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This page is for how Warcraft and World of Warcraft Assassin-class heroes appear in Heroes of the Storm only. For how the characters act in their own universes, see the pages for those games.


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Warcraft Universe Assassins

Melee Assassins

    Illidan, The Betrayer 

Voiced by: Liam O'Brien (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/illidan_hots.jpg

Illidan Stormrage, known as "The Betrayer", is the first of the demon hunters. During the first invasion of the Burning Legion, Illidan feigned allegiance to Sargeras, leader of the Burning Legion, in order to gain more power to defeat them from within. After the Sundering, the destruction of the Well of Eternity and the creation of the Maelstrom, Illidan attempted to recreate the Well of Eternity with vials of water stolen from the original. Despite his good intentions, Illidan was vilified by his brethren, especially his brother Malfurion, and the woman they both loved, Tyrande Whisperwind. He was imprisoned underneath the forests of Ashenvale for his crimes.

Ten thousand years later, during the Third War, Illidan was freed by Tyrande to fend off the return of the Burning Legion. Seeking enough power to destroy Tichondrius, Illidan consumed the Skull of Gul'dan and became a demon himself. He was banished once again at the end of the Third War, entering into the service of the Burning Legion lieutenant, Kil'jaeden, and attempted to destroy the Lich King in Northrend, but was defeated by Arthas before he could do so. Illidan then retreated to Outland with his army, collecting his strength and resuming his ultimate plan to defeat the Legion.

Illidan is a Melee Assassin hero based on the Demon Hunter Hero Unit from Warcraft III who doesn't use secondary resources other than his abilities' cooldowns. His trait, Betrayer's Thirst, grants him Life Drain and cooldown reduction from each successful Basic Attack. His basic abilities include Dive, charging towards an enemy followed by a forward-flip over their head; Sweeping Strike, a dash that passes through enemies, deals damage, and boosts his attack damage for a few seconds; and Evasion, letting him dodge all incoming basic attacks for the duration.

His heroic abilities include Metamorphosis, nuking an area as he transforms into a demonic form with increased health per enemy hero hit by the explosion; and The Hunt, dashing at a target enemy from up to an extremely long range and stunning them on impact.

His current skins are Eredar Armor Illidan, Shan'do Illidan, Spectre Illidan, Lunar Illidan, and Betrayer Illidan.


  • The Ace: Considers himself this. He isn't.
  • Alas, Poor Yorick: Parodied.
    Illidan: Alas, poor Gul'dan! I... never knew him at all, actually.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Tyrande still doesn't feel anything for him. Maybe in the AU where he was a druid (see below) he had a better time of it.
  • Arch-Enemy: Considers Arthas to be his.
  • Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Illidan is very full of himself. If he compliments a teammate for killing an enemy hero, he chastises that he could've done better and the other hero better work on their form, though he may also praise them that they're improving. Although his skills are certainly impressive, whether his performance backs up his talk depends on how good you are at playing him.
  • Ascended Meme: YOU! ARE NOT! PREPARED!
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: While good players choose their fights and disengage when things go south, Illidan's main mechanics greatly reward this playstyle. His trait grants lifesteal and cooldown reduction for his skills, so an Illidan who keeps fighting gets to chase down escapees with Dive, increase his damage through Sweeping Strikes, and staying alive through constant Evasion and the lifesteal. It often occurs to Illidan players too late that they've overextended, and have to beat a hasty, and often fruitless retreat.
  • Awesome, yet Impractical: Battered Assault, which massively boosts Illidan's damage output if he uses Sweeping Strike to hit more than one Hero. Given how small Sweeping Strike's area is, this mostly requires Illidan to dive headfirst into a teamfight to get reliable use out of it, which can lead to him being focused down by enough crowd control and damage to drop him in seconds if he's not careful
  • Balance Buff: Previously Illidan only had one viable build and that he has to stay close to chip down his target despite being a squishy. A patch changed that by buffing his survivability talents and increasing his burst capability..
  • Blind Weaponmaster: You would think, based on his quotes, jokes and the blindfold, that Illidan is blind and thus cannot be blinded by abilities, but he actually sees better than most. His eyes were replaced with Spectral Sight, granting him Aura Vision in-lore, though he can see just like anyone else. The blindfold is merely for the people around him.
  • Body Horror: Courtesy of his demonic form, when he uses Metamorphosis.
  • Button Mashing: His gameplay in a nutshell, just mash all your skills as they rapidly come off cooldown, maybe saving one for escape... maybe. This is kind of subverted with Dive, as using it constantly when it's not needed, makes you lose DPS. (Unless you picked Illidan's Marked for Death talent, that is.)
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: One doesn't get called The Betrayer for having a sterling reputation for honesty and reliability.
  • Common Knowledge: It's an in-joke amongst players that Blinds shouldn't work on Illidan, because he's already blind. The truth is that he can see just fine; in fact, he has magically-enhanced sight. He wears the blindfold solely to spare others the sight of the Body Horror that resulted.
  • Crossover: One of his skins is him as a Starcraft II Spectre.
  • Dance Battler: The general feel when you see Illidan in action, what with all those sommersaults, dashes, and fancy maneuvers.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Most of the time, he's pretty snarky. The rest of the time, however...
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: Illidan's individual attacks do not hit as hard as other melees, but he hits fast. It's subverted when he manages to activate Battered Assault and Blades of Azzinoth, in which case his target will quickly realize that he hits fast and hard.
  • Demon Slaying: Naturally, as the first demon hunter of Azeroth.
  • Die, Chair, Die!: Illidan's trait rewards him for attacking anything. It's not uncommon to see Illidans blindly attacking walls as a way to lower the cooldown on their heroic ability.
  • Difficult, but Awesome:
    • Illidan isn't classified as a "hard" hero without reason. He is extremely squishy, but many of his talents boost his defenses and if he is properly supported and protected, he can wreak havoc with the entire enemy team. While his abilities allow him to stick to his target for a long time, the player also needs to properly stutterstep with every attack of his and using both Dive and Sweeping Strike wisely allows him to dodge most skillshots. In the later stages of the game, when most structures are taken down, you cannot run away from a good Illidan player.
    • The Hunt lets you travel all over the map to get to the enemy and you get to yell his memetic "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!!" line, but unless you're very ahead, it's more likely to put Illidan in a very tight spot that could get his squishy self killed. Most players would consider the Metamorphosis skill a safer, more teamfight flipping skill for when you need to make a comeback.Case in point. However, the extreme range on The Hunt allows Illidan to potentially be anywhere, at any time, giving him extremely strong map presence and letting him instantly fly in to reinforce a teamfight or gank. A good Illidan with The Hunt is always a factor in fights, even while he's idly farming minions or "convincing" mercenaries on the other end of the map.
  • Double Weapon: He's Dual Wielding double weapons. And this isn't just him being an overconfident showboat with impractical weapons. He took both of them from the same demon, who was also implied to wield them the same way.
  • Dynamic Entry: The Hunt heroic allows him to pounce at his enemy from very far away, and can be upgraded to have global range. It also stuns the enemy for a moment so he can have some free hits. The awesomeness is increased by Illidan bellowing his infamous line: YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He still genuinely cares for Tyrande, even in the Nexus.
  • Fireball Eyeballs: Felfire flames replaced his eyes. He hides them behind a blindfold.
  • Fragile Speedster: Illidan is very fragile. However, he attacks very quickly (1.6 attacks per second), which can be boosted further when he uses his upgraded One-Winged Angel Form, to 2 attacks per second; combine it with high natural speed and lots of Spam Attack dashes, and he can keep up a barrage of Death of a Thousand Cuts on his enemy.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Some of Illidan's biggest breaking points were his inability to get Tyrande (instead ending up a stalker), ending up second best to Malfurion, and losing to Arthas. In-game, Illidan is well-suited to stalking supports like Tyrande and Malfurion, but the latter's high sustained healing makes it difficult on Illidan to land a kill while Arthas is all but an impossible matchup for Illidan, as the slowing aura reduces Illidan's attack speed, and by extension, the rate his cooldowns come back online, while simply being too durable for Illidan to take down.
  • Glory Days: Illidan misses Chaos Damage from War Craft III, and reminisces about a time when wings, horns and hooves were considered strange for WarCraft.
  • Good Counterpart: His Shan'do skin comes from a Bizarro Universe in which he became a disciple of Cenarius and learned the arts of the druid, eventually becoming an Archdruid. His brother Malfurion became the fel-corrupted Betrayer (see below), Tyrande becoming the Betrayer's Warden with Maiev taking the role as High Priestess, each illustrating their own roles in this alternate universe. Note that the skin uses his regular voice, but it remains unclear whether or not he was really an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy even when he was The Hero or this is a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation.
  • Gradual Grinder: In general, Illidan lacks bursts and has to rely on chipping on the enemy with his boosted melee attacks. He's very good at sticking at his target though, and several of his high level talents boost his damage significantly that he can rapidly deplete his target's health if they let him wail on them.
  • Green Thumb: The Shan'do Illidan skin's abilities leave trails of flora behind, and his metamorphosis features eagle wings, stag hooves, and bear paw tattoos. He also has a grass-like beard covered in leaves and the beginnings of stag horns, and his warglaives have blades made of bark with bear paw emblems on their grips.
  • Incoming Ham: It is difficult to mention his The Hunt heroic without the "FEEL THE HATRED OF TEN THOUSAND YEARS!/YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!" that is broadcast to players in accompaniment. Considering it has him quickly dash to an enemy with a very high range, such hamminess may be the first sound he makes for entering a fight.
  • Injured Vulnerability: When upgraded at level 20, The Hunt gains global range, and lets him see all heroes below a certain Hp threshold. Do the math.
  • Intangible Man: The in-universe explanation for Evasion. As a demon hunter, Illidan can turn intangible enough to simply allow enemy attacks to pass straight through him.
  • Jerkass: A self-aggrandizing jackass, his only redeeming (well, sorta), trait is his love for Tyrande. If you can call that love. And while every other hero actually says some variant of "Well done", Illidan's equivalent is often saying that he deserves no less.
  • Large Ham: Voiced by Liam O'Brien, no less!
  • Leeroy Jenkins: His gameplay rewards constant aggression... which has a tendency to backfire on him if he can't figure out when it is and isn't a good time to go balls to the wall.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Metamorphosis turns him into this, if temporary. He gains a temporary health bonus based on enemy heroes caught in the area, resistance against crowd controls when made permanent with a lvl 20 talent (notably, the health bonus remains temporary), and he can extend his survivability further with talents and the lifesteal from his trait.
  • Mechanically Unusual Class: Illidan is one of those heroes who don't use any resource of any kind and only have to worry about managing cooldowns. In some way, his cooldown is his resource.
  • Miles Gloriosus: Infamous for attracting this type of player: cocky, convinced of their own "skills" and invariably getting in over their head. Just like Illidan himself.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: If you kill an enemy Tyrande.
    Illidan: Tyrande, no! What have I done?!
  • My Greatest Failure: In response to Tyrande.
    Tyrande: Freeing you was my greatest mistake.
    Illidan: And loving you is mine.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Illidan misses Chaos Damage. note  Nowadays, Chaos Damage technically exists in some form, though, ever since Blizzard introduced the Armor system in 2017 and there are now abilities and talents in the game that allow a hero to ignore someone's Armor.
    • Illidan is not amused that monks in World of Warcraft came out as a class before demon hunters. Demon hunters only became a hero class two years after Illidan's release in Heroes and the introduction of monks.
  • No-Sell:
    • Can turn immune against basic attacks for 2 seconds by using Evasion.
    • Metamorphosis removes Illidan from play for a second or so, thus turning him invulnerable and untargetable. You can use this to dodge or even interrupt channeled or homing abilities such as Pyroblast, Triple Tap, Judgment or The Hunt.note 
  • Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: He looks like a normal night elf, excluding the Power Tattoos and the blindfold with felfire in his eyes, but using Metamorphosis gives him horns, hoofs and wings.
  • Not the Intended Use:
    • Metamorphosis gets used as an escape nearly as often as for its intended purpose as a Dynamic Entry, thanks to its free-form targeting and long-range repositioning.
    • While Illidan is meant as an all-in diver, sealing the deal on weakened enemies, changes to the meta have basically knocked him out of contention. That being said, observant players noticed that he also has everything a Bruiser needs — a Herd-Hitting Attack, Regenerating Health and a Dash Attack — and he can now be found in the offlane role.
  • One-Winged Angel: One of his heroics.
  • Power at a Price: Obviously, seeing as that was how he acquired his demon hunter powers and the fel-fire eyes behind his blindfold, but his Spectre skin implies he saw the terrazine infusion that made him a Spectre proper as this, but decided it was Worth It for the extra psionic power.
  • Power Tattoo: A gift from Sargeras.
  • The Power of Hate: Not in-game mechanic, but referenced in many of his lines.
    Illidan: FEEL THE HATRED OF TEN THOUSAND YEARS!
  • Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Whenever he uses any of his Heroics, you can feel the impending asskicking!
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Using his Dynamic Entry heroic will make him scream his "YOU! ARE NOT! PREPARED!" Catchphrase.
  • The Rival:
  • Scary Impractical Armor: His Eredar Armor skin qualifies. The helmet features two long, prominent horns and the shoulder pauldrons and twin blade guards are all covered with razor-sharp metal spikes.
  • Simple, yet Awesome: Illidan's skillset is simple enough; a pounce that puts him in front of his enemy, a dash that increases his damage, and a 2.5 second immunity against basic attacks. It's learning how to use them and when to use them that makes him more complex than his base mechanics imply.
  • Spam Attack: Illidan's trait reduces the cooldown of his abilities by 1 second per attack he makes. Considering he attacks quickly and uses no mana, you will get to use your abilities many times across a fight.
  • Suicidal Overconfidence: Enforced Trope. Illidan's entire kit is built around jumping in and hitting things, and any time you aren't, there's an extent to which you feel like you just basically aren't contributing anything useful. This makes him very popular amongst "Attack! Attack! Attack!"-minded players, who can very easily end up trying to take fights they actually can't win.
  • Super Mode: Metamorphosis visually looks like Illidan's one, though he only gains more HP in that form, and only if the damage from the initial transformation hits a hero. However, with the Storm upgrade, Metamorphosis gives him increased attack speed, resistance to disables, and the transformation becomes permanent until he dies (though the health bonus remains temporary).
  • Unknown Rival: Well okay, not unknown, but it's clear that Arthas doesn't take him seriously. Fittingly, Arthas is his hard counter, doing steady magical damage that bypasses Evasion and reducing his attack speed, crippling his entire kit in the process, while using his potent peeling capabilities to drag Illidan off the squishies he hunts.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: As always.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Exactly one of Illidan's abilities, Evasion, does not involve him getting closer to his enemies. The rest, including both his heroics, are exactly that, making him ungodly hard to hit with skillshots or keep him off his intended target.
  • Winged Humanoid: In his Metamorphosis demon form. He can't fly like Falstad though and it only visually looks like he's flying when he mounts up, if the player picks his level 20 upgrade.
  • Worthy Opponent: The player, apparently. Click on him enough, and...
    Illidan: I hate to admit it, but you were... kind of... prepared.

