In Legion, Thrall lost his connections to the elements and during Battle for Azeroth, he stuck to fighting like a warrior, except for that Vision of N’Zoth. There was no indication that he had regained his ability to harness the elements.
Now all of a sudden, he seems to be able to use his abilities again. What happened? Did he get over his latest mid life crisis? Did he realize the elements don’t care about who won a duel to the death? When did it happen?
When we rescued him from Tor’ghast apparently. No explanation was given really.
I’m more interested in the lore explanation for how Thrall - and other shamans, for that matter - are able to use their powers within the Maw.
At least for most other magic users, they’re drawing on a cosmic force; Paladins with the Light, Priests with Light or Void, Druids with Life, Mages and Arcane… But Shamans are tied to a planet’s elemental spirits, so it makes no sense for them to use their powers there. That’s in addition to what you said about Thrall being able to use the elements again.
Death and decay is also a element. Shamans should be OP in the shadowlands, they also have connection to spirits….
Horde lore is normally not explored in non faction expansion. That or the new dev team doesn’t know how to handle shamans.
Isn’t death and decay separate from the elements fire, water, earth and air/lighting? We see Thrall first using the elements again when he uses lightning to electrocute his Mawsworn guards.
I agree with you about everything else, though.
decay and spirit are usually parts of the how they commune, not so much the source of the powers.
Perhaps anima works as a close enough facsimile for the purpose.
We seen fire elements in the maw, maybe others exist as well.
Death & decay and Spirit is how they commune with the elements. I remember someone from blizzard saying the elements exist in everything. This was back in cats mop days. That being said there are a lot of question. With other powers as well, how are we using the light or arcane in deaths realm. I though shadowlands was base of one of the cosmic forces, and this would exclude the others.
Goes to show how poor the writing is that there isn’t an established explanation for this.
I haven’t seen that interview, could you find it for me?
I know the powers can enter different realms through the beings that embody them, including Death. We have the Void’s invasion of Bastion and the Light’s counter-attack on Revendreth.
I don’t think it’s a planet’s elemental spirits as much as it’s the planes of elemental spirits, which exist everywhere.
Drawing on any power but death in the cosmic realm of death should be suspect tbh.
We’ve seen the cosmic forces function unimpeded in the Shadowlands. We’ve seen Draenor shamans working just fine on Azeroth since we’ve seen shamans, and also working just fine on Argus while it was all in the Twisting Nether.
I think this whole “communing across the planes” bit is overthinking a subject that only exists in the minds of the fanbase. Nothing has suggested there should be some kind of barrier preventing it. And we have fire elementals invading Torghast anyway, so there’s clearly no precedent suggesting shamans would be artificially hobbled by travelling across the planes.
Regarding how Thrall got his mojo back? I’d always just assumed the block was in his mind, caused by his feelings of guilt over the whole Garrosh debacle. It made no sense that the elements would be mad at him for killing Garry; the elements have never before cared about mortal codes of honor or morality (see Dark Shamans). If that head-canon is to be believed?
He got his skills back when he heard he might be able to talk to his mom. Mom talks will do that to you.
The same way Warlocks use theirs outside the Twisting Nether I suppose, they are effectively summoning elemental spirits and forces into the maw through a bond already established on azeroth; it seems like the Maw cannot override the automatic return mechanism that extraplanar beings are beholden to, so when they die or are no longer being anchored by the Shaman, they simply bamf away back home.
As for the two spooky elements on the chart. Decay and Spirit are sort of meta-elemental forces analogous to the Star War concept of the Force.
Its the difference between being a mediator and being a slaver.