Demons without Sargeras - Still a massive threat

[Aucald]

What are you on about? the ONLY thing us going in as a so called battalion(if that was what actually happened) proved here is that Tirion was a fool for engaging Krusus alone nothing more and nothing less if I would go 1v1 I d die as well its not a way to measure the power lvl between these heroes of legend and our on characters that's the point is it? we did everything smarter and at the end of the BETTER than what these heroes did. I dont question that people like Thrall or Tirion are strong that but I do question the way blizzard present their actions and results compared to us seeing as we directly fill these two heroes roles in Legion. The thing is that I am using the term failure not in what it does to the narrative but to show just how powerful we actually are.

What am I on about? Did you play through the Nighthold raid, encounter and defeat Krosus, with a group of 10-25 people? I doubt Tirion also engaged Krosus willy-nilly for the fun of it as well, considering that the army at the Broken Shore was also surprised by Krosus rising from the Fel pool. It's more likely that Tirion was taken prisoner by Gul'dan and his minions and placed there to serve as bait - which he directly intimates when he yells to the assembled Horde and Alliance forces that they're walking into a trap.

I would like to comment on a so called "boss" being a raid boss its clearly purely gameplay aspect of all of this as raids are anywhere between 10 to 30 people hell I can go do some raids now with 5 people, what is even the real versions of bosses? go look what the bosses are like when they are on farm even on mythic do they even have a chance? I think not I see them as my weekly punching bag. This goes hand in hand with why does my paladin have COOLDOWNS on abilities this makes no sense.

The canon aspect of any given boss is their Mythic (or equivalent highest difficulty) appearance in a dungeon/raid *when* the content is relevant to the story-arc. After that they fall into the same "locked in time" state that all the rest of WoW's content is subject to - which is why Illidan is still "alive" if you go back and run Black Temple in TBC, or Ragnaros in Molten Core, etc. etc. There is a sense of a gamplay vs. story segregation, but at the same time basic power levels strongly correlate. A single PC, Champion or not, running up to a raid boss-caliber enemy is pretty suicidal at the end of the day.

As for the last part did you read properly? no offense here but I said my character has power over a big ass army and if I find it not in my interest why would I even participate in up coming war at all? Nothing can make the highlord do this and there is precedent for neither side ever trying to make the last highlord join one side or the other even though the conflicts of cata and the actual war that happened in MoP happened Tirion choose to remain out of the conflict. Maybe a class leader like the hunters have lesser obligations and power and are more focused on their on personal agendas hell even the warlocks make sense to take a personal stake in all of but even then why would my/their characters care? dont you get it? I know we will have a big role in BFA thats been Blizzards MO for a few xpacks now and it is to give us a direct role in the conflicts, but now with Legion making some of the classes heads of big armies what is stopping all the champions of Legion you know the HEROES of the legion war from just going together telling both sides to clam the fuck down and then telling them something seems amiss here and for all we know demons like dreadlords could be behind what happened(I mean I dont think our characters in game know much about voidlords so). Why am I forced to run around following what either Sylvannas or Andiun tell me to do? I made the Legion look like a joke all of Legion why would I throw my position and dissreguard my own agency and power god gifted to me by Blizzard themselves?

The Order Halls aren't really "big armies," though - they're mostly a cadre of specialists and elite members of the given class, on par with the Garrisons in WoD as opposed to the armies that any of the racial leaders (much less the primary factions) could field. I think you're making a bit much of the Order Halls scope or influence in the greater world within the story. It's only in uniting together as the Legionfall Concordance that they form a standing force capable of holding its own against the Legion's forces. It's also worth noting that most of the Order Halls receive a generous helping of support from outside sources - Odyn and his Stormforged, the Kirin Tor itself, native peoples of the Broken Isles, etc. etc. These additions to the Order Hall probably won't stand in BfA as thread that served to unite them, the Burning Legion invasion of Azeroth, is no longer a factor. And since there's been no mention of a Garrison/Order Hall type of concept for BfA it's possible that the Order Halls themselves will be broken apart along faction lines with the renewal of the faction conflict which would effectively cut the Champion's standing forces in half depending on their chosen faction. If anything, it looks like the Champions of Legion will actually be serving their chosen faction as generals once more, but this time solidly under the command hierarchy of their faction (depending on how the BfA Warfronts work, which seem akin to WC3's resource gathering, garrison management system).

You want to know what the Legion are now? they are NOTHING before us as I said before. They should if they had brains be running as far away as they can from Azeroth and demons that our warlocks summon into the world should know to not try to defy us. Weather or not all their commanders were at Argus matters little all as all of the VERY top were there and that in itself should send a clear message. Hell all of their forces not being there means little as the top brass of the Legion were so powerful that they could keep control over those wast armies and at the end of the we laid them low and now with Argus gone (the titan) death is like a real death you wont have demons spouting "THIS WAS MERELY A SETBACK SEE YOU NEXT WEEK MORTALS !!!"

I agree that the Legion as a force is likely no more - it was only being held together by the command structure of the Eredar backed by the power of Sargeras. The demons, however, are still a possible threat. It's entirely possible a particularly cunning or scheming demon could assume a leadership position among his or her brethren and go on to become a legitimate threat of their own. Probably never again to the universal levels of the Legion, but at least threatening to Azeroth or other civilized worlds in the Great Dark.

[Deleted]

@ Saiako

A big amount of the power the Order Hall Leaders possess comes from their Artifact Weapons. Which they will lose. So your character will be weaker in Lore, compared to his power he had in the fight against the Legion. He will be toned down.

And to take your example as the Paladin Highlord, your character doesn't have any army in BfA. If the Humans and Dwarves of the SIlver Hand decide, they will join the Alliance and help their friends, family and so on, your character has no power to stop them. They're not enslaved to your characters will. And the other "half" of the Paladin Order consisting of Blood Knights and Sunwalker will do the same. The Draenei Paladins will probably join the Lightforged. Thus, the already small, but elite, Army of your character will be gone. He has absolutely no option to tell the big factions on Azeroth what or what not to do. And more or less the same will go for most other Order Halls, they will either disband, stay neutral like the Druids and Shamans always do (Monks might fit in this category too), or will pursue their own goals outside of the Faction Conflict, probably what Warlocks and Demonhunters and such would do. Warlocks are another Order Hall, where it is very doubtful that they will stay together, without an overpowered leader who can keep them in check. Same goes for the Rogues, who might work together from time to time, but are also divided by races and factions. Hunters as well etc. The Death Knights might be the most intact, but they can decide too, that the Faction Conflict might be a good opportunity to satisfy their desire to kill, driven by their Runeblades.

