With the rumor mills buzzing about a new Diablo game in development, and given that I've been playing a lot of Diablo III lately, I thought I'd reflect on the possibilities for a new game. Season 5 has invigorated me to the point where the stuff my main-game characters will be inheriting will be far, far, like exponential to several degrees better than what they had before. (I've got full sets of gear for most of my non-seasonal male/female counterparts to suit them up in.)
Now, the big, huge caveat here - this could be another expansion. And I'd be ok with that, as I'm rather fond of my characters (though the introduction of Xul in Heroes of the Storm makes me really want a Necromancer - even if the Witch Doctor mostly covers that niche,) and I'm always happy to have Lyndon along making quips.
Setting the story aside (since I kind of covered that,) one question might be how the mechanics would change in a future game.
Diablo III gave each class its own resource, and while a lot of them work pretty similarly, it's a nice way to distinguish their mechanics.
The Adventure Mode introduced in Reaper of Souls gave players a ton more freedom - you no longer had to endlessly cycle through the main story and the same dungeons and bosses in the same order over and over.
I might try to work this freedom of exploration into the main game. It might be interesting to have a number of threats (like Belial and Azmodan in Diablo III) that you can take down in the order you want.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing the loot become a bit less random. Basically any item can drop from any enemy (though some require you to get them in rifts) and while that gives you more of an incentive to go clear out that Khazra cave, it also dilutes a bit of what's exciting about fighting a boss.
The way Legendaries work in Diablo has you really get tremendously more powerful once a particular effect is gained - as an example, if you are using the Thorns of the Invoker set on a Crusader, Belt of the Trove suddenly has you raining down Bombardments constantly and thus not only getting a lot of free damage (and freeing up an ability slot) but also perpetually having your 50% damage reduction buff.
But once you have that set, with all the best legendary effects, your main incentive to keep playing is simply to amass better gear for your off-sets or alts. Or grinding legendary gems to help you run higher Greater Rifts.
It might be nice to segment the end-game at the level cap a little more, and to provide quantitative differences after getting qualitative ones. Maybe you can't get gear that would let you face, oh, I don't know, some Nephalem who has gone over to the side of Hell (brainstorming potential villains) until you've gotten a decent set of gear together.
Similarly, I wonder if it might help (or hinder) the game if getting your particular legendary effects was less difficult (or tedious,) but then there might be several levels of "Ancient" gear to work your way through, allowing your set to work properly but gaining new ways to increase your power.
Diablo seems to be all about slaughtering massive swarms of enemies, and I think the tried-and-true isometric camera is probably right for that. If they want to scale things down a bit and make each enemy count more, you could do a WoW-style ground-level camera. But that's probably not the direction they mean to take for the game.
Obviously, a brand new game would need brand-new classes, though even an expansion would probably require at least one new one as well. WoW's classes were partially inspired by Diablo II's (as well as some WCIII hero units,) but you could almost kind of reverse the process.
Obviously there are some clear 1-1 correspondences: Paladins are Crusader, Warriors are Barbarians. Monks are Monks. Mages are Wizards. Ironically, Demon Hunters are not Demon Hunters. Diablo III doesn't have a real Druid equivalent, unless you seriously tried to stretch Witch Doctors because of things like Plague of Toads and Corpse Spiders. There's also not a really clear Cleric-type, though Crusaders' spells do veer into that territory. Demon Hunters kind of cover the stealthy-rogue combat style as well as the ranger/hunter archetype.
Of course, a Diablo IV would be able to toss out all the Diablo III classes and begin anew, freeing up a lot of the archetypes that the current classes fill.
I suspect that we'll get our first real news about this new game or new expansion at Blizzcon, though given how they did Legion and Reaper of Souls, it may come sooner than that.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
New Alpha Build with News on Second Artifacts and Secondary Stats
A new Alpha build is being deployed for Legion, and with it we get some interesting new tidbits.
First off, Feral Druids will now be playable, leaving only three specs left to be enabled. We still don't have Azsuna or Suramar available, so here's hoping that happens soon. If I recall correctly, there's only one more dungeon to open up, which is Suramar City (likely given a new name the same way Suramar Catacombs became The Arcway.)
One of the big questions people have had, particularly for those of us who main Healers or Tanks, is how one will get one's secondary artifact weapon. The news is: "early." Blizzard says that you'll be able to acquire your second artifact weapon early in the leveling process. Personally, I think it would make the most sense to simply allow you to get it once the normal class quest chains tell you to go to the new zones. I'd happily delay my sojourn into Stormheim (or whichever zone I go to first) in order to go get the Ashbringer, rather than trying to make my way with Truthguard solo.
