Shadow Healing

[Delta]

If we could keep things constructive, that would be grand.

[Aphetoros]

...a bit dramatic, aren't we? Why does it bother you so when it makes no sense to not...

Now, of course it makes little sense to say that every common Holy Light follower can wield both Light and Shadow -that- powerfully. However, there are shadow spells that can be used because they are not evil in any stretch of the mind-- confessors use shadow magic but they most likely do not view it that way. What's the big deal, anyway? It's not that terrifying for a priest of the Light to use mana burn, every once-in-a-while.

[Ozewse]

Firstly, to address Bovel, you're not that childish, I know you well enough to ascertain that you have more to say than "LULIFWEDOTHISI'MOUT". Explain your point and back it up.

Divine magic works thusly: It does what you want it to do, or it doesn't do anything. It's not like the Arcane where if you make a mistake, 'suddenly explosions' or worse. If you will the Light to heal, it will -heal-, not harm, this isn't Final Fantasy. The pain the Undead feel upon being healed by the Light is not the Light's doing, it's their inherent Shadow's reaction. (As I understand it.) To say that a spell meant to heal could harm something is saying, essentially, that priests cannot control their magic.

This is untrue so long as the delineation between Divine and Arcane exists. Divine magic is an extension of ones will. Arcane is the bending of magic -to- ones will. A priests magic does not have a mind of it's own, and it does not obey Azerothian or Arcane laws, only its own. Tldr; it's from the brain, not a plane.

(If I'm wrong and that delineation is non-canon, we have -several- more pressing issues than this to address. )

Being that they are creatures of the Shadow, it full well makes sense that the Shadow could heal them back to their most "perfect" state, 'perfect' here meaning what priest in question considers strongest, not closer to living.


And finally, to say that a holy priest cannot use the shadow is correct. A priest of the Holy Light would never use the Shadow, and using the Shadow would be a 'faith-shaker'. However, a character can be a priest of Twin Disciplines, healing and harming at an equal rate with whatever magics they see fit. Argent Confessors are a prime example, but there are others as well. (Feel free to look for them yourself, I'm too lazy to cite things.)

[Grakor456]

And finally, to say that a holy priest cannot use the shadow is correct. A priest of the Holy Light would never use the Shadow, and using the Shadow would be a 'faith-shaker'. However, a character can be a priest of Twin Disciplines, healing and harming at an equal rate with whatever magics they see fit. Argent Confessors are a prime example, but there are others as well. (Feel free to look for them yourself, I'm too lazy to cite things.)

I actually think that a citation is what we need. For the record, I don't see the Argent Confessors as being priests of "Twin Disciplines." Take a look at Confessor Paletress' voice lines...she pretty much is always talking about the Light specifically:

http://www.wowpedia.org/Argent_Confessor_Paletress

[Ozewse]

Anyway, I would say it is POSSIBLE to RP a priest who can be Dark and Light at the same time... but you'd better have a goooood reason as to WHY.

Or you can just be a Belf Shadow priest. LIGHTWELL BABY! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! See Ralerian healing people.

Nelves too, really. You can practice Shadow and remain in good graces with Elune. You just have to justify it.

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And finally, to say that a holy priest cannot use the shadow is correct. A priest of the Holy Light would never use the Shadow, and using the Shadow would be a 'faith-shaker'. However, a character can be a priest of Twin Disciplines, healing and harming at an equal rate with whatever magics they see fit. Argent Confessors are a prime example, but there are others as well. (Feel free to look for them yourself, I'm too lazy to cite things.)

I actually think that a citation is what we need. For the record, I don't see the Argent Confessors as being priests of "Twin Disciplines." Take a look at Confessor Paletress' voice lines...she pretty much is always talking about the Light specifically:

http://www.wowpedia.org/Argent_Confessor_Paletress

It's a talent.
Edit: Used to increase Shadow and Holy damage spells, I think, now it's all healing and damage spells.

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You needn't have faith in the Shadow to use it, either. Priests are just as capable of learning the Arcane shadow like a Warlock does. (Belves are particularly skilled at doing this, what with their ARCANE MIND nonsense.)

[Grakor456]

It's a talent.
Edit: Used to increase Shadow and Holy damage spells, I think, now it's all healing and damage spells.

Can you elaborate?

I'm presuming you're implying that she's simply "specced" Discipline, since yes, there's a Twin Disciplines talent there. That may be true, but I think the core point that was being driven was that priests can use shadow magic even if they worship the Light. If you were talking about something else, that's fine.

[CappnRob]

I'm not saying the idea is bad, but saying its a core something that any priest can do as they feel like it... seems iffy. Priests can use shadow and light equally, sure, but I think there's more to it than just whatever whim they feel like at the moment.

And this is coming from the guy who loves to use the derpy game mechanics to justify anything he can get away with 8T

[Ozewse]

Addendum, Twin Disciplines isn't a title, it's a variant.

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And finally, to say that a holy priest cannot use the shadow is correct. A priest of the Holy Light would never use the Shadow, and using the Shadow would be a 'faith-shaker'.

As I said. A priest of the Holy Light cannot use Shadow magics. It's an unforgivable crime in that religion. Using the Shadow essentially makes you an enemy of the Light to them. UNLESS you're one of those new-age Argent hippies who use the Shadow for the betterment of the Light's denizens.

Back to the main point, if you mean using Shadow to heal the Living, I've always been a supporter of that but when I tried to do that back at the beginning of my stay here, I got the huge "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" stamp. I justified it by Divine means. Divine magic essentially says 'IF I BELIEVE IT WORKS, IT WORKS.' THAT'S WHY WE HAVE BREWMAIDEN BEERPRIESTS.

