The horde doesn't need a devastating defeat

Amadis-draka · July 14, 2019, 12:58am

Eh. The Alliance version of the fight was against an army of Royal Dreadguard that was with Nathanos and Kaldorei Dark Rangers - probably the very same ones that the Horde player was able to raise in their questing. Alliance version Nathanos couldn’t lay a hit on Tyrande (Horde version is different, where Tyrande is an attackable target).

The additional units make it look a lot less like they’re just fighting an empowered Nathanos. But that doesn’t really make the situation more palatable because Signe is just not attackable in the scenario.

You can’t interact with her, do damage to her, nothing to even put up the illusion that you could actually interrupt her raising the Night Elves. It was just a plot point that was going to happen without Tyrande or Malfurion or the player being involved with it.

I made this following complaint on the Tides of Vengeance PTR Forums (and the Story Forums, too):

Darkshore PTR Changes: The Good and still Bad

Not being able to intervene before Night Elves are risen as undead

Tyrande's Ascension Scenario
Stage 11: The Queen's Pawn
Intervene before Nathanos raises the fallen as forsaken.

Why is the Alliance narrative framed again as a goal that will not be met? We already had this in the quest objective of evacuating 982 Darnassian Citizens in 3:00 minute time limit in the mockingly named “A Flicker of Hope” quest. Though Tyrande is shown as more powerful in fighting Nathanos, the stated goal still ends in failure as the Night Elves are risen in undeath. This is especially bad given the one piece of information we have about the Night Warrior before this:

Necklace with Elune Pendant

Elune is the primary goddess of the night elves. She is associated with the larger of the two moons, the White Lady. While she is a goddess of peace, she is not a pacifist. One of her aspects is the Night Warrior, who takes the valiant among the dead and sets them riding across the sky as stars.

I propose the following change: As Tyrande and Malfurion are fighting Nathanos, have Tyrande cast a spell on Night Elf corpses that does what the description reads above as: Have their souls come out and fly off into the sky Team Rocket style and have their corpses despawn, having Tyrande save them from the Forsaken one by one until only Delaryn and Sira’s corpses remain. Then when Tyrande goes to channel her saving spell on Delaryn, then have the Val’kyr use mind control spell on Tyrande to stop her and stun her long enough to at least raise Delaryn and Sira, and then have Tyrande kill the Val’kyr. This would make the Alliance side feel far less like failure, and more just not being able to save everyone, which is far more reasonable.

Blizzard’s solution?

They simply changed the scenario stage description to: