History Characters / Warcraft3Units

* PoisonedWeapons: Gnoll Assassins have Envenoned Weapons, causing a small DamageOverTime on their attacks.

* {{Nerf}}: The Polymorph spell took a huge hit from the days of Warcraft II. It's no longer permanent and the target retains its normal HP, it can be dispelled, and [[ContractualBossImmunity it can't target heroes]]. It's still one of the most potentially disruptive spells in the game, capable of neutering heavy units and putting enemies on the back foot.

* SuddenNameChange: They were originally called "Wyvern"(s) in ''Reign of Chaos''. It was likely changed due to the misleading name (making it sound like it was the beast without the rider).

* AwesomeButImpractical: Tauren are bar none the most powerful frontline melee units in the game, with massive health pools and huge damage potential, and with the addition of the Spirit Walker they can be ''revived on death''. However, they require Tier 3 and a specialized structure to train them and they need Pulverize to actually reach their maximum power, making them much less economical than Grunts, and because they're huge melee units, they can be difficult to maneuver. Later patches moved the Spirit Walker (a more practical mid-game unit) from the Spirit Lounge to the Tauren Totem and made the Totem into a Tier 2 structure, making Tauren more economical to use.

* DoubleEdgedBuff: The Necromancer's Unholy Frenzy almost doubles the attack rate of the target, at the cost of draining their HP, and is usually used on Abominations, which can shrug off the damage but get a lot of mileage from the attack rate boost. Thankfully both Undead Auras (Vampiric and Unholy) are built around regaining health and Obsidian Statues can help heal back lost health too.

* AntiMagic: The Dryad is the Night Elves' AntiMagic specialist. They are immune to spells and their Abolish Magic spell can be set to autocast to dispel buffs and debuffs, though it has to be manually targeted to be used on summoned units.
* CripplingOverspecialization: They are extremely good AntiMagic units and offer an effective slow for killing heroes, but their stats are very low for their cost, they have a poor armor type, and Slow Poison does much less total damage than Envenomed Spears [[note]]though the damage over time is the same so functionally the two abilities deal the same damage in combat; Envenomed Spears simply lingers for longer outside of combat[[/note]].

* AchillesHeel: Unlike most air units, both Drakes and Dragons have Heavy armor, which isn't weak to Piercing. Dragons themselves also have a splashing attack against ground units and they all (except Nether) have Devour. This means they are pretty good against most ground based anti-air. They can comfortably fight a group of a half dozen or so Archers/Headhunters/Riflemen/Fiends and expect to do pretty well. Their magic immunity also means that certain magical based anti air units like Dragonhawk Riders and Troll Batriders are pretty ineffective against them too. Instead, Dragons can be crushed by physical based air-based anti-air; Hippogryphs and Gargoyles. Gargoyles are especially good because they can use Vampiric Aura, and Dragons can be affected by the Undead Orb of Corruption, making them unexpectedly easy to kill with just a few Gargoyles. A skilled Undead player can kill Dragon camps and use their treasures to try to snowball to victory.

A native race on Outland that is being hunted by the Fel Orcs. They are the original native people of Draenor. All of the Draenei seen in ''Warcraft III'' are either Broken Draenei or Lost Ones, rather than the ones seen later in ''World of Warcraft''.

* PoisonedWeapons: Gnoll Assassins have Envemoned Weapons, causing a small DamageOverTime on their attacks.

* BoulderBludgeon: Rock and Granite Golems have the Hurl Boulder ability, which damages and stuns a target, akin to Storm Bolt. They also passively throw boulders at air units.

Three headed water dragon-like creatures. They spit acid and are amphibious.

** The Makrura Tidecaller's skillset is made to take advantage of this. It has Frost Armor, which adds 3 more armor to it's target, and it uses Heal, which is highly effective because each Makura's health point is very hard to deplete.
** This is most visible with their ultimate creep, the Makrura Tidal Lord. He has 800 Health, when most level 7 creeps have around 950-1100, and he has Devotion Aura which adds Armor to all nearby allies.