    Maiev, The Warden 

Voiced by: Debi Mae West (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maiev_0.jpg

Maiev Shadowsong is the leader of the Watchers, an elite, secret organisation of night elven police. After Illidan Stormrage almost killed her brother at the end of the War of the Ancients, she voluntarily became the jailer of the Betrayer. For ten thousand years she watched over him, until Tyrande facilitated his escape. It became Maiev's goal to bring him to justice for his crimes, even to kill him if necessary. Even after Malfurion forgave his brother, Maiev chased Illidan into Outland, where she and her forces suffered a complete defeat. With the aid of Akama and a handful of heroes, she broke out of her prison and slayed Illidan once and for all... Or so it seemed, as Maiev had actually secretly trapped Illidan and his Illidari within crystal prisons. During the events of Legion, Gul'dan assaulted her vault and made off with Illidan. In order to save Azeroth, Maiev freed the Illidari demon hunters and began the hunt anew.

Maiev is a Melee Assassin who excels at countering mobile enemies and clumped up targets. Her activated trait is Vault of the Wardens, which allows her to jump upwards, becoming briefly untargetable and unstoppable. It also gains a second charge at level 20. Her abilities include Fan of Knives, a crescent of knives that has a significantly reduced cooldown if it hits multiple enemies; Umbral Bind, empowering her next basic attack to cleave and briefly chain enemies to Maiev, pulling them to her if they get too far away; and Spirit of Vengeance, summoning a spirit that flies in a straight line and damages enemies before returning to the original cast position. While Spirit of Vengeance is active, the ability becomes Blink, allowing Maiev to teleport to the spirit's location.

Her first Heroic is Containment Disc, which fires a skillshot disc that latches on the first enemy hero hit. After a few seconds or once the skill is reactivated, the enemy will be trapped in Time Stop and have their vision blocked. When it expires, they will be briefly Silenced. Her second Heroic, Warden's Cage, summons a ring of warden avatars around her. Enemies who walk into the wardens are thrown into the center of the ring, although each warden will disappear once it hits an enemy.

Her current skins are Hellwarden Maiev, Spider Warden Maiev, and High Priestess Maiev.


  • Action Girl: Maiev is extremely effective when she is sent right to the front to hit as many enemies as possible. She also is rather sturdy, sporting one of the highest health pools for an Assassin and has an entire talent tier dedicated to giving herself Armor.
  • Anti-Escape Mechanism: Umbral Chain shackles enemies to Maiev and yanks them back to her if they try to flee.
  • Armor Is Useless: Averted to hell. She's got one of the higher base health pools for an Assassin.
  • Artifact of Doom: At level 20, Maiev gains access to Gul'dan's Shadow Orb that she found in Warcraft III. The orb was said to badly influence its user.
  • Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: The breastplate of her High Priestess skin greatly resembles a seeker when looking at it straight on (a sort of owl-cat hybrid that hails from the Broken Shore). Fitting, since a seeker was added as mount at the same time as the skin.
  • Badass Cape: A massive flowing cape that goes to her feet and is large enough to wrap around her like a cloak.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: In a hilarious and comedic manner with Illidan. Considering her Snark-to-Snark Combat with him in previous games, it's completely intentionally done by the writers.
  • Casting a Shadow: Spirit of Vengeance sends out a shadow that damages any enemy it hits and also allows Maiev to teleport to the shadow's location. Warden's Cage also summons a ring of shadowy figures.
  • Cool Helmet: Her Warden helmet is rather intimidating.
  • Crystal Prison: Containment Disc traps the enemy in one of these, much like what she did to Illidan and his followers.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Her Vault of the Wardens trait has a fairly long cooldown, so timing this trait against enemy burst damage targeted at her is crucial. Also, Maiev's gameplay heavily involves attacking 2 or more clumped enemy heroes and preventing escapes; in exchange, she has no sustain in her Talent tree and she doesn't excel well in one-on-one fights. However, a skilled player can have Maiev set up for incredible follow-up attacks with her team with her Umbral Bind, Spirit of Vengeance and both of her heroics.
  • Divergent Character Evolution: A running joke within the fandom is that Zeratul stole Maiev's original movesetnote , barring the Heroicsnote . When Maiev got into the game, she got a modified style that still captured the old spirit of the Warden unit, but made it work differently than Zeratul's. Even Maiev herself lampshades it.
    Maiev (upon killing Zeratul): I know all your tricks, Zeratul!
  • Easily Forgiven: Lampshaded in one of her Stop Poking Me! lines. It's a gibe at Blizzard's storywriting and them retconning or trying to sweep outraging and out-of-character moments under the rug without any explanation as if it never happened.
    Maiev: So I murdered a few Highborne, tried to kill Malfurion and fled Darnassus as a wanted fugitive. Can't you just drop it and move on? Everyone else has! note 
  • Flechette Storm: Her Fan of Knives.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: She's The Jailer, and it's reflected in her skillset, which are extremely effective in restricting enemy movements and preventing escapees.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Both Fan of Knives and Umbral Bind hit multiple enemies in front of Maiev. Naisha's Memento also makes her basic attacks bounce to nearby enemies.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Her Umbra Crescent, which is essentially a serrated hula-hoop.
  • Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress: Trying to dash away from Maiev? Be prepared to be bopped in the face by a warden or yoinked by an umbral chain.
  • Inspector Javert: She started out like this but, her drive and motivation to capture Illidan shifted from justice to personal vendetta.
  • I Resemble That Remark!: In one of her poke quotes:
    Maiev: I AM NOTHING LIKE ILLIDAN! I merely do whatever is necessary to achieve my goals (even if it means making morally questionable decisions), while growling about the hatred I felt for ten thousand years.
  • The Jailer: While most of her ire is reserved directly towards Illidan, she detests prisoners and convicts regardless of universe, in particular Tychus. Likewise, she recognizes and even praises Tyrael for being the physical embodiment of the justice she so desperately seeks.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Maiev is shockingly tanky, and has a boatload of CC and good mobility. While her damage is below average for an assassin, careful hits with Fan of Knives allow her to pump out tonnes of that as well.
  • Magic Is Evil: She absolutely detests mages. Her kit actually makes her quite an effective Mage Killer.
    Maiev: The only good mage is a dead mage.
  • Man of Kryptonite: It's as if she's introduced specifically to counter the Dive Meta. Her skillset is tailor-made to punish divers, with multiple crowd control and movement-hindering abilities that are the divers' main shtick.
  • No-Sell: On a few levels.
    • Vault of the Wardens allows her to hop over any incoming attack.
    • Umbral Bind and Warden's Cage lock down mobile enemies, preventing them from evading her with dashes.
    • Containment Disc shuts down a priority enemy at a time of Maiev's choosing. About to channel that Heroic? I don't think so.
  • Nostalgia Level: Nowhere near the level that Samuro is, but many of her skills and voice lines come from the Warden unit. She can also pick up a few missing ones as talents, like Shadow Orb: Shadow Strike, which even keeps the classic sound effect from Warcraft III. Talents like Naisha's Memento are also based on other night elf units' abilities (in this case the bouncing effect of the Huntress unit).
  • Pungeon Master: And they are all Incredibly Lame Puns as well. Even her trait's name is one.
    Maiev: Nothing escapes my sight. Not even when I blink.
    Maiev: A pristine Corehound Tooth, a custom-forged Perdition's Blade, and of course a sharpened Shard of Azzinoth. My dagger collection is quite extensive. That's because I'm a Fan of Knives.
  • Punny Name: Vault of the Wardens is an upwards jump... which is named after Maiev's prison in World of Warcraft.
  • Rings of Death: Her weapon, the Umbra Crescent.
  • Shadow Walker: Blink is still a teleport, though it's a rather telegraphed one and more in line with Sylvanas' Haunting Wave, compared to her ability back in Warcraft III. Rather than a point-and-click blink, she has to teleport with her Spirit of Vengeance.
  • Ship Tease: Hilariously and ironically with Illidan, several of her quotes mention how distracting she finds Illidan's physique or how many times she finds herself thinking about him to the point that she gets lost in her thoughts.
    Maiev: I have no idea where my brother, Jarod, went during his long exile. Am I my brother's keeper? No! I'm Illidan's keeper!
    Maiev: What do you mean I'm obsessed with Illidan? It's not like I think about him every day, and every night... picturing his smug grin as I sharpen my glaive. Imagining how it would feel when I plunge it into his chest... right between those big, disgusting tattoos... leaning in close, to watch the light fade from his eyes. (Beat) Oh, I'm sorry? What were you saying?

    Illidan: Can you put aside your anger, Warden?
    Maiev: I don't know, can you put on a shirt? ... It's distracting.
  • Spam Attack: Hitting at least two heroes with Fan of Knives reduces its cooldown to half a second and refunds its mana cost, which lets her spam it as long as her opponents clump up.
  • Symbol Motif Clothing: Crescents. She has a large crescent on her back, wields a chakram, and Fan of Knives even strikes in a crescent shape.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Match her with Malfurion, Tyrande, Gul'dan, Illidan, Illidari, blood elves (Kael'thas), Horde, demons or mages and it will be this. You can count on one hand the people she actually likes cooperating with. note 
  • Token Wholesome: The only female elven character from Warcraft who doesn't wear revealing clothes (at least until she got her High Priestess skin).
  • Tragic Keepsake: The talent Naisha's Memento is a glaive named after Maiev's friend and lieutenant, Naisha, who was buried alive by Illidan in Warcraft III. Naisha and Maiev's other watchers' deaths by Illidan's hand is one of the reasons why Maiev made her hunt for Illidan personal.
  • Travel to Projectile: Blink allows her to teleport to the current location of her Spirit of Vengeance. Since the spirit can move through walls and flies much faster than normal walking speed, this makes Maiev particularly mobile.
  • Vengeance Feels Empty: If she kills Illidan, she might quip that she doesn't feel anything, or either say her quotes from the end of Black Temple back in Burning Crusade about feeling like she's nothing now.
  • Yandere: Zigzagged. Well, she is certainly obsessed with Illidan to the point that she appears to be Ax-Crazy for him. She is not in love with Illidan canonically, but that doesn't stop Blizzard from making jokes that make it sound like she is. However, whereas yanderes are typically sweet on the outside, crazy on the inside, Maiev is openly angry and bitter.
  • You Will Not Evade Me: Umbral Bind yanks enemies back to Maiev, and Warden's Cage will bop them directly into the center, which is where you cast it from.

    Murky, Baby Murloc 

Voiced by: Dee Bradley Baker

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/murky.jpg
*squeals*

Mrgglglbrlg rmrmgllg mrggggm. Mrrglglgy, mgllglgl mgggrrmgll MRGGGLGLLM! Mrrggllgggllggll mrrglrlg mrrg mrrg mrrrg. note 

Murky is a Melee Assassin who has health about equal to a minion; to compensate, his Spawn Egg trait allows him to place an egg anywhere on the map that Murky will respawn from with a massively reduced respawn timer. Additionally, Murky himself is only worth one-fourth of a death. If the egg is killed, Murky will be revealed and cannot lay a new egg for 15 seconds, and if he dies without an egg then he suffers a full death timer. His first skill is Slime, which deals a small amount of damage and slightly slows enemies around Murky. If the slow is still active when an enemy is hit with Slime again, the damage is greatly increased. Pufferfish throws out an exploding pufferfish that deals huge damage after a long delay; however, enemies can destroy the pufferfish before it detonates. Safety Bubble places Murky in a bubble, preventing him from doing anything besides moving, but also making him completely invincible for the duration.

His heroics include March of the Murlocs, summoning a huge amount of murlocs that swarm through a target area, dealing damage over time and slowing whatever they collide with, and Octo-Grab, which summons tentacles from the depths to stun a target enemy hero for a huge duration while Murky whacks them with a fish.

His current skins are Landwalker Murky, Funny Bunny Murky, Grunty, Sir Murkalot, and Garden Shambler Murky.


