Baine is the worst leader.

[Jastall]

For gameplay, not story. Story that is often mocked and ridiculed to the extent of Blizzard using the setback memes. Stop being dishonest.

Not only that, but by Shadowlands literally every single one of its raid endbosses came back somehow, that's how incredibly irrelevant it was.

Prince Malchezzar is seen on the Broken Shore, same for Magtheridon.

Gruul is back in WoD. Archimonde as well.

KJ was back in Legion, even if that one at least makes sense.

Now for the big ones, Vashj, Kael'thas and Illidan were all back in either Legion or Shadowlands, and all three had their characters basically reset to WC3 factory default. If that's not an indictment of TBC even from the writers of today, nothing is.

[Syegfryed]

Tauren are presumably pacifist in nature. In that regard Baine probably did what was in line for the culture of the Tauren.

Else if they're not pacifist in nature, I wouldn't know why it seems to be a continuously recurring theme for them.

being pacifists don't mean they are peace lovers fools, they fight when they have to fight, and there is other tribes who are more blood and thunder than "send your bodyparts to alliance leaders

[Mehrunes]

You give Garrosh therapy in Nagrand. You don't save him in either Borean Tundra or Twilight Highlands. As for Forsaken, check your memory, or just read the quests at the very start of Tirisfal - it's told to you in literally the first quest.

To be fair, if we can't expect Golden to read the first Forsaken quest even while she was writing a book where they had a significant role, we can't expect forum posters to read it either.

I'm not sure people care about faction war as much as blizzard thinks we do. I certainly didn't like the commercials or the idea of the xpac at all since its been done before. It just goes to show they don't have the talent anymore to make anything fresh. Faction pride was cool when I was like 15.

Its ok though its time to ride the wotlk 2.0 train, what will we rehash next?

I dread the time when they'll get to rehashing WoD.

[Super Dickmann]

It definitely did happen, whether it was a pre-patch World Quest or something else, I'll have to keep digging to find it but I remember it quite well. It took place near Lor'danel and it came from Saurfang, talking about how the civilians shouldn't be caught up in this murder and to help them get out alive.

Now if that's what you mean by "that's one of many settlements", I feel like I should point out I never said he helped save civilians from Teldrassil nor implied that either, a bit of an assumption there.

That's what I'm getting at - Saurfang only does this in Lor'danel and it's after he's already masterminded the invasion in the first place, an invasion where he was the one who planned to put Teldrassil at the proverbial gunpoint. Sylvanas got no opposition for the act from anyone but him afterwards, and once he's gone, even non-undead forces in Darkshore are a lot more brutal. I got the impression you meant after Teldrassil by this comment from you:

No one expected it, nothing hinted towards it at all. Saurfang even helps save civilians after and has the Horde champions do so too, as was seen in the pre-patch event for BfA.

I.e "No one expected it (The Burning). Saurfang even helps save civilians after..." which we both know doesn't happen.

@Mehrunes

This is coming from the same poster who gave us "Calia having been forsaken by the forsaken playerbase is exactly why she should be the leader", so you know how it is.

[Aucald]

This never happens - your only input into saving civilians is in the attack of one of many settlements. Saurfang himself approved sending armies of rogues preemptively in the War of Thorns. Later on, the Darkspear trolls in Darkshore use night elves as target practices and orcs fight alongside skeletons.

It definitely did happen, whether it was a pre-patch World Quest or something else, I'll have to keep digging to find it but I remember it quite well. It took place near Lor'danel and it came from Saurfang, talking about how the civilians shouldn't be caught up in this murder and to help them get out alive.

Now if that's what you mean by "that's one of many settlements", I feel like I should point out I never said he helped save civilians from Teldrassil nor implied that either, a bit of an assumption there.

