Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Tanaria]

I'm referring to the "Glyph of Verdant Spheres" That Warlock Players literally had up until Legion. They literally gave warlocks blood mage verdant spheres. Now we have the "fel touches shards" that obviously maintain the same aesthetic. Mage orbs were never green as Blood Mages are.

You also dismiss the obvious overlap of the Fire and Destruction Specs. You are making an arbitrary call by saying that Blood Mages are "99%" mage based, when the NPC's we have seen in game use elements of both mages and warlocks. That's simply bias.

Right now we don't have one class to represent Blood mage fantasy, both mages and warlocks can, because the overlap is obvious. So I don't get your insistence that only mages fit the bill.

Give me an example of when a Blood Mage has used Warlock-based spells. Was it Kael'thas during Tempest Keep or MT?
Or are we referring to the W3 iteration of Blood Mages?

Because that iteration and the WoW iteration are very different.

I mean, a whole Mage tier was named "Bloodmage Regalia" so...

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Well shoot me.
Let's agree to disagree on the WoD follower system.

I don't think I can. Like if you dismiss aspects of the worldbuilding because they don't fit your narrative, it just comes across as nitpicking everything to make an argument and dismissing what doesn't fit, instead of reaching the most logical conclusion based on all of the evidence, and you are not just doing it with this.

There has to be consistency, otherwise you are just self-servingly using whatever lore bits you can use for your point and denying those you don't like.

[Tanaria]

I don't think I can. Like if you dismiss aspects of the worldbuilding because they don't fit your narrative, it just comes across as nitpicking everything to make an argument and dismissing what doesn't fit, instead of reaching the most logical conclusion based on all of the evidence, and you are not just doing it with this.

There has to be consistency, otherwise you are just self-servingly using whatever lore bits you can use for your point and denying those you don't like.

Ok, so they are canon as example.
What do they do for the Silvermoon society? And please don't say "They expand it" because all they actually do is just stand around my Garrison all day. They do nothing other than walk from small point A to small point B every 3 hours.

I mean, it's more than the actual Silvermoon Warlocks who actually do nothing at all, but I don't personally consider it "groundbreaking" if they're walking a couple of feat.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Give me an example of when a Blood Mage has used Warlock-based spells. Was it Kael'thas during Tempest Keep or MT?
Or are we referring to the W3 iteration of Blood Mages?

Because that iteration and the WoW iteration are very different.

I mean, a whole Mage tier was named "Bloodmage Regalia" so...

Yeah, that's why I am saying that Blood Mages occupy a place between Mage and Warlock fantasy. I'm not saying that "oh all Blood mages are warlocks because they had the Verdant Spheres" The whole point is that BOTH occupy that role.

If it was "Oh Blood Mages don't use warlock based spells" -despite their blood syphon literally being a life drain- then the last time a Blood Mage used mage spells, it was frost magic in TBC

[Swnem]

Sure yeah let's keep diluting the void in VOID elves. GG blizz

Hope in 9.2 we also get green skin maghar orcs, LFD draenie without tattoos and dark blue skin, and HM tauren with bull horns.

Hell if we really wanna be fair the horde should get NB that weren't as exposed to the night well and thus look like regular vanilla ass nelves.

Stupid....

Fyi you still don't have high elves outside of RP'er mental gymnastics.

Don't be ridiculous. The void in void elves is impossible to get rid of when your whole character changes into void form every minute in battle.

The void is impossible to ignore.

[Tanaria]

Yeah, that's why I am saying that Blood Mages occupy a place between Mage and Warlock fantasy. I'm not saying that "oh all Blood mages are warlocks because they had the Verdant Spheres" The whole point is that BOTH occupy that role.

If it was "Oh Blood Mages don't use warlock based spells" -despite their blood syphon literally being a life drain- then the last time a Blood Mage used mage spells, it was frost magic in TBC

Ok, so we've seen Blood Mages use Fire and Arcane (Kael'thas) and Frost Magic.
They do a great job of rounding off the Blood Elf Mages.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Ok, so they are canon as example.
What do they do for the Silvermoon society? And please don't say "They expand it" because all they actually do is just stand around my Garrison all day. They do nothing other than walk from small point A to small point B every 3 hours.

