Death Knights are more spiritual than Shaman

Lore Story Forum
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Shaman aren’t spiritual at all. It’s a lie.
Or at least retconned. :slight_smile:

For all the foreshadowing made from the book ‘Shadows Rising’ with the shaman apparently sensing an “unrest” in the spirits — They had 0 relevance to Shadowlands or even within the Shadowlands …

Which class served as our best spirit guides and held the most spiritual knowledge amongst them all? :thinking:

:smiley: :point_up: That’s right! →

:tada: Death Knights! :tada:

Additionally — Priests and Paladins devotion to the light? Meaningless!!

  • Save except their devotion in general, so the Kyrians know that they’ll be submissive devouts – Thus can ultimately have their memories wiped clean & be reconditioned to THEIR cause. :smiling_imp:

Back to the subject of Shaman:

They have been depicted as pathetic or inconsequential in the spiritual field — At best, being merely those who control the physical elements and nothing more.

So in spite of shaman being told to be able to hold close relationships with the spirits and even spiritual beings like the loa — or heck, even the naaru!! … It’s ultimately a fabrication or misconception now.

And what oh-so-great lore do we have to thank for removing spirituality from the classes of

  • Priests
  • Paladins
  • and even Shaman?

The answer is — Shadowlands.

Ultimately:

This is why I’d like if we could at least delve deeper into spiritual lore or partially retcon Shadowlands in the extent that the light has no purchase over the spirit realm … Which prior lore literally stated otherwise & to suggest it doesn’t is quite insulting retcon to the story that came before.

What’s more is that the ordeal of spirits ‘dying’ in the Shadowlands results in permanant erase — is pretty stupid considering you have those who summon spirits from the otherside; without once having it as: “Oh no sorry, they were killed in the Shadowlands – so I can’t commune with them.”

At best, I’d love if they could present a conspiracy that spirits simply ‘shatter’ and reform over many, MANY years or millennia (like beings in Percy Jackson) and may result in a greater offering to be given from the living plane to reform them, so they may be communed with. :clap:

:face_exhaling: Anyway …

I felt irritated @ the lore from Shadowlands, for not only what it did to class identity – but the lore in general on multiple other layers & wanted to vent it out as I no longer have the same love, fascination and admiration for the overall storyline that I once did.

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2

Ummm shamans are elemental spirit nature connected not really connected power wise to actual spirits or anything. Realm of death does not scream shaman at all. Death does not equal spiritual really either.

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i still dont know why shamans are different than druids

4

Frost shock!!!

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5

Death Knights and Forsaken were underutilized in Shadowlands.

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6

It’s pretty clear that, at some point during WoW’s development, Blizzard decided that “Shaman” really just meant “the last fight of Avatar: The Last Airbender where Aang has all those elements spinning around him and it’s rad.” They went all-in on the elemental aspect of the fantasy and discarded the ancestral part almost entirely.

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Shamanism had the same relevance it always had - giving Thrall a reason to hog the spotlight.

As you say - they had little involvement other than making Thrall aware so he could investigate and make it all about him.

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Another thing DKs do better than shamans lol

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I believe yours completely right about this… and in that same though forgot that the whole point of the Avatar WAS his connection to the spirit world.

Then again we come to the same problem, the lore around shamanism, culture or religion that surrounds it, has not been developed enough to be expanded upon… even Orgrimmar the main city of Orc don’t really show any type of attachment to said spirits of elements or ancestors… Heck I think the Centaurs in DF have better lore for Shamans than the PC. (IMO)

And that not even touching on Shadowland lore… imagine what would happend if we get Necromances or Liches as a class who can use Fleshcraft, Runecarving and Soul forging or even Nerubian theme magic with the web and venom… What would be the point in Shamans at all.

There is so much that can be expanded upon like mention before but from what I can tell Blizz can only focus on what time it has to develop in an expansion while the rest ends up in books most of the time.

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10

While I do not necessarily endorse this position, I have seen a few RPers write in there profiles, they do not accept SL as cannon.
I may or may not disagree with that statement, but I can definitely see where it’s coming from.

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11

RPers were placed into a very bad spot when it came to Shadowlands for a variety of reasons, which is what led to some just kind of memory-holing it.

Firstly was that SL essentially retconned every single religion or spiritual belief every race has. Some lore that had been established the prior expansion was retconned. Only trolls managed to get some semblance of cohesion, and that was only because Bwonsamdi was so popular in BfA (and they managed to make him way more good guy instead of more cunning and pragmatic, which was a downgrade). And even that was altered in favour of the new lore. Shamanism and kaldorei beliefs were hit the hardest, and for the latter it was a continuous hit, patch after patch, that became increasingly hard to write around as Blizzard seemingly sprinted away from any method of reconciling old lore and new lore.

Some RPers I know did actively try to play ball with Shadowlands lore, and their reward was… Korthia and then Zerith Mortis, which are both so far removed from any concept of ‘afterlife’ that it may as well just be other planets.

And to top it off, simply the idea of knowing there’s an afterlife for real and your beliefs are meaningless is almost impossible to reconcile if you want to roleplay a somewhat normal character. It’s even harder to approach than WoD was.

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Gross underdevelopment.

In my opinion, THAT was ultimately Shadowlands primary story problem.

From what I gather of how the Shadowlands works, the Shadowlands is a meta-dimension that’s full of countless pocket dimensions; most of which function as afterlives for all sorts, and most of which can be reached via Oribos’s Monster’s Inc.-style doorway system; or the Broker cartel’s tech.

Now, you have the four, Covenant-run, “prime” pocket dimensions, which all function as ordering machinery for the whole dimension; you have your prison in the Maw; and you have the pocket-dimension that ordered it all: Zerath Mortis. NONE of this deletes any races afterlife plane. What we experienced in Shadowlands were the pocket dimensions that related to the story Blizz. sought to tell. It’s my opinion that Shadowlands would have been better for all if it also spent time fleshing out the afterlife planes of the races we know.

My wish is that we see bits of lore that clarifies and enriches Shadowlands as we move forward. Lore that goes into things like the nuance between shaman and death knights, for example. There were some great things in the Shadowlands story, despite the bad stuff, and seeing that good survive would be awesome. I expect to see some of the good Shadowlands stuff raise its head again in the Last Titan. Northrend and the Scourge in the next expansion are going to be very interesting.

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13

Druids are with the wild gods and the emerald dream and care about nature.

Shamans connects to the elements themselves and usually just mediate between the elements and gain use of their powers. Caring about nature isn’t a thing mostly as much as it is about making sure the elements don’t go nuclear against each other.

Also shamans do have things to do with the spiritual world, regardless of what people say here. Hence ghost wolf and ancestral spirits.

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Frost DKs rival Frost Mages in that department.

Cue Mr Freeze puns

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I have a feeling they will much later. I hope they do as well; it’d be all too easy to just move passed it and never mention it again, but it’s a good storyteller that can build on foundations which were…to be generous, good on concept but bad in execution. There’s a lot more they could do in the future going forward, but I hope they go with a more tell don’t show approach to the afterlife–some things should be left as a mystery, or at least vague and open to interpretation. The nature of storytelling in WoW is loud and bombastic, full of bright effects and flashy stuff and loot and all that, but when handling something as ephemeral and obtuse as the afterlife, a bit more care should be made than “hey here’s a new boss that’ll drop some stuff, don’t worry about why you’re here fighting it.”

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:face_with_raised_eyebrow: Ummmm Shamans were connected power-wise to “actual” spirits. lol

  • As for your statement in whole, I wouldn’t be so quick to boldly claim something so wrong.

It HAD been referenced, listed and repeatedly told throughout the story for literally years in the lore.

But thankyou … :yum:

Your comment is actually a prime example of how degrading & corossive the storytelling has been to the lore of shaman — That people now genuinely believe that there’s never been that relevance or connection to begin with.

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17

You’re kidding about the DKs right? They were in the Maw in force and had so much screen time and critical roles and usage.

Meanwhile the Forsaken got zero screen time in the Shadowlands, and please for the love of all that is unholy and unsanctified don’t say Calia represented the Forsaken in the Shadowlands.

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18

Talking to dead spirits is not getting power from them. Aside from the elemental spirits you got nothing mate.

19

You haven’t played as a farseer? You literally have your ancestral spirits fighting with you

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There was a bit more that could’ve been done with DK’s, like acknowledgement if the DK has pieces of Frostmourne - as mine did.

But I agree completely that Forsaken got the shortest end of the stick.