End justifies the means is not an excuse for this how practice fel , void and death

[deviantcultist]

Fel magic, void magic, and death magic aren't innately evil. They're no more evil than light or life or arcane. Xe'ra was essentially forcing the light upon Illidan. The botani used life to infest and enslave organisms to spread their own influence. The Kirin Tor and shal'dorei both used different forms of arcane prisons to imprison innocent people. While we can point to Arthas and say death magic destroyed Quel'thelas or point at the Legion and say fel magic destroyed...I'm sure the Legion at some point actually succeeded in destroying something with fel magic, that doesn't make death and fel innately evil or bad to use.

Also, self-sacrifice/self-destruction sounds way more a paladin/light thing than death/fel/void thing.

This is all there is to it.

[Razion]

Even the Light is evil in the hands of someone like Xe'ra.

If you're going to say certain magic is bad, the precedent goes both ways.

Either all magic is dangerous and can't be excused or none is - but you can't be specific and cherry-pick the magic you think is evil based on how it looks.

[geco]

Reminder that Kaldorei and Trolls practice Death and Shadow magic without having trouble with them as long as it is done right.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

End justifies the means and fighting fire with fire is not an excuse for warlock

Correct. In the old lore (Warcraft 2 and 3) using Fel magic literally corrupted you and made you into an insane, power hungry, evil person. Obviously has been retconned since you could play a Warlock with no issues in vanilla.

death knight

I don't recall Death Knights ever being inherently evil. The first and second generation Death Knights (the ones raised by the orcs to help massacre humans) were evil of their own volition. Third generation DKs raised by the Lich King were only evil because the Lich King bound them to his will. Every DK we see ingame has broken free of the Lich King and is a hero trying to do what good they can... at least until Legion made them into evil team killers who raided the Paladin class order for bullshit reasons.

demon hunter

It was nebulous whether or not eating demon souls literally made you evil, like how Warlocks were turned evil for playing with Fel energies. It's nebulous because the one and only demon hunter before Legion, Illidan, was already an evil scumbag of his own will before he started doing that stuff. Obviously by the time Legion rolled around, "Fel energies wrap your soul and make you evil" was retconned so in the modern lore they are acceptable. Unlike the DKs though, their stated motivations were to get revenge by killing demons, not because they're trying to do good with what time they have left... so I guess they're... not really good guys.

shadow priest

Barely had any lore. Similar situation to warlocks where they are evil in lore but never depicted as such ingame.

necromancer

evil and unplayable (unless you want to count Death Knights).

dark shaman

Unambiguously evil and unplayable.

void elf

Would have been corrupted and unambiguously evil according to pre-WoD lore, but since this is a post-WoD warcraft where "light and darkness are just two sides of the same coin" they're just okay.

druid with nightmare magic

cultist with old god/sha magic

Unambiguously evil and unplayable.

witch doctor

Tends to be depicted as just another name for a shaman, doesn't seem to do anything inherently evil.

[Super Dickmann]

OP is entirely correct and it's why trying to inculcate any moral message about methods of war into the game is a complete waste of time and counter to the purpose of the game. Demon Hunters sunder people's souls, Warlocks destroy you at the spiritual level as material to summon demons, shadow priests either melt your brain (pre-WoD) or destroy your soul with the power of cosmic entropy (post-WoD). DKs practice necromancy and give you fifty kinds of diseases. Even mages set you on fire which is considered non-kosher.

The equivalency with the Light doesn't work. You can use the Light for evil but it's inherently good. You can use the void for your own cause if you've got the willpower for it, but it'll still melt your opponent body and soul and constantly tell you to kill your family. Even passive fel use rots the surrounding world because it's based on life force for fuel. Back in the day even arcane was corruptive and humans used to mistrust it in their majority.

[Varodoc]

So by your logic: lying , murdering , stealing , torture and occult can not be use by evil only , but can also be used for doing good and doing the right thing.

