Was Thrall nerfed? Is he now an average hero?

[Mehrunes]

To be fair, 'just an orc with an axe' is no small shakes given the track record we're working with here (Grom, Saurfang, Garrosh, Eitrigg...).

I can't really think of anything significant when it comes to Eitrigg's combat track record. Saurfang has mostly meme moments about cleaving things because Blizzard is oh, so funny and striking Malfurion from behind (which is of course bad, unlike sending an army of Rogues to scale the slopes of Mount Hyjal to strike a whole boatload of Night Elves from behind, which is the best thing ever). Grom got largely carried by his super Gronn-infused axe so in this case "an axe with an Orc" would be more appropriate. And Garrosh, prior to being gifted by a dead Old God (as well as after it) has amazing feats like defeating a guy he unknowingly poisoned, getting owned by Thrall the moment the latter started using magic or throwing a guy that wasn't even fighting him off a cliff.

Of course he was nerfed, along with all the Horde cast. Horde can't possibly have anyone at the same level of power of Malfurion, Jaina or Alleria, because Horde Bias™. And no, pre REEEEEEE Sylvie doesn't count, since her greatest display of power as Warchief was easily countered by Anduin Sue in BfA's intro. She had also failed badly against Genn already, so it really doesn't look like she became DBZ-tier powerful until she gtfo'd after kamehameha'ing Sadfang.

Genn achieving his secret objective in his fight with Sylvanas says nothing about her actual combat prowess. In that fight she got hit straight in the face by the guy who was just recently killing Felguards with his bare hands and didn't even get a scratch while Genn ended the fight unconscious from poison, surviving only because both Sylvanas inside the temple as well as the Horde player waiting outside of it got paralyzed by plot convenience and let Genn's allies carry him out. And you're praising Malfurion here but he fled from Sylvanas at least three times during War of Thorns, even when Sylvanas was alone. Only for her to smash him into some trees, which was the only part of their final fight we've seen. And what exactly did Anduin counter in the cinematic?

[GreenJesus]

I can't really think of anything significant when it comes to Eitrigg's combat track record. Saurfang has mostly meme moments about cleaving things because Blizzard is oh, so funny and striking Malfurion from behind (which is of course bad, unlike sending an army of Rogues to scale the slopes of Mount Hyjal to strike a whole boatload of Night Elves from behind, which is the best thing ever). Grom got largely carried by his super Gronn-infused axe so in this case "an axe with an Orc" would be more appropriate. And Garrosh, prior to being gifted by a dead Old God (as well as after it) has amazing feats like defeating a guy he unknowingly poisoned, getting owned by Thrall the moment the latter started using magic or throwing a guy that wasn't even fighting him off a cliff.




Genn achieving his secret objective in his fight with Sylvanas says nothing about her actual combat prowess. In that fight she got hit straight in the face by the guy who was just recently killing Felguards with his bare hands and didn't even get a scratch while Genn ended the fight unconscious from poison, surviving only because both Sylvanas inside the temple as well as the Horde player waiting outside of it got paralyzed by plot convenience and let Genn's allies carry him out. And you're praising Malfurion here but he fled from Sylvanas at least three times during War of Thorns, even when Sylvanas was alone. Only for her to smash him into some trees, which was the only part of their final fight we've seen. And what exactly did Anduin counter in the cinematic?

Garrosh also crippled a teenage human prince named Anduin by smashing him into the bell. He defeated human potential and non-toxic masculinity. That is no small feat. Unfortunately due to plot armor Anduin managed to make a full recovery and gain super powers from the injury. But .... whatever. And Eitrig.. uh... you know... he sat in your order hall and drank mead in the Halls of Valor. Oh.. you mean combat? uh... he won some facebook games?

[Naiattavain]

wow man you guys seriously make this shit up as you go along lol. no value in lore anymore after you guys finding this out.

all of you disrespect thrall..

[Soon-TM]

Garrosh also crippled a teenage human prince named Anduin by smashing him into the bell. He defeated human potential and non-toxic masculinity. That is no small feat. Unfortunately due to plot armor Anduin managed to make a full recovery and gain super powers from the injury.

