“5 keys to open our way. 5 torches to light our path”
I think its more likely the keys/torches are the old gods. And once they all have been dealt with the corrupted energy from them like from y’shaarj (shas) . will fully corrupt Azeroth and opens the way for the void lords to enter this dimension/reality.
The reason they end up being underwhelming is because the master plan actually requires the old gods to be killed.
After all the void lords are the masters of the old gods
Guldan Achieved more… Not only as villain but as ‘Horde’ as well. He killed one Alliance king and was responsible for death of another (wasn’t Garona send by him?). How many Alliance leaders did Horde kill? 
The Horde kill their own Warchiefs. #JusticeForGarrosh #HangThrall
They already hinted that when Old God dies his anima/whatever goes somewhere so they aren’t out of the plot yet. Also do note that we shoot a firey beam at him - and he is fire-alike too so it’s bit fishy. Azshara told us to use the dagger but we aren’t and Wrathion plays with it. N’Zoth will “die” and then will be available for future development just like Sargeras or Illidan is - they already mentioned that if/when red star vanishes it won’t be good news…
I had hoped that new expansion has something to do with actions of N’zoth not Mary Sue.
I had hoped for a proper N’zoth/Black Empire cinematic…
Technically didn’t we have to kill her because of what he’d done to her.
Deathwings corruption took really long. And he was the earth warden spending a lot of time in Deepholm etc. Wrathion spend a lot of time in a tavern drinking with Anduin 
Oh I dont think we will really eliminate N’Zoth, atleast im hoping we wont, I actually want to canonically lose in a raid/ see the consequences of its impact, like “you failed champions, witness the birth of a new age “
Absolutely agreed. So much hype around it, how powerfull he is, whole expansion waiting for him to just what? kill him one patch later…thats so fkin lame. On top of that when we are finaly getting to the final part of the bfa, they announce next expansion when last patch is only freshly on ptr. All the hype for N’zoth is gone, everyone is in next xpack in their minds nobody even cares. When Ion on a blizzcon stage said with straight bored uninterrested face “ye there is still N’zoth and his armies, but i read in some datamining that we will deal with him soon”(waved hand in whatever dude manner) i was sooo disapointed …all the bfa build up for nothing. Aszhara introduced and deleted in one patch, N’zoth introduced and deleted in one patch, it seems like “champions, defenders of Azeroth” are getting pretty thick plot armor too.
Y’all talking about N’Zoth’s appearance being a let down, and I’m still sat here wondering what on earth happened to Mal’Ganis after the broken shore. 
He’s one of the most well known members of the Burning Legion, yet didn’t get so much as a single line of dialogue during the Legion expansion…
We don’t know if he’s actually dead, or making us think he’s dead while in reailty, he’s corrupting azeroth in the shadows, while we’re thinking he’s gone.
Let’s be honest here. N’zoth has been foreshadowed as this scheming highly intelligent old god that unlike his brothers, is more into planning than fighting. and then he suddenly plans on fighting us head on and die?
Why didn’t he kill jaina and lorthemar in nazjatar right on the spot and just took azshara and left? Why isn’t he handing out gifts here and there? I honestly think there’s more to it than simply dying, because blizzard has never been this anti climactic with anything before. Hyping something to sky high only for it to Die?
I mean if killing old gods was a viable option, don’t you think titans would have killed them all instead of imprisoning them? And we just Kill one without any consequences?
Something smells fishy.
I will open by saying I agree gul’dan is a major influence on the history of azeroth events. However I think using “cause of major character deaths” as a sole metric for villainy is wrong.
N’zoth is an old god. He doesn’t do things himself, that’s his entire MO. He corrupts others to do it for him.
N’zoth is the cause of death wings corruption and azsharas transformation. Arguably if not for him, none of the actions any of these two committed after their corruption/transformation would not have come to pass, which lies the responsibility at his doorstep.
How many people do you think deathwing and the black dragon flight have killed over time? Same for Azshara and the naga? Breaking the world, sparking huge wars? We can’t ignore all this because Gul’dan tagged Varian out.
It’s just how it works when you have a “backscreen” villain. N’zoth didn’t dirty his own tentacles doing it (he’s kinda been stuck) but despite this he’s been very busy causing all sorts of upset over many decades in Azeroth which makes him a villain of some calibre. Not to say gul’dan isn’t a great villain, he is, but N’zoths rap sheet of deaths caused by his actions is probably far far larger if you take into account the deaths caused by his proxies and don’t fixate on the characters being prominent.
I mean, it’s a bit remiss to say someone is less villainous than another because they “only killed 300 randos” whereas another guy killed a “king”. Kings who wade into combat are expected to die at some point. Civilians who are busy chilling tending their cattle or whatever are generally not expected to be scorched to cinders by black dragons or have the earth Swallow them up, or be attacked by creatures from the sea.
SPOILERS
We literally disintegrate him with the Forge of Reorigination laser beam, which is fueled and empowered by the Heart of Azeroth. I’m pretty sure he won’t be coming back from that one.
Underwhelming and anticlimactic villain portrayal and death? Sounds like BfA storytelling so far to me.
i know what happens to him (supposedly). I just think things might not turn out the way we think they did.
I mean there was a time in world of warcraft story that everyone apart from illidan thought that the threat of the burning legion is over and it’ll never return.
It’s just too big of a waste to hype of N’zoth so much, only to end him in a raid and never coming back to it.
And besides, i still think it’s bs.
Y’Shaarj dying resulted in a giant hole in the world in deepholm. It nearly killed azeroth. And now we’re easily killing N’zoth like it’s nothing? Because heart of azeroth and the power of friendship is on our side? an ACTUAL TITAN decided to imprison the old gods instead of killing them, because it was far too dangerous for azeroth. And Now we can beat one with a necklace and everything’s fine? Like i said. Too fishy. He’s alive. Or he will be. It’s his plan. I’m still expecting a return in the future.
Not only that, he’s Xavius master, he’s the cause of the Emerald Nightmare (Yogg-Saron simply opened the way). He’s done so much over thousands of years.
Well, Y’shaarj was literally ripped out of Azeroth, which caused her to bleed. N’zoth is being disintegrated with a laser beam without being ripped out. So it’s not the same way of removing them.
And to be fair, we are not killing N’zoth with the power of friendship. We’re killing him with a device that one-shot Lei Shen when he was at his full power and which was made to destroy all life on Azeroth. It just so happened that we focused all of that destructive energy at N’zoth instead and further empowered/fueled it by the very heart of the world.
Is it rushed and could it have been done better? Certainly. But the way N’zoth ends is probably the only realistic way we could have killed him.
dude. I said they didn’t want to kill them, because their death is toxic to azeroth. Their blood destroys things. Their corpse corrupts things. Overall, TITANS didn’t want to kill them because of this.
And now you’re giving me the excuse of beam instead of ripping so it’s fine?
I mean the titans didn’t know about the literal forge of reorigination? They didn’t know how to focus its power? They couldn’t do anything, but we figured it out and are using it while titans were too stupid to realize that?
This is why i’m saying it’s fishy. They might rush with releasing content, but the lore part is never rushed. It’s planned out years in advance.
I mean, if you disintegrate something, then there’s nothing of it left to corrupt the world. No blood, no corpse, nothing.
I’m just trying to make what little sense there is from this massive pile of retcons and inconsistencies.
well. It’s either garbage story telling, or they’re going to make a comeback story for a future later expansion or patch.
I vote for the second option. But who knows? Maybe blizzard’s just that stupid and i’m highballing.