beta-ptr-spoilers

[ionic terrace]

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/20th-anniversary-update-ptr-development-notes/1945843/4

[austere gazelle]

https://x.com/skymagpie/status/1833622001690263963?t=E08wibggUiOawC5McbkEsA&s=19

✨ Magpie ✨ (@skymagpie) on X

🚫 TWW SPOILERS 🚫

There is something in writing called the rule of three, you have to have a repeatable thematic three (or perhaps more) times in a story. If something appears this often, it must be important to the story.

Xal'atath's feet have officially covered this rule.

Twitter · Sep 10, 2024, 9:42 PM

[deep pawn]

Her feet are gonna transform into tentacles at some point and we're all gonna go yamete

[austere gazelle]

You saw the gray item " idol of the harbinger " ?
Its creepy as fuck

[pulsar minnow]

yeah thats a pretty common icon they use

[dense plover]

thats 100% not a new sprite

they reuse icons

[rain cave]

The fact that she floats everywhere is a pretty iconic trait of hers it's interesting

[ionic terrace]

oh nice

Purchase an updated Tier 2 armor set during the WoW Anniversary celebration. Upgraded Apparel Reward: Lower the cost of additional Tier 2 armor ensembles.

[dense plover]

oh - thats great!

[zealous sedge]

this gotta turn into a portal to somewhere at some point

sorry if this was alreayd pointed out before

[dense plover]

or its going to be a new type of endgame content

hard to say

[zealous sedge]

oh true

[deep pawn]

they literally copypasted the chamber of heart including the horrific visions portal

I just assumed they were lazy

[zealous sedge]

ohh yeah could be that too i guess

[dense plover]

nope

definitely intentional b/c the first version was actually different

it didnt have the cracks or the portal

or the azeroth terminal thingy

they intentionally MADE it a copy

[zealous sedge]

i hope its intentional. would love to see some more titan stuff

[harsh mason]

With Xal's feet, everything is simpler: she does not wear shoes because she almost does not walk on the ground. The emphasis is on the fact that in the frame she always looks at the characters from top to bottom. But at the same time, I'm also sure that the developers just didn't want to miss the moment to show her feet as well.🗿

[tropic trail]

To Algalon’s moon base 🌙

[austere gazelle]

if she was that big naaru crystal, she was used to float all along :p

[white talon]

3 identical feet shot frames throughout TWE so far is not an accident yeah

[hazy kettle]

Chekov's gun and Rule of Three

[acoustic kraken]

they touch the ground right? and last bit of campaign story we see through that elf's eyes that the black blood veins are all over. i bet they seeped into there magically somehow

[rain cave]

If they wanted to frame her as above everything they could use other techniques

The fact they're showing her feet floating specifically

I'd guess they're reinforcing that she's like a ghost, ephemeral, ungrounded

She's not just above people in terms of status, she's literally operating on a higher plane

Whenever she is there, there's no physical evidence to be left like footprints

Like every time she has appeared it's arguable if she's actually there or not

Or just a vision/apparition

[hazy kettle]

I feel like she's also above the void going by this context.

No evidence to back that up, just getting that vibe from lines like in the raid-finale cinematic about the 'price of the void'.

[acoustic kraken]

mb its all hallucinations and the war within was just a battle of our inner mind. and the devs gonna after 3 expacs for the saga pull the it was all a dream ending and we wake up in the emerald dream in dragonflight

[hazy kettle]

Nah, BFA NYALOTHA

[tepid fiber]

The real question is, is it Blizzard and Knaifu's director who has a foot thing or is the reality that there are a bunch of players who are merely projecting onto totally innocuous scenes just because there are feet in them? Like damn dawg people have feet just let them exist, it's not always about Magical Realm bs

[harsh mason]

Let me remind everyone that Fyrakk, unlike the others, did not wear shoes either🗿

Although he had armor

Even before 10.2 he had armor (these chest plates were actually removable)

[rain cave]

I think it's the fact that there genuinely is an importance to the feet

Somewhere in the pipeline

[tepid fiber]

Is there though

Is there really

[rain cave]

No there is, I'm not saying it is story wise

[tepid fiber]

I think y'all just stretching for anything to meme

[rain cave]

I'm saying at some point in the process of making those cut scenes

Somebody at some point put importance on it

Her feet are incredibly detailed compared to others, was it the texture artists?

Was it the writers and story boarders?

The director?

[tepid fiber]

Everything is more textured these days

[rain cave]

Somebody locked in to make those feet stick out even if there's no story motive lmao

[tepid fiber]

I think people just want a reason to talk about feet

[rain cave]

The feet are important to someone in the dev team

[tepid fiber]

Degens, the lot of ya 🗞️

[hazy kettle]

So we're looking for a bi / pan foot fetishist in the cinematic department

[tepid fiber]

Or a therapist

Men... would literally rather create an entire conspiracy board to play Who Farted than go to therapy

[acoustic kraken]

just blame it on the dog and skip therapy

[glass flicker]

Can somebody please link Arcane Ignorance real quick?

[rain cave]

I'm just pointing out that someone at blizz likes xal's feet

xD

that at some point in the pipeline between concepting and final, somebody has gone "I must make Xal's feet a focal point" even if it has no story relevance

[sullen dawn]

It was Ion

[warm topaz]

Ara-Kara last boss is pain

i just did it as a healer just with the tank

around 7 minutes of fight lol

[silent urchin]

it takes a bit of getting used to, for sure

one of the key things is that you can cancel the root by CCing the black bloods

otherwise you need to start hitting it pretty damn early to avoid the overlap with webs that comes very soon after the draw in

[warm topaz]

yeah as a priest i just fear them

[tropic trail]

I don’t like this dungeon where you have to fly from ship to ship. I don’t know its name but it’s annoying.

[hazy kettle]

Dawnthingy?

[warm topaz]

Dawnbreaker

i think it's really fun

[tropic trail]

Oh yea this.

Fly here, fly there. 😅

[upper pasture]

Dawnbreaker has super good boss fights on mythic

[silent urchin]

it's a little weird going from the moving with the ship frame of reference to the regular frame of reference

and getting stuck in ships or ships getting desynced or whatever also kinda ruins the experience

[deep pawn]

I think you should keep some inertia from the ships haha

If they could do it in Wrath

[subtle oar]

That sounds like a player issue tbh. That boss is a cake walk

Not you, but the DPS in your group, likely were full zugging it

[warm topaz]

yea it was hahahaha

i mean, it's normal

its kind of a crazy fight

[sullen dawn]

I didn't do the 4 max level dungeons on heroic so I'm gonna be in for a suprise trying dawn breaker on mythic haha

[glass flicker]

Not for sale!

[austere gazelle]

RIP. first boss is awful. other part of the dungeon are ok

[rain cave]

why do I get the feeling we're going to get sucked into the dark heart as part of xalatath's raid

and we fight things inside it, like old dalaran prisoners and whatever else she's sucked up

perhaps we could even get an echo of galakrond 👀

[deep pawn]

he's too big

I feel like the megadungeon already did it fine

[rain cave]

if it's an echo they can change his size

like avatar of sarg

still make him big but, not as big

[warm topaz]

they hotfixe delves and now they are really hard

but in the post they only mention about increasing HP

so maybe it's not intended?

bc it's true that mobs die a lot slower but they hit harder than yesterday

also they mention the exact opposite thing, they should hit less hard than yesterday

[silent urchin]

There's a ton of hidden scaling stuff depending on class and whatever. It seems like one of the changes also applied those to groups, rather than just solo, and they might stack? It all seems weird

but bringing healers seems to increase the damage by more than they can heal

[warm topaz]

i'm sure we will have a post about it today, some hotfixes or something

have someone tried them solo? are they easier?

[silent urchin]

some people seem to say they are

those new random minibosses are kinda brutal tho

for most classes it still involves blowing cooldowns on every pack and waiting, it seems

[warm topaz]

i'm really curious on how delve tuning will evolve over the course of the expansion

i think the only thing that was missing was make solo delves easier/more fun

[rain cave]

if goblins next, ig we get gazlowe as a companion

[warm topaz]

could be Rexxar, it was datamined a couple of months ago

[rain cave]

rexxar would make sense for a rootlands patch tbf

[warm topaz]

maybe he was going to be the S1 companion or maybe he is the S2 or S3 idk

[rain cave]

and if goblins are involved there that reinforces that as well

rexxar would fit in as the delve companion for for that patch more than gaz actually

since gaz is too important, he's like main story

whereas the delves seem to be an area for B plot characters to thrive

so rexxar coming in, seeing the primal stuff of the rootlands and helping us sabotage the goblins machines would end up fitting quite well for his character

god it's kinda crazy how hunters have been treated compared to their history/ representation in game lmao

Rexxar, iconic beastmaster but he's melee
make the melee spec survival

Dark rangers, historic marskmen and melee hybrid users
gave it to BM nad MM

insane to me

also we still can't mog bows to guns and vice versa last time I checked?

or did they fix that

[deep pawn]

Have been for years now

[austere gazelle]

Delves can be doable in +8 if they did not add those untested untuned miniboss mobs ( in group, solo is another topic ) I don't even know why they added those mobs it was not even something people asked for

[rain cave]

Weird, did they fix that in DF?

I couldn't do it in SL I remember last time I checked

Haven't really been with hunter for a while lmao

Legion MM was peak and they've never managed to get back to it for me 😭

I was at first hyped for sl MM but was let down when the wyvern sting leggo didn't apply on trick shots

[warm topaz]

https://x.com/Stiven_SRB/status/1834575419242090939

Stiven (@Stiven_SRB) on X

This is easy... Blizzard should hotfix this.

Twitter · Sep 13, 2024, 12:50 PM

definitely something weird happened yesterday with the hotfixes

[deep pawn]

They were tested in beta. I don't know why they were removed for launch

[sullen dawn]

Personally I like them as they are

Challenging solo content is something I really wanted in wow and feels a little like old school wow trying to only pull a mob or two at a time

[sleek solar]

I could

Even in bfa iirc

[austere gazelle]

Challenging is ok, but being one shotted if you don't kick a spell as a new baseline difficulty is not something I'm comfortable with

it make the margin of error very very very very thin

[acoustic kraken]

its not a new baseline. t8 isnt a baseline. its 7 tiers above the baseline of t1

[austere gazelle]

I was speaking in general. I'm not fond of Delve being interrupt madness or you're dead. Even mage tower wasn't that hard

[acoustic kraken]

its comparable difficulty to the other content that offers the same champ/hero track rewards

[austere gazelle]

no.

Usually on those content spell that one shot are casted for a very long duration. here, those spell are just not tuned.

[acoustic kraken]

and they are in a group. ive done t8 without doing any interrupts

[austere gazelle]

Ah, then have fun on the twins in the mine that deals 7m damage in 2 seconds if they are not interrupted

[acoustic kraken]

theres like 12 delves. not all of them every class is gonna excell at. why would i fight the twins on a class that doesnt have one

[austere gazelle]

because there are only four bountiful per day and you don't choose which one are those?

[acoustic kraken]

so? do you fall victim to fomo often

you have to do 8 a week

and can repeat for vault rewards

[austere gazelle]

I wanna do content that are available, and being able to finish those whatever the class I can do. Plus, bounfitul award bran rewards/xp. If you can only do one per day because the other are not for your class its becoming quite silly. I dont get behind your argument at all because it's unfair and very unfun

[acoustic kraken]

how many keys you get a week?

[austere gazelle]

Four ? But I don't see the relevance ? you can do bountiful for bran XP without spending your key ? There is also this " battle pass " for Delve that require you to do many many delves... ?

[acoustic kraken]

you also dont have to not die to get brann exp

should be able to easily find 4 a week you can do. if cant, then t8 might be out your skill range currently

[austere gazelle]

to get bran XP you also have to finish the dungeon and the boss, if you can't pass mini boss that one shot you , you cant finish the delve... ?

[acoustic kraken]

bran gets xp per kill as well as treasures along the way

[austere gazelle]

but the main XP source is the completion.

[acoustic kraken]

and if you cant pass on t8, lower the tier and get him exp on a lower bountiful lmao

like you arent locked into t8

[austere gazelle]

That's true but once again player are being punished for playing a specific class ...? isnt that dumb ?

[acoustic kraken]

not really since they are also rewarded on other delves where a different class is punished

[austere gazelle]

That's a different notion of " fun " I guess. " you can play content with your class on a random day "

Replace delve with world quest and see how silly that looks

[acoustic kraken]

you can also play the non bountiful version since fun isnt contingent on rewards. so you can play it any day

and world quest are available only at certain times

[deep pawn]

You can also reset a delve if a mini boss is in a really bad spot

I only killed the twin heralds once, otherwise I walk around if possible

They sucked in beta too

[warm topaz]

https://www.wowhead.com/es/news/blizzard-announces-delves-tuning-coming-today-top-priority-346655

pretty much expected

[silent urchin]

I hope whatever they do they also be more transparent about all the different factors that go in

[deep pawn]

I want the one mob that keeps casting after a kick gutted

[ember blaze]

You have CC and a kick. use it

mage tower, at least the healer challenge incentivized you to actually press your utility buttons to get through

[warm topaz]

https://www.wowhead.com/es/news/the-war-within-hotfixes-for-sept-13th-2024-class-bug-fixes-delve-scaling-346666

[austere gazelle]

Thats not what i was saying but thank you for this awesome tip

[austere gazelle]

Mage tower did not one shot me if I fail a kick or run out of CC.
Mage tower was not unforgiving if I made one or two missplay. Xylem Bolt did not one shot me when I was out of interrupt.
When I died I knew it was my faut because I failed a mechanic I should have avoided.
When I died in a delve due to a single cast not interrupted or melee hit one shotting me out of nowhere where I have several mob to handle at the same time and a few second of reaction time to analyse everything sounds not fair.

Game is not dark souls ( which im a fan of mind you ) , but its wow. Its not interrupt galore witj insta dead if you fail once. It should have a bit of fairness to it and you should be able to miss one or two interrupts.

[ember blaze]

the healer challenges did do that though. If you didnt kick or interrupt something, you just died

Before any scaling issues came about, casts did not one shot me. If i didnt have a kick, i pressed a defensive

and i ended up tanking multiple web bolts

but agree that there was too many casters

[austere gazelle]

Which I do too..dont presume I dont know that 😉 I was 3.2k Rio last season

[ember blaze]

and kicking didnt really give you any room to kill

that's awesome

but the way I saw it, even running was part of the challenge

tho at some point brann just started to carry...

[austere gazelle]

Blizzard put the cursor too far right now. I dont mind a hard content but it should give you enough reaction time. For example you can see your health bar going down quite fast , analyse where it come from and react before getting killed. Here you dont even have that, you're just dead in two seconds. If they keep it like that then they should increase the life pool in solo.

[proper scarab]

One of the biggest regrets of my life in WoW: I never even tried Mage Tower because I didn't consider myself good enough...

[tropic trail]

Same

Hope still that book mount is available to get one day.

[sleek solar]

It is!

There is still mage tower

But its not the same

[warm topaz]

have you guys tried Delves today? how they feel?

[silent urchin]

little bit easier solo

still kinda slow, lots of careful pulling and waiting for cooldowns

no minibosses means nothings really a big deal til the final boss

those are still kinda tough

did all the bountifuls solo today and only thing I died to was sporbits

as 600 ish shadowpriest

I think it's still pretty variable by class, lots of scaling differences

[tropic trail]

It’s not bad actually. I’m in the pug right now. 😂

[deep pawn]

they can be soloed at 570 so they aren't that bad

My hunter alt has 3 maps while my mains have none. 😦

[tropic trail]

I almost 600 😌

[deep pawn]

same, my hunter is like one upgrade away, still salty she has two 610 weapons

[warm topaz]

i got 600 with my priest too

[tropic trail]

Nice

[warm topaz]

i'll never understand why people is so dick on pug

somoene make a mistake

and they kick him mid fight

when the mistake is nothing too crazy

we were good

[deep pawn]

So I'm guessing there's some datamining tweets out there about possible future content?

[warm topaz]

what you mean?

[deep pawn]

Just someone saying they were right about Rootlands and I'm not sure where they were suddenly certain

I mean its very likely

[pulsar minnow]

I mean we saw “rootlands” datamined in the initial map datamining for the war within

That being it’s temporary name, next to Arathi canyon and whatnot

[silent urchin]

learning more about the haranir seems like a pretty certain thing

[rain cave]

we had someone join the group with 2 friends as a tank and as soon as we started my friends key he said give him leads or he and his friends left lmao

then when my friend did a minor mistake they fell out and he kicked my friend from his own key 💀

most evil PUG I've been in

[tropic trail]

How can someone kick you out from your own key? 👀

[deep pawn]

Because they aren't the party lead

That said you still get loot if they complete the key.

[upper pasture]

it's not like they can replace you OR restart the key without the key holder. so really they are only hurting themselves

[deep pawn]

The system specifically protects against it

[austere gazelle]

I love how DH " class tuning " are bug fixes.

So Havoc is tuned around our bug fixes instead of making hotfix for it ?

[deep pawn]

who knows

[lone mantle]

An Outlaw Rogue shall be nerfed. It is time to restore my former glory!

[austere gazelle]

algalon was an outlaw rogue? :p

[lone mantle]

No, I play as a Deathstalker.

[warm topaz]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/avaloren-expansion-leak-for-world-of-warcraft-11-0-335727

do you remember this leak guys?

i wonder how the leak season will be this tiime

[austere gazelle]

inexistant since we actually know the place and setup of the next expack xD

But we might see a glimpse of Avaloren or the Arathi empire in a side zone at one point in 12.0

[rain cave]

The YouTuber who made this leak is pretty cool

He does lore spec videos

[sleek solar]

"leak"

[tropic trail]

Who is this Arathi emperor btw? 🤔

[austere gazelle]

there have been at least 13 emperors as far as we know, and if I remember correctly, he's named something like
Thoradin IX *

The []nd year of glorious dominion, his Holy Radiance, Emperor Thoradin IX, by sovereign edict, did ordain the assembly of the Hallowfall expedition to traverse the Storming Sea.