The Legion will be weakened, but the Demons can become strong again, especially if they try and learn from the failures they did before. Use better tactics, becoming stronger individually, not being dependant on a Titan World Soul that can resurrect them again and again. Its also an opportunity to create new demon characters. We have races like the Nathrezim too, and potentially others, Zealots like the Shivarra or Sadists like the Succubus / Sayaad, who will probably love serving the Void Lords, using their powers. Archimonde, as someone who was only interested in power could, if he is still regenerating somewhere, join the Void Lords too. But i would prefer new demons, because characters like Archimonde and Mannoroth got raped by bad story telling and depiction, failing so often and much, that i can't take them seriously anymore, especially Mannoroth.

[Aucald]

I was hoping for a believeable immersive story and a bittersweet victory. And that didn't happen. We kicked the Legion's ass so hard that it's not even funny anymore. They have accomblished nothing at all while losing everything. Our heroes are cracking jokes and being smug in the face of a full scale invasion and we lose basically no one and nothing.

I think I've enumerated multiple instances where the Legion forced us to admit defeat, killed important characters, and where victory was only barely eked out by the Azerothian forces by dint of luck or 11th hour type saves. And while we defeat the Legion and sealed away their leader, look at the state of our world at the end of the conflict - fel-scarred with multiple locations completely razed, and the world-soul of our planet impaled by Sargeras and bleeding out. That's hardly what I would call "accomplishing nothing" even in their defeat.

For example I was surprised how Val'sharah started. The nightmare corrupting the ancients, Cenarius and Ysera and we are forced to kill all of them, and Malfuriun gets kidnapped? Wow! Didn't think Blizz would really go that way. But then Ysera does not really die and gets "ascended" or whatever by Elune and even helps us in the Xavius fight. Cenarius just get's cleansed by the Malfurion after we distract him a little bit and Malfurion has time to crack jokes and talk shit at Xavius while he is a captive... what? Oh and the rest of the ancients are happily chilling out in the dream. The zone started so good and then everything that happens does undone in the raid and the dungeon.

Ysera is still dead, only an echo of her remains within the Dream that aids us in the fight (and that itself may only be the power of the Dream itself rising to confront the Nightmare Lord). Cenarius also dies, but this is hardly his first time tasting death and due to his nature as an Ancient it's possible he will fully return to life after being reconstituted in the Emerald Dream. As for Malfurion "cracking jokes" he's just denying Xavius' power over him - Xavius is empowered by fear or terror, which is part and parcel of what makes him the Nightmare Lord. Being unafraid of him denies him power, and Malfurion is wise enough to use that to his advantage effectively. I thought Val'sharah was done pretty well in illuminating the stakes of the conflict in micro - it starts off bucolic and peaceful, and as the action heats up you're eventually pitched into a twisted reflection of that natural beauty in the form of a decaying, shadowy, and pestilent hell-forest.

Forshadowing for Argus. The Death of Xera doesn't matter, our heroes are being smug and are just passively standing around or "helping" us in minor quests and that we obliterate the entire Legion doesn't come with any price at all because they are all idiots.

The death of Xe'ra still reverberates for me, and is likely to have long-standing effects in the content to come. It illustrated firmly and finally that "Light is not good," and showed Xe'ra to be just as shortsighted and unable to see the big picture as any other mortal being despite being the Light incarnate. I don't really see the smugness you're speaking of (except from Illidan, but that's his personal nature after all), and I've described multiple occasions where the various NPC's on Argus are right in the thick of it with us. Obviously not on the same scale or otherwise they'd be playing the game while we watch, but participating nonetheless.

Yes the Legion had to end some day. But I'm not sure why you are satisfied with how it ended or how they are portrayed in-game. The entire thing is just dissapointing.

Well, I think part of the issue is that while I am defending the story and trying to explain how I see it, that doesn't mean I'm absolutely overjoyed by how it turned out myself. I would probably position myself somewhere in the middle grounds of satisfaction vs. disappointment - I can see both merit and flaw, as it were, and I think the two tallies stand roughly in balance with one-another. As I've said before, I think there were elements of the Legion/Argus campaign that went unexplained or undetailed. How Antorus worked to grant the demons accelerated/extended regeneration, for one. An explicit mention of how/why Argus was left mostly undefended (I've speculated as to why previously, and while I think it's a good theory it's not made explicit at all during the in-game content). I would've liked to see a few more dramatic set-pieces to amp up the feeling of tension - the PC and marquee NPC's in pitched battle against overwhelming odds is a good example that got mentioned (fulfilled a bit by the encounter with Talgath, but I would've liked to see a bit more of things like that). Perhaps the Vindicaar visible shaking as it is shelled by Legion anti-air fire in the Antoran Wastes. A scenario where the Vindicaar is badly hit and demons begin to pour in through a rent in the hull that has to be repaired by Romuul and company, while the incursion is fought off by you and the NPC's.

In hindsight there's a lot of flourishes and detail that could've been added to enhance the storyline, but mostly those are quibbles of mine. The in-game story is typically told in broader strokes, and it is up to the player to essentially "live" in the world and supply some of the tension with their own imaginations.

[Hubbl3]

snip

Thank yoiu for your comprehensive post

[Azelas]

tbh I thought one of the new races in BfA (before it was all announced of course) was gonna be some demon race who seeked "redemption" or something of the sort, I thought it would have been cool. at least having the Eredar back (the red ones) it would have made a cool allied race (probvably for the Alliance)

[Deleted]

The canon aspect of any given boss is their Mythic (or equivalent highest difficulty) appearance in a dungeon/raid *when* the content is relevant to the story-arc. After that they fall into the same "locked in time" state that all the rest of WoW's content is subject to - which is why Illidan is still "alive" if you go back and run Black Temple in TBC, or Ragnaros in Molten Core, etc. etc. There is a sense of a gamplay vs. story segregation, but at the same time basic power levels strongly correlate. A single PC, Champion or not, running up to a raid boss-caliber enemy is pretty suicidal at the end of the day.