  • Achilles' Heel: His egg. He needs it in order to respawn fast and close to the action, and if it's destroyed, not only will a fairly hefty cooldown be imposed before he can replace it, but he'll be revealed to the enemy team for most of that duration as well.
  • Adaptational Badass: In his home game he is a mere companion mini-pet, only gaining the ability to fight at all years after his debut. Here he is quite fragile but can still trade blows with powerhouses like Arthas and Kerrigan.
  • Ascended Extra: Murky is just a companion pet in World of Warcraft, with his multiple costumes often being relatively exclusive from limited time events such as an expansion pre-order bonus or a reward for attending Blizzcon. But since he's the best known named Murloc, he was chosen as the race's representative in Heroes.
  • Bubble Shield: Safety Bubble puts him in a bubble that prevents him from doing anything except moving, but makes him completely invulnerable for its duration. He needs it too, considering he has a health pool that's only a little higher than that of a basic lane minion.
  • Canon Immigrant: A bizarre, recursive example. While Murky is named after a companion pet from World of Warcraft, he was given an official debut in Legion. This Murky, while having a totally different backstory, had all of this guy's abilities (through a quest chain, you take control of Murky and use his kit). That means he's immigrated as an ascended joke from World of Warcraft into Heroes, then back from Heroes as a full-blown part of a story line.
  • Cute and Psycho: Certain heroes, notably the telepathic protoss and the supernatural angels and demons, are able to understand what Murky is saying. The more noble of these (Tassadar, Zeratul, Fenix, Tyreal, and Auriel) react as either offended or scared of the little Murloc's bloodthirsty demeanor. Even Diablo is a little scared of him. On the other hand, Alarak actually likes the "little fish creature", and Malthael is flat out impressed to find someone who understands his "great work".
  • Cuteness Proximity: Some heroes who fight alongside Murky often find him quite cute. Falstad, Jaina, Li Li, Stitches and even Kerrigan (though she does mention that she doesn't think it is her ally) talk of his adorability.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: His friends and family were killed and had their stuff taken by adventurers on Azeroth. He is understandably upset about this.
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: He can turn invulnerable temporarily, thus wasting your longer cooldowns or mana if you insist on killing him. And even if you do kill him, he only gives a pittance of exp, and if he has an egg around somewhere, he will simply respawn in seconds. Trying to kill him without destroying his egg first will usually result in overall net gain for the enemy team.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Beginners might see his kit and try to play him like a kamikaze, suicidally charging enemies over and over while dealing relatively little damage. Though he gives out less XP, he does still give it out, and playing recklessly, dying repeatedly while accomplishing little, will still ultimately result in a net gain for the enemy team.
  • Floating in a Bubble: Murky does so when he uses his Safety Bubble.
  • Freudian Excuse: His backstory is a Perspective Flip on a typical murloc-killing quest chain in World of Warcraft, i.e. all Murky's friends and family were killed, their homes were burned down and their things were stolen by adventurers who attacked them for seemingly no reason and probably didn't cast a second glance afterwards. As a result, Murky is left with a blood hatred of humans and a desire to kill them all in retaliation. Alexstrasza for her part thinks he must learn to forgive them.
  • Glass Cannon: Has very little HP, but deals relatively high damage; Pufferfish, in particular, is one of the hardest hitting non-Heroic abilities in the game belonging to a hero not named Chromie. Trying to scuffle with him without destroying his egg first is exercise in futility; eventually you will run out of steam.
  • Healing Factor: Murky has an absurd HP regeneration rate, easily capable of reaching 40 points per second or more in a game where many heroes struggle to even reach a regeneration rate of 10 health a second. If he takes damage that doesn't flat-out kill him, he can shrug it off in short order. For extra fun, he gets a talent to regenerate up to half his HP during Safety Bubble.
  • Killer Rabbit: An adorable baby fishman who can, will, and totally wants to kill you.
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Murky has shades of quadratic growth thanks to his trait. In the early game, an 8-second respawn isn't much faster than the usual hero, and Murky is quite weak in general at that point. In the late game however? Not only has Murky reached his Magikarp Power as detailed below, his trait gives him a fifty-two second discount on respawning. It's one of the most unique power growths in the game.
  • Magikarp Power: Early on, Murky can clear out creeps fast and whittle down towers relatively well, but that's about all he can do, and he can't even stand up to even a lone enemy hero without help. But if built right, he becomes an absolute force during the late-game, able to lock down priority targets, kill most heroes by his lonesome, absolutely shred enemy structures, and potentially even soak up a surprising amount of damage. And, of course, his death timer stays at 8 seconds with his egg up while other heroes' death timers scale much more harshly, so sacrificing Murky to kill anyone else in the late game is a huge net benefit.
  • Morality Chain: Tassadar, Zeratul and Alextrasza try to be this to him, attempting talk him out of his homicidal revenge spree.
    Alexstrasza: No. I will not aid your quest for vengeance, young one. You must learn to forgive.
    Tassadar: You must let go of your hatred, young one. Vengeance is not the way.
    Zeratul: Do not let vengeance consume you, small one.
  • Mister Seahorse: Implied by Lt. Morales, who is confused about how Murky can lay eggs despite being male. Probably averted in-game, where he seems to vomit the egg up instead of actually laying it.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Murky is expected to die often; in return, every death only counts for 0.25 of a normal hero death. The thing is, it's still counted as a full death for talents and abilities (such as Seasoned Marksman and the Butcher's Fresh Meat), so a Murky who dies too often in the presence of an enemy Hero with such talents or abilities will make the enemy that much stronger.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Apparently has enough shades of this to impress Malthael.
  • Perspective Flip: His trailer shows what a "kill the ugly monster people and take their stuff" quest chain looks like to someone from that monster people race. It's not very flattering.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: His motivation for fighting in the Nexus.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: If he's on your team.
  • Scratch Damage: In addition to disabling the target, Octo-Grab has Murky ineffectually beating them with his fish for 1 damage a second. It becomes less ineffectual when he upgrades it with the aptly-named late-game talent ... And a Shark, Too!.
  • Shamu Fu: Wields a fish as a melee weapon. And if you upgrade his Octo-Grab heroic, he hits the enemy with a shark!
  • Shoot the Medic First: Any player's number one priority on spotting an enemy Murky should be to find and kill his egg ASAP. Without it, he's crippled. Except Murky also has a talent which lets him plant fake eggs that Slime the surrounding area when destroyed...
  • Soul Jar: His eggs are these in practical terms. As long as one remains on the battlefield, he will be reborn in seconds, ready for another scuffle.
  • Status Effect-Powered Ability: Slime deals massively increased damage if it's used against an enemy that's already been covered in slime. This represents the bulk of Murky's damage.
  • The Unintelligible: Zig-Zagged. He speaks Nerglish, which sounds like wet gibberish to everybody else, including the players ...except to telepathic, supernatural, or nature-attuned heroes (although Malfurion and Lunara both are out of practice).
  • Villain Respect: On the receiving end. His sheer misanthropic, homicidal fury is enough to impress Alarak, Malthael and Mephisto of all people.
    Alarak: Hah! I believe I like you, fish creature. Come, we shall claim our vengeance together!
    Malthael: You... understand my great work? Curious.
    Mephisto: Such hatred burns within your heart. An inferno... that would consume ALL OF HUMANITY!
  • Wowing Cthulhu: He's one of the few heroes to get a positive reaction from both Alarak and Malthael, on virtue of his sheer bloodthirst.

    Samuro, The Blademaster 

Voiced by: Samwise Didier (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/samuro.jpg

Samuro is the last blademaster of the Burning Blade clan. A wandering warrior, he's searching for redemption for his clan and his people. Samuro had a run-in with Rexxar during his quest to help Thrall stave off the assault of Daelin Proudmoore, and aided him. Now, his travels have led him to the Nexus.

Samuro is a Melee Assassin specializing in deceit, speed, and critical hits. He has two traits; Advancing Strikes passively increases his movement speed for a few seconds after striking an enemy hero with a basic attack. Image Transmission is an active ability that allows him to switch places with an image. His first ability is Mirror Image, creating two illusory images of himself to serve as temporary decoys, though they deal less damage and have effectively less health than the real Samuro. Most negative effects are removed when Mirror Image or Image Transmission are activated and the duration of the images is prolonged when they or the real Samuro attack an enemy hero. His second ability is Critical Strike, which passively causes every fourth basic attack he and his images perform to deal heavily increased damage, and can also be activated to get a critical strike on demand. Samuro's third ability, Wind Walk, makes him temporarily invisible and increases his movement speed, allows him to pass through other units, and heals him over time while he remains in stealth.

His first Heroic ability, Bladestorm, turns Samuro into a whirlwind of death as he spins around, striking all enemies around him with his blade. His other Heroic, Illusion Master, is a passive ability that increases his Mirror Images' attack damage, greatly reduces the cooldown of Image Transmission, and allows the player to manually control the images.

His current skins are Burning Blade Samuro, Hellblade Samuro, and Monkey King Samuro.


  • The Atoner: His goal is to redeem the Burning Blade clan, which is why he intends to slay every demon and demon worshipper he sees.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: Zig-zagged with his Advancing Strikes trait, which gives him a short movement boost after every strike. Logically, this allows him to rapidly chase and keep hitting an enemy without any hope for them to escape, aside from mobility skills. But the trait also grants the possibility for Hit-and-Run Tactics instead.
  • Badass Arm-Fold: He folds his arm while riding a horse, to show how undaunting he is in battle.
  • Badass Back: His home screen image during his release is a classic example of this, complete with him staring over his shoulder with a Glowing Eye of Doom.
  • Bash Brothers: With Rexxar and Chen (and presumably Rokhan if he's ever added). He also wants to be this with Genji, although Genji is a little more apprehensive.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: Not as thick as most examples, but they stick out a good three inches from either side of his face.
  • BFS: The length of Samuro's sword including the pommel goes to around his own height! The blade itself is also far thicker than any real two-handed sword would ever be, with a significant curve to the end of it tapering into a point which would make it further difficult for an actual person to wield. This also makes his sword resemble more of a Chinese Zhanmadao-style sword rather than some sort of odachi or katana as you'd expect from what's basically a Rōnin orc.
  • Confusion Fu: A big part of his playstyle is confusing his enemies using Mirror Image, so they attack the fake Samuro instead of the real one. With Illusion Master, he can manually control where his clones go, ramping up the mindgames.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: Samuro deals damage with his Basic Attacks (and Bladestorm, if it was picked). And that is it. This means that he needs to flank the enemy to get into melee range and do something, as he has no poke and offers no crowd control besides blocking bodies.
  • Critical Hit Class: Critical Strike gives him a guaranteed Critical Hit every few attacks, and can be activated to immediately crit on the next attack.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: Samuro kills his enemies with lots of Basic Attacks from himself and his clones. He isn't as bursty as other assassins, but similar to Illidan, he will relentlessly chase them down. Bladestorm also hits several times per second.
  • Decoy Getaway: Image Transmission allows him to switch places with a Mirror Image. To reinforce the masquerade, Illusion Master allows him to control the images independently and swap more often.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Samuro is rated Hard for a reason: Illusion Master. This allows you to control your Mirror Images, using the same control scheme as the Lost Vikings, and requires a lot of skillful micro and macro to pull off correctly. But a player who masters it can use the ability to burst down heroes by focusing Samuro and the images on them, escape deadly situations via Decoy Getaway, gain almost global map presence and become a nightmare to deal with.
  • Doppelgänger Attack: Mirror Image creates 2 fake Samuros who can be used to distract and confuse enemies. But the most dangerous thing is that these clones actually deal damage from the get-go, even if less than the real one.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: In Braxis Holdout, there is an arcade titled Samuro Shodown whereas Samuro is a character featured there. Sure enough, Samuro ends up being the next hero revealed after Zarya.
  • Fighting a Shadow: The entire point of his Mirror Image ability.
  • Flaming Sword: His sword ignites when Critical Strike is ready. Fitting, considering he's from the Burning Blade clan.
  • Flash Step: If you took his Shukuchi talent.
  • Foil: Samuro is similar to Illidan, another melee assassin that deals sustained damage and does not rely on mana. Both are Glass Cannons, rely on their abilities to dodge damage and are extremely mobile. Both are also excellent heroes for macro play, as both heroes can gain near-global map presence.
  • Fragile Speedster: Samuro has two ways to cleanse himself from negative effects and his trait and Wind Walk grant him movement speed. However, he is very fragile for a melee assassin and will quickly go down if he cannot use his abilities to evade damage.
  • Glass Cannon: Samuro has no in-combat sustain and low durability; if you can pin down the real Samuro with Wind Walk on cooldown, you can probably kill him. He relies on his images to skillfully dodge attacks and confuse his enemies. The question is whether you can get him before he kills you.
  • Gratuitous Japanese: Some of his skills are Japanese words and he sometimes use "Hai" ("Yes") as a confirmation quote, despite being an orc. Unlike in Warcraft 3 where the pronunciations and accent could sound unintentionally hilarious, Samuro's pronunciations are more subdued.
  • Heal Thyself: Samuro slowly regenerates health during Wind Walk. One of his talents also applies a small burst heal when the ability is used.
  • Master Swordsman: He's a Blademaster.
  • Me's a Crowd: Mirror Image, which creates two duplicates of Samuro that deal reduced damage and take double damage.
  • Monkey King Lite: He has a Monkey King skin, turning himself into something similar to Sun Wukong and replacing his blade with the Ruyi Jingu Bang, complete with a completely different voice over. Considering Blizzard Entertainment has no significant Wukong pastiches in its games so far,note  this is the best the company can do to follow up other MOBAs that have Wukong (or characters based on him) in their roster.
  • My Country, Right or Wrong: Seeks honor for his clan, but is perfectly fine in following Garrosh as warchief. Though he has far more favorable words for Thrall.
  • Ninja Log: If you took his Kawarimi talent. The log in this case is a Mirror Image.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Or rather, a Ninja Orc Rōnin.
  • Nostalgia Level: Samuro's abilities are the exact same as those of the Warcraft III Blademaster, with the only additions being his second heroic Illusion Master and his two traits. However, one must beware of Damn You, Muscle Memory! in his case, the old Blademaster used legacy keys for activating the skills for shortcut, not the modern QWER button with Samuro. Additionally, the skill slot positions are different; the old one was Wind Walk-Mirror Image-Critical Strike (which was a passive ability and couldn't be activated manually), the new one is Mirror Image-Critical Strike-Wind Walk.
  • Not the Intended Use:
    • Samuro's ability to switch with his images allows him to use the hearthstone and go heal and instantly get back into the field by using Image Transmission (though they disappear a split second after he hearths, meaning that the return has to be shift-queued). With Illusion Master, his images also can hearth back to base, giving Samuro even more escape and instant-heal potential. The developers decided to fix this bug, but after some negative feedback and consideration decided to make this an Ascended Glitch and reverted the fix.
    • The Merciless Strikes talent used to double the damage of his Basic Attacks with Critical Strike, as his passive and manual damage modifier used to stack. In conjunction with the Way of the Illusion and Phantom Pain talents, he nearly quadrupled his Basic Attack damage, absolutely shredding every hero who couldn't mitigate the damage.
  • Odd Friendship: He seems to want to be Bash Brothers with Genji, much to the latter's bemusement. He also admires Murky's desire for vengeance, and has befriended fellow honor-seeker Hanzo.
  • Rōnin: While not truly a Rōnin (Orcs don't really have a warrior-caste equivalent to Samurai, for one), Samuro is clearly intended to resemble one visually (especially having a flag attached to his back like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sashimono sashimono]]), only Orc-y. His purpose for Walking the Earth was being left alone after his village was destroyed until he avenged it. His Walking Shirtless Scene is practically an exaggeration between the usual distinctions of a lightly-armored Rōnin versus a fully-armored Samurai.
  • Samurai Ponytail: Practically an Exaggerated Trope - a ponytail so long it goes to around his knees is on the back of his head while the rest of his head is completely bald.
  • Spin Attack: Retains Bladestorm from Warcraft III, which hits surrounding enemies for heavy damage over time while also granting him Armor for the duration. However, the visual is subverted, rather than spinning around like his old Bladestorm, Samuro instead turns around many times and slashes everything in his sight in a blinding speed.
  • Swap Teleportation: With his Image Transmission, Samuro can swap between his images at will, although it has a lengthy cooldown unless Illusion Master is the chosen Heroic.
  • Vocal Evolution: Unlike the hilarious over-the-top Japanese accent he had in Warcraft III, Samuro instead has a more subdued, realistic accent (although it's still pretty exaggerated compared to Hanzo and Genji).
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: One has to question how the banner on his back stays in place, given that he's not wearing anything it can be attached to from the waist up.

