How is burning Teldrassil even possible?

[Snowravens]

A simple out of control campfire can burn down miles and miles of dense forest if its the right season - Teldrassil follows the same basic rules. Multiple catapults plus magical flaming incendiaries to its base - the fire climbs the wooden mass of the tree's trunk and catches the crown ablaze in time.

Yes, a simple out of control campfire can burn a lot of forest. Of course, it needs the proper wood to start. If you let a small fire and put a healthy branch/tree on it, you'll notice it doesn't burn as easily. You need some dead wood to first start the fire and make it big enough to sustain itself and affect the healthy wood.

And now, there's only one problem. Teldrassil was a living tree, protected and cleaned by its denizens and whose health was ensured by druids. So, no dead wood to start. What those flaming boulders did is the equivalent of you holding a lighter to a living tree for a very short time. Chances are it won't burn.

But wait, there's more! Teldrassil isn't just a living tree. It's one that also received blessings of protection and, furthermore, sits in the middle of the ocean. It takes just a few night elves to take water and put out any fire starting because of that.

And wait, there's even more, you see, a few expansions ago there was this random dragon that passed right by breathing fire. It destroyed Auberdine yet the fire of Deathwing didn't even light a spark in Teldrassil when it had not been blessed and it was corrupted and infested by the Nightmare?

No, actually, forget Deathwing. There were satyrs and imps on Teldrassil and they were loyal to the Burning Legion. Are you telling me there isn't a single one that thought to light it on fire?

Trees are made of wood. Wood is flammable. Magic wood is probably even more flammable.

Magic wood is more flammable? Gee, there's a footman with a torch near the Teldrassil bank, I wonder how he didn't burn it for so long then!
Come one, magic is supposed to imbue the object/plant/animal/humanoid, not make it weak. Curses are for that.

Intercontinental? The distance from Darkshore's shore to Teldrassil isn't that far - perhaps a bit unrealistic for your standard catapult, but in a universe where magic is the rule of thumb I don't think that's too much disbelief to lift.

The distance from Darkshore to Teldrassil is far enough. If you look at the map, the distance is somewhat similar to the one between Gotland and Latvia, Cuba and Florida or Taiwan and China. Saying that it's "a bit unrealistic" for a catapult is putting it mildly. It's impossible for a catapult. We're talking distances of at least 120km/100miles. Even with magic, that breaks any reasonable belief of reality.

[Aucald]

Yes, a simple out of control campfire can burn a lot of forest. Of course, it needs the proper wood to start. If you let a small fire and put a healthy branch/tree on it, you'll notice it doesn't burn as easily. You need some dead wood to first start the fire and make it big enough to sustain itself and affect the healthy wood.

I think magical fire covers that - it would pretty easily gloss over the "living" distinction of the wood initially, but once an appreciable portion of the tree was ablaze then the nature of fire would take care of the rest.

And now, there's only one problem. Teldrassil was a living tree, protected and cleaned by its denizens and whose health was ensured by druids. So, no dead wood to start. What those flaming boulders did is the equivalent of you holding a lighter to a living tree for a very short time. Chances are it won't burn.

No one really protects or cleans the base of the tree all that much - as a Druidic construct they probably left it to take care of itself in that regard. With most of the Sentinels and presumably Druids called away to fight in Silithus, or tending to the site of the Wound, Teldrassil would have very little in the way of mystical or martial protection on either front. Dozens of catapults throwing multiple volleys of burning ordinance isn't what I would call the equivalent of a lighter to a living tree, either - it looks like a pretty sustained hail of missiles striking in multiple locations (as per "Warbringers: Sylvanas"). This wasn't just a single catapult, they're striking in dozens of locations all across the trunk and into the crown of Teldrassil.

But wait, there's more! Teldrassil isn't just a living tree. It's one that also received blessings of protection and, furthermore, sits in the middle of the ocean. It takes just a few night elves to take water and put out any fire starting because of that.

