Virtually all classes have great heroes to represent them in the lore, and plenty of iconic story to look back on for inspiration.
Paladins - Arthas, Uther, Tirion, the RTS games, etc.
Death Knights - The Lich King, the four horsemen, and so on.
Warriors - there really are iconic warriors among all races, more or less.
Priests - The church of the Holy Light, the Naaru, Velen, and soon the Arathi.
Mage - Jaina, Khadgar, Medivh, the Nightborne, the Kirin Tor, etc.
Druids - Malfurion, the Emerald Dream, Hyjal, and a ton of iconic NPCs.
Monk - Chen, the entire continent of Pandaria, etc.
Rogue - Arguably Maiev Shadowsong, VanCleef, Shaw, Valeera Sanguinar, etc.
Demon Hunter - Illidan, enough said.
Hunters - Rexxar, a dozen iconic Night Elf and Tauren characters, etc.
Shaman - A gazillion famous Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, Dwarves and Draenei.
Evokers - New class, but it has the whole thing with Neltharion and the Aspects.
Which leaves us with WARLOCKS. What do they have to draw from? I mean, there’s Gul’dan and old Draenor lore, but in terms of relatable, familiar, liked, and most of all current characters there’s not a whole lot to draw from right now.
I think the Burning Legion / Sargeras storyline needs a bit of an update in the Worldsoul Saga, with perhaps some new characters rising to become famous Warlocks to contain the demon threat. Perhaps some known mages could even become Warlocks, after the events of TWW?
I’d really like to see what kind of warlock lore the current blizzard “writing team” can come up with. Considering there are rainbows, friendship and love everywhere. Warlocks are evil, they always had to hide even in capitals. Friendship with felguards? Love relationships with felhunters? xD
Hehe, but all jokes aside I think there’s room for an interesting story.
Imagine, for example, if the demon threat came back. Maybe they picked up on the fact that the Titans will be drawn to Azeroth due to everything going on with Xal’atath in the Worldsoul Saga, so they assault the High Seat of the Pantheon in an attempt to free Sargeras.
Illidan survives, but barely. He warns Azeroth.
Warlocks essentially take one of two sides: some decide to answer the Burning Legion’s call and return to Sargeras’ side. Pretty much like with the Death Eaters returning to Voldemort once he was back. Some known mages we used to trust might perhaps even switch sides.
While some resist, deciding they want to stop Sargeras for good. Included among these might be the Eredar defectors, who came back to Velen recently.
The conflict doesn’t need to be resolved right away, and could be left for some future potential, making the world more exciting. But at least as a result of it, we will have gotten both a new purpose, and a new facet of Warlock lore that we didn’t have before. Plus some new characters to involve in the story more often.
There should be more about how you get your demons. Like how Hunters go and tame wild beasts.
There should be ways to subjectate Demons with pentagram and candles with enchantations.
Maybe with events in the Nether or similar.
A questline like how we got our Artifacts for the first Demon would be good. Or one for each type of current Demon pets with ways to get others.
Pandaria is steeped with Monk culture and history. Everywhere you go, there are monk temples, filled with monks teaching you their ways.
Legion is an expansion about defeating demon bad guys, yes. There’s lots of fel. But aside from the Warlock Order Hall (not unique to their class), the expansion isn’t that focused on them, their heroes or their stories. Can you think of a single member from their Order Hall who is still relevant today?
And Legion is not full of deamons and temples to the fel?
I just think you are pidgeon holing this narrative.
And the fact that Trall is a shaman means nothing. As an example : He appears in the cinematic for WW but the whole expansion is about shadow bad guys. So we could argue that its more of a SP expansion than a Shaman one, even though none of the protagonists are SP.
Theres a bunch of warlocks, they’re just usually the bad guys and are now dead.
Kil’jaeden, Archimonde, Cho’gall, Teron Gorefiend and Gul’dan were all warlocks with so much plot armour that they were shown twice. Legion was an expection about the burning legion and there were warlocks everywhere. The black harvest are also a group of named warlocks, and thats to list a few.
Not in the same way, no. The demons you encounter in Legion and across the Broken Isles (etc) are 99% just generic enemies. The theme is there, sure. But that’s not the same as letting the players engage with it, becoming part of it, as you do on Pandaria.