    Valeera, Shadow of the Uncrowned 

Voiced by: Tara Platt (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/valeera_9.jpg

After her parents were killed by bandits, Valeera Sanguinar survived her rough childhood and the Scourge by stealing. She was eventually caught, but didn't go down without a fight, and her fighting prowess attracted the notice of the orc gladiator manager, Rehgar Earthfury. He handpicked and trained Valeera for his gladiator team, along with Broll Bearmantle and Bloodeye Redfist, until Bloodeye was killed by the mate of a fighter he slew. Rehgar quickly replaced Bloodeye with an amnesiac human he found, who would later be called Lo'Gosh — actually the missing king of Stormwind, Varian Wrynn. Fighting together as a team of three, Valeera formed a great friendship with Broll (who treated her like a surrogate child) and Varian. The trio eventually broke away from their lives as gladiators, restored Varian's memory and throne, and rid Stormwind of the influence of the Black Dragon broodmother, Onyxia. As a result of this, Valeera became Varian's bodyguard and adviser and swore loyalty solely to Varian and his son, Anduin, and while she is proud of her blood elven heritage, she associates herself with neither the Alliance nor the Horde.

After participating in the Battle for the Undercity and helping in the defeat of Cho'Gall, Valeera seemingly vanished with no one knowing her whereabouts. In truth, she joined The Uncrowned, a rogue organization that secretly deals with unknown threats. With the defeat of the Burning Legion and Anduin's coronation, she returned to Stormwind as Anduin's secret spy and adviser.

Valeera is a Melee Assassin based on a classic Rogue from World of Warcraft. She uses Energy instead of Mana, which has a small pool that quickly regenerates. She can also gain up to three Combo Points, which are earned whenever one of her abilities hits an enemy hero and last for a few seconds, extended each time she attacks something. Valeera's trait is Vanish, which can be activated to grant her Stealth, increase her movement speed, make her Unrevealable for one second, allow her to pass through units, and give her a new ability set.

  • While in Vanish, Valeera gains a set of powerful openers that break her Stealth when used. Ambush instantly deals a large amount of damage to a target and lowers their Armor; Cheap Shot briefly stuns her target and then blinds them for a lengthy duration; and Garrote deals moderate damage and additional damage over time as well as silences her target. If Valeera remains in Vanish for 3 seconds, her stealth abilities gain heavily increased range, allowing her to teleport behind the target when used.
  • Out of stealth, her first basic ability is Sinister Strike, a short damaging dash that ends early if she hits a hero, lowering the cooldown to one second. Blade Flurry deals damage to all enemies around Valeera. Her final basic ability is Eviscerate, which consumes all of her Combo Points to slice a target, dealing increased damage per Combo Point spent.

Her Heroic abilities are Smoke Bomb, a cloud of smoke that keeps Valeera Unrevealable (even while attacking) and grants her armor while she remains inside; and Cloak of Shadows, briefly making her Unstoppable, clearing Damage Over Time, and granting her 75 spell armor. Neither of her heroics break Vanish.

Her current skins are Bloodfang Valeera, Demon Hunter Valeera, Vampire Slayer V, Nightslayer Valeera, and Cosmic Force Valeera.
  • Adaptational Modesty: A teensy bit. Her original depiction had her wearing what amounts to a Leotard of Power. Here, her outfit continues downward into a tabard-like design, obscuring her crotch and butt a little more.
  • Action Girl: Naturally, as a rogue, Valeera is directly engaging her enemies and is always in the middle of a fight. She is actually the first Warcraft heroine in the game who is supposed to go into melee range.
  • Alternate Universe: Valeera's Demon Hunter skin is from a universe where Valeera went through Illidan's Demon Hunter training, became Half-Demon (with Power Tattoos to control the demon), sacrificed her eyes to gain Spectral Sight (in the form of Fireball Eyeballs) and grew horns as a result; all to attain the power to protect Azeroth.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: Ambush lowers her target's Armor, giving her an effective tank-busting skill with some team focus.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: Valeera's entire kit is based around attacking enemy heroes to gain Combo Points, which allows her to deal massive damage with Eviscerate. If she keeps hitting heroes with Sinister Strike, she can chase them for a very long time, especially with Crippling Poison.
  • Anti-Magic: Like in World of Warcraft, Cloak of Shadows makes Valeera extremely resilient to magic for a moment.
  • Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better: A reference to World of Warcraft Rogues, who store up to five Combo Points.
    Valeera: Whatever you can do in five Combo Points, I can do in three.
  • Armor Is Useless: Inverted. She has a fairly revealing outfit but one of the highest base HP pools for an Assassin.
  • Ascended Extra: Her being here is a testament that Valeera has come a long way since her introduction of being at best Varian's sidekick and being mostly overshadowed by other prominent Rogues in Azerothnote . Though her appearance in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft helps her ascension.
  • Backstab: All of her in-stealth abilities teleport her behind the target, invoking this.
  • Badass Normal: Valeera isn't a god-like being, doesn't have the support of gods or other powerful beings, doesn't draw on magic and doesn't possess magical weapons or overly superior technology. She is skilled with her knives and in hand-to-hand combat, she is fast and she is sneaky and that's enough to kick ass.
  • Blood Knight: She is not as brash as she was in the past, but she still has a passion for fighting.
    Valeera: Resurrect quickly. I can't wait to kill you again.
  • BFS: Okay, not swords, but her daggers are unusually big. Even lampshaded in one of her lines.
    Valeera: Swords? No, huhu, actually, these are orc daggers. Everything they have is oversized. I mean... have you seen their shoulder pads?
  • Characterization Marches On: A somewhat interesting case. Valeera's quotes, and her tone of voice in general, are pretty different from how she acts in Hearthstone, but actually match up much better with her brash, headstrong personality from the World of Warcraft comics that she debuted in years before Hearthstone. However, some of her traits that were shown in Hearthstone were carried over. While she is still brash, she is not as snappy and prone to outbursts of anger anymore.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Comes with being a Rogue. Rogues are mostly about sneaky underhanded tactics and knocking their opponents black before unleashing a hail of bladed assaults. Stealth, poisons and backstabbing included.
  • Combos: The concept of her playstyle. Use your abilities on heroes, gain Combo Points, finish them off with Eviscerate.
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    Valeera: Don't worry, I'm both "rouge" and a Rogue. So no matter how poorly you spell, you're still covered.
    Valeera: It's not a Cheap Shot, it's completely balanced! Maybe you just need to learn to fight.
    Valeera: Yes, some Rogues are beautiful, but all Rogues are stunning.
  • Death from Above: Has a talent that is literally called this, which causes a teleporting strike from Ambush to reduce the cooldown of Vanish.
  • Devious Daggers: Her weapons are a dagger in each hand. They're pretty massive, but as she points out (and as was stated in the comic she comes from) they're orcish daggers, and everything orcs make is big.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: She deals tremendous amounts of damage and also comes with utility in the form of stuns, silences and slows, but the player has to manage her energy resources well, and while she does have a higher health pool than Assassins like Thrall and Samuro, she has limited mobility, few escape abilities when her Vanish is on cooldown and no self-sustain. She is also lacking engage tools in the form of gap closers; once she jumps onto an enemy, Valeera has to land every single Sinister Strike until the target dies or else they'll get away.
  • Evil Laugh: Well, she is a Rogue. She isn't actually evil, but she does have a rather sinister laugh.
  • Finishing Move: Eviscerate spends all of her Combo Points for a great amount of damage.
  • Flash Step: Her stealth abilities gain this once she enters Deep Shadows.
  • Fragile Speedster: Valeera hits hard, hits fast, can quickly dash forward with Sinister Strike and after using Vanish, she also moves quicker, but like all Assassin heroes, she can quickly get taken down. While her actual health pool is rather high, her poor escape and lack of survivability don't do her any favours.
  • Glass Cannon: She's fast and she deals hefty amounts of damage. She's also melee and doesn't have self-sustain nor can she do nonchalant dodges like Rogues usually can, though she is able to No-Sell abilities with Cloak of Shadows and has a surprisingly bulky health pool, comparable to that of Bruisers like Ragnaros and Alarak.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Blade Flurry is an Area of Effect ability. Not very Energy-efficient against heroes, but it does allow her to clear minions if there's no one to fight.
  • Hero Killer: Emphasized in her core design. Valeera can only gain Combo Points if her damaging skills hit enemy heroes at the cost of her waveclearing skills being mediocre.
  • Iconic Outfit:
    • One of her alternate skins is the iconic tier 2 Rogue set, the Bloodfang Armor, from World of Warcraft. It also comes with knives that look very similar to two classic daggers, the Perdition's Blade and the Corehound Tooth.
    • Valeera was given another iconic outfit with the Echoes of Alterac event: the Nightslayer Armor, also known as the tier 1 Rogue set.
  • Invisibility: Vanish and Smoke Bomb make her Unrevealable for a while, and the former also puts her in Stealth.
  • In the Hood: In most of her skins and tints, she has one, and will also compliment Valla on her own.
  • Mage Killer: Valeera can be extremely resilient to magic and can quickly do threatening high amounts of burst damage to squishy heroes, especially if they are isolated. Blizzard internally viewed her as an "Enemy Carry Disabler" kind of Assassin.
  • Mana Potion: Well, Energy potion to be exact. She can use Thistle Tea to restore 100 Energy.
  • Meaningful Name: Valeera Sanguinar, a blood elf.
  • Mechanically Unusual Class: Valeera plays like a typical Rogue from World of Warcraft with an Energy meter (the meter is also similar to the ninjas in League of Legends, also considered this trope), a Combo Point system and additional abilities while stealthed. Which works entirely differently than all the other Assassins.
  • Mythology Gag: Cold Blood was a now-removed lategame talent that increased the damage of Valeera's next Eviscerate by 100%. In World of Warcraft, Cold Blood used to increase the Critical Hit chance of the Rogue's next offensive ability by 100%, often used together as a Finishing Move with Eviscerate, and a Rogue's Critical Hits did 100% additional damage. Activating Cold Blood also made Valeera emit a glowing aura around her hands, much like in World of Warcraft.
  • No-Sell: Her heroic, Cloak of Shadows, shrugs off most of the ability damage she receives and makes her Unstoppable for a second. The first time the ability was showcased, it actually showed Valeera casually ignoring a charging Anub'arak, who attempted to stun her. Smoke Bomb also effectively makes her immune to auto attacks and targeted abilities while she is in the cloud.
  • Older Than They Look: Referenced in one of her quotes. She doesn't like to be called a kid. Although admittedly, she really is young. For an elf, that is.
  • Poisoned Weapons: Typical for a rogue, Valeera can upgrade her attacks with poisons in the form of talents, which can slow her enemies or inflict a debuff that will reduce the amount of healing received.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Carried over from Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.
    Valeera: Watch. Your. Back.
    Valeera: Here. We. Go!
  • Red Is Heroic: Her loyalties are personal, but she will always oppose demons, the Scourge, and all who betray and hurt her friends and her people. And when she is in a team with one of them, she makes it clear that it is Teeth-Clenched Teamwork.
  • Red Is Violent: Sinister Strike, Eviscerate, Ambush, Garrote and a lot of her talents certainly sound very brutal and violent.
  • Retcon: Valeera asks if Cho'Gall remembers that the blades that stabbed him were her blades, implying that she beat the crap out of him in the comics. In the original comic, Valeera actually didn't do it alone, but has support from (or actually supporting) Medivh's son Med'an. Due to overwhelmingly negative reception about Med'an, he was phased out from the storyline and Valeera is given the whole credit.
  • Rouge Angles of Satin: Referenced directly by one of her poke quotes:
    Valeera: Don't worry, I'm both rouge and a rogue. So no matter how poorly you spell, you're still covered.
  • Skill Gate Character: While she's less overspecialized for pub-stomping than the likes of Nova since she can at least disrupt with Cheap Shot and Garrote, Valeera is nonetheless much harder to play against a coordinated team than an uncoordinated one. Her kit is entirely specialized around single-target burst from stealth and her lack of escape tools means she has to either avoid a fight or commit hard with no in-between, making her great at picking off pubbers that stray out of position but also easy to punish if she tries to Leeroy Jenkins into an organized group.
  • Smoke Out: Her first heroic ability, Smoke Bomb, makes her Unrevealable and tougher to kill.
  • Spam Attack: Sinister Strike is this, provided you are able to keep hitting heroes with it and have enough Energy.
  • Stealth Expert: Obviously, thanks to her trait, Vanish.
    Valeera: Stealth is my middle name. Valeera "Stealth" Sanguinar. Thank the stars I didn't become a merchant or something!
  • Tactical Withdrawal: Since Valeera can instantly go into Stealth, Vanish is a simple way for her to disengage. It's more effective when it's used together with one of her heroics.
  • Temporary Blindness: Inflicted by Cheap Shot.
  • True Companions: With Varian.
  • Visible Invisibility: She is still visible for the trained eye one second later after using Vanish, appearing as a faded silhouette.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Being seen. Valeera has no gap-closer if she gets knocked out of Vanish, so anyone that spots her coming and fires off a spell in her direction will leave her unable to engage for several seconds.

Ranged Assassins

    Chromie, Keeper of Time 

Voiced by: Karen Strassman (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chromie_hots.jpg

Chromie (aka Chronormu) is a bronze dragon, tasked with maintaining and restoring Azeroth's timeline. Disguised as a gnome, Chromie would ask adventurers in World of Warcraft to help her maintaining the timeline and was eventually sent by the bronze dragonflight to investigate the Nexus.

Chromie is a powerful Ranged Assassin focusing on burst damage; her abilities take a few seconds to charge up, but deal massive damage if they connect. Her trait is Timewalker, which grants her access to Talents two levels before other charactersnote . Her first ability is Sand Blast, a long-range skillshot that damages the first enemy it hits and leaves behind a Time Echo that Basic Attacks enemies and casts the next Sand Blast alongside Chromie at reduced damage. Dragon's Breath is a ranged area of effect that strikes three times in a line, with no indication to enemies where it's going to land. Time Trap is an invisible ward placed on the ground that arms after two seconds. Once armed, Chromie can activate her trait key to trap all enemies and allies in the area in Time Stop, making them invulnerable but unable to act.

