Moments where the bad guys should have won

[MsSideEye]

The Lich King Fight, plain and simple.

Before that point in WoW's history (And outside of certain quests, ever sense), Resurrection has always been a game mechanic and never something that actually happens within the context of the character's existence. If you were dead, then that was it. While it's thematic for the fight and one could argue that Terenas, being a spirit and connected to Frostmorne, could resurrect those fighting against Arthas, it still takes away the aspect that Life and Death should MEAN something within the world. just having a revolving door where people could come back without issue just ruins any sense of suspense.

[Aresk]

Vashj'ir and, in particular, Ozumat's kidnapping Neptulon. It felt like that should have actually mattered. Next time we encounter Neptulon, he's free and willing to help against the Legion.

Also, I felt like the mantid should've been a bigger threat. They don't have too much of an impact, with their swarming getting pushed back every single time they surface. It really undercut the lore building up mantid swarms as something the pandaren spent a great time to prepare for.

Lastly, Nazjatar, with the only reason for our success being that Azshara continued to hold back the water. As soon as she got the dagger from Nathanos, there was no reason that she shouldn't have just let the ocean flood in and end the resistance from those on the surface.

If you consider that in Warcraft 3 we needed all armies of Azeroth to stop Archimonde.
Meaning basicly all bosses that are considered stronger then him should have beaten us heck maybe alot more since we are like what 20-40 people lore-wise facing these bosses.

The Horde forces, Alliance refugees, and Sentinels weren't needed to beat Archimonde, jut to delay him so that Malfurion had time to gather enough wisps for his trap. With more foresight, none of the armies would have been necessary. Meanwhile, in WoD, we were channeling the arcane might of the Highmaul empowered with the ancient capabilities of the Apexis through legendary rings. IMO, it seemed comparable.

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The Lich King Fight, plain and simple.

Before that point in WoW's history (And outside of certain quests, ever sense), Resurrection has always been a game mechanic and never something that actually happens within the context of the character's existence. If you were dead, then that was it. While it's thematic for the fight and one could argue that Terenas, being a spirit and connected to Frostmorne, could resurrect those fighting against Arthas, it still takes away the aspect that Life and Death should MEAN something within the world. just having a revolving door where people could come back without issue just ruins any sense of suspense.

We had resurrection quests prior to that point, though. The Horde has a questline in Borean Tundra all focused on resurrecting a dead shaman, for instance. It was definitely rare, but it's been a thing since WC3 paladins.

[deenman]

- Archimonde's defeat at Dreanor (It took a lot more to defeat him at Hyjal, so it's a bit strange we defeated him with a bit more ease. He could've wiped us out)

well in draenor we had khadgar,gromm,yrel and we as the champions were way more of a big deal than the random foorsoldiers in hyjal

[ohwell]

- The confrontation with the Lich King (We were beaten... only by a strange twist of fate, we were resurrected and won)
- Archimonde's defeat at Dreanor (It took a lot more to defeat him at Hyjal, so it's a bit strange we defeated him with a bit more ease. He could've wiped us out)
- Kil'Jaiden's defeat (We mopped the floor with the Legion, only to find out that Sargeras were closeby all along... it could've ended badly!)
- Argus' defeat (Argus could've and would've murdered us if it weren't for the deus ex machina)
- N'zoth's defeat (Supposedly, an Azerothian Kamehameha is all that was needed...)

We've had too many run ins with death...

I know it's a game and we're meant to win, but it'd be good to occasionally lose, in a gameplay sense. That way we can work on a story where we're the underdogs again!

We beat other old gods without it and Nzoth was weaker than those we killed. He's lucky he even got that attention as he was also humiliated and beaten down twice in his lifetime before us(Ysh and keepers).

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Vashj'ir and, in particular, Ozumat's kidnapping Neptulon. It felt like that should have actually mattered. Next time we encounter Neptulon, he's free and willing to help against the Legion.

Also, I felt like the mantid should've been a bigger threat. They don't have too much of an impact, with their swarming getting pushed back every single time they surface. It really undercut the lore building up mantid swarms as something the pandaren spent a great time to prepare for.

Lastly, Nazjatar, with the only reason for our success being that Azshara continued to hold back the water. As soon as she got the dagger from Nathanos, there was no reason that she shouldn't have just let the ocean flood in and end the resistance from those on the surface.



The Horde forces, Alliance refugees, and Sentinels weren't needed to beat Archimonde, jut to delay him so that Malfurion had time to gather enough wisps for his trap. With more foresight, none of the armies would have been necessary. Meanwhile, in WoD, we were channeling the arcane might of the Highmaul empowered with the ancient capabilities of the Apexis through legendary rings. IMO, it seemed comparable.