Teldrassil was blessed by Ysera and Alexstrasza at the close of Cata, with the former's blessing restoring the Kaldorei Druids connection to the Dream and the touch of Alexstrasza bringing strength and vitality (to both Teldrassil and the Kaldorei themselves). In this case, only the blessing of Alexstrasza would extend protection from attack - and as we know from the destruction of Nordrassil before it this doesn't equate to invulnerability. Teldrassil was besieged by incendiary ordinance, and it probably weathered that better than any "normal" giant tree would, but in the end it wasn't enough. The Night Elves didn't have the number, nor did they really have the opportunity, to take to the waters to try to douse the tree - once the crown was caught up in the conflagration that would've also been of limited usefulnes

And wait, there's even more, you see, a few expansions ago there was this random dragon that passed right by breathing fire. It destroyed Auberdine yet the fire of Deathwing didn't even light a spark in Teldrassil when it had not been blessed and it was corrupted and infested by the Nightmare?

Deathwing's rampage didn't touch a lot of places on Azeroth, really. He didn't set fire to Auberdine as much as his passing caused what appear to tectonic instabilities that fractured the town's very foundations.

No, actually, forget Deathwing. There were satyrs and imps on Teldrassil and they were loyal to the Burning Legion. Are you telling me there isn't a single one that thought to light it on fire?

Few in number and probably watched closely by the Sentinels and Druids. Most of them were also taken care of in early questing, as well.

The distance from Darkshore to Teldrassil is far enough. If you look at the map, the distance is somewhat similar to the one between Gotland and Latvia, Cuba and Florida or Taiwan and China. Saying that it's "a bit unrealistic" for a catapult is putting it mildly. It's impossible for a catapult. We're talking distances of at least 120km/100miles. Even with magic, that breaks any reasonable belief of reality.

I don't know about your scale, here - how are you coming to these figures based on either in-game maps or otherwise? Teldrassil is easily visible from northern Darkshore, and while gigantic I don't it's so huge it would remain visible from a hundred miles away. Teldrassil also shares shallows with Darkshore, meaning it's not entirely out to sea and that the island that it presumably sits upon isn't too far from the mainland. I would think it's only a couple of miles out. Still well outside normal catapult range (somewhere at about half a mile), although if you factor in magic I think you'd still fall well into the range of possibility (at least for WoW).

[sillag]

every single one of us knows it aint possible. i mean idk who people are trying to kid coming up with "ways it could totally have happened" at this point its just embarrassing to be playing damage control for this dumpster fire of lore we are stuck with. shame on you all.

anyway like literally every other piece of lore in this game nothing matters and blizzard will retcon or wildly violate basic laws of physics/human decency in order to push their narrative based on things they thought would look cool in cutscenes. there's literally no hope for any of us who once enjoyed discussing lore. nothing is sacred. next expansion they might tell us there was secretly another race of blue orcs living on draenor that no one mentioned until now or that garrosh actually survived and is still warchief and we will just have to accept it and people will be posting long, embarrassing diatribes about how it actually made sense all along.

i guess thats just it. for some people they invested so much of their time into caring about the lore of this game that theres no getting off point no matter how badly blizzard violates its corpse. this game used to be good man. but they have given up on lore. now its just carting out the few remaining memorable characters to be raid bosses like azshara until wow finally deservedly dies and when that happens we'll all realize that all that time spent caring about lore was wasted. but it will be too late for us.

[Snowravens]

No one really protects or cleans the base of the tree all that much - as a Druidic construct they probably left it to take care of itself in that regard. With most of the Sentinels and presumably Druids called away to fight in Silithus, or tending to the site of the Wound, Teldrassil would have very little in the way of mystical or martial protection on either front. Dozens of catapults throwing multiple volleys of burning ordinance isn't what I would call the equivalent of a lighter to a living tree, either - it looks like a pretty sustained hail of missiles striking in multiple locations (as per "Warbringers: Sylvanas"). This wasn't just a single catapult, they're striking in dozens of locations all across the trunk and into the crown of Teldrassil.

Are we going to ignore that the base was soaked in water too?

Teldrassil was blessed by Ysera and Alexstrasza at the close of Cata, with the former's blessing restoring the Kaldorei Druids connection to the Dream and the touch of Alexstrasza bringing strength and vitality (to both Teldrassil and the Kaldorei themselves). In this case, only the blessing of Alexstrasza would extend protection from attack - and as we know from the destruction of Nordrassil before it this doesn't equate to invulnerability. Teldrassil was besieged by incendiary ordinance, and it probably weathered that better than any "normal" giant tree would, but in the end it wasn't enough. The Night Elves didn't have the number, nor did they really have the opportunity, to take to the waters to try to douse the tree - once the crown was caught up in the conflagration that would've also been of limited usefulnes

Yet Nordrassil wasn't so easily burned. It took hundreads of wisps blowing up to set it on fire. Archimode was having problems with that, which is why he was trying to scale it. If it was that easy, he could have done it like Dalaran, make a sand Nordrassil and tear it down. Alexstrasza's protection was made against fire.

