And after Lordaeron? Sylvanas seems to have a thing for scorched earth tactics. There had to be months between the time that Teldrassil burned and the time that Tyrande returned. They should’ve turned Darkshore into a lifeless husk, especially if they anticipated Tyrande coming back.
Maybe she contracted out to Gallywix, and he pocketed the funds and sent out only one goblin with a watered-down, leaky blight sprayer?
It’s a weird situation unless we get actual information from the devs on what was happening in Darkshore between the War of Thorns and now.
Was the Horde entrenched there and why? Were they trying to harvest resources, and only switched to the blight’n’burn strategy when the night elves pushed to reclaim Darkshore? How successful were the night elves who were harassing their forces before the main assault, and can that explain why the whole place isn’t blighted? Since the Hordeside assault mirrors the Alliance’s beachhead invasion, does that mean that the Horde was primarily resupplying by sea rather than by land or is it just game mechanics? Does this Horde occupation exist in Ashenvale too, and to what extent?
There could be answers to any of those questions, but they’re not presented in game.
On some level, I do hope that the orcs were at least trying to harvest the lumber in Darkshore rather than blight it down. It would give some backing to the ‘we need the lumber’ argument that was always used to invade, and the Horde needs all the sympathetic motivations it can get.
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Why would the Orcs go all the way to Darkshore to get lumber when they control the giant forest right next to Orgrimmar?
Darkshore is pretty barren which is partly why the Night Elves never inhabited it like Ashenvale or Teldrassil. Only reason for the Horde to hold it is to keep the Alliance from getting a foothold there.
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Darkshore has resources that are worth getting if you’re willing to strip the place bare to get them quickly. It also seems to have a minor Azerite intrusion… which Ashenvale does not.
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I forgot about the Azerite.
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To be fair, at this point Azurite extrusions are like Korok seeds in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Can you really go anywhere without stumbling upon them?
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Arathi doesn’t seem to have them. There the Warfront is engaged for different reasons.
That’s actually true, and a good observation. But Azerite is all over islands we keep seeing, and not just there, but all over the world from the breadcrumb quests we get on some of the said islands.