[Aphetoros]

It's a talent.
Edit: Used to increase Shadow and Holy damage spells, I think, now it's all healing and damage spells.

Can you elaborate?

I'm presuming you're implying that she's simply "specced" Discipline, since yes, there's a Twin Disciplines talent there. That may be true, but I think the core point that was being driven was that priests can use shadow magic even if they worship the Light. If you were talking about something else, that's fine.

I think the biggest point we need to see is that they wouldn't look at it as using shadow magic. They would see it as using their faith to bring the vengeance of the Light upon their enemies (or at least, that makes sense to me. #Fanon.)

[CappnRob]

Addendum, Twin Disciplines isn't a title, it's a variant.

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And finally, to say that a holy priest cannot use the shadow is correct. A priest of the Holy Light would never use the Shadow, and using the Shadow would be a 'faith-shaker'.

As I said. A priest of the Holy Light cannot use Shadow magics. It's an unforgivable crime in that religion. Using the Shadow essentially makes you an enemy of the Light to them. UNLESS you're one of those new-age Argent hippies who use the Shadow for the betterment of the Light's denizens.

Back to the main point, if you mean using Shadow to heal the Living, I've always been a supporter of that but when I tried to do that back at the beginning of my stay here, I got the huge "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" stamp.

I remember that!

It was the first RP I had with Aryeon.

[Kaghuros]

I think there's some misunderstanding going on between people in this thread, and it might be due to the idea of religion in Azeroth. Plenty of people worship the Holy Light, but there are separate "denominations" that answer to different moral views. Not to mention the cultures of other races not having such black and white moral distinctions.

The Scarlet Crusade, The Argent Dawn, The Church of the Holy Light, and the Blood Knights/Shattered Sun are all denominations that worship the Light. They have different views on spellcasting, other races, relations with practitioners of the dark arts, and what constitutes the biggest threat to Azeroth. Comparing an Argent Crusader to a Scarlet Crusader to Stormwind's clergy is like looking at apple varieties; they can be equivalent in some respects but there are large differences between them.

As for others, Elune worship is a matriarchal religion based on the worship of Azeroth's only actual deity in the form of the moon. With their whole dusk-dawn cycle I doubt they'd think ill of "dusk" magic. Though it seems like most Priestesses come at it from the moonlight = Elune angle, the night is still very important to their culture.

The Forgotten Shadow is more of a cult of individual power. Like a giant self-help group for the newly dead. They don't seem to care what you do as long as you pursue improvement and don't mess things up for the other Forsaken. Their members are also pretty amoral.

[Harmonic]

Cool beans, I can use all my character's in game powers. I mean, we really have to keep having these discussions, for every class? What is up with the idea that you have to restrict a subset of powers to use one or the other? I could understand if one was SHADOW specific, but that doesn't mean you can never use your shadow powers.

That's like telling a warrior if they decide to go arms they could never duel wield. Or if you're a Deathknight using blood powers, you could never summon a Death gate.

Far too often does Grak or one of the GM's -have- to elaborate on this stuff when it's something I always thought common sense, especially since the debates over Deathknights years ago... if you can use the power in game, you can use the power ICly.

Yep, Rensin's a warrior that uses Titan's grip. Why? Cause he was given that ability. Doesn't make him OP or anything, same goes for priests using both Light and Shadow, or light and shadow... however it goes.


As for the healing stuff... where did we come up with the shadow magic healing undead stuff? Is that fanon? I can't find anything about even just... Shadow Magic on the WoWWiki. If that's the case, then I gotta agree with Grakor, fanon isn't something that could help things out here on CoTH, even something like this. If Shadow can "heal" undead, it gets rid of that general discomfort they feel when trying to heal others with light/Light/Whatever magic.

I see light as this, to put my -own- spin on it. You're all looking at it like it's some tangible, one way band-aid effect for characters. Light, for all intents and purposes, is magic. If you need a real firm and realistic explanation as to why something magical is able to heal something undead... I can only point out the words -magical- and -undead- more. You can't really explain either of those things, so why have to explain how this heals the undead as well?

Well. I think it just does. It magically takes away pain, and whatever would deem making an undead close to re-death. If shadow could heal 'em, or if it's implemented, then it is. Till then, I can't find anything supporting the contrary but there's MANY things saying that Light/light/whatever magic heals them.






Other than what I said, the rest of this topic goes waaaay over my head, and I know for certain now I do not wanna roll a priest still, mostly because I'm afraid I'd probably screw something up somehow. (Probably even in ways unrelated to this topic! Dang healers and being all... heal-y.)

[Kaghuros]

The idea is a holdover from the D20 and how it was a port of D&D. "Negative Energy" heals the undead and damages the living, while "Positive Energy" heals the living and damages the undead.

[Piken]

Eh.. Just gonna say that I'm all for Shadow healing undead. Also the Shadow healing the living and it just hurting like a major.. thing. To me, it all makes sense. Was gonna type out a bit more but.. repeating other people is lame. :/

[Lendri]

Eh.. Just gonna say that I'm all for Shadow healing undead.

^^^^^^^^^
Basically that. And because I don't want to read every short story people made for responses on this thread, excuse me for accidentally saying something the same or similar to someone who already posted.
Aren't Forsaken partially composed of necrotic/shadow energies anyways? Meaning they were brought back this way?
And because they were brought back this way this could be another way of restoring them and to heal their wounds? Since the same energy to bring them back is being used to mend them makes sense to me... It's just an alternative method of healing than using Necromancy. Just like using arcane magic to heal someone instead of using the light is an alternative method. (Leywalkers have this ability..)


It makes sense that shadow would heal undead and not cause them any discomfort to channel it. This -shouldn't- be changed, in my opinion.

repeating other people is lame. :/

I'M NOT LAME.