The Queue: With Swords

For some reason, whenever I transmog on my Demon Hunter, I just transmog the warglaives to swords. I don’t know why I do this. Maybe it’s because I honestly don’t like the model For the warglaives so far and I’ll be happier once I’m using my Artifact glaives. But somehow, I don’t think so. It’s weird because I like the Warglaives of Azzinoth just fine, but none of the other warglaive models have done it for me. And I have like twelve pages of swords to xmog to, so it works out.

This is the Queue. Let’s talk about Blizzard.

There will be spoilers for the Broken Shore and Legion in this Queue.

Your guess is as good as mine. Honestly, I have no idea who would step up and take on that job. The old school Warcraft III choice would possibly be Rokhan.

Vanira and Zen’tabra are also strong candidates for the position. Vanira was Vol’jin’s second in command during the reclaiming of the Echo Isles and was present at his funeral, so she would be in my estimation currently performing the duties of Darkspear leader, even if she isn’t officially their leader.

Baine has only been Tauren leader for a short time. In that time, he has never led a major military campaign on his own. The closest he comes is participating in the Darkspear Rebellion, in which he played a subordinate role to Vol’jin.

Sylvanas was Ranger General of Silvermoon, an acclaimed military tactician from a family of acclaimed military tacticians. She led the defense of Silvermoon against overwhelming odds and nearly succeeded in defeating the Scourge with Arthas at their head, only losing because a traitor betrayed their defenses to Arthas in hopes of seizing the Sunwell for himself. Later, she successfully reclaimed Lordaeron from thee Nathrezim and defeated both Legion and Scourge forces to hold on to it. She has military experience that Baine lacks, and by now she’s experienced treachery enough times that she’s excellent at spotting it.

The fact is, not one Horde leader even comes close to Sylvanas as a warleader. Lor’themar was her subordinate, he is by definition less skilled than she is. Baine is not as experienced as she is. Gallywix would be an absurd choice. Saurfang is old, a canny warrior but not one who seeks to lead. Saurfang is tired, and Sylvanas isn’t.

The Loa bit in the cinematic bothered me because it wasn’t necessary. Sylvanas is the best choice to lead the Horde at this particular moment. Do I like Sylvanas? No, of course not, she’s a maniac. But she’s a maniac who you could point at the Legion and she’ll do a ton of damage. She’s a smart, ruthless military leader with years of experience. She was Ranger General of Silvermoon during the Second War. I don’t think Baine was out of short pants yet at that point.

Now, I love Baine, and I absolutely think he’d be a great Warchief. But Sylvanas makes sense right now. Is Sylvanas evil? Oh, I’d say yes. Is Genn utterly justified in hating her? Absolutely, she murdered his son, invaded his country and dumped plague all over it. But it still makes sense that, facing a full scale Burning Legion invasion, you go with the most skilled, meanest, dirtiest fighter you have, and for the Horde, that’s Sylvanas.

I already addressed the likely successors to Vol’jin as Darkspear leader (my money is on Vanira) but for the Orcs… well, Saurfang steps up at the Crossroads if you’re doing Invasions, and Thrall’s got his own problems, so I’d assume it’s Saurfang for now. Keep in mind that Varok is an old Orc and he doesn’t want the job, so sooner or later someone else might take over.

If you mean me personally, I don’t blame Sylvanas for pulling her people out. It was pretty much the only decision she could make at that point. Now, I blame her for lots of other things, like the numerous atrocities she had committed on innocent people (keeping Gnomes inc ages to experiment on them in Undercity, using the Plague on Gilneas and Southshore, using Val’kyr to reanimate people on Fenris Isle and using them against their own… the list really goes on and on, Sylvanas is a murderous lunatic) but no, I don’t blame her for pulling back.

But if you mean “How could the Alliance blame her” well, that one’s easy. All they know is that they trusted Sylvanas to watch their flank, she even said she’d do so, and then just as they were about to unleash the full destructive power of their airship on the Legion she pulled out without so much as a warning. Considering that she was capable of hectoring Varian from across the battlefield (“Kill him already!”) it’s not beyond reason to expect some head’s up before the Horde pulls out, leaving the Alliance essentially stranded.

Now, absolutely Genn was predisposed to hate and distrust the woman that murdered his son and turned many of his people into walking corpses with plague bombs, just as Jaina doesn’t need much convincing to think the worst of the people who blew up her city with a mana bomb, then later used Dalaran as a back door to steal another magic weapon. But just as clearly, people like Anduin and Velen get that it’s not really a good time to be pointing fingers — it’s simply that the Alliance only has a limited picture of events, and Sylvanas has spent the last few years making sure that nobody trusts her, not even her own allies.

Making her Warchief makes sense as a military decision, but from the perspective of ‘What happens after we beat the Legion?’ she’s an absolute nightmare as leader of the Horde. The Alliance would be raving idiots not to be suspicious of her.

Yes, they removed several of them, including that sweet 2h sword which is really the only model I wanted from the Invasion. I’m very upset about it. I was going to use that thing so often, I had a whole ‘Fel Warrior’ xmog planned out using two of those swords.

Not going to happen now and I’m not happy. That mace is not my favorite model. I have much better maces if I want to use a mace. Hammer of the Naaru, World Breaker, Gar’tok… it’s distressing.

I don’t really understand why you’d need to do Tanaan, which was level 100 content, once Legion is out. As far as I’m concerned, if I was leveling to 100 right now, as son as I dinged 100 I’d go to Stormwind/Orgrimmar and do the Broken Shore and Demon Invasions. It took me less than a day to fill every slot on my DK with ilevel 700 gear and get a 710 weapon with upgrading the 2h mace.

I know the invasion won’t be there in Legion proper but there will be quests with upgrades leading in to Legion itself and you’ll get your Artifact fairly quickly so I think Tanaan will just be abandoned.

Okay, that’s the Queue for today. Anne’s doing the weekend Queue’s as always so ask her lots of questions and I’ll see you guys here next Tuesday.