Deathwing's rampage didn't touch a lot of places on Azeroth, really. He didn't set fire to Auberdine as much as his passing caused what appear to tectonic instabilities that fractured the town's very foundations.

Ok, I'll admit that you're right there.

Few in number and probably watched closely by the Sentinels and Druids. Most of them were also taken care of in early questing, as well.

Are you serious? Few? I think the third quest was to deal with grells, which are imps. Then as soon as you get out of the 1-5 area you meet a satyr. There's a cave full of imps and satyrs. There's a satyr in a moonwell. There's two satyrs on different branches. There's some imps and a satyr in another cave. There's a satyr hidden near the lake. Since Cataclysm there's an entire zone filled with satyrs, corrupted treants and whatnot. By that logic, there's only a few catapults. I mean, I saw like, what, 3 of them?

I don't know about your scale, here - how are you coming to these figures based on either in-game maps or otherwise? Teldrassil is easily visible from northern Darkshore, and while gigantic I don't it's so huge it would remain visible from a hundred miles away. Teldrassil also shares shallows with Darkshore, meaning it's not entirely out to sea and that the island that it presumably sits upon isn't too far from the mainland. I would think it's only a couple of miles out. Still well outside normal catapult range (somewhere at about half a mile), although if you factor in magic I think you'd still fall well into the range of possibility (at least for WoW).

I can see the oil platforms next to Navodari Romania from Eforie Romania.

That's around 40km away. And those oil platforms are 1/100 of the height of Teldrassil.

Also, you're basing your view of what you see in-game, but there's a problem because, you see, the in-game world is... flat. I can see Rut'theran from Lor'Danel in-game but only because there's no curve. In reality that would not be posibile (because neither city has high-enough buildings).

How big do you think Kalimdor is north-south?

No, you know what, let's first check the top distance for a catapult:
www (dot) quora (dot) com /What-is-the-longest-distance-ever-achieved-with-a-catapult
"With modern mechanical torsion catapults, the world record for is currently held (as of 2019) by the "Chucky III", which slung a 8-10 lb (4 kg) pumpkin 3,636 ft (1.1 km) in 2011. "
1 km. The top fire rate for a modern catapult, today, with the materials today is 1km. ONE. KILOMETER. Even if you involve magic and double its fire distance, that would be what... 2 km? Let's say that they used SUPER MAGIC and made the distance 5 KM! 5 times more than a modern catapult in real life today.

Now let's go back to distance.
I don't remember where someone said that Azeroth is about 2/3 of Earth. I could be wrong on that, but let's start with that. So, distance from the Azeroth North Pole to Azeroth South pole would be roughly 10000 km.

According to the Chronicles map, Kalimdor occupies quite a bit of that length
Currently don't have enough time to draw on a map to calculate, so let's say half. It looks bigger, but say for the example. So Kalimdor is roughly 5000km north to south. Now you can calculate your own distance from Teldrassil to Darkshore, but I am certain it's at least 100km in that aspect.

Let's be honest. The burning of Teldrassil was done just because the writers wanted it to happen. It's not a bad idea in general. As they wrote the story however it makes no sense and that's what makes it bad. They literally made interballistic catapults that threw magic fire at a protected and watersoaked gigantic living tree and made it burn to the top within minutes. That's bad storytelling.

[Lupinemancer]

Leveling a night elf and took a hippogryph, which flew around the tree. Teldrassil in game is huge, and that's actually smaller than it's supposed to be in lore. I just don't understand how simple catapults could completely engulf that tree in flames.

The Tree was made of wood and the catapults shot projectile on fire and wood burns rather easily. I'll let you solve the rest of the puzzle.

[Verdugo]

The Tree was made of wood and the catapults shot projectile on fire and wood burns rather easily. I'll let you solve the rest of the puzzle.

You are missing almost all pieces of the puzzle other than "wood" and "fire".

[Soimu]

you would have thought that a race so old and wise as the night elves would have had anti fire measures especially since they lived on a big tree.