The Order Halls aren't really "big armies," though - they're mostly a cadre of specialists and elite members of the given class, on par with the Garrisons in WoD as opposed to the armies that any of the racial leaders (much less the primary factions) could field. I think you're making a bit much of the Order Halls scope or influence in the greater world within the story. It's only in uniting together as the Legionfall Concordance that they form a standing force capable of holding its own against the Legion's forces. It's also worth noting that most of the Order Halls receive a generous helping of support from outside sources - Odyn and his Stormforged, the Kirin Tor itself, native peoples of the Broken Isles, etc. etc. These additions to the Order Hall probably won't stand in BfA as thread that served to unite them, the Burning Legion invasion of Azeroth, is no longer a factor. And since there's been no mention of a Garrison/Order Hall type of concept for BfA it's possible that the Order Halls themselves will be broken apart along faction lines with the renewal of the faction conflict which would effectively cut the Champion's standing forces in half depending on their chosen faction. If anything, it looks like the Champions of Legion will actually be serving their chosen faction as generals once more, but this time solidly under the command hierarchy of their faction (depending on how the BfA Warfronts work, which seem akin to WC3's resource gathering, garrison management system).

Here you are applying gameplay to lore again and it comes of short hell how encounters with some bosses mean nothing something that Onyxia proved to us with the fact of it turning out we never killed or even fought her seeing as it was Varian that ended up killing her, guess what? he was never in the raid with us!. Hell in fact in a lot of raids we have been accompanied by lore heroes to help in our ordeal and in most of our encounters while they help and sometimes play an important role we are the ones still doing the heavy lifting in an overwhelming amount of the senarios.


As I said on more than one occasion it depends on what class you are when it comes to the paladin class hall they are an army even before the remaking of the Silver Hand in Legion the Ardent Crusade was an army size faction most which stuck with Tirion after the fall of Icecrown in WOTLK to help retake and cleanse the pluagelands so ye sadly there is the fact each class order does not have the same amount of people and on top of that they do not get the amount of of help from outside sources which is why I keep saying depending on class. The thing with the disbandment of a class order is something I already addressed here nothing short of a total 100% asspull from Blizzard can make it happen for a lot of the classes in the game. This is why I kept saying Blizzard cant make our characters big shot leaders and why BFA can not happen with any lvl of logic being applied from what has happened previously its bad writing and shows a terrible lack of creativity on how to more forwards in the aftermath of situation Blizzard a multi BILLION dollar company set in motion.

@ Saiako

A big amount of the power the Order Hall Leaders possess comes from their Artifact Weapons. Which they will lose. So your character will be weaker in Lore, compared to his power he had in the fight against the Legion. He will be toned down.

And to take your example as the Paladin Highlord, your character doesn't have any army in BfA. If the Humans and Dwarves of the SIlver Hand decide, they will join the Alliance and help their friends, family and so on, your character has no power to stop them. They're not enslaved to your characters will. And the other "half" of the Paladin Order consisting of Blood Knights and Sunwalker will do the same. The Draenei Paladins will probably join the Lightforged. Thus, the already small, but elite, Army of your character will be gone. He has absolutely no option to tell the big factions on Azeroth what or what not to do. And more or less the same will go for most other Order Halls, they will either disband, stay neutral like the Druids and Shamans always do (Monks might fit in this category too), or will pursue their own goals outside of the Faction Conflict, probably what Warlocks and Demonhunters and such would do. Warlocks are another Order Hall, where it is very doubtful that they will stay together, without an overpowered leader who can keep them in check. Same goes for the Rogues, who might work together from time to time, but are also divided by races and factions. Hunters as well etc. The Death Knights might be the most intact, but they can decide too, that the Faction Conflict might be a good opportunity to satisfy their desire to kill, driven by their Runeblades.

The Legion will be weakened, but the Demons can become strong again, especially if they try and learn from the failures they did before. Use better tactics, becoming stronger individually, not being dependant on a Titan World Soul that can resurrect them again and again. Its also an opportunity to create new demon characters. We have races like the Nathrezim too, and potentially others, Zealots like the Shivarra or Sadists like the Succubus / Sayaad, who will probably love serving the Void Lords, using their powers. Archimonde, as someone who was only interested in power could, if he is still regenerating somewhere, join the Void Lords too. But i would prefer new demons, because characters like Archimonde and Mannoroth got raped by bad story telling and depiction, failing so often and much, that i can't take them seriously anymore, especially Mannoroth.

Artifact weapons? your artifact weapon right? in lore there is ONE highlord and more than likely each class hall has ONE cannon weapon not 3 or 4/2(in the case of DHs as druids) whilst indeed it plays part of the power that your order hall represents it is only just that a "part" of it. The silver hand in legion is not made up of alliance and horde paladin factions alone it is also made up of what remained of the Ardent Dawn and the Ardent Crusade which are army size factions in their own right (the crusade that is) as a whole of the weak argument I already put up a good defense for as to why everyone wouldn't just leave you just like how a lot of the Ardent Crusade satyed with Tirion after we defeated The Lich king or are you honestly telling they ONLY stayed because he has the Ashbringer? dont make me laugh more than what I have.

[Aucald]

Here you are applying gameplay to lore again and it comes of short hell how encounters with some bosses mean nothing something that Onyxia proved to us with the fact of it turning out we never killed or even fought her seeing as it was Varian that ended up killing her, guess what? he was never in the raid with us!. Hell in fact in a lot of raids we have been accompanied by lore heroes to help in our ordeal and in most of our encounters while they help and sometimes play an important role we are the ones still doing the heavy lifting in an overwhelming amount of the senarios.

