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it seems that perhaps arthas is just letting us slaughter our way to him, perhaps... perhaps arthas has indeed let the death knights go for now away from his service but will use the link he shares with them to recontrol them and use them to strike out at us when we are weakest.
@ the Mage/Warlock argument:Mages draw upon the arcane as well as frost and fire elemental sources for their magic, preferring decisive application of such power to quickly eliminate targets. Mages also do extensive study so as not to succumb to the power-lure of such forces. It should be noted that the ancient Night Elves (Kal'dorei) first attracted the Burning Legion to Azeroth through reckless use of the arcane, resulting in the War of the Ancients. The survivors that were still addicted to arcane power were eventually exiled from Kalimdor, sailing across the sea and becoming the High Elves and later the Blood Elves (Sin'dorei), with the notable exception of Illidan Stormrage who was imprisoned for 10,000 years under Maiev Shadowsong's watch.Warlocks used to be mages or shaman (in the orcs' case), but gave in to the lure of the arcane and took up fel magic as well. Whereas a mage will simply destroy their targets as efficiently as possible, a warlock seeks to cause as much as pain and suffering as possible, ergo the warlock has the most damage-over-time (DoT) spells of any class. It is likely that any demonic exposure to fel energies can convert more than just mages or shaman to warlocks; the Eradar had more than just mages (at least hunters and warriors) that Sargeras converted to warlocks when Kil'jaeden and Archimonde accepted his promise of power.
In fact, both shamans and mages serves evil purpose, becouse their power comes from demoniac source or, which is even better, from old gods itselfs. In case of tauren druids, they serve old gods too. Lets start at beginning: Old gods ruled Azeroth as well all elements, using 4 elemental lords to do their bidding. These elemental lords are in war, but they all server old gods without question, and all elementals serve these lords. And mages and shamans call upon their power and use it. There would be no frost mages without power of old gold servant Neptulon the Tidehunter, no fire mages without Ragnaros the Firelord, and the burning legion and no arcane mages too, becouse source of all arcane magic was Well of Eternity, which was link to old gods and serves as food for demons. Shamans call for this power another way, they ally with elementals directly, and thus becoming allys of old gods. Back to taurens, they all praise their goddess Earth Mother, which is beleved to be none else then Therazane the Stonemother, Earth elemental lord servant of old gods.
Just because you can control the elements doesn't make you afflicted to the Old Gods. The lesser elementals aren't really powerful, and likely not any free-will or awareness other than "CRUSH!".Shamans are based off nature-magic like the druids - the Old God theory about the Tauren druids is rather far-fetched.
and another thing which i don't know if it was mentioned.let's say i'm a mage fighting against the lich king, ok?i died in battle and was brought back by him as a death knight, ok?why would he asked me to forget everything that i learned throughout my life in magic, and he simply hands me a 2 handed sword saying "go hit something"?i spent my whole life studying and training to not use weapons to kill people now i'm supposed to melee?it's like asking my imp to charge someone and use heroic strike.that's not fair, i didn't sign up for this.
Ah, but remember that the warriors/rogues/paladins against whom you are comparing the elite Death Knights are in fact elite themselves. Resurrecting heroes is part of what makes these Death Knights better than the Lich King's usual forces. Thus yes, an elite level 72 Death Knight is on par with an elite 72 hero of the Horde or Alliance. And yes, even those elite troops were intended as cannon fodder to draw out Arthas' true enemies - so aside from resurrection and some basic capability why should he invest so much power as to make them more powerful than Fordring?Also, for those citing wowwiki, bear in mind that (a) the site is a wiki, and thus always check the footnotes, and (b) it intermingles sources from the RTS game setting, the WoW game setting, the novels, the licensed role playing games, and the comic books. In truth, since each of these sources often disagree on details such as geography and population and history, they are really separate settings. Sure, the other settings can be used for comparison, but really, the setting we're concerned with here is WoW, not the pen-and-paper RPG.
