[Spoilers] All the horde leaders are terrible

[InTheEnd]

I hear everyone giving Sylvanas sas, but come on they all suck

Thrall? Oh yeah, he let his people starve in a desert and chose the harshest place on Azeroth for his people to settle in. Why? Becaue he wanted his people to suffer for what the did during the war. Yeah never mind that the massacre wasnt even their fault. Ashenvale was packed with food and space, but he let his people suffer regardless. Then he appoints Garrosh and leaves, even though Garrosh begs him to reconsider and says hes not ready. Right after, Cairne and Voljin Turn on him. Great job.

Saurfang? He is a hypocrite. His Concept of honor is stupid. In a good war, its revealed that SAURFANG was the one who orchestrated the war of thorns. Alright, so hiring hundreads of assassins and poisoning the food supply of the enemy, butchering your way across all of ashenvale using lies and subterfuge and killing civilians unprovoked. Yeah no thats honorable, but helping his warchief from being killed is dishonorable. And what then? He betrays the entire horde. His reasoning is because of Sylvanas and Lordaeron, WHEN THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS THAT KILLED ATLEAST AS MANY IN THE WAR OF THORNS

Baine? He fucking delievers the horde to the alliance YET AGAIN on a silver platter. He sent a piece of his own horn to the alliance, he collaborated with them instead of his own allies during the siege of Orgrimmar. Yeah people bring up Taurajo alot but come on it has legitemacy. Why did he even exile his people wanting revenge, are you kidding me? What kind of leader just says "No no, It was a legitimate target, just kill my people". There are dwarves wiping out entire tribes in the barrens, Balistas lined up at the great game, and he does nothing. Had it been Carine he would have marched from mulgore to dusthallow marsh untill every single alliance soldier was wiped out.

Lor'Themar?
"Were it not for the Horde, the remaining sin'dorei might have died out against the Scourge." NO. It was the forsaken that helped you. Remember the ghostlands and the tranquillen? You werent let into the horde until AFTER the forsaken has helped you with the remaining scourge
"Garrosh nearly severed the bond between us, but in the end it held strong." NO. You almost defected to the alliance and betrayed the horde.
Serioulsy Lor'themar just shut up

Voljin didnt get a chance to be terrible, but he ordered the unprovoked attack on Ashran, and he apologised to jaina about the purge of dalaran, agreeing that butchering the sunreavers was justified

Seriously they all suck. Gallywix is terrible too, but atleast he KNOWS he is terrible which makes him less back than the others. The horde is doomed and so is the lore

Your criticisms of those leaders are laughable at best. Garrosh and Garrosh 2.0 (Sylvanas) have only harmed the Horde since they took up the mantle of Warchief. Just because Sylvanas might not be a raid boss does not mean she isn't a time bomb that has wrecked havoc on the Horde's reputation.

[BaumanKing]

There is no such thing as bad characters, only bad writers. Even Med'an can be great, if done right.

[Minikin]

If I was Terenas, the orcs would have been force marched through the Dark Portal and Netherguard Keep would have been built around the portal with constant shifts of mages and soldeirs manning cannons pointed straight to the entrance of that thing.
Don't kill them, just send them home and protect your border.

- - - Updated - - -



This is the most retarded part of BfA imo, how many times I've killed an orc in the process of slaughtering civilians in front of their kids or preparing to blight civilians or killing doctors and they go "At least I've died with honor".

Right!? Lol you take a run through brennadam and this green idiot chases you yelling "your death will bring me honor!!!!!" Right next to an impaled civilian.

I mean heck. Keeping the symbol of the old horde. Naming your city after the guy who killed many in its name. Keeping the same military structure.

Not to mention, when these guys make these threads they skip out garrosh cuz he so gloriously lead a foray into ashenvale (losing in there too to Varian but that's besides the point. But these posters gloss over how he went to ashenvale for resources for his people.....


To bring them back and build more spikes on the front gate lol.

[Archibalde]

Lor'Themar?
"Were it not for the Horde, the remaining sin'dorei might have died out against the Scourge." NO. It was the forsaken that helped you. Remember the ghostlands and the tranquillen? You werent let into the horde until AFTER the forsaken has helped you with the remaining scourge
"Garrosh nearly severed the bond between us, but in the end it held strong." NO. You almost defected to the alliance and betrayed the horde.
Serioulsy Lor'themar just shut up

None of that is incorrect, though. The Forsaken are part of the Horde. And while they were the ones to help them initially, let's not pretend that the support from the entire Horde didn't contribute greatly to the Sin'dorei growing strong again after they lost so many to the Scourge. They would have still been incredibly weak and vulnerable if their only allies were the Forsaken.

