I think, when using Warcraft sources, it’s important to remember that the writers for the novels/quest text aren’t always going to be that well-informed on the direct working of how magic functions in the universe (some writers just being on contract). There will be conflicting sources because some writers will use DnD as a source; some will look to earlier Warcraft works; and others will just make stuff up. It’s possible for a mage’s fire magic to be simultaneously enslaved elementals or just masqueraded spicy arcane, because you could find a source for either claim.
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I’ve been discussing with my friend about this for a while after I’ve checked the paragraph you mentioned.
By all accounts you seem to be technically right.
So, we have been presented with plenty of contextual information in that scene. We do now know that Jaina and mages in general use actual elements which they bend to their will.
However, using this information to say that mages are “tormenting” elements is a bit of a stretch. Remember that in this particular scenario, Jaina called the elements against Thrall, who is basically their avatar. It does make sense that they would be very pissed.
The elemental planes are a huge thing, though. While what mages are doing is not very cool, they have far greater enemies, such as shadowmancers and dark shamans who take control of them. Mind you, living, sapient elementals.
Sure it’s kinda taboo, but I find it hard to see for the Spirit of Water to give a damn about Lil’ Jaina creating a water elemental and bending it to her will
while there are dark shamans who steal them and corrupt them.
Well, unless Jaina uses the said elemental against someone like Thrall.
Nonetheless, learned something new today. Might one day actually bear through that novel.
I don’t think him being their general acquaintance (lets not pretend the elements like any mortal) would cause them to be in actual agony
A fork getting stabbed into my hand is less pressing than my leg getting sawed off but I’d still really rather not have a fork in my hand.
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To answer some of the questions quickly:
Fel/Arcane are not (technically) impossible to wield together, the problem is that the arcane requires immense concentration to use (the entire Order/Disorder thing is misleading, as for the arcane Order stands for the user’s orderly nature, whetheras the Disorder for fel stands for the innate chaos of fel—from Chronicles). Fel, on the other hand, disallows such concentration thus also disallows the use of the arcane (in that instance).
The idea is that those who have used too much fel (demon hunters, by the OP’s example) are too unstable to focus, having to keep fused fel energies/temptations at bay. Although we never really get a direct statement regarding fel, we do get one regarding the arcane (Khadgar’s short series).
Warlocks don’t really use fel (commonly) and it’s sad to see that idea spread. Fel was near not-at-all used until the Council of the Black Harvest “discovered” it (end of Cataclysm/early MoP), where it’s noteworthy to point out that one of the leaders of the best warlocks on Azeroth went mad because he couldn’t control it. The person to inherit it immediately after is the PC, not a random warlock—Netherlord, Slayer of Kil’jaeden, invader on Argus, etc. You can imagine the effects that has on an average warlock.
It is also worthwhile noting that, yes, there is no real way to prevent fel corruption and willing or unwilling, the transformation to a demon, or at minimum physical and mental mutations (if subjected to enough fel), will occur—just as they did with Illidan.
Warlocks have traditionally used volatile spells, demonic bargains, and shadow to get their point across. The entire point about blood elf Blood Mages also seems to misunderstand this (semi-non-WoW canon*) class. They continue to use fire but also infuse it with demonic power using verdant spheres. But,
*as the only WoW examples of verdant spheres we have is from Kael’thas (and that very cool but removed glyph), and this is WC3/RPG lore, it’s debatable if it’s even a valid argument for any party in WoW. It’s worthwhile noting, however, that in the Illidan novel a similar subject is touched upon: while mana is traditionally used for spellcasting, it is only a catalyst and a plethora of alternatives can be used for the same results (such as souls).
As it was also pointed out, yes, mages also do enslave the elements. One of the reasons I love the Last Guardian is because everything happens in a PoV scenario—that quote from Medivh is his (arrogant) understanding of the arcane.
I’d first read up some of the novels and definitely at minimum study up the Chronicles before making bold accussations like that. Comes across as cocky, and wrong too.
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This is actually something I genuinely didn’t know until reading this thread, and might just be one of the only new WoW lore facts I’ve learned in a while. This makes them a lot more similar to DnD warlocks that I’d initially thought; the term being a catch-all for dark spellcasters.
