

This leaves the Warmaster as the best choice imo, sure he didnt get much representation but how many of the bosses in ICC, BT,SWP,SSC,TK actually existed in lore or quests or game world before getting put into the raid? Funny thing about Firelands is that you see and fight many of know old MC bosses like Baron Geddon in Hyal quests but in the actual Firelands there are only new unknown bosses except Ragnaros.


At least now they can give you a nice little back story for every boss via that dungeon journal.

[Kralljin]

They kind of missed the point with building up other bosses than the final boss in Dragon soul.
BoT had Cho'gall as bad guy appeared during questing, Firelands had Ragnaros and Alysra(zor) as well as Staghelm.

For Dragon soul they could have used Benedictus / Chromatus (I know he's in a magical prison, but someone could set him free and a better choice for the Ultraxion "Gearcheck") but one got used as 5man instance final boss and the other will probably continue to exist only in TotA.

In terms of Background story regarding the other Bosses, Dragon soul is on par with BWD, you don't know a shit about these guys except for the final boss.

Hell, even ToC had with those daily quests and outside "appearance" more background information to the non final bosses than dragon soul.
(Not counting the Encounter journal as actual source because you can write anything and say "well you just haven't seen them!".

They should continue with what they started with Gorefiend in BC, small questchain for some non final bosses, it's way more cooler to fight a boss which you already seen during questing.
Maybe it should be like in Firelands, in 7 Boss instance 2-3should have had already an appearance before you fight him in the raid instance.

[elderamy]

The blood queen was introduced in 3.3 aswell. Same for Putricide.

But i dont see the second gunship as a "final underling", its just the remaining of the twilight hammer throwing a last assault at the heroes of azeroth.
They are merely a setback.

but blood queen was introduced with some lore, just remember all the Quel'Delar questline and her appearances on icecrown... Not just... here it is, kill it to move on... There was a backgroud... hell even putricide had more lore created around him, the 2 bosses before related to him and made him feel in place ... most of DS bosses just don't have it... ultraxion has some, rest has zero...

From Lore PoV, DS is rushed content to me...


EDIT: I love the game and above it, the strong lore feeling behind it... Without discussing difficulty or boss mechanics, just lorewise scenarios and storyline, ICC was EPIC, Ulduar was EPIC, NAXX 1.0 was EPIC, blacktemple was EPIC, Sunwell was EPIC, karazhan was EPIC... Even gruull had a full epic zone introducing it, same with kaelthas... Malygos was 1 boss and had an epic storyline behind...

[Brettshock]

some servant of the old god whcih also wouldnt fit since the raid is is about Deathwing not the old gods.

Wait... what? You didn't notice the 3 giant teethed anuses that are servants of the Old God N'zoth, or the two bosses that are faceless generals o.O?

[elderamy]

DW fight is nice and feels epic enough to me, just needed a bit more backing from the rest of DS so it would be a sort of climax, not just the "at last, finally deathwing" feeling i get from DS raid...

[Deleted]

I agree with the others saying that Blackhorn is not the final 'underling' of Deathwing. That rank must surely go to Ultraxion (DW pretty much says as much himself). The whole Warmaster and associated adds is more of an "oh shit, they killed Ultraxion, better send the only people left to try and stop the heroes/aspects". That said, it is a bit disappointing that more of the bosses weren't given some integration into the lore.

[Rendandtear]

I agree with the others saying that Blackhorn is not the final 'underling' of Deathwing. That rank must surely go to Ultraxion (DW pretty much says as much himself). The whole Warmaster and associated adds is more of an "oh shit, they killed Ultraxion, better send the only people left to try and stop the heroes/aspects". That said, it is a bit disappointing that more of the bosses weren't given some integration into the lore.

Well listen to Ultraxion and what he says "I was created for this moment! Blah blah blah, I am death and destruction!!! I WILL DESTROY WYRMREST!!!" Technically he was DW's final card. He was supposed to go all kamikaze on the place and destroy it, but we killed him. So DW says "Well fuck this!!!" and takes off and we start chasing him. If Blizz didn't put the Blackhorn fight in there then it'd have seemed more fitting to cut from Ultraxion getting dropped to DW's spine.

Blackhorn probably would've had a more welcome appearance as the first boss in the raid, because it'd be like "Oh hey! DW's followers are totally sitting back here at the start of the zone watching their master mess shit up!... Let's kick their asses!" Then we get to the other bosses. :O

[Sj]

He's Mr. Smite!

/improvise

[DetectiveJohnKimble]

Well listen to Ultraxion and what he says "I was created for this moment! Blah blah blah, I am death and destruction!!! I WILL DESTROY WYRMREST!!!" Technically he was DW's final card. He was supposed to go all kamikaze on the place and destroy it, but we killed him. So DW says "Well fuck this!!!" and takes off and we start chasing him. If Blizz didn't put the Blackhorn fight in there then it'd have seemed more fitting to cut from Ultraxion getting dropped to DW's spine.

Blackhorn probably would've had a more welcome appearance as the first boss in the raid, because it'd be like "Oh hey! DW's followers are totally sitting back here at the start of the zone watching their master mess shit up!... Let's kick their asses!" Then we get to the other bosses. :O

DW only takes off when Thrall F's him up with the Dragon Soul. His plan to stop them from using the DS to kill him failed, and he needs to GTFO or he'll get killed. Ultraxion was just another abomination like Atramedes, Chimaeron, Onyxia, etc.

Blackhorn and his lackeys are supposed to represent the last of the Twilight Dragonflight, whose story started with Sartharion and Obsidian Sanctum. We pretty much finish off the twilight dragons before and after the Ultraxion encounter, except Goriona.

[Garganchewin]

The fight is less about Blackhorn and more about the last stand of the twilight dragonflight. I think they just failed when they named it after blackhorn.

[Sting]

Perhaps a bit offtopic, but why is the dragon soul entrance in caverns of time?

[DetectiveJohnKimble]

Perhaps a bit offtopic, but why is the dragon soul entrance in caverns of time?

The raid directly continues the story of the 5-mans, where Nozdormu ports you through time. The entrance for the 5-mans is in CoT as well. They probably didn't want to stick a raid portal in the middle of Dragonblight, since that would look kind of awkward.

[Deleted]

I do kinda miss that the bosses in DS lack any real backstory e.g. we saw them throught cata and only finally got to end them. I think Ultraxion was deathwings final weapon/underling, but once we killed him deathwing slightly panicked and just sent whatever he had left at us.

[shadowkras]

but blood queen was introduced with some lore, just remember all the Quel'Delar questline and her appearances on icecrown...

And all of that was still introduced in the same patch as icecrown citadel itself. She didnt exist until then.

blacktemple was EPIC, Sunwell was EPIC, karazhan was EPIC

Hold on a second man, who did we know from karazan aside of medivh?
Black temple, only 3 guys were known. Sunwell... All the lore was introduced in the same patch, except for kalec and kiljaeden.

Lets look back at vanilla, we cant even mention the 10mans or AQ because none of those guys had any lore about them, they were all generic bosses, most of them with regular trash models. Yet we loved it.


Truth be told, only raid that was really lore rich was Ulduar, and it had 8 bosses (out of 14) that had no lore on them until we took a step into the raid.

[Sting]

The raid directly continues the story of the 5-mans, where Nozdormu ports you through time. The entrance for the 5-mans is in CoT as well. They probably didn't want to stick a raid portal in the middle of Dragonblight, since that would look kind of awkward.

The thought had occured to me, but this is probably the first time they actually slapped a portal someplace else because of practical reasons.