The Void. A force of infinite hunger. Its whispers have broken the will of dragons... and lured even the titans' own children into madness. Sages and scholars fear the Void. But we understand a truth they do not. That the Void is a power to be harnessed... to be bent by a will strong enough to command it. The Void has shaped us... changed us. But you will become its master. Wield the shadows as a weapon to save our world... and defend the Alliance!
Ok, lets go back to WC3 lore. Arthas killed and raised Sylvana to undead, even before he became the LK, after he became the LK he become even more powerful, to the point that he didn't wielded Frostmourne most of the times, we can see that in HoR dungeon. On HoR, he toyed with both jaina and Sylvana, and at the time Sylvana was already the lider of the Forsaken. Arthas was stronger the Sylvana when he was still alive, but since then Sylvana keeped increasing her power, first by dominating the Valkyr's.
At this point, she is obviously stronger then Bolvar, but i still think that a full strenghed Arthas would still be able to win over Sylvana. But if somehow arthas returns, he won't have Frostmourne, and even if he gets Frostmourne he won't have the helm of domination, and he also won't have the huge amount of soul's trapped inside Frostmourne to empower him. Even Uther's soul was trapped inside Frostmourne...
I'd go with Sylvanas on this. She practically had him in TFT when he was a DK and she had just gotten free of the enslavement; the only reason he lived was that she was toying with him when reinforcements showed up. Sure, in this hypothetical Arthas is now the Lich King, but Sylvanas has also undergone a large power increases and has had far more time to plan. And as people have pointed out, Arthas is very vulnerable to surprise attacks (Sylvanas in TFT, Tirion in WotLK), whereas Sylvanas seems to relish in them. Lastly, if Arthas were still LK and Sylvanas weren't confident in her ability to beat him, I feel like she wouldn't have sacrificed her ruse at Orgrimmar so readily.
After Wrath players have had the privilege of using Demi level weapons against major bosses.
People forget that without those the players would have lost often and hard.
Cata we had the dragons and thrall help us,
Panadería we had Cloak
WoD a powerful ring
Legion the artifact weapons and legendary gear
BFA heart of Azeroth, Azerite armor and a cloak.
Bolvar wasn't powered up by the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of souls trapped in Frostmourne, so I'd say no. We saw that, at full strength, he was able to strike our entire raid group dead in one blow if he wanted. Given that Sylvanas is definitely going to be a raid boss at this point, we can do the math and assume 1 Sylvanas = 10-25 geared raiders, so it would be evenly matched until the cutscene where one underestimates the other triggers.
TBH no wow characters strength or power has been able to be judged well. They all adjust depending on how they need to be used in the plot in whatever plot is being written.
I'd wager she'd have had a tougher time for two reasons.
1.) Arthas had Frostmourne and more undead under his command than Bolvar - both of which should result in a stronger LK.
2.) Sylvanas tends to make poor choices when she gets riled up, and no one could rile her better than a smirking Arthas.
Dude she cleaved apart the magic metal helmet and THE SKY with those two guns she call arms
Arthas would've jobbed, Frostmourne or not
"We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Of course she would have. Not for any kind of real reason other than that is how the story will play out because of plot armor, but in a real situation where Sylvanas was not protected by the invincible plot armor Blizzard insisted on giving her, both Bolvar and Arthas would have shredded her to pieces. The part that throws me is, the destruction of an artifact the likes of the Helm of Domination would be impossible to be able to do without also destroying yourself to do. It'd be like disarming a low yield nuke, only to have it go off anyway. No matter who you are, you're going to get vaporized, as well as destroy everything around you in a cataclysmic explosion. The intro involving Sylvanas and Bolvar is just complete bullshit.
"The fatal flaw of every plan, no matter how well planned, is the assumption that you know more than your enemy."
Depends on what bridge role she would be supposed to play.