The quest you're looking for is No Small Mercy, in which Saurfang orders: "I will not slay innocents. If they do not raise arms against us, we shall spare them. Enter Lor'danel and capture any civilians you find there. They shall be questioned and then released." The released civilians are sent on their way by the Horde champion, with many of them thanking him/her for their mercy.

[Mehrunes]

As a blanket statement, being evil doesn't make you a bad leader, sure that can be true but they do usually end up contradicting each other and Sylvanas is a perfect example of that.

Reminder, even in Legion she was Warchief of the Horde, and while people love to rail Genn for his actions in Stormheim, it seems to go under the radar that Sylvanas took off with a small group of her own followers in an attempt to enslave Eyir, which would have placed Odyn against the Horde as a result.

Not only did Odyn have fuck all of a reaction to Sylvanas teaming up with his arch-nemesis and trying to enslave his current prime Val'kyr (whom he likely could replace just as he replaced Helya after she rebelled), but he merrily egged the factions on in some world quests in the name of VALOR. And even if his reaction to Sylvanas succeeding would actually have been something else despite there being no evidence towards that, without the Horde players' help he'd be stuck in his demented theme park, unable to strike back.

And if you're getting at it from the "we needed Odyn to get the Aegis" angle, need I remind that Odyn, in his VALOR-induced derangement, gave Skovald one final chance to obtain the Aegis? Even though Skovald wanted to give it to the Legion, which would have fucked over Azeroth and, consequently, all of creation? And despite the fact that he already blatantly cheated in each and every trial by that time? And the only reason Odyn did that was just because he wanted to get hard watching him fight the players, because Viagra doesn't cut it for him anymore.

So chances are he'd let us do that all the same, even if Sylvanas enslaved Eyir only to then turn her into a monument just outside the entrance of Halls of Valor with a "Fuck you, Odyn" engraved on her forehead.

At the time, this was thought to maybe be her trying to find a means to secure the Forsaken's future, but now it's shown that all along she was just working for the Jailer at that time. She also chose to align with Helya, who is shown to be a villain in general, past her hate for Odyn (who did screw her over, yes, but she isn't just looking for revenge against him anymore).

Sylvanas' plans are so inconsistent *cough* because Blizzard had to outright retcon them (more than once) to get her into the comical spot where they wanted her to be *cough* it's impossible to say what she was doing at that specific moment, but it still warrants mentioning that when she learned some members of the Desolate Council were against the idea of living forever, she took it as a personal slight against her attempts to secure a future for the Forsaken.

And I'm honestly confused how you're trying to say that forgiving the Horde led to Teldrassil. The Alliance certainly didn't "forgive" at that point for Varian still (leaving aside whether or not they're in the right for blaming them). Anduin himself might have not harbored hate exactly, he was still distrustful of Sylvanas. The real reason for the lull wasn't out of forgiveness, it's because both factions were just getting back from a huge war against the Legion and now there's a giant sword in Azeroth. The last thing anyone thought to do was to go back to war, except Sylvanas.

The very reason why Sylvanas got to invade Ashenvale practically unopposed is because Tyrande convinced Anduin to send Night Elven forced to Silithus. To wage war on the Horde. Because Alliance deluded itself to think they have any right to dictate what the Horde can mine or not. Then there's Genn and Rogers merrily attacking the Horde in Stormheim despite Azeroth's Satan trying to destroy the world at the time and Shaw ordering his people to gather Azerite samples by slaughtering Goblin miners, just because passive observation (very surprisingly) resulted in no samples and he couldn't fathom having his people sneak into the Horde camp without killing anyone.

[Super Dickmann]

The quest you're looking for is No Small Mercy, in which Saurfang orders: "I will not slay innocents. If they do not raise arms against us, we shall spare them. Enter Lor'danel and capture any civilians you find there. They shall be questioned and then released." The released civilians are sent on their way by the Horde champion, with many of them thanking him/her for their mercy.

Yeah, that's the one I was getting at - it seems to be a one-time decision by Saurfang, not an overall policy he's practiced if the novella or the quests where you can go around offing people in Astranaar is any indication, and especially with both Teldrassil and what you see in Darkshore later on.

