What counters should the Alliance have made against the Forsaken Blight ?

[Skytotem]

There is certainly an element of that, but if you think about it in a realistic way, it's a great tool for a military. It's deployed similarly to a bomb, so it already decreases training time. It's not complicated to use, so anybody with working hands can set it off. Unlike a regular bomb its effects linger after the initial explosion.

Unlike in your earlier example, a group of spellcasters would require years of training.

It would absolutely require a lot of training to use since making a mistake in its handling can kill the person using it and anyone nearby. Do you think they don't give lots of training to people who handle artillery and bombs in the military?

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

The Draenei also could have helped, with their use of magic crystals and their previous experience with the Red Mist and at dealing with magical radiations after their arrival on Draenor and on Azeroth.

Maybe the artificers could have created crystals that could absorb and neutralize the Blight.

[Clone]

It would absolutely require a lot of training to use since making a mistake in its handling can kill the person using it and anyone nearby. Do you think they don't give lots of training to people who handle artillery and bombs in the military?

Sure, if you look at it in a vacuum. Military ordinances takes months of training at most, and parts of it are about safety and upkeep. Mages train for years, most of the time in an academic setting so there is the hurdle of jumping into combat based roles.

[Hobbidaggy]

Honestly they kinda backed themselves into a corner when they gave Draenei a multi-millenia tech advantage over the rest of Azeroth back in BC. They pretty much have to either not use the Draenei or make them stupid when it comes to writing a story as the realistic outcome of most things would be "And then the Draenei showed up with magic space crystal weapons and beat everyone"

They wouldn’t though because they aren’t like that. They wouldn’t just go and obliterate things as they would then be no better than the legion they have been running from. They have tried to stay out of most conflicts from that front because yes they probably could wipe out the entire planet and shove giant crystals into it and make an Argus 2.0 but their nature isn’t a warlike nature and to let destiny drive it forward. That was the point of the conversations with illidan and Valen.

One wanted to kill them all the other was happy to have destiny guide them and act only when needed, even against the legion.

[Mehrunes]

Everyone saying gas masks is missing the part where the Blight is a liquid. The mask is there to protect people operating them from vapor. But once you get splashed with the actual thing gas masks are going to do jack shit for you, even if you're into trying to inhale liquids otherwise. It's almost as if it was a weapon designed first and foremost against the Scourge, who aren't exactly breathing connoisseurs. And even putting aside how stronger strains of Blight have been shown to damage even stone buildings to a degree, even if the Alliance pulled masks that are completely immune to being melted by the Blight out of their asses, it's still a liquid so it will just seep down any cracks in armor and melt you anyway.

As for Jaina, her whole shtick at Undercity was just a few of the bazillion layers of deus ex machinas the Alliance needed to survive the corner Blizzard wrote them into there. Because back in WotLK we did have a case of people who were protected from the Blight in the form of the Scarlet Onslaught members in Dragonblight. Which was already seen as an anomaly by the Forsaken back then, much earlier into its development. And it was something the Scarlet Onslaught members themselves did not know either, as they themselves confirmed when you tortured the answers out of them. Because they were being protected by a "prayer" provided to them by a Dreadlord that infiltrated their ranks. If something as basic as "let's freeze that shit" or "let's pop up an arcane barrier" was the answer, both sides would have figured that out rather fast, nor would Dreadlord magic be necessary.

[Leodric]

There would be many ways to fight the blight, but from a lore perspective the Alliance is way more powerful than the Horde and Blizzard had to come up with some kind of new super weapon so they have a chance to fight them. Even then the only way the Horde could do anything is for Blizzard to ignore a lot of the alliances power (lighforged Draenai for example), at the end they still lost though.

[VladlTutushkin]

Everyone saying gas masks is missing the part where the Blight is a liquid. The mask is there to protect people operating them from vapor. But once you get splashed with the actual thing gas masks are going to do jack shit for you, even if you're into trying to inhale liquids otherwise. It's almost as if it was a weapon designed first and foremost against the Scourge, who aren't exactly breathing connoisseurs. And even putting aside how stronger strains of Blight have been shown to damage even stone buildings to a degree, even if the Alliance pulled masks that are completely immune to being melted by the Blight out of their asses, it's still a liquid so it will just seep down any cracks in armor and melt you anyway.