Silly Garrosh, he thought that Xal'atoth was going to be of any use against Anduin's mythic set of plotium armour

[ghays]

The family that didn't even live with him? He probably lost them too.

Haven’t you been in the game world? Almost no people populating Azeroth at all.

[Reinhart11]

As much as I'd love for Blizzard to confirm the piss-take above, I figure it's a mix of the two. Unlike other powers, the elements don't work off of strength of will or faith or what have you, but a mixture of that and them lending their powers to a given cause when called upon. You can force them, like the taunka or dark shamans do, but Thrall generally doesn't, but this also means that they can withdraw their support if something is iffy. In this case, I chalk it up to a mixture of Thrall's self-doubt over his responsibility in the whole thing, hence also why he became a hermit, but also that in invoking the elements in a Mak'gora, which was between himself and Garrosh and referring to the elements as 'his power' after not being able to win as a warrior, he weakened his otherwise strong relationship with them.

I think a reason is also the lack of character Thrall showed in this duel. This was just tremendous. The denial of any responsibility on his part for all that happened with and to Garrosh and in this context to a lot of other characters. And Garrosh himself even told him that he wasn't equipped and ready to lead the Horde. It was extremely pathetic. And for Thrall to use the elements to enforce this kind of behaviour, if i were the elements i would be offended as well. Especially because Thrall didn't stand a chance as a warrior.

[Zmagoslav]

You call it implications, most of us call it "outright stated in the lore".

He lost most of his shamanistic powers back in WoD.
Nowadays he can hardly cast a spell and is practically just a good warrior.

[Reinhart11]

Sure, but it can't compare to being a powerful shaman. Once Thrall got serious in his duel with Garrosh, the latter didn't stand a chance, same with Saurfang who could do little but distract Malfurion in A Good War or Grommash who charges Gul'dan head on and gets instantly incapacitated for his trouble. Gameplay wise Warriors can tackle any class and win, lorewise a powerful magic user will shit on them in a straight up fight easily.

As of right now, Thrall is probably an above average warrior (the excerpt from the upcoming novel shows him a skilled axe thrower if nothing else) with some Shaman powers. That probably makes him stronger than pure warriors like Baine or Muradin, but not much, and he's likely below the more powerful racial leaders like Velen, Jaina or Talanji.

I have to say though, Blizzards handling of the powers of the warrior kinds, villains or heroes, is pretty bad. In other fantasy franchises warrior types have their own kind of "magic", getting incredible endurance, resistance to damage and super strength and speed through their sheer strength of will, their rigid and very hard training of the body and the mind as well as their discipline, being able to tap into the hidden, unbelievable and powerful untapped potential of the "mortal" body and mind. Which is more or less non existent in WoW at least since World of Warcraft. In the Warcraft Series, i at least got the impression that the warriors like Blackhand, Doomhammer and Lothar are powerful beings that couldn't just be sniped by any warlock, mage or paladin like they were nothing. Of course in other fantasy worlds, they also enhance themselves with magical weapons, runes, enchantments and magical armor. Aside from magically empowered weapons (Gorehowl, Frostmourne, Shalamayne) and sometimes blessings (Goldrinn on Varian) or the Helm of Domination, WoW lacks in empowering enchantments, blessings and armor as well, even though all of this is constantly present in the engine when it comes to our own player characters.

So overall i'd say the warrior heroes, anti heroes and villains and the whole schtick of the powerful warrior type in fantasy worlds is handled very badly in WoW.

[Terongor]

Alleria consumed the heart of a dark naaru and became the first mortal to successfully defy the shadows' whispers. We don't know how strong she is. For all we know she could be as powerful as Jailer-empowered Sylvanas (though we don't know that for sure because their fight was interrupted before it started). It's not unreasonable to believe she is around the level of power of Cataclysm Thrall (strongest version of Thrall).

Yeah its unreasonable as thrall was then replacement earth warder and with those powers thrall alone managed to keep focusing irises powers you know the artifact created by malygos using which malygos could use to destoy azeroth ten times over.

Also strongest version of thrall happened in catas short story when dw gave thrall aspect of earth power and soon took them back.

