The night warrior arc had no purpose, right?

[Accendor]

I was thinking again about the night warrior arc and I feel like I missed something, because if I remember it correctly, it was completely useless and did nothing for the story.

What happened?
Darkshore gets attacked, NEs lose
Tyrande goes Night warrior, attacks Darkshore again and contributes to the victory, however not in any extremely meaningful way. She then faces off against Nathanos, who was NOT infused with Jailer power like Sylvanas was. She should have been able to easily beat him even without the NW power, but even with it, she can not kill him.
SL happens and she joins the frey, jumps into the maw and starts killing Jailor forces, which we later learn are basically endless.
She makes it to Torghast and we help her kill the Amalgam of Souls, which again was no impact on anything, except destroying those NE souls so they don't have to suffer anymore. This could also have been done by the maw walker alone, she was just "tagging along"
We then go on a long quest line to help Tyrande learn how to control the Night Warrior Power and in the end she succeeds.
She uses her newfound control to attack Sylvanas and in the last moment before she kills her, for yet unknown reasons she loses her Night Warrior Powers for a few moments, allowing Sylvanas to escape.
We will most likely never know why (remember: Elune only learns about the whole Jailer/Maw situation and Sylvanas much later, there is even a cinematic about it)
We fight Sylvanas and beat her, without Tyrande, and afterwards get the "you have to chose between vengeance and renewal" part, and she basically gives up the NW powers again.

Wtf happened here and why did this storyline exist? What did I miss?

[Vaedan]

Performing the ritual enabled night elves to get enough momentum to liberate Darkshore.

Even though Jailer's plans in Ardenweald eventually went almost as intended, Tyrande helped reconnect Winter Queen and Elune, which seem to be a huge deal. That leads to Winter Queen giving special seed to Tyrande, empowered by kaldorei souls, symbolizing renewal of cycle of Life and Death.

Sure, we all expected more of this story arc. I guess more was planned, but it got scrapped due to Shadowlands being rushed... But what we got was not entirely meaningless.

[Varodoc]

Performing the ritual enabled night elves to get enough momentum to liberate Darkshore.

Even though Jailer's plans in Ardenweald eventually went almost as intended, Tyrande helped reconnect Winter Queen and Elune, which seem to be a huge deal. That leads to Winter Queen giving special seed to Tyrande, empowered by kaldorei souls, symbolizing renewal of cycle of Life and Death.

Sure, we all expected more of this story arc. I guess more was planned, but it got scrapped due to Shadowlands being rushed... But what we got was not entirely meaningless.

Thank God they liberated Darkshore, a war-torn, Cataclysm-torn wasteland with like 1 town in total! Truly a major victory for the Alliance!

[rayvio]

basically it allowed the Night Fae campaign to have a separate storyline unique from the other covenants which (from what I've heard) cross over each other a lot more and reuse content making them more tedious

[KOUNTERPARTS]

To finally force Elune off of her fat ass semi-corporeal-mostly-ethereal, space and stars bound ass and do something.

[Vaedan]

Thank God they liberated Darkshore, a war-torn, Cataclysm-torn wasteland with like 1 town in total! Truly a major victory for the Alliance!

It was home of night elves since vanilla, so it was important to liberate it. After War of Thorns, some Night elves were still there, enslaved by the Horde, so that's important too. Night elves did not really build many cities, rather outposts, since they lived more in forests then in cities during their Long Vigil. Horde also started to mine some Darkshore areas, so it obviously have some valuable resources after all.

It was first step to control another regions of northern Kalimdor. In the Exploring Azeroth: Kalimdor, it is clear that night elves control their lands once more and Horde are not allowed to enter it.

[shoc]

Why does it need to have a greater purpose?

[Varodoc]

It was home of night elves since vanilla, so it was important to liberate it. After War of Thorns, some Night elves were still there, enslaved by the Horde, so that's important too. Night elves did not really build many cities, rather outposts, since they lived more in forests then in cities during their Long Vigil. Horde also started to mine some Darkshore areas, so it obviously have some valuable resources after all.

It was first step to control another regions of northern Kalimdor. In the Exploring Azeroth: Kalimdor, it is clear that night elves control their lands once more and Horde are not allowed to enter it.

So as I said, good thing they liberated that wasteland ravaged by war and the Cataclysm with only one inhabitable village. The Alliance shall make good use of it, I'm sure.

[MrLachyG]

no it had lots of purpose. it gave us insight into Elune, we know a bit more about her now and ultimately it led to the seed (might I mention the pure seed) that will grow into Teldrassil 2.0 (minus all the corruption)

[Mic_128]

To finally force Elune off of her fat ass semi-corporeal-mostly-ethereal, space and stars bound ass and do something.

I can't remember, what was her excuse for not helping the NEs?

[MrLachyG]

I can't remember, what was her excuse for not helping the NEs?

I don't think she could directly intervene. She did try to send the souls of the NE's to Ardenweald but was unaware of the disabled Arbiter so they all went to the Maw instead

- - - Updated - - -

She then faces off against Nathanos, who was NOT infused with Jailer power like Sylvanas was. She should have been able to easily beat him even without the NW power, but even with it, she can not kill him.

she got stopped by the two Val'kyr if I remember correctly. She certainly had zero problems killing Nathanos in the SL prepatch, something you didn't include for whatever reason.

it also gave us insight into Night Warriors from other worlds, if you did the Ardenweald quests - Night Warriors who were capable of defeating Old Gods

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

It was just useless fanservice, neither pre-warrior Tyrande nor Malfurion should have had any problem destroying Nathanos Blightcaller without recquiring the Night Warrior, and it didn't even serve any purpose at defeating Sylvanas or the Jailer or N'Zoth.