Her Heroic abilities are Slowing Sands, an area-of-effect debuff with no maximum duration that drains her mana while active and slows enemies within it, with the slow amount increasing as enemies remain inside; and Temporal Loop, which causes an enemy hero to teleport, after three seconds, to where they were when you cast it on them, and also increases Chromie's cooldown speed while it counts down.

Her current skins are Timewalker Chromie, Fel Queen Chromie, Dream Genie Chromie, Creepie Chromie, and Techno Vandal Chromie.


  • Apologetic Attacker: A number of her quotes for attacking or killing an enemy involve apologies.
    Chromie: Umm... Sorry about this!
    Chromie: If it's any consolation, you'll be alive again soon.
  • Ascended Extra: Was a one-note questgiver in Vanilla World of Warcraft but proved popular enough to reappear in Wrath of The Lich King, from which point she proceeded to have minor roles in every expansion. And now she's here.
  • Black Mage: Chromie is all about unleashing high damage nukes to blast the hell out of the enemy team. While her Time Trap and heroics do have defensive applications, they're secondary to her sheer damage output.
  • Costumes Change Your Size: Chromie's true form is a massive dragon that makes even the tauren look small in comparison. Her disguise as a gnome makes her one of the tiniest Heroes in the game.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: It's not that she's a ditz, exactly, but unlike other bronze dragons she has a bad habit of looking into the future or other timelines to the exclusion of what's happening in the present moment, making her seem spacy.
  • Crutch Character: She gains her talents two full levels ahead of anyone else. This gives her a brief power spike with her talent advantage, which she needs to use to deal as much damage as possible before being brought back into line, as she otherwise has only three basic abilities compared to other heroes' four. That being said, Chromie can be dangerous even without the talent advantage due to her sheer nuking power.
  • Decoy Getaway: One of Chromie's talents allows her to swap places with her Time Echo, essentially acting as a spammable version of Gul'dan's Demonic Circle talent.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Her spells are hard to aim, what with their delayed fire requiring you to be good at Lead the Target and their area of effect relatively small. But they seriously hurt, and getting caught in a good Chromie's sights is not good for your health.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Her primary skills utilize sand, presumably the sands of time.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: The key to play Chromie, a dragon who is guarding time itself, is to correctly predict where her target will be.
  • Gender-Blender Name: As with her source, Chromie is a confirmed female dragon, but her true name uses the male suffix rules for Warcraft's bronze dragons (Ormu/Mu/Os, females use Mi).
    Chromie: Everyone calls me "Chromie", but my real name is "Chronormu". Hmm? No, it is not a male name. You clearly don't understand the intricacies of dragon culture.
  • Glass Cannon: Chromie's spells can tear through most enemies in a matter of seconds, but if one of them so much as looks at her funny the inverse is just as quickly proven true.
  • The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Not normally, but she has this reaction when Alexstrasza calls her by name. Considering Alexstrasza is the Queen of all dragons, it's not hard to see why.
  • Lead the Target: All of Chromie's spells aside from her Heroics have a windup time. Playing Chromie correctly requires you to accurately predict where enemies will be in a few moments so your insane burst will properly connect.
  • Long-Range Fighter: Chromie is the longest-ranged mage in the game, and can safely throw out a barrage of sand from the backlines. However, she has very few tools for dealing with attackers that get close to her or force her out of position.
  • Mucking in the Mud: Slowing Sands heroic creates a sandstorm that slows any enemy caught in it. It has no fixed duration (only limited by your mana pool) and has a short cooldown, making it easy for her to chase down escapees or hit her targets.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Chromie, like all bronze dragons, is a guardian of time itself. It is their titan-given charge to ensure that time stays consistent. So when Chromie decides it isn't all that bad to have the Nexus' time remain broken you know the alternative is far worse.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: As a gnome, she's tiny, but her spells hit like a truck.
  • Powerful, but Inaccurate: Her nukes have short cooldowns and massive damage. The catch? They're relatively slow to cast, giving her opponents a chance to move out of the blast range.
  • Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Unlike everyone else in the Nexus, Chromie, because she's a bronze dragon, notices that the matches in The Nexus happens over and over with seemingly no lasting effect. Everyone else forgets that any matches ever take place.
    Chromie: Time flows less like a stream and more like a vortex in this place. Everything repeats over and over again, and yet no one notices but you and me?
  • So Long, Suckers!: She had a talent that cut down her Hearthstone to 1.5 seconds, and made it uninterruptible by damage. It was removed in her third rework for being excessively annoying.
  • Spam Attack: You'd think that her easily thousand damage nukes would have a long cooldown. You would be wrong. Even untalented, her Sand Blast has a 3 second cooldown.
  • Teleport Interdiction: Temporal Loop is primarily used on enemies who are trying to flee, as they will be brought back to the the designated area after up to 3 seconds no matter how far they've gone.
  • Time Master: As a member of the Bronze Dragonflight, she is this by nature.
  • Twofer Token Minority: Kind of. She is the first dragon that was added to the game, but she also counts as a gnome, as that is the appearance she chose.
  • Unskilled, but Strong: Even more so than most mages, her damage is outright absurd, and consists of beyond-visual-range nukes. However, the flipside is true too in that she lacks just about any other functionality. Where Jaina's basic skills include the ability to Slow anyone she hits, and Kael'thas can land stuns with Gravity Lapse, and Li-Ming can Teleport Spam with impunity, Chromie only does damage; aside from Slowing Sands, her only way of protecting herself is to Batman Gambit her foes into an already-placed Time Trap (and to detonate it correctly, since you must do so manually now). It's this, more than anything else, that made high-level players uninterested in learning her.
  • Unstuck in Time: Played for laughs in one of her Stop Poking Me! quotes, where she interrupts herself to congratulate an adventurer for completing one of her quests.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Chromie very nearly obliterates the Fourth Wall in one of her Stop Poking Me! quotes where she notices how everything seems to be on repeat; buildings rebuild themselves, everybody says the same quotes over and over, and none of the battles seem to have any meaning. However, she concludes it's because she's stuck in a time loop.
  • You Are Already Dead: Temporal Loop takes all the random guesswork out of her moveset and lets her land one series of nukes with no preamble. Given how ridiculous her damage is, this is a death sentence for any remotely damaged hero.
  • You Will Not Evade Me: Temporal Loop is basically Kunkka's X Marks The Spot, which can be used as either this or sending the enemy away.

    Falstad, Wildhammer Thane 

Voiced by: Michael Sorich (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/falstad_hots.jpg

A dwarf of the Wildhammer clan of Aerie Peak, Falstad aided future Kirin Tor archmage Rhonin in the events of the Day of the Dragon, a conflict wherein Rhonin, Vereesa Windrunner and Falstad and his dwarven scouts fought against the remnants of the Dragonmaw clan and helped free Alexstrasza from their grasp. Following the closing of the Dark Portal, he assumed control of the Wildhammer clan, as it was believed his superior, Kurdran Wildhammer, had been killed in action (not Falstad himself, as certain people can attest and despite what some others might tell you). Since the events of The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm, he has served as the Wildhammer representative on the Council of Three Hammers, the governing body of the dwarven city of Ironforge. Falstad's gryphon mount, Swiftwing, is said to be one of the mightiest gryphons in the Wildhammer's retinue.

Falstad is a Ranged Assassin who can fill most damage roles. His Tailwind trait allows him to move faster if he hasn't taken any damage for a while. His basic abilities include Hammerang, throwing an electric hammer that boomerangs back to him and slows down all enemies hit, which he can reactivate mid-flight to detonate; Lightning Rod, which targets an enemy and barrages them with lighting strikes as long as they remain in range; and Barrel Roll, a short dash that lets him pass over terrain and grants him a shield.

His first Heroic is Mighty Gust, a strong gust of wind that pushes enemies in a huge area in front of Falstad far away and slows them. His second choice, Hinterland Blast, is a long-ranged lightning bolt that deals massive damage in a straight line after a channel. Each enemy hero hit reduces the cooldown.

Instead of mounting, Falstad can use Flight to fly to a target location after a wind-up, potentially very far away.

His current skins are Gryphon Master Falstad, Storm Lord Falstad, and Buccaneer Falstad.


  • Acrophobic Bird: Despite riding a flying mount, Falstad isn't treated any differently than other heroes. People can still hit him with melee weapons, he can't go over obstacles, he can be rooted by things like Entangling Roots, and he can even be pushed around by the conveyors on Volskaya Foundry.
  • Bash Brothers: With Muradin. They're both jovial and boisterous in their meeting quotes at the start of a match. They also playfully rib each other in their kill quotes, Falstad facetiously asking whether Muradin learned to duck.
  • Blow You Away: Mighty Gust casts a huge Knock Back in a specified direction. It can be used to either help his team disengage, to pin the enemy team in place for punishment, or — if you're brave — to toss the enemy team directly into Falstad's allies and/or buildings. Exaggerated when you take the Lv.20 enhancement, Wind Tunnel, which makes it blow continuously for four seconds — the same length as ETC's vaunted Mosh Pit, but ranged.
  • Boomerang Comeback: His Hammerang special gives extra damage when hitting enemies on the way back.
  • Brave Scot: Just what you'd expect from a dwarf, right down to addressing the player as "laddie".
  • Dynamic Entry: Flying to a location has this feel, although the only effect is to move Falstad to the area.
  • Fragile Speedster: High base mobility, his trait lets him move even faster as long as he's not taking damage, and instead of mounting he can fly to distant locations very quickly. Unfortunately, has very low survivability.
  • Glass Cannon: His damage output is amazing, and his abilities hit hard and offer great utility, but he has very low survivability. He can melt an entire team if ignored, but if focused he'll go down quickly.
  • Jack of All Stats:
    • In terms of Assassin roles. Falstad has decent spell and Basic Attack damage out the gate, but nothing to write home about. He also serves as a solid ganker or good waveclear hero with his flexible high mobility. His purpose on the team can be further solidified with talent choices, making him either a very strong mage or very strong physical assassin.
    • Falstad can also multiclass into the offlane role, as he has two of the hallmarks of a Bruiser — the ability to deal with minions quickly, and his Barrel Roll dash — and can gain the third — Regenerating Health — with a Talent at Lv.4. Add to this his ability to rapidly go from one end of the map to the other, provide strong crowd control with Mighty Gust, and actually do damage, and you have an incredibly potent nightmare of a character in the right hands.
  • Magic Knight: As mentioned, combines his hammer with various lightning-based powers, and quite dependent on his mana pool. His damage is kept in check by the high mana costs and long cooldowns on his basic abilities.
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: The Wildhammer clan members are the "wild" variety of dwarf with red hair and Facial Markings. They also have shamanic powers.
  • Precision-Guided Boomerang: Hammerang throws him hammer in a straight line, which boomerangs back to him after it reaches its apex regardless of were Falstad moved to since then.
  • Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Quoted in his Stop Poking Me! quotes and referenced numerous times otherwise.
    Falstad's bio: Despite wild speculation, Falstad has never been dead and anyone who claims such is a liar.
  • The Rival: To Thrall, since they're both hammer-users with lightning powers.
    Falstad: [after killing Thrall] Stormhammer: 1, Doomhammer: 0!
  • Shock and Awe: His attacks are infused with lightning and Hinterland Blast was even literally called Shock and Awe once.
  • Spam Attack: Hinterland Blast's cooldown is reduced for every enemy hero hit, allowing Falstad to immediately use it again if he can hit 5 heroes with it.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: He can toss his hammer at enemies as an infinite ammo variation for his basic attack, or use it as a Precision-Guided Boomerang for one of his special abilities.
  • Thunder Hammer: His Stormhammer, a lightning-infused weapon of the Wildhammer dwarves and the source of all of his lightning abilities.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: One of his heroic abilities launches a long-range blast of lightning.
  • Wind from Beneath My Wings: His other heroic causes his griffon Swiftwing to blast away enemies with a strong flap of his wings.

    Greymane, Lord of the Worgen 

Voiced by: Cameron Folmar (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/greymane_hots.jpg

Genn Greymane is the king of Gilneas, an Industrial Revolution-era Britain-like kingdom that once was part of the Alliance. Following the Second War, Genn left the Alliance and built a massive wall to isolate Gilneas from the rest of the world. Years later when the Scourge tore Azeroth apart, Genn called upon Archmage Arugal to help drive them back. His solution was summoning the worgen, feral wolf-men that couldn't be controlled and turned on Gilneas. Many Gilneans, including Genn, were cursed by the creatures, transformed into worgen themselves. Following the Cataclysm, the Forsaken attacked Gilneas. Thanks to the assistance of the night elves, Genn discovered a way to control his peoples' worgen form. Repaying for their aid, Gilneas rejoined the Alliance to fight back against the Horde.

Greymane is classified as a Ranged Assassin, and wields a pistol in addition to a sword in his off-hand. However, his trait, Curse of the Worgen, allows him to switch into Worgen form under certain conditions, during which he attacks with teeth and claws, hits 40% harder, and has 10 Armor to protect him. In Human form, Greymane can throw a Gilnean Cocktail which explodes on contact with an enemy, dealing light damage and greater damage to enemies behind them. In Worgen form, this is instead a Razor Swipe that lunges him forward and damages all enemies in front of him. In both forms, Inner Beast boosts Greymane's attack speed temporarily. Each time Greymane attacks, the duration is refreshed and its cooldown is reduced. Darkflight is the crux of Greymane's gimmick; it allows him to shift into Worgen form and lunge at an enemy, dealing damage and taking the fight to them in melee range. Darkflight is replaced with Disengage in Worgen form, allowing Greymane to roll away while shifting back into a Human.

Greymane's first heroic is Go for the Throat. Greymane shifts into Worgen form, becoming Unstoppable and pouncing on an enemy for significant damage. If it results in a kill, he has a short window to cast the skill again for free. His second heroic is Cursed Bullet, which lets Greymane shift into Human form and fire a bullet in a straight line, damaging the first enemy hero hit by the bullet for a percentage of their remaining health.

His current skins are Hunter Greymane, Ringmaster Greymane, Doctor Wolf & Stein, and Watchdog Greymane.


