Haha I’m sure Queen Azshara agrees. I think the whole mana tap issue should of been better represented in the game. Showing what indulging in a warlock technique which the vast majority of Blood Elves did not know at the time was corrupting them. Even to this day people don’t know the whole context on why mana tap was bad.
You mean the wretched?
You mean the dungeon boss in the dungeon with Kael’thas? So one of the elves the followed him to Outland who everyone admits indulged in fel?
It was both. Actually it’s a fascinating piece of lore most people miss. Lore wise Rommath was sent back by Kael’thas with the knowledge taught by Illidan. He was sworn not to go into any specific details other than it’s a technique that will save them.
Blood Elves began practicing in earnest this racial ability hence they gaining fel green eyes and siphoning magic from living creatures which was fel original ability used by Illidan. Most elves back on Quel’thelas began to indulge in this too much becoming wretched as feared by Gershala Nightwhisper.
The Night Elves began to investigate back in classic and knew this would happen. Blood Elves are then shown indulging in fel magic as much as siphoning from living creatures. The starting quests in BC even warns you the player not to over indulged though the elves did not know the origins of this skill they felt it was vital for their salvation.
As you quest further on you realize how bad this skill is and by the end of BC the skill is removed for WOTLK because Blood Elves don’t need it and it’s too dangerous as its origins were fel in nature.
Some Blood Elves like the Farstriders were wary of this new ability and refrained from using it as much as possible. Hence why radiation is also sourced, but if you did all the questing from Classic until the end of BC. They make it clear it was both. Illidan taught them a skill which would in the end backfire if overused since it was fel in nature, but I think Illidan knew that and used it as a means of controlling Kael’thas which ended up backfiring on him.
Well I’m biased and think elves suck and would’ve wanted horde naga more.
BUT to be serious, I’m the other way around in that I don’t like how easily the game seems to show how high elves could get by via simply abstaining because I feel it waters down the sympathy intended for a group of people that were struggling with a drug addiction metaphor. That not everybody could moderate the intake of something they never knew they needed until they were cut off cold turkey shouldn’t be treated as a moral failure.
Showing the wretched from over-consumption is one thing, but I think we should’ve seen a lot of abstainers simply die of weakness or shock as well.
Wrong.
Devs have state that the green eyes came from passive exposure to the crystals powering the city.
Never heard this one before.
Indeed, and only taught them to do it to creatures.
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Read the book and read all the quests. It was both. Fel consumption and being exposed to people over indulging with their mana siphoning skills resulted in not only green eyes, but ruddy skin and eventual transformation into Wretched. I feel like a broken record. If you don’t believe me. Cite me the various sources, cause I’ll cite even more to invalidate your claim.
How did the blood elven fel eye glint become so widespread? The Warcraft Encyclopedia suggests that Rommath only taught the blood elves of Azeroth about how to siphon arcane magic, as most of the populace would likely be “horrified” if they knew the true extent of Kael’s dealings with Illidan. The situation regarding blood elf eyes is, in fact, extremely similar to that of the green skin of orcs: just being around heavy use of fel magic turned the eyes of the blood elves green. You could be the most pious of priests or most outdoorsy of Farstriders, chances are, if you were a high elf in Quel’Thalas or Outland following the Third War, you were around fel energies, and your eyes would turn green. Like the orcs’ skin color, such an effect would take a very long time to wear off. Fel magic works a bit like radiation in this sense; it permeates the area and seeps into anything in the vicinity. Anything near a source of fel magic shows signs of slight corruption, it just so happens that high elves and orcs manifest it in a very visual way.
From “Ask a CDev, Round 3”
Funny you’d use that source since the book Illidan goes into the detail. Remember the most current lore is the one presented in the book. The reason Kael’thas betrayed Illidan was because he realized that Illidan was not going to provide the solution he wanted and the mana addiction was not sated via siphoning magic as he was promised. Illidan basically kept dismissing Kael’thas and that led to him betraying Illidan in turn. We see Blood Elves in Quel’Danas, Outland and in the starting zones of Quel’thelas overindulging in consuming magic from fel crystals they became Wretched.
Kael’thas, together with 15% of the blood elven people, made the journey into Outland with his new allies. With the goal of finding a lasting method to sate the elven addiction, and claiming a new homeland for the sin’dorei, Kael’thas thus put his plans into motion. However, he had not forgotten about his people still in Azeroth. Grand Magister Rommath, a powerful Archmage who had served Kael’thas’ ambitions faithfully, was sent back to reclaim Quel’Thalas with a contingent of magisters - and to spread Illidan’s teachings of draining magical power, teachings smoothly attributed by Rommath to the blood elven scion. Kael’thas named Lor’themar Theron Quel’Thalas’ regent, to safeguard the country until the prince’s return to lead their people. Emboldened by the reclamation of shining Quel’Thalas, and the prince’s promises of a glorious future, the blood elves began to work towards their own great journey - to reunite with their prince in the promised haven of Outland.[23] Rommath informed him about the possible alliance with the Horde.[18]
Kael’thas in his citadel of Tempest Keep.