I mean, it's more than the actual Silvermoon Warlocks who actually do nothing at all, but I don't personally consider it "groundbreaking" if they're walking a couple of feat.

What was groundbreaking about Warlocks is that they were a radical societal shift from the earlier Thalassian culture, that's undeniable. From something forbidden to something allowed in the open.

The point is that you are not treating rogues and warriors as "niche" as you do so with warlocks. That's the dismissive part here. We have all of them as part of BE society, as Rogues and Warriors are part of the Farstriders in terms of organization despite existing as individuals, so do Warlocks as part of the Magistry.

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Ok, so we've seen Blood Mages use Fire and Arcane (Kael'thas) and Frost Magic.
They do a great job of rounding off the Blood Elf Mages.

Again, dismissing all the other points were Warlocks were given literal signifiers of Blood mages so your point has any validity.

You are the one that purposes the notion of gameplay over lore, and here you are, using a single Blood Mage NPC using frost magic as confirmation they are totally mages, dismissing all the ways they have not been just so.

[Tanaria]

What was groundbreaking about Warlocks is that they were a radical societal shift from the earlier Thalassian culture, that's undeniable. From something forbidden to something allowed in the open.

The point is that you are not treating rogues and warriors as "niche" as you do so with warlocks. That's the dismissive part here. We have all of them as part of BE society, as Rogues and Warriors are part of the Farstriders in terms of organization despite existing as individuals, so do Warlocks as part of the Magistry.

Rogues and Warriors are niche, just like Warlocks.
Rogues and Warriors are just part of the Farstrider army, which I have also stated.

Warlocks are just a very small niche of the "Magisters" whom don't do anything. Straight up. They haven't done anything even in TBC, so...

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Again, dismissing all the other points were Warlocks were given literal signifiers of Blood mages so your point has any validity.

You are the one that purposes the notion of gameplay over lore, and here you are, using a single Blood Mage NPC using frost magic as confirmation they are totally mages, dismissing all the ways they have not been just so.

Ok - so why aren't the Warlock trainers in Quel'Thalas called "Blood Mage <name>"

Is it because the few blood elf warlocks and the main blood mages are two separate things?

Again, I think your hung up on the TBC ideals of the Outland Sunfury Blood Elves.
The Warlocks just aren't a big thing in Quel'Thalas.

I'm a Blood Elf fan and I've accepted this so I don't see why your trying to push that it is a major thing? A true fan knows when certain aspects of their favorite race are not deeply explored. Blood Elf Warlocks are part of this. I've just accepted it.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Rogues and Warriors are niche, just like Warlocks.
Rogues and Warriors are just part of the Farstrider army, which I have also stated.

Warlocks are just a very small niche of the "Magisters" whom don't do anything. Straight up. They haven't done anything even in TBC, so...

I mean the whole idea of calling 3 playable classes -let's throw monks there too I guess- "niche" because they don't have the spotlight, despite, you know, being playable classes, thus representation of the societal norms of a race, is legit bonkers.

So congratulations.

[Tanaria]

I mean the whole idea of calling 3 playable classes -let's throw monks there too I guess- "niche" because they don't have the spotlight, despite, you know, being playable classes, thus representation of the societal norms of a race, is legit bonkers.

So congratulations.

Blizzard choosing not to focus on certain classes for my favorite race is Blizzard's choice. I just choose not to stomp my feet about it, because I don't mind it.

To be honest, I'm quite happy with the aspects that they do choose to focus on, because they have spent more time with perfecting the Blood Knights (Paladins), Farstriders (Hunters) and Magisters (Mages.)
I'd rather have 3 expansive stories than get 10 half-baked stories.