Question is, though; do you think modern Blizzard really knows/acknowledges this? It could just be because of fel being incredibly prominent in both WoD and Legion, but the warlock class definitely seems heavily stylized about fel as a concept, even if their in-game abilities rely more on fire and shadow damage. In fact, fel isn’t even a school of magic in-game used by any class as far as I can read (https://wow.gamepedia.com/Magic_schools). If them being reliant on fel is misinformation, I’d argue it’s misinformation that Blizzard themselves are most responsible for spreading.
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Very true. The overuse of fel (and other rare-turning-common subjects) in the last few expansions can totally influence people & their RP decisions—you can definitely see an increase in adventurer RP compared to, say, years ago when that sort of thing was the worst thing on earth.
Blizzard does make an example of those zones/enemies being incredibly difficult/dangerous however (the heart of the Legion, the Tomb of Sargeras, Eredar, the things they say, etc), so I wouldn’t necessarily put the blame on them—ie Outland is still stated to be near impossible to survive on/wander around (Alien-esque spores, hellstorms, etc), but that is in no real way reflected in-game unless you read quest text & do the zones (unlike modern impossible-to-survive-in zones, such as the Maw & its Eye of the Jailer oppression on an OOC degree). IMO it’s not a difficult line to draw between “my PC/this story is oriented for the Chosen Hero TM, and I am not RPing that”. In short,
Yes, but the WoW story isn’t about the normal people—you have to look at novels or external sources/statements to understand how the non-PC PoV works on Azeroth. Which in turn,
makes this reasonably true, yeah.
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10/10 answer. Makes me thankful I never played a warlock so don’t need to retcon anything.
Really? I remember adventurer RP being popular since at least MoP. Shouldn’t be confused with super saiyan Champion of Azeroth RP, however.
Wish more people gave this more thought. I don’t send my characters to locations where it would be blatantly suicidal for non-superheroes to be.
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Evidently some basic safety tips are in order.
I believe some clarification is necessary here because there seems to be quite a lot of misunderstandings / misquotations / false statements.
- Lightforged Draenei and shadow.
Both 1000 years war and Shadows Rising imply that there (may be) no real physical pain and there is no disability, but deep indoctrination and prejudice. All pain quotes for Turalyon touching Alleria are italicized similar to other quotes of indoctrination from Xe’ra; whereas Senn is perfectly capable of traversing a rift without pain, only complaining about deep disgust. I imagine a lightforged Draenei corrupted enough to override their indoctrination could very well wield the shadows.
- Void elves/people and Light
There are no explicit mentions of void elves being unable to wield the light. There is, however, at least one major character in the WoW lore who was deeply infused with shadows but was still able to wield the light: Archbishop Benedictus, the Twilight Father. Thus, there should be no assumption of /inability/ to wield the light as a void-infused creature, perhaps for RP’s sake it might be nice to assume a similar pain as what undead encounter.
- Undead and the Light
Undead can wield the light, though suffer great pain doing so. Alonsus Faol remains a holy priest and the prime example. It is unfortunately not represented in-game, but I do imagine Lightforged Draenei raised as death knights would function similar to normal Draenei death knights with light indoctrination still in their heads and thus likely inflicting huge pain on themselves to continue wielding the light.
- Nightborne and fel
I don’t know how this was even brought up; Felborne exist and are still capable of wielding arcane magic (Master Artificer Nyell). Thus … largely proving warlocks likely can too.
- Faith and Light
There is absolutely no faith or devotion needed to wield the light. It is a cosmic power like any other; understanding it and practicing it will grant you the ability to wield it. Naga who have fallen from Elune’s worship (a deity mostly associated with arcana) and are in service to N’zoth are perfectly capable of wielding the light as shown by a plenthora of naga NPCs (all “priestess” NPCs in Vash’jir use holy smite).
- Misunderstandings of “can use but does not” and “cannot use”
I don’t think we should ever assume that because a certain character no longer uses a magic they were capable of wielding, it means they aren’t capable of wielding it anymore. Most warlocks are “fallen mages” that once wielded the arcane, and likely still do for a good portion of their spells (fire/destruction spells).
They are in a way similar to druids of the flame; there is no explicit mention that they are “severed from nature/life”, it simply is that for what their goals are / what they wish to achieve fire is much much stronger to use. Though they still shapeshift.
