With the preview of the Hero Talents posted by Blizz today, I was reading the Warrior talents released, and the first thing that came to my attention was both the central theme of the tree as well as the abilities.
Warriors always had lightning themed abilities, but that was shrugged off by many as just leftovers of the mountain King unity in Warcraft 3, same for avatar, but now, with this spec, they are doubling down on the idea that warriors can in fact call upon lightning and turn into or adquire the properties of stone.
This is a weirdly unique case as every other class in the game is at least hinted to be tied with an element of magic or cosmic force, but not Warriors, and what they are getting now seem to overlap with shamanism, so this brings a lot to talk over IMO, specially how exactly warriors summon these powers and what exactly kind of power warriors wield besides just being physically powerful.
I think tackling the magic system behind each class is long overdue and the hero specs shows that.
So what are you guys thinking about mountain thanes and hero specs lorewise?
Pandaria-style Monks already overlap a lot with shamans as far as the magic forces they call upon, so thereās significant precedent even in modern Warcraft for elemental abilities being accessible to those of martial bents.
I donāt want them to handle it though, because thereās a lot of room for other versions; Gnome and Goblin warriors very likely through engineering, Thalassian elves through arcane magic, etc. At the end of the day, āhow I shot sparkā just isnāt very impressive magically in this setting and it isnāt something that needs meticulous explanation as opposed to inference.
Well thats the thing right, with monks and shamans, what makes them similar and different is explained, monks use only their spirit, they dont call upon elemental spirits like shamans, that use the spirit to commune with elementals and get their aid.
I just like knowing how things work properly I guess.
I think thatās a fair desire, though Iām not sure Warcraftās execution of such has done it credit. More generally, though, this feels like minutiae since we do know how the classes usually work.
I donāt think anyone is claiming that non-dwarves/titanforged descendants can actually do that though in the lore.
Avatar is specifically a dwarven thing as they pull on their titanforged ancestry to temporarily return to rock. And weāve seen titanforged use lightning as itās arguably the second most used element outside of arcane by the titanforged. And either way, the hammers that the mountain thanes (and gryphonriders) use are magically enchanted to allow them to wield lightning.
Every class has stuff that make no sense for some races, like ghostwolf, hex, etc for shamans are just a few examples. These specs are just the latest in a long line. One of the thane talents is literally called ākeep your feet on the groundā one of the most iconic dwarf lines.
Well, I could give you a lengthy breakdown of how warriors have been using lightning-based abilities that are less tied to the elements and more tied to calling upon the power of their ancestorsā¦ butā¦
WEāRE WARRIORS!!! WE DO NOT CALL UPON THE ELEMENTS. THEY COME TO US BECAUSE THEY WISH TO BASK IN OUR GLORIOUS MIGHT AND PARTAKE OF OUR GREATNESS!!!
At least that seems to be lore theory Blizzard usually chooses with warriors.
Blizzard does not seem to do that though. As I pointed out earlier the classes donāt have race-specific spells/specs which is why theyāre just an amalgamation of the most iconic stuff and allows them for every race able to be that class. I would not look deep into it lore wise.
That said, RPers can invent some other reason why their char use these abilities though.
You misunderstand my bolded rant. Blizzard operates on rule of cool logic for warriors arguably more than any other class, they always have and likely always will. There can be surface level lore bits to be found of course such the Mountain Kings with their thunder abilities but at the end they are surface level. Any deeper lore is usually up to interpretation by the players. This is not inherently a bad thing either, as you say it allows RPerās to craft their own stories.
My theory for the Mountain Kings thunder abilities is because of their belief in their ancestors watching over them from the sky. To be fully called a Mountain King one must prove the favor of their ancestors by calling forth the power of the sky (IE, thunder) in battle. While this is most closely tied to the Dwarves of Khaz Modan of course any warrior who calls forth this power has the right to call themselves a Mountain King as the demonstration of ability is more important than any other consideration.
Yeah, Is what I mean, we know rogues actively become invisible, we seen that in cinematics, they use shadow magic or something, but they never explain what empowers Warriors.
Finally a class talent thatās not just a revisit of arcane or shadow. A major boon for dwarf warriors or anyone who wants to claim a dwarven influence. I have fond memories of thee Moutain King PRC from the RPG so this just warms my heart.
What would even be killer if it could fit would be a revisit of the Sister of Steel traits for monks. Be an excellent jump off for a female dwarven monk.
I think there are plenty of RP opportunities hidden within the concept of a Warrior who focuses on lightning/storm imagery. You could be a Dalarani Battlemage, combining lightning magic with bladecraft. You could be a Pandaren disciple of Ra-den, wielding his might in battle. You could be an Orc Warrior who makes a pact with a storm spirit to fight side-by-side in battle. You could be a Gnomish electro-master who wades in battle with an arsenal of tesla coils and galvanic whatzits.
Thereās no shortage of different ways to swing it.
Will there be a clear and canonical explanation for exactly where a āStandardā Mountain Thane gets their power from? lol, no. Probably not.
I always liked to believe that Warriors just accidentally call on magic as they fight, because theyāre inadvertently satisfying some ritualistic condition that calls on magic without realizing it. Remember that magics are fundamental forces of the universe that obeys rules and logics, and you could accidentally stumble into a correct ritual without realizing that youāre doing it.
There are probably some spells that coincidentally get cast due to the movements and emotions of Warriors in combat. The lightning-themed spells we see just happen to be the ones whose conditions-to-cast are met by Warriors. I think the idea of an accidental spellcaster is funny.
This is absolutely the way to go about it.
Leave it vague enough that you can fill in the blanks on an individual level.
Warriors are already capable of pulling off near-impossible martial feats.
And personal explanations have ranged from āenchanted armsā to āinner magicā to āstrongā.
So definitely do not expand on it and shoehorn in Warriors into a specific hole theyāre forced to conform to.
Maybe they cast lightning thanks to their elemental affinity?
Maybe they utilize their inner spirit?
Maybe they have a car battery strapped to their sword?
I think the issue is most classes donāt have any set rules. A lot of it new stuff combined with aspects from the RPG book that blizz made cannon over the years
A world where all races already have have most classes and are accelerating towards having all of them is a world that benefits from being as vague as possible about how they do what they do.
If āMountain Thaneā was some kind of Dwarf-specific class then yeah, Iād love a precise explanation for how the Dwarves draw power from their connection to their mountain homes. Thatād be great. Butā¦ it isnāt, and trying to shoehorn 1/3rd of all warriors into that is silly.