@Mehrunes

If you take Sylvanas's internal narration into account then you don't need to go into the oblique comments - she states flatly that she wanted Eyir so as to make the Forsaken immortal. I didn't bring this up in connection to this topic since pretty much all of Sylvanas's BTS internal monologue is effectively non-canon and they've already said we'll learn the 'real reason' in Shadowlands.

[Aucald]

Yeah, that's the one I was getting at - it seems to be a one-time decision by Saurfang, not an overall policy he's practiced if the novella or the quests where you can go around offing people in Astranaar is any indication, and especially with both Teldrassil and what you see in Darkshore later on.

Lorash intimates but doesn't outright say that he's under order not to kill civilians in Astranaar, as he mentions that killing the various merchants or priestesses is not required (and do not count to your goal in the quest). I wouldn't be surprised if this was the substance of Saurfang's orders in Astranaar too, but Lorash doesn't really care overly about honor or mercy when it comes to the Kaldorei (for personal reasons of his own) so just casually mentions as opposed to enforcing it.

[Super Dickmann]

Lorash intimates but doesn't outright say that he's under order not to kill civilians in Astranaar, as he mentions that killing the various merchants or priestesses is not required (and do not count to your goal in the quest). I wouldn't be surprised if this was the substance of Saurfang's orders in Astranaar too, but Lorash doesn't really care overly about honor or mercy when it comes to the Kaldorei (for personal reasons of his own) so just casually mentions as opposed to enforcing it.

My impression of it is that Saurfang would try and avoid civilian casualties whenever possible, but also that he's likely more scrupulous than the people both at the start of that war and the ones that we see later on once the Horde temporarily holds Darkshore. We can say pretty certainly that Saurfang didn't actually chop any civilians himself unlike in Stormwind given how pointed his reaction to cleaving down a young combatant was.

[Katsutomai]

You've had 2 batshit crazy genocidal maniacs, but somehow Baine is the worst? Suuuuure..

[Mehrunes]

My impression of it is that Saurfang would try and avoid civilian casualties whenever possible, but also that he's likely more scrupulous than the people both at the start of that war and the ones that we see later on once the Horde temporarily holds Darkshore. We can say pretty certainly that Saurfang didn't actually chop any civilians himself unlike in Stormwind given how pointed his reaction to cleaving down a young combatant was.

Can we say that certainly? We are talking the guy that threw the entire war just because it wouldn't be HoNoRaBlE to strike one dude from behind just after he sent a squadron of Horde soldiers to sneakily scale the slope of Hyjal to strike a whole bunch of dudes from behind. Who, when cornered by Nathanos about all the death among Horde members Malfurion would cause because of that, told him he'd deal with it when the time comes because HoNoR only to never do anything of the sort. There is nothing even resembling consistency to Saurfang's lolhonor. For all we know during War of Thorns Saurfang personally killed Kaldorei children by ripping out their livers through their ears after every time he farted, because that's what his magical 8-ball told him to be honorable.

[Ielenia]

--inoffensively good--
Queen Talanji

I wouldn't exactly call Talanji "inoffensively good" considering the woman does not like the armistice between the factions and wants to continue the war to avenge her father's death, as far as I know.

[Syegfryed]

No one else even mentions Teldrassil afterwards except for a God of War meme character and Lor'themar, but the latter only brings it up after the war is already over. Sylvanas's orders were followed with zero hesitation from either the catapult teams or the shamans who helped speed up the flame and resulted in no uprising. Nothing resulted in a large scale uprising, the Horde schism was solved when Sylvanas herself called them all names and flew off, not a mass movement against her on the basis of Teldrassil or any other moral failing. The Horde is culpable for Teldrassil, not just Sylvanas.

and people have the straight face to say bfa have good lore and good writing, seems like every time we say it became even more obnoxious.