By WoW's logic you mean, and by common sense (so my logic too really). Many quests have you lie to demons to infiltrate them, many quests have you murder demons, many quests have you steal from demons, many quests have you torture demons, many quests have you mind-control or do some shady stuff to demons anyway. Don't tell me that while doing those quests you were having a moral dilemma.

[loras]

End justifies the means and fighting fire with fire is not an excuse for warlock , death knight , demon hunter , shadow priest , necromancer , dark ranger , dark shaman , blood mage , void elf , rogue with shadow magic , druid with nightmare magic , cultist with old god/sha magic , witch doctor and shadow hunter to practice and use their evil magic for every twisted ideas that come in their heads.

Also is their any price for their dark powers and by price I mean exhaustion , corruption , paranoia , becoming evil , insanity , suicide , suicide thoughts , madness , spells that backfire resulting in death , sacrifice , self-sacrifice , self-destruction , demonic possesion , possesion , killed by their minions , addiction and getting killed by their powers in the process.

Except there definitely is reason to use it despite the consequences, within the context of warcraft. I mean keep in mind we regularly fight existential threats to just about anything.

The only reason we are exempt (sorta) is that we're the players, but even then we die by the dozens so your "current" living character is just one out of potentially thousands lucky enough not to die / get utterly corrupted / etcetera.

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So by your logic: lying , murdering , stealing , torture and occult can not be use by evil only , but can also be used for doing good and doing the right thing.

Are you familiar with the concepts of "spying" and "warfare"?

Also keep in mind that "occult" has no consequential real world representation, so i'm not entirely sure what you mean with that. If it's the christian-view-of-non-christian-magic-stuff, then that's usually about as evil as christianity itself, which is to say: usually not very.

[Squigglyo]

When you have larger enemies to fight your going to ally with whoever can help you at that moment.

Death Knights were our enemies until we were fighting their master and some of them broke free from his control and offered aide.

Demon Hunters were our enemies until we were invaded by demons.

Warlocks were in the olWarlocks were the enemy until it was seen that they would work for us to fight against the Horde/Alliance



Ultimatly, it comes down to who you want to fight and how far youll go to win.
We have some rather large villians, we need all the help we can get. Saying NO to a class/race just out of principles/morals is just stupid in times of war when you need every bit of help you can get.

[sam86]

well scarlet crusade ruined ur excuse because they are clearly evil and they use light magic, so if we should use only 'good' magic to never be evil/bad/paranoid/insane etc, we can still get it from good clean magic
Dark shamans for example use elemental magic, they just don't ask elements, they force them, which makes the question of 'how' in first place since that is against the root of shaman magic but who cares, surely not blizz who f8cked their own lore without lube for pure gameplay reasons (DK all races, i love wrath but heck wow lore went downhill since tbc, also they did add lot of good ideas, the bad ones outnumber massively the good ideas)

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I don't recall Death Knights ever being inherently evil. The first and second generation Death Knights (the ones raised by the orcs to help massacre humans) were evil of their own volition. Third generation DKs raised by the Lich King were only evil because the Lich King bound them to his will. Every DK we see ingame has broken free of the Lich King and is a hero trying to do what good they can... at least until Legion made them into evil team killers who raided the Paladin class order for bullshit reasons.

then u missed DK since ages, they were never good, they were even more evil version of forsaken, they have no positive emotions, heck they enjoy or need to kill is a basic part of them, hence why they continued fighting after LK fell, if peace ever comes, DKs will probably kill everyone around them with no more enemies
Also classic wow as warlock u are reminded all the time to keep ur power in control, and how arcane (yeah back then fel was just corrupted arcane, not a different new school) can easily corrupt weak minded ppl, u are playing with fire and u may lose control any second, then came female druid and male warrior nelfs and then holy cows came to wow and the idea of class itself became a joke

[voidox]

The equivalency with the Light doesn't work. You can use the Light for evil but it's inherently good. You can use the void for your own cause if you've got the willpower for it, but it'll still melt your opponent body and soul and constantly tell you to kill your family. Even passive fel use rots the surrounding world because it's based on life force for fuel. Back in the day even arcane was corruptive and humans used to mistrust it in their majority.

exactly

cosmic forces are not good or evil in terms of morality as they are just energies, i.e. not sentient... they can be used for either good or evil, as we have seen for each of them.