Make no mistake, Sylvanas beat Bolvar so effortlessly only because they want it to be a bridge to SL. She beat what seemed like over one hundred scourge minions moving in her direction on a limited space platform, while wielding range weapon, without breaking a sweat. Genn in a 1v1 was a greater challange than this.
I wouldn't rely on a cinematic which only purpose was to reveal the way to Shadowlands and a "wooooooooah" moment as a valid source of Sylvanas power.
I know that that's the canon explanation, but if someone ever told me that the skies parted by the sheer might of Sylvanas' arms alone, I would've believed in an instant. It's easier to believe that, actually.
She one-shotted the Saurfang;
She went 1x1 against a Lich King and it was a perfect victory for her;
She sundered a space metal helmet with her bare hands.
That elf could've removed Sargeras' blade from Silithus if she wanted.
Not sure if she would have beaten him or not, but at least it would be more of a fight, as Arthas had the Frostmourne, that alone makes a big difference in the power of both Lich Kings.
The flipside of this is if you can't tell the relative of an established character against other established characters because strength and ability fluctuates wildly and is seemingly tied to 'what the plot needs', that's generally just considered bad writing.
I don't need a scouter to know Samwise couldn't beat Boromir in a fight (without some sort of tactic).
Also Sylvanas was wounded by a senile Saurfang, whereas Lich King effortlessly oneshot a younger and stronger Saurfang.
The Void. A force of infinite hunger. Its whispers have broken the will of dragons... and lured even the titans' own children into madness. Sages and scholars fear the Void. But we understand a truth they do not. That the Void is a power to be harnessed... to be bent by a will strong enough to command it. The Void has shaped us... changed us. But you will become its master. Wield the shadows as a weapon to save our world... and defend the Alliance!
Yes because she has no upper limit for her new powerset, if blizzard wanted to she can.
Also for the millionth time Arthas isn't as powerful as many other things we've faced.
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She seems to get more powerful the more people die. The Black Empire invasion occured between her duel with saurfang and bolvar, she's presumably got stonger between the two fights.
Pretty much my thought process on the difference between Bolvar and Arthas as The Lich King. One considered himself just a jailer, using its power as a tool, while the other embraced it, and had the complete toolkit to exert his ambitions as initially conceptualized and created by Kil'jaeden. "The Lich King" isn't meant to be a jailer of the damned like Bolvar used it, it's meant to be a literal weapon of mass destruction that just obliterates any kingdom, peoples or world it's aimed at. Without Frostmourne to begin with, that power is handicapped, then add a wearer of the armor who actually has scruples, and you're fighting a simile.
Sylvanas defeated a pretender.
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Sylvanas was toying with Saurfang. Saurfang was prepared to die, he was never going to win that fight in a million years and he knew it. Not sure what his true intent was, but he got lucky that scratch made her flip out and unravel her own plans.
Bolvar is easily a far weaker Lich King. He controls less undead than Arthas did and sat still the whole time, while Arthas had Frostmourne and was stated to be growing more and more powerful.
Bolvar took over as the Lich King but maintained his paladin side and be a jailer. Arthas was taken over by an evil doppelganger that's ambition led him to wrest control of the Lich King from the actual Lich King and he then grew the Scourge with his dark ambition(though he did it for the greater good).
Regardless of what anyone on here says(most likely alliance/bolvar fans) Arthas is the most powerful version of the Lich King and embraced it more than Bolvar ever did.
Now in regards to Suped up Sylvanas vs Arthas? If Bolvar is her greatest feat, then no I dont think she could take on Arthas. She mentions a couple times that Bolvar is unworthy of the crown and an usurper... aka he's no Arthas(im thinking she now sees that Arthas did nothing wrong and is going to carry on what he started). Also Arthas toyed with the adventurers and could have killed them at any time, we dont know if Sylvanas is a 25man end raid/expansion level threat yet. Whatever power the Jailer has given her, probably doesn't compare to the Helm+Frostmourne and also the Armor of the Damned(idk if that's still a thing)