Ok, for the sake of people on the mobile site who don't want spoilers, here's a little paragraph of stalling. Blizzard has been fairly quiet about whether Warlords of Draenor will actually have the typical three raid tiers, or only two. Given the rate at which we've been going through bad guys, it was unclear for some time just how much there was on Draenor to deal with to make more tiers. Had they saved Highmaul for later, it would have been a logical "middle tier," but instead it became the intro raid, meaning that the Ogres are basically out of the picture already.
And of course, the number of raid tiers is totally dependent on how soon we can see the next expansion. If they do a mere two tiers, we're going to have to see expansion six either this fall or very early next year - otherwise we're going to have another Siege of Orgrimmar situation, and I'm sure that Blizzard realizes that that would be horrible for business and really upset basically everyone - confirming suspicions that Blizzard is terrible at time-management.
But recent revelations have potentially raised the possibility that there could indeed be a middle tier. There's a big shake-up going on, and we're going to talk about it below the cut.
Grommash is, as of the post-Blackrock Foundry legendary quests, no longer in control of the Iron Horde. He is Gul'dan's prisoner, and though he refused to drink the demon blood offered by Gul'dan, Kilrogg Deadeye, the last remaining Warlord, took it instead.
What does this mean for Kilrogg, the Iron Horde, and the arc of the expansion?
We just don't know exactly how things will go - and by predicting the future we of course set ourselves up to look foolish.
But logically, here's a scenario I can imagine:
With Grommash Gul'dan's prisoner, he clearly cannot retain the title of Warchief. Assuming that Kilrogg's acceptance of Gul'dan's offer is a sign for how the whole Iron Horde is going to go, we can assume that he's earned a great deal of prestige. Now, Grommash in our timeline was the first to drink the blood and that did not automatically make him Warchief (in fact, he never was,) but Gul'dan must be looking for a puppet. Kilrogg's willingness to drink the blood would make him stand out - both to Gul'dan and the Orcs in general.
So if Kilrogg could very well become the Warchief of this new... let's call it Demonic Horde (as the Fel Horde is what we called the one loyal to Illidan in Outland and the Dark Horde is the one that remained in Blackrock Mountain under Rend Blackhand and was controlled by Nefarian.)
Our journey into Tanaan thus might have us taking on Kilrogg and what's left of Draenor's variably named Horde. And the Warlord of the Bleeding Hollow could be the final boss of tier 18, but if we don't kill Gul'dan in Tanaan Jungle, that opens us up for a third raid tier.
And there's a whole Outland zone (other than Zangarmarsh, which is just the Zangar Sea) that we haven't seen yet on Draenor - Farahlon.
If Warlords takes us past Tanaan Jungle to confront Gul'dan elsewhere, Farahlon would be a great place to do so.
But that means we've got to see a real transformation. Clearly, the Iron Horde is about to get a lot more Fel-green. But even still, if Kilrogg is the final boss of the Tanaan Jungle raid, we're going to have to declare the Iron Horde dead.
Meaning that a Gul'dan raid in Farahlon is likely to be a full-on Demon raid. If Gul'dan's Demonic Horde fails, we're going to have to see the Legion Proper show up for a knock-down drag-out fight. And that means that folks like Magtheridon, Archimonde, and Kil'jaeden could all show up.
It's still "the alternate-universe Legion," but it's a major threat to be sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment