Void Elf Paladin - This NPC Needs Fixing

I’m not following your conversation so don’t mind me too much, but isn’t summon void walker a void spell? Lol
:transgender_flag: :rainbow_flag:

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By that logic, summoning any demon then is a void spell. Including summoning Infernal, Doom Guards, etc.

I disagree, summoning all of those other demons you just named are fel-powered, where voidwalkers are void

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Uhh, the entire Affliction spec is based on the Void/Shadow.

Warlocks peer into the Void without hesitation, leveraging the chaos they glimpse within to devastating ends in battle—their greatest abilities are fueled by the souls they’ve harvested from their victims. They exploit powerful Shadow magic to manipulate and degrade the minds and bodies of their enemies.

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I don’t play Aff. I rather let things burn with Destruction than just playing connect the dots with affliction.

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Yeah same, I find affl boring lmao

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I main as Destro, but I do level as Demo as the AOE in demo is very helpful.

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I liked the old demo, when you would turn into a demon.

This new demo doesn’t really convince me tbh

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It never truly mattered to them, lol. There’s been such utter BS going back so far. I wish they did. I wish they would. But they don’t.

This could be a gameplay mechanic. Gameplay/lore segregation isn’t that uncommon, as Blizzard has acknowledged in other places. (f.e.,“unholy light”) The cultists of the Twilight Hammer are worshipers of the Old Gods, they’re quintessential shadow priests.

It does exist, but it seems to be a branch of Old God / Void magic, judging by it’s users (and allegedly a tweet from a developer). As far as I know, there is no written source claiming that twilight magic uses both light and shadow at the same time.

In terms of gameplay: According to wowhead, there is only one spell called Twilight that combines holy and shadow, but 50-60 spells that use only shadow (or a combination of shadow/fire/physical). The quantity tends to contradict this assumption.

They would have to either rewrite/retcon some of the established lore about the requirements for using light, or adequately address the issue with Noble Cause Corruption. The former is the simplest and worst method, whereas the latter I believe is impossible in a plausible way.

Another possibility is, of course, that they use other magic to force the light, similar to the Blood Knights before SWP. But this would logically result in a conflict with the Alliance.

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They could use the same logic they used for the netherlight crucible, using arcane to keep the light and void magic stable (people tends to forget the first part of the crucible is an arcane artifact). But the problem is now we would have mortals trying to focus 3 magic types at the same time. Unless they shoehorn an arcane toy or accesory (cosmetic) to do it with, or even tattoos.

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Well, Warlocks are more about POWAH™, actually.

They should be dabbling into anything that is convenient. Elemental, curses, shadow, void, fel, arcane, necromancy, demonology, soul manipulation, whatever fits their goal.

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Could be what the “Eclipse” is. The Void Elf Paladin is the “Wielder of the Eclipse” so maybe whatever the Eclipse is is whats making it possible.

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I was actually looking into the lore for it… It seems most people have forgotten or chose to not take it into account when it comes to this type of Void vs Light Disagreements.

Also I notice that beyond the story forums there very few players aware that Light and Void coexist in the Magic School “Twilight”. A magic not as Volatile Powerful as Fel/Chaos, but not as detrimental as Shadow/Void, even if its under the Magic schools of Shadow it behave almost like an offencive Augmentation/healing type of Shadow version of Holy Spec magic.
Sadly there is little information on it… but Blizz could just use this unique School to built up the lore of a Void or Twilight Pali… (IMO)

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They are ostensibly presented as a corruption of Paladins, wearing Paladin armor, being named Vindicators, using Paladin abilities. They were 100% playing with the idea of Void corrupted paladins there.

The point remains, Cataclysm did introduce the Shadow/Holy pairing as its own type of magic, twilight, and unless they retcon its existence it stands. This is not just spells called “twilight” but as its own type of damage (such as Radiant, which is Holy+Fire; all of these combos exist not only as gameplay, but lore representation.)

https://www.wowhead.com/spell=75019/twilights-wrath

It’s only an issue if you consider Light and Void exclusive of each other, thing that has only been an issue in an specific interaction, when we have already seen several instances of people using both Void and Light in unison. People discount Discipline Priests, as if Human Paladins themselves didn’t start as a martial approach to the Holy Light used by Priests, a next Logical step would be Discipline Priests developing into a Paladin niche should the need arise.

But most importantly, most arguments for the apparent dichotomy between Light and Void totally omit the fact they exist within a cycle, that we’ve been aware since BC, and that we have played with it by both bringing Naaru into the Void, as well as bringing Voided Naaru back to the Light. So not only we have the avenue of martializing the Discipline Priest branch, but Paladins learning to cycle through the Void and Light cycle at will. This is all stuff already present in the Lore, and it’s wild how people keep saying Void or undead paladins are impossible when there’s already a set ground to delve deeper into these already established concepts.

All of this without even considering entirely analogous powers, “Light” that is not Light, such as Elune’s power which is its own thing yet manifests very similar and by all means should be able to be used in a Paladin analogue manner.

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A lot of NPCs and in game books say things based on one narrative or experience which doesn’t denote 100% truth. Anecdotal experiences are not evidence but people treat it that way. Light and Void can intermingle and do so just fine, but in some situations they might explode because the magic itself , or however it’s being used, is done in a negligent way that doesn’t work. Potions don’t automatically explode with all the ingredients, only a certain way of mixing them. In science you have to add acid to water not water to acid. You can mix them, but in specified ways due to chemical reactions. Magic seems to work the same way.