You're argument takes several assumptions to create fallacies, but it's entertaining none-the-less.First, DK's don't get power from Mr. LK. Mr. LK's powers come from several sources, including demonic and 'the light' (given Ner'Zul was a warlock/shaman and Arthas was a Paladin). You're logic will also claim that every undead, including Forsaken are also powered by the LK.Except, undead existed before the LK, so that doesn't work.Anyway, PC DK's are also far less powerful than other DK's. Look at Naxx and the DK's there. No one PC DK could kill one of those trash DK's 1v1 nor could they kill either the Instructor, one of the 4-horsemen, etc., etc.Even the DK's from Icecrown quests are pretty much more powerful than the PC DK's, so one could easily argue that PC DK's have "lost power" by forgoing their union with the LK.*yawn* Besides, LoLore in Warcraft is about all there is. This isn't D&D with alignments and stuff. It uses a completely different rule set that isn't based on some other rules sets logic.But, like I said, entertaining discussion, none-the-less.
Does the Lich King actually have powers to imbue? Seems to me that as a lich, he was once a powerful mage. So he practices necromancy to create death knights and other scourge, but once created, they don't actually draw power from him, but rather then diseases and minor magics with which they were created.That said, player DKs according to the story line were basically mass-produced to draw out the LKs enemies, they aren't exact duplicates that the LK uses for things like protecting Ice Crown and Naxx. As for KT, he to is a lich, but was he actually made by the LK or simply instructed in the art of necromancy?Personally, I see the LKs true power not in the ability to grant undead power, but rather to control their wills...whispering in their heads.As for the light, I don't see it so much as an external power source but rather a faith in some ideal so great that it can heal the meek and blind the wicked. Often, you will find that when paladins lose their way, only the ones who doubt themselves lose their powers. Think Spiderman 2.
On a semi related note. I think blizzard have done themselves a bit of a dis-service with the lich king in that people actually want to be on his side. I'm honestly not sure how they could have done it differently to make it so that everybody "hated" him (I don't mean think he was a terrible creation just not want to join his side).I would say it would be a good idea to let people join the lich king and have a seperate faction for it except the small problem of what happens when THE NEXT EXPANSION hits and the lich king has been defeated(lore wise) and killed repeatedly game wise and there are all these people left on his side.
I always understood the use of the Light like this: the Light's involvement with the use of its powers extends as far as granting them to someone - typically someone who has faith in the Light (or at least its ideals). After that, that someone can use those powers however they see fit. I guess the Light's reasoning is that, 'Well, they are good deep down. Hopefully, by using the Light, they'll remain that way.'Naturally, this isn't a perfect solution (see the Scarlet Crusade/Onslaught), but I don't believe the lore ever claims the Light is perfect, just good-natured. Besides, the Scarlets were once good and still fight for a Light-worthy cause - they've just been misguided (by demonic forces, no less) and manipulated into becoming something wholly xenophobic, twisted and overzealous.As for the Lich King, as has been said already, the Battle at Light's Hope was a one-time deal, and only the death knights that were there actually switched. They were powerful, sure, but Arthas has been shown to handle sacrifice and loss in stride, both before and after his transformation. That's why he's already building a new Acherus and acquired new, powerful death knights. Treating the turncoat death knights as expendable may be a proud, ultimately fatal mistake, but it would hardly be out of character for him.Finally, as to why all max-level classes seem inordinately equal in power...that may just be something one must accept for the game to work on a practical level, if not an aesthetic one. One thing Blizzard has proven capable of doing is knowing when they can, and can't, mix story with gameplay. Otherwise, as you said, the playable death knights would be unbalancingly strong.
really, death knights draw their power from dead, and causing death mayhem and all other sorts of goodness.
You need to remember that the Naaru arent omnipotent.The only thing that the second "theft" of Mu'ru and the "redemption" of Liadrin lead to was a continued infusion of the Light for Blood Knights.All the Light is is a portion of a Naaru's power. The original Blood Knights took it by "force" (certain events lead me to believe Mu'ru knew what was going to happen), and the current order have the power granted freely by A'dal.