  • Alpha Strike: Because it's a Heroic that deals proportionate damage to the enemy hero's current health, Cursed Bullet is meant to be used at the start of a teamfight, preferably on a Tank or a Bruiser hero.
  • Absurdly Sharp Claws: In Worgen form, Greymane rips his enemies apart with his claws.
  • The Artifact: Greymane's default skin gives him a black coat in Worgen form, as it was released before Legion updated him with his now-signature white-gray fur and unique model.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: Greymane is very good at attacking the enemy, and pretty bad at escaping them if they decide to turn the tables on him. While in Human form, the best he can hope for is using Darkflight against an enemy that will still happen to put him in a safer place than he is now, and Worgen form inherently requires you to, well, jump and attack something to even go into it, though it can allow him to dash away with Disengage...five seconds after he went into Worgen form in the first place, since the cooldown of Disengage is shared with Darkflight.
  • The Atoner: He was a close friend to Terenas Menethil and felt bad that he wasn't there when Arthas murdered his father (and he wasn't even present in Arthas' ultimate defeat in Wrath of the Lich King), and the last time he spoke with Terenas, he was practically ragequitting from the Alliance and never wanted to speak with Terenas again. Thus if he kills Arthas, he considers it an atonement for... well, practically everything.
  • Bayonet Ya: His flintlock has a bayonet, though he never actually uses that part of his flintlock, instead using his sword to fight at melee range while in Human form.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Playing Greymane effectively requires you to not charge head first into fighting a enemy hero. Attacking from the bushes as a worgen, attacking a fleeing enemy hero, and retreating when things get bad are some of the best ways to play Greymane.
  • Cooldown Manipulation: Inner Beast's cooldown is reduced by half a second every time he lands a basic attack with it active. Normally that would seem counter-productive, but Inner Beast's cooldown doesn't tick while it's active. That means the cooldown is related to how aggressive Greymane is when he pops it, possibly even refreshing it entirely.
  • Crippling Overspecialization:
    • Both his forms have this as a weakness. In his Human form Greymane is a ranged assassin who can fight safely from a distance but suffers when fighting more than one enemy. In his Worgen form he becomes a melee assassin who can relentlessly attack an enemy hero, but loses the safety of distance. Deciding when to use either form is necessary for fighting.
    • A more straightforward example is team fights. Greymane is pretty good in one v. one fights but in a group his inability to heal, lack of escape option in Human form, and lack of ranged weapon in Worgen form means it's that much easier for a Greymane player to be caught in the wrong form.
    • On another note, Greymane is all damage. He lacks any form of crowd control or sustain, meaning he has to overwhelm his opponents with raw damage alone if he is to prevail.
  • Deadly Lunge: His Darkflight makes him transform into his Worgen form to lunge at an enemy and Go For The Throat can also be applied in a similar fashion.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: While Greymane was released before Varian, he still qualifies as a "Multi-Class" Hero. No matter how you want to define the different kinds of Assassins — Close-Range Combatant vs Long-Range Fighter; Diver vs Sustained Auto-Attack vs Burst Mage; "Has a Flash Step" vs "Doesn't have one" — Greymane occupies the entire spectrum. He also has no healing abilities or crowd control. That said, his participation in every playstyle there isnote  gives him an edge in Confusion Fu. He also fits into any team comp whatsoever, because no matter what kind of damage his allies need, he can provide it.
  • Dodge the Bullet: Despite not being a skillshot, Go for the Throat can actually be dodged by an instant relocation ability.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: Greymane is a normal human... who can turn into a fierce worgen. Other than that he fights using weapons and in Worgen form his claws. He's one of the most normal fighters in the game as a result.
  • Exactly What I Aimed At: Gilnean Cocktail is a skillshot that deals minimal damage to the enemy it hits, but splashes for major damage in an area behind them. Savvy Greymane players can therefore use the ability to poke at enemy heroes by aiming it at a minion in front, or even pick off fleeing enemies by throwing it at a wall.
  • Finishing Move: Go for the Throat is meant as this, granting another free use of it if Greymane lands a kill.
  • Glass Cannon: Emphasis on the "Cannon" portion. Due to having no healing abilities/talents, Greymane is a fragile character. However, he's relatively durable, having extremely high health for a ranged assassin, and taking reduced damage in Worgen form. It should also be pointed out that when he is a worgen and has Inner Beast going, he also has one of the highest base attack DPS outputs of the game, along with an impressive burst damage finishing combo.
  • Grievous Bottley Harm: His Gilnean Cocktail will have him throw a flammable cocktail that will shatter on the first enemy it hits, then it deals conal damage to any enemies behind the first target.
  • Hammerspace:
    Greymane (Worgen): Don't ask where the sword goes when I transform. Just don't.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack:
    • Gilnean Cocktail in Human form and Razor Swipe in Worgen form hit multiple enemies.
    • Greymane has two Storm talents that will make his Basic Attacks in either Human or Worgen form splash.
  • Hit-and-Run Tactics: Greymane is best played by gunning at enemies in human form to deal damage and maintain Innner Beast while it ramps up, then dive in and take out single targets, before falling back and repeating.
  • It's Personal: With Sylvanas. She killed his son and ruined his country last time we saw it.
  • Jack of All Stats: Most Assassins in Heroes fit into one of three categories: shooty Glass Cannons who apply Death of a Thousand Cuts from afar; Squishy Wizards whose damage is linked to their buttons and thus comes in waves; and melee-range Lightning Bruisers who can dive in but have trouble getting out again. Greymane is the only character in the game who has access to all three styles: his Talents let him prop up his Basic Attacks (via Inner Beast talents) or his burst (via Cursed Bullet or Gilnean Cocktail), and Worgen form is always available for up-close-and-personal work. It also enhances his value as a duelist: kills are most easily secured by using one form of damage to jeopardize the target and a second form to land the finishing blow. Greymane can solo the whole process.
  • Large Ham: Just about anything he says is declared at the top of his voice with a lot of emphasis.
  • Lightning Bruiser: On the Prowl is a talent that gives Greymane mount speed when Inner Beast is active, allowing him to constantly harass an enemy with Basic Attacks with great mobility.
  • Magic Pants: Turning into a worgen rips apart a good deal of his outfit, which all inexplicably reappears when he changes back.
  • Marked Bullet: Cursed Bullet is a skillshot that inflicts any enemy hero hit by the bullet damage on enemy heroes hit by the bullet based on a percentage of their maximum health.
  • Meaningful Name: Played with. In Warcraft, this was actually averted, as Greymane was his name before worgen even existed in the lore. However, he's almost exclusively referred to as "Genn" or "Genn Greymane". The choice to use his surname as his main name in Heroes of the Storm is obviously meant to play up the worgen aspect.
  • Molotov Cocktail: His first ability as human throws a volatile booze that explodes and causes area damage.
  • Mythology Gag: One of his poke lines has him asking if "those Defias fellows" would be willing to rebuild Gilneas once it is retaken. They most probably would not.Explanation 
  • Not the Intended Use:
    • Go for the Throat makes Greymane Unstoppable during the attack, which can be utilised to No-Sell crowd control effects before they can hit him.
    • Darkflight and Disengage share a cooldown, which is a deliberate limitation, so Greymane cannot hit enemies for long in the stronger Worgen form or use his full kit. However, both his heroics allow him to change his form immediately. He can thus for instance pounce on an enemy after using Darkflight, and once they gain a distance, Disengage forward and use Go for the Throat to keep attacking in Worgen form.
  • Ornamental Weapon: He actually has two flintlocks, but he only ever uses one. Similarly, the bayonet on his flintlock is never used - while he's up close to a target in Human form, he'll slash them with his sword but never stab with his bayonet.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: Worgen are werewolves in all but name. They aren't like normal werewolves though as the worgen of Gilneas have their intelligence intact.
  • Pungeon Master: He's got quite a few puns of varying quality in his poke quotes.
    Greymane (human): This gun is a product of Gilnean industry. It is of the highest caliber.
    Greymane (Worgen): When Gilnean dock workers go on strike... it can be hard to keep the wolves at bay.
  • Spam Attack: Gilnean Roulette is the Level 20 Upgrade Talent for Cursed Bullet, which weakens the Heroic's Percent Damage Attack slightly (from 35% to 30% of an enemy hero's current health), but in exchange, it reduces the Heroic's cooldown to 6 seconds.
  • Splash Damage Abuse: Gilnean Cocktail fulfills multiple types. The first enemy hit takes next to no damage, the intended targets are the ones behind the initial target. Enemies who think they are safe behind their frontline, a minion wave or a structure will quickly learn, that they are anything but.
  • Stance System: He can choose to be a ranged hero in Human form or a melee fighter in Worgen form. That said, there's a minor limitation in that he can only switch between them every five seconds (which is the cooldown on his E) and he needs a target for Darkflight.
  • Sword and Gun: He uses a backsword and a pistol while in Human form. He'll normally shoot with the flintlock pistol, but switch to slashing with his sword if his target is close enough to him.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: His main gimmick is shifting between his Human and Worgen form.

    Gul'dan, Darkness Incarnate 

Voiced by: Troy Baker (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guldan_7.jpg

The orcish warlock of the Stormreaver Clan and possibly the most evil being on Azeroth, dubbing himself 'Darkness Incarnate'. Gul'dan is driven by nothing but personal gain and power. He was the first orc to abandon the shamanistic way and serve Kil'jaeden of the Burning Legion, becoming the first warlock, and he was responsible for the corruption of orcs by having them drink Mannoroth's blood. Nevertheless, he became a prominent member of the Old Horde and brought forth many of its advancement such as the dark magic of ogre magi and death knights. Despite his promises to the Legion, Gul'dan's greed was his undoing; during a pivotal invasion by the Horde, Gul'dan took his Stormreavers and Twilight's Hammer to the Broken Shore to locate the Eye of Sargeras and attain godlike powers. When he opened the Tomb of Sargeras, he was instead torn to shreds by the demons that resided inside.

Gul'dan is a Ranged Assassin hero with significant sustained damage potential. While he uses mana as a resource, Gul'dan does not possess innate mana regeneration; instead, he can activate his trait Life Tap to gain mana at the cost of health. Fel Flame is a low-cooldown wave of fire that damages all enemies it hits. Drain Life has Gul'dan channel to siphon health away from a target enemy and replenish his own, allowing him to maintain his assault. Corruption creates three blasts in a line that apply a large Damage Over Time, with each one that an enemy is hit by stacking the damage even higher.

His Heroic abilities are Rain of Destruction, which bombards a large area with randomly-falling demonic meteors after a short cast; and Horrify, which causes enemy heroes around a targeted point to run away uncontrollably for two seconds.

His current skins are Shadow Council Gul'dan, Balespider Gul'dan, and Dark Nexus Gul'dan.


  • And That's Terrible: Played for Laughs. Yes, Gul'dan still prides himself as the most evil being in Azeroth, the Darkness Incarnate—Hold up, did Darkness just sue him for trademark infringement? Now that's evil...
  • The Archmage: Lore-wise, he's considered the most powerful mortal Warlock to have ever lived.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Rain of Destruction heroic launches multiple high-damage meteorites that can devastate even enemy bases in very short order, and can be further talented to massively slow any enemy caught in the impact. The problem is that while it has relatively long range and covers a large area, the meteors fall on random spots enough to become relatively unreliable as a teamfight spell, and it has to be channeled for 1.5 seconds to begin casting.
  • Badass Boast: His response when Medivh declares that he will not let Gul'dan destroy the Nexus.
    Gul'dan: "Destroy" it? (Evil Laugh) Pitiful fool! This realm holds more power than I've ever dreamed of! And it will be mine. For I know the truth: In the end, everything will burn!
  • Bad Powers, Bad People: His entire magic is fel-based, which is a very chaotic, destructive and addictive form of magic, that caused Gul'dan to rapidly age and grow spikes out of his back.
  • Blood Knight: As with any orcs, although a bit more subtle. Also doubles as a Badass Boast.
    Gul'dan: I hope you would bring more than just words in this battle, Guardian...
  • Cast from Hit Points: His trait "Life Tap" allows him to quickly restore mana by spending a part of his health. This is because Gul'dan is unable to restore mana by default.
  • Casting a Shadow: Representing a full-on Warlock (instead of Gall who's a Warlock stuck in a mostly-Warrior Cho), Gul'dan comes with dark magic.
  • Dark Is Evil: They don't call him one of the evilest souls in Azeroth for nothing.
  • Deal with the Devil: One of Gul'dan's talents raises his maximum health by 25% at the cost of putting a fixed 15 second increase on his death timer. The talent's even called Dark Bargain.
  • Death from Above: His Rain of Destruction Heroic, which showers a large area with demonic meteors.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: The mage equivalent of this trope. Compared to other mage assassins Gul'dan does comparatively little burst damage. Instead he goes for high sustained damage, throwing a withering tide of fel fire and darkness at enemies. The only time it stops is when he pauses to suck the life out of some poor schmuck.
  • Disappointed in You: He will express pity and disappointment towards his former disciple, Cho'gall, or Arthas, should he get a takedown against either of them.
    Gul'dan: (to Cho'gall) Ever the student, never the master.
    Gul'dan: (to Arthas) Look at what you've become. Twisted beyond recognition. Explanation 
  • Giver of Lame Names:
    • He named his secret council that controlled the Old Horde from the shadows... The Shadow Council.
      Gul'dan: Shut up! Naming things is hard!
    • He also has something to say about the Hand of Gul'dan, a volcano in Shadowmoon Valley.
      Gul'dan: The Hand of Gul'dan is a monument of fire and fury, a symbol of the Horde's eternal allegiance to the Fel! (Beat) And it is also the name of a spell. What did I say about naming things?!
  • Glass Cannon: Gul'dan stands out even among Assassins for this trope, since his damage output is entirely dependent on the mana he gets from draining his own health with Life Tap. As such, he really cannot afford to get focused down, especially if the enemy also has a way to interrupt Drain Life.
  • Heal Thyself: To offset his dependence on Life Tap, Gul'dan has a number of powerful self-healing talents in addition to Drain Life, such as Consume Soul (instantly kills an enemy minion and restores HP) and Healthstone (instantly restores 30% HP).
  • In the Hood: For his standard and Balespider skins. His Shadow Council skin has him ditch it.
  • Life Drain: Drain Life, which absorbs health from a target enemy over time and gives it to Gul'dan. Very useful for fueling Life Tap.
  • Mechanically Unusual Class: Unlike other heroes in the game with mana, Gul'dan has no mana regeneration. His main source of mana is Life Tap, which effectively means that his main resource is his own health.
  • Meteor-Summoning Attack: Rain of Destruction, which calls down fel-infused meteors similar to the opening to Reign of Chaos.
  • Never My Fault: One of his "Assist Me" quotes lampshades this. This is especially amusing considering that he can basically kill himself spamming his spells.
    Gul'Dan: If I die, you will be to blame!
  • Odd Friendship: Is impressed enough by Murky that he offers him demon blood.
  • Playing with Fire: Fel fire, but it still counts.
  • Power at a Price: A common motif that he has, all of his skills and some of his talents have varying drawbacks. Heck, he even has to sacrifice HP just to restore mana.
  • Spam Attack: Fel Flame's mere 1.5 second cooldown, combined with Gul'dan's ability to get mana on demand with Life Tap, means that he can lay down a lot of sustained damage for as long as his health and mana hold out.
  • Squishy Wizard: Potentially even more so than Jaina, Kael'thas and Li-Ming. Gul'dan has to sacrifice health to regenerate mana and unlike them, he has no crowd control (except Horrify) or escape abilities (aside from the Demonic Circle talent at level 20). If he's caught in a bad position, he's probably dead. This can be subverted by his multitude of self-healing options. He may have the health pool of a typical Squishy Wizard, but he can regain health rapidly and take more punishment than you'd expect. Try to keep your big bursts when going against him or interrupt his life drain with a stun to the face.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Gul'dan doesn't seem to enjoy the idea of working with someone so attuned to the Light as Auriel, sarcastically calling the whole thing "whimsical".
  • Technicolor Death: His Dark Nexus skins show that when he dies only his core remains.
  • Supernatural Fear Inducer: His Horrify heroic sends enemy heroes running from its centre uncontrollably.
  • You Will Not Evade Me: Tactical use of Horrify can send the enemy running back to your team, qualifying for this trope.

