In 5.2, Jaina sent the heroes to retrieve the power of the Thunder King, which she added to her Staff of Antonidas. She then vowed she would use said power to bring down the very walls of Orgrimmar. This never happened, although something similar would happen later on in BfA, where Jaina was able to single-handedly breach the walls of Lordaeron.
Does this mean that Jaina is still empowered by the Thunder King’s essence? Did she use that power to raise Daelin’s flagship and activate its magical cannons to destroy the walls? How powerful is Jaina currently? Don’t forget that the Thunder King was a monster able to fight actual Demi-gods, so Jaina must be very powerful if she still has his powers.
Also in Shadowlands it’s shown that Jaina was able to fight off and kill multiple Mawsworn minions (in the Maw), while every other faction leader was easily abducted and even Tyrande struggled for a time.
She is one of the most powerful magic users on Azeroth, I personally would say she’d be second only to Azshara. But that’s just my (semi-)educated guess.
She likely learned a thing or 2 from Aegwynn. Her mentor was Antonidas. On top of the staff, there is also something special about her medallion (which she does not have once she leaves Torghast, by the way). So, yeah, she got quite a few power boosts.
How strong? However the story demands her to be. I don’t think she got all the power of Lei Shen (since he also had power from Ra, but that was not transferred to Jaina’s staff), but a good chunk of it, but overall, enough to be one of the strongest mages. Not as strong as Azshara. Maybe not as strong as Medivh. Possibly on par with Khadgar.
When it comes to the player character in comparison - depends on the game mechanic limitation. If the health levels would be in line with possible damage, I don’t think Jaina would be an unbeatable challenge for a mage with, say, fully “charged” Aluneth.
During the first visit to the Maw Darion praised Jaina for being able to defeat a stygian giant. But since I managed to beat Serath the Gluttonous before that solo (and I asked in the chat for help, nobody wanted to come ) my reaction was more like “meh, is that supposed to be impressive?”
TL;DR: I don’t have any “exact numbers”, but seems to be easily top 5 among the currently known mages of Azeroth.
There was really no indication of Tyrande struggling…we got no footage of how Tyrande fought and Jaina abducted. (We only know that Tyrande was able to fight off her abductors while others were not) The Mawsworn in the Maw could have been lesser variants since players also kill them. (Lore vs gameplay moment)
Post MOP, the power of the Thunder King pretty much vanished from lore, never referenced again. (Med’an treatment) Honestly, it hardly matters, Jaina is one of the most powerful mortals in lore, attributing her abilities to Lei Shen is reductive and means that power can be taken away/stolen from her. (Doubtful Blizzard would reference it ever again for that reason)
it hardly matters, Jaina is one of the most powerful mortals in lore, attributing her abilities to Lei Shen is reductive and means that power can be taken away/stolen from her.
Actually I was suggesting the opposite. That, ON TOP OF HER NATURAL TALENT AS A GENIUS AND PRODIGY, Jaina would also wield the power of the Thunder King, a being who could clash with the very wild gods. Since she had the heroes retrieve the Thunder King’s power upon his defeat, and embedded it into her staff.
Was kinda crazy that player character just gave away one of the most powerful staff for free, damn the alliance player character must really want to bed her.
Not much of a difference in comparison to the usual arcane.
Order is most commonly perceived in reality as arcane magic. This type of energy is innately volatile, and wielding it requires intense precision and concentration.
Frost and fire magic as Mages use them are actually Arcane magic overall - its gameplay reasons we get fire and frost damage apms.
Mages use arcane magic to heat up or freeze its nature comes off in respective magics. I would wager the Lei Shan powers would be something more powerful to wield then any ordinary arcane - the capacity and density. Just like Aluneth is hard to control for many mortals.
Tbh this could be up for debate and I think it depends on the mage and maybe even on the spell itself.
As for the main question, yeah I do think Jaina still has the power of the Thunder King in her staff, giving her some extra power. I also think it will probably never get mentioned again and it’s not a power she is in risk of losing.
I cant recall but I know that’s the thing for mages - they dont conjure fire or Frost as Shamans do or Warlocks. Their usage of those magics comes via Arcane
I believe you get this from the Last Guardian book, where Medhiv theorises it! But I believe that it -is- mentioned in the same book that it’s a huge point of contention amongst magi.
That’s why I believe both are equally plausible and depend more on the type of spell cast. As in you can have spells that “create” or “mimick” ice and fire, and you can have spells that manipulate actual ice/water and fire (or any of the other elements of course).
Aethas Sunreaver was still hinted to be on the level of Jaina Proudmoore and Khadgar.
I don’t think Jaina is especially more powerful than either of those two, she just had a lot more cutscene-screentime where Blizzard can showcase a lot more huge-scale mage powers.
Grand Magister Rommath of Silvermoon City is potentially a more powerful mage than Aethas - but I theorise and prefer that Rommath is simply far more knowledgeable on the matters of magic, rather than holding immense raw power.
Dunno really. I always thought the way Mages mimiced the fire and ice out of thin air was Arcane and order. Warlocks having felfire was chaos magic of Fel. Shamans using pure forms of elements.
Mage cultures having any civilasation has always had arcane influence and branching onwards to frost and fire. Its an illusion almost.
Like that it keeps the schools separate and clean from each other.
I’d follow you, but we know for example that destro warlocks use “fire” and not “fel fire” (usually). Seeing as they aren’t likely to be practicing shamanism, I imagine that they use actual fire (I believe this is also shown by a dark iron warlock cult). And from there I reason that they use another magic form (chaos I take it) to manipulate elements, so I do think a mage could do the same.
We have examples of Thrall sensing living elements in Jaina’s tidal wave directed to Orgrimmar, for example.
) my reaction was more like “meh, is that supposed to be impressive?”