The general presumption is that raids are the canon story for a given set of characters and how antagonist characters meet their demise or defeats. Onyxia is something of an outlier in that it received a retcon in the Warcraft comic series where Varian and company actually defeated Onyxia originally. In light of fact, it's the only raid instance I can think of where that happened - making it something of a special case in its own right. In the case of fights where existing lore characters help out then it is canon that they were there doing what they were doing, from Thrall aiding us in Dragon Soul, the Titans aiding us in Antorus, or Cenarius and company in the Firelands raid. I don't think the gulf between story and gameplay is quite as dramatic as you seem to be implying here.

As I said on more than one occasion it depends on what class you are when it comes to the paladin class hall they are an army even before the remaking of the Silver Hand in Legion the Ardent Crusade was an army size faction most which stuck with Tirion after the fall of Icecrown in WOTLK to help retake and cleanse the pluagelands so ye sadly there is the fact each class order does not have the same amount of people and on top of that they do not get the amount of of help from outside sources which is why I keep saying depending on class. The thing with the disbandment of a class order is something I already addressed here nothing short of a total 100% asspull from Blizzard can make it happen for a lot of the classes in the game. This is why I kept saying Blizzard cant make our characters big shot leaders and why BFA can not happen with any lvl of logic being applied from what has happened previously its bad writing and shows a terrible lack of creativity on how to more forwards in the aftermath of situation Blizzard a multi BILLION dollar company set in motion.

Actually pretty simple as I see it - and this using the specific example of the Argent Dawn/Crusade, which from its inception was meant to be a coalition of races all united by an overriding goal of confronting the Scourge remnants and other existential threats. After the Third War and the unity of the two factions putting an end to the Scourge and Legion threat to Azeroth, a subset of Silver Hand paladins (drawing from Tirion's experiences with Eitrigg) decides that these pre-existing hatreds don't matter and that to effectively safeguard what they cherish they must end the cycle of hatred. Fast-forward to BfA and the Argent Crusade is confronted with a renewed faction conflict they simply can't ignore any longer, as previously (but precariously) bridged faults between Human and Orc, Troll and Elf, Horde and Alliance are suddenly torn apart as homelands are destroyed or besieged by the "enemy." The noble but fragile web of alliances and split wide apart and the Highlord of the Argent Crusade finds themselves as leader of a diminished force, winnowed down to the bare minimums needed to secure their existing holdings. There's a possibility even worse than that, given that the core of the Argents was always the Silver Hand (a predominantly Alliance institution) you could be faced with a majority who decided to become Alliance partisans and try (or succeed) in purging Horde elements from the organization.

There you have it - the Paladin Order Hall represented by the Argent Crusade and headed by the Highlord brought low just in time to be sidelined for BfA, but what I think is a believable storyline for what happens as the faction conflict is renewed. The rest of the Order Halls will no doubt have similar tumultuous politics and infighting to deal with as the Horde/Alliance war pits "brother" against "brother" once more (in the sense of unified class orders).

[Deleted]

As sad as it is, you shouldn't really think too hard about the story in Warcraft. If you do, it makes no sense at all

[Arrashi]

snip

Ok, first, what does it mean to be "partially" allied with something ? How the hell are you partially allied ? There is absolutely no indication of xavius being allied with legion, either in raid, dungeon or zone itself. Its much more likely that said demon went for stroll, got lost and in his panic defaulted into calling everyone mortals and telling us that our world will burn. As all demons do.
As such Ysera and cenarius, have nothing to do with legion.
Making example of x'era is even worse, because its counter-argument to what you are trying to tell. X'era shown us that we can win against legion even if we are fighting among ourselves. Her death, and any implication of it, have nothing to do with legion, and are by no means proof of their power.

Its not about characters being active or not. Your argument is that we were able to threaten legion thanks to those legendary heroes. And those legendary heroes didn't do anything remarkable. We don't see illidan going and killing legion leaders all around. We don't see magni stopping horde of demons on his own. Those legendary heroes don't do anything that would tip the scales. And where is illidan and turalyon killing worldbreaker ? I did argus questing on 10 alts and i never seen it. Only world breaker we see in world is that one doing 10 meter patrol in random spot on krookun.

You know, talking with you i realised, that legion has much more excuses for their failures than actual wins. And its kinda sad, if you think about it. If we summarise it:
- They have poorly guarded HQ
- They let their ships be destroyed in drydock
- They have their defenses sabotaged
- They can't even finish off natives to they rise against them and aid us
- They lost majority of their fleet
- Their forces are spread too thin preventing them from fighting
- All their allies suck. Like "we cant do anything RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT" level of suck.
- They don't have any named characters because all their named characters die in first encounter. Hell the needed to dig out poor varimathas so legions last raid will have at least one familiar name.
- They can't even control their own planet
- They can't shoot second ship, despite it flying left and right across zones.
- Their soldiers can't do shit.

So yeah, they are really horrifying. And what sacrifices we suffer on argus may i ask ? Because quite hilariously, no named characters die. Illidan decides to stay on his own accord, and its after we are done. The biggest loss we suffer is...few soldiers getting bombed on bridge in antorus ? That one dead draenei before hounds of sargeras ? For a limited amount of soldiers lightforged brought on one ship, many menaged to survive given that they are playable, so even among the rabble the losses couldnt be that big. Patheon isnt a loss either, they chosen to do what they should long ago. And this time they haven't failed. So yeah, it was "diet" sacrifices.

Also, vindicaar sure as hell is trojan horse. If trojan horse had neon lights all over itself, was playing dubstep, and had "totally not a trap" written on its hull. Also, wasn't point of trojan horse...sneaking in ? Like undetected ? Because legion knew about vindicaar...like 5 seconds after entering their airspace.

There is a reason why so many people, even in this very thread are so disappointed with legion. Its because they completely failed to live up to any expectations.
If you create a character who is legendary phantom thief, you would expect it to be good at stealing and good at not getting caught. Which means that if said character fails to steal something or get caught its image will suffer. And if they fail too many times, people will see them as joke characters.
Legion, for a grand enemy they were supposed to be, for the final boss...did nothing. They killed some characters (like brewmaster blanche, a loss that we will never truly recuperate). Like wow. That's really...something. Them suffering a defeat everytime we see them, also definately set them up to be threat.
The fact that they don't even have a single characters we could recognise, because they all just die. Like there wasn't a single legion character that got developed in legion expansion. And thats actually almost an achievement.

