Your sources do not show what you claim. You haven’t shown anything of actual substance to your claims. You haven’t cited anything that relates to what you say it does. You keep adding your head canon to connect those things you’ve cited but nothing actually does.
You shared sources. Then talked about made up stuff that had nothing to do with what you linked.
Source: Blood elves used mana tap on creatures to drain arcane energy
You: See! they siphoned fel!
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No that’s not what I said. Reread it. Let me dumb it down. Even further,
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.
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]
The technique started as arcane and was innocuous. It wasn’t because the mana crystals were demonic in nature. Hence why they’re green and have eyes staring back. The elves starting feeding ever more and some started to sate themselves on living creatures and the crystals itself. The overuse caused them to turn Wretches others turned Felblood Elves. Depending on how much they were sucking like vampires. Mana Tap appears to be arcane, but the method and use is fel. Sorry I need to clarify that.
Sucking life out of anything is inherently destructive and will lead to a desire for more magic. This results in elves indulging in fel. The Night Elves realized this in Classic with he Blackfathom questing.
The only blood elves I’m aware of that turned wretched due to fel were two accidents; one which was a questing hub studying something (and I don’t think they were even trying to consume it?) and the other was some farstrider lodge that tapped what they thought was a clean magical object but turned out to be corrupted, which turned them into wretched.
As far as I can tell, nobody actively sought out corrupt stuff before becoming wretched.
I also think it’s worth remembering that Kael’thas’s abilities were split up across the mage and warlock classes in the first place. Draining magic doesn’t necessarily have to be a warlock ability because Kael’thas already displayed that talent in WC3 and he was meant to be a mage hero unit. And later on, mages themselves would be able to drain arcane magic through Aluneth.
Right. Which shows that Kael drained fel energy eventually because he didn’t think Illidan was taking the addiction seriously.
Now, point to me where that applies to the blood elves that remained on Azeroth?
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You’re not going to convince me that a side quest buried in vanilla BRD about a druid studying naga brains (???) had any bearing on the blood elves’ story arc in TBC, I’m sorry. Tying his thesis to the wretched is also rather suspect considering he’s wrong: overdosing on arcane energies is what spawned another Thalassian subspecies, the fel flavor didn’t come until way later.
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That was confirmed in BC and at the end of the storyline of the Sunwell. The story origins, the research being done on brain stems showed that he was right. Eventually the discoveries were confirmed by the birth of the Wretched and later the Felblood Elves. While most people completely missed this chapter the nuggets lead to this story -
Once upon a time, Elves lived happily in Quel’thelas then mean old Arthas and the Scourge ruined the country and killed 90% of those living there. The survivors rallied, but discovered their precious Sunwell was corrupted.
Many started getting sick and the young, old and feeble started to die due to what was thought as mana addiction. Kael’thas prince of the elves decided to find a cure. He meets Illidan the two go gallivanting around Northrend and Outland.
Kael’thas wanted a cure and Illidan ever the slydog provided a solution which made the problem worse. He also kept the prince on a short leash. This infuriated the Prince of the newly named Blood Elves and the technique taught to him and his bestie Rommath was baaad. Why?
Cause it led them to be addicted even more and consuming life and mana from your enemies or from fel crystals was baaaad. They kept doing it until they started realizing some of them were turning into cracked addled elves known as Wretched.
After further study and venturing into Outland they realized they donked up. The elves were deceived this wasn’t arcane technique it was fel because it resulted in a greater addiction and worse results. They followed their prince back to the Sunwell in Quel’Danas and saw how bad it was. They used the heart of a Naaru thanks to an old prophet to rekindle their magical font. They realized using this technique only makes things worse - so they stopped. The end… Until mean old Arthas stirs in Northrend…
Wait, am I reading this uncharitably or are you implying that there wasn’t really any mana addiction and it was only believed to be so?
Still not seeing where the technique itself was fel, just that overusing it made the arcane addiction worse. Or that they only stopped because “they realized it was bad” instead of the Sunwell actually providing the juice they were biologically born into needing.
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When you say confirmed, do you mean “There’s a piece of lore out there that says that this is a thing” or do you mean that by your reading of events it makes sense to you?
ding ding the mana addiction was real, but it was way overblown. High Elves realized by meditating and dealing with the withdrawals in a organic and restrained way they would overcome it, not completely, but not be so sick and broken as their cousins who chose the path of mana tap.
