Just wanted to make a lore discussion thread about what is the most powerful main school of magic, meaning no sub-schools like blood magic, shamanism, etc, but the actually main contenders. The list as follows.
Quick Overview
Light / Holy -Magic that is based on one’s faith which delves into the removal of curses and disease, healing of others and the repelling of undead and demons.
Void / Shadow -The studies of shadowy forces and magic which can include summoning of abberations and horrors, the twisting of minds and souls and the conjuration of vampiric energies.
Life / Nature -Magic that studies but not limited to growth and renewal of life, elemental control and balance and the cleansing of dark magic.
Death / Necromancy -The magic that studies the dead which can include but not limited to reanimating and controlling the dead, creating and spreading disease and the manipulation of souls.
Order / Arcane -The studies of arcane are many and include the sub-schools of time, enchanting and the focus of ley lines
Chaos / Fel -The magic of chaos is based around the corruption of others, summoning of demons and sacrificial rituals and spells.
In my opinion, I think necromancy is on the top spot on my list as the power to literally manipulate and contort the life energies of a once living person and preverting it into something that will become your undead slave is not only dangerous but quite horrifying.
Khadgar, Jaina and the sheer existence of Dalaran in its all powerful city which can teleport around and shield itself from just about anything state has showed that the arcane is the most powerful thing in the universe due to how consistently powerful it has proven to be.
It’s flooded entire cities, protected entire cities. It’s hidden a city for thousands of years. It has the power to create portals between worlds and even dimensions, the power to rewind time and show thousands of realities. If you want magic that can do just about anything as long as you think hard enough, go arcane.
Arcane because that’s what the titans use. Fel/shadow are the next on the list because they’re what the world ending threats (Void Lords/ Old Gods, Sargeras / Burning Legion) use.
Their power isn’t what is important. The power of their users are.
Warlocks often come across as more powerful than mages but that is just because fel is easy to pick up and get powerful from. Khadgar was able to fight Gul’dan on fully even ground in the audiodrama.
While each of the six has some typical abilities associated with it, it has turned out over time than none of them are really exclusive. Corpses have been reanimated using holy magic, fel magic and arcane magic. “Corruption” doesn’t seem to just be the domain of fel magic but also light magic, arcane magic and void magic. At the highest level, they all bleed into each other and are capable of the same stuff.
“Magic is the art of circumventing the normal. […] The stars march in order across the sky, the seasons fall one after the other with lockstepped regularity, and men and women live and die. If that does not happen, it’s magic, the first warping of the universe, a few floorboards that are bent out of shape, waiting for industrious hands to pry them up.
I’d say it’s Arcane. Simply because it can destroy, heal (for example when Aegwynn resurrected Medivh… I suppose that counts?), shield and do pretty much anything, being limited only by the user’s experience.
I mean, it can have side effects and it kinda attracts demons, but it’s not nearly as corrupting as Necromancy or Fel magic.
Although I’m pretty sure that all types of magic are extremely powerful, and that fights usually depend on the fighters’ knowledge.
It’s obviously nature.
It created the most awful aberattions in the universe in furries and now they seek to corrupt our mind faster than the old god. Nothing we do can stop them.
Void. Because void magic is the only magic capable of corrupting a world soul, a la squaring up to a titan in any way shape or form.
It’s also the only form of magic that has stood against the titans in any measurable form and given them concern. They’ve combated fel, but largely in the form of numerous Demons and Sargeras, and it’s unclear whether the threat he posed was due to fel itself, or the power he wielded as a titan proper (he was a strong boi). I know fel is dangerous to titans, but I’m not sure on the same level void can be, therefore I’d vote void top.
Also, we’ve seen some powerful agents of fel, we have a good idea of what it looks like at the “top end”. Same for arcane with the titans and their legacies etc. We have no idea what the most potent void looks like yet as although we’ve heard of the void Lords and know they created the old gods, beyond that we don’t know what they’re capable of doing. I would say though that being able to create old gods using it is a fair testament to how potent the stuff is when used by very powerful individuals.
Also it has a powerful permeating nature. It seems to have an excessively large influence. N’zoth was able to corrupt things a great distance from him using it.
Okay, I phrased myself poorly, because you’re quite right, I forgot about Argus.
However, the Fel corrupted Argus, and Argus was defeated, even when a corrupted “almost grown” titan. If we follow the lore on the matter, a void infested world soul grows into a creature that signals the end of the universe due to the power it has.
Void is interesting because it piggybacks off the power of the host. This is probably because of how its inherently a form of corruption rather than anything in itself. I’d say that makes it deserve top spot, because whoever the “biggest bad” magic wielder is, void always has a shot at corrupting them and then jumping up to that power level. Grown titans are one exception to this we’re aware of. Them again not many things can stand up to a titan in lore except other titans.
When you look at the measures taken by titans against void; reorigination protocols, direct intervention via aman thul, their agents (Mother) being active with champions currently, its clear they fear the Void and what it can do.
It’s hard to get a balanced picture. The biggest wielder of fel, is de facto more powerful than agents of void we’ve seen, largely because he’s a titan. It’s unclear whether that’s due to him using fel, or him being a titan however. I think it speaks volumes however that titans treat squaring up to begins who are objectively speaking weaker than them (old gods) with just as much if not more caution than facing one of their own kin whom wields fel.
Let’s not forget as well that Sargeras and the Legion fear the Void as well. Seems like its a slow burner. It potentially can be the most powerful form of magic when it gets out of control (because it’s as much like a cancer as a form of magic) but many forces work against it actively, so I don’t well see what it can actually end up doing, because that’d also mean nuts to the game.
I would say Fel. Both in lore and mechanically it seems to be outright superior to others in raw power. In Warcraft 3 ‘Chaos damage’ bypassed all armor and resistances and Chaos Bolt was initially ( I don’t know if it still does ) able to bypass any damage reduction you had.
Furthermore it eats at the very soul of the victim it attacks, making it perfect against pretty much any being. Sargeras clowned the whole Pantheon due to it.
Also based on Beyond the Dark Portal, in which we see Gul’dan’s Death Knights ( who are Warlocks in human bodies ), Warlocks can do most things mages can.
Hold up.
There is a difference between chaos and fel.
The idea behind Chaos is that its basicly a volatile mixture of all other schools.
Where fel is your demonic magic often seen as a mixture between fire and void.