The other bit of news is a little bit mathy. Essentially, Blizzard wants to flatten out the curve on secondary stats in order for low-geared people to feel that their spec is working properly earlier. This is probably most pronounced on specs that rely on critical strikes, such as Fury or Fire. You'll be getting to higher levels of crit, haste, mastery, and versatility earlier on, while future gear will scale a bit more flatly - you'll still see your percentages improve, but secondary stats won't go up exponentially, while (if I understand correctly,) the real power stats - Agility, Intellect, and Strength - will continue to climb exponentially, providing you with the power you're looking for. To be clear, they're doing this not to make end-tier raiding feel underpowered. My understanding is that the final tier of Legion should feel comparable to the final tier of Warlords in terms of haste/crit/mastery. But a fresh level 110 character should be able to quickly get gear that makes them feel capable, even if the net damage/healing output are in line with, well, someone fresh at the level cap.
It's now March, so I'm hoping that we'll get a release date either this month or next. I'm predicting a June release to coincide with the movie coming out (I expect a launch a week or two after the movie, to get Warcraft on peoples' minds and so that people aren't going to skip the movie so that they can just play the new expansion.)
First off, Feral Druids will now be playable, leaving only three specs left to be enabled. We still don't have Azsuna or Suramar available, so here's hoping that happens soon. If I recall correctly, there's only one more dungeon to open up, which is Suramar City (likely given a new name the same way Suramar Catacombs became The Arcway.)
One of the big questions people have had, particularly for those of us who main Healers or Tanks, is how one will get one's secondary artifact weapon. The news is: "early." Blizzard says that you'll be able to acquire your second artifact weapon early in the leveling process. Personally, I think it would make the most sense to simply allow you to get it once the normal class quest chains tell you to go to the new zones. I'd happily delay my sojourn into Stormheim (or whichever zone I go to first) in order to go get the Ashbringer, rather than trying to make my way with Truthguard solo.
The other bit of news is a little bit mathy. Essentially, Blizzard wants to flatten out the curve on secondary stats in order for low-geared people to feel that their spec is working properly earlier. This is probably most pronounced on specs that rely on critical strikes, such as Fury or Fire. You'll be getting to higher levels of crit, haste, mastery, and versatility earlier on, while future gear will scale a bit more flatly - you'll still see your percentages improve, but secondary stats won't go up exponentially, while (if I understand correctly,) the real power stats - Agility, Intellect, and Strength - will continue to climb exponentially, providing you with the power you're looking for. To be clear, they're doing this not to make end-tier raiding feel underpowered. My understanding is that the final tier of Legion should feel comparable to the final tier of Warlords in terms of haste/crit/mastery. But a fresh level 110 character should be able to quickly get gear that makes them feel capable, even if the net damage/healing output are in line with, well, someone fresh at the level cap.
It's now March, so I'm hoping that we'll get a release date either this month or next. I'm predicting a June release to coincide with the movie coming out (I expect a launch a week or two after the movie, to get Warcraft on peoples' minds and so that people aren't going to skip the movie so that they can just play the new expansion.)
How Can We Put Xul in Every Blizzard Game?
I've been playing a ton of Xul on Heroes of the Storm lately. He's an absurd amount of fun, between his powerful and unusual Scythe attack and his fantastic control and a trait that's both powerful and flavorful, it's just awesome.
The obvious place for him would be in Diablo, which is of course kind of backwards, given that Xul is officially the Necromancer from Diablo II.
Xul's role in Diablo is more or less filled by the Witch Doctor. Both raise the dead to fight for them, but while the Necromancer has a more gothic theme, the Witch Doctor has a shamanistic one. The Necromancer is explicitly Lawful Neutral, whereas the Witch Doctor is more of a good alignment - though arguments could be made whether he's Lawful or Chaotic.
One of the things that's interesting about Xul is the way that he effortlessly raises skeletons from defeated minions nearby. This actually makes him feel a bit more like a Warcraft III Necromancer, who had an ability that could be toggled on to automatically raise any nearby corpses to create skeletons. In Diablo, you could imagine making a trait where super-flimsy skeletons are created any time you kill an enemy (or perhaps beef them up a bit and make it a chance.) This is relatively close to the Witch Doctor's Fiendish Sycophant trait, which instead creates Fetish Warriors.
Spectral Scythe is really the most unusual ability Xul has. To reiterate, you cast this at a targeted location. It appears there a second later and then travels toward you. It's kind of a skill-shot, except the skill comes in where you position yourself, rather than where you aim the shot. You can actually curve this by moving after casting it, and you can wind up getting a long range if you cast it and then move in the opposite direction.
Such an ability could work in Diablo, but I think it would be an awesome ability for Death Knights in World of Warcraft as well.
Anyway, I just wanted to gush about the new character who's probably going to supplant Leoric as my favorite in the game.
The obvious place for him would be in Diablo, which is of course kind of backwards, given that Xul is officially the Necromancer from Diablo II.
Xul's role in Diablo is more or less filled by the Witch Doctor. Both raise the dead to fight for them, but while the Necromancer has a more gothic theme, the Witch Doctor has a shamanistic one. The Necromancer is explicitly Lawful Neutral, whereas the Witch Doctor is more of a good alignment - though arguments could be made whether he's Lawful or Chaotic.