It was both and badly presented. The technique itself resulted in a greater addiction or bigger fix like an addict. You want a bigger hit. This causes those who have weak self control to go into fel, but the technique has warlock origins, but Illidan didn’t share that at the time to Rommath and Kael’thas. He only taught them a solution but the solution wasn’t a cure it was a stopgap. It worked only in so far for a little bit you’d feel good, but if you ever talk to any addict. They can’t stop.
This leads to them tapping living creatures, draining them completely and that is where the fel starts. The act quickly devolves the person using it and wanting more and more. The technique is haphazard skill which is fel in that it results in growing addictions and making those who use it want more. Fel magic as seen with warlocks is all about afflicting their enemies and consuming their power to use against them.
We see demon hunters using similar abilities for similar results. Blood Elves had a very weak version of an advanced skill that would result in fel addiction by another means. The mana crystals radiated magic, but it was fel in nature. The more they were bathed in it. The more they needed to mana tap and eventually people started using it on the crystals themselves.
It’s very subtle, but the brain stems of Naga and Satyr show this very same addiction mutates the brain and causes the addict to need to supplement themselves with chaotic magic. What’s another word for chaotic magic? Vitriolic and toxic? Fel.
The whole time these elves were meandering themselves to the breaking point all the while being told - Don’t do it! High Elves were telling them. Night Elves warned them. They didn’t listen until they saw Outland and what magic consumption did to their brethren in Outland under the mad prince.
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Just the rangers. Others just sucked mana out of artifacts. Even some of the rangers did that, thus how the high elf rangers of Quel’Lithien ended up as wretched despite never mana tapping critters.
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Exactly bro! I’m sorry for being rude earlier. I’ve had a very long day, and this convo was making my head hurt. I think you guys have valid points, but the story was badly written and was not well explained. The Illidan novel touched on it, but didn’t actually provide the core details of what mana tap was doing to the Blood Elves beyond making them need to use fel. Hence why Kael’thas felt betrayed he saw his followers become demon hunters and he thought he could do something similar. That was on Illidan for not teaching him the whole origins and how to manage it properly and Rommath for not questioning these lessons.
God, what a stupid story beat. That renders the whole narrative purpose of making the race playable pointless. It’s the only thing that makes them interesting! To have the story go “well it wasn’t that bad, they just had to not do the thing” makes the whole story a waste of time. It means M’uru’s sacrifice was worthless too, because she didn’t need to let herself be captured and siphoned as a clean energy source because nobody actually needed her.
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Come to think of it, it means reigniting the Sunwell at all was a mistake, dressed up as condescending charity. The blood elves should’ve just knuckled down and willed their way through a disability. Anybody succumbing to their not-that-bad addiction was just a moral failure, unlike the unimpeachable high elves.
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Not to mention it, makes Velen out to be the most evil person on Azeroth by forcing the Blood Elves to be junkies again.
Of course, we all know the addiction was horrible and terrible as Kael’thas and others said it was, otherwise they wouldn’t have had to resort to the measures they did after the Sunwell was destroyed
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Fair enough. My objection was basically it felt like you were going a step farther than what the story says. Like yes, elf mana tapping was always meant to be dark, but that it always seemed more magic vampirism, and the demon sucking was reserved for Kael’s loyal followers who ended up in the dungeon and raid. Like that the playable blood elves started with a dark edge, but hadn’t turned the corner into going full bore dark.
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I think this revelation made me hate high elves existing in the story even more than I already did, lmao. Didn’t see that coming.
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Cemeron’s reading of the Blood Elf addiction being basically *Well, ackually, it’s not that bad has a lot of horrible connotations to it that Blizz definitely was NOT aiming for.
Their addiction, like all addictions, are horrible. Saying well, if you just stop doing it, you’ll be fine, is a really horrible reading of the story if you ask me
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You see why I am ambivalent on the writers. The blood elves had this really great story and now they’re back to being vanilla fantasy elves. Before they were jaded and dark, desperate to invert their beliefs and world order to satisfy their magical hunger. Now they’re basically humans with pointy ears. They worship the Light they’ve moved away from tempting fate with dark rituals and dangerous/reckless magics. They’re holier than thou. Void Elves continue their legacy of mastering dark powers, but look they’re now another flavor of High Elf. People want to take that away too.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
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I know this is where we differ because I don’t think a race can ever really be outcast enough or fall far enough from “grace” as long as they’re still in the alliance, but it’s also disappointing that, regardless of the quality of storytelling that went into making void elves, the story doesn’t even take advantage of the tensions that should be there.
Velves don’t even seem to actually have that temporary story that the belves did, just the promise that it could be there maybe possibly potentially.
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