I’ve had a burning question in my mind lately, what if the greatest King and Queen of the ancient world fought?
On one side we have Lei Shen, the Thunder King, on the Other we have the Great Queen Azshara.
For the first fight lets assume their empires go to war, who conquers who? The Kaldorei empire has access to the well of eternity, the Mogu have access to the Titan machines they historically had access to, that could create more stone Mogu.
For the Second, lets assume Lei Shen And Azshara meet in single combat, both are at full power (Azshara full power as an elf mage-queen, not a naga empowered by N’zoth). Both have ample prep time, Lei Shen has all his artifacts, Azshara has the most powerful Highborne magic Relics and some access to the Well of Eternity’s power.
For points of reference to their power, Lei Shen beat Xuen, the wild god of strength. Azshara scared Mannoroth the destructor into ignoring his blood lust and backing down, not daring to attack her due to her superior power compared to his.
For the third fight, who do you like better as a character?
Azshara + elves beat the Zandalari + trolls, which the mogu could not do.
Their (Mogu + Zandalari) alliance was one formed out of mutual respect out of either side’s inability to succumb to the other.
Night Elf Empire > Zandalaru Empire/Mogu Empire.
Azshara is/was regarded as the most powerful sorceress Azeroth has ever known. Beating a Wild God is a feat, but it feels like something that Azshara wouldn’t find terribly difficult given that Mannoroth had no problem fighting against Wild Gods in the War of the Ancients but Azshara made him go, “No thanks.”
Azshara has more mystique and has been built up since WC3, but I think Lei Shen could have had more interest/potential had his history been presented in MoP as it was in Chronicles, and if he was built up to be the final boss of MoP, not Daddy Issues the Orc.
Had the Legion not got involved the Elves were approaching the point of ruling/dominating the world, and Azshara with full access to the Well of Eternity would just be able to overwhelm Lei Shen with raw Arcane power.
One might recall that one of Heroes of the Storm’s alternate universe premises for certain Li Li and Chen skins is based upon the very scenario speculated in this thread. Where instead of chattel slaves forbidden to fight, the other races of Pandaria are seemingly armed and trained as “Warbreakers” in Lei Shen’s armies, which he uses to war against the night elves under Azshara for control of the Well of Eternity.
To be fair, as an entire race of innately capable users of arcane magic in possession of titan machinery and archived titan knowledge, the mogu could feasibly have a far better understanding of how to counter the arcane powers of the night elves than the trolls did, as the trolls have historically always been particularly vulnerable to arcane magic due to their grasp of it being mostly limited to what little the mogu were willing to teach the Zandalari.
So hypothetically it might not be so cut-and-dried. A common factor with arcane magic is that it readily manipulates and shapes other magics, and the only other magic it doesn’t tend to consistently overpower is the fel. Another mighty empire that’s also deeply knowledgeable in wielding arcane magic may well put up a far more serious fight against the night elves than the trolls could with their comparatively limited understanding of the arcane.
I feel like Azshara > Lei Shen but Mogu military > NE military. I mean, the NE military was…not that impressive in the war of the ancients. Sure, they basically relied heavily on their magic users who had their mojo cut off from the well of eternity, so its not an entirely fair comparison, but their non-magic users were not impressive. I feel like the horde and alliance did a much better job against the legion in all BL invasions throughtout warcraft.
And considering Azshara is the type of person who loathes to get involved in ANYTHING, i doubt she would even be willing to fight unless forced to.
Neither the Horde or Alliance ever faced a full Legion invasion until Legion. And in Legion both the Horde and Alliance got taken out of the picture at the very beginning.
I do not know if Azshara is the mightiest Queen or if Lei Shen is the mightiest king. But for the sake of discussion:
I would think the Elves would defeat the Mogu handily.
Azshara.
Azshara.
That aside, there are other kings and queens. Sylvanas is the Banshee Queen and she is doing pretty powerful stuff. Anduin is the Boy King and we have not seen the end of him. And there may be others in contention for those titles.
I suppose if you limit it to a specific point in time. But the titles are up for debate.
Agreeing with the Azshara/old night elf empire for conflict. Just too much of a history of winning and ruling the world until they really did themselves.
As for who I like better? Hard to say. Azshara often (but not always) seems too ridiculous a personality to be running an empire, even by WoW standards. Still a fun character however. Lei Shen is neat, and I wish we had more to work with there. Something of a toss up I guess.
Side point on the army comparison- careful with worrying much about detail- we know how Blizz is with things looking wildly different depending who’s holding the pen.
"Draw an orc army." “Right, so I covered them in skins and really heavy looking armor bits and weapons. Lots of clan insignia, and calling down the thunder.”
"Draw an orc army." “Right, so I started with the giant mecha, painted it black, and just… started adding spikes.”
Niether did the NE in the war of the ancients. They were up against…what…Mannoroth and Archimonde? Im not even sure if Mannoroth even fought, i seem to recall him popping heads when NE didnt summon fast enough in the palace.