[Traveler Voltin]

Tauren are presumably pacifist in nature. In that regard Baine probably did what was in line for the culture of the Tauren.

Else if they're not pacifist in nature, I wouldn't know why it seems to be a continuously recurring theme for them.

Tauren are suppose to be peaceful and shamanistic but if you mess with them then you are doomed.

Baine is a fail of a representative of tauren culture.

[LemonDemonGirl]

I wouldn't exactly call Talanji "inoffensively good" considering the woman does not like the armistice between the factions and wants to continue the war to avenge her father's death, as far as I know.

Yeah she's just as vengeful as Jaina is/was. At least Rastakhan (in spirit form) showing up calmed her down

But if she dosen't let go of the fact that he died, well... We'll have another vengeful character on our hands. Besides, continuing the war would mean more resources/lives being taken away, which Zandalar is pretty low on right now

[Traveler Voltin]

Cairne was the perfect tauren.
Baine is trash tier.

[qwerty123456]

No, he didn't. It's Saurfang who saves you after Garrosh sends you to a shit location, not you who save Garrosh. The game goes out of its way to tell you how Garrosh is successfully waging war, including Saurfang himself sending you a letter about it how Garrosh is winning so much that it's sending a message he's worried about to the rest of the Horde. This is mirrored in what Cairne says later in the Shattering about how often Garrosh was successful in Northrend. Ditto, you don't save Garrosh in Twilight Highlands. You crash after he peels away his support, then he pops back up some quests after you crashed without you fishing him out.

Garrosh was constantly sending people to their deaths. Eventually he was going to run out of people. We have to save the base from being overrun and guess who is in the base??? He even sends us to our deaths because he has no strategy other then sending people until one of em succeeds. If not for Saurfang we would have been dead and the necromancer could have overrun the place. Oh so Garrosh getting nearly everyone killed in Twilight Highlands and us picking up the pieces isn't saving him? You really think he would have been able to get anything done without us? We the player are literally the only reason why he is seen as a competent leader.

Harley Quinn was indeed brought in for sex appeal and stories have multiple selling points, that's quite right - but the Rogues Gallery is a huge part of Batman's selling point. Ditto, Horde vs. Alliance is core to how the game has been sold and its appeal. Ditto, Warcraft has many more selling points than the above, but this is one of the crucial ones. And just like how Batman wouldn't be Batman without the rogues, Warcraft wouldn't be Warcraft without orcs and humans. Hell, it's the first thing you do when making a character - pick a race and wow, some of them are red and others are blue.

A huge part of his selling point and yet comics without the rogues or even with Batman as a villain can make bank. It's almost as if its the writing and plot that are more important................

That's true, there are detractors. But compared to the detractors of 'Sylvanas fails to kill burning man' and 'Woo Pandas' as expansion trailers and selling points, BFA made off like gangbusters and it was, unlike any other expansion, sold theme-wise solely on the basis of the faction war. Yet it featured less faction war than either Cataclysm or Mists.

You keep saying that and yet you have no proof. I have already linked you the quests. Do I need to hold your hand and count out every one with you?

People in this very topic for one. You, for participating in this thread while there's five Jailor threads up where you haven't written a thing. Hell, the last time I saw you post in this sub-forum it was about Horde reparations. The majority of threads at time of writing tackle races and faction at a glance at the present lore page. I will admit though that the Nightborne were a massive ommission on my part and that you are quite right that they were the most approved of story bit of Legion, ditto Suramar.

Also the high elf posters don't count since they have a containment thread. This is one of a long line of a million Baine threads that all tackle the same points. If Aucald have made a Cow Appreciation Society thread it'd be different.

Just because its a few fanatics that create and respond in the same threads doesn't mean its a major topic. And just because a mod doesn't combine them all into one thing doesn't matter. Does the T man turning 6 threads a week into a certain hero class mean everyone is clamoring for them? No.

