How did Azshara get the Tidestone????

[Eosia]

That's hilariously shitty writing... We never would have left something that powerful just sitting around, it should have been locked up in one of the order halls or stashed in a vault in Dalaran

And just exactly when were we supposed to do that? The WoW timeline does not follow any patch schedule or content release dates. We entered the Tomb of Sargeras, place the pillars there as we had to, and then we followed Kil'jaeden to Argus. Was the writing supposed to go something like this?

1 - "Hey, we've got to follow Kil'jaeden and finish him off!"
2 - "Wait, we need to take a moment and secure the Pillars of Creation! Sure Kil'jaeden can regroup and come back through the portal he just opened up in the basement of the tomb but at least the Pillars will be safe!"

[Aucald]

The theft of the Tidestone seems rather easily explained by the events immediately following the Argus campaign and the close of Legion. Basically put, we took our eyes off the proverbial ball when the Legionfall campaign turned its eyes to Argus, and then almost immediately following the successful rout of the Legion at Antorus a world-spanning faction conflict blew up which involved nearly everyone in the process. This would leave the Tomb of Sargeras defended solely by the Kirin Tor, who were now largely leeched of Order Hall support (those Champions being embroiled in the faction conflict) and even Warden support (recalled to Darkshore in light of Teldrassil). It would be easy for Azshara's Naga to besiege the Tomb and steal away the poorly-defended Tidestone from its Kirin Tor defenders. And with the two major factions embroiled in their war they may not even be receiving the message that one of the Pillars had been taken, or else they may not care overly.

[DisposableHero]

It makes the most sense to me that in the wake of the Tomb of Sargaras raid events, we do the classic good guy thing and return the artifacts we're no longer using to their previous owners. The Hammer of Kazgoroth would be returned to Highmountain, the Aegis to Odin, the Tear to Val'sharah or the Druid Order Hall, and the Tidestone to the Court of Farondis, and the Eye of Amun'Thul to Suramar. It is a reasonable question why we didn't use them in our Crusade to Argus, which I don't have an answer for, but presuming we didn't the next most likely course is we entrusted them to be kept by the factions that kept them prior to our intervention and then threw our weight into the Argus campaign in full. The Argus campaign and its aftermath is a significant length of time, in which Azshara would undoubtedly still be scheming and still be seeking the tidestone. Among the logical placement of the five pillars, the Tidestone seems like it is the most vulnerable. Highmountain and Suramar would certainly call upon the horde if the Hammer or the Eye were stolen, Odin has been perfectly capable of protecting the Aegis on his own, where the tear of elune ended up is a good question, but not relevant, but I think we could safely that Farondis the weak link here, as he lost the tidestone to Azshara once already, and he doesn't have a formal alliance through which to call for help if something does happen. It's also highly possible the tidestone is taken from him without his knowledge, as Azshara, being clever and having been defeated militarily twice in pursuit of the tidestone (in Azsuna and again in the Tomb) might choose to employ a more subtle means of acquisition to avoid a direct military confrontation with the horde and/or the alliance, at least until she has the tidestone in her possession and is ready for such a conflict.

As for why the tidestone isn't used to immediately drown the horde and alliance forces after the ambush puts them in Naz'jatar, the likely answer is that N'zoth would rather convert a significant portion of the horde and alliance champions to his cause than simply destroy them all, so he has ordered Azshara to draw them in but not kill them outright.

[formerShandalay]

There were so many Naga in the Tomb, the Tidestone may have been stolen the very moment we were teleported away to Kil'Jaedens's ship. The rest of the Naga simply and silently left with it while we were busy and afterwards everyone was till too busy going to Argus.
As I've said before, it seems once Khadgar and the 'heroes' are gone noone on Azeroth seems to be able to think or act, which is why no other person from any guildhall or the entirety of the Kirin Tor went looking or even got the idea to guard the important artifacts when there were still enemies around that had already gone to great lengths to get them.