[Skytotem]

The Tree was made of wood and the catapults shot projectile on fire and wood burns rather easily. I'll let you solve the rest of the puzzle.

Wood actually doesn't burn easily in LIVE trees, it's actually very DIFFICULT to burn live trees cause they're full of water.

[Aucald]

Are we going to ignore that the base was soaked in water too?

It wouldn't be, though. Islands aren't watersoaked because they're in the ocean, either; their surfaces can burn easily enough. If the catapults all concentrated their fire on the roots themselves you might have a better argument - but "Warbringers: Sylvanas" shows them striking mid-way up the trunk and into the crown, well above the water-line where Teldrassil would be otherwise dry.

Yet Nordrassil wasn't so easily burned. It took hundreads of wisps blowing up to set it on fire. Archimode was having problems with that, which is why he was trying to scale it. If it was that easy, he could have done it like Dalaran, make a sand Nordrassil and tear it down. Alexstrasza's protection was made against fire.

Nordrassil was far older, presumably far larger, as well as bearing the full blessings of four Aspects and submerged into the depths of the newer Well of Eternity. Stands to reason it might be a tougher specimen than Teldrassil, being an otherwise "ordinary" Great Tree with only two Aspect blessings.

Are you serious? Few? I think the third quest was to deal with grells, which are imps. Then as soon as you get out of the 1-5 area you meet a satyr. There's a cave full of imps and satyrs. There's a satyr in a moonwell. There's two satyrs on different branches. There's some imps and a satyr in another cave. There's a satyr hidden near the lake. Since Cataclysm there's an entire zone filled with satyrs, corrupted treants and whatnot. By that logic, there's only a few catapults. I mean, I saw like, what, 3 of them?

Grell are not imps - they're actually creatures of nature, wild and untamed, but not necessarily destructive. They're believed to be the children of at least creations of Aessina, so it wouldn't be in their interest to burn down Teldrassil. The Satyrs and malicious Grell were products of the Nightmare corruption of Teldrassil pre-MoP, this was resolved in "Stormrage" which probably means the populations of Satyr are diminished and the Grell have returned to relative peacefulness.

I can see the oil platforms next to Navodari Romania from Eforie Romania.

That's around 40km away. And those oil platforms are 1/100 of the height of Teldrassil.

Also, you're basing your view of what you see in-game, but there's a problem because, you see, the in-game world is... flat. I can see Rut'theran from Lor'Danel in-game but only because there's no curve. In reality that would not be posibile (because neither city has high-enough buildings).

How big do you think Kalimdor is north-south?

No, you know what, let's first check the top distance for a catapult:
www (dot) quora (dot) com /What-is-the-longest-distance-ever-achieved-with-a-catapult
"With modern mechanical torsion catapults, the world record for is currently held (as of 2019) by the "Chucky III", which slung a 8-10 lb (4 kg) pumpkin 3,636 ft (1.1 km) in 2011. "
1 km. The top fire rate for a modern catapult, today, with the materials today is 1km. ONE. KILOMETER. Even if you involve magic and double its fire distance, that would be what... 2 km? Let's say that they used SUPER MAGIC and made the distance 5 KM! 5 times more than a modern catapult in real life today.

Now let's go back to distance.
I don't remember where someone said that Azeroth is about 2/3 of Earth. I could be wrong on that, but let's start with that. So, distance from the Azeroth North Pole to Azeroth South pole would be roughly 10000 km.

According to the Chronicles map, Kalimdor occupies quite a bit of that length
Currently don't have enough time to draw on a map to calculate, so let's say half. It looks bigger, but say for the example. So Kalimdor is roughly 5000km north to south. Now you can calculate your own distance from Teldrassil to Darkshore, but I am certain it's at least 100km in that aspect.

Let's be honest. The burning of Teldrassil was done just because the writers wanted it to happen. It's not a bad idea in general. As they wrote the story however it makes no sense and that's what makes it bad. They literally made interballistic catapults that threw magic fire at a protected and watersoaked gigantic living tree and made it burn to the top within minutes. That's bad storytelling.