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Yes this is all true. I don’t think that infers something about their ability to wield shadow magic.
I, too, imagine a LF could wield shadow magic if that’s desired, but I also believe they’d be seriously crippled in what they can achieve with it, because it goes so much against their nature.
Same as above.
Well the opposite of Death is Life, so it is not that crazy an idea that undead could wield the Light. I doubt we’ll see undead druids soon, though.
Yes.
Tbh I wouldn’t base such statements on ingame magic schools, because Blizzard has limitted themselves quite a bit in this department.
No indeed, but the effectivity of their skill in that former magic could be up for debate. I point at Jace Darkweaver (or another demon hunter of note, I don’t remember who said their ability with the arcane had diminished greatly) again.
It speaks of opposites; it highlights that one of the most often quoted “opposite cosmic forces negate” from lore may in fact be simple manipulation/indoctrination from either sides.
Agreed and disagreed. Alonsus Faol is by no means a “weak” holy priest; Felborne are by no means “weak” fel users. I don’t believe it’s something that “goes against their nature”, I more believe wielding any power, like a sword, requires practice and effort. If you spent millenia wielding the light, you won’t just be able to switch over to the shadows simple as.
Once more, Archbishop Benedictus is by no means “weak” while wielding the light. Instead, he is portrayed as “far more powerful” when wielding shadows. The only clue to him being “off” is Anduin getting that weird feeling that he should defy his father’s advice and learn from Velen, not from Benedictus. By all means necessary he seemed to be a perfectly fine holy priest even by the time he outranked Cho’gall in the Twilight Hammer.
I wouldn’t highlight the “opposites” here, but the “pain” factor - undead are weak to light, and feel excruciating pain when subjected to it. Alonsus Faol wields the light despite this pain. EG, him invoking the light to heal someone would be similar to Alleria invoking the light to heal someone (assuming that her pain touching Turalyon is real and not just part of the italicized madness whispers as usually portrayed).
I would agree with you in most cases; this here is a strong disagreement though. The same mobs use Shadow Word: Pain as well - we have a plenthora of Naga and Naga-affiliated mobs using various cast_and_damages_you_03 spells that could have been used; smite seems an explicit choice to show Naga priestesses are still light users. EG, Blizzard could have just given the same mobs mind blast, frost bolt, mind flay, mind spike, shadow bolt or something.
As highlighted above, Demon Hunters are a completely different category to all other mentioned “cosmic affiliations”. Precisely, their souls don’t go to the Shadowlands; they retreat into the nether to regenerate (quote the Shivarra portal opening in Mardum). This implies they are more demon than mundane - which might be just the explanation for their inability to wield the arcane, or at least a disability in doing so.
Warlocks abandoning arcane for the power of fel cannot be compared with demon hunters turning themselves into de-facto demons. The likely comparison would be:
“Can an Etheral who has used arcane magic before continue using it after being subjected to Dimensius’ energies in Manaforge Ultris and turned into a voidwalker (or nexus-stalker)?” - The answer canonically seems no, because they become de-facto shadow creatures - neither are any of them shown to use arcane/ethereal magic.
I am sure there is a lot of indocrination. I also believe that there is something as being too alligned to a specific force so that it cripples one using the opposite force.
Yes, but again, death is not the opposite of Light. So while this is true, it does not contradict what I said.
No they aren’t, but I also made the point yesterday that I don’t think Nightborne (or other flavours of elves bar Void Elves) are enough in the camp of “arcane” to hamper their ability of wielding Fel magic. I think Ethereals are perhaps a better example of the Lightforged equivalent of arcane.
It’s like I said earlier, there is a trade-off. If you practise magic x more then your skill with magic y will decrease.
Wouldn’t it be more fair to say he’s a discipline priest at that point. Wielding both Shadow and Light (before slipping all the way to shadow). Note though, that Benedictus is still human. He wasn’t a Lightforged human or somehing along those lines.
Yes but I think that it is really important to see the difference between undead and someone drowned in the Void, so to speak. I doubt Alleria’s healing spell would be very strong.
Yeah I can see your point. I do agree that the Light is not a power that you need faith for. You do need a certain mindset, though.