    Jaina, Archmage 

Voiced by: Laura Bailey (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jaina_hots.jpg

A young human prodigy, Jaina Proudmoore was a noble from Kul Tiras who went to study magic with the Kirin Tor in Dalaran. Jaina's abilities as a mage excelled and she became one of the youngest but most skilled mages in the land. During the beginning years of the Third War, Jaina aided Prince Arthas in investigating the plague of undeath in its initial stages, but later left him when Arthas decided to purge Stratholme. She then heeded the words of Medivh and took her forces to Kalimdor, where she arranged an uneasy alliance with the orcish Horde and eventually the night elves against the Burning Legion. She and her people then settled on Theramore Isle, building a new kingdom and a new peace with the orcs. When Garrosh Hellscream took control of the Horde, Theramore was destroyed by a mana bomb, leading to Jaina turning against the Horde completely and becoming the new leader of the Kirin Tor after Rhonin's death.

Jaina is a Frost Mage-based Ranged Assassin, who represents the Archmage hero unit from Warcraft III. Jaina's trait, Frostbite, makes her abilities apply a Chill effect on enemies, slowing them and improving the damage of her other abilities by 50% for a short period of time. In addition, she will be able to use her Improved Ice Block ability once she has dealt enough damage to Chilled heroes, which puts her in Stasis for a short time and applies Chill to nearby enemies when it expires. Her basic abilities include the classic Frostbolt, a single-target skillshot, Blizzard, three showers of icicles in a targeted area, and Cone of Cold, a short-range blast of cold wind.

Her Heroic abilities are Ring of Frost, which summons a ring-shaped rune that freezes enemies in place and applies Chill to all who are either hit or walk through the ring; and Summon Water Elemental, which summons a Water Elemental Jaina can control. Its attacks apply Chill.

Her current skins are Arcanist Jaina, Tempest Regalia Jaina, Lunar Jaina, Winter Veil Jaina, Theramore Jaina, and Dreadlord Jaina.


  • The Archmage: She was always an archmage, even back in WarCraft III.
  • The Artifact: When Improved Ice Block was added to the game, it was a stronger version of a talent called Ice Block that appeared on lots of different mages. Over time, Ice Block was phased out or replaced with more lore-friendly versions so that now the only hero with the talent still is Nazeebo. This makes the name seem a bit out of place. Additionally, it's not strictly an "improved" Ice Block anymore, since Nazeebo's Ice Block lasts 3 seconds while Jaina's only lasts 2.5, the small Chill bonus notwithstanding.
  • Ascended Meme: Players joked that her warmongering personality post Mists of Pandaria is because she's secretly replaced by a dreadlord. And lo and behold, Blizzard gave her a dreadlord skin during the reveal of Kel'Thuzad.
  • Badass Boast: "I am not to be trifled with!"
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Jaina is someone who believes in peace, harmony and cooperation. And Garrosh was the one that destroyed all of her hopes and dreams to achieve this peace between humans and the Horde. The results of his crimes he committed against her and her people is shown in the Theramore Jaina skin.
  • Black Mage: All of her abilities are offensive.
  • Combos: All her skills cause the Chill effect, slowing the enemy and making them take 50% extra damage from her skills. Hit an enemy with her skills in quick succession to deal massive damage.
  • Composite Character: Possibly. She retains her status as ruler of Theramore and her good-natured friendship with Thrall (and consequently, the Horde) but also expresses loyalty towards the Kirin Tor despite not technically being an ongoing member of their organisation after the Third War; while she did rejoin them eventually, that was after Theramore's destruction in Tides of War, and by then her personality had taken a turn for the worst.
  • Close-Range Combatant: For a mage, her range is rather low, meaning she has to get in relatively close to the action.
  • Cynicism Catalyst: The bombing of Theramore, which turned her from a Wide-Eyed Idealist and believer in peace between the Alliance and the Horde into a steadfast advocate for the latter's destruction, as shown in the Theramore Jaina skin.
  • Dramatic Irony:
    • One of her "annoyed" quotes makes her wonder what would happen if tragedy befell on her like it did to her father when he lost his son, her brother, causing him to swear revenge and annihilation on all orcs and Hordes. She just hoped that she didn't have to face such event and doesn't know what she'd do. The more experienced players would know and hope that won't happen at least here in the Nexus, because as shown in Mists of Pandaria, such tragedy (Bombing of Theramore) would be the last straw of her peace-promoting self and turns her into the bitter Horde-hating woman shown in the Theramore Jaina Skin.
    • Despite being someone who frequently (and notoriously) cries, "I just hate resorting to violence," she's one of a relatively small number of characters who has damage-dealing skills on all three buttons and both Heroics.
  • Dude Magnet: Arthas and Kael still have feelings for her, and at least Blizzard still makes jokes about Thrall supposedly being into "gorgeous golden-tressed wizardesses".
  • Exact Words: Jaina's heroic Ring of Frost roots and damages all enemies hit by the ring for three seconds. Notable, because they need to get hit by the ring, as in "does not hit enemies in the center of the AOE". It's a Ring of Frost, not a Circle of Frost.
  • Faux Affably Evil: As Dreadlord Jaina. She's seems polite, but... she's a dreadlord.
  • Glass Cannon: Jaina is a Squishy Wizard who trades any sort of basic survival abilities for massive raw damage potential. She gets Improved Ice Block as a lifeline in the later game, but if that isn't enough to save her then she's toast.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Because this is before Theramore's destruction, Jaina is still golden-haired (not yet bleached white by the mana bomb) and retains her golden heart.
  • Horned Humanoid: Dreadlord Jaina; as such, she looks very similar to a succubus (there are no known "female Dreadlords" in the Warcraft universe, the "female demon" place being effectively taken by the Sayaad race of succubi, of which Queen of Suffering Kerrigan is an example), but given that she only retains her signature bared midriff, isn't as fanservicey as Kerrigan's rendition of a succubus.
  • Ice Magic Is Water: Jaina's Water Elemental can cause the Chill effect and slow down targets just like ice, and the Wintermute talent allows it to copy Jaina's basic abilities, which are all ice magic spells.
  • An Ice Person: True to the pun, a nice person, and the definitive Frost mage of the Warcraft universe. Some of her lines reference this:
    Jaina: Do you believe in magic, in a young girl's heart? Because you're encased in ice, so you probably should start.
    Jaina: By the way, if you're holding on for a Frozen reference, just let it go. *gasp* Oh no, what have I done?!
    Jaina: The cold never bothered me anyway!
  • Instant Runes: Jaina conjures one for her Ring of Frost Heroic Ability, freezing all enemies caught in its vicinity.
  • In the Hood: Mage's hood. This trope is also another trait she shares with Valla, the other one being her voice.
  • Lady of Black Magic: This version of Jaina is a well-spoken and kind Black Mage, but if you ask for it, she'll give you a world of hurt.
  • Magic Staff: As the quintessential Warcraft wizard type, she's armed with a magical staff as a casting tool.
  • Mythology Gag: Her Dreadlord self has quotes from all dreadlords from Warcraft III - the generic one, Varimathras and Tichondrius. She even combines some responses, like the generic dreadlord's "imbecile" and Tichondrius' "insufferable lout" into "imbecilic lout".
  • Nice Girl: This version is Jaina before the destruction of Theramore, so she is much sweeter in here. Some of her comments are references to her future self from Tides of War onwards, but they seem like little more than jokes. See Composite Character for another possibility.
  • Reluctant Warrior:
    • Just like in Warcraft III and pre-''Mists of Pandaria'', but more willing to do so here in the Nexus.
      Jaina: We don't need to fight. But if you insist... so be it!
      Jaina: I hate resorting to violence!
    • Her Dreadlord Jaina skins twists this in an uncomfortable way.
      Dreadlord Jaina: Oh, how I hate resorting to violence.
  • Spam Attack: Frostbolt itself only has a 4 second cooldown, but it can be spammed without losing the Chill effect with the help of her level 7 Ice Lance talent, if she hits a Chilled hero. Cone of Cold has a similar talent, reducing the cooldown of it by up to 7 seconds. Combined with Icy Veins, Jaina can spam either of these spells at a very low cost.
  • Squishy Wizard: Excellent damage, but little hp and no defensive skills until late-game. Subverted with Ice Barrier, which basically gives her a universal 25% of her nukes back as a shield. A properly built Jaina is surprisingly capable of dueling a melee hero and winning if she plays her cards right, without really having to kite much.
  • Summon Magic: One of her heroic abilities is the Summon Water Elemental spell, an iconic ability of the Frost class specialization and one of Jaina's signature skills since Warcraft III.
  • Technicolor Death: Not her, but her Water Elemental's death animation show it melting leaving its armor behind.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: She refuses to acknowledge the Lich King as Arthas, nor will she forgive his past transgressions.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Her Theramore skins, which take her from after the bombing of Theramore made her lose any hopes of peace with the Horde, removes all of her positive interactions with Horde characters.
  • Unholy Matrimony: Dreadlord Jaina has this with Arthas, calling him "my love" in her game opener dialogue with him.
  • Winged Humanoid: Again, Dreadlord Jaina. They also come with a pair of horns.

    Kael'thas, The Sun King 

Voiced by: Quinton Flynn (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kaelthas_hots.jpg
"Selama ashal'anore!" note 

Once a prince of the high elves and one of the ruling archmages of Dalaran, Kael'thas Sunstrider witnessed the destruction of Quel'Thalas and his people being brought to near-extinction by the Scourge. After the destruction of the Sunwell, the high elves suffered from magical withdrawal as they lost their source of magic. Desperate and shunned, Kael'thas found himself pledging allegiance to anyone who would provide safety and shelter for his people. Eventually, he joined Illidan Stormrage during his campaign against the Frozen Throne, who taught Kael the secrets to siphon magic. Unfortunately, Arthas defeated them all and forced Kael'thas and the others to retreat to the Outland to bide their strength. Not one to suffer in his setbacks, Kael eventually grew tired of Illidan's slow method, and secretly turned his attention to a new, darker source of power...

Kael'thas is a combo-burst mage Ranged Assassin, who represents the Blood Mage hero unit from Warcraft III. His trait, Verdant Spheres, can be activated to add power and extra qualities to the next basic ability he casts. Flamestrike creates a pillar of fire after a short delay; with Verdant Spheres, the pillar has a larger area-of-effect. Living Bomb deals initial damage to a target then explodes after a few seconds, dealing more damage and spreading the bomb to all enemy heroes caught in the explosion; with Verdant Spheres, the next cast costs no mana and has no cooldown. Gravity Lapse throws a tornado which stuns the first enemy it hits; with Verdant Spheres, it will hit the first three enemies and its stun duration is increased.

His first Heroic is Phoenix, calling the Phoenix God A'lar to a location, who attacks the nearest enemy in its area and deals splash damage. Kael'thas' other choice is Pyroblast. He channels then unleashes a slow, homing fireball which deals massive damage to a single target and half damage to any enemies nearby. The fireball cannot be intercepted and will last until it reaches its target.

His current skins are Sovereign Kael'thas, Storm Punk Kael'thas, Cyberhawk Kael'thas, Stormbot Kael'thas, and Lunar Kael'thas.


