That had deep Elmyra vibes and I respect the bit
I’m kind of amazed that anyone still holds to “these forces are opposite and should not be able to be used together” after:
Frostfire Mages
Leonid Bartholomew the Revered
Sir Zeliek
Alonsus Faol
Two Different Arcane Druids
Legion+ Disc in general
Druids of the Flame
Lightforged Draenei Shadow Priests and Warlocks
Forsaken should get paladin immediately.
Void Elves should probably also get paladin and then high elfies might finally finally be quiet.
I don’t remotely buy Night Elf Paladin though tbh. Not unless they give more spell customization for it. Elune people should not be as glowy golden as Rezan people, and the giant hammers especially feel wrong for night elves more than any other group I can think of.
I feel like Tauren could use more spell cust in that way too, but Herald of the Sun goes a long way imo.
8 Likes
i hate void elf stupid fanfiction race
5 Likes
Leonid is a Warrior. The other two undead are burned when they use light, haha.
Not that I’m opposed to an order of Forsaken knights cracking with holy flame, running down foes like a wall of screaming Ghost Riders.
Could even give them unique skin variants (Like DKs get).
2 Likes
Thank you! Finally someone that gets it!
I’m not entirely against getting Night elf Paladins but lore justification should makes senses and not just “Night elves switched to Holy Light now”.
Also it’s a bit of a sore spot for me when Night elf Paladins are basically just Priestesses of the Moon.
Divine empowered warriors using their light to smite their enemies, ride mounts to battle, wear plate armor (well PotM uses a mix of plante and cloth to keep agility) and so on.
Too much overlap with existing lore established group to just introduce another one.
2 Likes
The thing is Priestesses of Elune do not get their Light from Elune. They get it from their faith IN Elune. It works the same way for paladins. So… they likely would have golden glowy magic because of the rules they established for how the Light works.
1 Like
With as much customization as druid gets, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that like the Hammer spells are racially customized. Humans and Forsaken: The metal mallet, Tauren: big honking totem, a giant falcon screaming down at something as Blood Elf, the jaws of Rezan as Zandalari.
Night Elves could have big honkin’ arrers or something else priestess of the moon inspired. And they absolutely should have pale silvery light visuals throughout all the spells; it’d be still very identifiable as “oh, this is light” without feeling samey.
Gnomes would, of course, get gears crashing down on someone.
2 Likes
The golden glowy stuff has never been the sole representation of Light, it’s just the one Blizzard uses the most.
Night elves are supposed to have silver, which is why the old night elf priest racial was silver.
Draenei were supposed to have blue, which is why their racial and their old priest racial are both blue.
Blood Knights had red when they were sucking up naaru juice, but that’s probably not so relevant anymore.
4 Likes
That was before Blizzard overhauled their cosmology and broke the cosmic forces apart. Classic era cosmology when those abilities existed was exceedingly vague, so they could just do what they wanted. Modern cosmology has the strictly divided six forces with a fairly clear visual language. Gold is the Light, Sickly Green is the Legion, Dark Purples and blues are the void, etc…
When Blizzard decided the lore needed to be made more homogenized and boring.
8 Likes
We would need to start digging up sources because as far as I’m aware (I may be mistaken) but it was explicitly stated that Priestess of the Moon do in fact have their powers granted By Elune herself and it’s up to each individual Priestess the level of proficiency in how to channel Her powers.
Of course the more faith the better her channeling abilities.
But again with so many retcons it’s hard to keep track of things.
3 Likes
We can have Night Elf Paladins be “NIght-warrior-dins” without waiting for Blizzard to decide Class Skins are good
We currently have Maghar Shadowmoon void-only no-fel warlocks
It’s fine
2 Likes
The existence of these NPCs doesn’t solve the issues with thematic cohesion and lore, it just ignores them.
If some random quest designer places their fanfiction character somewhere without further explanation, it’s just not very convincing.
So I agree with you as a general principle about one-offs (which is one reason why I hesitate on nelf paladins) but that’s not just “one-offs” at that point.
I think Blizzard has a very strongly expressed preference, in-house, for “exceptions” and “contrasts” to the point that it’s integral to the experience of the setting. Whether or not the original writer of a limitation intends it that way, the revealed purpose of any limitation is so that a later character or narrative can surpass it and prove how badass they are—not to build a magic system or metaphysics.
Fundamentally, one of the specs from launch has always wielded both shadow and light together at a conceptual level. While the Legion redefinition brought it closer than I’d like to a… Mordenkainen pants-on-head concept of “balance”, embodying both elements at the same time is not new. It is the new lore which has to justify its suggestion that the two are so fundamentally opposed, unlike anything else, that one could never wield both at the same time.
And I don’t think the new lore wins, nor should it, because the cat is out of the bag and has been owner and proprietor of the pet shop, predeceased their children, and passed their stakes in the business to their offspring long ago.
If I ever actually see creative rigor from WC, I’ll respect the effort; instead it feels like arbitrary lines, so I don’t.
2 Likes
I think the reason is, they didn’t want to make spells more visually confusing. But they should as it’s a lot more interesting than throwing races and class combos nobody asked for. Tauren paladin in particular was cool because they gave it distinct culture
3 Likes
But came humans that look like cows which is sad. I fear the same thing will happen to Night Elves and even worse to Void Elves.
No? Tauren Sunwalker culture is still distinct and we get regular referenced via the store?
But my statement stands
Class Skins are already being soft launched with the DH Devourer tech where every spell is now reskinned to be Void themed
But we shouldn’t wait for Class Skins to be a formal system to get more race class combos
Night Elf Paladins already exist inasmuch we already have Night Elf NPCs with Night Warrior powers as of DF and are a perfect way to introduce the concept
That the gameplay doesn’t align with the lore fantasy shouldn’t hold us back
Blizzard, and a lot of players, make the mistake of designing from “gameplay first”, where the lore is limited by gameplay realities, which is not coherent
Just look at Tidesages, my favorite example: they use arcane and ice magic like a Mage, they use totems and command elements like a Shaman, they bless objects and serve the cultural role as a Priest, and they have internal schools of forbidden magic wielding shadow and death powers and summoning Aberrations of the Void like SPriest and Warlocks.
Making a world and centering gameplay options around that world is much better than centering the world on gameplay options
1 Like
Personally I think they should just give them void-visuals for their abilities and call it a day. 
- Otherwise, yeahnah I think Void Elf beacons of light is just laughable nonsense at best, really.
At least for even demon-paladins you could argue they’ve forsaken chaos & the fel and embraced the light, of which is converting them to either become a being of the light — Like Lothraxion, or to be ultimately cured of their demonic state (if they were formerly a non-demon race that was converted into one)
Void Elves however, have void themes, abilities and passives in-built into their design. You could hardly argue they’re forsaking the void to embrace the light, because clearly they’re not.
However,
If they gave void elf paladins void visuals, with maybe just an odd holy visual here & there — Like the void is being “purified” by the light, I’d be fine with that. 
I can literally make a holy void elf right now.
Yeah, I still think it’s stupid.
Personally I’d love if
- Void Elves got shadowy & void visuals for all – or most: Holy spells
and
- Lightforged Draenei got holy & light visuals for all – or most: Shadow spells
as a base → If there’s some spells & abilities where the other “leaked into” or “corrupted” or “purified & bleesed” through one or the other, that’d be fine.
2 Likes