One of the things that's interesting about Xul is the way that he effortlessly raises skeletons from defeated minions nearby. This actually makes him feel a bit more like a Warcraft III Necromancer, who had an ability that could be toggled on to automatically raise any nearby corpses to create skeletons. In Diablo, you could imagine making a trait where super-flimsy skeletons are created any time you kill an enemy (or perhaps beef them up a bit and make it a chance.) This is relatively close to the Witch Doctor's Fiendish Sycophant trait, which instead creates Fetish Warriors.
Spectral Scythe is really the most unusual ability Xul has. To reiterate, you cast this at a targeted location. It appears there a second later and then travels toward you. It's kind of a skill-shot, except the skill comes in where you position yourself, rather than where you aim the shot. You can actually curve this by moving after casting it, and you can wind up getting a long range if you cast it and then move in the opposite direction.
Such an ability could work in Diablo, but I think it would be an awesome ability for Death Knights in World of Warcraft as well.
Anyway, I just wanted to gush about the new character who's probably going to supplant Leoric as my favorite in the game.
New Diablo Game In Development
In a surprisingly low-key manner, Blizzard has effectively announced a new Diablo game, as they are currently seeking people to work on it.
The big question is whether this means a new expansion for Diablo III or if it will be a Diablo IV (or maybe they'll abandon the numeric naming conventions.)
Mechanically, I think they've done a fantastic job of tightening the game up over the course of Reaper of Souls. Seasons give you an incentive to go back and play more even if you're geared in best-in-slot sets and I really cannot overemphasize how much better the loot system is now than it was before Reaper of Souls.
A new game or expansion would hopefully keep up with this, but perhaps allow for more granularity in quality. Once at the level cap, the stats on a piece of gear are less important than legendary effects (particularly with class sets, though some sets are really unleashed by one particular item or another,) and so it might be nice to expand the "Ancient" legendary system to allow more of a sense of progress.
Storywise, there's plenty that's open. Given Malthael's hypocritical use of the Black Soulstone, all seven Lords of Hell are now unleashed. Likewise, Malthael himself may be dead, but as an Angel he should be able to return from the Crystal Arch (though hopefully the rest of the Angels are standing there, waiting to lock him up for what he did.)
Imperius has always kind of presented himself as a potential villain, given his disdain for humanity, though he was willing to help us fight Malthael, which suggests he might begrudgingly accept us.
However, I think the most interesting direction to take the Diablo series - assuming we don't find out about some other powerful entity outside of angels and demons - would be to delve into the history of the Nephalem. Humanity's ancestors (and the player characters in Diablo III) are effectively gods. Neither inherently good nor inherently evil (some, like Rathma, appear to have been inherently neutral,) the Nephalem could promise a far more complex story and environment for Diablo.
In terms of new features, I think the obvious thing with a new expansion would be a new class. The Crusader was a fantastic addition in Reaper of Souls (becoming my favorite class.) I'm not exactly sure what bases we don't have covered. I don't know much about Diablo II's Druid, but perhaps we could have a more nature-based class. The awesomeness that is Xul in Heroes of the Storm kind of makes me want a Necromancer, but that of course is already well-covered by the Witch Doctor, and on top of that, I don't know if they've ever repeated a class other than the Barbarian.
Anyway, we'll probably not hear too much about this for a while, possibly until this year's Blizzcon (which is of course several months away.)
The big question is whether this means a new expansion for Diablo III or if it will be a Diablo IV (or maybe they'll abandon the numeric naming conventions.)
Mechanically, I think they've done a fantastic job of tightening the game up over the course of Reaper of Souls. Seasons give you an incentive to go back and play more even if you're geared in best-in-slot sets and I really cannot overemphasize how much better the loot system is now than it was before Reaper of Souls.
A new game or expansion would hopefully keep up with this, but perhaps allow for more granularity in quality. Once at the level cap, the stats on a piece of gear are less important than legendary effects (particularly with class sets, though some sets are really unleashed by one particular item or another,) and so it might be nice to expand the "Ancient" legendary system to allow more of a sense of progress.
Storywise, there's plenty that's open. Given Malthael's hypocritical use of the Black Soulstone, all seven Lords of Hell are now unleashed. Likewise, Malthael himself may be dead, but as an Angel he should be able to return from the Crystal Arch (though hopefully the rest of the Angels are standing there, waiting to lock him up for what he did.)
Imperius has always kind of presented himself as a potential villain, given his disdain for humanity, though he was willing to help us fight Malthael, which suggests he might begrudgingly accept us.
However, I think the most interesting direction to take the Diablo series - assuming we don't find out about some other powerful entity outside of angels and demons - would be to delve into the history of the Nephalem. Humanity's ancestors (and the player characters in Diablo III) are effectively gods. Neither inherently good nor inherently evil (some, like Rathma, appear to have been inherently neutral,) the Nephalem could promise a far more complex story and environment for Diablo.
