He embodies everything wrong with the story.
Had to look this character up, as someone who almost exclusively plays Horde, I thought you were talking about General Umbriss from Grim Batol when I saw the title. That said:
oh no, the alliance leader likes the alliance
This isn’t even a critique of the story? This is a community-based complaint.
A character has a stance towards the Horde that is unfavorable, and this is a bad thing how?
Actually, I would argue that his powers are relatively redundant. In terms of raw power, he gets outclassed by most other Alliance leaders, and even in terms of being the resident Void-guy, he’s outclassed in his own base by both Alleria Windrunner and Locus-Walker.
He hasn’t even shown up since the first half of BfA and was only introduced in BfA, the guy literally has like 3 times less relevance than Mayla Highmountain of all characters. He barely “exists” at all.
Not to sound rude, but it sounds like your just upset that Void Elves exist at all and are choosing to vent about it in the Story Forums by complaining about a literal nobody of an npc.
The point is giving the enemy faction the most popular Horde race model was a mistake. And the entire stick of Umbric is that the void powers were cruicial to the alliance war campaign. Meanwhile not a single allied race leader of the Horde did anything to aid their faction when it mattered.
And he makes Bob look incompetent since any sensible leader would have killed him before he can become a larger problem.
High Elves have been and were consistently one of the most requested Alliance races, with them being historic allies of the Alliance and even being allied with them in-game.
Personally, I think the only mistake they made was covering them in purple to make them stand out more, when it would have been easier (and more appreciated by Alliance players) to just slap blue eyes on a BElf model and call it a day.
Also, double-checking what all Umbric actually did in BfA, it wasn’t really very much. He helped with the base faction campaign and with the Alliance Assaults on Zandalar.
I’m going to assume that when you say “when it mattered” you are referring to the actual war itself and not the revolution against Sylvanas and her forces,
With that in mind, Thalyssra helped free Zul and Talanji, along with helping substantially campaign in Nazjatar.
Additionally, Lasan Skyhorn (a secondary leader for the Highmountain Tauren) helped in the same operation with Zul and Talanji while also providing aid in one of the Horde’s Assaults.
Contrast this to the other on-launch allied race leader for the Alliance, Captain Fareeya (leader of the Lightforged Draenei), and it could easily be argued that Thalyssra on her own did more for the war effort than either of the two Alliance allied race leaders.
Who is Bob?
Umbric carried the story for the blue team. Without him the feint at Nazmir would not have succeeded.
Talanji was dropped the moment Bfa was over and the other allies paid no role either. Horde war campaign was just going with Nathanos to collect corpses. And then came the humiliating defeat at Zuldazar. Void elves are the reason the last bastion of Horde RP is now in alliance hands since former belf rp players now do social RP in Stormwind.
Will admit, I missed that he did stuff in 8.1 as well, though I still retain that he likely could have been swapped out for multiple other Alliance members with minimal story impact given his lack of any real thing he excels at.
(Putting this in a reply to avoid adding even more to the last post in another edit.)
Well I hate Umbric and the Zandalari will have no justice until every alliance leader involved in the attack on Zandalar is dead for good.
I mean, I agree.
But not for the reasons stated.
But let us leave it at 'Umbric and the Void Elves suck simply because they exist."
At most, Umbric held a similar role to Oculeth.
Umbric’s portals can’t be tracked. Occuleth uses normal magic.
I totally agree with you.
A few things that bug me about Umbric :
His name, for one. Did his parents foresee that he would turn to darkness and void? Most High Elves/Blood Elves had sunny type names, or Bloody type names. He just happened to have a gloomy darkness type name. How convenient.
For two - how Blizzard peeled away Horde folks to give them to the Alliance. No other Allied Race was taken from one side and given to the other - the Nightborne were neutral.
I would have preferred if the Void Elves were the Alliance High Elves who transformed, at least it wouldn’t have hurt the Horde’s story.
But Umbric is like : “the Void Elves were Blood Elves who never wanted to join the Horde in the first place, we always hated it, the Alliance was always our favorite, so bye Felicia!”
That’s just great. Very inspiring.
It’s like Blizzard can’t give the Alliance something without kicking dirt in the Horde’s face.
That was pretty much the entire point of Bfa. Telling the community that alliance is superior in every way possible.
Other way around, my friend.
One of the big complaints Alliance players had with Void Elves was them being former Blood Elves. I don’t think anyone wanted that. Speaking for myself, my own personal sentiment at the time (which I recall being mirrored by others on the forums), was that the Void Elves would’ve been better off as the Silver Covenant borrowed by Alleria for a weekend to go looking for her missing WC2 rangers in Outland, only to get voided out there.
Instead Blizzard had the attitude of, “What, High Elves again? FINE! You want to play Blood Elves so bad? Here. Hope you like purple, LOL!”
Yeah that is a good point, which is why in this case I am not even hating on Alliance fans for it - more the way Blizzard handled it.
I was around at the time. It wasn’t something Alliance fans were clamoring for. Blizzard pretty much played corrupt a wish with High Elf fans.
It was a compromise from Ion. His original stance was a clear No.
From what I heard, Ion couldn’t have given two dumps either way. It was some producer who pushed it because of pretty hair colors or something. She’s got a Void Elf named after her at the Stormwind Embassy.
Well now we know which barriers can’t be torn down. Blizzard draws the line at the hair styles. Which is impressive considering they gave in to the High elf crowd two times.
Alied races in general were a mistake. Probably the most irritating expansion gimmick.
Lots of character creation bloat, very little narrative substance. These should have been barber shop options if they had to exist at all.
I am envious of the Void Elf facial hair options.
I want the mustache without the chin hair option that Void Elves get. Just the mustache with side burns, but not the chin hair.
Alas, if I want a mustache as a Blood Elf, it comes with chin hair. More Alliance bias from Blizzard.
Take 'em. I don’t see anything special about Void Elf hair that’d make it impossible for Blood Elves to use their styles.