Since topic of this thread is legion being or not being threat after argus, i think we more or less proved that they won't be any threat. They will probably lose their entire fleet in some accident or something before they will try their next attack anyway. But hey, at least they will have excuse.

- - - Updated - - -

That. During the first assault on the broken shore we likely lost thousands of lives without even permanently killing a single demon. Tonnes more died holding back demons while we were taking out the high-value targets in the Tomb and in Antorus. But that is literal background noise. All that we experience in the foreground is killing demons. Always playing as the special one simply means one loses sight just how dangerous threats are to 99% of the population.

But the game never touches any of that. They never talk about any of those losses, yet alone bother to show them.

[Kiri]

But the game never touches any of that. They never talk about any of those losses, yet alone bother to show them.

Well, there are quite a few mentions of those who died etc, but it is not conveyed well. The game likely can't too openly do it anyway without becoming depressing. I mean that one 'quest' where you inform a fresh widow of her husband's death at the shore only for her to commit suicide after is pretty dark already. That times a thousand, jeesh.

[Arrashi]

Well, there are quite a few mentions of those who died etc, but it is not conveyed well. The game likely can't too openly do it anyway without becoming depressing. I mean that one 'quest' where you inform a fresh widow of her husband's death at the shore only for her to commit suicide after is pretty dark already. That times a thousand, jeesh.

If thats the problem then perhaps we shouldn't make faction bent of purging life main focus of the expansion.

[Aucald]

Ok, first, what does it mean to be "partially" allied with something ? How the hell are you partially allied ? There is absolutely no indication of xavius being allied with legion, either in raid, dungeon or zone itself. Its much more likely that said demon went for stroll, got lost and in his panic defaulted into calling everyone mortals and telling us that our world will burn. As all demons do.

As such Ysera and cenarius, have nothing to do with legion.

It's not that difficult of concept, really. Partial alliance means that two forces don't have a formal declaration of alliance or amity, but since they're working to a common end against a common foe work together to further each other's goals as long as they are aligned. The marquee for Xavius literally reads (emphasis my own):

Xavius once terrorized Azeroth with an affliction that almost obliterated the walls between reality and dream. His machinations ended in defeat, but he has been given another chance at vengeance. Now, Xavius leads the conquest of Val'sharah, where the tainted World Tree Shaladrassil spreads the Emerald Nightmare's corruption. With an army of vile satyrs at his command, Xavius will stop at nothing to vanquish all who oppose the Burning Legion. (Source)

Xavius' truest allegiance is still to the Old Gods, sure; but he's got no problems working with both the Legion and the Old Gods' forces to further his own agenda (which coincidentally also aids the Legion in part). And since Xavius is acting on the existing chaos and further the goals of the Legion's cause, the deaths he causes can also be attributed to the struggle against the Legion, which I've done here.

Making example of x'era is even worse, because its counter-argument to what you are trying to tell. X'era shown us that we can win against legion even if we are fighting among ourselves. Her death, and any implication of it, have nothing to do with legion, and are by no means proof of their power.

You got a different lesson (for lack of a better term) out of the death of Xe'ra than I did, I guess. Xe'ra's death, in my view, was an indictment on fate or destiny and the role of "grand destinies" when it comes down to practical realities. Xe'ra envisioned her chosen one (Illidan) as a supreme warrior strong in the Light, but that is not what Illidan had to be in order to effect his own desires or achieve what he achieved. Much like Velen, Xe'ra received a strong (and in her case fatal) counterargument from Illidan about the role predestiny was to play, further underscoring the theme of Legion being that salvation or damnation is born from our choices and our actions, not from the whims of powerful and external figures.

Its not about characters being active or not. Your argument is that we were able to threaten legion thanks to those legendary heroes. And those legendary heroes didn't do anything remarkable. We don't see illidan going and killing legion leaders all around. We don't see magni stopping horde of demons on his own. Those legendary heroes don't do anything that would tip the scales. And where is illidan and turalyon killing worldbreaker ? I did argus questing on 10 alts and i never seen it. Only world breaker we see in world is that one doing 10 meter patrol in random spot on krookun.

Turalyon doesn't kill the Garothi Worldbreaker, and I agreed it would be a great addition if he did. He does, however, aid you in killing the Pit-Lord Aggonar in Krokuun (right after he is first unveiled at the Krokul sanctuary), and again in Mac'Aree when he ventures with you to locate the Army of Light commanders in the field, fights off Antoran shocktroopers (with an impressive Light-based AoE sword attack), and comments on the scope and nature of the battle as you go. As I said before, if your argument were about scale or flourishes then I would probably agree more readily with you - there could have indeed been more set-pieces and more build-up. But your argument is that the Legion was "no threat" and the NPC's did "nothing" and the Legion just sort of fell over with minimal effort on our part. Again, the facts of the case don't bear that out.

You know, talking with you i realised, that legion has much more excuses for their failures than actual wins. And its kinda sad, if you think about it. If we summarise it:

- They have poorly guarded HQ
- They let their ships be destroyed in drydock
- They have their defenses sabotaged
- They can't even finish off natives to they rise against them and aid us
- They lost majority of their fleet
- Their forces are spread too thin preventing them from fighting
- All their allies suck. Like "we cant do anything RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT" level of suck.
- They don't have any named characters because all their named characters die in first encounter. Hell the needed to dig out poor varimathas so legions last raid will have at least one familiar name.
- They can't even control their own planet
- They can't shoot second ship, despite it flying left and right across zones.
- Their soldiers can't do shit.

So yeah, they are really horrifying. And what sacrifices we suffer on argus may i ask ? Because quite hilariously, no named characters die. Illidan decides to stay on his own accord, and its after we are done. The biggest loss we suffer is...few soldiers getting bombed on bridge in antorus ? That one dead draenei before hounds of sargeras ? For a limited amount of soldiers lightforged brought on one ship, many menaged to survive given that they are playable, so even among the rabble the losses couldnt be that big. Patheon isnt a loss either, they chosen to do what they should long ago. And this time they haven't failed. So yeah, it was "diet" sacrifices.