In terms of new features, I think the obvious thing with a new expansion would be a new class. The Crusader was a fantastic addition in Reaper of Souls (becoming my favorite class.) I'm not exactly sure what bases we don't have covered. I don't know much about Diablo II's Druid, but perhaps we could have a more nature-based class. The awesomeness that is Xul in Heroes of the Storm kind of makes me want a Necromancer, but that of course is already well-covered by the Witch Doctor, and on top of that, I don't know if they've ever repeated a class other than the Barbarian.
Anyway, we'll probably not hear too much about this for a while, possibly until this year's Blizzcon (which is of course several months away.)
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Xul, the Necromancer
Well, I went ahead and got Xul, the newest Heroes of the Storm character. I guess you can't keep me away from a cool necromancer character.
Xul is a melee specialist who is a whole lot of fun (and depending on how things turn out, might be due for some nerfs.) He has good control, a nice baseline survival ability, and a trait that makes him great at solo-pushing lanes (it's a weird kind of mirror of Sylvanas.)
So let's get to his abilities!
Trait: Raise Skeleton
When an enemy minion dies near you, it will rise up as a skeleton to fight for you. You can have four skeletons at a time. These guys are pretty weak, but they'll help you overtake the enemy's minions pretty quickly and are great cannon fodder.
Q: Spectral Scythe
This is a funky kind of reverse skill-shot. You click a targeted location in range and after a second your scythe appears there. It then travels back to you, damaging (for a pretty solid amount) anything between you and its starting location. You can move after placing this to effectively give it a longer range, and it cuts a decently wide stripe, making it great for damaging a whole pack of minions.
W: Cursed Strikes
This empowers your scythe to deal more powerful, wide-ranged area attacks which also slow the target's attack speed by 50% for two seconds. The buff lasts four seconds, which seems to give you 5 swings. This hits pretty hard and has a large range.
E: Bone Prison
Target an enemy and, after a couple seconds, a bone prison will appear to lock them down. Given the delay, you'll want to hit them with this pretty early in a fight to prevent them from escaping (or allowing you to.)
1: Bone Armor
Baseline you get this additional ability, which gives you an absorption shield. Your first talent selection will allow you to modify this to either be more powerful and on a longer cooldown, slow nearby enemies, or explode for hefty damage when it expires.
Heroic Abilities:
Poison Nova:
After a short wind-up, you'll radiate poison missiles to enemies around you, poisoning them for a pretty big chunk of damage over time (a great team-killer.)
Skeletal Mages:
Summon four skeletal mages in a line who will attack and slow enemy heroes who try to pass by them, lasting a hefty 15 seconds.
I've only been able to play two games as Xul so far (long queue time probably due to him being the newest character,) but I've found that he's very good at soloing lanes, and he puts out enough damage to duel with opponents. Using Bone Armor at the right moment is an important survival skill. There are a lot of talents for Raise Skeleton that can make you pretty self-sufficient, giving mana and health back when you raise them.
Don't overextend on Xul - you won't really need to, though, as Spectral Scythe will give you a decent ranged attack and Cursed Strikes will allow you to hit enemies relatively far away. You might be a bit less useful in objective fights - mercenaries and map-specific enemies won't get raised by your trait - but Bone Prison is a fantastic control spell and Cursed Strikes can really harm auto-attack heroes like Raynor or Sgt. Hammer.
Anyway, if you felt that Nazeebo, Arthas, and Leoric hadn't quite satisfied your "leading an army of the dead" fantasy, Xul absolutely scratches that itch.
EDIT:
After playing a bit more with him, it's clear that this guy has a lot of control options. While the poison damage on Poison Nova is fantastic, the control offered by Skeletal Mages is also a wonderful complement to Bone Prison. Pairing Xul with a bursty assassin like Greymane will make you horrifying to your enemy heroes. While Xul can totally push a lane on his own and go head-to-head with bursty glass cannon-types (between Bone Armor for defense and Bone Prison fro control, burst-assassins like Li Ming should be very wary of Xul) he's also a great help to group fights. Obviously, his control abilities (including Cursed Strikes) help out a lot, but also if you get some enemy minions into the mix there (like if they're trying to push on your forts) he can very quickly turn the tables and make enemy heroes regret bringing their minions along.
I tend to take all the raise skeleton talents (I'll have to experiment with other talents to make an optimal build, though honestly, pouring everything into the skeletons seems to be working ok for me.)
Also, as a caveat, I'm a PVE'er in Heroes, so some of his tricks might not work so well against other players. Still, nothing's on a horrifically long cooldown, and he hits hard enough that players are going to have to be clever not to get ensnared by him and chewed up by skeletons.
Xul is a melee specialist who is a whole lot of fun (and depending on how things turn out, might be due for some nerfs.) He has good control, a nice baseline survival ability, and a trait that makes him great at solo-pushing lanes (it's a weird kind of mirror of Sylvanas.)
