Hello hello,
I’ve got a question for my fellow roleplayers. Last expansion we were introduced to Shadowflame. Now I’ve done some research about what classes could wield it. Mostly Warlocks, shadowmages, some dragons and twilight cultists.
I’m currently writing the character concept for my priestess. I was thinking of making her somewhat conflicted in her powers. So this would mean she can call upon the light but infuse it with shadow magic. Since holy magic is often seen as “fire” such as the holy fire ability holy priests have. And if my priestess was able to infuse it with shadow magic. Would this be considered Shadowflame magic?
(Not sure if this has even been discussed here. But when I searched for Shadowflame on the topic, it was mostly content related, toys, glyphs etc.)
Generally elemental fire infused with shadow magic, instead of holy fire - though go for it anyway!
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I highly doubt it would be the same Shadowflame that was used by Neltharion/seen in Abberus. That particular brand of Shadowflame was, apparently, given to Neltharion to study. This is what properly corrupted the man.
I think it just depends on the type of Shadowflame you’re going for, considering Warlocks have been able to cast some form of it for a while.
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I don´t think it would be Shadowflame we have seen in DF, as that is (as Lloris said) mix of Shadow and elemental fire.
That doesn´t mean your character would be unable to do what you´re describing. I´d suggest to look at various Void-aligned and demon characters in the game and see if any of them have spells that do something similar (I´ve noticed they are more likely to have those rare combinations compared to good guys, so can be a good start for your search).
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Technically no? It’s complicated, but Shadowflame is a whole different thing; an amalgamation of Shadow and Flame (surprising, I know!)
I suppose you could argue that Holy Fire could be the flame part of Shadowflame (if you take inspiration from the Arathi f.e. of Holy Flame) but it’d be, as the others have said, not the same Shadowflame that has been used by Twilight cultists, dragons, etc etc. That one has more corruptive properties and all round nasty (You needed the Onyxia Scale Cloak f.e. in Vanilla to withstand the Shadowflame.), but the one you propose just seems to be Holy Flame and Shadow intermingled, which is possible I would propose.
Edit: sorry for the word vomit woops
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Basically, there are few restrictions towards the shadowflame and who can wield it. A dark shaman, using shadow to bind and command the spirits (like the Shadowflame Primalists) is the most common type lately, easily attributed to the Twilight’s Hammer. A mage or warlock, combining arcane-based fire spells with shadow ones, would also make a good, rather safe bet that wouldn’t be likely to make all the nearby shamans jumpy with axes in tow. Purely evil types like the Nightmare users, twilight dragons and such would be able to combine fire and shadows in their own ways as well. Overall, as long as you aren’t overly holy and don’t care about collateral damage, you can get into the matter.
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Personally I tend to see these mixtures of damage types as that; mixtures of damage types. Blizzard has stated that sometimes the lore that we get is there to explain the game mechanics in the world, based on that I find it somewhat safe to look at game mechanics and adopt them as laws of nature from an IC perspective, ofcourse this gets really goofy if you don’t use any discernment in which mechanics are intended to be that and which mechanics are just that; mechanics.
To name examples, the madness cloak from BFA, the thing in legions last patch I forgot the name of, these are all acknowledged to exist in the actual game world through questing.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Magic_schools
Radiant damage is for example holy and fire, shadowflame by that logic would be shadow and fire, there’s not a lot of lore as to how this works, are you reaching into elemental energies through the force you are wielding, causing the mixture or is it something else?
I like to have these things explained at the very least to myself so I tend to headcannon in a way that I fill gaps by observing and stating what I see when I observe, I see it as advanced forms of wielding the force itself. Therefor you need to be able to wield void in order to wield shadowflame and holy in order to wield radiant, you can’t get to either if all you can call on is flame, but you do not need to be able to call on flame.
This would also explain what we see mechanically in game, shadow priests have no flat fire spells (I’m not certain if they have shadowflame damage profile spells tho), paladins and priests have no flat fire spells but can use radiant, fire mages have no shadowflame nor radiant, neither do shamans.
Take all this with a grain of salt, this is just me trying to fill in lore gaps based on observing and stating out loud what I see. These kinds of beliefs are saver to put on a player character who can be wrong then to adopt as hard rules on yourself as a player.
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