Turns out all you need to do to write a smart villain is have them do everything in their power to avoid the PCs.
AU Guldan almost came to that realization, but thought the infinite armies of the Burning legion would protect him (lmao)
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Yes, but their methodology for doing so and actions on screen also have to be believable. Iridikron tricked factions and individuals with believable promises and emotional manipulation, as well as used situational factors such as sarkareths rise in the drakthyr to his advantage without direct involvement.
It’s not “Hahaha I will simply not make a fuss and get on with my plan” he engineered the distractions himself where he needed to and forced our hand without ever showing his own.
He reminds me of Amahl Farouk in a way. We knew he was evil and we were trying to stop him the only way we knew how, but because he didn’t let us understand his motives we played directly into his hands.
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I see you didn’t bother paying attention to an entire questline involving Ysera.
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I assume he was asking for a Doyalist answer, which I would have put as “Golden and/or Danuser just like Tyrande more”
If a storyline was primarily males, would it be a problem as well?
There’s a quest that explains why he’s not there. It’s not very good, but there is an axplanation.
Because he is completely chaotic. He does not care about his followers.
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While I would argue that villains conveniently doing stuff to advance their plans off-screen is a sign of lazy writing compared to them being an active character…
… there is some merit in saying “stay away from the murder hobo” is a smart decision.
That aside, this discussion (and several others) raises an interesting question:
Let’s see you do better.
Not really directed at anyone in particular, but there’s no real doubt that WoW’s writing is terrible (outside of brief moments).
So could the players write any better than the developers? How much effort is needed for WoW fanfiction to be better than the actual story in-game?
Considering how low the bar is?
It wouldn’t take too much.
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I think that’s kind of the point with Iridikron. He doesn’t ‘conveniently’ do anything. He creates the situation in which we’re unable to stop him himself, using believable means and established character / plot points. He doesn’t just make up a distraction out of thin air then laugh as he vanishes into the night.
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Most of the speculation pre-BFA about what they meant by there being a mystery around UC/Teldrassil going bye-bye was far, far better than what we got.
If I wrote an entire expansion I’m sure I’d end up ticking someone off or having it fall flat at one point, but I’m also not a professional writer. I fully acknowledge that a lot of my takes are with the benefit of hindsight and seeing what fell flat for me and other players.
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Yeah I just meant the enemies we directly interact with weren’t especially other worldly ala Jailer, Nzoth, Argus which the last 3 expansions had been.
I also hope that we don’t constantly win and it’ll play more evenly
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But I’m sure you wouldn’t care if it was all male 
You clearly don’t care about the story since it was very clearly shown and explained where he is and why. You even participated in it.
Pride and insanity.
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I was rewatching Mr Robot last week and, wether you think the show is good or not, I feel like it does the idea of a villain extremely well and I think I can summarise why that is very succinctly. It also helps explain why characters like the jailer fell so flat once they took centre stage.
It is better for a villain to die as a result of their failure, than to fail as a result of their death.
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In fairness, I haven’t played DF (waiting until it’s baseline) and can’t comment on specifics for that character… but I do get the impression that he shows up, says the right thing, and sneaks off.
If the audience doesn’t see the character actually process and plan their actions, having them reason their way through their plans? Then the character’s intelligence is an informed attribute and they’re relying on the audience to fill in the blanks subconsciously.
But again, I would have to see it for myself.
Let’s just say I’m tempted to try… at least in terms of an outline. Doing a full scene for every plot beat is out of the question.
As for angering the audience, the WoW playerbase as it is would be impossible to please at this point… so I’d just pick a direction that you can stick with.
Lastly, regarding hindsight… fixing the plot of WoW likely involves reworking major facets of the recent expansions. Like deleting both WoD (time travel shenanigans) and Shadowlands (attempted “forced retcon by new writing team to create their own story” feels like the right description) but still managing to implement some relevant plot points: Gul’dan coming back somehow), the Legion invasion, Vol’jin’s death, the burning of Teldrassil, and other stuff.
It quite quickly becomes surprisingly freeform, so long as you’re willing to deviate from the stations of the canon.
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Fun fact: Orange cats display a higher degree of sexual dimorphism in comparison to cats of other colors 
Hate to be that guy but the entire expansion story was horrid.
Main things i remember from the whole DF story arc.
We became a waiter in the end.
And
Family
If we’re talking the whole of DF how can you forget the “Baine’s a lil racist” arc.
Didnt do it. Left him standing wherever he starts. Couldnt stand doing more centaur stuff
Fyrakk killed the underling who suggested he use the axe because Fyrakk was big meanie evil guy who makes the rules, he would use the axe when it is his idea and not because one of his slaves suggested he use it to do what he told them to do, hint, he uses it later to do exactly that.
Malfurion was in Ardenweald until the conclusion of the story because he traded places with Ysera waaaay earlier in the story.
Also the entire black dragon flight story arc has been front and center for three male characters so it isn’t like they don’t exist.
For the shaders, don’t really know what to say, I am on an ancient 1080 TI and only really had any slowdown whatsoever on two fights in the entire expansion, the first boss of Halls of infusion and Nymue during that time after clearing trash but before pulling the boss. I am well overdue for upgrading my computer as is the nature of PC gaming, sounds like you might have to as well.
Malfurion spent a long time sleeping so you can’t really say they’ve always been a team. However, if you haven’t been keeping up, Malfurion was in the Shadowlands allowing Ysera to return.
This is just Fyrakk being Fyrakk the all powerful, therefore nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, tells him what to do.
The only real fail with Fyrakk’s story was that he wasn’t given the epic death scene he rightly deserved.
First…who cares? Sometimes women are the protagonists and sometimes the men are. That’s fine.
Second, I feel like Khadgar, Wrathion, Kalecgos, Ebon Horn, Ebyssian, and Nozdormu were all major players in the whole story. They were all there at the end. Only the dragonflight leaders were there at the end of the actual raid but well…that makes sense and was 3 male dragons and 3 female dragons.
Noticing this first really colors all the rest of it to me. It’s a weird thing to have an issue with.
Blizzards stories have always been messy crap but the weird issues so many men have with a few expansions being focused on women leaders is really weak. It really just seems like feeling oppressed because you don’t get everything. It’s just odd.