So let's get to his abilities!
Trait: Raise Skeleton
When an enemy minion dies near you, it will rise up as a skeleton to fight for you. You can have four skeletons at a time. These guys are pretty weak, but they'll help you overtake the enemy's minions pretty quickly and are great cannon fodder.
Q: Spectral Scythe
This is a funky kind of reverse skill-shot. You click a targeted location in range and after a second your scythe appears there. It then travels back to you, damaging (for a pretty solid amount) anything between you and its starting location. You can move after placing this to effectively give it a longer range, and it cuts a decently wide stripe, making it great for damaging a whole pack of minions.
W: Cursed Strikes
This empowers your scythe to deal more powerful, wide-ranged area attacks which also slow the target's attack speed by 50% for two seconds. The buff lasts four seconds, which seems to give you 5 swings. This hits pretty hard and has a large range.
E: Bone Prison
Target an enemy and, after a couple seconds, a bone prison will appear to lock them down. Given the delay, you'll want to hit them with this pretty early in a fight to prevent them from escaping (or allowing you to.)
1: Bone Armor
Baseline you get this additional ability, which gives you an absorption shield. Your first talent selection will allow you to modify this to either be more powerful and on a longer cooldown, slow nearby enemies, or explode for hefty damage when it expires.
Heroic Abilities:
Poison Nova:
After a short wind-up, you'll radiate poison missiles to enemies around you, poisoning them for a pretty big chunk of damage over time (a great team-killer.)
Skeletal Mages:
Summon four skeletal mages in a line who will attack and slow enemy heroes who try to pass by them, lasting a hefty 15 seconds.
I've only been able to play two games as Xul so far (long queue time probably due to him being the newest character,) but I've found that he's very good at soloing lanes, and he puts out enough damage to duel with opponents. Using Bone Armor at the right moment is an important survival skill. There are a lot of talents for Raise Skeleton that can make you pretty self-sufficient, giving mana and health back when you raise them.
Don't overextend on Xul - you won't really need to, though, as Spectral Scythe will give you a decent ranged attack and Cursed Strikes will allow you to hit enemies relatively far away. You might be a bit less useful in objective fights - mercenaries and map-specific enemies won't get raised by your trait - but Bone Prison is a fantastic control spell and Cursed Strikes can really harm auto-attack heroes like Raynor or Sgt. Hammer.
Anyway, if you felt that Nazeebo, Arthas, and Leoric hadn't quite satisfied your "leading an army of the dead" fantasy, Xul absolutely scratches that itch.
EDIT:
After playing a bit more with him, it's clear that this guy has a lot of control options. While the poison damage on Poison Nova is fantastic, the control offered by Skeletal Mages is also a wonderful complement to Bone Prison. Pairing Xul with a bursty assassin like Greymane will make you horrifying to your enemy heroes. While Xul can totally push a lane on his own and go head-to-head with bursty glass cannon-types (between Bone Armor for defense and Bone Prison fro control, burst-assassins like Li Ming should be very wary of Xul) he's also a great help to group fights. Obviously, his control abilities (including Cursed Strikes) help out a lot, but also if you get some enemy minions into the mix there (like if they're trying to push on your forts) he can very quickly turn the tables and make enemy heroes regret bringing their minions along.
I tend to take all the raise skeleton talents (I'll have to experiment with other talents to make an optimal build, though honestly, pouring everything into the skeletons seems to be working ok for me.)
Also, as a caveat, I'm a PVE'er in Heroes, so some of his tricks might not work so well against other players. Still, nothing's on a horrifically long cooldown, and he hits hard enough that players are going to have to be clever not to get ensnared by him and chewed up by skeletons.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Dark Shamans and Monks
The cosmic chart that was included in the preview of World of Warcraft Chronicle Vol. 1 is an absolute treasure trove for those of us who like to break out the tin-foil hats. I've written about the possibility that the Lich King might have existed long before Kil'jaeden caught Ner'zhul, and I think there's a lot of speculation to go around about the nature of demons and the Burning Legion and why the Shadow has two primary representatives while the other Great Powers have only one.
But much of that is concerned with the outermost layers of the cosmos. Go in a step and you'll find the Elements. There are the four classic alchemical elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, which are pretty much what we've spent much of WoW dealing with.
We've often heard that Shamans also work with a "Fifth Element," and no, it's not love. It's "Spirit," which is the sort of ineffable force of life. Shaman healing spells have become more water-focused over the years, but there was a time when they were more about just kind of green life energy. Spirit is the kind of animating essence that makes us more than just some mixture of physical elements, and it's what the Shaman calls upon to restore life through spells like Reincarnation, Ancestral Spirit, or Cleanse Spirit.
