The light was probably purging the fel energies as it crept in. Unlike undead and void elves, the corrupting energies could probably be removed from Illidan without killing him. Undead would re-die and while we don’t know what would happen to a void elf, it probably wouldn’t be pretty since they were the result of a ritual interrupted halfway through. They’re too inherently unstable to risk such a thing.
If the light tried to coexist with fel in Illidan, it would’ve had explosive results. Maiden of Vigilance boss in ToS shows this reaction happening.
Priests have shadow mixing with light mostly for gameplay reasons. Void elf priests are canonically all shadow priests because they had to give them the one void spec in the game, but couldn’t lock off the other two because it would be overly restrictive to gameplay. Forsaken priests are also 99% shadow as well, because the Light burns them. Most other races are exclusively holy or the priest is just being used as a stand-in for whatever their equivalent religious/spiritual position would be.
Priests mostly use their powers to affect and empower other individuals rather than themselves. Paladins use the light to empower themselves, which means taking that power into their own bodies. It’s why Forsaken can(rarely, because it still hurts them tremendously) still be holy priests while being a paladin would destroy them.
Void Elf Paladins are weird no matter how you look at it.
Even if we say there is a sect of Elves that decide to study the light, it’d be like making lore of Elementals who decided to study fire, became fire elementals and then were like “Hehehehe we will study Water now, let’s make a Water sect”.
The only sensible way would be void knights, because regardless of the skin, we’re Void Elves. Unless the lore next added says there are High Elves in the group.
Though knowing Blizz, they will add 3 quest, a group of Velves in a zone and let us imagine things with no skins, etc. Just the class added.
I imagine void elf paladins won’t happen at least not for a long time. I’m split on the idea of “void paladins” simply because I find it reductive to both the light and void fantasies. It’s putting them on the same gameplay loop when they are not the same at all. But at the same time for those that are looking for a nice void niche class that is only one specialization of priest and the most definitive bet for another class to be added to the game would be more than half a decade away and still might not even be void based. It’s a sucky position, get shoe horned into a class as a secondary thought or have hopium for over half a decade that blizzard thinks the fantasy you like is a cool class concept.
IMO we need a Void Paladin analogue for those class/race combos that don’t make much lore sense as full on Paladins, not only for VE, but also Undead and Mag’har, and any other races with a stronger Void aspect than a Light one.
Much like Prelates and Sunwalkers, there would be cultural differences even within that, like VE’s being “Riftblades”, Undead members of the “Cult of the Forgotten Shadow” and for Mag’har a more comprehensive representation of the powers of the Shadowmoon Clan.
But overall, the three could lead to a very comprehensive analogue Class Skin for all 3 specs of Paladin.
With the amount of night elf primalists out there, it wouldn’t surprise me if night elves get shaman at the end of the expansion. Such being said, void elf paladins would be an abomination and should never happen.
Yeah, this is the problem with the way paladins and priests(to an extent) are designed in this game. They’re both used as gameplay representations of the various religious authorities or “warriors of faith”, but they both(especially in paladin’s case) thematically only represent one or two hyper specific belief systems. Priests early in the game’s lifespan used to have spells unique to each race to attempt to differentiate them in gameplay as well but it was impossible to balance so they did away with that.
In an ideal world the class would get a rename to something that more generically represents the “warrior priest” concept(Templar perhaps? or maybe even just Knight) rather than specifically being a Silver Hand Paladin. Then from there you could choose the color/theme of your spells based on what order you want your character to represent. Certain options being limited by your race of course, there would be no light-wielding forsaken paladins.
Let’s correct you here.
The quest line was for the Nightborne recruitment.
Secondly, it was not known to the Alliance-character what will happen if she comes close to the Sunwell until it happened. It was an accident and bad writing. Canonically, she continues on her way home and ends up finding the ~seven NPCs which turned into the first generation of Void Elves.
Please know the lore before you make assumptions. There are videos for the questlines and dialogues you can watch on YouTube.
Well Void Elves were transformed against their will. It is not far-fetched to believe some if not many would want to undo their Void corruption by resorting to the Light (whether that’s actually possible or not, that depends on the devs). It’s one thing to study the Void, unlock its secrets and use it as a weapon, and a whole different thing to turn involuntarily into a Void being.
So following your analogy, I think it would make perfect sense for those elementals who turned into Fire elementals by accident to experiment with water for the purpose of undoing their unsolicited transformation.
Basically. Paladin as an archetype is just way too restrictive when it comes to the lore it can encompass, both from a cultural standpoint (with very much all concepts radiating from Human worship of the Holy Light) and a “power source.”
I think the former has been somewhat addressed with Sunwalkers, and more successfully with Prelates. While they both use power sources that are counterparts of the Holy Light, they have managed to create unique cultural backgrounds for them. Specially in the case of Prelates, to the point their usage of the light of the Loa feels like an actual analogue of Holy Light rather than a different source, seen through a different system of beliefs.
I don’t think “Paladin” needs a name change tho, as long as we see it more like an archetypical framework more based on gameplay than being prescriptive as it is done with Prelates I think it works, much like the variety you can see on other classes, such as Hunters and their many specific denominations.
I think that all we really need is to open the source of these “holy warriors” beyond light to establish a new framework, and the dichotomic yet also cyclical nature of light and void (that we already see through discipline priests) could be a great lore-based way to to expand the framework of the Paladin archetype.
Evoker is the hard line for me because they seem to need a drakonic essence in order to even be able to function. IMO it would be best to give Dracthyr more visage options going forward.
I think Demon Hunters need more races. Not just because more choice is good, but because DH need to find longevity and remain a presence going forward, instead of becoming a relic of a bygone era.
Yeah, that’s why I said “maybe”. I’m still on the fence on keeping those classes restricted.
And yeah, Drac’thyr need way more options for their Visage forms to look like more than just male elf and female human with some extra dragon-y bits thrown on.
IMO the best way would be to add every other race as a visage option. It really should have worked like Demon Hunters, were it’s a base elf model with tattoos, horns and eyes.
I think Visages of every race with these things would be enough IMO, they really don’t need to add more hairstyle options.
This entire thread is a testament to why you never give in to the demands of Alliance High Elf wannabees. I like having the Nightborne in the Horde but they and Velf shouldn’t have happened as playable races. It muddied the waters between factions and faction identity too much made even worse by suddenly being in open warfare in the next patch despite Velves becoming Velves while trying to learn how to better protect Silvermoon and the Night Elven forces (not counting Helven forces as they operate as an arm of the Kirin Tor) just assisted and died in a campaign to free Suramar. Why would Tyrande leave with Thalyssra in charge if she just believed that she was as bad as Elisande?
All of this inconsistent BS could have been avoided by Blizz putting their foot down and continue to just say no to a crowd that is never going to be satisfied.