Azshara's Place in Battle for Azeroth and What Comes After

In an interview, encounter designer Morgan Day mentioned that Azshara will be the "Gul'dan" of Battle for Azeroth - presumably meaning that she will be the final boss of BFA's first big raid. This opens up a whole lot of questions.

At the moment, the only raid we have confirmed, other than the one that we know solely as "the one with Azshara in it" is Uldir. With eight bosses, Uldir is actually just as big or even bigger than some existing full tier raids (Trial of the Crusader had 5, Firelands 7, and Dragon Soul 8.) Still, as the first raid of the expansion, under the model they've used since Mists of Pandaria, the first raid is meant as something of a warm-up, putting Uldir in the same category as Mogu'shan Vaults, Highmaul, and Emerald Nightmare.

Of course, with the removal of tier sets for raiding, there's actually not much that defines a non-tier raid from a true tier raid. The only real distinction will be the item level of rewards.

On the other hand, I suspect that we'll get a couple of larger raids - with 10 or more bosses - that would fit the traditional "tier raid" model. Clearly Azshara's raid will be one of them.

But there has always been a question since BFA was announced as to what role the villains would play within it.

It would not have been so crazy to thin that Azshara could be BFA's final boss, but instead she seems to be a villain we deal with early in the expansion. So who does that leave?

Well, as much as I've focused on the likelihood that the Old Gods are deeply involved (no pun intended) in this conflict, I do think that, given the emphasis the expansion is putting on the Alliance/Horde conflict, it would be odd not to address that in a raid setting.

The real question, then, is how one does major PvE content that has you fighting the opposite faction. We've had instances in the past, particularly in Wrath of the Lich King, where we get a mirrored experience - the Nexus has a heroic-only boss from the opposite faction, Trial of the Champion and Trial of the Crusader has a single fight against opposite-faction champions, and Icecrown Citadel has the gunship battle - but in each of these cases, this has served as a distraction from the larger challenge.

Because in storytelling terms, the other faction has always been more of a rival than an antagonist (well, maybe not always, but since WCIII.)

There have been some mentions that the Siege of Boralus dungeon will have the Alliance defending the city while the Horde invades, though that doesn't really jive with the bosses for it in the dungeon journal, which suggests more of a collaboration between one of the Proudmoores' rival families and the Naga. Perhaps the invasion is actually just how the Horde gets there and then inadvertently winds up saving the very city they had come to capture.

Still, we've come a very long way since Warcraft I, which was written to have different story endings depending on which side you had chosen. Only later were the two campaigns stitched together to form a single canon of the First War.

It would be very hard to make Sylvanas and Anduin the final bosses of Battle for Azeroth, unless you were to suggest that while one faction was killing the other's leader, they left their own undefended, which would mean we'd need a fifth Warchief and the Wrynn line would be extinguished.

But as long as we're talking final bosses, let's talk potential final bosses:

Anduin Wrynn: It would be really freaking sad to see the most idealistic faction leader, and one who has only just become an adult, either put in a position where both factions would turn on him, like Garrosh, or for him to be cut down by the Horde. Frankly, unless the Horde truly believes in total eradication of the Alliance (which I think goes farther than what most actually want,) Anduin is the kind of leader the Horde would want in the Alliance - one who will take opportunities for peace and be able to see their side of the issues.

Sylvanas Windrunner: As much as I don't want her to just turn into a raid boss, I can't say it wouldn't be justified. Sylvanas has arguably crossed the villain threshold many times already, and her protestations of "only trying to save her people" are hard to listen to when "saving them" means enslaving or slaughtering others. But we already fought Garrosh - do we really want every other Warchief to be a raid boss?

Anduin and/or Sylvanas Together: If they had totally different final raids for Alliance and Horde (but mechanically identical? For balance) facing the other faction's leader could make sense, but again you have the issue of upheaval once again so soon after both factions' leaders just died at the beginning of Legion.

Others, like Nathanos and Genn: If we're sticking with the divided raid, it could make sense to make the factions fight a particularly militant member of the other side. There's less upheaval, but still a focus on faction conflict.

N'zoth: Ok, moving on to serious faction-agnostic threats, we've got to come out and talk about N'zoth. There's absolutely Old God stuff happening in a bunch of Battle for Azeroth content, and it's not all around G'huun. When you consider that Kul Tiras and Zandalar are both being sought out largely for their naval prowess, the God of the Deep would be a pretty logical big bad. As a master manipulator, it could even be that he's pushing the conflict forward. And with Azeroth wounded, N'zoth, as the last totally healthy Old God, is probably in the best position to push his advantage.

Azshara: We've had raid bosses come back in the past - both Kil'jaeden and Archimonde are the final bosses of two raids each - but it's very unlikely this would happen in the same expansion. Kael'thas and Anub'arak managed to do the same-expansion Dungeon-and-Raid thing (actually, you can count the Lich King for that too, though you don't come anywhere near even hurting the Lich King in the Halls of Reflection encounter,) but for full-fledged raid fights, I think it's very unlikely we'll see Azshara as the final boss of two during BFA itself.

Azeroth: Man, what a crazy twist that would be - to have us fight Azeroth the Titan. Maybe we'd need to do it to cleanse her of Old God corruption? This one's a stretch, but not outside the total realm of possibility.

The Lich King: Ok, this one's probably not inside that realm, at least for BFA. I would not be shocked to see the expansion that follows BFA to feature the Scourge, but for BFA we're only getting a few references to necromancy and the Shadowlands in Drustvar and possibly with our interaction with Bwonsamdi in Nazmir.