As Illidan prepared his army of demon hunters to assault Argus, Kael’thas became alienated. Several of his followers had left him to join Illidan to be trained as demon hunters and he believed he could harness fel magic just as they did to sate his addiction. Soon, the fel gnawed at his mind, causing him to become more paranoid of his people, believing them to think of him as a failure.[24] Many believed that the fel magic made him unstable.[25] He believed his travel to Outland to have been a mistake since he was no closer to finding a cure to the addiction than before and the suffering of the blood elves had only increased. He was too prideful to return to Quel’Thalas without a cure, yet also deeply ashamed and angered of his own inability to find one. In this state of emotional turmoil, the prince was contacted by Kil’jaeden. The demon lord told him of more effective ways to harness fel energy and that Illidan had withheld them from him because he did not deem them worthy, only tools in the war against the Legion. In return for teaching Kael’thas, Kil’jaeden simply asked him to abandon Illidan. The prince refused, but doubts began to plague his consciousness.[26]
I’d also restate the piece of lore that question refers back to, which explicitly presents the abstinence from draining fel magic as the key difference between Kael’s faction of elves and Silvermoon’s playable group.
The wretched are also a rather self-defeating group to cite as proof of blood elf fel abuse when their origins are evident at a glance: arcane-corrupted zombies outcast from Silvermoon and fel-corrupted zombies serving Kael’thas on Quel’Danas.
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Me: The blood elves on Azerroth didn’t eat fel as that’d be a step too far, the ones who went with Kael did.
You: WRONG! Look at all these elves that went with Kael’thas that ate fel!
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Its not demonic… How are you unable to get that? Illidan is a half demon, that doesn’t mean everything he teaches is Demonic…
Its not false. You’re just very confused.
Its inherently arcane in nature. Its draws forth magical energy from living beings. Its also literally labeled as ARCANE magic in TBC.
Yes the ones who followed Kael’thas very much did, and the ones we play and most of Silvermoon only ever used the Fel Crystals to power the city. Individuals did here and there but not the Blood Elves we play as as a whole.
Also I wouldn’t really trust the words of the enemy of the Blood Elves and their misunderstanding of them. lol
Again we have the devs literally telling us directly as well as the fact that the questing never suggests in Eversong or Ghostlands that anyone beyond the Wretched and a few scattered elves drew magic for sustenance from the Fel Crystals.
Literally. Green eyes is, alone, only because of the fel radiation for the Blood Elves that remained on Azeroth.
The Blood Elves who followed Kael’thas drew fel energies and thus would later become the Felblood Elves.
And wouldn’t Legion show us that he may have come up with mana tapping prior to him doing the legion stuff?
Legion suggests he learned it during the War of the Ancients while he still served the Black Rook Hold.
And literally drew the entirety of the Arcane magic from his compatriots to empower himself killing them in the process.
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That’s what I was thinking of.
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Its actually interesting to point that out. It suggests its a Skill that he invented more than anything.
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When Kael’thas came back he stole Mu’uru and made his way to Quel’Danas following him were wretched. The promise of the allure for mana addiction proved too strong. The Crystals are being siphoned by Wretched and you see this in both Quel’thelas and Quel’Danas, but both groups are using a technique which was taught to them by Rommath and the playable Blood Elves cull the Wretched because of their transgressions.
Most blood elves embraced these teachings, using them to drain arcane power from compact mana crystals (which became a popular product)[2] and innocuous mana-bearing vermin.[1] Mana draining could be used on anything containing arcane power, including crystals, artifacts, creatures, and even mortals possessing such power.[2] In World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade , this was illustrated by the blood elf racial ability, 
[Mana Tap], which drained a small amount of mana from any target possessing some.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that the Blood Elves didn’t mana tap.
Yeah, I’m not seeing where the quoted bits suggest that blood elves were tapping the fel crystals. Just because you see the Wretched do it, doesn’t mean the belves were.
The mana tap was thought to be just arcane, but the origins and the purpose was actually nefarious in the long run. The unforeseen consequences of using mana tap and the mana crystals strown around Silvermoon and the radiant exposure was why we see fel devolution into wretched and also felblood elves, this further affirmed in much of the questing.
The exposure and use of volatile magic started to change Blood Elves from High Elves into a new form. Superficially the most significant change was the coloration of their eyes and their skin gaining a ruddy hue. Though not all Blood Elves indulged in consuming mana like the magisters and warlocks. The point I am making it’s both mana tap and radiant exposure resulted in the changes we see at present with many Blood Elves, though thanks to the cleansing of the Sunwell some now have golden eyes infused with the Light and others are now back to their original Blue eyes etc.
Well, I mean it’s the thing you keep repeating. You really haven’t made the point.
All you’ve been doing is asserting that there’s something fel to do with it, then either listing different groups, like the wretched or Kael’s followers, or linking to stuff on mana tap and pretending that backs up your claim without any link