Shamanism is a very common practice across all of Azeroth (and Draenor of course.) The Pandaren have Shamans, but Pandaren also developed a special interest in this fifth element. The Pandaren word for that element is Chi, and it is the basis around which their Monk techniques are formed. Monks use some shamanistic or shaman-like techniques, using the power of wind or mist (you could argue that Brews might have the element of water in them,) but they channel those powers through themselves rather than calling on the elemental spirits themselves. In a sense, you could almost argue that Shamans and Monks have a similar relationship to Priests and Paladins or Warlocks and Demon Hunters, respectively.
We know that there is another side to Shamanism, though. The version of Shamanism we're familiar with is one that seeks balance and harmony, and asks the Elements to grant their power. But Dark Shamanism is another version of the practice, and rather than asking, the Dark Shaman takes the power by force. The Dark Shaman were probably never as prominent as during Garrosh's reign over the Horde, and made up his primary magical forces while he was trying to create the "True Horde." We saw the result of his Dark Shamans work as the landscape in the Northern Barrens was rendered even more damaged and polluted. Dark Shamanism is seriously nasty for the land, and seems to poison and ruin it.
With the cosmic chart, we see that there are six items within the "elements" ring. There's Fire, Earth, Water, Air, and Spirit, but there's also Decay.
I don't think it would be too much of a leap to guess that Dark Shamanism works by swapping out the use of Spirit for Decay. They still use the four physical elements, but they now sow death and, well, decay.
So that might be the simple explanation for Dark Shamanism. But what about Monks?
Monks, after all, use Chi (Spirit) to fuel their techniques. Would it be possible, then, for an order of Monks to arise who use Decay instead?
Admittedly, if there's one class that seems to be in the realm of decay, it's got to be Death Knights, and their necromancy might reach down into the sphere of Decay to do what it does. But I think it's an avenue that's open for Blizzard if they want to create an order of Dark Monks.
Unless that's just Rogues?
But much of that is concerned with the outermost layers of the cosmos. Go in a step and you'll find the Elements. There are the four classic alchemical elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, which are pretty much what we've spent much of WoW dealing with.
We've often heard that Shamans also work with a "Fifth Element," and no, it's not love. It's "Spirit," which is the sort of ineffable force of life. Shaman healing spells have become more water-focused over the years, but there was a time when they were more about just kind of green life energy. Spirit is the kind of animating essence that makes us more than just some mixture of physical elements, and it's what the Shaman calls upon to restore life through spells like Reincarnation, Ancestral Spirit, or Cleanse Spirit.
Shamanism is a very common practice across all of Azeroth (and Draenor of course.) The Pandaren have Shamans, but Pandaren also developed a special interest in this fifth element. The Pandaren word for that element is Chi, and it is the basis around which their Monk techniques are formed. Monks use some shamanistic or shaman-like techniques, using the power of wind or mist (you could argue that Brews might have the element of water in them,) but they channel those powers through themselves rather than calling on the elemental spirits themselves. In a sense, you could almost argue that Shamans and Monks have a similar relationship to Priests and Paladins or Warlocks and Demon Hunters, respectively.
We know that there is another side to Shamanism, though. The version of Shamanism we're familiar with is one that seeks balance and harmony, and asks the Elements to grant their power. But Dark Shamanism is another version of the practice, and rather than asking, the Dark Shaman takes the power by force. The Dark Shaman were probably never as prominent as during Garrosh's reign over the Horde, and made up his primary magical forces while he was trying to create the "True Horde." We saw the result of his Dark Shamans work as the landscape in the Northern Barrens was rendered even more damaged and polluted. Dark Shamanism is seriously nasty for the land, and seems to poison and ruin it.
With the cosmic chart, we see that there are six items within the "elements" ring. There's Fire, Earth, Water, Air, and Spirit, but there's also Decay.
I don't think it would be too much of a leap to guess that Dark Shamanism works by swapping out the use of Spirit for Decay. They still use the four physical elements, but they now sow death and, well, decay.
So that might be the simple explanation for Dark Shamanism. But what about Monks?
Monks, after all, use Chi (Spirit) to fuel their techniques. Would it be possible, then, for an order of Monks to arise who use Decay instead?
Admittedly, if there's one class that seems to be in the realm of decay, it's got to be Death Knights, and their necromancy might reach down into the sphere of Decay to do what it does. But I think it's an avenue that's open for Blizzard if they want to create an order of Dark Monks.
Unless that's just Rogues?
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
The Lich King and the Power of Death
The Warcraft Cosmos is aligned along three major dichotomies. Light and Shadow, Order and Disorder, and Life and Death. Most of these have longstanding, well-established beings of incredible power. Naaru, Titans, Demons, Old Gods, Void Lords (the Shadow gets two) and the Wild Gods (which, to reiterate, is the blanket term for Ancients, Loa, and Celestials, and any other animal gods we come across) each represent their Great Power.
But for Death, we simply have "The Undead."
