Theoretically, if Maraad, Liadrin, and Tirion become Death Knights

[Ardenaso]

Would they still retain their holy Light powers like Sir Zeliek did? Their faith in the Light seems high enough to be this case

[Schattenlied]

If Alexandros couldn't, I doubt any of them could. Zeliek is an absurdly special case.

[Caerule]

Sir Zeliek was such an odd case. His soul seemed to have escaped being twisted by the Scourge, even if his mind and body were forced to obey the orders his master.

It was probably just to make the fight more interesting mechanically to have a Light user in there, and could lorewise be written off like an experiment perhaps. Certainly, his nature, abilities and way of thinking does not seem in line with what we see from regular Death Knights.

I'm gonna guess Zeliek will remain the exception, and that others raised through undeath will have their outlook and nature twisted as normal.

[Razion]

Tirion I think is no question. He'd be maybe the most powerful with the Light in Undeath next to probably maybe theoretically Uther. Maraad I think would be consumed by vengeance and would take down a dark path. His need for retribution against the orcs of Draenor I think would consume him. Liadrin would definitely have a strong connection what with her having seen the reigniting of the Sunwell would be a very strong Paladin in undeath, but probably not nearly as potent or as powerful as characters like Tirion, Uther, or Turalyon would if they were raised.

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If Alexandros couldn't, I doubt any of them could. Zeliek is an absurdly special case.

Wasn't Alexandros directly raised by Kel'Thuzad manually? Was Zeliek ever confirmed to have been raised as directly?

[Schattenlied]

Tirion I think is no question. He'd be maybe the most powerful with the Light in Undeath next to probably maybe theoretically Uther. Maraad I think would be consumed by vengeance and would take down a dark path. His need for retribution against the orcs of Draenor I think would consume him. Liadrin would definitely have a strong connection what with her having seen the reigniting of the Sunwell would be a very strong Paladin in undeath, but probably not nearly as potent or as powerful as characters like Tirion, Uther, or Turalyon would if they were raised.

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Wasn't Alexandros directly raised by Kel'Thuzad manually? Was Zeliek ever confirmed to have been raised as directly?

Don't see how that would make a difference... Consider who all is actually capable of creating a Death Knight... It's basically the Lich King himself and maybe a handful of others directly under him... Do you really think it matters who does the rezzing at that point? It's the same process in any case, Arthas was the only Death Knight who's creation process was unique.

And Zeliek was directly under Kel's control, so I'd be surprised if he wasn't raised by him... I'd be surprised if any of the four horsemen weren't.

[Raisei]

Well, Undead are known to be able to use the Light.

Alonsius Faol a former High Priest of Stormwind that helped found the Paladin Order was a Holy Priest in life and is one now after becoming undead. Calia was literally made undead by the Light so she very likely still has her priest powers.

The only problem seems to be that contact with the Light improves the connection of an undead being's soul with their corpse, thus making them experience the decay of their rotting bodies much stronger then other undead. I can only imagine how horrible and disgusting that must feel. You probably need an extremly strong will to have this happen and still use the Light.

However, Death Knights seemingly do not decay or at least at an extremely slow speed, in fact the raising seems to be able to regenerate bodies in part. They are on a higher level then other undead (much like Liches and San'layn) and thus their bodies might not experience the same problems. So while Light if strong enough can stop their Unholy magic, I don't see why they should not be able to use it if they so choose.
Death Magic is not the opposite of Light in the specturm, but of Life and even by that specturm we know that Priests combine Void and Light into attacks, so with enough willpower you can break all limits.

Which is exactly why I think that the class limitations should disappear. We got so many NPCs and so many combinations that break the rules already that it is just pointless to keep them around. Lemme play my Velf Paladin if I so choose and let me worry about a backstory that explains how it works.

[Ardenaso]

Maraad I think would be consumed by vengeance and would take down a dark path. His need for retribution against the orcs of Draenor I think would consume him.