Without hard figures on the cartography or geography of Azeroth, this is all kind of speculation on either of our parts - I'm working from in-game scale which is admittedly not the true scale of the world, but you're using a guess based on something you've heard to create figures which may or may not be correct. On a prosaic level, I doubt the Druids would've opted to plant Teldrassil so far from the mainland given their main methods of travel would be either naval vessel or hippogriff, both of which they would want to make shorter range jaunts. I agreed the catapult range is probably the biggest sticking point to all of this, but in a world where magic and technology are often combined I don't think this is too much an article of disbelief to heft. You could easily say that Shaman and/or Mages enchanted the catapults for better accuracy, strength, as well as control of the wind currents themselves to add range to each volley. I mean we have siege vehicles running around powered by the lifeblood of the world itself (which is also a giant interstellar demigod slumbering within the shell of a planet). Having a few catapults fire an unrealistic distance is really the least of things to be concerned about.

[Snowravens]

Grell are not imps - they're actually creatures of nature, wild and untamed, but not necessarily destructive. They're believed to be the children of at least creations of Aessina, so it wouldn't be in their interest to burn down Teldrassil. The Satyrs and malicious Grell were products of the Nightmare corruption of Teldrassil pre-MoP, this was resolved in "Stormrage" which probably means the populations of Satyr are diminished and the Grell have returned to relative peacefulness.

I didn't know about grells, I always thought they're imps, so good catch.

Without hard figures on the cartography or geography of Azeroth, this is all kind of speculation on either of our parts - I'm working from in-game scale which is admittedly not the true scale of the world, but you're using a guess based on something you've heard to create figures which may or may not be correct. On a prosaic level, I doubt the Druids would've opted to plant Teldrassil so far from the mainland given their main methods of travel would be either naval vessel or hippogriff, both of which they would want to make shorter range jaunts. I agreed the catapult range is probably the biggest sticking point to all of this, but in a world where magic and technology are often combined I don't think this is too much an article of disbelief to heft. You could easily say that Shaman and/or Mages enchanted the catapults for better accuracy, strength, as well as control of the wind currents themselves to add range to each volley. I mean we have siege vehicles running around powered by the lifeblood of the world itself (which is also a giant interstellar demigod slumbering within the shell of a planet). Having a few catapults fire an unrealistic distance is really the least of things to be concerned about.

You're working from in-game scale? Like, the same in-game scale that shows Goldshire as 3 buildings even if thousands of people live there? I think your scale is off by a lot. Considering that a town like Goldshire is actually, at the very least, 1000 times bigger than it is in-game, imagine the distance from Darkshore to Teldrassil being also 1000 times bigger. Only your catapults are the same size.
Also, regarding druids planting it so far, Fandral decided to plant it there, didn't he? While hearing whispers from the Old Gods? Might be other reasons why he planted it so far.

Yes, it is too much to have a catapult shoot that far.

Yes, we have machines that can shoot far, even in WoW. Maybe they should have used those instead. Or at least use azerite-powered cannons. But they didn't. They used a 1km range catapult. At that range, Teldrassil would be about the size of Mont Saint Michel island. That's smaller even than in-game.

I'm sorry, but I stick to my opinion, the whole story was bad storytelling. It would not have hurt to have the catapults shoot from the ships using azerite powered projectiles. Then I'd have said "ok, this sort of makes sense, they shot for close enough using the power of the titan, nothing can hold up to that". But they didn't. They made catapults the mary sues who gain so much power they become rocket launching platforms.

[Aucald]

You're working from in-game scale? Like, the same in-game scale that shows Goldshire as 3 buildings even if thousands of people live there? I think your scale is off by a lot. Considering that a town like Goldshire is actually, at the very least, 1000 times bigger than it is in-game, imagine the distance from Darkshore to Teldrassil being also 1000 times bigger. Only your catapults are the same size.

Working from in-game scale with the understanding that the "real world" distances of Azeroth are somewhat larger. I don't think Goldshire supports thousands even in lore, it's just a hamlet really - I would hazard the population is around a few hundred. The only population numbers I could find for Goldshire is from the RPG (which has it at around 7,000), which are all non-canon. Given its closeness to Stormwind it seems unlikely it would be that large of a town.

Also, regarding druids planting it so far, Fandral decided to plant it there, didn't he? While hearing whispers from the Old Gods? Might be other reasons why he planted it so far.

Difficult to say, really.

Yes, it is too much to have a catapult shoot that far.

On one score, the distances have already been established to be fuzzy. On another, I think the fact that catapults can reach Teldrassil that is actually a canon source that tells us that Teldrassil is closer to Darkshore than previously believed.