!!Polar Bears
Amphibious white bears in Icecrown. They are durable and strong but have no abilities.

* BearsAreBadNews: Being Creeps, these bears will attack any units the player sends near them.
* PaletteSwap: They use the model of the Druid of the Claws' Bear Form and Beastmaster's Bear, only they are colored white.
* VanillaUnit: Aside from being strong and able to swim, they have no abilities.

!!N'raqi

A race of squid-faced humanoids from Northrend. They are worshippers of the Old Gods, called Faceless Ones by the Nerubians. They have two distinct creep lines, the low level orange skinned "Unbroken" creeps and the high level purple skinned "Faceless One" creeps.

Introduced in ''The Frozen Throne''.
----

!!Quillboar
Pig-Men native to the Barrens.

* PoisonousPerson: Spitting Spiders and Brood Mothers have Envenomed Weapon, which inflicts a short DamageOverTime effect.

* GlassCannon: None of the wolf creeps are durable, but due to their fast attack rate, critical strike, they output a lot of physical damage. This is especially prevalent with a Dire Wolf due to its Roar ability, which boosts the damage of all nearby allies.

* AntiAir: Frigates can attack air units. Though they have the Normal Attack type, which is not the ideal attack to counter most Air Units.

* MisidentifiedWeapons: A blunderbuss is not a rifle-accurate weapon, being only effective at short ranges. Classifying it as a rifle is very contradictory. The blunderbusses are actually early predecessors to modern ''shotguns''.

* MisidentifiedWeapons: A Blunderbuss is not a rifle-accurate weapon, being only effective at short ranges, thus classifying it as a rifle is very contradictory.

* ArbitraryGunPower: Riflemen are billed as excellent marksmen with their Blunderbus Longrifles. Despite their weapons being ''rifles'', they inflict less damage per shot than Troll Headhunter/Berserker spears yet deal slightly more maximum damage than Archer arrows.

* BottomlessMagazines: Despite their guns being single shot, the Riflemen never need to reload them.

* MixAndMatchCritters: They have bodies like bears, but the heads of owls. Before ''Frozen Throne'', they were called Owlbears, but they were forced to change the name.

* InfinityPlusOneElement: Most Demons, regardless of level, deal Chaos damage so their attacks inflict full damage to all armor types. Infernal Machines, Sayaadi, and Voidwalkers are exceptions, where their low level creeps have normal or piercing attack types instead.

* BlackSpeech: Their voice lines are presumably in Demonic.

A blue dragon that Arthas slew and then enslaved into becoming a Frost Wyrm upon his return to Northrend. He gains much more armor (3 instead of 2) and damage from upgrades than most units.

* InescapableNet: The Myrmidon can use Ensnare to throw a net at an enemy, preventing the target from moving (and repairing, if it's a worker) and confining it to the ground for melee units to attack. The targeted unit is completely unable to escape or even move until its duration wears off (though heroes shake off the net much more quickly), and because it's not magic, they can't be freed by dispels either.

* ZergRush: The biggest advantage the Couatl has over the flying units of other factions is that it is cheap and only takes up two food vs four taken up by the Wind Rider and Gryphon Rider. Only the Hippogryph and Gargoyle cost less and also take up two food, both of which are dedicated AntiAir units, so they lack the Couatl's flexibility.

* AchillesHeel: They have a respectable 1080 health, and are ethereal, so they cannot be damaged by physical damage at all. Being ethereal however, they take extra from magical damage and there's plenty of ways to kill them; Mana Flare, Chimaeras, and Druids of the Talon (though not Maiev's spells for whatever reason). The most effective option however, is Malfurion's Entangling Roots as it will kill a Naga Summoner in it's duration. Malfurion can beat the mission with repeated suicide charges without ever having to destroy Illidan's base.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Not only do they not summon minions or anything like that, they don't have any spells at all [[note]]They actually are continuously casting a dummy-type spell, and it costs some mana. Functionally, this is so that Faerie Dragon's Mana Flare will damage them[[/note]]. In story they are some sort of EliteMook version of Naga Sirens and four of them can use a powerful artifact to tear an entire continent apart.