Do Blood Elf Warlocks look cool with green fire and a green Dreadsteed? Yes. Are Blizzard going to give them some amazing, interesting story? Probably not - likely just tie it to a Blood Elf Magister story.

[Rhlor]

"Deathpath." I assume you mean "Pathstalker." That's more the "Blood Elf Rogue" thing.
To me, Pathstalkers are just more in line with the farstriders, hence why we just see more blood elf rangers than we do blood elf rogues, barring Valeera, who's more Alliance anyway and doesn't truly represent Silvermoon.

Belloc Brightblade subleader of reliquary is a rogue

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That's just inaccurate. You can't claim Blood Mages are are extensions of the Mage Class, dismissing the fact they are an hybridization of the Mage+Warlock classes lorewise. Come on! Blood mages since their inception have had warlock coded spells, they literally gave them the "verdant spheres" cosmetic choice.

What's the point of this if not just further erasure of BE warlock themes?

blood mage are not warlocks. the uses of blood magic is different from fel magic. Moreover, it can be said that it would be more related to the magic of death because they use anima.
kaelthas the most famous blood mage is not a warlock is a mage.
The warlocks are not they do not represent anything in the quelthalas society, they are there obviously but they are as important as the monks can be.
You know that the origin of the "verdant spheres" is not Fel, right?
by the way pathstalker is an organization within the farstriders that is true, in the same way that blood knight is under magister.

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I'm referring to the "Glyph of Verdant Spheres" That Warlock Players literally had up until Legion. They literally gave warlocks blood mage verdant spheres. Now we have the "fel touches shards" that obviously maintain the same aesthetic. Mage orbs were never green as Blood Mages are.

You also dismiss the obvious overlap of the Fire and Destruction Specs. You are making an arbitrary call by saying that Blood Mages are "99%" mage based, when the NPC's we have seen in game use elements of both mages and warlocks. That's simply bias.

Right now we don't have one class to represent Blood mage fantasy, both mages and warlocks can, because the overlap is obvious. So I don't get your insistence that only mages fit the bill.

we also don't have a playable class that represents botanists or spellbreakers in the game
I want to play botanist!

[Zaelsino]

What was groundbreaking about Warlocks is that they were a radical societal shift from the earlier Thalassian culture, that's undeniable. From something forbidden to something allowed in the open.

Not really. They do their maledictions in a basement in the cutthroat district, and hide until dark. Ironically, the Silver Covenant's warlock practises his craft more openly than Silvermoon's trainers do.

I do think void elves poaching so much of the blood elf aesthetic entitles the BEs to a few unique customisations, but going hard on the fel shit would be silly after TBC's ending and their draconian laws on Sunwell-threatening magic. There are far more relevant and appropriate themes to explore.

[Rhlor]

Not really. They do their maledictions in a basement in the cutthroat district, and hide until dark. Ironically, the Silver Covenant's warlock practises his craft more openly than Silvermoon's trainers do.

I do think void elves poaching so much of the blood elf aesthetic entitles the BEs to a few unique customisations, but going hard on the fel shit would be silly after TBC's ending and their draconian laws on Sunwell-threatening magic. There are far more relevant and appropriate themes to explore.

We know that Fel crystals are no longer used now mana crystals are used.

the warlocks are not important in the quelthalas society I would say and I am sure that you will also agree that the rogues that make up the pathstalker are more important

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Not really. They do their maledictions in a basement in the cutthroat district, and hide until dark. Ironically, the Silver Covenant's warlock practises his craft more openly than Silvermoon's trainers do.

It's kinda disingenuous to portray BE warlocks as having the same level of canonical underground feel that humans get when BE's have never gotten flack for openly practicing fel, like at all. You bring up the Warlocks in Silvermoon being secluded, while dismissing all the other BE Warlock trainers just chilling in other areas of Quel'thalas. As disingenuous as making the connection that the lone SC Warlock someone speaks more of a races views of a class than a race that has dozens of Warlock NPC's in the world :/

I do think void elves poaching so much of the blood elf aesthetic entitles the BEs to a few unique customisations, but going hard on the fel shit would be silly after TBC's ending and their draconian laws on Sunwell-threatening magic. There are far more relevant and appropriate themes to explore.