BUT, each cosmic force also has properties and a specific nature to it that you can look at as good or bad:

Light brings about feelings of positive emotion of hope, courage, comfort and is naturally used to heal/protect/cleanse. Light is literally the source of life itself.

Void imparts feelings like despair, doubt, and panic. Wielding void affects one negatively, mainly in affecting the user's mind and sanity.

fel is destructive by nature. It is entropic, chaotic, extremely volatile and using it leads to corruption of the body.

and so on.

[Scathan]

I'd ask what child first in both cases.

Yes, though. A tool is only as good or evil as the one who wields it.

No the tool isn't good or evil at all. It is a tool. It is the person who is good or evil.

[Maxilian]

Necromancers hardly deal with any of the problems pointed out above, though i guess they do run into "killed by your own minions" every now and then, but Hunters as well, so meh

[starstationprofm]

Evil is subjective.

This is something evil people usually say.

There is such a thing as objectively evil actions.

[Varodoc]

This is something evil people usually say.

There is such a thing as objectively evil actions.

Cool, using the Void isn't. Since Shadow Priest players have been using the Void since forever to defend Azeroth from evil.

Evil is a point of view - Darth Sidious the most top evil person in movie history

The funny thing is that George Lucas even said that Palpatine doesn't see his actions as evil, so even the most evil person in movie history doesn't think he's evil, enough said.

[starstationprofm]

Cool, using the Void isn't.

Using Void and Fel turns you into a ticking time bomb that will eventually explode and take everyone around with you. It also corrupts the land around you, killing off animals and plant life and making the soil barren. So yes, it is evil.

[Ohvul]

Doctors prescribe drugs before knowing the long term effects, even the short term effects / implications on genetic variations.

Sometimes the pursuit of an end justifies utilizing misunderstood means. The only thing relevant is the continuation of time and the cycle of life, which is why in a general scale we see risk taking in the medical field and in the case of wow shadowy/dark magics as being acceptable.

Reality has literally been terraformed by our ancestors misunderstanding of the long term implications of their actions and as you mentioned mental health is one of the repercussions.

[Varodoc]

Using Void and Fel turns you into a ticking time bomb that will eventually explode and take everyone around with you. It also corrupts the land around you, killing off animals and plant life and making the soil barren. So yes, it is evil.

The Shadow Priest PC has been using the Void for decades without incurring into any of that, while at the same time being hailed as a hero by everyone. So I don't know what you're talking about.

[starstationprofm]

The Shadow Priest PC has been using the Void for decades without incurring into any of that, while at the same time being hailed as a hero by everyone. So I don't know what you're talking about.

The Shadow Priest PC has been using the Void for 8 years, not decades.

while at the same time being hailed as a hero by everyone

Obviously. Blizzard isn't going to make one or two classes out of 12 go insane. But the fact remains that just about every NPC that uses the Void has gone crazy or will go crazy.

The Player Character can barely be considered as part of lore.

[Varodoc]

So you thing dictators and tyrants are not evil irl , because from what I remeber Darth Sidious was a dictator and a tyrant from what I seen from star wars movies.

Debate with George Lucas, not with me :shrug:

The Shadow Priest PC has been using the Void for 8 years, not decades.



Obviously. Blizzard isn't going to make one or two classes out of 12 go insane. But the fact remains that just about every NPC that uses the Void has gone crazy or will go crazy.

The Player Character can barely be considered as part of lore.

False. There are plenty of Void users who haven't gone crazy. The "8 years" correction is irrelevant to my point.

[starstationprofm]

The "8 years" correction is irrelevant to my point.

Your point only means anything if we consider the PC part of the lore. Which... he isn't really.

There are plenty of Void users who haven't gone crazy

Yet. Benedictus has. Deathwing has.

If such powerful beings go mad because of the Old Gods, playing around with their powers is sheer stupidity.