* LethalJokeCharacter: Despite being extremely silly and a gag enemy, it is stronger than all other level 10 creeps.

* MarathonBoss: The Eldritch Deathlord has 10000 (14000 on Hard) health, 120 armor (which reduces all damage to ScratchDamage), and has access to Rejuvenation (heals him over time) and passive Evasion (15% of attacks will miss), which are ideal for dragging out the length of the battle to several minutes long--an eternity in a RTS game.

A set of OptionalBoss encounters in ''The Founding of Durotar''. Talnivarr the Sleeper is a Dreadlord (and thus a hero), while Destroyer Zardikar and Sinstralis of the Pain are a Doom Guard and Queen of Suffering respectively, and are units. Though they start easy, they gradually reach the difficulty of a SuperBoss encounter.

* AchillesHeel: Unlike most air units, both Drakes and Dragons have Heavy armor, which isn't weak to Piercing. Dragons themselves also have a splashing attack against ground units and they all (except Nether) have Devour. This means they are pretty good against most ground based anti-air. They can comfortably fight a group of a half dozen or so Archers/Headhunters/Riflemen/Fiends and except to do pretty well. Their magic immunity also means that certain magical based anti air units like Dragonhawk Riders and Troll Batriders are pretty ineffective against them too. Instead, Dragons can be crushed by physical based air-based anti-air; Hippogryphs and Gargoyles. Gargoyles are especially good because they can use Vampiric Aura, and Dragons can be affected by Orb of Corruption, making them unexpectedly easy to kill with just a few Gargoyles. A skilled Undead player can kill Dragon camps and use their treasures to try to snowball to victory.

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Revenants in ''Warcraft III'' are undead bound to elemental spirits.

!!Wildkin (Owlbears in ''Reign of Chaos'')

* LightningBruiser: All Wildkin are fast, and the Berserk Wildkin has a lot of HP and hits like a truck.

* MechanicallyUnusualFighter: No pun intended, but Infernal Machines are the only neutral creep line that is mechanical instead of organic.

* InstantMilitia: In an emergency, they can temporarily be turned into Militia to defend their controller's base.
* HeavilyArmoredMook: Visually, Militia are just Peasants wearing armor. They actually have very high armor value (starts at 4 and scales to 10, just 1 less than Knights), which makes up for their low HP.

* BoringButPractical: Despite being a basic unit with moderate health, Defend gives them a lot of milage against Piercing attackers, letting them take considerably less damage and have a 30% chance to reflect that attack back. Against air units with Piercing attacks and Light Armor or Unarmored Armor, this means any reflected attack will be amplied by 200% and 150% respectively, a painful prospect.

In ''Frozen Throne'', the unit's name was changed to the Flying Machine.

In ''Frozen Throne'' the unit is changed to the Siege Engine. They function the same as before, but you may now buy an upgrade that lets them launch a Barrage of rockets at air targets.

* HeavilyArmoredMook: Spell Breakers are covered in armor and also carry large shields, giving them better protection than Footmen (except against melee attacks, due to their armor type) as well as spell immunity.

* BorrowingFromTheSisterSeries: Berserkers emulate [[Franchise/StarCraft Terran Marines]] with their Berserk mode behaving similarly to Stimpacks. Instead of draining a static amount of health, Berserk increases damage received by 40% in exchange for a 50% attack speed bonus.

In ''Frozen Throne'' the unit was changed to the Demolisher.

* EatingTheEnemy: The Kodo Beast's Devour ability lets it swallow any non-Mechanical, non-[[HeroUnit Hero]] land unit below level 6, after which the unit slowly takes damage until it dies, or the Kodo Beast is killed. This is pretty useful if powerful melee units (Knights, Tauren) approach them.

* CriticalHitClass: With their Pulverize ability researched. Rather than dealing extra damage to its target (unless it is upgraded), it deals damage to enemies around the target. ''Reforged'' gave them a weaker Pulverize by default, with the upgrade instead increasing the damage dealt.

