You only had to do it once though, for each pertinent weapon type. I say this as someone who has both the Max Unarmed Skill FoS and the Weapon Master FoS.
So it was hardly a serious grind, and you generally capped out in one or two weapon skills while levelling based on the weapons you favoured. It was more egregious for warriors and paladins since they had arguably the widest selection of weapons, but it wasn’t that bad.
Now, running around the Blasted Lands as a naked male draenei Paladin punching boars to level your unarmed skill? That was a grind.
And yet their damnation is not reversible. There are innocent souls irreversibly destroyed and tortured. That’s not a hopeful setting, it’s grimdark finality.
It’s not as simple as with the Scourge, where we could simply (and justly) assume that the soul is freed after you kill the undead, allowing them to pass on to their rightfull afterlife. There is no other side for the Shadowlands.
The souls depleted or turned into Mawsworn are lost forever. And considering that every being in the Warcraft universe who’s died since Legion (I think?) has being going to the Maw… That’s a lot of lost souls.
Since sometime between the end of Argus and the War of Thorns. A really short window for Sylvanas to do her ultimate 4D transdimensional time travelling super chess move that not only broke the machine of death, but also shaved Khadgar’s head, drop kicked Velen into a bin, removed Baine’s spine AND caused one very irked murloc to experience the worst bowel movement of it’s life.
Considering Sylvanas’s ‘mission’ to enslave the Val’kyr ended in abmysmal failure and Helya was defeated, it’s more reasonable to assume that the machine of death broke after those events, rather than simultaneously.
Especially since the big bolt of big bad energy that struck the Arbiter looked suspiciously like Argus’s Mythic mode “Kill The Raid” move. Or are we forgetting that we killed Argus? The Death Titan.
Argus did it first. And I do think the Jailer getting a dead Titan’s soul sent direct to his mancave, a Titan of Death no less, would still be plenty useful as a weapon against the Arbiter. Especially since being an Eternal One means bugger all at the moment. It’s not like the only thing that can kill an Eternal One is another Eternal One. God I wish this was the case though.
Especially since Denathrius was busy with the drought. It’d be mighty suspicious if he was imposing a viable drought, then turned around and went “lol nah” and fired off some anima at the Arbiter. Sure there was a rebellion going on but that was against the drought, not against Denathrius firing big red bolts of anima in the wrong direction from Revendreth.
The red bolt that struck the Arbiter came down with the regular soul stream. Meaning, it had just arrived. It was Argus’s soul, and it zapped the Arbiter into standby mode like any other badly made machine ( of death ).
Admittedly by engaging with this point I’m giving Blizzard’s writing team far more praise than they actually deserve. I very much doubt that they’ve even thought about the implications of sending a TITAN OF DEATH to the REALM OF DEATH, instead favouring whatever new nonsense they’ve decided to come up with.
For all we know, the red bolt that struck the Arbiter was just Nathanos’s balls after he gave them up to his Lady when he switched bodies. Or it was just the Jailer basically having a bowel movement. Or literally anything else that is as equally nonsensical.
Personally I believe it was Argus’s soul smacking into the Arbiter, the events line up far too well.
MUST RESIST COMPULSION TO EDIT AND EXPAND MY THOUGHTS.
As an ally of the Jailer, he wasn’t affected by it like the others were.
EN did it first.
Besides, Argus’ title of titan of death is mostly meaningless, just like it is for Yogg-Saron. Boastful, sure, but neither of them have any death-related powers or abilities (unless you count being really good at killing, which is a stretch).
This is the biggest place where the Argus theory falls apart. Souls only come to Oribos if specifically chosen, judged and then physically brought there by the Kyrians. Except, the Kyrians will not bring beings that are tied to another plane of existence or realm of magic. So, for example, demons and naaru do not go there. Titans, being intrinsely arcane, would not qualify. Even if you assume Argus’s corruption by Sargeras made him Fel instead, he’d get spurned for the same reason that a demon would.
And if a Kyrian decided to go against the rules and drop a demonic soul-bomb right onto the Arbiter… Don’t you think they’d realise?
That combined with the whole Shadowlands plot supposedly being this long pre-planned scheme… How could they have relied on not only Argus dying but him being dropped like some Arbiter-seeking missile by the Kyrian?
No, the Argus theory has a million holes, whereas the Denathrius theory does not - he could just take some of his plentiful stores, maybe use a bit of forbidden knowledge from the Jailer if necessary, walk onto his balcony and fire off the bolt. Or fire it from somewhere hidden, if need be - like somewhere in the Ember ward.
They follow incredibly stupid rules, but they do follow them - so closely that they are willing to help their enemy if it means not breaking the rules.
The Chad move for this expansion is just to ignore it ic, focus in the scourge and unsteady armistice that isn’t really an armistice because the night elves are angry.
How do you know just the right words to warm my heart?
I really hope the server majority decides to just disregard it. Fortunately it’s something that is unlikely to matter much after SL, so it won’t break future expansions the way, say, ignoring Legion would.
It’d be a shame if there was a renegade sect of Kyrians who didn’t follow the rules and were in league with the Jailer all this time who could feasibly go “Oh look, the Arbiter off button’s ready, yoink”.
With ‘all this time’ being an incredibly vague period of time that leads to me discussing it online with someone who’s avatar is a panda and where my avatar is a mass of spikes protecting a wolf head.
Whole bloody thing is an exercise in maintaining our mutual sanity in the face of this absolutely barmy expansion filled with characters most of us couldn’t give a toss about at this point because they’re simply not interesting anymore, or are so predictable as to become as bland and as unappealing as wallpaper paste.