His second point is perfectly valid. The only reason he wanted to defect to the Alliance was because of the way Garrosh lead the Horde. Garrosh' actions lead to the Horde splitting in two. He evicted everyone that was not an Orc or a Goblin from Orgrimmar, and the majority of those chose to call themselves "the True Horde". Lor'themar wanting to defect was no different from Vol'jin wanting to rebel. It was about having reached their wit's end with Garrosh and taking action. Lor'themar tried to go with the passive way. When the plan failed and he heard of Vol'jin's rebellion, he realized the Sin'dorei do belong and Garrosh's will wasn't the will of the Horde itself.

Out of all the leaders right now, Lor'themar is the only one who has approached every conflict in the most level-headed way. He never 100% blindly goes in one direction, he takes his time to assess a situation and considers when the best time to act is. Lumping him with the others is a bit silly.

[Super Dickmann]

I think Thrall's intended purpose was equal parts penance and returning to their shamanic roots. By forcing them to work with the spirits to rejuvenate the land and by showing to the orcs how the power of a shaman could create instead of that of the warlock that only destroys, he'd reinvigorate their culture. Thrall after all had no idea that the foundation of orcish "economy" was not shamanism but rather raiding others and stealing their stuff.

I'm dubious on that point because the land wasn't crap because it was the victim of depradation by its previous owners and the orcs could fix it. It was crap because that's just what it offered and where the climate was and shamanism being used to actively change the land to benefit its people is dubious. The taunka practice it and get away with it by force, the elves use the arcane, but with regular orcish shamanism I think you're meant to just go and deal with it.

[Minikin]

It's ultimately because they are raiders. They don't have the skills they need to sustain their population otherwise.
The orcs should have shipped most of their peons to Sylvanas and settled Tirisfal and Hillsbrad. Amazing land for farming available to them, could sustain their people just well. Heck accept that you are fucking slavers and use human slaves as farmers. The main reason the orcs always wanted Ashenvale was lumber, to create more fortifications and more siege weapons. I mean Orgrimmar kept expanding but did you see orc housing? Nope, I saw troll housing but orc siegeworks.

That would have been an interesting twist. More like Warhammer orc than "genocidal anonymous group" orc.

But then the elves in quelthalas would have exploded with paranoia having descendants of doomhammer nestled so close to their borders.

Poor goofs shoulda just gone to mulgore and with the tauren built an empire. The darkspear held them back. A government of taurens with the military might of orcs. Would have outpaced everything. A level head and an iron fist.

[Minikin]

What would have pushed them was the goblins tbh. This idea to have Gazlowe be "neutral" was always stupid. I mean I like Gallywix, he is a big ham but Gazlowe is among the fucking founders of Thrall's Horde.

I totally forgot about that actually. Why the hell did they not move gazlowe up? Just general reason that Gally is trade prince?

[Sanguinerd]

O M F G.. there are flawed characters in a fictional story ya'll.

If only they had all the information we do.

[Super Dickmann]

Durotar looks like badlands to me. Why can't earth elementals help them till it? Why can't water elementals help them irrigate it and air elementals divert rain to it?
Ashenvale is dense forest. It is crappy land to help you sustain a large population unless you actively deforest it.

I mosty figure it's because using elementals to assist with convenience is heretical. Though as far as Ashenvale is concerned the thing is it can grow dense forests in the first place, which isn't the case. It's also magic, hence why the night elves can live off of it despite having no agriculture whatsoever.

[steelballfc]

Here, Here!

This horde is screwed. Blizz has written themselves into a corner and don't have to creativity to get themselves out. They've constantly harped on about how this isn't MoP 2.0 and if the writers honestly believe that, they are more deluded than I imagined.

There is no good option for the horde. It is the main reason Sylvanas has so much support even after all her crazy actions. The alternatives suck.

true
many horde don't care about Sylv, they just hate what's coming next

[Broken Fox]

The real enemy is Blizzard. I cant even get mad over these characters, the writing is simply shit and their team is a mess.

[Rafoel]

Fuck blizzard, fuck their writers, and fuck this lore abomination. It doesn't even matter how this ends. The whole plot of this patch is a straight up abomination and desecration of established characters. There is no fucking way I'm doing these quests on my character, or playing this game for that matter.

[OIS]

I think Thrall's intended purpose was equal parts penance and returning to their shamanic roots. By forcing them to work with the spirits to rejuvenate the land and by showing to the orcs how the power of a shaman could create instead of that of the warlock that only destroys, he'd reinvigorate their culture. Thrall after all had no idea that the foundation of orcish "economy" was not shamanism but rather raiding others and stealing their stuff.