* {{Invisibility}}: The Shadow Wolf is invisible unless it attacks an enemy.

* NoRecycling: Averted. Acolytes can unsummon structures to recover part of their original cost, and will always do this to Haunted Gold Mines that run out of gold.

* AntiAir: While they can attack ground and air units, the attack against the former is very weak compared to the latter. Hence, their main use is to kill other air units. Due to how Web works, where grounding the air units will heavily reduce the damage gargoyles do to them (because they are targeted as ground), Gargoyles and Crypt Fiends are rarely chosen as AntiAir together.

* BorrowingFromTheSisterSeries: As a low-health, low-cost, unarmed invisible scout unit and detector, Shades are a parallel to the [[Franchise/StarCraft Protoss Observer]]. They also both require dedicated structures to train (Observers required an Observatory in ''[=StarCraft=]'').

* RevenantZombie: They're Human Acolytes transformed into invisible ghosts yet they remain Undead.

* DoubleEdgedBuff: The Necromancer's Unholy Frenzy almost doubles the attack rate of the target, at the cost of draining their HP. Thankfully both Undead Auras (Vampiric and Unholy) are built around regaining health and Obsidian Statues can help heal back lost health too.

* AbnormalAmmo: They are catapults that fling corpses at the enemy.

* AntiStructure: The Freezing Breath upgrade causes the Frost Wyrm's attack to fully immobilize buildings hit, halting all production, research, and attacks. It also prevents the building from being repaired. Due to having magic damage however, the Frost Wyrm's actual damage output against buildings leaves much to be desired.

* BorrowingFromTheSisterSeries: Their method of building Ancients is just like [[Franchise/StarCraft Zerg Drones]] constructing organic structures, where the structure consumes the worker. It is thus prudent to plan ahead for Wisps Being consumed in the process of building Ancients. However, Wisps can construct Moon Wells, Altars of Elders, Hunter's Halls and Chimaera Roosts without being consumed as they are inert strutures.
* TheSpeechless: Of the four main playable races, Wisps are the only worker units that cannot speak at all. They instead make ethereal beep sounds. Building announcements are instead made by a Huntress.

* AsteroidsMonster: Some Nerubians spawn smaller Nerubian Hatchlings when they die. The Mercenary Camp says it's because they carry their young into battle.

* RevenantZombie: Technically so, as they're damaged by Holy Light, but retain their mental capabilities they had as living.

* BorrowingFromTheSisterSeries: Peasants build like [[Franchise/StarCraft Terran [=SCVs=]]], leaving them exposed to harm but allowing them to postpone construction to perform other duties.

While the Horde's attempts at conquering Lordaeron failed, the oppressed Trolls of the continent have still found common cause with the Horde under Thrall's leadership. Troll Headhunters are raised from birth to hunt and track wild beasts. In war, they will fight as the ranged troops of the Horde with their throwing spears.

* AllWebbedUp: Their Web ability will draw flying units to the ground and can't be dodged. When affected, the air unit will look like it's wrapped up in a giant web ball. Though lacking the flexibility of the Raider's [[InescapableNet Ensnare]], Web can be auto-cast, so it does not require micromanagement, and Crypt Fiends are generally more versatile than Raiders.

* GlassCannon: On the other hand, Gargoyles are fast and can inflict a ton of damage when attacking other air units, but again have the least health of the air units.

A race of squid-faced humanoids from Northrend. They are worshippers of the Old Gods, called Faceless Ones by the Nerubians.

* CallBack: Despite not being called Daemons, they visually resemble the equivalent ''Orcs and Humans'' summon and fill a similar role as an ultimate fighter. Unlike the returning Water Elementals, summoned Doom Guards are in a class of their own with nearly twice the amout of health of a level 3 Water Elemental and an array of spells to support an army.

* JackOfAllStats: Their spell list has AntiMagic with Dispel Magic, AreaOfEffect damage with Rain of Fire (which was later added to the Pit Lord), a debuff with the Necromancer's Cripple, and they hit enemies around them with the Tauren Chieftain's War Stomp. It only has the level 1 versions of Rain of Fire and War Stomp, but they are still powerful tools for a non-hero unit.

