How powerful are our mages in the lore ?

[Koristra-quelthalas]

Hi everyone!

Ever since we saw a huge boost in Jaina’s power after BFA started and our characters lost a considerable portion of it I was wandering how powerful are our mages considered to be in regard to important NPC. For example, would our mages be able to freeze blight like Jaina did in Battle for Lorderon ? Or would we be able to teleport Dalaran like Khadgar did with help of his fellow council members ? Now, since Blizzard excels in telling story as universal as possible I had to use the only known to me instance where they broke this trend and that is Aluneth talking to us. For those of you who don’t know Aluneth yet, it is an entity bound to one of our Legion artifacts who occasionaly whispers few words into our ears. Now, let’s get to work.

First of all let’s start with instances when Aluneth gave us a direct comparision to feats which could be achived with magic. I found exactly 3 such quotes:
“My dear child, you hold yourself back! The power is within your grasp to send this entire city tumbling into the sea!” (entring Dalaran)
“Have you ever considered opening portals to other worlds? Such power is within your grasp child…” (opening portal)
“…let us shatter this halls and drink from the ruins!” (entering the Arcway)
But what do they tell us? First and second quotes certainly give us information that our mages are considered by Aluneth to be powerful and knowledgable enought [in their prime (Legion)] to destroy entire arcane cities and harness the power sealed in them. Nevertheless the most important in my opinion is the second quote, as it talk about something that happened in the lore. Opening portals to other worlds have been shown as a feat accesible only by mages with considerable ammount of power such as guardian Mediv or when powered by big ammount of sacrificed souls. And while Aluneth itself says that we are not as powerful as guardians were (“You are not as powerful as she who came before!”) Ability to do something like this would automaticaly place us above almost any mage in Azeroth including Jaina and Khadgar.

Now there is a number of other quotes which give us information about what Aluneth thinks about our power and talent (“Your considerable talents are wasted on… pudding.” “Together we can remake this world!” etc.) But as they give us no real reference I decided against using them. Of course I can be wrong so feel free to correct me! Or maybe you have example of our mages being compared to lore characters? Share it and let’s figure it out together

[Papudeath-outland (Papudeath)]

Ehh, kinda difficult to say. Blizzard definitely doesn’t want the players to be too overpowered and leaves the big feats to the actual characters, but in Legion at least since mages had extremely powerful artifacts, it’s assumed that we were one of the most powerful characters in the world. Still not on the same scale as Jaina or Khadgar though. Our mages wouldn’t be able to pull off any feats similar to what Jaina is doing, even with the artifact weapons.

So no, I would not make the claim that us players are more powerful than Khadgar or Jaina, even with artifact weapons. It matters little what the weapon claims you can do, what matters is your actual actions. Aluneth could make any claim it wants, it proves nothing. If I say that I am able to control time and space, it does not make that claim factual, even if I get someone else to agree with it.

[Coolgroove-defias-brotherhood (Coolgroove)]

Since Aluneth always talks like “together … power withing your grasp” it indicates that it is always something in addition to actual power of our characters. That’s why I think that player characters are no where near in terms of power compared to story characters (Aegwynn, Medivh, Jaina, Khadgar, etc). But we can boost our abilities/power when connected to something like Aluneth and sometimes rival story characters. But it’s temporary and more like one off.

[Llkkjjhhggff-kazzak]

Mage does not exist in wow anymore when it comes to player.

Mage during the expansions before legion, was a master of all, specialized in one.

Now Mages are nothing but acromancer, cryomancer and pyromancer.