As for Jaina, her whole shtick at Undercity was just a few of the bazillion layers of deus ex machinas the Alliance needed to survive the corner Blizzard wrote them into there. Because back in WotLK we did have a case of people who were protected from the Blight in the form of the Scarlet Onslaught members in Dragonblight. Which was already seen as an anomaly by the Forsaken back then, much earlier into its development. And it was something the Scarlet Onslaught members themselves did not know either, as they themselves confirmed when you tortured the answers out of them. Because they were being protected by a "prayer" provided to them by a Dreadlord that infiltrated their ranks. If something as basic as "let's freeze that shit" or "let's pop up an arcane barrier" was the answer, both sides would have figured that out rather fast, nor would Dreadlord magic be necessary.

The masks helped though, and worked as seen during that quest on the Wharf.

Also if we assume that they dont work and well, nothing works than i think we are about to end once and for all the endless whinge of the Horde fans about “not having OP heroes”.

Why the fuck you even need OP heroes when you have a literal “i win” button aka the Blight which has no counter and basically is a perfect WMD. Any single fucken soldiers can turn into a legendary hero level threat.

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There would be many ways to fight the blight, but from a lore perspective the Alliance is way more powerful than the Horde and Blizzard had to come up with some kind of new super weapon so they have a chance to fight them. Even then the only way the Horde could do anything is for Blizzard to ignore a lot of the alliances power (lighforged Draenai for example), at the end they still lost though.

Because Horde was a badly thought through concept in on itself and subsequent mishandling by Blizz only made the issue worse.

[loras]

Frankly the bigger problems are that...

1. The Blight is Boring

2. Blizz never really bothered to explain how it works and what makes it any more dangerous than say... A bunch of spellcasters or regular siege weapons.

This and....

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1. Fire: If the gas burns then the first thing to do is start throwing fire at it to explode the enemies.

2. Frost: If the gas isn't flammable then does freezing render it inert?

3. Gas masks: I don't know why gas masks work since half the time it's a sludge and half the time it's a gas that just melts by skin contact... But it seems to work most of the time, so the gnomes should've made some for Gnomeragan and mass produced blightproof ones for the Alliance.

4. Lightning: For when the Blight is a goo. Do Lightning to it with gnome tesla coils or Wildhammer storm it

This too...


Ultimately they failed to realise that a bioweapon is either not actually useful to a non irredeemably evil faction, walked right into that problem and then resorted to making it more localised like a half-baked small "virus bomb" analogue (seevWarhammer 40k). But since that doesn't really work in a setting like Warcraft and under the constraints they've set themselves it's now basically just a crossover between mustard gas and intrusive acid.

It's just got nothing to do with plagues anymore and it's a pretty mediocre tool all things considered.
Also one for which plenty of counters already exist, but which are not employed because of StupidBall writing.

[Combatbutler]

Actually used their fucking brains in an effort to analize the plague to create a countermeasure, but alas the people of the warcraft universe all suffer terminal brain damage and always charege right ahead, with zero plans.

[Darth-Piekus]

Because Horde was a badly thought through concept in on itself and subsequent mishandling by Blizz only made the issue worse.

Trust me Vlad. When the Horde needs to start a war usually the opposition mainly the Alliance and secondary every neutral faction usually go brain dead so the Horde can be shown as unstoppable conquerors of Azeroth. It is a painful story that gave nothing but shitty expansions and it was the best to have moved from that.

[Powerogue]

Get ready to have your mind blown.

[Calfredd]

Actually used their fucking brains in an effort to analize the plague to create a countermeasure, but alas the people of the warcraft universe all suffer terminal brain damage and always charege right ahead, with zero plans.

Would that really work though when the Forsaken kept changing it to work differently or more potently? Seems like the plague was changing faster than the flu virus.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

Another possibility, for Void Elves and Dark Iron warlocks, would be of using their shadow powers to send the Blight into the Void.

[Maleific]

More demi-god tier faction leaders.