I got the impression he got relieved and released his burdens when he spend his remaining life force on Yrel

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Between those 3 choices, I would imagine Tirion being the only one who would have "a chance" to still wield the Light after. Maybe Maraad in close second.

[A Chozo]

Would they still retain their holy Light powers like Sir Zeliek did?

Hard to know. People like Zeliek and Withemane have unwavering faith. We don't know how those 3 you mentioned would react once they became Death Knights.

So yes, it's possible, but we don't know how probable.

[omeomorfismo]

accordling to the dk legion campaign, wasnt zeliek (and now whitemane) the special horseman that is "binded" to use the light?

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

Hey, Liadrin could always subjugate a naaru to get some light power stuff when she's dead.

[Koryn123]

I hope they wouldn't do that. It'd cheapen Zeliek's unique nature to just give his gimmick to everyone. The one special person blazes a trail and suddenly everyone else being able to do it like it's nothing (like super saiyan for bratty Kid Trunks vs. the torture Future Trunks had to go through for it) makes the first person to do it seem very ordinary and unremarkable except for the fact that they were the first person we know of to do it.

The Night Warrior seemed really cool and unique and made you think "Wow, I bet the original night warrior was some troll priestess back when the dark trolls worshipped Elune as a loa," but turns out everyone in the universe worships Elune and neither she nor the night warrior is anything unique or special for night elves. A big trend in WoW is that nothing is unique or special and everyone does everything and anyone who tries to do something different is wrong or ignorant, like squishing all Light users into a human basement and making Aponi Brightmane like "Wow, I'm learning so much about the Light," with the implication being that she's basically abandoning the purpose of the Sunwalkers (lorewise being druids who use more sun magic than moon magic to balance the Night Elves' Elune influence in tauren society) to just be the same thing as all the other paladins.

Making everyone the same and narrowing everything down to a science that if you have x amount of faith, you will be this type of death knight makes the world feel so small and boring. It removes all mystery. Scientists are like "For Bigfoot/Loch Ness/etc. to exist, they'd need a large breeding population which just doesn't seem feasible with our current knowledge of their supposed habitat, not to mention the lack of fossil remnants of that potential breeding group, etc., so it probably doesn't exist." Explaining the world and squishing it down to set constant rules removes mystique, room to speculate, and above all, flavor for individuals and individual racial and cultural groups in WoW.

I don't want to know the mysteries of the universe. I don't want to "explore the cosmology chart of WoW." What do roleplayers do? Do they invent some huge new dimension and space army that's supposedly been there all along? No, they work with the existing world and characters and progress those pre-existing stories where Blizzard creates them and then leaves them to rot in obscurity because if it isn't new, it's not interesting enough to attract new players who weren't playing before. Obviously they weren't playing because they weren't interested in the Scarlet Crusade, so we'd better invent something new, throw some spaghetti at the wall and see if it attracts some more flies.

I want WoW to be about Kalimdor, the Eastern Kingdoms, the relationships and conflicts between their inhabitants, and that's it.

Look at it this way: Would you rather help brand new turtle people we've never seen in the story before help baby turtles make it to the water, or would you have preferred to actually SEE the BATTLE FOR AZEROTH, namely the fight between the Forsaken based in a Forsaken-run Shadowfang Keep and the Alliance Worgen-run reoccupied Gilneas?

/rant, I went from "Turn Zeliek's Case Into a Rule" > "Turning Everything in WoW to a Science" > "Making a Rule out of Everything Removes Uncertainty" > "This Distracts from the Areas People Already Love"

The Warcraft franchise used to be about the ongoing story of Azeroth's kingdoms like this epic history you get to live through, but over the years, it's become this ADD-riddled series of billboard content designed to make big, flashy spectacles to try and boost subs. Here's an idea: People went crazy for Arthas' return in WotLK because they enjoyed his previous story and wanted to see it progress. What if...you made the entirety of WoW about progressing preexisting storylines that people are already enormously interested in?