Again, you brush any sacrifice that doesn't meet an ever-shifting goalpost aside and render it insignificant and thus irrelevant. If you're saying that the Legion story-arc was a joke because not enough named or storied NPC's were ground up in the process I can't really say much of anything except for "tastes vary." Soldiers died, veterans in the Army of the Light mowed down, demigods cast out of creation alongside Legion's marquee character and it is all tossed aside as a "diet sacrifice." If you're unimpressed then you're simply unimpressed at the end of the day, I suppose. But don't presume to speak objectively on the matter, because that's purely subjective and personal to you.

Also, vindicaar sure as hell is trojan horse. If trojan horse had neon lights all over itself, was playing dubstep, and had "totally not a trap" written on its hull. Also, wasn't point of trojan horse...sneaking in ? Like undetected ? Because legion knew about vindicaar...like 5 seconds after entering their airspace.

I compared it to the Trojan Horse, I didn't say it was literally the same concept or strategy. The Vindicaar is an agile vessel that slips into Argus' air space, gets around within the interiors and exteriors of Antorus, can move around between the zones that constitute the Argus areas, and hold its own against the Legion fleet present in dry-dock.

There is a reason why so many people, even in this very thread are so disappointed with legion. Its because they completely failed to live up to any expectations. If you create a character who is legendary phantom thief, you would expect it to be good at stealing and good at not getting caught. Which means that if said character fails to steal something or get caught its image will suffer. And if they fail too many times, people will see them as joke characters. Legion, for a grand enemy they were supposed to be, for the final boss...did nothing. They killed some characters (like brewmaster blanche, a loss that we will never truly recuperate). Like wow. That's really...something. Them suffering a defeat everytime we see them, also definately set them up to be threat.The fact that they don't even have a single characters we could recognise, because they all just die. Like there wasn't a single legion character that got developed in legion expansion. And thats actually almost an achievement.

Since topic of this thread is legion being or not being threat after argus, i think we more or less proved that they won't be any threat. They will probably lose their entire fleet in some accident or something before they will try their next attack anyway. But hey, at least they will have excuse.

They killed a lot than just the one Brewmaster - I gave you a partial list of Legion kills and you only demurred on a total of two of the mentions. At the beginning of Legion the Legion actually had its biggest victory against Azeroth in its history - routing both the combined Horde and Alliance, killing the two commanders of the combined force (High King Varian Wrynn and Warchief Vol'jin Darkspear), and sending the remnants of both forces with their tails between their legs. Somehow, by some arcane force I can't really understand, this overwhelming and near-total victory is relegated to "never happened" status and forgotten about completely. Legion was designed, and executed, as an uphill slog for the forces of the Order Halls and the Legionfall Concordance - a struggle we won by cultivating key allegiances, gathering allies and ancient powers, and finally going against the established grain (e.g. defending and safeguarding our world from the Legion without conclusively defeating them) to take the fight right to the Legion proper and ultimately win the day. It was hard-fought and hard-won, and even our victory over the Legion and Sargeras is proving to be somewhat Pyrrhic with 7.3.5 and BfA. If all of that fails to make any impression whatsoever and the entire story-arc still seems like "a joke" then I think the ultimate conclusion is that we simply part ways on this score and agree to disagree.

[Arrashi]

snip

So 1st, again story is being told in blue, because nothing in game indicates any connection betwen xavius and legion.
2nd...uh so let me get it straight. Sargeras started legion and burning crusade to fight void and its servants and then...he allies himself with them ? So he enters alliance with greater enemy he fights to defeat smaller enemy he fights so he can then fight his greater enemy who is his ally ? That's...pretty malkavian.
I mean do demons, don't know who they fight ? Do they like, i dunno, don't have reference photo of void servants or something ?

But X'era is completely unrelated to us fighting legion on argus. All she really does is to give some exposition and setup for future stories. I see no point pandering anymore on her topic.

I think you are completely misunderstanding my point. Legion was on a completely diffrent level than any threat we encountered before. Both in numbers and in power. And nothing in how we are dealing with them reflects that. We had more soldiers storming goddamn orgrimmar than we had argus. Antorus had no diffrences from HFC, where we storm the place with our budds and kill enemy dudes. Nothing changed from standard formula.

And unlike those previous factions legion had it all. All that "buildup". All that mumbling about power, about endless army, all that flashing of their toys. It meant absolutely nothing. We came there with minimal forces and came back with minimal losses. Nothing in game even tried to reflect the scale of it. We literally go there with one ship, and clean crap out.

Legion story arc was a joke, because absolutely nothing in it even tried to show what we were being told about legion. All we get is "legion gets crushed, but (maybe) kills few innocents in process". Every class campaign. Every artifact challenge. Every zone. Every raid. We never go back and forth. They are always defeated. And not only that, in those defeats they never shown anything that would diffrentiate them from scourge, and any other threat we encountered. All they do is call us mortals, tell us azeroth will burn, and then that their deaths mean nothing. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.

So they killed some soldiers in broken shore, scourge did same in broken front. And yet, scale of scourge was so much smaller. Them killing 3 lore characters at the very start, only to not do anything for rest of expansion. Is that it ? That's the best they could do ? Because if, with all that power and all that army, all they can do is that, then they are really pathetic.

And, no killing few people here and there and there, doesn't make intergalactic army of demons feel threatening. How come, warhammer, berserk and many others franchises have no problem validating their villains. Things like ending of horus heresy in warhammer, or eclipse in berserk. They estabilish villains, and show you that they don't fuck around. And even if they are defeated in battles, later scenes reinforce them by also giving them victories.

Argus, should be the hardest battle we ever thought. The "sacrifice" should be mountains of bodies, dead heroes and truly bitter sweet ending. What we got was a walk on sunny beach, with legion not even trying to really stop us at any point, the ones receiving most hits on our side being lightforged whom we literally just met, and not a single character even being threatened. I don't know about you, but for me this isn't sacrifice, that would be relative to the scale.