[sleek solar]

We dont know yet, but he's supposedly very powerful

[rain cave]

Yeah it's a fake leak

[rain cave]

I wonder how bro would be so powerful

Light forged? Like the emperors get it passed down

Similar to what xera wanted to do to illidan

Would also be interesting if there's another ashbringer style crystal

That the emperors control

Especially if they linked the SoD crystal, and ashbringer crystal to beledar

Like they were fragments of it or something similar

[austere gazelle]

All the light fragments we see in Hallowfall are implied to be Naaru's shards ( or beledar's shards ? )

[white talon]

Beledar's

[pulsar minnow]

Fully convinced Beledar has something to do with An’she if I’m gonna be honest

Arathi worship holy flame, follow stars due to holy visions, and find a giant ass pseudo-sentient crystal embedded in the planet right next to a tree named after Elune. Not to mention the Herald of the Sun Paladin tree is basically just the Arathi aesthetic.

That’s not even mentioning the Arathi Prophecy of Renilash which involves the absolute might of the light crashing into battle against the void (midnight)

[hazy kettle]

Watch them ("leakers") trying to convince us midnight and last Titan were fake-outs

[warm topaz]

i have fun with all of that lol

that's what i like the most about leak season, having fun reading the most no sense leaks

[austere gazelle]

I think Beledar is the Heart of An'she.

[pulsar minnow]

Kinda convinced of that too

An’she compared to elune has been insanely quiet

I feel like there’s a reason

[austere gazelle]

Moreover, we " know " that elune* took part in the creation of the Naaru, we saw no Naaru that big, and Velen described Elune as " something that was like a giant Naaru " , since An'she is her brother... It kinda match size wide

[pulsar minnow]

My crackpot theory is the other cosmic forces staged a coup to overthrow Azeroth- the First One. So titans, void, etc… caused her to go into stasis. Meanwhile An’she and Elune were banished somehow

Ngl I wouldn’t be shocked if elune is in a containment sphere in the moon, and vice versa for anshe

[austere gazelle]

Or trapped within the Realm of Life

[pulsar minnow]

That too

There needs to be a reason they aren’t directly putting their hand in things

[austere gazelle]

Her presence is needed to heal her brother constantly, so she can't leave that realm and her brother

Kinda " trapped "

[pulsar minnow]

That works too

Im also just super biased bc i desperately want to see An’she and elune in game

So that might influence a lot of theories I have. But also to be fair what the hell else could Beledar be

A naaru? Sure. Is that lame and predictable? I think so

[austere gazelle]

A naaru of that size? Either a proto naaru, or something far more ancient than a naaru ( anshe then ) or some of those " prismatic shard of light " that brought life with them on world they crashed

[pulsar minnow]

Yeah I’m just poo-pooing the idea that it’s just a naaru ship or something

[tropic trail]

Imagine such huge Na’aru 😂

[deep pawn]

it doesn't look any smaller than Oshu'gun

[pulsar minnow]

It doesn’t but I really don’t see any interesting story direction for Beledar just being a naaru ship

Like… yay? Another wind chime

And besides we know Beledar is intrinsically connected to Azeroth and the Radiant Song. So I doubt it’s “just” a naaru

[austere gazelle]

An'she being an offspring of Azeroth / Earthmother, the mural on the city of thread could very well be depicting Anshe as the sun.
Ive also the secret theory that the faceless one devolved into Taurens and were the original Shu'alo. ( and that the " fifth " old god was on Azeroth long before the other one and was minding its own business until Xal and the other came )

[deep pawn]

Anduin thinks Beledar is related to the song

[austere gazelle]

Her dream sings beneath the surface. Quiet now, but her song will awake the others

[silent urchin]

I'm pretty sure beledar itself isn't super important, at least for now. It's something from the light cosmos that's been left here to cleanse/infuse the actual world soul after the black empire left, which is an important consequence, but there's nothing inherently special about it itself

It has a connection to the world soul, and the void that affects Beledar is a reflection of what's happening to the world soul itself

xal'atath was hoping to use that connection in the other direction or something, probably

And maybe it's also been filtering the radiant song - no ones had a clear message, and there's probably a reason for that

[pulsar minnow]

Well the Dark Heart's big power is that it can turn any other magic source into void

its obviously a big font of holy magic, so Xal was trying to drain it in Hallowfall

We do know the black blood was "all around us" in hallowfall according to Alleria, and could very well be the reason for Beledar's Shadow

And it did get dislodged when Sargeras stabbed the planet

Almost wonder if one of our future zones will literally be the insides of C'thun

[silent urchin]

I thought the implication was the nerubian attack was what brought the blood into hallowfall

so that was immediately recent

As thrall said, the sword was aimed at something, and it wasn't beledar. The azerite being released, the black blood being released, and presumably one corrupting the other, are not happening in hallowfall

[pulsar minnow]

im not really suggesting that

but we were told by Orweyna that Sargeras stabbing the planet caused the black blood to surface up

We also know for a fact that the black blood is dripping from the cavern ceiling into Hallowfall

Thats why the kobyss are surging, they worship the stuff

They only appeared after the day of darkness when hallowfall went void-again because of the blood

[subtle oar]

I mean, Tempest Keep is canonically massive and housed only 3 Naaru.

[pulsar minnow]

thats also not really my point. I dont care about the size of the crystal or anything like that. I just think it would be an incredibly lame payoff to the mystery of Beledar

[subtle oar]

5 Naaru Appeared to Mereldar and taught her of the Light; who went on to found the Church of the Holy Light

Beledar could easily be the ship the 5 Naaru arrived in

[subtle oar]

I feel the opposite. It being a Naaru dimensional ship is the best course and the most satisfying

[pulsar minnow]

you're welcome to believe that I just don't think its satisfying at all and doesn't push the story forward

it adds context to lore from chronicle, sure. But what is there beyond it. We'd just have 5 Xe'ras now to hang out with in Midnight I guess?

[silent urchin]

what's above the naaru in the holy cosmos

[pulsar minnow]

An'she & the Light pantheon. Which is why I'm inclined to believe its related to them more than just a Naaru ship

[silent urchin]

If we're ever going to find out more about the cosmos now would be the time

It's definitely meant to look naaru, but the naaru were pretty much always sent by something else, afaik

[pulsar minnow]

I'm really hoping Beledar has some deeper connection to the Light Pantheon. Its definitely going to be important come Midnight since thats basically what the Arathi have been waiting to fight in

My guess is the reason its there is for some Light Pantheon reason, and my deep hope is it introduces us to at least one of them. We're going into the "final battle of light vs void" and i feel like now would be the time to meet at least one of their gods

Void we got Invalidus and Dimensius. Light? we got.... uhhhh crystals and really angry half elves!

[subtle oar]

An'she

An'she isn't a being. It is what the Tauren called the Sun.

They believe the Light comes from the Sun and worship it, thus, Sunwalkers

[rain cave]

I'm sensing some weird connection to the ashbringer crystal idk why

[glass flicker]

An'she could be cool as another Elune-level deity!

[rain cave]

not directly but in a way that like connects the two

dark heart is similar to the ashbringer crystal, beledar, the SoD void crystal

they're all shadow/light sources that are crystals and seem to take in energy

[subtle oar]

They weren't. They traveled in Dimensional Crystal ships like Genedar, Aurobos, Xenedar, Tempest Keep (Dimensional Fortress)

[rain cave]

the ashbringer crystal could have literally been an early version of the dark heart, similar shape but failed to meet its goals as instead of taking in energy and turning it void, it became light after enough infusion from it

[subtle oar]

It is confirmed the crystal in the Ashbringer was a shard of a Naaru

[rain cave]

or you could say it's very naaru adjhacent

yeah

in which case

maybe the dark heart is the dark heart of a naaru

[glass flicker]

Does that mean...
Light's Wrath was also from a Naaru shard?

[subtle oar]

Dunno about that

[glass flicker]

You know, the Discipline Priest artifact.

[rain cave]

if we've got random light/void shards falling onto azeroth or around the cosmos

[glass flicker]

The Scarlet Crusade called Light's Wrath "Ashbringer's equal"

[rain cave]

galakrond eating one and going crazy could be a thing

[subtle oar]

But Ashbringers crystal was a shard of a Naaru in its Shadow phase. The Paladins of the Silver Hand poured so much Light into it, it was restored to its Light phase

[glass flicker]

I do find it endearing how Tirion was the one to name the weapon, too!

Even though Alexandros wielded it first.

[uncut vault]

Light's Wrath is too

The order sent its most loyal crusaders into the war-torn Plaguelands in search of a suitable relic. The few who returned bore a strange jewel bristling with darkness. Some sources say it had been part of a truncheon carried by one of the first death knights to walk the world. Other accounts hint that the dreaded lich Kel'Thuzad has shaped the jewel with his spectral hands.

Whatever the truth, the Crusade would use the black gem to create the staff known as Light's Wrath.

[rain cave]

it's strange how we've had several instances of random light/void crystals just falling around

related to naaru

beledar, ashbringer crystal, light wrath

you could even argue that the SoD and dark heart are related

in fact, if what happened to xal's original body happened before the titans even arrived, and it was the case that the other old gods basically ravaged her

[subtle oar]

The crystal in the Ashbringer was likely the core of K'ara, the Naaru entering its Void phase when the Genedar was crashing to Draenor. It was ejected from the ship by Velen to protect the other Naaru; over the Shadowmoon Valley. Guldan later used K'ara to forever transform Karabor into the Black Temple

[rain cave]

perhaps galakrond literally ate her 'dark heart'

and she was a void naaru or adjacent

hence why she knew it was there

after all, we've got the radiant song which anduin said beledar is similar to or has it's own weird relationship to

and alleria is hearing xalatath instead of the radiant song

naaru have a tie to musical sounds, beingng space wind chimes and all

there's been a lot of "song" stuff around naaru no?

her staff is called VOIDSONG

damn that's actually... a strong lore connection I just made in my head

[glass flicker]

I find another connection pretty interesting.

Xal'atath shares a similar name to an item. Xal'atoh, Desecrated Image of Gorehowl.

The axe that Garry Hellscream wields in Siege of Orgrimmar.

Well, why is it called that? Who knows! Maybe Blizzard just thought it's cool. (Unless they add lore implications to it)

[subtle oar]

Her staff was given to ger by Dimensius himself

[pulsar minnow]

https://preview.redd.it/herald-of-the-sun-is-a-cool-concept-its-just-ironic-that-v0-dkycyb7azfld1.png?auto=webp&s=78564c3e4322f58136232daa44a14d6cfa1855e9

Like there’s an entire talent tree based on his stuff

The Tauren also worshipped the moon. Who happened to also be Elune fyi

The fact that abilities like blessing of anshe even exist suggest pretty heavily that the dude exists in some capacity

[rain cave]

"wake of ashes" also exists but I doubt there's a dude called ashes

could technically still just be another way of saying "blessing of the sun"

but yeah an'she is a very weird being

elune has been directly shown to be an actual single, if multifaced entity

but an'she could genuinely be anything

a group, a thing, a person/god

a name?

[pulsar minnow]

Well that’s not the same thing at all tbh

But also keep in mind Elune really hasn’t done all that much til recent expansions. Before she was much in the same boat of “does she even exist?”

But again- keep in mind the Tauren are basically one of Azeroth’s few native races. They know the planet better than basically anyone. Their legends told of Mu’sha (Elune), An’she, and their younger sister Lo’sho (Winter Queen)

I don’t think the story should be taken very literally though because the Winter Queen is a robot but still Elunes sister sooo… idk

I definitely think an entity that the Tauren call An’she for sure exists in some capacity in the Light Pantheon

[tepid fiber]

Tbf the Titans are also robots--but just because that's their root original form it doesn't make them any less "real"

They still are who they are

[pulsar minnow]

Yeah, I guess it’s more of the weirdness of there being proto-eternal ones and all that. Kinda just hoping they avoid that aspect of things with the future gods of wow

Shadowlands just being shadowlands I guess

[glass flicker]

Maybe not the Light Pantheon, as much as the Reality-Based Pantheon. If you think about it, on the cosmology chart, Azeroth is literally Reality. So, Elune, being the Moon, An'she, being the Sun, and Azeroth, being one of few planets in the solar system, could be plausible.

The Titans we know all wield concepts. Time. Arcane. Life.

If we count these other ones as reality-wielders, I think it makes more sense.

[pulsar minnow]

Yeah but I’m saying this as we know Elune is in the Life Pantheon because of the Grimoire of the Shadowlands book, so I think the same would apply for her brother in the light aspect of things

[tepid fiber]

Just heavily leaning towards one aspect or another, exactly

[glass flicker]

Though, don't take it for me. I'm just a nerd spinning headcanons.

[pulsar minnow]

Hey, same here lmao

I don’t know shit I just read too much about this game

[tepid fiber]

There are reasons I do my best to stick to what's known without speculating too many steps away

[glass flicker]

I'm not quite sure. I feel like Eonar is leaning further into the life bit. Elune might just be Night herself, in most honest shape. Wouldn't be surprised if they gave homage to Nyx, from Greek mythology.

[subtle oar]

Nope. The Moon being Elune was a Night Elf belief, before we learned Elune was a Robot god from the Life pantheon

[tepid fiber]

We don't know she is for sure though, we're more assuming because her "sister" in the Pantheon of Death "is"

[subtle oar]

Azeroth is the Earth-Mother

[glass flicker]

That much is known. Thanks, Tauren dialogue.

[subtle oar]

The introduction of Zerith Mortis and the prototype Pantheon fight cements that the Gods of Warcraft are all robots tho

[glass flicker]

I'm referring to this. Azeroth is named Reality.

If Azeroth, Elune, and An'she are from the same Pantheon, I believe they would be from the one of what is corporeal.

And the Titans we already know, are the cosmic forces of concepts.

[tepid fiber]

Order, rather

[glass flicker]

Order, but through logic-defying means aka magic.

[pulsar minnow]

No I mean like elune is literally in the life pantheon

[pulsar minnow]

…yes. It is a night elf belief. But the Tauren have been around far longer than the night elves. And worship the same entities. There’s literally nothing out there saying An’she doesn’t exist as a being. Frankly there’s more pointing towards his existence than anything pointing away

[glass flicker]

That's a hypothesis, like everything else we seem to do in this channel.

We can't know until Blizzard actually confirms it.

[pulsar minnow]

Yeah, but I mean that’s like a pretty informed hypothesis at that point

Elune being of the life pantheon is very likely. How she operates in that pantheon is something else all together

[glass flicker]

Imagine if she's literally tasked with creating souls, or duplicating them, 'cause the Shadowlands apparently stores the souls of every alternate reality.

And she doesn't show up because she's just so busy.

[subtle oar]

Incorrect, but go off.

[pulsar minnow]

What exactly is incorrect?

[glass flicker]

It's not strictly a night elf belief.

We got some... peculiar individuals in the Shadylands, former Night Warriors.

I doubt they were elves.

[pulsar minnow]

Yeah I’m not the one saying it’s strictly a night elf thing

[tepid fiber]

Tiridan is more pointing out that Elune being associated with the moon is not unique

[sullen dawn]

werent they from a different planet?

defo not elves

[tepid fiber]

And she was also referred to as the Goddess of the Moon by them as well

[glass flicker]

Ah! My bad.

[glass flicker]

I'm not sure if they specified. But yeah, not elves!

Elune is not a strictly Kaldorei goddess.

[pulsar minnow]

Kaldorei are basically just her favorite little Smurf folk

Ngl I kinda hate that they made that canon

[glass flicker]

I'm not sure that's the case.

She called them "Her favored children" not "Her favorite children"

[pulsar minnow]

She called them her favorite children

Ah

[glass flicker]

Aka, just her good ol' worshippers.

[pulsar minnow]

Maybe I misheard

[tepid fiber]

I mean tbf favored does also imply they're the favorite

That's... what favored means

But yes she describes them as such in her conversation with the Winter Queen, Elune herself saying she sent the souls of their fallen to Ardenweald when the Winter Queen asked for aide

[glass flicker]

Would be kinda prickish of Elune to play favorites with her worshippers ngl.

[tepid fiber]

It was just a tragedy that they were sent to the Maw instead--Elune meant for them to help Ardenweald during the anima drought

[glass flicker]

[tepid fiber]

Every parent has a favorite kid and if they say they don't then you're clearly not the favorite

[glass flicker]

I'm the youngest, I'm always the favorite. (That's what I'm told, my oldest brother gets all the thumbs up)

Parents aren't free from lying, either!

[tepid fiber]

That's another thing to remember--aside from what we've seen and witnessed ingame we're also going off of what we're being told, and we know for a fact that gods are still capable of lying

[glass flicker]

One word, my friend.

Odyn.

Maybe he's not a god, but he's still the biggest A-hole we never got to kill.

[pulsar minnow]

I really hope we get to see Vyranoth actually engage Odyn in a fight

Besides just freezing him and walking away

[glass flicker]

Worse than Xal'atath. Worse than Iridikron. Worse than Dimensoos.

[pulsar minnow]

Gonna be super awkward for the Warrior players when we face him in Last Titan

[glass flicker]

I want to T-bag his corpse while screaming profanities.

[pulsar minnow]

I like to imagine the random fury warrior in the group just trying to avoid eye contact and not start a conversation with Odyn while waiting for the group to form

Elevator music and all

[glass flicker]

LMAO imagine just chilling in the order hall while waiting on the LFR queue to pop. Odyn boss fight, boss dies, you go back and /doom the friendly Odyn.

[pulsar minnow]

Odyn would make for a banger final boss in a revamped Ulduar all I’m saying

[glass flicker]

Oh, I agree.

[pulsar minnow]

And they better revamp ulduar.

[glass flicker]

Don't even make him corrupted or anything.

[pulsar minnow]

Just imagine dragonriding through the facility

[glass flicker]

He's already enough of a MF'er.

Oh, that'd be sick, but claustrophobic and tight.

Plus flight is not exactly straight.

Unless you get a lot of vigor resets, expect to bump your head.

[pulsar minnow]

Yeah I imagine the facility being muuuuch bigger in scale in a revamp

Hell imagine if Ulduar becomes its own zone

Now that would be soooo sick

[glass flicker]

I like to think we would uncover some more secrets in Northrend. Such as who built the Forge of Souls.

You know, that thing that George the Jailer suddenly used in Sepulcher of the First Ones.

Those spinning saronite wheels?

[pulsar minnow]

As lame as it is I imagine they’ll just go “oh yeah jailer made arthas build those while he was in the helm”

Or smth stupid

[glass flicker]

Oh brother, that would stink.

[worn crown]

I don't think it would "stink", it would just be logical according to Jailer's plan to siphon azerite from Azeroth

So far, Xal'atath has not been a more interesting villain than Jailer
She is just the same "mwahahah I'm so evil and smart"
I do hope she gets more nuance througout the saga

Razsageth, the villain of 1st Dragonflight patch, was amazing in comparison
She had a real motive to feel betrayed by Alex and friends
And to think that they betrayed the planet that gave them birth

Whether Raz was "right" or "wrong" matters little, the character had a solid motive to her actions

[glass flicker]

This statement hurt my soul on a metaphysical astronomical level.

I will now proceed to commit percussive maintenance on my brain so I can go to eep peacefully.

[pulsar minnow]

its fair to have your opinion and all that but i disagree heavily

for what its worth Xal has 100% done the manipulative presence from the shadows so much better than the jailer ever did

She is constantly in your face, has kicked our teeth in, and while she took a few losses so far in the story, she's a thousand times better than the jailer ever was

and frankly raszageth, while I loved her, was like a saturday morning cartoon villain. She had multiple opportunities to do... anything. Hell she could've killed Alexstrasza but instead goes "im evil and stuff bye bye!" and flew away.

and frankly, Xal'atath just has a personality

[tepid fiber]

To be fair she's not exactly operating from the shadows--especially considering how much she's constantly in our faces. Their different plots are occurring across different spans of time using different waves of actions. Xal'atath's only been free and operating independently for a few years in comparison to the Jailer's literal eons, and each have different forms of involvement in their strategies and direct VS indirect manipulation

[austere gazelle]

This whole page also said that Elune and the Winter queen existed in reality vefore being sent to their respective realms , which enforce the theory that they were born on Azeroth as the tale of the earthmother suggest. Of An'she, there is no telling though. But since we saw sun + moon on the cosmology maps, safe bet to say they are now both in the life realm

[sullen dawn]

Isn't the winter queen a robot?

[austere gazelle]

Her body is, her soul is not. If you reread the page of the grimoire its pretty clear she wasnt a robot to begin with

The idea is probably that no living being can enter the shadowlands to begin with and she had to die to fulfill her role

We're the one that wrecked that golden rule

[sullen dawn]

I hope that's true of Denathrius too and that his soul was originally a dreadlord

Maybe the dreadlords even subverted the process of the creation of eternal ones by sneaking his soul in

I hate that the dreadlords have been reduced to the pet spies of a single shadowlands faction

Imo they can fit a much bigger role in the story, as kind of the "anti-azerothians"

Just like us they can wield all the cosmic forces

[austere gazelle]

We dont know for the other eternal ones. But their soul were probably powerful spirit in reality that tje first ones used to fuel their robot shell, like pélagos ended up doing

[sullen dawn]

Yep just hoping :p

[austere gazelle]

This also explains why marasmus ( sp ? ) said that the winter Queen arrived after him. The First ones probably shaped or took existing stuff and created a template before electing the rulers of those planes

Which question the existence of the titans. Im pretty sure at this point that they are the pets of the constellars

[tropic trail]

Cause they are. 😌

Glad to see that people finally recognize constellars as progenitors. When I first mentioned it everyone thought I’m crazy.

[austere gazelle]

not progenitor but the true " pantheon " of order. The ones capable to infiltrate the others Zereth to verify if everything function " orderly "

[tropic trail]

Yea that’s one of their jobs for sure.

[lone mantle]

[austere gazelle]

We're watching you 👀

[austere gazelle]

Can someone explain me why I received that when loggin in ?

is there something bugged that did not awarded me those and it was retroactive or the game is just very nice to me?

https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/news/players-receiving-runed-harbinger-crests-heroic-raid-level-on-login-from-delves/ here is why

[rain cave]

We don't know this

We know that she's is currently in the light pantheon, and the winter Queen sort of mirrors her role or is connected to it

And they are at least like sisters

Could literally be that elune is a titan or some other order entity put in the life pantheon to watch over it passing things on to winter queen

But who knows

I've said it before that elune is very weird since she kind of represents 3 forces at once with her own in game representation, but none of them are actually life

Which is why I think WQ is live in death and elune is kind of death in life

That balance that balance druids are named after

Elune even said she let teldrassil happen so wq could get more souls, and I believe its said she does interfere when non mortal threats are in play

Things that aren't a natural part of the balance of life and death

From her magic in game she is very light, arcane and deathy though

Never has there been a green elune spell

Her partnership with malorne could literally be a marriage in to the life pantheon like a political one

[rain cave]

Belameth is not "more lifey" as a result of it being from elunes tear, its literally infused with the souls of the dead

It is both life and death

[austere gazelle]

Elune even said she let teldrassil happen so wq could get more souls, and I believe its said she does interfere when non mortal threats are in play

She doesnt quite said that , from my understanding is that she couldn't stop it but wanted to help her sister and the soul of the night elves by sending them to ardenweald.

And Elune seems to knows the future and the plans of the FO ( she prevented Tyrande from killing Sylvanas and we know that sylvanas was useful for the following stories )

Elune, for the moment, shown disposition for
Life
Death
Light
Arcane
Void

( only fel is missing but fel is an amalgam of light and void )

We also know she was alive during the Ordering of the First Ones and was determinent in the creation of the Naaru, so she is defo very close to a First One, I do believe the Earthmother was a first One , making Elune, the Winter Queen and An'she , childrens of a First One

[sullen dawn]

I do believe there's a 'true' death behind the constructed shadowlands too

Gives them the ability to revisit it later. Would be cool if meuh'zala and some other stuff was from there..I felt he had a lot of potential

[austere gazelle]

there is a lot of stuff neglected in shadowlands yeah

[tropic trail]

Yea, She didn’t say that. She said that she felt guilty to condemn the souls to the Maw, but they were about to be sent elsewhere.

Usually she doesn’t even send the souls to shadowlands when they die, she just puts them as wisps and they stay on Azeroth.

[austere gazelle]

She sent them to ardenweald when they are reborn as wisps, which they did in amirdrassil in the end ^^

[tropic trail]

Seems like Shadowlands time runs very fast compared to Azeroth.

[austere gazelle]

nope in truth Tyrande free the souls from the Maw , brought them to ardenweald where they were " renewed " and infused the seed, and they came up as wisps in amidrassil, so like the natural process she did before Teldrassil

We have several NPC in Amirdrassil talking with wisps that were their former partner and such

[hazy kettle]

I mean... we did that, but ye. o.o

At least from what I remember.

[rain cave]

do you think sylvanas shows up in her amazon delivery van to drop off more nelf souls every now and again?

[tropic trail]

Haha 😂 with Nathanos

[rain cave]

nathanos's head in a jar on the dashboard

[hoary trail]

we never saw him in Shadowlands did we? Was he even mentioned?

[sleek solar]

Thank god he was not

I never liked him

[rain cave]

in prepatch

and sylvanas mentioned him

[pulsar minnow]

Part of the reason Sylvanas is staying behind is to also find Nathanos’ soul

Beyond just be a night elf ups driver

[austere gazelle]

If she ever leaves the maw, She has to stay until its empty but Pelagos, despite saying he will send no more soul to the maw, is actually doing the opposite since we saw souls still going downard the maw in Oribos... I think he might be trolling her to kept her locked there forever

https://tenor.com/view/leonardo-leonardo-dicaprio-django-unchained-meme-gif-18513725

[fluid ruin]

or until midnight 😄

[tropic trail]

Souls still go to Maw? 👀

[austere gazelle]

its me trolling blizz because they never updated oribos state after Pelagos became the Arbiter. The flow of soul going to the maw is still the same as the first day we put a foot there

[tropic trail]

Oh lol 😂

[tepid fiber]

Tbf the Maw did have a purpose. Souls are supposed to get sent there, just not all of them

But the big thing is that with all souls from all worlds and dimensions got funneled down there it's a massive backlog that Sylvanas needs to deal with

[rain cave]

No I mean whow does she deliver the souls from the maw to make it empty lmao

[tepid fiber]

She needs to take out every soul that was unjustly sent to the Maw

[rain cave]

like does she come back to base camp with a sack full of em?

[tepid fiber]

Sith-ass gamers always dealing in absolutes istg 🤦

[rain cave]

also you could argue that no souls go to the maw anymore :p

since the system's different

if someones evil they send em to revendreth for rehab

[tepid fiber]

I could argue that there's a booming banana industry based out of Goldshire's basement but that doesn't make it true because it's based on squat diddly

[rain cave]

doesn't make it not true either though

we just don't know

so the entire discussion is speculation lmao

[tepid fiber]

Not really. We go off of what we do know

[tropic trail]

What? 😂

[rain cave]

ye that's what I do

it's just that what we know can be interpretted differently

because the things we don't know are pretty big

[tepid fiber]

Which is that souls did get sent to the Maw up until the system was broken and all souls got sent to the Maw and now that that situation is fixed we're left with Sylvanas and her sentence of retrieving every soul unjustly sent to the Maw

Which is what we do know

Because it happened

[rain cave]

for example: Souls go to the Maw without an arbiter, We know the system of the shadowlands was ordered later by the first ones but still existed before. Does that mean the maw is actually where souls are naturally meant to go?

[tepid fiber]

Irrelevant

[rain cave]

and it just got repurposed into a hell because the jailer was there after they imprisoned him?

[tepid fiber]

Irrelevant, again

[rain cave]

it's not irrelevant

it's quite an important piece of fundamental worldbuilding/lore for the SL stuff

the mystery is intentional most likely

it'll probably play into the story for the last titan

[tepid fiber]

Except it is. Sylvanas is currently sentenced to the Maw to retrieve every soul unjustly sent there when the system was broken sending all souls to the Maw

[rain cave]

yeah but that's just one part of the story

[tepid fiber]

The canon story. I don't fuck with headcanon

[rain cave]

and other areas of the lore have bearings going forward into new stories

the canon story is more than sylvanas though

like

we literally had ysera last xpac

[tepid fiber]

Yes, and?

[rain cave]

and ardenwealds interaction with the dream

[lone mantle]

Only the souls of the most damned villains are destined for the Maw, where they face eternal torment.

[tepid fiber]

Yes but what does that have to do with what Sylvanas is doing in the Maw?

[rain cave]

I'm saying that SL's lore sets up more things than just sylvanas

idk why you're fixated on sylvanas am I missing something

[rain cave]

under the current system yes

[tepid fiber]

The point, mainly

But that's fine

[rain cave]

what point

[tepid fiber]

Exactly

[rain cave]

I'm just discussing general SL lore/worldbuilding and how it has ramifications

not sylvanas specifically

[tepid fiber]

You were speculating about things irrelevant to what's already known

[rain cave]

like we can go deeper and even talk about how the night warrior and maw magic are portrayed as similar in game

no?

[tepid fiber]

As long as you remember to bring up points that actually happened and canon lore, absolutely

[rain cave]

what I'm speculatingabout will probably play into the last titan and the finale of this entire story arc

[tepid fiber]

Not worth it, bailing

[tropic trail]

Sylvanas is there for now as a “cleaner” in mandatory public work. 😌

[rain cave]

like as loathed and potentially pushed under the rug as SL is, that entire system in the shadowlands is order

the first ones appear to be seperate from titans, and the brokers dislike the titans but we know not why

why was that system set up? what was before the SL? Why is the SL a mirror of the emerald dream on the titans chart?

if eonar has a hand in the dream, and Elune is related to the life pantheon somehow or is atleast stationed in that realm. Why is there nothing in the shadowlands?

Or did the titans merely take over the Shadowlands and systems of life/death

we don't know yet but there's plot threads that open up those things as potentials

[tepid fiber]

Pointing out what's known before going off on the next subsequent question is usually the ideal place to start

[rain cave]

yes

like I just did

[tepid fiber]

Other than that it's just... ranting

[rain cave]

red is what we know, blue is the question going off

idk why you're being so needlessly combative gum

I'm giving you what you said 🤣

[tepid fiber]

Do you feel like this is a confrontation? I'm sorry, I thought this was just a discussion

My bad

You do you

[rain cave]

you're giving my thumbs downs and saying it's not worth it, being generally obstructive/unconstructive

[tepid fiber]

Oh, word?

[rain cave]

if you dislike my interpretations or have your own or things that you can bring to the table

bring em it's ok

I'm open for discussion on lore stuff

I don't stick by my speculation I usually throw out a bunch of ideas

[sullen dawn]

There's probably a reason I blocked gumball

[rain cave]

it is just speculation lmao

[sullen dawn]

Can't remember what it is

But I wouldn't stress bigsaint

There's nothing wrong with what you're saying

[rain cave]

I enjoy thinking about the larger cosmology and lore

and ever since I basically predicted BfA at the start of legion I've been chasing the high xD

it's a fun thing since Blizz like to echo themselves, but different areas echo at different times

like when legion dropped, a largely class focused xpac, I assumed the next one would be a largely race focused xpac which turned out to be true
then ofc the Artifacts turned from weapons to armour, then to a talent system in SL. And from those SL talents I guessed we'd be getting old talents back and these were like a test, but even covenants also then ended up being a sort of test for Hero talents 2 xpacs later

then ofc expeditions echo'd into torghast, but once it was more fully formed as a solo thing then 2 xpacs later boom delves

[sullen dawn]

It's just design iteration

You can't continuously start over again and again

[rain cave]

yeah, but they don't do it linearly on all fronts

[sullen dawn]

Yeh progressive design (especially in a product like wow which is live service) is generally non linear

But you're always gonna recycle and iterate on stuff

[rain cave]

like the Legion was actually a 3 xpac long story starting in MoP

the echoes of that final invasion were planted in MoP, pretty explicitly

DF in BfA

[sullen dawn]

It's often not even intentional

But humans are creatures when love repeating patterns hehe

*who

[rain cave]

but yeah it's cool to look out for the earmarks in story/design that change and get picked up again and try predict them at current

like how them adding aug, and hero talents as an "evergreen feature", alongside trying to shift community perception away from FotM and grinding against the perfection wheel for M+ and raids is a kind of dog whistle for them to play a bit hard and fast with balance in order to make potentially adding more specs or hero specs more manageable

especially with the dumbed down tier set bonuses this season

[austere gazelle]

like we did, we had a crystal to collect souls in and we delivered them into our convenant nexus after

[rain cave]

lmao so she actually could be rocking up with the amazon van

[austere gazelle]

Straight delivery to the korthia waygate xD

[pulsar minnow]

The maw wasn’t always a place btw

Shadowlands just sucks at telling its story

Zovaal pulled in broken fragments of afterlives towards Torghast to create the maw

Like he did for korthua

Now why the hell would souls still go there

Who knows! Blizz sure as shit doesn’t!

[rain cave]

somebody discussed how torghast is built very similarly to oribos

[upper pasture]

The maw was created before the jailer no? Like he was imprisoned in the maw

[rain cave]

love that shadowlands storytelling#

[upper pasture]

And it makes sense that torghast looks like oribos since the jailer was the original arbiter so of course something he created could be similar no?

[rain cave]

there is a theory that torghast was the original oribos, hence it's similar structure

and he just turned it into what it looks like after getting domination magic

since the attendants in oribos act like the arbiter is the only arbiter

[upper pasture]

It makes a lot less sense if you consider he was removed from oribos and put in the maw

[rain cave]

do we know that?

sorry, SL was a cursed xpac I may have missed some smaller lore bits xP

[upper pasture]

In the SLs campaign we were told that no?

Pretty sure it was in the main campaign

[pulsar minnow]

Yeah he used to be in Oribos til he just, appeared in Torghast

Whether Torghast was there before or built around him is

[rain cave]

6hilarious how he just doesn't match the aesthetic at all

[upper pasture]

He was cast out of orbios for “abuse of power” or whatever and sent to the maw. Then assumedly he built torghast

Or torghast was built for him and he and it were placed in the maw

He was a prisoner in torghast until he learned to control domination magic

I think that was it

[rain cave]

yeah the cinematic showed that

the launch one

SL lore 🙃

whenever I get to SL when explaining WoW lore I just gloss over it very broadly since I sound like an insane person when describing it in any detail

[uncut vault]

there were some books in beta that talked about what the realm was before it was the Maw, so I think the original intent was that Oribos used to be part of a larger realm that the Jailer oversaw at the center of the Shadowlands

hence why when the arbiter is disabled, the souls don't just go all over the place, they go directly to where Torghast is now

It would explain all the random ruined bits around the river of souls as well, and why there would be a First Ones portal there

[rain cave]

feel so bad for the devs since they obviously had something more interesting planned and they had to scrap and change directions for one reason or another

like the tauren plotline, more bolvar relevance, a longer main story that bridged the gaps between some of thecharacters archs

[uncut vault]

I know blizz will insist until the end of days that there wasn't a cut patch, but it still really feels like there was

Anduin really feels like he was supposed to be an end-boss of a raid all on his own, and even Sylvanas' story was cut insanely short in 9.2 and brushed past in one quick cinematic

[tropic trail]

I think jailer committed a heavy crime and that Maw before and Thorgast were his realm same as Bastion etc. But he started his scheme and started killing constellars who lived there with him.

There are still some signs of their existence there so he made Torghast a torture chamber while he was still an Arbiter.

That’s why portal of the first ones was there cause and he simply destroyed it so they couldn’t escape. That’s why he got imprisoned. I bet he started the same thing in Korthia with the Diviners who were still worshiping them. Of course everyone is so quiet about it, and doesn’t wanna say what exactly happened. Primus called it “disturbing ballance in the cosmos”.

[deep pawn]

it's implied Zovaal wanted to overturn the will of the First Ones before his deposal

he broke his "directive"

[tropic trail]

Yea he must have done something to them.

[deep pawn]

and we know how order aligned pantheons react to people ignoring their directive

[tropic trail]

And this broker Ve'nari was selling and buying constellation relics in front of Torghast as if it was an epic business.

[sleek solar]

Yeah gumball likes to attack people, dont mind him

[sleek solar]

This actually makes a lot of sense

[sleek solar]

I really get the feeling they didn’t even want to show Arthas in the way it happened, but were more like “just do it and let the hate flow over, this expansion is not worth spending budget on anymore”

Even the Garrosh one, which was my personal favorite, was supposedly done by single developer(not an animator) who was a fan of the game and lore and wanted to do it, hence why it looks so “bad”

https://youtu.be/0Nb3q1oROOg?si=YWecftnazDSHCoYD

That one

[lone mantle]

The final outcome of the Shadowlands narrative did not particularly resonate with me.

[hazy kettle]

My heart aches to see you feelsworryman2, Algalon :c

[lone mantle]

It would be natural to respond to the constellan arrival with the fear and misgiving, but from my first moments here you have shown open arms and warmth of heart.

[warm topaz]

am i crazy or theres no TWW dungeons on the M+ LFG?

i've only seen Mists, Siege and Necrotic

[tropic trail]

Yea it’s shadowlands dungeons.

[warm topaz]

but it's because TWW ones are overtuned/really hard. a bug, or something?

[silent urchin]

Check your filters, a lot of them were off by default for me and I had to turn them on

[warm topaz]

oh let me check

those were active but i reload and now its fixed, nice

[rain cave]

I don't blame you algalon, did you see what the jailer did to one of your constellar brothers

[lone mantle]

I have experienced a transformation in the life force of Rygelon. He has been transfigured, freed from the restraints of matter.

[hazy kettle]

I got no cute worries - so hab pepe instead!

[ionic terrace]

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/20th-anniversary-update-ptr-development-notes/1945843/6

[ivory meadow]

Alter time now leaves behind a neat afterimage of you

[silent urchin]

Timewalking dungeons will now scale enemies to your current level as opposed to scaling you to the level of the dungeon.
Developer’s note: Timewalking now uses the same scaling system as Chromie Time, allowing us to better maintain Timewalking dungeons and control their intended tuning.``` huuuuh

rip all those TW sets people had I guess

but probably not a huge change for most people

[dense plover]

Warband bank reagent use!!!!

Finally!!!!

Now if only the tabs were cheaper

[thin warren]

Euh, didn't that work from the start?

I'm using warbank reagents for weeks

[austere gazelle]

not with alchemy and with work order

and sometime with cooking too

[livid walrus]

do not buy stuff from thsoe on ptr rn.

and neither form their orginal location

[dense plover]

Why?

[livid walrus]

Causing dc

[deep pawn]

oh, why did wowhead not post the notes?

[ember blaze]

their bot walked out

[austere gazelle]

new scam method from npc 😄

[white talon]

I'm really hoping Chosen Identity also makes your Dracthyr appear as Visage in the Character selection screen, if you've opted into being a Visage 24/7 - in the future

The whole narrative point about the forms is that you can be whatever you want to be, and not be locked into something you dont want to be - hence why some takes on visages or stick in dracthyr form

(I personally think the Dracthyr form is horrendous, but I enjoy the race a lot beyond the limited 3 articles of clothing dracthyr form)

[pulsar minnow]

Literally all I want is the option to transmog Dracthyr form separate from visage

It’s so obnoxious that I’ll put together a really cool outfit but then it ruins my dragon form

[sleek solar]

I never know if someone is a female or male dracthyr xD

Only when they are in visage I know

[pulsar minnow]

Well tbf that is really dragons in general

Take off Alexstrasza’s jewelry in dragon form and you can’t really tell

That said kalec does have like a gigachad chin so maybe I’m wrong there

[rain cave]

Generally the male dragons seem to have a chin thing going on

Like noz and his beard

Deathwing and his jaw

A bunch of the other random male blue dragons have chin bits

[dense plover]

I think that’s just the blue dragons

[pulsar minnow]

Had a random theory- now that we know Azeroth isn’t inherently a Titan, it gives us an idea to what happened to other world souls

What if Argus- was inherently death aligned. But converted into a titan. Same with Eonar, and Sargeras was inherently disorder and his true nature only showed when he abandoned the pantheon

[austere gazelle]

and what if the Void Lords were former world souls converted to void? 😉 This would explain what happend on K'aresh, it was the birth of Dimensius

which in the end would put what Xalatath wants into perspective. not summoning Dimensius into Azeroth, but corrupt Azeroth world soul and take control of it to become a new void lord . ' Only the strong survives '.
Azshara also intends to seize Azeroth's world soul apparently ( what she called " the true throne of power " )

[rain cave]

I think the main thing I'm interested in is why do the world souls exist?

not every planet has one

[dense plover]

Sometimes things just exist

Like - spontaneously as part of how the universe works

I suspect that is how world souls work

[rain cave]

what about the weird implicit link between the first ones and azeroth

[austere gazelle]

Its possible that the First One put decoy in place to prevent the other forces from fiding Azeroth and hid it deep within the cosmos. " The Secret the First Ones sought to hide "

Those decoy are copy of the prime world soul, mirror and echo. They were described ( at least for argus ) as sentient stream of energy taking shelter near suns and forming a earthly crust around them to enter in gestation

[sullen dawn]

Nothing is spontaneous. There would have to be some emergent effect causing them to form. But it's fine to have that effect be too complex to go into in the lore

If that's what blizz decides

[dense plover]

Big bang?

[pulsar minnow]

Well we’re in a video game

There tends to be something before the Big Bang

[molten niche]

How fast is it to get the new currency in the anniversary event? Cuz all I’ve seen are a few quests that give like 3 here and there and u need 80 for 1 armor transmog

[austere gazelle]

Im' guessing that thing was The Prime World soul though :p ( Purely because Blizzard LOVES to recycle their narrative cross licence and that's how the universe was born in Diablo with the " Prime Pearl " named Anu )

It is written by the Skatsimi sage Lam Esen that in the beginning, there was but a single, perfect pearl, in which Anu resided. Anu was the sum of all things: good and evil, light and dark, physical and mystical, joy and sadness—all reflected across the crystalline facets of its form. And, within its eternal dream-state, Anu considered itself—all of its myriad facets. Seeking a state of total purity and perfection, Anu cast all evil from itself. All dissonance was gone...for a time. These discordant parts formed into the being Tathamet, the first Prime Evil. Though separate beings, Anu and Tathamet were bound within the pearl. There they warred against each other in an unending clash of light and shadow for ages uncounted, neither gaining the upper hand. At last, their energies spent after countless millennia of battle, they delivered their final blows. The energies unleashed by their impossible fury ignited an explosion of light and matter so vast and terrible that it birthed the very universe itself.[2]

[rain cave]

just found a jade pearl on the eastern shore of ilse of dorn

the side njearest pandaria

says it even has a serpent carved on it

that's cool

[warm topaz]

that's really cool

[rain cave]

there's a lot of cool touches around the zones actually

like even small ones like dead earthen with notes from their friends

[tropic trail]

In the raid there is a ball and it says “embrace the shadows”. What does it do?

[rain cave]

also the freysworn hidden around the island in bushes?

very cool

the implication of them basically being replaced by the earthen we have now

like it's obvious that we're getting the roots stuff, but they've teased it so well

like the herbalism level up items that are called like "deepgrove rose" or "deepgrove roots" w/e they are

where they literally say that the roots keep growing even after it's plucked

the thorny roots underground, with the island being called the isle of dorn (old english thorn)

[jade basalt]

Well Dorn gets its name from the Watcher that was in charge

[deep pawn]

I don't believe the wold claimed are the original freysworn

They are unbound who have deactivated

[rain cave]

there are ones called freysworn

they're all hidden in bushes though

but they literally hyave freysworn in their names and are all dressed differently

[deep pawn]

there's a bit of lore in the earthen creation scenario

There were original freysworn that terraformed Dorn but they were all brought back to the machine and deactivated

New ones rose up later from the unbound.

it wasn't until the machine broke down that Earthen began to deactivate outside

[rain cave]

ah fair

though it wouldn't surprise me if that's also an area glossed over by titan keepers

like why would the original freysworn be deactivated

the ones out in dorn look to have been in hiding or died in combat

[uncut vault]

The node in the starting zone basically implies Freya and Eonar weren't supposed to have deployed them

and once the actual intended Earthen units that built the Coreway and Dornogal were activated, they got recalled

It's part of why I'm really hoping we see more of them where the Haranir live, because they seem to be planting the seeds (hah) of Eonar and Freya not exactly acting in line with the rest of the Pantheon or the Keepers

[austere gazelle]

They will certainly ally with us in TLT imo

[austere gazelle]

The freysworn also talk about a mysterious Wanderer with green eyes which seems to be an haranir

[tropic trail]

Probably, these Harronir were worshiping Elune and had a tree called Elun'Ahir which after got destroyed by Aman’thul and became Il'gynoth.

[rain cave]

Beware the eyes of green

[rain cave]

I get the feeling that there are actually a group of freysworn just hiding from us

[austere gazelle]

possibly Freya is the one concerned by " the Vassal of Life disguise treachery ", because if Freya " is " the wanderer with the eyes of green " and she " revealed " a new edict to Earthen to sway them toward nature , it's kinda concerning, her motive are obscure and she might value life above titans stuff. Moreover, we also know that there a group if titans construct that went to Avaloren , defying Odyn's edicts. So maybe there is a secret faction within the titans that are undermining Aman'thul influence.
In the end , Freya's actions and Eonar's stuff with Alun'ahir might be the source of the future trouble with the roots spreading into old god juice.
Deeper and deeper its roots will reach, welcoming our embrace

[austere gazelle]

They might be in the next zone, supposedly called " DeepGrove "

[rain cave]

it's interesting since it's looking more and more like Life is being set up as some big malicious manipulator

which is an interesting arch ig?

would make sense since it looks like it's the most muzzled by the other forces

especially order

Life yearns to break free from the order put on it atm

[austere gazelle]

Also Dreadlords did state that Life was the most difficult plane to corrupt somehow. Maybe they are the one who manipulated Freya ( if such things happened ) and its the " weakness " that they exploited

[rain cave]

I mean if you look at things in-game literally, Life is the most adatable

it can take anything and use it

not even just us mortals

but everywhere we go we find new animals infused with other magic

plants as well

every new continent and planet has herbs infused with local magic

[rain cave]

is the mysterious wanderer new?