[Ardenaso]

I hope they wouldn't do that. It'd cheapen Zeliek's unique nature to just give his gimmick to everyone. The one special person blazes a trail and suddenly everyone else being able to do it like it's nothing (like super saiyan for bratty Kid Trunks vs. the torture Future Trunks had to go through for it) makes the first person to do it seem very ordinary and unremarkable except for the fact that they were the first person we know of to do it.

fair enough I guess, I thought Maraad or Tirion at least would have the same gimmick; well not all or most or many but at least limited to around 1-4 people

[Alanar]

Tirion I think is no question. He'd be maybe the most powerful with the Light in Undeath next to probably maybe theoretically Uther. Maraad I think would be consumed by vengeance and would take down a dark path. His need for retribution against the orcs of Draenor I think would consume him. Liadrin would definitely have a strong connection what with her having seen the reigniting of the Sunwell would be a very strong Paladin in undeath, but probably not nearly as potent or as powerful as characters like Tirion, Uther, or Turalyon would if they were raised.

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Wasn't Alexandros directly raised by Kel'Thuzad manually? Was Zeliek ever confirmed to have been raised as directly?

in the end nothing of that matters.. since Sir siliek was ust a random guy who managed to keep hes holy powers...

[Koryn123]

fair enough I guess, I thought Maraad or Tirion at least would have the same gimmick; well not all or most or many but at least limited to around 1-4 people

There's also the fact that Blizzard wouldn't have Bolvar control death knights the way Arthas did, because they don't like edginess in any form. All these new death knights Bolvar's raising are just the same as the Ebon Blade, perfectly aware of what they're doing and fully in control of their own actions, and yet none of them are like "I'm a monster, I'm gonna jump off of this citadel to my death," especially the Lightforged Draenei and maybe the Highmountain Tauren who would see themselves as unnatural abominations against the Light/Nature.

So Tirion would just be the same boring bland neutral Tirion, just with a gruffer voice.

[Kokolums]

The lore is completely broken so sure why not.

[Saltysquidoon]

You have to remember that Zeliek was created when the light was meant to be a representation of judeo-christianesque innate goodness that opposed literal demons from hell (that necromancy was a subset of), that story made sense. Now we're in the MoRaLly GrEy era of writing, the light can be naughty boys too and it was opposing the void all along (secretly) the entire point of Zeliek makes no sense.

I mean I find it super strange the titans (who are now order opposing the legion's chaos) spent basically their whole existence popping void pimples and the Naaru have been on the legion's ass 24/7 since they were introduced but suddenly they were actually fighting each other's enemy all along?

[Thage]

Would they still retain their holy Light powers like Sir Zeliek did? Their faith in the Light seems high enough to be this case

Probably not, but not due to lacking ability. Zeliek had to be forced to use the Light by the Lich King as part of his ongoing torment. See, in Warcraft, undead using the Light find it a painful experience--the Forsaken priesthood has an abnormally high suicide rate as constantly using the Light/being healed by the Light feels like being burned from within, and constant exposure to the Light attaches their soul more firmly to their body, allowing them to become aware of their decay, which drives all but the strongest-willed priests mad eventually.

The same is noted as being true of death knights of any stripe. The Ask CDev response on the matter said, I may be paraphrasing slightly, "Undead and Death Knight tanks suffer nobly, and Sir Zeliek really, really hates himself." So it's not that they couldn't but more that they likely wouldn't. It takes a Scarlet Crusade-level zealot, or a willing martyr, to incinerate oneself from within to channel power when they already have access to powers that empower them instead.

[Ardenaso]

Probably not, but not due to lacking ability. Zeliek had to be forced to use the Light by the Lich King as part of his ongoing torment.

I take it Bolvar wouldn't do this to them to spare them the pain?

[Thage]

I take it Bolvar wouldn't do this to them to spare them the pain?

Well, Bolvar doesn't have direct control of the Ebon Blade like Arthas did Zeliek.