[Powerogue]

Title. How did she? Did they just kinda snatch it out of the Tomb of Sargeras when we were done with it?

Probably. We just kind of left it there while we went down to fight Kil'jaeden, then Khadgar teleported us all the way to Azsuna.

We shouldn't have skipped those naga trash packs!

[Mehrunes]

So lemme get this straight. The queen of the sea has the most powerful artifact controlling the seas and the only thing she does with it is get rid of the water so we can conveniently usher in her demise in her home turf?

Abandoning your strategic (and even biological) advantage in regards to your home turf's defensiveness is just strategy 101. You lull the enemy into a false sense of security by doing that. And then you die due to the obvious consequences of your actions, to lull them even further. Perfect plan. I can find no flaw in it.

Exactly and I bet it took you all of 5 seconds to come up with such a scenario. Seriously how does some of the shit get through the meetings and planning stages as anything more than a ''dumbass idea''

What if their meetings and planning consistent of binge watching the last 3-4 seasons of GoT and saying to each other "we need to do something like that but in a way that subverts expectations even more"?

The Heart of Azeroth was bound to the Champion by the World-Soul herself - it seems highly probable that N'Zoth and Azshara need the Champion alive (at least temporarily) to harvest the needed energies from the Heart for their own ends. Once this is done, Azshara could probably collapse the dry land area of the ocean with impunity, but she is defeated by the Champion and their cohort before that can occur and N'Zoth uses plan B to escape somehow.

Except the Champion can be Forsaken. So undeath isn't a limitation here. So what would have stopped Azshara from doing the logical thing of obliterating the shit out of everyone with the Tidestone and everything else she has at her disposal, getting the Champion's corpse, resurrecting them and going from there? Hell, when the Well of Eternity imploded and Azshara went all splash, N'zoth was perfectly capable of keeping her alive under water. And that was with 10000 years less of the weakening of his prison.

[Darknessvamp]

to be fair we are just stupid
we freed chogall and guldan on draenor, we let slyvanas take hold of the horde.
we did all the stuff on pandaria.
we attacked illidan without a second thought.

To be fair Illidan had a lot of chances to stop brooding at the top of the Black Temple and come down and say "Sthap guise, I'm actually good I swear! The whole thing with tearing out Akama's soul and teaming up with Teron Gorefiend and threatening to burn Shattrath to the ground and conquer Outland was for the Greater Good! Cross my heart and hope to-" before dying to the raid hungry for purplez and his legendary blades.

[FelPlague]

To be fair Illidan had a lot of chances to stop brooding at the top of the Black Temple and come down and say "Sthap guise, I'm actually good I swear! The whole thing with tearing out Akama's soul and teaming up with Teron Gorefiend and threatening to burn Shattrath to the ground and conquer Outland was for the Greater Good! Cross my heart and hope to-" before dying to the raid hungry for purplez and his legendary blades.

he didnt threaten shatrath
and yeah he teamed up with teron
and he did that to akama cause akama betrayed him
also yeah like we would believe him?
we are pretty blood thirsty, we hear someone has loot or needs to be killed and we do it, our charecters have always been rather stupid.

[Aucald]

he didnt threaten shatrath
and yeah he teamed up with teron
and he did that to akama cause akama betrayed him
also yeah like we would believe him?
we are pretty blood thirsty, we hear someone has loot or needs to be killed and we do it, our charecters have always been rather stupid.

Illidan's reasons for allowing Gorefiend in the Black Temple are very unclear, and there's no canon info as to why he is there or what kind of arrangement he had with Illidan. Even "Chronicle Vol. 3" is silent on Gorefiend as concerns TBC, strangely enough.

[Ophenia]

And just exactly when were we supposed to do that? The WoW timeline does not follow any patch schedule or content release dates. We entered the Tomb of Sargeras, place the pillars there as we had to, and then we followed Kil'jaeden to Argus. Was the writing supposed to go something like this?