And no, our victory over legion is pyrrhic. Our victory over legion would be pyrric, if legion wiped 90% of azeroth population. If it destroyed cities, corrupted lands, and shaken fundation of entire civilization on azeroth. This is, what fighting threat of such scale should look like. What we had, was "almost flawless victory, try again for perfect score" victory.

[Aucald]

So 1st, again story is being told in blue, because nothing in game indicates any connection betwen xavius and legion.
2nd...uh so let me get it straight. Sargeras started legion and burning crusade to fight void and its servants and then...he allies himself with them ? So he enters alliance with greater enemy he fights to defeat smaller enemy he fights so he can then fight his greater enemy who is his ally ? That's...pretty malkavian.

The connection is present there, and then again in-game with demonic auxiliaries present at the Temple of Elune such as Gravax the Desecrator, an immense Doom Lord demon very obviously not a product of Xavius or the Nightmare and assisting Xavius' Satyrs and corrupted nature entities in the fight. As for the Legion's use of the Void they basically take the same tack as Azerothians do with the Fel - fighting fire with proverbial fire. They use Void entities and Void magic against hostile Void entities in the same was as Demon Hunters and Warlocks turn the Fel against its demon masters.

I think you are completely misunderstanding my point. Legion was on a completely diffrent level than any threat we encountered before. Both in numbers and in power. And nothing in how we are dealing with them reflects that. We had more soldiers storming goddamn orgrimmar than we had argus. Antorus had no diffrences from HFC, where we storm the place with our budds and kill enemy dudes. Nothing changed from standard formula.

I would chalk that more up more to gameplay vs. story segregation than I would anything else. I mean there are technical upper boundaries on how many mobs the developers want to have active in a given raid instance at any one time - otherwise players get bogged down, graphics go to pot, and any number of other technical problems (such as pervasive lag) arise. I understand that that can be disheartening when you want epicness to be represented by extreme numbers and so on, but it sort of is what it is at the end of the day. Although not quite to the level of Atari and Nintendo video games, there's still an element of imagination required in a gaming environment on the part of the player.

And unlike those previous factions legion had it all. All that "buildup". All that mumbling about power, about endless army, all that flashing of their toys. It meant absolutely nothing. We came there with minimal forces and came back with minimal losses. Nothing in game even tried to reflect the scale of it. We literally go there with one ship, and clean crap out.

For the argument of scale, see above. As for the "mumbling about power, endless armies, etc." I think that's pretty much the Legion's basic MO - as a force whose main advantage is an overwhelming press of arms it makes sense for them to utilize tactics to demoralize their enemies with their seeming endlessness. On an objective level the Legion definitely oversells and overextends itself, a strategy that Kil'jaeden very obviously begins to take exception to with their assault on Dalaran at the opening of 7.2 and the Legionfall arc. They made a number of errors, and those errors led to their defeat in the end.

Legion story arc was a joke, because absolutely nothing in it even tried to show what we were being told about legion. All we get is "legion gets crushed, but (maybe) kills few innocents in process". Every class campaign. Every artifact challenge. Every zone. Every raid. We never go back and forth. They are always defeated. And not only that, in those defeats they never shown anything that would diffrentiate them from scourge, and any other threat we encountered. All they do is call us mortals, tell us azeroth will burn, and then that their deaths mean nothing. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.

It really depends on how you view the various conflicts - and here you seem to view them all as precipitated by us and also won by us, when that's not in evidence. Imagine it like this, taking Archmage Xylem and the Focusing Iris as a good example of a back and forth type of conflict. Xylem is corrupted by a Legion tomb and successfully absconds with the Focusing Iris, essentially winning an encounter with the Tirisgarde and Kirin Tor. We're tasked with tracking him down and preventing him from using it to funnel Azeroth's ley lines to the Legion (e.g. the possessed Xylem's "demon masters"), an encounter we canonically win. Or perhaps the Rogue Order Hall campaign, where Detheroc succeeds in infiltrating SI:7 and killing almost every witness to his deception - a conflict he wins. The Uncrowned then find a stray loose end and use it to track him down and put an end to him. Plenty of Legion intrigues have a back-and-forth between the heroes and the Legion if you immerse yourself into the story.

So they killed some soldiers in broken shore, scourge did same in broken front. And yet, scale of scourge was so much smaller. Them killing 3 lore characters at the very start, only to not do anything for rest of expansion. Is that it ? That's the best they could do ? Because if, with all that power and all that army, all they can do is that, then they are really pathetic.

They killed the 2 most important lore characters in the Horde and the Alliance, respectively. They also killed Tirion, a storied hero who's been with us since Classic and is remembered fondly by many. You're saying you would only be satisfied if perhaps a dozen or so Horde or Alliance soldiers limped home from the Broken Shore? If that were the case the story would've been over there, and the Legion would've go on to decimate us. Add to that the storylines and intrigues we encounter during the Order Hall campaigns as we work to excise Legion infiltration in our governments, revealing double-agents and hidden cultists, and a number of other gambits being used to soften us up.

And, no killing few people here and there and there, doesn't make intergalactic army of demons feel threatening. How come, warhammer, berserk and many others franchises have no problem validating their villains. Things like ending of horus heresy in warhammer, or eclipse in berserk. They estabilish villains, and show you that they don't fuck around. And even if they are defeated in battles, later scenes reinforce them by also giving them victories.

I don't really know any of those storylines so I can't speak to them. But it sounds like you only enjoy enemies who can't be defeated, or whose defeats are retconned into victories later? That may be down to a matter of personal taste, I guess.

Argus, should be the hardest battle we ever thought. The "sacrifice" should be mountains of bodies, dead heroes and truly bitter sweet ending. What we got was a walk on sunny beach, with legion not even trying to really stop us at any point, the ones receiving most hits on our side being lightforged whom we literally just met, and not a single character even being threatened. I don't know about you, but for me this isn't sacrifice, that would be relative to the scale.

Argus can't be the "hardest battle we ever fought" because it's fundamentally not the end of the story for WoW. I disagree with your take, obviously; but it sounds like you were looking for a close of the book on the story of the Warcraft universe with a victory that essentially cost us everything, with no one left at all for the Void Lord story-arc to occur or somehow passing on to a new context altogether. I think I can understand where you're coming from if that's the case, but in that case Legion just wasn't and was never going to be what you were ultimately looking for.