Press X to Doubt. You've been wrong about everything regarding Garrosh and you will a little while from now tell me about how Howling Fjord lacks faction quests despite a list that shows how many of them there are relative to faction content and the zone kicking it off Horde-side with that. Something you'd know if you played Horde rather than claim you do for some reason.

Hundreds is really pushing it. There's more faction quests in Jade Forest than there are in all of BFA's launch material, but that's neither here nor there. When it comes to Howling Fjord, as I told you in my last post, you literally start the zone as Horde fighting the Alliance and that follows on for about ten quests. This doesn't include the faction exclusive quests regarding the Blight and so forth, but mostly as a courtesy towards you - if I included them I'd have to cut not just the anti-faction quests, of which there are as noted - three in a side area of Zuldazar, but also the initial parts of the war campaign that you chiefly spend going after unrelated factions. I will give you though that I was wrong about Borean Tundra as I was remembering faction-exclusive quests rather than faction-fighting quests.

Literally count them out like you did with that 8 quest questline. I might have been wrong about about it being 8 quest questlines instead of 5 but I am right about them being a small portion of the zones over all quest. You claiming there is less faction conflict in BFA is just complete and utter bullshit.

You were remembering faction exclusive quests against the other faction that doesn't exist and never has existed? Or do you mean you just quickly checked the wiki and saw a horde flag on em so you assumed it was faction fighting content because you don't actually play the game? Honestly I don't believe you actually play the game and just wiki and book stuff. That's the only logical reason why you would be such a Garrosh and faction conflict fanboy as he is less inept in the books.

Sure, just off this sub-forum alone the only ones thought to be worse are WoD and BFA - https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...the-worst-Lore. TBC is widely considered to have some of the worst lore of all time, and dev action shows you this given how they dealt with Illidan, Vashj and Kael'thas later and how Suramar is essentially the blood elf TBC story except done better.

Of 500 voters. Wow that sure is all of the WoW players. And there certainly couldn't be any trolls in it.......

[Jester Joe]

That's what I'm getting at - Saurfang only does this in Lor'danel and it's after he's already masterminded the invasion in the first place, an invasion where he was the one who planned to put Teldrassil at the proverbial gunpoint. Sylvanas got no opposition for the act from anyone but him afterwards, and once he's gone, even non-undead forces in Darkshore are a lot more brutal. I got the impression you meant after Teldrassil by this comment from you:


I.e "No one expected it (The Burning). Saurfang even helps save civilians after..." which we both know doesn't happen.

As Aucald linked here-

The quest you're looking for is No Small Mercy, in which Saurfang orders: "I will not slay innocents. If they do not raise arms against us, we shall spare them. Enter Lor'danel and capture any civilians you find there. They shall be questioned and then released." The released civilians are sent on their way by the Horde champion, with many of them thanking him/her for their mercy.

I definitely did mean after Teldrassil, but I hiccuped the order I suppose. That's my fault, but ultimately my point is still that Saurfang was definitely not for burning down a tree full of innocents and wouldn't have led anything if he knew it ended in that.

Not only did Odyn have fuck all of a reaction to Sylvanas teaming up with his arch-nemesis and trying to enslave his current prime Val'kyr (whom he likely could replace just as he replaced Helya after she rebelled), but he merrily egged the factions on in some world quests in the name of VALOR. And even if his reaction to Sylvanas succeeding would actually have been something else despite there being no evidence towards that, without the Horde players' help he'd be stuck in his demented theme park, unable to strike back.

Odyn's oddities in decisions doesn't change the fact that he's been shown to be extremely vengeful towards those who screw him over.

Is he hypocritical, flawed, and hasty possibly? Sure. But claiming that he would do nothing after you've already seen how vengeful he was towards Helya for screwing him over? How much he hated her for not only imprisoning him, but also stealing the souls of noble vrykul?

