That’s the issue, blizz has made the alliance leaders so godlike, that when they show up and don’t wreck the entire multiverse single handily with their powers, alliance players will cry foul and complain how it makes no sense.
It’s why I love the Worgen, they are truly the only grounded race the alliance has
they have been building a few characters as “godtier” characters, then when you pit them against the other faction, they don’t measure up. At some point they had to level the playing field.
Also there’s a lot of Gary Stu’s in this franchise. Me’dan is a prime example of this. Malfurian was also a prime example of an unrealistic Gary Stu power fantasy. It’s Thrall becoming a Dragon Aspect. it’s so farfetched.
what isn’t farfetched to me, is Jaina knowing the mass teleport spell that moves Dalaran, because she’s a member of the Council of Six, and she used that spell, in a condensed form to save the Alliance, that’s not Godtier that’s practical.
(but raising a ghostship out of the ocean and flying it to Tirisfall and shooting magical arcane canons… that’s pretty darn cool ngl. Tyrande being temp empowered by Elune, also super cool.)
Than when the writers tone down their power levels, people complain. And people wonder why writers generally don’t listen to people.
No, it’s very clearly just. “This makes no sense because of x.” Also, yes, Malfurion’s character has power fantasy attached to it, Druids in general do lol. Power Fantasy isn’t a bad thing.
Facts aren’t hypotheticals- they’re pointing out these moments make no sense because of the facts. You’re rejecting them because you don’t like their opinion. You have no source for what you’re saying about Malfurion for example, and unlike people citing that Alleria has made portals across continents before IN THE SCENARIO ITSELF, you don’t even have a citation to back up what you’re saying about Malfurion.
Just to demonstrate this, ima point out the holes in your Malfurion idea.
Malfurion has committed to greater conflicts (In length and scope) than the War of Thorns without getting that much more tired. For example, the only time Malfurion has even really collapsed from power expenditure was in the War against the Nightmare. This came as a result of him doing the following:
Fighting the Physical, empowered tree form of Xavius.
Projecting an army of Dreamform Warriors into the Dream to combat the Nightmare.
Protecting the physical bodies of the people fighting against the Nightmare in the Dream. He did this through - massive storms that covered regions, manipulating the plantlife and animals around them, and more.
Fighting Xavius’s form in the Emerald Dream.
All of this he did just a few years ago, simultaneously. All of this energy and focus was being split at the same time, and he didn’t pass out until well after. Nor was this the entire span of the conflict: he had to fly across the continent, fight a Shade of Xavius & Fandral, cleanse Teldrassil, find Ysera in the Dream, etc, with no time to rest.
So based on the existing canon, the idea of him being exhausted doesn’t seem very well supported by what he has shown himself capable of enduring before running out of energy.
In addition to what is said above- Druids require such focus, that in a land where everything around them changes in the blink of an eye, where their movements are directed by their primal, instinctive thoughts, they will not get lost. This is how Dreamwalking works. If a druid lacks focus, they’ll essentially never come back. Malfurion was never lost in the Emerald Dream - he was imprisoned by Xavius with help from Fandral poisoning him.
We dunno. We have some lore saying immortals stop aging once they reach physical maturity. Malfurion was young during the War of the Ancients, became immortal, only lost it about… maybe 11 years before BfA? Timeline is inconsistent, def not more than 20. Jerod was still in physical fighting shape, when he was 1,000 years older than Malfurion back in the War of the Ancients, which implies a lot about the elven lifespan.
In addition… well, in the events of A Good War happening DURING BfA’s story, i recall that Malfurion is so proficient in physical combat, that he defeats Saurfang without really even using his magic, until after he’s already got him downed. Really only using his magic to solidify his win. One also has to consider that as a Druid he’s rocking countless totem animal spirits enhancing his physical limits, kinda like how we know from Golden’s writing that Worgen are stronger in their human form than a normal human.
The events of War of the Ancients and Stormrage are facts. They do not exist nor cease to exist simply because you or I say yes or no. I have asked for a SOURCE for what happened to Malfurion, from the writing. I have refuted what you have speculated based on evidence from existing lore about Malfurion, which is also NOT what was said in the canon.
If you want something much less attached to a specific character- where was it acknowledge in the writing of Teldrassil Burning, that we’ve seen world trees resist the explosion of demon lords into flame directly on top of them, for a tree much smaller than Teldrassil, that had also just used up it’s blessings and empowerments.
I just want it to be understandable ya know.
I understood that Tyrande got empowered by doing a ritual. that makes sense.
Malfurian just having godtier level powers because he’s “a chosen one”, doesn’t make sense.
Same. I loved Night Warrior Tyrande, because there was a tangible downside to her powers. It was literally killing her the more powerful she got.
And they explained Tyrande loosing her powers because Elune didn’t want her to die. That makes sense.
Mmm. I mean, having a chosen one/favored one doesn’t do you any good if they’re a corpse after all 
In terms of power feats, Tyrande is extremely weak in BfA and SL. She has done things far beyond them… even in the actual gameplay of Warcraft 3, but especially in novels.