The Undead in Warcraft arise in many different ways. Probably the most common are simply ghosts - lingering spirits of mortals who died and are somehow still bound to the general location of their demise. In some cases, these are specifically caused by traumatic magical events, but to a large extent, it just seems that if you die some unnatural death, you've got a decent chance of being a ghost in the Warcraft cosmos.
But setting aside these figures, we then move on to the work of necromancers.
Necromancy appears, according to our new cosmos chart, to be its own branch of magic. Previously, we've seen necromancy performed by people who we might expect to use Fel magic (Warlocks) or Arcane magic (mages-turned-necromancers like Kel'thuzad.) That said, now that we're really locking down a lot of this stuff, it might simply be that these practitioners are actually branching out into this other type of magic.
We've encountered a few figures who claim to have dominion over death. Yogg-Saron is the self-proclaimed God of Death, but as an Old God, he/she/it is fundamentally linked to Shadow/Void magic, which our new chart considers distinct (and while the two are next to each other on the chart, Holy and Fel magic area also next to each other, so they don't have to be terribly closely linked.)
The Darkspear worship a loa named Bwonsamdi (among others) who, a bit like his real-world equivalent, Baron Samedi, is a death god. Yet given that Bwonsamdi is a Loa, that would theoretically put him in the domain of Life. It's probably a lot more complicated than that, what with Life and Death being opposing but also complementary forces (e.g. killing an animal to eat it means death for it and life for you.)
But if we're going to talk about necromancy, and beings of god-like power, we really can't avoid talking about the Lich King.
The Lich King commands the Scourge, and has become so powerful that we can't really get rid of him, lest the Scourge go on an uncontrolled rampage and spread unchecked.
Which is funny, because the Lich King is incredibly recent. For a being that has dominion over an entire sixth of the Great Powers in the Warcraft Cosmos, the Lich King has only just barely come to be. After the Second War, Ner'zhul opened several Dark Portal-like structures around Draenor to escape Kil'jaeden. Not only did his plan wind up breaking apart Draenor, but it didn't even work. The moment he stepped through, he was captured. His body was torn apart and his soul was attached to a set of armor - that armor (most importantly the helmet) would come to really be the Lich King itself. Arthas and later Bolvar would put that helmet on and thus become the new Lich King.
But here's some stuff that maybe doesn't add up. We know that Ner'zhul had access to Void Magic thanks to K'ara - a darkened Naaru. We don't know quite how much he used this in our timeline, but at least on Draenor B he was lousy with the stuff.
Yet he seemed to use this Void Magic to delve into necromancy, raising ghosts and skeletons to do his bidding.
Kil'jaeden was the one who created the Lich King, but how did he, a demon that used Fel magic by his very nature, wind up creating this font of necromancy?
Sure, it might be that Kil'jaeden's more versatile than that or that the necromancy came out of Ner'zhul's experimentations with the Void (perhaps even reverse engineering necromancy from Dark Shamanism, which seems to use the four physical elements and substitutes "Decay" in for "Spirit.")
But let's entertain another interesting notion: That the Lich King existed long before Kil'jaeden "made" him.
We don't really know what kind of magic Kil'jaeden performed to turn Ner'zhul into the Lich King. But suppose that the Dead - the Great Power of Death - has always had its own Titan/Naaru/Demon equivalent. But because death is, by its nature, kind of formless, this Essence of Death never really had an incarnation. Things would simply die, and perhaps some people would reach back into Death and pull things up into Undeath, but there wasn't a specific deity or conscious entity to invoke.
Perhaps Kil'jaeden was experimenting far outside of his ordinary wheelhouse and either created a vessel for this Great Power of Death to command, or unwittingly allowed Death to manifest as a figure of tremendous power - a figure that Kil'jaeden was unable to destroy once the Lich King turned on him.
Demons are kind of bad enough on their own, but what if Kil'jaeden unwittingly unleashed something far more dangerous than himself? The Lich King might only be about five years old (lorewise,) but already he's in a position where we just can't get rid of him.
The Lich King isn't really Ner'zhul or Arthas - we discover (SPOILERS) in the Frost Death Knight artifact weapon quest that Ner'zhul - long thought to have been utterly consumed by Arthas - is trying to use the soul of the Fallen Prince to wrest control of the shards of Frostmourne. Bolvar Fordragon now hold the position of Lich King, but if Ner'zhul is trapped in Frostmourne, along with Arthas, than that suggests that the Lich King - as an entity with enough of a consciousness to transform Bolvar's personality (while not aggressive or actively seeking the end of all life, Bolvar's Lich King is not quite the noble spirit that the old Regent was in life) - is somehow separate from everyone who has inhabited that role.
I'm very curious to find out more about the Shadowlands, to which I suspect the Lich King has unrivaled access. Whether a newcomer to the cosmic poker game or actually just as ancient (if not more) than most of the players, we really need to see what part the Great Power of Death will play in the future of Warcraft.
But for Death, we simply have "The Undead."
