Let's talk about Sylvanas' 'magic'

Community General Discussion
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It’s pretty safe to say that Sylvanas got a pretty big power spike in between Legion (and expansions before) and BfA, even from the BfA cinematic where she can turn into a mist that just instagibs fully armored soldiers

Probably most obvious is the fact that she can flat out fly now, which always bothered me after the Undercity cutscene

Now it’s shown on top of all of this, she can just hurl blasts of pure death, which we witnessed recently, and it’s serious magic, with no charge time, didn’t even seem to exhaust her at all, and even the best spellslingers (Jaina, Khadgar, Thalyssra) have to channel their spells or charge up for a good while

It’s to the point that other mages are like, “wut hunter casts chaos bolt lol how dis happen” and have no idea how to categorize the ‘magic’ used, and it’s to the point Sylvanas, known as an extremely skilled archer, hardly uses her bow anymore

I mean granted yeeting Instagib Bolts seems a bit more effective than a bow

I know the popular theory is that Sylvanas is using ‘death’ magic, but outside of it being deadly I’m not buying it: Death Knights have been using ‘death’ magic for ages, and can actually perform necromancy without the aid of a Val’kyr, our Mage Gals™ would have picked up on this if this was the case

I’m of the theory that whatever the Banshee Goddess is using, it transcends magic, or at least what we know of it: It may not even classify as magic because it seems to go far beyond what is possible with it which is why the Mage Gals™ have no idea what it is

I’m sure more info will be released later but for now, I’m sticking to “Goes beyond magic”, or at least what we know of it

(On a side note Sylvanas is now a better mage than Jaina or Thalyssra, maybe even Khadgar, lol)

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one of her monikers is “dark witch”

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See I heard that, but I always thought it was an insult and “witch” is a more Teen friendly word than another 5 letter word

(And she always had limited magic, like Charm and enchanted arrows, being a Dark Ranger)

Didn’t expect everything else, though

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Well she admitted to working with Queen Azshara on the last cinematic. So I am guessing that in exchange for leading us into Azshara’s trap so we could be used to free N’zoth she got the “Lady Ashvane” version 2.0 upgrade. Remember there is nothing that says undead can not use void energies, after all Forsaken priests do it all the time.

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She’s a banshee. She’s not really any playable class.

Also, loling that another person is taking blizzards “writing” seriously.

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Oh, sure, Undead can use the Void, they’re just resistant to the whispers, possibly due to the already dead thing (I don’t think there’s hard evidence on how Forsaken brains work)

I think this goes well beyond Void magic, though, it’s way beyond what anyone can do, even those who have chilled out in the Void in order to study it for a pretty good while

It’s hard telling if Azshara taught her anything or gave her a McGuffin, but something’s certainly up

I’ll be the first to say BfA isn’t very well written or developed story wise, but still fun to talk about stuff like this, especially with Sylvanas getting some pretty strong powercreep over everyone else

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I don’t think Forsaken brains do work. I think it’s like all their other organs, which are just dead, but magic animates their bodies as if those organs were still functioning.

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I did read somewhere she’s dealing with gods, or something or rather. Not the first time seeing as she’s dabbled for a long time now.

As I mentioned though, she’s a banshee. Her powers will be different to playable classes. And seeing as she was a ranger in life, it’d be reasonable to be able to combine the two in her case.

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She did make a deal with Azshara y’know…

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Well, she went from Banshee to Dark Ranger to, well, I’m not sure how to describe it now, I guess Dark Witch?

It’s clear she’s at least dealing with N’Zoth with her and Nath carrying around Xal’atath, but where’s everyone else’s super death bolts who also dealt with him?

Kinda leads into:

Which brings up some questions like why Azshara didn’t have these powers? Once the Hearts were there to break the seal she could have pulled Sylvanas-tier skills instead of Arcane Detonation or something

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I’m on board with this theory.

Sylvannas is a banshee. In traditional Gaelic lore banshees are literally omens of death. If one hears a banshee scream, death is sure to follow soon. So given traditional lore, it makes sense for Sylvannas to be able to kill Saurfang in the manner she did.

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Well she’s still a raid boss. They’re not going to make an impossible fight.

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So what I take away from this is that hunters are getting a really exciting new row of dps talents :slight_smile:

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Maybe…maybe not. It is hard to tell where her limits were even after all these years as a Banshee but one powerful enough to raise an entire race of beings.

My guess is IF she got some hopped up powers then we saw Death magic in use against Saurfang. If we DIDN’T see her hopped up it is just some death magic she has always had but we didn’t see or have a need to see until now, just like the opening BfA cinematic.

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Totally agree. If it was void magic, I feel like Thalyssra or Jaina would have recognized it as such and they both flatly stated that had no idea what kind of magic she used to kill Saurfang. Thalyssra even goes as far as saying that she detected no magic at all, which lends credence to your theory that whatever Sylvanas has tapped into, it’s beyond magic.

Yeah, I’m not clear on what her deal with Azshara was. I mostly feel it was something along the lines of “hey I’ll send you all these people with tons of azerite power so you can free N’Zoth” but it’s not clear what Sylvanas got out of the deal. Just more dead people?

Right? I wish more people had this attitude. So tired of seeing every attempt at a conversation get dragged down by people who can’t help but inject their bile into it.

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That’s very possible, could be she had this stuff for a good while, just never had to bust it out

That possibility was brought up in the aftermath, where she could have had it all along and just now decided to show just how extreme it was

I kinda wish a Void Elf was involved in the whole shindig that went down, as that would help confirm that it is or isn’t Void magic, but I assume the others there would surely be able to tell

The whole thing of no one knowing what the heck she’s doing, or what her power source is, is a pretty interesting thing to me

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She has always had the power, but has never been in the forefront to be seen using it.

It feels like a feveal because now she is actually in the forefront. But its not. Its just the banshee being a banshee

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It is interesting and to be honest so is your point about no Void Elves i mean after all there are only 2 of note and one is minor in every sense. But where was Alleria while her sister was on the field? Afk again i see as with almost all of BfA, same with Vareesa, i mean i guess they are unimportant parts of the Alliance when it comes to anything doing with Sylvanas (or really anything in general as with most of the Alliance unless it is moving the story along), they only lived how many years as sisters, thousands?

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It looks very familiar, I’ve also seen it illuminate from Subtlety Rogues while they’re casting Shadowstrike.

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Super death magic.

It’s like regular death magic…But Better…

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