And no, our victory over legion is pyrrhic. Our victory over legion would be pyrric, if legion wiped 90% of azeroth population. If it destroyed cities, corrupted lands, and shaken fundation of entire civilization on azeroth. This is, what fighting threat of such scale should look like. What we had, was "almost flawless victory, try again for perfect score" victory.

A Pyrrhic victory is defined as "victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat." Our goal, the condition for our victory, was to safeguard Azeroth against the Legion threat and prevent the Legion from destroying the world or draining of its magic (leaving it a barren and wasted hellscape). We succeed in vanquishing the Legion and Sargeras but, in a final spiteful act, Sargeras ensures Azeroth is left mortally wounded and on the verge of dying. This strikes me as well qualified for the descriptor of "Pyrrhic." We won the day, but the price of our victory could be the future of our very world (insofar as we're aware from an in-game or internal standpoint).

[Hubbl3]

I don't really know any of those storylines so I can't speak to them. But it sounds like you only enjoy enemies who can't be defeated, or whose defeats are retconned into victories later? That may be down to a matter of personal taste, I guess.

The main enemy of the Horus Heresy (Horus) is killed, but in the process fucks shit up so badly for the Imperium that it basically dies a slow death ever since with every dream and vision of Mankind's future crushed.

There is more to it, but that's like 50 Books of story.

[Aucald]

The main enemy of the Horus Heresy (Horus) is killed, but in the process fucks shit up so badly for the Imperium that it basically dies a slow death ever since with every dream and vision of Mankind's future crushed.

There is more to it, but that's like 50 Books of story.

Seems like a pretty dark and fatalistic story, which seems in keeping with what little I know of "Warhammer 40K" universe. I enjoy dark fiction just fine, but I think the distinction needs to be drawn: dark and fatalistic isn't really what Warcraft is about. The Warcraft universe is more in the mold of high fantasy epics like "Lord of the Rings," "The Elric Saga," or any of a number of Dungeons & Dragons type offerings. While Warcraft draws inspiration from a number of sources, classical and pop culture alike, the overall tone of the game's world tends toward lighter heroic themes and even self-effacing humor.

[Verdugo]

Seems like a pretty dark and fatalistic story, which seems in keeping with what little I know of "Warhammer 40K" universe. I enjoy dark fiction just fine, but I think the distinction needs to be drawn: dark and fatalistic isn't really what Warcraft is about. The Warcraft universe is more in the mold of high fantasy epics like "Lord of the Rings," "The Elric Saga," or any of a number of Dungeons & Dragons type offerings. While Warcraft draws inspiration from a number of sources, classical and pop culture alike, the overall tone of the game's world tends toward lighter heroic themes and even self-effacing humor.

Basicaly Emperor obliterates Horus, his favourite son, but succumbs to the wounds and is forced to a life support system so that he can act as a glorified Lighthouse for starships. Meanwhile council starts ruling in his stead and slowly turn his anti-religious dogma into a religious one (ironicaly one created by the first legion that fell to chaos). There is still room for idealistic stories but Imperium of Mankind cannot be defined as good. Sure, its one of the best fates that could happen to humanity in such universe, but its still a brutal autocracy.

Anyway one of my favourite concepts coming out of it is how corrupting chaos is and how it can break even the most idealistic individuals. Compare with warcraft where we use fel magic and now even void magic without issues.

[Arrashi]

snip

No i don't like villains who can't be defeated. I like villains who can live up to their fame. And who can challenge hero on something more than "easy". Its generally good for story, and makes you invested when you actually root for hero, rather than being sure about his or her victory.

As it is, legion is best summed by this:
https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/2988663
The entire problem is that im not mad.

Legion is goddamn pathetic, their streak of losses made it feel as buildup for some 80's believe in yourself story. I half expected some old, blind black guy in a wheelchair approach KJ, and decide to train him after hearing his sad story. They fail so hard, the literally made him sympathetic (with big focus on pathetic part) and that's not good for a villain.

They killed 2 most important characters and tirion we killed...all of their most important lore characters ? Like literally all ? Jaraxxus got away due to being meme, but thats pretty much it for legion having any characters. That's....not too good for their image of dangerous foe.

It doesn't matter how many gambits and operations they had, because they ALL failed. In WC3, at very least scourge operation was full success. In legion we have failure after failure after failure. We had no breath of fresh air with them actually doing something right.

I by no means legion was supposed to be end of warcraft. It was supposed to be end of legion story. And by all logic should have been the biggest battle we fought yet. And boy blizzard fucked up with it. Legion didn't make "numbers of errors". They fucked up on every single possible occasion. Legion is at least 95% guilty of legions defeat. Heroes did only 3-4%.

So its phyrric victory because of some "possible" "impossible" outcome that will never happen. That's very....phyrric writing.

- - - Updated - - -

Basicaly Emperor obliterates Horus, his favourite son, but succumbs to the wounds and is forced to a life support system so that he can act as a glorified Lighthouse for starships. Meanwhile council starts ruling in his stead and slowly turn his anti-religious dogma into a religious one (ironicaly one created by the first legion that fell to chaos). There is still room for idealistic stories but Imperium of Mankind cannot be defined as good. Sure, its one of the best fates that could happen to humanity in such universe, but its still a brutal autocracy.

Anyway one of my favourite concepts coming out of it is how corrupting chaos is and how it can break even the most idealistic individuals. Compare with warcraft where we use fel magic and now even void magic without issues.

Not to mention that entire horus heresy arcs, throws entire structure of imperium into shambles, completely changes all legions, even loyalist ones, and does more than enough to estabilish chaos as mankinds eternal enemy, and everpresent threat.

[Phookah]

Being able to seperate gameplay and lore, how does it work?

[Arrashi]

Being able to seperate gameplay and lore, how does it work?

They do almost exclusively fail both in gameplay and lore. Hell, given coven hc, we can assume that gameplay is much more generous for them than lore.