Yes, we have machines that can shoot far, even in WoW. Maybe they should have used those instead. Or at least use azerite-powered cannons. But they didn't. They used a 1km range catapult. At that range, Teldrassil would be about the size of Mont Saint Michel island. That's smaller even than in-game.

I agree, that would've made more sense to me as well. I don't think it's explicitly necessary, but it would certainly clear up the matter a great deal. Even using Azerite-enhanced catapults would've helped (and made more use of the strangely absent Azurite MacGuffin).

I'm sorry, but I stick to my opinion, the whole story was bad storytelling. It would not have hurt to have the catapults shoot from the ships using azerite powered projectiles. Then I'd have said "ok, this sort of makes sense, they shot for close enough using the power of the titan, nothing can hold up to that". But they didn't. They made catapults the mary sues who gain so much power they become rocket launching platforms.

No need to apologies, we're both speculating here based on the scant facts available, and I think either of us could be right in the end. Personally I thought having the commandeered ship firing at the undefended Teldrassil would've made the most sense - it's what I was kind of expecting (with "Warbringers" sort of just skimming what had happened for cinematic effect). I don't think an object can be a "Mary Sue," but it's possible they favored cinematic effect over essential logic for a "rule of cool" result concerning the catapults.

- - - Updated - - -

The average width of the continental shelf is 50 miles.

As for it being visible, considering it's height relative to e.g. Hyjal, ofc it is visible. It would be visible from far, far further away than Darkshore.

Hyjal is a mountain on which Nordrassil sat at its summit, Teldrassil was planted at sea (likely on an island) presumably close to the level of Darkshore. Sharing a continental shelf means Teldrassil is within 50 miles of Darkshore, so not an intercontinental distance at all. I don't think it's 50 miles out myself, but that's at least more realistic than it being thousands of miles out.

[Aucald]

These are not even trebuchets so their range is far short of half a km.

We've already covered that: magic, Shamanism, what-have-you enhancing the strength, range, and distance of the projectiles by controlling the wind itself. Like I said it's still unrealistic but not unimaginably so.

[tromage2]

Leveling a night elf and took a hippogryph, which flew around the tree. Teldrassil in game is huge, and that's actually smaller than it's supposed to be in lore. I just don't understand how simple catapults could completely engulf that tree in flames.

You do understand that a cigarette can alrdy create a large forest fire IRL....
Now just think about a tree (even if its large) getting bombed with large gasoline bombs, it will go up in flames in notime.
Wood and leaves are just a perfect resource for fire end of story.

(this is one of those things that make alot of sense Tree ---> fire ----> ashes pretty simple)

[Darth-Piekus]

Archimonde had a hard time torching Noldrassil. Ragnaros with Deathwings help didn't also managed to burn Nordrassil. Deathwing didn't manage to burn Teldrassil when he came out and passed through Darkshore. You could say Nymrohd that the Horde have so much plot armor that are doing the unthinkable again. Catapults buffed by magic can throw flaming balls from thousands of miles away when Legion ships with superior magic and technology were unable to bombard the planet. Deathwing the Destroyer and Ragnaros being unable to torch any World Tree at all even though they could split the world. That is why I can't wait for the worst story ever made in gaming to be over and I hope the fanbase that caused it dies along with it (not literally btw).

[Mellrod]

A simple out of control campfire can burn down miles and miles of dense forest if its the right season - Teldrassil follows the same basic rules. Multiple catapults plus magical flaming incendiaries to its base - the fire climbs the wooden mass of the tree's trunk and catches the crown ablaze in time.

Realistically though, Teldrassil is the size of a mountain in-game. Perhaps two mountains in the lore. The cutscene we see at the end of War of The Thorns almost seems to time-lapse the fire. Even with magic, it probably took several real hours before any real progress was made on the tree. It certainly would if real fire physics were applied.

Speaking of realistic, i'm interested in imagining what as realistic depiction of the aftermath would look like. I imagine the heavy amounts of ash and smoke from a fire that fucking colossal would choke out the entirety of Darkshore, blanketing it in a thick layer black, practically unbreathable air, and a deep sheet of pale-white and grey. All the stray embers could potentially set off other fires throughout the forest as well. The ash clouds would probably travel the winds for several hundred miles and reach the different zones of at least northern Kalimdor. There would probably be egregious amounts of ash in the oceans as well. Might end up killing a lot of fish around Darkshore, but i wouldn't be surprise if foreign shores felt the effects of the burning too. I don't even wanna think about the CO2 coming off a fire that big would do to the atmosphere... You'd be able to see a smoke pillar that large from satellite.