You don’t find heroes within the Burning Legion, but you do within the August Celestials and the Shado-Pan.
Warlocks don’t have great heros because warlocks don’t make great heroes
That’s really all there is too it
Gul’dan imo is up there with the Lich king in terms of the impact he has had on the story as a whole and about as relateable (not at all, they’re both villains) so I am a bit suprised you’d list LK as Death Knight but kind of seem to brush over Gul’dans existance. Ner’zhul technically was the first, also a major lore character. Cho’gall was as well IIRC
You could argue kil’jaeden and archimonde were also warlocks, considering they took the gifts from Sargeras.
They’re all villains tho, because that’s what all warlocks are on the path of becoming lorewise.
They are either mages that recently discovered Fel and foolishly think they can use it for good or they have been using fel for a while and are fully game with the whole, steal souls to use and fuel your magic, Fel just corrupts like that
What about demon hunters you say? they have more incentive to stay in control, because to them, giving in doesn’t end in them becoming stronger, giving in ends up in them being taken over by the demon they consumed.
It also helps that they start out harboring great hatred for everything fel and demons to the point where they are willing to fight fire with fire, where-as warlocks again just see the power and become drawn in by it. Even the noblest mage would end up as the most scornful villain should they walk the path of the warlock.
“…then the great Agganoth placeth down a summoning portal for his fellows, and after some encouragement also blesseth them with a bowl of cookies”
The Lich King is Arthas, so there’s a deep connection between his fate and the players who played Warcraft 3 and the first expansions of WoW. He’s not just a bad guy. He also interacted with a load of characters we still know, such as Jaina. So his presence is still felt in the game. Gul’dan, at least from our perspective, was always just a conventional villain. Nothing more to it, really.
Important, yes. But not something players aspire to, I think.
“His companions noted that the cookies had a strange green sickening tinge to them and tasted like misery and suffering, before they didn’t even know that those emotions could be expressed in flavour”
Gul’dan is the reason the orcs even made it to Azeroth, the Dark Portal was built under his watch and it was through his magic with a little bit of help from Medivh that he opened the dark portal and unleashed the orcish horde onto Azeroth.
Only if you want to absolutely aspire to be a good person, at which point warlock just doesn’t compute with that, as said earlier, even the noblest mage would turn into a scornfull villain when they tread the path of the warlock.
Its not about willpower, its about what fel does to you, it is constant, it is addictive and with time it will break through the morals of its wielder like a wreckingball through glass
Gul’dan however, is the most warlock of warlocks if you ask me, so if you want your warlock to aspire to be a warlock, then Gul’dan is absolutely the right example.
A warlock is not only aboud demons and fel. There’s a whole Affliction tree with Shadow spells, curses and soul manipulation techniques of different kinds. And the lore of such practices among many different races is more than enough to make a suitable concept. Like, in Pandaria there are mogu teachings with Zian of Endless Shadow as the epitome of a sorcerer-king type, able and willing to curse and send shadows after those disloyal. In Zandalar there still are followers of Hi’reek, whose bloody demise could easily add the curses and corruption to the shadow techniques. In Kul Tiras there are Drust with more of necromantic approach to the same line of darkness and curses. And so on. I deeply regret that there aren’t Void glyphs that could replace demons with things of the Void (would make sense to have a faceless one instead of a felguard for a non-fel summoner), especially after 8.3, but it’s what it is.
Pandaria is ALL about old gods and H vs. A conflict.
Lets do a recap : There is a peice of an old god berried in Pandaria. The Mogu were done to guard it, they suffered the curse of flesh and made an empire enslaving the Pandaran.
Meanwhile, the Mantid, forever loyal to the old god invade every 10 years to the Mogu.
After the Pandaren overthrew the Mogu, they took over the mantle of defending against the mantids, and guarding the Heart of the old god.
Garrosh arrives, tries to use it agains the alliance. Horde make a rebelion and overthrow a corrupted Garrosh.
Thats a TLDR of Pandaria.
Where in that narrative do you see all this “angage”, “become part of it”… ?
You got specific quests that are very “monk style” but you also have some specific quests “warlock style” in Legion.
That is my final opinion. I think you are way to harsh on the absence of Warlock lore. Lets agree to disagree…
