The changes to Tyrande's performance in fighting Nathanos on the PTR are, frankly, great. There's no disputing that Nathanos not being able to get a single hit on Tyrande while Nathanos is being empowered by the Val'kyr makes the Night Warrior ritual appear powerful now.
There is good in celebrating positive changes. However, complacency is easy to fall into, and if response from players is "good enough," that's all we will get from Blizzard's efforts as well.
There are at least four remaining problems with the Darkshore Warfront storyline:
Sparing Lives:Tyrande Whisperwind says: Teldrassil burned because I chose to spare Saurfang's life.
Tyrande Whisperwind says: Countless innocents were murdered. Entire families erased in moments.
Tyrande Whisperwind says: The time for mercy is over.
Deathstalker Commander Belmont says: Your tree... was just the beginning. This entire shore will fuel our armies.
Tyrande Whisperwind says: I failed to protect my people, but I will avenge them.
Tyrande Whisperwind says: Leave him to rot. He does not deserve a clean death.
Deathstalker Commander Belmont says: You have won... nothing.
Tyrande leaving Belmont alive
after declaring that sparing Saurfang's life was a mistake is the problem. This is still bad, and still makes Tyrande look incompetent.
A change on the PTR has Tyrande killing all the nameless Forsaken at Belmont's deathcamp instead of just paralyzing them as she does to Belmont. This is not a worthwhile change. It doesn't affect Tyrande's competency, merely her lethality. However, it's not actually a meaningful change of power. How is killing a large number of enemies with a massive magic spell really any more powerful than indefinitely paralyzing them with a massive magic spell? If Belmont still lives regardless, it's not a significant change.
There was also another change on the PTR to accompany this:
The Battle for Darkshore (Horde)
04: Free the Ensnared
Save Master Apothecary Faranell and Deathstalker Commander Belmont from the Druids of the Branch.
One could surmise that this change was made for the Forsaken fans who were dismayed at the idea of Belmont dying, as they were complaining that they didn't have many significant Forsaken characters and had fondness for Belmont and thought it detrimental to the Forsaken if Belmont died.
But Belmont never even shows up in the Horde's introductory quests to the Darkshore Warfront. It has been proposed by other posters, but simply, if Belmont is not going to die, he has no place in this story. Replace him with a generic nameless Forsaken NPC leader unit that Tyrande kills off with the rest of the nameless Forsaken NPCs and leave Belmont out entirely if the Forsaken players don't want him to die.
That would be ideal, but there's actually an even easier and simpler solution to even that. Remove Tyrande's line about Saurfang. If Tyrande doesn't chastise herself for sparing a life, then her sparing a life immediately after won't read as bafflingly incompetent.
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.
Sira MoonwardenSira Moonwarden says: We placed our faith in you.
Sira Moonwarden and other Night Elves immediate joining the Horde, their very killers, for as unbelievable of reasoning presented or no reasoning at all is still entirely bad. This is especially bad in the light of
Before the Storm and Thomas Zelling in the Horde War-campaign clearly showing that those risen as undead do not 100% of the time immediately change their entire personalities are become negative image versions of their former living selves.
My above suggestion would actually help towards this. Sira and Delaryn were generals in charge of other Night Elves. It is to be expected that Tyrande would save the soldiers that had been under their command first, as the Night Elf generals probably would have wanted in life. However, in death, if Sira would somehow be witnessing all this, her soul would probably be extremely anxious and desperate for Tyrande to
at least save her from being raised as undead. But that Tyrande wouldn't make it in time
again to personally save Sira, this would probably be enough to break Sira's mind and leave her as the husk of loathing we see leading as the Horde's general in the Warfront proper. Which might already be the case, but far more nuance would have to be put in how this is present than what we are given in game - on the Alliance side. While the nuance would, I'm sure, be appreciated by Forsaken fans, if it is Horde exclusive it still leaves the Alliance side narrative unpalatable.
Delaryn joining the Forsaken I actually have no problem with, given her feelings towards Elune and Tyrande standing before her as Elune incarnate, and on top of that Delaryn's story still feeling unfinished and so I reserve judgement on it until I see more of it.
Indefinite StalemateTyrande Whisperwind says: The time has come to reclaim our home.
Which leads me to the most important problem. This is a Warfront. Gameplay wise. This is not a win. This is at best a stalemate eternally basking under a monument to Sylvanas' depravity and ego. Blizzard is probably wanting of moving on from the Night Elves' story and moving on to other focuses in BfA after the Darkshore Warfont. But if this is it, after the War of the Thorns, after
A Good War and
Elegy, after Warbringer: Sylvanas, after "Old Solider", after the Burning of Teldrassil, if the Night Elf story dead-ends with the Darkshore Warfront, that will be completely unacceptable. And to preempt anyone calling for the Night Elves to lose and have take it as a positive so they can go relocate on the Eastern Kingdoms, that is even more unacceptable. If this is the end of the Night Elves' story in BfA, though the changes in the PTR definitely make Tyrande look fittingly powerful, it all would not have been worth it, and I'd rather the Night Elves' story had been left with the ending of
Elegy and the "Azeroth at War: Kalimdor on Fire" mission table descriptions than the Darkshore Warfront.