Naarus really aren't that strong we have seen eredars kill naarus and truly voided naarus become void gods as we see with m'uru and its hearth could only reignite the sunwell with some of anveenas powers so at best alleria is in wild god level though not even close to malorne.

[heateffect]

I dont mind Thrall just being an old dude with a hammer. The DBZ levels of OP half the cast has gone through is boring.

[Jastall]

I have to say though, Blizzards handling of the powers of the warrior kinds, villains or heroes, is pretty bad. In other fantasy franchises warrior types have their own kind of "magic", getting incredible endurance, resistance to damage and super strength and speed through their sheer strength of will, their rigid and very hard training of the body and the mind as well as their discipline, being able to tap into the hidden, unbelievable and powerful untapped potential of the "mortal" body and mind. Which is more or less non existent in WoW at least since World of Warcraft. In the Warcraft Series, i at least got the impression that the warriors like Blackhand, Doomhammer and Lothar are powerful beings that couldn't just be sniped by any warlock, mage or paladin like they were nothing. Of course in other fantasy worlds, they also enhance themselves with magical weapons, runes, enchantments and magical armor. Aside from magically empowered weapons (Gorehowl, Frostmourne, Shalamayne) and sometimes blessings (Goldrinn on Varian) or the Helm of Domination, WoW lacks in empowering enchantments, blessings and armor as well, even though all of this is constantly present in the engine when it comes to our own player characters.

So overall i'd say the warrior heroes, anti heroes and villains and the whole schtick of the powerful warrior type in fantasy worlds is handled very badly in WoW.

TBH as a Warrior main I'm fine with it. Being the underdog that doesn't have fancy shmancy magic tricks but perseveres regardless through sheer determination and strength of arms is more appealing to me than going Super Saiyan to keep up with the magic users. Warriors still have their fair share of glorious feats against deadly creatures; Grom killing Mannoroth twice, Garrosh soloing a Twilight Dragon, Varian killing Onyxia and skydiving a giant Fel Reaver, Broxigar scratching Sargeras, so on and so forth.

Yeah, we can't just walk up to the Lich King and smugly spank his ass like some other overpowered characters. But I question that being a bad thing.

[Powerogue]

Calling it now - Thrall will get his powers back in some spectacular set piece in which we're all doomed - and they're going to animate him exactly like Thor from Ragnarok

For the briefest moment I had a mental image of Thrall being found on Nagrand ragged and fat, only to force-grip Doomhammer out of our backpacks and proclaim

[Fetus Rex]

Not enough. He should be nerfed to unrezzable death. In fact he should give his life to resurrect Garrosh.

[Soon-TM]

I dont mind Thrall just being an old dude with a hammer. The DBZ levels of OP half the cast has gone through is boring.

Boring indeed. Besides, Thrall was such an annoying Mary Sue that I'm glad they've eventually brought him back to earth (pun intended).

[Trassk]

The horde in general has become very de-powered of late in terms of magical prowess. Before they had characters like Thrall at his full strength and power, sylvanas, you might even count a fel infused Grom as being a powerhouse given he could kill a demi god.

Nowadays the most powerful leaders in terms of magic are Thalyssra and Talanji, and Talanji only because of her loa connections.

The horde now is made up mostly of warriors and hunters and rogues, Thrall, Baine, Rokhan, Lor'themar, Mayla, geya'rah, Ji, Lilian voss (yeah Ji's a monk btu not exactly a powerful one)

Not that its a bad thing overall, it makes the horde seem more grounded a faction, where as the alliance, when you have a super powerful sorceress, super powerful arch druid, two major priests who have direct connection to divine entities, the worlds most powerful paladin, another who has mastered the void,.. yeah, see, all the times back in cata and after when people complained about Thrall being an overpowered mary sue? That is whats become of the alliance overall now, and it makes it a very dull story premise. It also makes the non-super powered leaders like Genn, Aysa, and the council of three hammers just seem pointless to have in any situation.

[Ardenaso]

Not enough. He should be nerfed to unrezzable death. In fact he should give his life to resurrect Garrosh.

Wish granted. But he dies to the AU Garrosh and his Lightbound

[Kokolums]

At one time, I'd argue that Thrall and other horde leaders were getting killed or de-powered to clear a path for Med'an to enter the WoW main storyline as some sort of Horde high-king Warchief.