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We had resurrection quests prior to that point, though. The Horde has a questline in Borean Tundra all focused on resurrecting a dead shaman, for instance. It was definitely rare, but it's been a thing since WC3 paladins.

In terms of Azshara.....did....did you even play the game or pay attention to the lore? It's literally explained. She wasn't after the dagger. She wanted us and the heart.

[Dellis0991]

That one Indiana Jones style quest where our character nearly got dusted....we should've got dusted.

[Aresk]

We beat other old gods without it and Nzoth was weaker than those we killed. He's lucky he even got that attention as he was also humiliated and beaten down twice in his lifetime before us(Ysh and keepers).

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In terms of Azshara.....did....did you even play the game or pay attention to the lore? It's literally explained. She wasn't after the dagger. She wanted us and the heart.

She did want the dagger, as she was planning on using it against N'zoth (Wrathion had the same plan, hence why Wrathion needed us to rescue her in Nyalotha). As for the Heart, that's a fair argument, but I don't see why she couldn't just pluck it off our water-bloated corpses. Given all the minions she put between us and her, she clearly didn't care if we died on our way to her, and she only cared about our empowering the heart, which had been accomplished at that point. Unless soulbinding has some lore significance, we didn't seem particularly important.

[Melusine]

I still don't understand why the Legion, under Lord Kazzak, opened the dark portal. They Legion didn't have any position on Outland to fight against Illidan-Vashj-Kael'thas. I also don't understand how Illidan and company got painted as the bad guys for the expansion.

Considering the Naaru, under the lead of A'Dal, led the charge against the trio, there is very likely something the Naaru did not tell us. It also did not help the narrative when Voren'thal and the defecting Scryer Blood Elves show up on the doorstep of the ruined Shattrath and surrender to him. Kael'thas may not have been the best person to send the message, either. His Blood Elf saboteurs were what caused the Exodar to crash land on Azeroth, making the Draenei the enemy of Kael'thas and his blood elves right off the rip. Akama also fed us a narrative about how when Magtheridon was defeated in the Black Temple, by Illidan and company, that Karabor had just traded one tyrant in place of a much nastier tyrant. AND... Maiev was still very intent on capturing or killing Illidan.

There were just too many factors working against them, and no dialect between them to explain each other's positions.

[Tojara]

Archimonde dying in WoD isn't really that big of a stretch. We were infused with a ring that drew from lots of ancients magics in Draenor and were accompanied by pretty legendary heroes during the entire ordeal. Also while in WoW it's depicted that we take down these legendary encounters with 20-40 people, I'd like to imagine powerful threats are usually taken down sort of like how the WoD cinematic was portrayed with hundreds of Orcs harassing Mannoroth. While Grom was the one to give the killing blow, the nuisance the rest of the clans provided can't really be understated.

Something to keep in mind when comparing Archimonde in WC3 vs WoD is that the one in WC3 literally had a giant army. Archimonde in WoD, at least how he was presented was by himself with occasional bits of him summoning demons. The WC3 one had the literal scourge behind him and numerous lieutenants aiding him that were probably slightly to moderately lower in power than somebody as capable as Mannoroth was.

Figureheads are strong but most of them aren't really as strong as we think without an actual army behind them. The scourge (I'm just using the story as it was presented in WC3, not modern WoW) was necessary for a few particular reasons. One was to secure an army of Azeroth with no ulterior motives (obviously we learn otherwise) and the second was to require the means necessary to bring power demons to Azeroth such as Archimonde to begin with.

[Loreth88]

The Broken Shore - The Alliance and the Horde were both defeated and sent packing. It was then that Heroes rallied their Class Order Halls and beat back the Legion. Once the Alliance and Horde failed they should have been disbanded then... BfA should never had happened... still salty about that.

And I'm Still pissed about we get Class Order Halls instead of Racial gathering and progress. It was a perfect opportunity for the races get new buildings, ships new heroes/leaders, quest/storys. Racial armies, like in W3, that's the way we can win against that huge legion's of demons in our doorstep thanks to Illidan.
If they do that we get more racial identity, not just some forgettable class crap when all priest is a same priest etc....