The Undead in Warcraft arise in many different ways. Probably the most common are simply ghosts - lingering spirits of mortals who died and are somehow still bound to the general location of their demise. In some cases, these are specifically caused by traumatic magical events, but to a large extent, it just seems that if you die some unnatural death, you've got a decent chance of being a ghost in the Warcraft cosmos.
But setting aside these figures, we then move on to the work of necromancers.
Necromancy appears, according to our new cosmos chart, to be its own branch of magic. Previously, we've seen necromancy performed by people who we might expect to use Fel magic (Warlocks) or Arcane magic (mages-turned-necromancers like Kel'thuzad.) That said, now that we're really locking down a lot of this stuff, it might simply be that these practitioners are actually branching out into this other type of magic.
We've encountered a few figures who claim to have dominion over death. Yogg-Saron is the self-proclaimed God of Death, but as an Old God, he/she/it is fundamentally linked to Shadow/Void magic, which our new chart considers distinct (and while the two are next to each other on the chart, Holy and Fel magic area also next to each other, so they don't have to be terribly closely linked.)
The Darkspear worship a loa named Bwonsamdi (among others) who, a bit like his real-world equivalent, Baron Samedi, is a death god. Yet given that Bwonsamdi is a Loa, that would theoretically put him in the domain of Life. It's probably a lot more complicated than that, what with Life and Death being opposing but also complementary forces (e.g. killing an animal to eat it means death for it and life for you.)
But if we're going to talk about necromancy, and beings of god-like power, we really can't avoid talking about the Lich King.
The Lich King commands the Scourge, and has become so powerful that we can't really get rid of him, lest the Scourge go on an uncontrolled rampage and spread unchecked.
Which is funny, because the Lich King is incredibly recent. For a being that has dominion over an entire sixth of the Great Powers in the Warcraft Cosmos, the Lich King has only just barely come to be. After the Second War, Ner'zhul opened several Dark Portal-like structures around Draenor to escape Kil'jaeden. Not only did his plan wind up breaking apart Draenor, but it didn't even work. The moment he stepped through, he was captured. His body was torn apart and his soul was attached to a set of armor - that armor (most importantly the helmet) would come to really be the Lich King itself. Arthas and later Bolvar would put that helmet on and thus become the new Lich King.
But here's some stuff that maybe doesn't add up. We know that Ner'zhul had access to Void Magic thanks to K'ara - a darkened Naaru. We don't know quite how much he used this in our timeline, but at least on Draenor B he was lousy with the stuff.
Yet he seemed to use this Void Magic to delve into necromancy, raising ghosts and skeletons to do his bidding.
Kil'jaeden was the one who created the Lich King, but how did he, a demon that used Fel magic by his very nature, wind up creating this font of necromancy?
Sure, it might be that Kil'jaeden's more versatile than that or that the necromancy came out of Ner'zhul's experimentations with the Void (perhaps even reverse engineering necromancy from Dark Shamanism, which seems to use the four physical elements and substitutes "Decay" in for "Spirit.")
But let's entertain another interesting notion: That the Lich King existed long before Kil'jaeden "made" him.
We don't really know what kind of magic Kil'jaeden performed to turn Ner'zhul into the Lich King. But suppose that the Dead - the Great Power of Death - has always had its own Titan/Naaru/Demon equivalent. But because death is, by its nature, kind of formless, this Essence of Death never really had an incarnation. Things would simply die, and perhaps some people would reach back into Death and pull things up into Undeath, but there wasn't a specific deity or conscious entity to invoke.
Perhaps Kil'jaeden was experimenting far outside of his ordinary wheelhouse and either created a vessel for this Great Power of Death to command, or unwittingly allowed Death to manifest as a figure of tremendous power - a figure that Kil'jaeden was unable to destroy once the Lich King turned on him.
Demons are kind of bad enough on their own, but what if Kil'jaeden unwittingly unleashed something far more dangerous than himself? The Lich King might only be about five years old (lorewise,) but already he's in a position where we just can't get rid of him.
The Lich King isn't really Ner'zhul or Arthas - we discover (SPOILERS) in the Frost Death Knight artifact weapon quest that Ner'zhul - long thought to have been utterly consumed by Arthas - is trying to use the soul of the Fallen Prince to wrest control of the shards of Frostmourne. Bolvar Fordragon now hold the position of Lich King, but if Ner'zhul is trapped in Frostmourne, along with Arthas, than that suggests that the Lich King - as an entity with enough of a consciousness to transform Bolvar's personality (while not aggressive or actively seeking the end of all life, Bolvar's Lich King is not quite the noble spirit that the old Regent was in life) - is somehow separate from everyone who has inhabited that role.
I'm very curious to find out more about the Shadowlands, to which I suspect the Lich King has unrivaled access. Whether a newcomer to the cosmic poker game or actually just as ancient (if not more) than most of the players, we really need to see what part the Great Power of Death will play in the future of Warcraft.
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