Malkorok liked staying in Orgrimmar, with all its heat trapping metal structures. He thought adversity would keep one strong. I don't neccesarily agree with it but it usually counts as a reason in fantasy worlds.

And Durotar wasn't a desert in Warcraft 3. Maybe it's just climate change?

[Overlordd]

I think you're right OP. The leaders we got are a bunch of spineless wetslobs. I only like Gallywix of the Horde side. Bring back Garrosh. I also acknowledge Daelin was an honorable and justified man.

Every damn leader on WoW acts like a god damn captain America from the avengers. I am getting fucking done with it. There is no leader with flaws. Besides Gallywix and Garrosh. These writers are too much of a pussy to actually write a good, flawed character because they havevto push some sort of agenda.

[ophion1990]

Right!? Lol you take a run through brennadam and this green idiot chases you yelling "your death will bring me honor!!!!!" Right next to an impaled civilian.

I'm curious, is there such a thing as a civilain in orc society? They used to have pretty spartan tradition, where orcs kill talbuks to prove themselves. This still holds true in the current orc society, albeit with different animals. They carry a mantra of "Strength and Honor" aswell, which should indicate that orcs are still warriors, no matter what else they do.

[McNeil]

The Alliance leaders aren't exactly better either. I still wonder what the heck Velen is even doing these days and if he has any gripe with the Horde, despite working with them on Argus. Honestly its getting hard to even think of who is a good character these days. I used to like every character in WC3, even freaking Garithos who at least had some funny lines..

[Nathasil]

Having leaders that all work for different causes being unable to put aside their differences for a goal that they can agree on is what makes the Horde more interestung than the Alliance. And much more lively.

You cannot have both. Try and apply the arguments used in the OP to - i don't know - Game of Thrones. It works. Every single character in that show is terrible because at some point he does something irrational and works against his or his peoples best interests. Hint: That's what creates story archs. If every leader of your faction immediately goes into "I agree with leader!"-mode when something happens you land in Alliance territory...a faction so boring that Blizzard itself obviously cannot be bothered to write stories for it.

The OP did not include Sylvanas, but here you go:
Sylvanas is the dumbest chick of all. She FORCED a human into her elite ranks against the wishes of EVERYBODY just because she had the hots for him. She put her emotions above her responsibility to her people and her own career.
She was supposed to be a good strategist and military leader, yet she COMPLETLY underestimated the Scourge when it arrived at her gates. Leading her people from defeat to defeat to defeat. "You will never break the NEXT Elf-Gate, Arthas!". What a shitshow.
After she was turned she helped killing her own people. Just like Arthas turned on his people after Frostmourne stole his soul. Sylvanas is supposed to understand Undeath and her character development since WC3 tells us - the players - that at some point even Undead are personally responsible for what they do and don't. Yet she went into total vendetta mode against Arthas, never realising that she is exactly the same. What a fucking hypocrite. If she had been offered Frostmourne to "save" her city when the Scourge attacked, would she have turned it down? Hell no!
As the leader of the "new" Forsaken in WC3 she totally fucked up. What exactly did she lead "her people" (which are not her people and never have been) to? Vengeance against the Scourge (and the living) at all costs? Nope, she helped hunt those down that did (Wrathgate) while she herself had NO FUCKING CLUE what to do instead. Or, if you read between the lines, she willingly allowed Wrathgate to happen but THEN decided to kill all who were involved after it did not work. What a great leader! She did not even take part in the final fight against Arthas! Which power on Azeroth was big enough to stop her from being there? Her lazy ass? So she failed in leading the Forsaken to vengeance...what did she lead them to instead? Hope for another future? Read efore the Storm. She will kill anybody who has any vision for the future of the Forsaken which is not "Sylvanas's personal tool".
Whenever anybody in the Horde is called a "traitor" i can only laugh at it. Sylvanas is the ONLY Horde Leader who ever openly betrayed the Horde. But somehow, most Horde posters on these forums are fine with it, becuase while she did openly betray the Horde, she did not do so to save lives or something stupid like that. She did it to turn an entire zone into an undead hell-hole that pretty much nobody can use anymore. So that's totally fine! FOR THE HORDE! Speaking about Thrall letting his people settle in a desert....
I could go on and on how she never fought the Legion during an entire expansion and instead HELPED the Legion by attacking Stormheim and such details...but i will stop it there.