We have fought AND killed Archimonde and Mannoroth twice, WC3 and WoD. On top of that, the Legion had support from the Scourge, and from the Iron Horde/Guldan in WoD, both of which were far more powerful than the post-well NE empire.
In legion, we faced their full might. We went up against dozens of new demon types and dozens upon dozens of high ranking demon commanders. The only thing special about the first BL invasion was that…it was the first. Other than that, it was no more intense than the other ones.
It’s perhaps worth keeping in mind the situational implications of a hypothetical scenario in which Lei Shen and his empire survived into the rise of the night elf empire and Azshara’s reign. Such a circumstance would arguably mean he not only survived his foray into conquering Uldum, but potentially succeeded in claiming it and the Reorigination machinery therein.
Machinery that, as we’re learning with 8.3, can feasibly be weaponized. Given his uses of the facilities at Mogu’shan and the Thunder Mountain, if he had control of Uldum as well, by the time the night elves began driving the trolls back he may well manage to have reverse-engineered and militarized any number of mechanisms within Uldum.
The Well makes one powerful, but it’s hard to say if it’d be enough to overcome a foe that can potentially churn out hosts of massive titan-forged constructs or even unleash Reorigination blasts at enemy armies on the battlefield.
I’m not sure where you got this idea from, but the full might of the Legion was indeed coming through the Well of Eternity portal in the War of the Ancients.
Neither the Scourge nor the Iron Horde nor Archimonde or Mannoroth on their own were the full might of the Legion, either.
the full might of the legion is always coming through something, but the NE did not face the full might of the legion. Hell, all they fought were generic demon troops, nothing like what the horde or alliance fought in legion or even WoD.
I mean lets boil down the demon invasions here:
1st - generic demon troops, archimonde, mannoroth, guess we should include hakkar in here too (war of the ancients)
2nd - generic demon troops, Archimonde, Mannoroth, Scourge (WC3)
3rd - generic demon troops + fel lords + terror fiends, Archimonde, Mannoroth, Guldan, Iron Horde (WoD)
4th - all the demons (legion)
Of all of the burning legion invasions, the war of the ancients was the LEAST impressive (other than maybe WC3) in terms of what the defenders of azeroth were up against.
The full might of the Legion was not coming through anything during Warcraft III nor Warlords of Draenor. They just had sporadic portals here and there that let smaller numbers of demons some of their leadership through to come and lead local forces like the Scourge and the Iron Horde.
The War of the Ancients was a global war with the Legion attacking the entirety of Azeroth (the landmass of which was all one big continent known as Kalimdor back then) much in the same was Legion was a global invasion, which, once again, was handled by the Class Order Halls, not significantly by the Horde or the Alliance.
The Scourge in Warcraft III never even affected Azeroth south of the equator, effectively only effecting half of the planet, and that’s being generous to what little of their forces actually made it to Kalimdor with Archimonde.
The Iron Horde was a joke and had so little backing from the Legion that we really only saw the demons significantly in Talador and Tanaan Jungle, and they never even made it to Azeroth.
The Broken Shore was the closest thing to the full might of the Legion we have seen - but even that was not its full potential. The Legion always labored to get its forces from place to place.
The Kaldorei Empire faced a mighty Legion from within and without, as did the Horliance at the Broken Shore. The Legion’s problem was that it had a lot of might, but couldn’t get it to places with efficiency.
The Legion is a jabrony in the vein of the jabronies it spawned - the Scourge and “the Horde”.
The Horde has a root in old Draenor that seems kind of good. Maybe Draka well take us there.
I’m confused…the mightiest King in all of Azeroth is the LICH KING! Duh!
And, obviously, in a one-on-one he gets rolfstomped, but in a faction war scenario I’m fairly certain the Scourge is the most threatening army anyone could possibly face, except for the Burning Legion, since they don’t leave corpses on the field. (Well, souls at least)
It might take a while, it might not be pretty, but I’m fairly certain that after all is said and done, if Azshara was facing Arthas around WotLK timeline, she too would serve in death.
I’d argue Azshara with well of eternity power, and Lei Shen with Aman’Thul power could both take down Arthas the Lich King. Also the Mogu could be effective at beating the Scourge since under Lei Shen they started turning them selves back into stone beings. I dont think you can turn a piece of stone into a zombie.
This and against the Scourge in a prolonged war the elves could have just focused on pumping out arcane constructs/golems to limit the scourge power, that is saying that Azshara and the Highborne didn’t just nuke Icecrown from afar using the Well.
in WC3 it took the power of the wisp to stop Archimonde. war of the ancients book series they did say that the demons kept pouring out of the well. on top of the the defenders were limited since they were cut off from the well and the legion also had those hound things that had an affinity for magic users and magic in general.
Lei Shen certainly would. A while back there was a tweet from Dave Kosak who basically said that 1v1 Lei Shen would flex on the LK, but the Scourge had a stronger army than the Mogu Empire.
Which makes sense imo, Lei Shen punched out Xuen and Ra, and it took the Forge of Origination to finally put him down.