[Zendhal The Black]

In wotlk, there should have been a "failed" assault on Icecrown that would result in a crushing defeat by Lich King (maybe even first raid instead of Naxx) and then there would be argent tournament where Tirion train champions against LK

Cataclysm detto, raid where Deathwing (in human form!!!!) whoops our arses and then we go against him

[MsSideEye]

We had resurrection quests prior to that point, though. The Horde has a questline in Borean Tundra all focused on resurrecting a dead shaman, for instance. It was definitely rare, but it's been a thing since WC3 paladins.

There are a lot of quests in the game that acknolwedge game mechanics. There's a forsaken quest where YOU are the quest giver for a bunch of NPCs, and it's basically WoW poking fun at itself at that point. There's also a quest that has a dragon in love with a Spirit Healer, one in which you've got to kill yourself to actually meet with. I don't really consider EITHER of these two quests to be something that the actual lore team actually upholds as 'This is a real thing within our world' because at that point you've got to question just how much of the in game mechanics actually exist within Warcraft.

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

The LK shit was forshadowed since 3.0's prepatch with the Ashbringer. Dunno how that went over your head...

There's something about internet-anonimity that makes people say crazy stuff that they wouldn't say in person. Don't be a dick! Who says it went over my head?

I merely stated that we were supposed to die. In fact.. we had died, were it not for the resurrection. If that had failed, we would have served the Lich King as his Death Knight elite squad.

[ThatsOurEric]

I also wonder if Lei Shen was just weak enough to be killed or if he held back and was killed because of his own mistake.

IIRC, his reawakening was incomplete, so he wasn't at full power.

Yeah.. I sometimes wonder if Algalon 'gave us the win' because he saw the future a bit and knew what was gonna happen anyway.

Nah, as stated by someone else, he had a change of heart when he saw how fiercely the Champions of Azeroth were fighting to protect their world.

[Eazy]

We lost with Illidan when he was on his death-bed and we also lost to LK.

If it wasn't for Maiev and Tyrion we would've been dead.

Cataclysm detto, raid where Deathwing (in human form!!!!) whoops our arses and then we go against him

I'd love that! The human form of Deathwing wasn't even used in the raid, which makes me sad.

[ThatsOurEric]

The Lich King Fight, plain and simple.

Before that point in WoW's history (And outside of certain quests, ever sense), Resurrection has always been a game mechanic and never something that actually happens within the context of the character's existence. If you were dead, then that was it. While it's thematic for the fight and one could argue that Terenas, being a spirit and connected to Frostmorne, could resurrect those fighting against Arthas, it still takes away the aspect that Life and Death should MEAN something within the world. just having a revolving door where people could come back without issue just ruins any sense of suspense.

In fairness, one of the greatest champions of The Light asked for a miracle during that encounter in order to save us. Had he not done that,
it would've been over.

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

IIRC, his reawakening was incomplete, so he wasn't at full power.



Nah, as stated by someone else, he had a change of heart when he saw how fiercely the Champions of Azeroth were fighting to protect their world.

Yeah that makes sense

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

In wotlk, there should have been a "failed" assault on Icecrown that would result in a crushing defeat by Lich King (maybe even first raid instead of Naxx) and then there would be argent tournament where Tirion train champions against LK

Cataclysm detto, raid where Deathwing (in human form!!!!) whoops our arses and then we go against him

I love the ideas. It would have added tension and stakes to the story.

[MsSideEye]

In fairness, one of the greatest champions of The Light asked for a miracle during that encounter in order to save us. Had he not done that,
it would've been over.

Oh yeah, no doubt! Like I said, it's thematic for an expansion about us fighting the Lich King, the actual lord of the undead, for us to be brought back from the dead to be able to take him down. And had they left it simply at that, I'd probably be fine with it. It's further delving into the realm of the dead and playing jump rope with it that I eventually had a problem with.

[cozzri]

In wotlk, there should have been a "failed" assault on Icecrown that would result in a crushing defeat by Lich King (maybe even first raid instead of Naxx) and then there would be argent tournament where Tirion train champions against LK

Cataclysm detto, raid where Deathwing (in human form!!!!) whoops our arses and then we go against him

We did have a failed assault, Dragonblight questlinea and Wrathgate cinematic.

[Zendhal The Black]

We did have a failed assault, Dragonblight questlinea and Wrathgate cinematic.

That one was almost good. Forsaken (or whoeverthefuck idk too many retcons) won not LK. I'm talking about Lich King in actual raid, where at the end of the last boss (LK himself) for example kills Thassarian, Koltira and Darion, we hop on gunship or dragon or bobbys yacht, peace the F out to collect loot from the box while Tirion is having speech of his life being completly ignored by murderhobos arguing who's getting that 2h axe (Hunter obviously)