And that's a matter of opinion, because there are also a lot of BE players that do not want BE's to further go into the light worshipping aspect of the race. We can all ahve our personal opinions of which themes would be more "fitting" of Blood Elves, but they are subjective, and a long cry from speaking from any authority on what Blood Elves "should" be in the future.

It's almost as if would be better that blood elves would be allowed to explore several themes rather than being pigeonholed into one and the others diminished.

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blood mage are not warlocks. the uses of blood magic is different from fel magic. Moreover, it can be said that it would be more related to the magic of death because they use anima.
kaelthas the most famous blood mage is not a warlock is a mage.
The warlocks are not they do not represent anything in the quelthalas society, they are there obviously but they are as important as the monks can be.
You know that the origin of the "verdant spheres" is not Fel, right?
by the way pathstalker is an organization within the farstriders that is true, in the same way that blood knight is under magister.

"kaelthas the most famous blood mage is not a warlock is a mage."

See this is the sort of asinine stuff that makes me completely dismiss your opinions. Guy literally has warlock and mage abilities, but to you that means "mage". FFS

we also don't have a playable class that represents botanists or spellbreakers in the game
I want to play botanist!

Then play a botanist. I am not stopping you.

[Zaelsino]

It's kinda disingenuous to portray BE warlocks as having the same level of canonical underground feel that humans get when BE's have never gotten flack for openly practicing fel, like at all.

The only blood elf warlocks with any racial flavour literally operate underground and hide their activities until nightfall. I would argue this is a better indicator of their status in blood elf society than the smattering of warlock trainers twiddling their thumbs in the wider world; humans also have a couple trainers breaking the masquerade in broad daylight. Fel was a tool, shoved in crystals to keep the city empowered, and explicitly hidden from the public. Chronicles even flat out states the entire reason the blood elves turned on Kael'thas is that he "embraced fel magic".

You bring up the Warlocks in Silvermoon being secluded, while dismissing all the other BE Warlock trainers just chilling in other areas of Quel'thalas. As disingenuous as making the connection that the lone SC Warlock someone speaks more of a races views of a class than a race that has dozens of Warlock NPC's in the world :/

You make my point for me. We know as much about the Silver Covenant's warlock trainer as we do the two or three blood elves performing the same function. They're all non-entities in the story, and it's bizarre seeing you try to pass them off as this essential cornerstone of blood elf society. You could remove warlocks from the blood elves' class pool and not a single thing about the race's narrative or character roster would change. Like Jesus Christ, in fifteen years the only notable Horde-aligned BE warlock is a missable garrison follower. And even she's a goody two-shoes.

If any more cultural aesthetics get folded into blood elf customisation, I think a full-blown "fel elf" would be wildly inappropriate. Incongruous mutations are far harder to reconcile with the race's story direction than, say, runic tattoos or Farstrider camo would be. Blue eyes/green eyes/golden eyes are a poignant enough "through the ages" signifier IMO.

[Vaedan]

Give me an example of when a Blood Mage has used Warlock-based spells. Was it Kael'thas during Tempest Keep or MT?
Or are we referring to the W3 iteration of Blood Mages?

Because that iteration and the WoW iteration are very different.

I mean, a whole Mage tier was named "Bloodmage Regalia" so...

What I recall these very few blood mage NPCs seen in action use mixture of both mage and warlock fire spells plus spells not available to any playable class.

Sure, we've seen them use arcane spells and even frost spells which points out to mage class, but only various drain spells (life drain, mana drain, blood drain) and banish spells, so that leads to warlock. On that matter, I feel that blood mage is supposed to be a combination of mage and warlock archetypes.

Also don't forget that blood mage siblings (plus a gnome blood mage Kasim Sharim) in Blasted Lands who display extraordinery knowledge of demonic magic.