[Aucald]

Archimonde had a hard time torching Noldrassil. Ragnaros with Deathwings help didn't also managed to burn Nordrassil. Deathwing didn't manage to burn Teldrassil when he came out and passed through Darkshore. You could say Nymrohd that the Horde have so much plot armor that are doing the unthinkable again. Catapults buffed by magic can throw flaming balls from thousands of miles away when Legion ships with superior magic and technology were unable to bombard the planet. Deathwing the Destroyer and Ragnaros being unable to torch any World Tree at all even though they could split the world. That is why I can't wait for the worst story ever made in gaming to be over and I hope the fanbase that caused it dies along with it (not literally btw).

Nordrassil and Teldrassil are not really the same order of World or Great Trees at the end of the day. Nordrassil was grown from a seed from the G'hanir (the Mother Tree), a gigantic tree native to the Emerald Dream that itself served as the afterlife realm of all winged beings (as well as the domain of Aviana herself). It was 10,000+ years old upon its near-destruction in the Third War and its roots were deep into the "new" Well of Eternity ignited by Illidan at the close of the War of the Ancients. It bore the blessing of four of the five Dragon Aspects. Needless to say, Nordrassil was immensely powerful and well protected - it would be difficult to destroy through any means. Teldrassil, on the other hand, is the youngest of the World Trees as well as the least blessed - going without an Aspect blessing at all until the close of Cata, when Ysera and Alexstrasza bestowed their blessings. The provenance of Teldrassil's source is unknown, though it was probably a grafting of Nordrassil, and it spent most of its life compromised by Xavius and the Nightmare.

No World Tree was ever impervious, however; and even Nordrassil could be nearly destroyed with sufficient force. They were never envisioned to be fortified constructs resistant to being besieged.

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Realistically though, Teldrassil is the size of a mountain in-game. Perhaps two mountains in the lore. The cutscene we see at the end of War of The Thorns almost seems to time-lapse the fire. Even with magic, it probably took several real hours before any real progress was made on the tree. It certainly would if real fire physics were applied.

There are mountains and then there are mountains, as it were - Denali isn't K2 isn't Everest. I don't really think of them as mountains, myself; I envision them more as gigantic skyscrapers (probably four or five times larger than any we've ever built). It probably took quite a long time for the tree to burn, as I think it is still burning to this day within the story itself, but rising flames and smoke probably would've become problems for the Kaldorei in Darnassus right quickly.

Speaking of realistic, i'm interested in imagining what as realistic depiction of the aftermath would look like. I imagine the heavy amounts of ash and smoke from a fire that fucking colossal would choke out the entirety of Darkshore, blanketing it in a thick layer black, practically unbreathable air, and a deep sheet of pale-white and grey. All the stray embers could potentially set off other fires throughout the forest as well. The ash clouds would probably travel the winds for several hundred miles and reach the different zones of at least northern Kalimdor. There would probably be egregious amounts of ash in the oceans as well. Might end up killing a lot of fish around Darkshore, but i wouldn't be surprise if foreign shores felt the effects of the burning too. I don't even wanna think about the CO2 coming off a fire that big would do to the atmosphere... You'd be able to see a smoke pillar that large from satellite.

Adding some ash storms to Darkshore's weather would be really cool. Since right now due to Tyrande's ritual the zone is bathed in perpetual night it's hard to see if the smoke and ash from Teldrassil has darkened the day at all.

[Every Pwny]

A simple out of control campfire can burn down miles and miles of dense forest if its the right season - Teldrassil follows the same basic rules. Multiple catapults plus magical flaming incendiaries to its base - the fire climbs the wooden mass of the tree's trunk and catches the crown ablaze in time.

Keep in mind what is catching fire is the dried/dead trees, not on healthy wood which is very hard to burn. That's why you have to dry out logs, you can't just throw wood from any tree on a fire because it's too damp. It has no principles in reality, just stating it's magic is fine, but a healthy tree wouldn't catch fire the same way a "simple out of control campfire" can burn a forest of dried out and dead trees. This same magic would probably have no problem burning down stone.