Pre-Night Warrior rituals, she has:
Summoned an army of the Dead
So skilled in hand to hand combat that she could battle a wielder of the Axe of Cenarius while unarmed, only conjuring a divine weapon from Elune’s power.
Could kill waves upon waves of undead which were being backed up by multiple Frostwyrms. As a bit of a 2 for 2 feat, Tyrande’s pure faith and devotion to Elune and the Kaldorei and this moment was completely unbroken even as he fully believed she would die there, because of how raw wc3 Kaldorei were as a warrior culture that didn’t buckle or flinch, and would join their warrior goddess in death… you know, before they did sexist crap to Elune’s writing so they could justify undead nelf souls empowering Sylvannas in SL.
I would argue that it is not because of this. He’s the direct students of gods, who taught p much all other druids until BfA added in Thornspeakers and Raptari. Cenarius chose him because he was one of the few Kaldorei not absorbed into the folly of the Highborne Empire’s culture, and paid homage to the ancient myths and customs. Everyone else laughed at the idea of Cenarius being real, Malfurion believed it.
Narratively, Malfurion’s power is a demonstration of power gained by serving the land itself. He contrasts with the other night elves who ruled his era, such as Azshara, because they really only cared about power in it’s raw and tangible forms. Whereas a Druid, while being able to condense these amazing evolutionary processes, to wield the same spirit and determination that flows through the heart of everything growing, isn’t powerful out of a desire for power itself. It is oneness with the land.
To make a comparison to Fandral, and why Malfurion would be so much stronger than him in terms of his connection to Nature: and in a funny way, this ties into some of the East Asian inspiration in Kaldorei Lore (such as how Buddhism is about imperimence, why Buddha says ‘Everything changes and nothing lasts forever.’) Malfurion had been shutting down Fandral’s idea of Teldrassil, before blizz even retroactively added other dumb world tree like Vordrassil or Shaladrassil or the Great Trees, because he believed it clung too much to the past that they’d just sacrificed for the greater good. Their desire for immortality back was natural, but he was there preaching that they would perhaps be even stronger if they tried to be mortal again. That they’d find a closer connection to nature than ever before, by living within it’s cycles while still being it’s guardians, rather than protecting it yet being outside the natural ravages of aging, diseases, etc.
What gave Malfurion such a strong initial connection to nature in the Ancient World was partly being the direct student of Cenarius himself, but rejecting a lot of the unnatural aspects of the ancient culture of the Kaldorei. This grew when the rest of his culture began to follow him and returned to following Cenarius (which is why he’s essentially like the Kaldorei equivalent of Luke Skywalker) and readily embracing the change that his people had heroically made at their own expense to fulfill the duty that the Aspects had put onto them years ago.
Narratively he has also been shown to be stronger when pushed to defend what he loves, something you can tie back to what Goldrinn as a spirit, embodied within nature itself.
“the animal instinct that kicks in when wild things smell food or feel their children are in jeopardy.”
In the way that protecting the things you love and cherish is a part of our innate nature, it kind of fortifies his bond with the land. Because a lot of Druidism is about how these aspects embodied by the Wild Gods, Strength, Tenacity, Endurance, etc, are there in every person. Even IRL, these are products of our being. We are, each and every one of us, the offspring of an unbroken line that has endured at least 5 great mass extinctions in the history of our world. At the core of every living thing is strength and persistence, every person and creature, and in a way this ties us to nature, even when we IRL often feel so disconnected from the wild and the natural.
And at the very least, this power has been there since he was first introduced to us as “The wisest and most powerful Druid” back in wc3. The power boost Sylvannas had, definitely was not set up before 8.2.5. Both of which still got in better than Tyrande, cause the writers make her look extremely weak compared to her abilities in the earlier lore, but also make her look like a weaker person by making her faith and devotion to the Kaldorei look flimsier. Tyrande was to the Kaldorei IN UNIVERSE, what Sylvannas is to undead fans, the ‘shining light’ that epitomized the best, most devoted, and fiercest part of their people.
This would work if people were arguing that it didn’t make sense citing only things that weren’t actually true.
Citing things that explicitly did happen in the lore is actually the opposite, it’s showing the flaws in the story and discussing them. Were you defending Sylvannas’ story as logical before it was retconned at the end of SL? (And yes, it was retconned, we’ve clearly already established from the word of the writers that retcons exist and inconsistency is something they’ve apologized before once already.)
Also… discussing what happens INCLUDES if they do or don’t make sense based on existing lore.
Essentially what you’re doing by trying to ignore that these feats are canon, is saying that they didn’t happen. But they did happen, so they are fair to bring up when talking about the lore. Talking about the lore can include “this doesn’t make sense because of other lore.”
