One of the core elements in Warcraft lore is The Scourge and The Lich King. We did not kill the Lich King in Wrath, because of consequences with The Scourge roaming free. But now those consequences are dealt with in a silly pre-patch event?
I hope there will be some raid or dungeon against The Scourge in an upcoming patch this expansion. Otherwise I think Blizzard has dishonoured The Scourge, one of the main pillars in Warcraft lore.
Does anyone see The Scourge having potential impact on this expansion?
Was bound to happen. They made the Burning Legion into a joke. The Titans into a joke. The Old Gods into a joke. Now the scourge got fixated by the nuWriters and here we are.
Arthas had full control over the vessels of domination and the Scourge was a lot more fearsome because Arthas was rising Death Knights to continue the spread of the plague which was creating the mind less scourge.
Without Arthas or Death Knights to lead the Scourge, and with Bolvar holding them back, the amount of Scourge would easily thin over time given the Scarlet Crusade, Ashen Verdict and whatever else still remain up thre fightning the Scourge.
Also, the sheer power of the player now compared to during Wrath…Morgraine Ashbringer fought thousands of Scourge and Tirion Ashbringer one shot Frostmourne… the player wielding the Ashbringer was far more powerful with greater feats than either Tirion and Morgraine, so theoretically, the High Lord of the SIlver Hand alone would beable to solo Arthas and his army…so No the Scourge isn’t that much of a problem.
There was a quest in SL (IF I am not mistaken) that suggests the Azeroth in our absence is still dealing with the scourge.
Besides even if that isn’t the case back in wotlk, we were hit by the scourge out of the blue we had our numbers dwindled and was in no position to fight against a released scourge, though we do have dwindled numbers rn as well, we know new ways to fight against such foes and relatively our “heroes” are now stronger.
I would go as far to say that at least half of the Alliance and Horde resources was distributed in Outland when the Scourge invasion happened, and subsequently the Horde and Alliance pushed the Scourge back and broke down the gates of Ice-Crown. When you actually think about it, Arthas and his army wasn’t that dangerous…
I think a lot of people over estimate the power of the scourge due to the “There must always be a Lich king”, but i think that is based on the fact that the scourge would become truly mindless and the war wouldn’t end if there wasn’t a new Lich King until every Scourge was dead.
In reality, creating a new Lich King to bind the Scourge was simpler then continuing to battle a mindless scourge post Arthas death.
Arthas never had a full control over the scourge and neither did Nerzhul.
It took all Bolvar’s will to hold the power back, he even says so. Also there is the moment where Arthas asks his father “Is it over?”, which means he never was in full control, cause his expression looks like he was in quite a nightmare. It always was Zovaal’s presence within the Helm of Domination. After all nathrezim took it from shadowlands.
“Is it over” part before they retconned Arthas being in control. To my knowledge the whole “control” thing was changed three times. First it was Nerzhul in control then it was them merging then it was Arthas having full control.
“Matthias tried to reason with Arthas, but Arthas silenced him by running him through with Frostmourne. Ner’zhul was delighted by this, declaring that he and Arthas were now free to merge into a single glorious being. Arthas rejected this offer, stating that once he had the power of the Lich King, no one would tell him what to do again. He impaled the stunned Ner’zhul with Frostmourne, becoming the dominant personality of the Lich King and ending the dream.”