Also note that blood magic was something not defined in the game until WotLK and introduction of DK blood spec. Until that time, no blood mage used "Real" blood magic as we've seen later in WoD and BfA. Before that, blood mages were known for their usage of fire magic, which is something that leaves the impression of demonic magic and could be mistaken by such magic. Both warlock and mage spells fill the bill here, so I'm not surprised anyone is connecting that fantasy to warlocks too. Soul shards floating around your character made that fantasy even more approachable.

Finally black hair AHHH!!! You know I have also being very into the idea of a tentacle toggle that also adds tentacles to the hairstyles that don't have them.

I'm also for few full tentacle hairstyles, possibly based on dreadlock hairstyles, Sarah Kerrigan style. That would be really cool.

As for racials. I don't find the racials personally that intrusive, but I would be cool that we got more ways to customize our racials aesthetics.

It was discussed here before. Getting option for more pitch black dark entropic embrace, or more astral/cosmic look (perhaps like Wizard Archon spell from Diablo 3) or option to have just slight Void corruption on hands for those who don't like the visual effect at all. There are also several corruption effects from BFA which could be implented too, so there is potential indeed.

I can think of racial customizations for other races too. Dwarf Stoneform looking more like Earthern, various Naaru runes for Draenei during Gift of the Naaru, Shadowmeld being Invisibility Spell instead of stealth for players who play their night elf as Highborne, etc.

[Tanaria]

What I recall these very few blood mage NPCs seen in action use mixture of both mage and warlock fire spells plus spells not available to any playable class.

Sure, we've seen them use arcane spells and even frost spells which points out to mage class, but only various drain spells (life drain, mana drain, blood drain) and banish spells, so that leads to warlock. On that matter, I feel that blood mage is supposed to be a combination of mage and warlock archetypes.

Also don't forget that blood mage siblings (plus a gnome blood mage Kasim Sharim) in Blasted Lands who display extraordinery knowledge of demonic magic.

Also note that blood magic was something not defined in the game until WotLK and introduction of DK blood spec. Until that time, no blood mage used "Real" blood magic as we've seen later in WoD and BfA. Before that, blood mages were known for their usage of fire magic, which is something that leaves the impression of demonic magic and could be mistaken by such magic. Both warlock and mage spells fill the bill here, so I'm not surprised anyone is connecting that fantasy to warlocks too. Soul shards floating around your character made that fantasy even more approachable.

But it's not proper "Warlock" is it.

Actual Blood Elf Warlocks are still Warlocks and they don't do anything, all save 1 from WoD.

[Vaedan]

But it's not proper "Warlock" is it.

Actual Blood Elf Warlocks are still Warlocks and they don't do anything, all save 1 from WoD.

But they are not proper mages either, since they Draw to magic considered dangerous or dark.

Also, I'm not arguing if blood elf warlocks as organisation do anything or not. They were mostly present in Kael's forces, so great number of them were killed. A portion of Sunfury rejoined Silvermoon after Sunwell restoration, so it's possible some of their warlocks rejoined too. I had the feeling warlocks kind of fall under Magisters jurisdiction, but I might be wrong. Even priests seem to reside alongside Magisters, so I always thought they unite all kinds of thalassian spellcasters.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

The only blood elf warlocks with any racial flavour literally operate underground and hide their activities until nightfall. I would argue this is a better indicator of their status in blood elf society than the smattering of warlock trainers twiddling their thumbs in the wider world; humans also have a couple trainers breaking the masquerade in broad daylight. Fel was a tool, shoved in crystals to keep the city empowered, and explicitly hidden from the public. Chronicles even flat out states the entire reason the blood elves turned on Kael'thas is that he "embraced fel magic".

"...and became the Legions pawn" very interesting how you cut out the phrase by half, as if to obfuscate its complete meaning.

Sure we even had a Warlock character on WoD speaking of how she was in route of helping Liadrin's forces in Aunchindoun before joining our garrison. As if blood elves hold no prejudices or segregation solely based on class. Man, this whole narrative that the fel was a secret just doesn't add up.

