There arent 36 champions

[Piamonte]

I was thinking the other day about how many champions (player characters) exists canonwise and the common answer is 36, because there are 36 artifacts, one for each spec. The thing is.. this doesnt make sense, because many artifacts have the same intro questline, for example, you have to kill Ariden and the darkriders of karazhan for Apocalypse (unholy death knight artifact) and the scithe of elune (balance druid artifact) if my memory serves right. So i was thinking about it when i remembered the cinematic about the champions giving up the artifact powers to stabilize the wound caused by the blade of sargeras and if you pay attention, there is only 7 champions on the ship, in other words, there are canonically 7 champions in the lore and one of them is a priest, because you know, knaifu.

here is the cinematic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKEVI5liqEQ

any thoughts?

EDIT: if we know for a fact that one of them is a priest, which classes are the other 6??

EDIT 2: i continued thinking about this and if we take Knaifu as an example and say that all the artifacts that were used to stabilize the wound are legendary weapons that are an important part of the story of the game, there are -interesting enough- exactly 7: Doomhamer, Ashbringer, Scythe of Elune, Knaifu, Scepter of Sargeras, blades of the fallen prince (Frostmourne) and felo melorn. This means that the canon classes of the champions are: shaman, paladin, druid, priest, warlock, death knight and mage.

[Evaddon]

Never heard 36,never really heard this being a common topic of discussion tbh we've always been the classes not the specialization in lore/story so,yes?no? I don't know?

[yamix]

I would assume one for each class, whoever was the order hall leader.

I guess this double posted when I edited. See the second post...

[Piamonte]

I would assume one for each class, whoever was the order hall leader.

there are 7 people on the ship and there are 12 classes in total, it doesnt add up.

[yamix]

I would assume one for each class, whoever was the order hall leader. I believe each faction had their own version of that cinematic, if memory serves.

[Jester Joe]

I don't think it's quite right to dismiss most just because of the UH DK and Balance overlap.

There's other artifact acquisition that do overlap, but some that also complete each other.

If you're accepting Shadow priests as a main one, for example, you'd have to also include Arms warrior because Shadow Priests come and suck up the last bit of life from the faceless one you kill for the Arms weapon.

[Valkarra]

I was thinking the other day about how many champions (player characters) exists canonwise and the common answer is 36, because there are 36 artifacts, one for each spec. The thing is.. this doesnt make sense, because many artifacts have the same intro questline, for example, you have to kill Ariden and the darkriders of karazhan for Apocalypse (unholy death knight artifact) and the scithe of elune (balance druid artifact) if my memory serves right.

That can be chalked up to Blizzard being lazy. The artifacts that you get from Ariden actually bothered me a lot. They can't all be canon.

And 36 champions because of 36 specs doesn't have to be the case anyway, because within the story of your character, if you are a paladin and you get your 3 artifacts, that's just one champion in possession of all 3 paladin artifacts.

But to further complicate some things, after Legion, canonically, some artifacts even end up in other people's hands, so whatever.

Honestly the whole storytelling there is just fucking dumb, and is absolutely harmed by the restrictions of the MMO genre. If Blizzard wanted to tell a good story in the Warcraft world, they would have to make a singleplayer RPG.

[Maljinwo]

Im the canon one

Trust me. Im a troll wielding felo'melorn

[Brubear]

he classes in the cinematic change depending on your faction (Alliance cinematic there's a DK, Mage, Priest, Druid, DH, and Monk. Horde there's a Hunter, Shaman, Warlock, paladin, Warrior, DK, and Rogue I believe is the last one), the NPCs there also change depending on your class.

This old thread has a list of the names of all of the NPCs there, each side has a different collection of classes except for both sides have Darion Morgraine for DKs holding Apocalypse.

Per the thread you have:

For Alliance: Iron-Body Ponshu (Monk), Kor'vas Bloodthorn (Demon Hunter), Rensar Greathoof (Druid), High Priestess Ishanah (Priest), Archmage Vargoth (Mage), and Highlord Darion Mograine (Death Knight)

For Horde: Eitrigg (Warrior), Lady Liadrin (Paladin), Ritssyn Flamescowl (Warlock), Highlord Darion Mograine (Death Knight), Valeera Sanguinar (Rogue) and Halduron Brightwing (Hunter)

[Adoxe]

there are 7 people on the ship and there are 12 classes in total, it doesnt add up.

It does. Opposite faction has the remaining ones. They split them up into two cutscenes 1 for each faction.

[Rendark]

You're thinking way to hard about it dude.

[yamix]

there are 7 people on the ship and there are 12 classes in total, it doesnt add up.

I believe there's a cutscene for each faction.

[Oakshana]

Each spec/class has a different combination of class "heroes" in different classes and specs. Because, obviously, you cannot have two of the same in there. And it would overlap at some point. I'm thinking back to when I ran it with my Outlaw Rogue, and i do not recall either the Demon Hunter or Monk on the ship /shrug.

That said, stop overthinking it. This is animation. They aren't going to include ALL 36 classes specs, simply because of the overhead on animating them all and simply because it would just be TOO goddamned cluttered on the ship. They give you a random assortment, and the assumption is that all that are necessary are there.

End of story.

[Donald Hellscream]

12 champions, one for each class.

Its probably much more really but if we go by the number of classes its 12, since you could argue that one champion got a hold of all the artifact weapons for their respective class.

Besides that I am fairly certain the cutscene changes depending on class, faction or it might even just be entirely random.

I am fairly certain I had a mistweaver monk in the cutscene on my Blood DK, although my memory is a bit hazy given that its a minor cutscene from more than a year ago.

[Wyrt]

There's 2. 1 Horde and 1 Alliance.

The other class orders weren't lead by other players. They were lead by NPCs. You could see them went doing the quest to deplete your artifact at the end of Legion.

[Trumpcat]

One for each class.

[WraithKingOstarion]

it would be cool to see one representing each spec if Blizz could somehow create noteworthy characters.

[owbu]

I don't think there is a set number of champions. The game, being a game, shows as many champions as the gameplay currently needs (something we are the sole commader of the entire army, sometimes we are THE archdruid, sometimes we are a group or a raid of champions, sometimes we just disapear completely from the narrative) and the out of game material just calls us "a group of adventures". Which I think is very much on purpose.

[matrix123mko]

Im the canon one

Trust me. Im a troll wielding felo'melorn

Aethas had to sell it to someone.

[Jazzhands]

there are 7 people on the ship and there are 12 classes in total, it doesnt add up.

That, my friend, is simply laziness.

Lorewise there should be one from each Class. In game doesn't always perfectly represent lore.