* LethalJokeCharacter: One multiplayer strategy actually involves turning peasants into militia as a ZergRush / building a Town Hall near their base and continuously creating and arming peasants, to the point where the ability was nerfed to only work with the starting town hall or those with at least one level of upgrade.

* PoisonedWeapons: Researching Envenomed Spears adds poison to their attacks, causing enemies to take damage over time.

* ArmorPiercingAttack: Pulverize is a special damage type. It is magical, so it ignores armor, but it also ignores spell immunity. It can only be reduced by magic resistance (from Anti-Magic Shell or from items like Runed Bracers).

* CripplingOverspecialization: They are extremely good AntiMagic units and offer an effective slow for killing heroes, but their stats are very low for their cost, they have a poor armor type, and Slow Poison does much less damage than Envenomed Spears (though the damage over time is the same so functionally the two abilities deal the same damage in combat; Envenomed Spears simply lingers for longer outside of combat).

* GiantFlyer: Dragons are the largest creep (by the width of their model) and fly.

* OurHydrasAreDifferent: They are three-headed amphibious reptiles.

* ArmoredButFrail: Makrura all have very high armor value (6, as much as a Mountain Giant without any upgrades) but relatively low health for their levels. This is most visible with their ultimate creep, the Makrura Tidal Lord. He has 800 Health, when most level 7 creeps have around 950-1100, and he has Devotion Aura which adds Armor.

Large stegosaurus type creatures that breathe fire.

Brown furry humanoids that live in the forests.

!!Chaplain

!!Hydromancer

!!Admiral's Elite Guard

A blue dragon that Arthas slew and then enslaved into becoming a Frost Wyrm upon his return to Northrend.

* CrutchCharacter: He shows up in the first mission with Anub'arak, who is still low leveled. Finishing his sidequest makes the mission a cakewalk, since he adds the power of a 12-14 food unit without having to spend any of that food. He does not return for the upcoming Arthas missions.

* BackForTheFinale: Shandris is playable in the first mission of the Night Elf campaign (in ''Reforged'' only, in the original it's just a normal Archer), becomes an NPC in the second mission, and returns in the final mission.

* LightningBruiser: Gryphon Riders have the highest damage and HP of flying units, even before their HP is increased by Animal War Training (not counting Creeps) next to the Frost Wyrm and Chimera, with speed equal to the less powerful Wind Rider.

* CannonFodder: Skeletons are fragile and do not do much damage. Their strength is that it only takes a spell from the Necromancer that can be set to autocast to create them.

* CripplingOverspecialization: They are extremely good AntiMagic units and offer an effective slow for killing heroes, but their stats are very low for their cost, they have a poor armor type, and Slow Poison does much less damage than Envenomed Spears.

* SummonMagic: The Red Drake Egg consumable item can be used to temporarily summon a Red Drake.

* WorkerUnit: The builder and resource gatherer for the Human Alliance. Compared with other factions' workers, Peasants stand outside of the building they're currently constructing (which means that they can be attacked but are also not tied up until the building is finished), and multiple Peasants can work on the same building to speed up construction at the cost of more resources. Pesants can also be upgraded to carry back double and then tripple the amount of lumber in a single trip, giving the Alliance the best innate lumber economy second to hiring a Goblin Shredder.

* WorkerUnit: The builder and resource gatherer for the Human Alliance. Compared with other factions' workers, Peasants stand outside of the building they're currently constructing (which means that they can be attacked but are also not tied up until the building is finished), and multiple Peasants can work on the same building to speed up construction at the cost of more resources. Pesants can also be upgraded to carry back double and then tripple the amount of lumber back in a single trip, giving the Alliance the best inate lumber economy second to hiring a Goblin Shredder.

* WorkerUnit: The builder and resource gatherer for the Human Alliance. Compared with other factions' workers, Peasants stand outside of the building they're currently constructing (which means that they can be attacked but are also not tied up until the building is finished), and multiple Peasants can work on the same building to speed up construction at the cost of more resources.