Let's instead finish on a different note:
What exactly does "Being Horde" mean to you? I can only speak for myself...but NEVER would i come up with these words:
- Female
- High Elf
- Undead
- Human Lover

On a scale from 1 - 10 of how "hordy" a character can be, Sylvanas is the only character in the entire current cast that scores a 0. She is as little Horde as you can possibly be. Yet players turn on characters who represent what the Horde "is supposed to stand for" a lot better.
And why is that? because she wants to kill the Alliance (and the Horde, too). That's the problem it comes down to: For a lot of players "being Horde" simply means "killing Alliance". They do not see any identity for the Horde out of being the enemy to the Alliance. What is the Horde about on its own? Well who cares, right? Who cares what my own character or his race is about! being the enemy of somebody else (who i also don't understand!) is good enough!

No, it's not. Without an identity of its own, independant from the Alliance, the Horde is not a faction. It's just a word. Because - spoiler alert! - every NPC/PvE adversary faction is also "anti Alliance" (and anti Horde). If all you define yourself with is being "anti Alliance" you will never find any difference between you and the NPC/PvE adversaries. Which is EXACTLY the situation the Horde is currently in.

[Super Dickmann]

I always assumed that they are just . . .elves? So they have a super efficient metabolism so they need to eat little and they are not particularly populous and spread over a large area. So when it comes to food they are mostly hunter-gatherers.
And survival is not really convenience is it? A clan calling on the spirits for rain because it is starving does not seem like convenience. Why worship the spirits if they don't give anything in return?

Blizzard have given us no lore on elven biology so I assume they're mostly just like people. We know they hunt and eat too. That said, the cultural acceptability of changing the land and whether the elements would consider it a violation to help you get over subsistence-style living would be an interesting angle.

[Cobman]

You want hard swallow pill? Horde needs to be almost wiped out so they can return to their "survivors" mode and status quo. To have them as super-power in the world was mistake from writers perspective. Horde should have been sons that do not follow their fathers footsteps and find their own honorable way, but on the other hand elves and undead kinda ruin whole thing...

[Dastreus]

I hear everyone giving Sylvanas sas, but come on they all suck

Thrall? Oh yeah, he let his people starve in a desert and chose the harshest place on Azeroth for his people to settle in. Why? Becaue he wanted his people to suffer for what the did during the war. Yeah never mind that the massacre wasnt even their fault. Ashenvale was packed with food and space, but he let his people suffer regardless. Then he appoints Garrosh and leaves, even though Garrosh begs him to reconsider and says hes not ready. Right after, Cairne and Voljin Turn on him. Great job.

Saurfang? He is a hypocrite. His Concept of honor is stupid. In a good war, its revealed that SAURFANG was the one who orchestrated the war of thorns. Alright, so hiring hundreads of assassins and poisoning the food supply of the enemy, butchering your way across all of ashenvale using lies and subterfuge and killing civilians unprovoked. Yeah no thats honorable, but helping his warchief from being killed is dishonorable. And what then? He betrays the entire horde. His reasoning is because of Sylvanas and Lordaeron, WHEN THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS THAT KILLED ATLEAST AS MANY IN THE WAR OF THORNS

No comment. From what I understand, the Forsaken did the civilian shit behind the front lines, but idk.

Baine? He fucking delievers the horde to the alliance YET AGAIN on a silver platter. He sent a piece of his own horn to the alliance, he collaborated with them instead of his own allies during the siege of Orgrimmar. Yeah people bring up Taurajo alot but come on it has legitemacy. Why did he even exile his people wanting revenge, are you kidding me? What kind of leader just says "No no, It was a legitimate target, just kill my people". There are dwarves wiping out entire tribes in the barrens, Balistas lined up at the great game, and he does nothing. Had it been Carine he would have marched from mulgore to dusthallow marsh untill every single alliance soldier was wiped out.

So what he sent a piece of his horn? I imagine he felt heartbreak for Teldrassil's burning. Which all Tauren should've felt. And helping the Alliance in the Siege of Orgrimmar? Obviously, he was aiding with his knowledge of the city. Without a horde helping alliance, the Alliance would've been operating on scouting info, rather than directly being told about the city during the battle. It was good he did that.

Lor'Themar?
"Were it not for the Horde, the remaining sin'dorei might have died out against the Scourge." NO. It was the forsaken that helped you. Remember the ghostlands and the tranquillen? You werent let into the horde until AFTER the forsaken has helped you with the remaining scourge
"Garrosh nearly severed the bond between us, but in the end it held strong." NO. You almost defected to the alliance and betrayed the horde.
Serioulsy Lor'themar just shut up

No, Garrosh basically used the elves for portals, scouting, and cannon fodder. He didn't like them. There's a reason Lor'themar was going to leave.

Voljin didnt get a chance to be terrible, but he ordered the unprovoked attack on Ashran, and he apologised to jaina about the purge of dalaran, agreeing that butchering the sunreavers was justified

It was, though. They betrayed Dalaran for Garrosh.