Well that only applies to DHs with an immortal demon soul.
I agree with you. I think the same applies to a holy priest abandoning the Light for Shadow which cannot be compared with a Lightforged who willingly has been infused with the Light to a point you can’t even just call them paladins anymore.
To conclude I’d like to point at cosmic beings like Naaru and Titans. Both in their camps, they seem to be able to shift from one opposite to another, but only if they do so completely. A Naaru won’t be able to use Shadowmagic, nor will a fallen Naaru be able to use Light magic.
Similarly, we have no proof of Sargeras being able to still use Arcane magic, nor of any uncorrupted Titan being able to use Fel magic.
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To chime in here once more; it may be TBC lore but regenerating void Naaru are capable of wielding the light to a very faint degree. Specifically, D’Ore and his melody is described neither the way Holy Naaru melodies are, nor the way void Naaru melodies - something inbetween. His appearance that he projects is also that of a Light-Naaru.
If anything (and if you follow TBC / only-referenced Legion lore), his example shows that there aren’t only extremes, but a spectrum with various possibilities.
He is using purely holy spells before his “big reveal”. Also, he “died” in the first siege of Wyrmrest temple and was “re-materialised” into Stormwind by Deathwing. I don’t think that’s 100% human, especially the way he looks + acts after his big reveal.
The case there is much simpler; a void-fanatic heavily infused with the shadows perfectly capable of masking it /and/ masquerading as a holy priest because he can still wield the light - even when fighting Thrall and the champions, as long as he wishes to uphold the disguise.
Biggest takeaway from this thread imo is that Blizzard has very much homogenized every class of magic into being able to achieve pretty much anything. All magic can teleport; all magic can harm; most magic can heal (barring fel); all magic can raise the dead. It’s as if which cosmic force you wield depends on your philosophy, rather than the result you’re after. As if each magic is differentiated only by its spell colour and the way getting hit by it feels.
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I disagree with that. The reason why it could seem that’s the case is because we have been showcased examples of creativity with different forms of magic to use them for various purposes. However, this DOES NOT affect the main “power” of each cosmic force.
Shadow will remain the power capable of directly influencing the mind; all else will be mere “attempts” or “illusions” instead. Death and Life will be powers to re-animate corpses - even though both shadow and light make attempts to do so. Permanence in re-animation is much, much different for Life and Death.
“Healing” is a concept perfectly demonstrating creativity with magic. Saying that all magic can “heal” is both true and false at the same time; mechanically yes - but in reality, all “healing” is different. And you best choose it well in roleplay: have your natural healing and recuperation hastened tenfold by a druid, or have your wound blasted with entropy to wrap it out of existence and replaced with a malfunctioning, twisted reflection of reality by a shadow priest. Definitely not the same. My favourite is chronomantic / mage healing; reversing a wound so that it did not happen while the victim re-lives the pain in reverse. Such wonderful RP details!
TL/DR; basics are shared in almost all cases, but each force retains their unique power and sphere.
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most magic can heal (barring fel)
I would like to point out that Fel -can- heal. Fel as an energy is the force of uncontrolled, unrestrained change. It’s just that unless the creature is fel-infused, it will result in some scarring as the Fel healing will regrow the wounded area in unexpected and unpredicted ways, such as, instead of flesh, a cut will be healed with scales, with jagged spikey flesh, stone-like flesh, absolutely normal but discolored or anything else you can imagine (wonderful for giving you space for creativity). It may also take the draining of some other source of life/souls to perform this healing.
Most importantly.
I feel compelled to point out that whilst my original post was about Warlocks and Arcane, which has now been answered -in detail- and I could not be happier about it…
A lot of very interesting, informed opinions have been posted here on various subjects in regards to magic and magical energies (and I hope even more will be posted), to the point where if someone were to gather all of the information and evidence presented here, we could create a relatively comprehensive Guide/F.A.Q on magic and magical energies that others could use to avoid future misunderstandings!!!
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Healthstones?
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Healthstones are fel magic and can heal, for the record.
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Where is this from? They have at least chaos bolt and frequently summon demons and from the look their portals seem to use fel magic as well. If they only use shadow and fel magic they should be called shadowmages and not warlocks…