You make my point for me. We know as much about the Silver Covenant's warlock trainer as we do the two or three blood elves performing the same function. They're all non-entities in the story, and it's bizarre seeing you try to pass them off as this essential cornerstone of blood elf society. You could remove warlocks from the blood elves' class pool and not a single thing about the race's narrative or character roster would change. Like Jesus Christ, in fifteen years the only notable Horde-aligned BE warlock is a missable garrison follower. And even she's a goody two-shoes.

Almost as if use of fel isn't a signifier of morality! Who would have thunk!?

Okay but the bit about "you could take Blood Elf warlocks out of the story and wouldn't change anything" did make me laugh. I mean sure, lets just take away the neon sign that literally said "beware of elves now, they are rude now." Like, the whole level of missing the point to not understand the function of BE Warlocks as the bare bone-est signifier that Blood Elves are the edgy version of High Elves and that they will do anything to survive.

And they did, and Warlocks continue to be a part of Blood Elf society, to the point Warlocks work with Paladins.

If any more cultural aesthetics get folded into blood elf customisation, I think a full-blown "fel elf" would be wildly inappropriate. Incongruous mutations are far harder to reconcile with the race's story direction than, say, runic tattoos or Farstrider camo would be. Blue eyes/green eyes/golden eyes are a poignant enough "through the ages" signifier IMO.

And I don't even get why it's an either/or scenario with you lot. The obsession people like you with things like "the race's story direction" betrays a misunderstanding that groups are not monoliths and that there WILL be different point of views. We literally see it with Umbric's scholars, the problem with them is that they were a pointed threat to the Sunwell itself.

Like for real, I just do not get the notion that a race HAS to have one single narrative direction/motivation. It's entirely unrealistic to believe that. Silvermoon was rebuilt on fel, and thankfully, unlike fans like you, Lor'themar is not going to oust its users as long as they are law abiding citizens.

So let's retake this if Fel ever gets banned from Silvermoon, shall we?

In the meantime, I will keep hoping for more Fel, undead and farstrider options for Blood Elves, and you can clutch your pearls if you want to.

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But they are not proper mages either, since they Draw to magic considered dangerous or dark.

Also, I'm not arguing if blood elf warlocks as organisation do anything or not. They were mostly present in Kael's forces, so great number of them were killed. A portion of Sunfury rejoined Silvermoon after Sunwell restoration, so it's possible some of their warlocks rejoined too. I had the feeling warlocks kind of fall under Magisters jurisdiction, but I might be wrong. Even priests seem to reside alongside Magisters, so I always thought they unite all kinds of thalassian spellcasters.

That's kinda my take too -specifically, one of the WoD garrison BE Warlock followers holds the title Magistrix-

I think it's just kinda wild to claim Blood Mages are proper mages when there's so much more overlap between them as concepts, and at the end of the day, the fact that Blizzard gave Warlocks the Verdant Spheres ability -and now fel shards- makes obvious that the Blood Mage/Warlock link was intentional.

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I'm also for few full tentacle hairstyles, possibly based on dreadlock hairstyles, Sarah Kerrigan style. That would be really cool.

100% I'm shocked that WoW hasn't already ripped Starcraft on that.

It was discussed here before. Getting option for more pitch black dark entropic embrace, or more astral/cosmic look (perhaps like Wizard Archon spell from Diablo 3) or option to have just slight Void corruption on hands for those who don't like the visual effect at all. There are also several corruption effects from BFA which could be implented too, so there is potential indeed.

I can think of racial customizations for other races too. Dwarf Stoneform looking more like Earthern, various Naaru runes for Draenei during Gift of the Naaru, Shadowmeld being Invisibility Spell instead of stealth for players who play their night elf as Highborne, etc.

Indeed, there are so many racial effects that could have a layer of customization. And a lot of them could be added through Glyphs tbh!

[FlubberPuddy]

huge win for high elf fans, we're getting hair colors
https://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic...customization/

lets gooooooo!!!!!