[sullen dawn]

Eonar and Sageras should be on our side in TLT. Id like Khaz too but he's probably on amun'thuls side

[rain cave]

or an old tale

[austere gazelle]

a new tale apparently in TWW

And there is also that to note, that might be applied outside of Sargeras, too

[rain cave]

could be a dreadlord

they're literally trearchery incarnate

if one came to infiltrate the "adherents of life" (the harronir)

their nature is antithetical to their own

they hide out of sight

instead of in plain sight like the dreadlords

so the dreadlords can't just blend into them, they'd need to basically pull them out of the shadows

e.g. by disguising themselves as somebody/something they'd venerate

since the dreadlords are pretty unaffiliated magic wise, they adopt anything they need

[sullen dawn]

I don't think they're referring to the harronir

Probably something from the 'realms of life"

[rain cave]

wouldn't surprise me if they're trying to get Denathrius a new body

[sullen dawn]

Hopefully an actual dread Lord body, not a robot venthyr :p

[austere gazelle]

Well, death is directly linked to life through Ardenweald, they probably took the guise of someone in Ardenweald and then manipulated the winter queen thought which lead to distrust between her and Elune

[rain cave]

Just thought about if they did a special event like mop remix and plunderstorn where you can be a dreadlord

Would be funny

[austere gazelle]

An Amongst us , wow édition

[sleek solar]

Demon hunters losing control, DK getting corrupted and becoming lich king 3.0

Evokers hearing whispers

Priests hearing whispers

Hunters and Druids getting corrupted by the emerald nightmare or something

[rain cave]

would be hilarious if they just did a "lore accuracy" mode

and DK's literally have like a decaying sanity meter if they don't kill things

DH it's just a black screen

[sleek solar]

Haha that would be amazing for april fools

Especially the DH one xDDDD

[rain cave]

they bring back the ammo system for hunters 💀

[sleek solar]

https://tenor.com/view/the-office-no-angry-steve-carell-michael-scott-gif-5606969

Buying arrows

I hated that

[silent urchin]

They should bring back ammo. And make barrage use as many arrows as the visual shows.

[glass flicker]

So a gazillion?

[tropic trail]

I remember this. In WoTK you ran out of arrows in the mid of the raid. 🤣

Then you had to buy food and flask and repairs and at some point you just ran out of gold. And then you could just say sayonara to your guild.

[silent urchin]

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/20th-anniversary-update-ptr-development-notes/1945843/7 classic TW now open for testing

... although realms seem to be down

[warm topaz]

yeah since this morning

morning in EU

[lone mantle]

Nerub-ar Palace Story Mode is now live.

[dense plover]

its been live since tuesday

i enjoyed it - wish it had more

it wouldve been nice to have 1 boss from each wing, or the most important story bosses

[tropic trail]

How do you access the story mode?

[thin warren]

I guess when it presents itself in the campaign

[rose escarp]

Quest to kill Queen points to the location. Dude a bit further north from the Meeting Stone

[rose escarp]

Agreed, especially Nexus Princess seems important later on

Rasha’nan would also be neat, given being present earlier a few times

[rain cave]

Is story mode literally only Queen?

How do they explain how you get there lmao

[warm topaz]

yes

[warm topaz]

i mean, they said this is a trial, if people like the feature they will make it for the entire raid

[tropic trail]

Yea and there is no loot. I hope they make whole raid with loot.

[rain cave]

I feel like making it part of the quest chain it's OK to give it like lfr token as a quest reward

Incentive to go get the rest of the tier in raid

And it's a 1 time thing if you do it that way

Several hours of questing to finish a campaign for a 1 time lfr piece seems fair

[tropic trail]

Or normal piece. 😌

[sleek solar]

No lfr is better

Veteran piece

[deep pawn]

the heroic crafting token is nice

[iron hare]

Honestly I have a bigger issue with time gating the quest, appearntly we get encounters with some other bosses, but the raid happened alrdy so the entire story is off

[dense plover]

uh

wut

no

story mode is one boss - thats it

[upper pasture]

it's only the last boss

[dense plover]

the story isnt timegated - its done

[iron hare]

Yeah, that's my point

[dense plover]

the story isnt off tho

[iron hare]

Isn't there a questline for story mode unlock

That involves other bosses such as nexus princess

And gives more context for the raid

[dense plover]

sorta but barely

[iron hare]

But like

[dense plover]

not really

[iron hare]

It's still there

[dense plover]

i just mean the context is barely there

[iron hare]

Ohhhh

[dense plover]

the side quests that lead to story mode are more just like - "hey, the shit is getting bad yo"

and are not major plot points

[iron hare]

Yeah, would still rather that quest come out with release

[dense plover]

the ending is voice acted so thats nice

[dense plover]

what would that do for people who need story mode though?

this is not a new occurence

story gets delayed until everyone can do it

thats always the case

[iron hare]

Just say "we need to gather resources come in a week"

[upper pasture]

if you really want to get technical having the quest involve nexus princess isn't the end of the world since we don't actually kill her

[iron hare]

Still an intro is an intro

Honestly I like the raid a lot but I do feel like it was a little disconnected, felt weird beating xal then just having her show up like "heh"

[dense plover]

i mean, thats sorta the endgame story so far

[iron hare]

Small questline pre raid would be nice, I guess that's what the zone is but ykwim

[dense plover]

"hey, the nerubians wont leave us alone, we need to stop them or our forces will be overwhelmed"

[iron hare]

Like the tww finale felt for after the raid is my point

[upper pasture]

also there's isn't much story for the raid so far anyways too

[dense plover]

^^^

first raid frequently has limited story

[iron hare]

Wasn't 10.0s raid like the finale

I didn't play it but it seemed way more involved

Considering that's also how you free the other primalist and all that

Tbf there was like a Change with metzen taking over 10 months into production so that might be a byproduct

[upper pasture]

i mean, us killing nerubians is still spreading the black blood everywhere, so without more content of where the story is going it's hard for us to really tell how this bridges to 11.1

[iron hare]

Whatever it is I'm sure will be good

Idk if this is just because everything feels fresh but I genuinley feel like khaz algar is like one of the best continents ever made, the underground vibe has lead to some real creative stuff

[deep pawn]

It feels smaller than the dragon isles

The portal to Azj Kahet is probably to blame

Only Mereldar isn't a single zone away

[iron hare]

I feel the opposite, there's something about the cave feeling that makes my character feel tiny

[upper pasture]

it might as well be tho, the tunnel to that is like right next to the entrance to the ringing depths

[deep pawn]

Its definitely faster to traverse.

Gods that flight to Iskaara

[rain cave]

Its interesting the specifics of this since they're quite vague

Is the violence on Isle of dhorn causing black blood to become more potent? Or is it just that we're killing black blood infused nerubians, causing it to spill in more places

Also I wonder if the unseeming is a weird byproduct if the roots + black blood creating a weird emerald dream like state

[silent urchin]

nerubians only started actively harvesting and spreading the black blood after xal showed up, afaik

although I guess the kobyss were probably doing it for a while?

[rain cave]

Yeah that's what I mean

[lone mantle]

Defeating a single boss in a story mode does not suffice to provide depth to the narrative. What is truly needed is a complete raid experience.

[austere gazelle]

Xymox bis. There is a trending with the ethereal and their shadowlands counterpart, always dies but do not dies and we fight them again somewhere else

[rain cave]

Ethereal/ broker raid with all of them coming back

Lmao

[austere gazelle]

Should add to that the one from the Maw , doesnt remember her name, it was thrown out of my head

[rain cave]

Venari

[austere gazelle]

Blessed be her name... or not -_-

[rain cave]

She was pretty cool tbf

[sleek solar]

Meh

[rain cave]

As SL characters go she had a lot of potential and had a nice voice

[dense plover]

I don’t really want a 2 hour series of fights

That’s why I don’t raid - I don’t have time for that

I would just like 1-2 more fights

[austere gazelle]

They should just do a lorewalker cho scenario for raid with him explaining what's going on and switching to boss fight once previous one is defeated, trash arent needed

[dense plover]

that would still take a LONG time

there are 9 bosses

[lone mantle]

A Raid ID system could allow player to leave and rejoin the story mode at will.

[dense plover]

thats a lot of work tho

this is clearly meant to be for STORY

most of the bosses in the raid are NOT story relevant

[austere gazelle]

without trash? each boss in story mode take less than 2 min. 2x8boss = 16 min. Not really a " long time " can take as long as a delve xD

[iron hare]

Just do one full raid mode and then last boss mode or smth

Full raid mode can have increasing difficulty like delves, story mode stays as is

[subtle oar]

Story mode is only the last boss

[tropic trail]

Or remove whole LFR and replace it with story mode. 😌

At least won’t have to wait ages for queue.

[silent urchin]

something better than LFR would definitely be nice for seeing the whole story of the raid

LFR definitely chops it up in weird ways sometimes, skips a lot of the ambient RP

[sleek solar]

Make LFR type solo raids

[subtle oar]

Agreed

[deep pawn]

Do a cinematic of the previous bosses showing key voice lines, and then end with final boss

The fight uses the follower NPCs so they can work off that, don't even have to include the player

[sleek solar]

That would be double work

[deep pawn]

Not really

[glass flicker]

How does the story mode raid even work? I didn't find how to do it in-game.

[silent urchin]

There's an NPC you can talk to to enter.

Might require the kill ansurek quest? It directs you to it

[glass flicker]