[Jenram]

I don't think she could directly intervene. She did try to send the souls of the NE's to Ardenweald but was unaware of the disabled Arbiter so they all went to the Maw instead

If I remember correctly, she let the tree burn and let countless night elves die because she knew Ardenweald was suffering an anima shortage, so she gave of her most favorite children (her words) to help her sister and the Weald, but she didn't know the machine of death was broken and the souls would instead be sent to the Maw, which upon being told this she became super depressed that she had condemned her favored children to the maw.

The problem with the cutscene though, is if Elune didn't know about the Shadowlands being broke, why did she nerf Tyrande in her fight with Sylvanas, because after sending her to the Maw, Tyrande's understanding is that "she stopped me from killing her so that she could instead be used to save the souls not meant for the maw."

[Triceron]

Wtf happened here and why did this storyline exist? What did I miss?

If rumors are to be believed, they scrapped the Shadowlands plot 6 months before they shipped, and Night Warrior and Tyrande was supposed to be explored more in depth through a Drust raid in Thros.

The rumor was that the Night Warrior was not actually sourcing from Elune, but was a power sourced from Thros, and we would explore its corrupting nature through that raid. We would have fought Tyrande and redeemed her, and she would have been the 'Corrupted Hero' we fight instead of it being Anduin.

[Eapoe]

It saved more peoples lives, as they were able to defend their shores better, as well as go on the offensive.
It also allowed a powered up Tyrande to pursue a powered up Sylvanas into the SL, which uncovered multiple plot points for the story. Sylvanas learning the Jailer was not as forthcoming as he originally seemed by keeping Nathanos fate to himself.
It allowed Elune and her sister The Winter Queen to speak to each other and learn of each other’s current issues and lack of knowledge.
It allowed the forming of a new seed for the NES to regrow their home.
Do people who play the game even bother to look at what’s going on in front of them?

[Al Gorefiend]

It was for further infuriating night elf fans, which recently became a fun office prank around the studio.

[Aleksej89]

danuser likes to piss on the stinking corpse of wow lore in any & every way possible.

so you can rely on there being many many many more stories like this in the coming wow content.

[Aucald]

The Night Warrior arc had several purposes, laid out in the stories of BfA and Shadowlands:

• The empowered Tyrande and Kaldorei returned to Darkshore and ultimately liberated it from the Forsaken.
• Night Warrior Tyrande was the first to journey to the Maw and the Shadowlands proper, taking the fight directly to the Jailer.
• She and the PC liberated the tortured dead of Teldrassil from the Maw and returned them to Ardenweald.
• She contended with the invading Mawsworn forces in Ardenweald, and tussled with Sylvanas herself.
• Her plight as the Night Warrior led to an ultimate reconciliation between two god-like beings (the Winter Queen and Elune).
• Via said god-like beings' intercession the souls of the Kaldorei dead were reconstituted into an artifact with an as-yet-unknown purpose.

There's a marked difference between a story having no purpose, and a story not quite going where someone wanted it to.

[Accendor]

Why does it need to have a greater purpose?

Because it makes no sense to invest time, money and effort (from devs and players) in storylines that have no value, if there are so many other stories that need to be told to create an immersive experience. Imagine the time being wasted on the NE storyline instead being put into flashing out the Jailer or telling Sylvanas story in a way that made sense and did kot result in everyone hating her story.

- - - Updated - - -

The Night Warrior arc had several purposes, laid out in the stories of BfA and Shadowlands:

• The empowered Tyrande and Kaldorei returned to Darkshore and ultimately liberated it from the Forsaken.
• Night Warrior Tyrande was the first to journey to the Maw and the Shadowlands proper, taking the fight directly to the Jailer.
• She and the PC liberated the tortured dead of Teldrassil from the Maw and returned them to Ardenweald.
• She contended with the invading Mawsworn forces in Ardenweald, and tussled with Sylvanas herself.
• Her plight as the Night Warrior led to an ultimate reconciliation between two god-like beings (the Winter Queen and Elune).
• Via said god-like beings' intercession the souls of the Kaldorei dead were reconstituted into an artifact with an as-yet-unknown purpose.

There's a marked difference between a story having no purpose, and a story not quite going where someone wanted it to.

But that's exactly my point.
NW Tyrande did basically nothing during the liberation of darkshore.
She did not "take the fight to the jailer", she was randomly killing unimportant underlings from an endless army.
The NPCs from the Amalgam of souls were not returned to Ardenweald, they were destroyed to emdz their suffering.
She tussled with the attackers in Ardenweald, but it had no impact. Sylvanas still won and got the key. Tyrandes presence there was meaningless, because her powers left her for unknown reasons just as they would have made a difference.
Last part is actually true tho, without her the Winter Queen and Elune would not have connected again. Maybe thats fair enough, because despite being disappointing, it actually might have an impact on things to come.

[owbu]

I think it's a marketing department VS writers problem like most of bfa.

The marketing people were writing some sort of revenge based action story (this woman wanted to live in peace, but then the horde took her tree! Now watch her destroy her enemies!!1) to hype us up.

The writers were writing their usual "woman goes insane then discovers that violence is bad and the power of friendship is the answer!" arc at the same time.

So now we have one arc with two purposes that just feels tonaly off and doesn't really do much but restore the status quo as much as possible.