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Yeah it’s pretty weird. I could even just barely accept Lightforged warlocks because at least we’ve seen demons use the Light since TBC, but Void and Holy together has always been pretty explicitly incompatible as far as I remember

Edit: Seeing a lot of interesting ideas here though! Heck, I just want them to dig deeper into the lore when it comes to apparent contradictions like this

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Indeed; moreover the facts remain, we have seen Void+Light react differently in different contexts, so to presume an absolute answer either way, with such limited proper knowledge, is simply bias at play.

There’s just not enough concise lore to give an empirical answer, it’s really one of those things that will most certainly develop in favor of what the developers decide to go on. But our current knowledge just can’t be used for divination.

And all of that, without outright retcons to the lore, which are WoW’s bread and butter.

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Yes, I am down for Void Elf Paladins using the void, and being zealots of the void that wear plate armor.

It would undoubtedly be more coherent if they used void visuals. If a paladin gets corrupted, he loses his powers (as seen in the Arthas’ Novel).

The school of this spell reads: Holy, Shadow. I surmised that your conclusion that the combination of Holy and Shadow is a own type of magic called “Twilight” stems from the name “Twilights Wrath”. Am I correct about that? Aside from gameplay, where else does this mix appear in the lore as this name?

If I surmised correctly: why is this one spell more important than the other 50-60 that have twilight in their names and are all from the shadow school (without holy)?

This should also be taken into account:
Twilight magic is presumably Old God magic of the void branch. [31]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Void#Old_Gods

I guess that depends on how you define Paladin. Their class fantasy includes more than just being a light wielding meele in armour, after all.

The discipline priest is difficult for the following reasons:

  1. They are, of course, canon. However, the only lore available for them is that from the Legion preview. This preview was not confirmed during Legion, as the lore surrounding the artifact weapon Light’s Wrath is solely about the light.
    It’s not the best foundation imo.

  2. The arguments that are currently being made against Void Elf Paladins also apply to the Discipline Priest. ‘It shouldn’t exist’ refers to a canonical inconsistency, not a personal dislike. A mistake of this nature should be corrected rather than extended. More to the details later.

I would like to draw your attention to this:
Because three cases of this “cycle” have been demonstrated in Nagrand, Auchindoun, and Sunwell Plateau (K’ure, D’ore, and M’uru, respectively), players may have received the wrong impression with regard to the magnitude and rarity of these events: it is EXCEEDINGLY rare for a naaru to fall into a void state, and even rarer for a fallen naaru to be brought back into the Light. A naaru’s fall into the void represents a catastrophic loss for the naaru and for the forces of the Light, and it is the saddest, most heart-wrenching event for the naaru to witness. Conversely, a naaru being reborn into the Light brings renewed hope and sense of purpose to every naaru; if energy beings could weep tears of joy, this would do it.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Ask_CDev#Ask_CDev_Answers_-_Round_1

A circle implies regularity, a natural and recurring sequence of events. However, in the CD interview, it is stated that these are extreme rare exceptions. This contradicts the claim that this is the default and it appears more likely that it’s some kind of corruption/purification.

In Warcraft, Light and Void are frequently depicted as diametrically opposed forces at war. They are mutually destructive, with one being the antithesis of the other (in terms of characteristics, effects, “motivation”). Of course, combining them in this way leaves a sour taste in your mouth. At this point, one wonders what the entire conflict is about. It appears to be obsolete. Of concrete significance: Why even banish the Void Elves from Silvermoon when there are ways to harmonise Light and Void so easily? This is, of course, just an opinion, not an argument.

However, the claim that they should not be able to use the light is not based on cosmology, but alignment. This is about ethical convictions. You must explain why and how they occur. You need to be logical, authentic, and coherent. You must consider the entire Warcraft lore, including culture, religion, and philosophy, as all have an impact on it. It’s the pinnacle of writing excellence. This is where the wheat is separated from the chaff, whether you’re Stephen King or some GoT S8 or Star Wars 9 author.

For that you have go even deeper. I’m citing, since I don’t want to type all that stuff again (pardon for repetitions):

The last one is the most important and it’s a logicial consequence. There are pages and pages of wiki articles that illuminate the beliefs of followers of light and shadow. They’re not compatible. Light is a faith-based magic, if it’s not manipulated by arcane magic (which needs a direct source like a Naaru or the sunwell). So you have also to discuss the faith or cut it out (= retcon). If you retcon it, you also burn the entire pile of lore behind it.

I have yet to meet anyone who could classify the Void/shadow as morally good. If you can do it, I’d be impressed, so be my guest.

I don’t expect that Blizzard is going to do it.

Note: Examples in which Blizzard has previously ignored this aspect of its lore are, of course, insufficient to invalidate these claims. They were just as relevant then as they are now.

That’s what I thought a few days ago, too. However, I was proved wrong.

“@Loreology is holy of prists and paladin is same energy?'/megics?”
“Both priests and paladins can wield the Holy Light. However, not all wield it through the same means (e.g., Elune, An’she)”
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Blizzard_lore_posts#Sean_Copeland
(second last entry)

I’ve no idea how that fits with the druids’ lunar/solar magic. It could be an inconsistency.
A Night Elf Paladin organisation for Elune (like the tauren sunwalkers) has been possible since Classic, but Blizzard seems to feel compelled to squeeze every Paladin into the Silver Hand.

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