Later, Odyn would discover that Helya had developed a way of turning even the souls of Stormforged Valarjar into her twisted kvaldir. Outraged, he would rally a force of champions and, having tested them himself personally, he sent them into Helheim with the goal of vanquishing Helya. They would battle through waves of the Sea-Witch's minions, before confronting her. After a desperate fight, they were successful in killing Helya, and in doing so freed Odyn and the Valarjar from their millennia-long containment

He sent us after her because of that. Not just for himself. If he did nothing, it would have been completely out of character.

And if you're getting at it from the "we needed Odyn to get the Aegis" angle, need I remind that Odyn, in his VALOR-induced derangement, gave Skovald one final chance to obtain the Aegis? Even though Skovald wanted to give it to the Legion, which would have fucked over Azeroth and, consequently, all of creation? And despite the fact that he already blatantly cheated in each and every trial by that time? And the only reason Odyn did that was just because he wanted to get hard watching him fight the players, because Viagra doesn't cut it for him anymore.

And yet he aided us along the way as Havi. And yet when Skovald shows up in Halls of Valor, he gets shot down by Odyn. Either way, this is pretty irrelevant to the point of "Sylvanas acted for her own reasons instead of the Horde's". You can't defend her by trying to attack another character.

The very reason why Sylvanas got to invade Ashenvale practically unopposed is because Tyrande convinced Anduin to send Night Elven forced to Silithus. To wage war on the Horde. Because Alliance deluded itself to think they have any right to dictate what the Horde can mine or not. Then there's Genn and Rogers merrily attacking the Horde in Stormheim despite Azeroth's Satan trying to destroy the world at the time and Shaw ordering his people to gather Azerite samples by slaughtering Goblin miners, just because passive observation (very surprisingly) resulted in no samples and he couldn't fathom having his people sneak into the Horde camp without killing anyone.

You seem to forget Sylvanas ordered her army to march to Silithus to intentionally cause the Alliance to send their army there. In fact, no one but Saurfang knew they weren't going there.

Again, no one wanted war, but they saw Sylvanas trying to start one and reacted. This isn't even a debate, it's literally flat out in the books. The entire point of A Good War/Elegy was showing that Sylvanas intentionally led the Alliance to think she was starting an assault on Silithus to gain control of the azerite, while she was really going to turn last minute to go to Darkshore. Your headcanon that the Alliance wanted a war is just that, headcanon.

[geco]

Teldrassil burning is, as much as it's memed, is largely on Sylvanas and to some degree also Saurfang.

The plan wasn't to burn Teldrassil. It was to kill Malfurion. When Saurfang spared Malfurion because he felt it was dishonorable, Sylvanas decided to burn the tree instead. It's arguable how much blame actually lands on the Horde itself, but honestly it's pretty irrelevant here because the point is that Sylvanas was the one who ordered it.

No one expected it, nothing hinted towards it at all. Saurfang even helps save civilians after and has the Horde champions do so too, as was seen in the pre-patch event for BfA.

Ok that makes it so much better. His plan is to Kill Malfurion who not only never did anything against the Horde until that moment but also taught Druidism to the Taurens.
Without against you, you already know how to kill the archdruid who spent most of his life just taking care of Nature.

Still, everyone followed Sylvanas without complaint. Until they felt they were starting to lose and Sylvanas attacked Baien. And even so when we have the final fight with Sylvanas. It becomes clear to us that the majority of the Horde was with him. If she doesn't yell "the Horde is nothing" they'll stick with her.

Varock was the "anomali" not Sylvanas. The normal of the Horde seems to be to follow orders and not ask. The Times of Voljin and Caien are over.

Apart. Being complicit in a crime still makes you a criminal.

PS: from Paso Varock who sends hitmen to attack from behind and who happily charges against civilians who try to defend their homes. Because if you read the novels the defenses of the Kaldorei were in civilians and novices.

[Traveler Voltin]

Majority sided with Sylvanas.