1 - "Hey, we've got to follow Kil'jaeden and finish him off!"
2 - "Wait, we need to take a moment and secure the Pillars of Creation! Sure Kil'jaeden can regroup and come back through the portal he just opened up in the basement of the tomb but at least the Pillars will be safe!"

But as far as I remember, there is this whole "We need to create/repair the Vindicaar to reach Argus" which occurred between Kil'jaeden's defeat and Argus' events. Probably plenty of time to send a Skype Message to Odyn telling him to plant himself in front of the Tomb just in case something fucky happens.

Or maybe Malfurion and Tyrande, instead of doing their usual nothing, could have been interested in this Temple of Elune thing holding the most powerful artifacts of the universe, dunno

[nothingsjim]

I am not sure how canon is Hearthstone, but I can totally see Azshara paying Rafaam to raid Dalaran as a distraction while her troops steal Tidestone from the Tomb.

OTOH, it's really not hard for naga to reach the location of Tidestone. It's located in a collapsed subsection of the tomb that's connected to the sea. It's not accessible for normal human/elf but it's free estate for the naga. I can totally see the Kirin Tor fortify the front entrance of the tomb, only to get jumped in the back by the naga who use the underwater backdoor.

It's not unlike what we've been doing in raids. From the sewer entrance of Black Temple, Nighthold, Throne of Thunder (Not entrance, but still) the breach of Antorus. We've been going in via the backdoor for ages

[MatthiasVonTzeskagrad]

I am not sure how canon is Hearthstone, but I can totally see Azshara paying Rafaam to raid Dalaran as a distraction while her troops steal Tidestone from the Tomb.

OTOH, it's really not hard for naga to reach the location of Tidestone. It's located in a collapsed subsection of the tomb that's connected to the sea. It's not accessible for normal human/elf but it's free estate for the naga. I can totally see the Kirin Tor fortify the front entrance of the tomb, only to get jumped in the back by the naga who use the underwater backdoor.

It's not unlike what we've been doing in raids. From the sewer entrance of Black Temple, Nighthold, Throne of Thunder (Not entrance, but still) the breach of Antorus. We've been going in via the backdoor for ages

How canon is hearthstone?
Well, considering they had a hag corrupting aviana, Ragnaros becoming a lightlord eventually, mogu and mantid working for pandaren and Dr Boom being alive... it's only canon in the sense of hearthstone ideas being sometimes used for WoW (like Finley, Reno Jackson, Elise starseeker or the tortollans)

[huth]

I am responding to their assumption, not assuming it myself.

What is difficult to grasp here?

That's not what you did. You appropriated the assumption and acted as if it were true.

[Schattenlied]

That's not what you did. You appropriated the assumption and acted as if it were true.

Now who's making assumptions.

[Mehrunes]

Yeah... The cinematic doesn't make Azshara's plan look any more rational.

[Arrashi]

Yeah... The cinematic doesn't make Azshara's plan look any more rational.

And what else did you expected from someone who removed the best layer of defense from her domain....for some reason.

[Zandalariprelate]

So any in-game explanation or just a Araki forgot/Wizard did it?

[Jastall]

It would be kinda stupid for them to stop trying. Their goal was the tidestone, not protecting the tomb.



Because Blizzard writers are stupid and figured out that Naga would have no use for something that can manipulate earth.

They could easily fix it by saying we (or the Kirin Tor, or Armies of Legionfall, or...) went back to the Tomb to collect the Pillars, but the Naga were already there and escaped with the Tidestone, their primary objective, after a fight while being denied the rest of the artifacts which are now in safekeeping.

[Chromeshellking]

No, it doesn't. It just wasn't our job to begin with. Complain to Kadghar or Thalyssra, not us.

Khad just kinda has been hiding in Kara since BFA started and...we can't force him to leave.

[Ryon21]

No explanation thus far. Azshara simply says we left it unguarded...