Mages and Warlocks

[Touchseed]

I brought this up today, and I'm having alot of trouble discrediting it myself. I don't want to go around using it unless we are all on the same page so I'll just present it right now.

The majority of Human Warlocks were at one point Mages. They were lured to darker magics and become Warlocks automatically. In fact, the word Warlock has been used in some Fantasy settings is synonymous with a Wizard. Anyway, assuming a particular Warlock was a Mage at one point, wouldn't they still be able to use older magic? They still use Fire, that's apparent, but what about Frost? I can't see why not. What about some basic Arcane spells? I don't see why not.

Game mechanics have disabled that to make Warlocks more simple, and to keep them balanced out. In role-play, the balance is that a Warlock and a Mage of equal skill level would be different in the way that a Mage uses Fire and Frost and Arcane with equal skill. The Warlock has spent the same amount of time the Mage did, but instead has basic control of the Arcane and Frost and Fire, but uses Fel magic much better.

If you can't think up why a Warlock should be unable to do this, let me know. If not, would it Ok to do this?

[Nostra]

What about the Orcs, eh? Hehe, no mages there are there?

The problem I can see with this is that it can make things very unbalanced, a warlock with training as a mage might be able to recognize spells a mage is casting (though a mage with experience of warlocks could do the same, or any class really) but not use them, they abandoned those "schools" for fel, shadow and "destruction".

That´s how I see it, at least.

[Hawk]

I'll add some of my opinion on this:

If you are learning techniques of a different class, chances are you'll have forgotten how to use them.

Say for example a priest becomes a mage, they won't be able to use fire (unless it's holy fire) or any arcane. It's also the same with mages becoming warriors, they won't be allowed to carry their old skills with them.

[Kaghuros]

According to WoWwiki and the WoW RPG, there's a starter class of Arcanist who becomes either a Wizard (Mage) or Warlock.

Warlocks were once arcanists or shamans (in the case of the orcs) — who in pursuit of ever-greater sources of power abandoned their studies of the Arcane or Nature and delved into darker, Fel-based magic (Shadow). Warlocks still retain their skills in the manipulation of the chaotic element of Fire, although their focus is on delivering excruciating pain and drawing out the suffering of their victims. No longer do they aim to use the effective application of Arcane energies to efficiently dispose of their targets from a safe distance.

Warlocks are a subset of Arcanist that specializes in darker arts, and must give up their Mage powers to gain skill as a Warlock. Mages are a subset of Arcanists as well, and are a separate path from Warlock. Of course, you can be a mage that turns to darker arts, but your skills in Frost don't carry over. Likely a Warlock would change magics completely because he/she believes it's better or more powerful.

Those who wish to manipulate arcane magic often choose between the way of the mage, necromancer, or warlock. Each path specializes in a particular kind of magic, which reflects the nature and practice of the arcane arts on Azeroth.

Arcanist
Warlock
Mage

[Touchseed]

This covers my question except for one point. Is this transition instant, like there is some ritual involved, or are we talking about the Warlock moving on and willingly giving up his old studies? If it's the second, then an inexperienced Warlock would still be in the verge of changing. Not quite able to be a Warlock, but not quite a Mage anymore. This could cover a bit of time, so I guess I'm now asking: Would a Warlock in training carry any of his old skills, until he learns the new ones and discards the old ones? ( I'm aware that Warlocks have rituals, so I wouldn't be surprised if the transition was instant, through a ritual. )

[Vrahn]

Well, despite the fact they abandon their old arts, I don't believe this means they can no longer cast their old spells. We pick up new skills every day, and we don't for some reason magically forget other skills we used to know. I do believe that if you were concentrating purely on only using warlock spells then yes, you would likely forget about your arcane magic, but if you kept up with a few spells then you would still be able to cast them. It's more a question of if a warlock would want to keep any of his old skills.

[Theodor]

There is Arcane Magic, and Fel Magic. Fel is the demonic, corrupted version of Arcane. Those chaos bolt, drain life, curse spells are all Fel Magic, including the pet summonings. If you want to use Arcane magic, you need to give up those. Also fire is considered to have three versions. One being holy, other arcane, and other fel. Fel fire can be in two colors, the original flame color and green. So you are actually using Fel Magic, corrupted Arcane.

Mastering Fel Magic is way harder than mastering Arcane Magic. So you wouldn't have enough time to study all of them, reaching the master status.

If you are an ex-mage, who became a warlock later, you won't of course forget what you've learnt once. However, you will get rusty at Arcane in time, as you will not study it anymore, but study its more unstable yet powerful variation, Fel.

As for Orcs, all the Warlocks in Orgrimmar are lime-green skinned if you had noticed. That's because they have transformed halfly. There are Chaos Orcs, who had a direct contact with Mannaroth's blood, therefore causing them to get transformed completely. Then there are Fel Orcs, who had no direct contact with Mannaroth's blood though had transformed into spiked, red-skinned Orcs. Tainted Orcs also have some physical changes, though they lack the red skin. And lastly Fallen Orcs are the ones who lack most of the physical changes along with the red skin, but still lust for power, as Fel Magic forces you to crave for more strenght, making you want more and more of it. Though most of those who aren't Chaos or Fel Orcs, have lime-green skin, since during the transformation process, the orc first becomes a lime-green-skinned orc, which is the color tone of the legion and of the Fel Magic. However Orc Warlocks are not really loved in the Orc society, due to their connection to the past events, where Orcs got corrupted. They look upon the Fel Magic. Though I love the Orc Warlocks most, because they were the first ones, as they were the first to get corrupted by the Legion (by means of playable races, else many other creatures were corrupted during the Legion's Army's gathering process.)