As of the chronicles book series, there was a realignment:

1. Med'an was scrubbed from lore due to complaints of him being a Mary Sue.
2. A quick swap was done, replacing Med'an with Anduin with far less buildup. Anduin is now set on becoming High King.
3. The vacuum in Horde leadership seems set to be filled by Geya'rah (Thrall's extradimensional sister). Looks like she's heading for the Warchief title.

I'm guessing this is all on hold until the film Thor: Love and Thunder comes out in 2021. Its very likely Marvel will drop the cancer storyline to go with a new origin story for female Thor in the film. Whatever origin story Marvel writes for female Thor will likely be copied and pasted into WoW, with Geya'rah wielding the Doomhammer in the same fashion. So at least 2022 if not later.

[cparle87]

I think a reason is also the lack of character Thrall showed in this duel. This was just tremendous. The denial of any responsibility on his part for all that happened with and to Garrosh and in this context to a lot of other characters. And Garrosh himself even told him that he wasn't equipped and ready to lead the Horde. It was extremely pathetic. And for Thrall to use the elements to enforce this kind of behaviour, if i were the elements i would be offended as well. Especially because Thrall didn't stand a chance as a warrior.

Yeah. Thrall knew Garrosh wasn't ready, but as he said in the troll starting area he had faith that Garrosh could grow into such a leader. Which is why he left his most trusted advisors, like Vol'jin, Eitrigg, and such to help him grow into the role. Problem was Garrosh let it go to his head almost immediately. Vol'jin tries to advise him "Don't talk back to me troll, I was the one put in charge!"

Garrosh was just trying to lay one more guilt trip on Thrall before he died.
G: "I wasn't ready!"
T: "I gave you the tools so you could become ready."
G: "So what if I threw the tools away, that's your fault, too!"

[Aleksej89]

Thrall convinced himself that he is no longer worthy of being a shaman and that pretty much caused him to lose his capability of interacting with elements.
I dont think he actually lost any power in a literal sense... he seems to refuse or lack the belief to use his traditional shamanistic powers.

There have been MAAAANNNNNYYYYYY shamans in the warcraft universe who commited absolute atrocities (both vs mortals and vs elementals) and yet were still able to use shamanism.

[Kyphael]

For the briefest moment I had a mental image of Thrall being found on Nagrand ragged and fat, only to force-grip Doomhammer out of our backpacks and proclaim

Now this needs to happen, but I have a feeling Blizz and Mezten would play it more subtly like "I'm still worthy..." with a coy smile instead of the exclamation and wide grin.

- - - Updated - - -

Thrall convinced himself that he is no longer worthy of being a shaman and that pretty much caused him to lose his capability of interacting with elements.
I dont think he actually lost any power in a literal sense... he seems to refuse or lack the belief to use his traditional shamanistic powers.

There have been MAAAANNNNNYYYYYY shamans in the warcraft universe who commited absolute atrocities (both vs mortals and vs elementals) and yet were still able to use shamanism.

Chalk it up to Blizzard's martyring writing of Thrall. Nothing he does is good enough even though he's one of the noblest mortals on Azeroth.

Freed his people and took them across the sea to settle on a new land?

"THAT NO GOOD SON OF A BITCH SETTLED ON A SHIT DESERT WITH NO FOOD OR WATER EVEN THOUGH IT'S NEAR A FUCKING COAST! Fuck him, Garrosh was right!"

Saved the world from a screeching half-crazed, exploding dragon that broke the world?

"Oh, look at Thrall, thinks he's all high and mighty because he has the Dragon Soul! We're tired of him, Superman wannabe Go'el. Emasculate him and take away his hammer. Oh, and give MY SHAMAN the hammer!"

Thrall settles on Nagrand to a quiet life.

"Where's that green son of a bitch to beat up Sylvanas when we need him!? And fuck Baine."

Thrall decides not to become Warchief.

"What, so you're too good to be Warchief now, and you're sticking us with a stupid council!? #$%&, you can't never do nothing right, Thrall!"

We deserve the Thrall we got.