You don’t get to decide what did or did not happen, neither do we. We aren’t claiming things didn’t happen, you’re essentially trying to reject thing’s we’re citing that DID HAPPEN because we’re using them to point out why something didn’t make sense. Which is NOT the same as saying it’s non canon.
skimming a Good War and Elegy again, Malfurian did expend a lot of energy to keep the wisp wall up forcing to Horde to find a work around, and he was singlehandedly wiping out entire squads of Horde soldiers, what Curse said above, that he was most likely tired and drained, does make a lot of sense.
he’s just a druid after all, and he’s mortal now.
Can you cite that he was channeling the wall, and not the Wisps themselves?
As shown in the feats of Malfurion I listed in reply to curse, he has done things on a much greater scale, for longer periods of time, without rest.
He actually was during Stormrage, which is why the feats I cited came from. As mentioned, this fits the East Asian inspiration of Kaldorei as it ties to the concepts of impermanence, and that Malfurion believed mortality would let them get even closer to nature.
As it stands, it seems like you’re trying to say Malfurion did not do these things, which he explicitly did. You were stressing -very- hard earlier that the cinematic happened. Well, this did too. This is lore, just like that.
Genn Greymane deserves to be stronger than most other characters. not just in physical strength but in strategy and it sucks that he’s usually just played off as comic relief. I gripe about it a lot, but he did actually outfox Sylvanas in stormhiem. She did everything she could to shake him from tracking her and he proved to be a good tracker, better than her even.
the only advantage against Genn is that he’s easily angered. He clearly overpowered Nathanos in Stormhiem, and the only reason why Nathanos lasted so long was because he knows how to get under people’s skin and make them lash out, like he did on the Skyfire.
You dont know. But it is in the lore that he is feeling it.
Malfurion himself is pondering about his body feeling older and his bones aching. Its in the same novel where Jarod’s girl dies, and the loss of their immortality is a plot point. Malfurion starts to feel his body getting older and more strain.
Malfurion feeling older and more tired through age is as canon as any of his feats.
No, you ignore lore that spoils your power fantasy, and you bring up things that are irrelevant.
“He coulda done other stuff! I seent him do it! It makes no sense! It must be what I say!”
The simple facts are that events went down the way they did. It makes sense enough. Stomping one’s feet and saying “he is so powerful tho!” does not change the canon lore of what occured.
Blizzard has laid out some possible reasons that make sense enough in the lore :
Sylvanas explains in Legion that the Goblin Catapults are faster and more powerful than ever before. Also, the payloads were enchanted to burn more powerfully. And when the flames hit Teldrassil, Troll Shaman guided the flames to burn more effectively.
Yes, Malfurion is straining to hold off a large Horde army, he is running around, all over the battle.
People want to remember the moments of power, and ignore the whole canon.
I like Malfurion. He is one of my favorite Characters. But he is still just a mortal. And he has been feeling the effects of aging. That could be reason enough why he was not able to defeat Sylvanas, Saurfang, and the Horde alone, despite his previous moments of power.
Non-Orcish/Alternative Horde: Sided with Vol’jin in Mists, Sylvanas in BfA
Although that is simply because I love trolls and the forsaken and play many characters of those races. So it really depends on what char I did it on but if we’re looking over all then this fits the best.
After I boosted my BE here, I do regret abandoning the character around MoP. But if I had continued to lvl her, I definitely would have went the loyalist route.
This I don’t agree with. The Alliance did not seem prepared in general, just mostly flying by the seat of their pants.
This is a baseless statement.
Anduin has used Shadow Priest spells a number of times before.
Your statements were that the Jailer wasn’t a thing until the reveal in the loyalist ending, in which case Sylvanas is not a brilliant strategist, as all she did for the entire war up to that point, as Saurfang got under her skin about, was fail over and over again.
Ysera noted that Malfurion had surpassed what Ysera could teach him. It wasn’t a ritual, just thousands of years of practice.
Malfurion did also wipe out all the Horde soldiers that were with Sylvanas when he came to confront her, which was reflected in the in-game event with all the Orc corpses and destroyed siege equipment around Sylvanas when she dropped to her knee with barely any health left before Saurfang came in to save her.
Is it though? We know Jaina was deemed a prodigy even at a young age while studying in Dalaran and she is one of Azeroths strongest magi.
To be fair, she did say Could have died. Not that he would have. Lore wise we know void portals are extremely unpleasant to travel.
This is a factual statement. Jaina is the strongest and most skilled Alliance character in portals and arcane magic.
You are going to claim that someone, who just got her void powers in Legion canonically like a year ago, is at par with a Council mage who has been studying arcane magic since she was at least 17 years old, so for the last 20 years at least. You are going to make a bold halfa$$ed claim that Alleria is at the same skill level as Jaina?
The pettiness level that some of you will go to just to “prove” Sylvanas can’t possibly win is unreal. but it’s petty, and you are not fooling anyone.
Void can for sure consum the blight, the critical question is in which tempo/speed this happened, if we compare the black hole effect in the alliance campaign…than it would be consumed pretty fast, but we don´t know for sure.