  • Adaptation Personality Change: Compared to his Warcraft III and World of Warcraft versions, he is far less desperate, depressed and/or mad here. Instead, he appears more smug and arrogant than ever before.
  • All-Encompassing Mantle: Wears a magnificent one that covers almost his entire body. Almost.
  • Amplifier Artifact: His Verdant Spheres empower his Basic Abilities in different ways.
  • Anti-Villain: He's still working for his people's benefit rather than his own personal power.
  • Arch-Enemy: Arthas, for what he did to Kael'thas' homeland, and Zul'jin thanks to blood elf/forest troll racial tensions.
  • The Archmage: Once an archmage of the Kirin Tor and member of the Six, the six ruling mages of Dalaran, Kael is the first and most powerful of the blood mages.
  • Armor Is Useless: Either this, or he's such a wuss he needs plate armor to stand up to a stiff breeze.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: He's the lord of the blood elves, as well as the first and most powerful of the Blood Mages.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Ultimately, Pyroblast is this. If you can cast it, it practically guarantees a kill, as it cannot be stopped, can only be deflected by very specific abilities, has an AoE component, and does the most single-target damage of any ability in the game, period — at the moment you get it, you can deal a One-Hit Kill to literally half the playable cast if they're below 50% HP (which is something Kael is already good at accomplishing). But: you need to cast it for a whole 2 seconds before it fires, during which time said opponent can absolutely dodge out of range; it can still be deflected by those few abilities; and at the end of the day it's a single-target nuke, which plays poorly with Kael'thas's emphasis on the Herd-Hitting Attack. Even its AoE radius is too small to be effective. Compare this to Phoenix, which deals massive AoE for strong area denial, can't be interrupted, and has 60% the cooldown.
  • Battle Couple: He wishes so hard he's this with Jaina, but he fails. However, the players can make a very strong example of this, as at one point, a team of Kael and Jaina ranks up there as one of the best combo in the metagame, capable of melting a whole team in a short time.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Some of his quotes, including the one above, are in Thalassian.
  • Black Mage: Aside from Gravity Lapse, all of his spells are offensive, and even Gravity Lapse is often used to set up combos.
  • Black Magic: Uses what's pretty heavily implied to be fel magic, especially with the telltale green marks around his Flamestrike.
  • Bling of War: Wears quite a fancy armor into battle, which gets even fancier as his Sovereign skin.
  • Bond One-Liner: Fitting his smug attitude, he has several.
    Kael'thas: Consider your flame... extinguished.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: In one of his Stop Poking Me! lines.
    Kael'thas: Energy... power... my people are addicted to it. (pause) You know what, I've given this speech a million times, so maybe you can just go look it up online.
  • Calling Your Attacks: He often yells "Felo'melorn", the Thalassian word for Flamestrike.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: His Convection talent increases his Flamestrike damage by 5 per enemy hero hit, up to 100, at which point you get another 100 bonus damage bringing it to a 200 damage bonus total. The problem is that if you die before you hit 20 heroes with Flamestrike, you lose all of your hard-collected stacks. Given the genre, early-game ganks and teamfights are way too common, and savvy enemies will not let you keep that stack for too long, not to mention dodging your Flamestrikes as best as they can. Further, your over-focus on self preservation would make you less than effective in battle. The quest used to be Awesome, but Impractical, but Blizzard consequently increased Flamestrike's range, making it far safer to hit targets with it.
  • Dodge the Bullet: For many years, you were able to dodge Pyroblast with most mobility skills, but you needed to dodge it right before impact, otherwise the fireball would change course and continue to home in to you. Watch it in action. Nowadays, only mobility abilities that temporarily remove the hero from the map can dodge Pyroblast.
  • The Dog Bites Back: In his trailer, he seizes the opportunity to toast Arthas. And we don't mean with a glass of wine.
  • Elfeminate One of his Stop Poking Me! quotes talks about how much work he puts into his hair, and he looks like a typical pretty boy elf... except older.
  • Femme Fatalons: He has quite the long fingernails, which are polished red. While he's a man, he's a blood elf, thus having a Pretty Boy look to qualify.
  • Functional Addict: He is addicted to arcane and fel energies, but is not at the stage of a felblood or Wretched yet.
  • Glass Cannon: Starts as your standard Squishy Wizard, but he could and still can effectively wipe entire five-stacks.
  • Gravity Master: Gravity Lapse is a basic aimed stun, but can be amplified to affect multiple targets.
  • Having a Blast: Living Bomb can cause this, provided the enemy team sticks together, for whatever reason.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: The absolute master of this in the game, down to Game Breaker status. Let's just say, if your team is composed of mostly melee characters, you're gonna have a bad time from his various AoEs.
  • Hopeless Suitor: He's still pining on Jaina, who flat out rejected him. He also expresses regret if he ended up scoring a kill on Jaina.
  • Long-Range Fighter: Kael'thas is at his most dangerous when his allies are helping him zone away the enemy team, allowing him to spam his spells on them with impunity. But if an opponent gets up close and personal, he's not very good at getting them off his back before they rip through his paper-thin HP.
  • Loyal Animal Companion: His first heroic ability summons his beloved pet phoenix, Al'ar.note  It seems he's still happy to serve his master.
  • Magitek: His Stormpunk skin comes from a world which operates either on this or Clarke's Third Law. Either way, he's a lord rather than a prince and apparently some kind of Gadgeteer Genius.
  • Mana Shield: Arcane Barrier grants him a shield that's as big as his maximum mana. It doesn't cost him any mana to use, but does have a long cooldown. As it comes with the Mana Addict talent at lvl 1, this shield can be thick enough to tank the full brunt of Triple Tap or even Pyroblast in the lategame... provided you gather enough regen globes.
  • Mystical High Collar: Prominent in most of his skins.
  • Obvious Rule Patch: The details of the Kung-Fu Wizard and Scissors Cuts Rock entries on this page proved prominent enough that the functionality of the pertinent talent, Sun King's Fury, was completely changed to cause Living Bomb explosions to deal more damage after spreading rather than increase attack damage against Living Bomb targets, reducing his effectiveness against high-mobility heroes.
  • Painfully Slow Projectile: His Pyroblast heroic launches a slow moving projectile that deals massive damage, explodes on impact, and worst of all, can almost not be dodged or intercepted (although Spell Armor can help). However, you can get out of its casting range before Kael finishes casting (which does not start the cooldown meaning he can recast immediately anyway), or stun him while he's casting. Certain characters can completely nullify the damage of a succesfully cast Pyroblast though. Explanation  You could also just heal up before it reaches you and take it on the chin, but that too can be a risk, as a single Pyroblast has been seen taking away 90% of an undamaged hero's Hit Points (Valla's, in this case).
  • Person of Mass Destruction: The biggest of them all, his damaging spells brutally punish clumping together even when compared to Jaina's and Li-Ming's. Between his incredibly damaging Flamestrike, Living Bomb spreading between enemies, and Phoenix Heroic, he can utterly wreck the entire enemy team within the first few seconds of an engagement.
  • Playing with Fire: In contrast to Jaina. Lore-wise, fire magic tends to be seen as brutal and evil, so most mages use ice magic. While Kael is fully capable of using other kinds of magic, the blood elves, who are filled with hatred and have a burning desire for vengeance and justice, embrace fire magic. It may or may not actually be fel magic.
  • The Power of the Sun: Referenced in his lines and in-universe lore.
  • Running Gag: Kael still frequently says it was "merely a setback" when he comes back to life.
    Kael'thas: I don't suffer setbacks. I revel in them.
  • Scissors Cuts Rock: Sun King's Fury made his basic attack deal significant damage to enemies afflicted by Living Bomb. This significantly increased his direct combat ability against his primary counter, high mobility heroes, as they tend to be weak against direct attacks. Eventually removed.
  • Skill Gate Character: Kael'thas' basic combo is an effective mix of burst damage, a stun, and zoning from his Living Bomb against players that know how to play around him, and his dependence on that stun to protect himself can make him highly vulnerable if a hero dives after him and dodges it. Against the players that don't know how to play around him however, he'll probably explode them all with a single Living Bomb that spread multiple times on the enemy team. His Pyroblast also will feel like a ridiculously-unfair ultimate when his team is ahead but there are a lot of tools available to many heroes that can hamstring its power (notably, armor and healing) and it can be avoided entirely by leaving from any enemy's sight throughout its 1.5 second casting time.
  • Smug Super: With a few exceptions (mostly Jaina), Kael treats everyone with disdain and arrogance. He is powerful, and he knows it.
  • Spam Attack: Kael has several ways to reduce the cooldown of all of his basic abilities.
    • All three abilities can be reduced with the Pyromaniac talent, which reduces the cooldowns for each time Living Bomb's damage-over-time effect triggers. Since Kael can at least hit two (potentially three) targets with Living Bomb by using his trait or with Ignite, and Living Bomb can spread to enemy heroes, chances are high that he can again cast Living Bomb or Flamestrike.
    • Energy Roil is a Gravity Lapse talent, that drastically reduces the mana cost of the ability and reduces the cooldown by 9 seconds if Gravity Lapse hits an enemy hero.
    • The Storm talent Flamethrower reduces Flamestrike's cooldown by 4 seconds, if Flamestrike hits at least two heroes.
  • Squick: In-Universe. This is his reaction to Stitches after killing him.
    Kael'thas: [After killing Stitches] Eurgh! At least I didn't have to touch it to kill it!
  • Squishy Wizard: Like most mage Assassins, Kael'thas's devastating spells are offset by pathetic HP and no mobility to speak of. If the enemy has any means of diving him, taking Mana Addict at level 1 to access Arcane Barrier is often mandatory to avoid becoming food, as Kael'thas has no other defensive capability to speak of.
  • Summon Magic: His The Phoenix spell which summons his familiar, the Phoenix, Al'ar.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: If Kael is played alongside Sylvanas. The two have some lingering animosity from their earlier lives, and will snipe each other with insults both petty and venomous. He also doesn't react well to work with Illidan, reluctantly calling Illidan "Master", which hints at his resentment towards the demon hunter, which would eventually lead to his betrayal and allegiance switch to Kil'jaeden.
  • This Is Your Brain on Evil: Well, fel magic to be precise, but it is part of his Stop Poking Me! repertoire.
  • The Turret Master: His Phoenix heroic basically summons a Phoenix to become a temporary turret. He can only deploy one, but it's very dangerous, you do not want to stay in its range for too long.
  • The Virus: Living Bomb spreads to enemy Heroes caught in the blast, but this secondary debuff cannot spread further. A lvl 20 talent, Master of Flames removes this restriction, and it can chain endlessly. Protip: if you're hit with Living Bomb, spread out so you don't spread it to your teammates.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: This is Kael before he became completely enchanted by Kil'jaeden and Drunk with Power, so while he's still magic-hungry and slightly unhinged, he's still looking out for his people's wellbeing (Namely, securing a supply of magic to sate their addiction). Like Jaina, some of his quotes foreshadow his pact with Kil'jaeden; he's just not in the deep end of the villain-pool yet.
  • Why Am I Ticking?: Living Bomb is a Damage Over Time spell that explodes when it expires, and enemy Heroes caught in its explosion also get the debuff, although this secondary debuff cannot spread. However, see The Virus.
  • You Are Already Dead: There are a few ways to avoid getting hit by Pyroblast if successfully cast, but otherwise it's unavoidable. Players unaware of this can lead to some hilarious footage of players kiting one to their team mates or even their own core.

    Kel'Thuzad, Archlich of Naxxramas 

Voiced by: Michael McConnohie (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kelthuzad.jpg

Kel'Thuzad was once one of the ruling archmages of the Kirin Tor. However, he dabbled in necromancy and was expelled from the order. He then felt the call of the Lich King, and became his greatest necromancer, founding the Cult of the Damned. Eventually, Prince Arthas would find Kel'Thuzad and slay him for creating and spreading the plague that infested Lordaeron. But that was not his end. After Arthas' Face–Heel Turn and subsequent transformation into a death knight, Kel'Thuzad's ghost began to haunt him. On the orders of Tichondrius, Arthas took Kel'Thuzad's remains to the Sunwell and resurrected him as a lich.

As a lich, Kel'Thuzad completed a summoning ritual to usher Archimonde into the world. Realizing the Burning Legion had no more use for the Scourge, he sent Arthas to Kalimdor to set the Legion's fall in motion. After the Third War, the Lich King was nearly killed and Arthas had to retreat to Northrend, eventually becoming one with Ner'zhul. Kel'Thuzad stayed behind and oversaw the Scourge from the floating citadel of Naxxramas until he was defeated by adventurers sent by the Argent Dawn and the Scarlet Crusade. During Wrath of the Lich King, Naxxramas returned to Northrend, and, resurrected after his first defeat, Kel'Thuzad once again controlled large portions of Northrend from his floating necropolis.

Kel'Thuzad is a combo-focused Ranged Assassin mage who represents the Lich hero from Warcraft III. His first ability is Death and Decay, which launches a skillshot that creates a damaging pool of decay upon hitting an enemy. His second ability, Frost Nova, freezes an area, damaging and slowing enemies hit while rooting enemies in the center. His final basic ability is Chains of Kel'Thuzad, which damages the first enemy hero it hits. It can then be recast to hit another target; both hit enemies are pulled towards each other and stunned. His trait is Master of the Cold Dark. Every time he hits an enemy hero with Chains of Kel'Thuzad or roots them with Frost Nova, he gains a stack of Blight. At 15 Blight, he gains the Glacial Spike ability, creating a pillar of ice that he can chain enemies to with Chains of Kel'Thuzad. At 30 Blight, he receives 75% bonus spell power.

Kel'Thuzad's first Heroic is Frost Blast, which fires an enormous icy meteor at an enemy hero, damaging them and dealing greater damage to any enemies near the target. All enemies hit are rooted. His second Heroic is Shadow Fissure. Kel'Thuzad creates a fissure anywhere on the battlefield, which detonates after a delay, dealing massive damage to any enemy heroes it hits. If it lands a hit, its cooldown is lowered.

His current skin is Star Lich Kel'Thuzad.


  • All According to Plan: Kel'Thuzad will say some kind of variation of this whenever he successfully lands a combo with Chains of Kel'Thuzad into Frost Nova.
  • The Archmage: Formerly of the Council of Six of Dalaran, Kel'Thuzad was one of the ruling archmages until he was expelled by Antonidas. He eventually became a master necromancer and leader of the Cult of the Damned before he was killed and reborn as an archlich. Imagine an archmage like Jaina, now remove any limitations that having a mortal body would confer. In the case of most Liches, and definitely in the case of Kel'Thuzad, you can also remove any moral limitations.
  • Ascended Meme: In one of his Stop Poking Me! lines, Kel'Thuzad himself recites his string of titles, which a certain Reddit user kept posting for over a year on the subreddit.
  • Black Mage: Kel'Thuzad's abilities are all about disabling and nuking down multiple enemies.
  • Casting a Shadow: If Kel'Thuzad is not freezing the blood in your veins with ice magic, he's rotting you away with shadowy necromantic energies instead.
  • Catchphrase: He has a few.
    Kel'Thuzad: I will freeze the blood in your veins!
    Kel'Thuzad: Your curiosity will be the death of you.
    Kel'Thuzad: Obey the call!
  • Chained by Fashion: Not by default, but once Master of the Cold Dark is completed, his chains appear around him.
  • Chain Pain: All of his spells are covered in icy chains, and the chains are the main part of his Chains of Kel'Thuzad ability.
  • Character Rerailment: Much like Valeera, Kel'Thuzad abandons his Denser and Wackier persona as seen in the Curse of Naxxramas set in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, instead using his old, calmer, polite yet sinister personality as seen in the Warcraft games to fit better with the game's tone. However, he does occasionally get extremely hammy like he did in World of Warcraft and his wacky Hearthstone persona is retained in his Stop Poking Me! lines.
  • The Chessmaster: Kel'Thuzad is one of the most calculating beings within Warcraft, and many of his quotes reference this aspect.
    Kel'Thuzad: There are few things I am not prepared for.
  • Combos: After completing his quest, Kel'Thuzad's combos are so devastating that he can almost obliterate the entire enemy team single-handedly. First, he'll either set up the combo with Frost Blast or Chains of Kel'Thuzad; then, once the targets are disabled, he will follow it up with Frost Nova and finish it off with Death and Decay and Shadow Fissure, if the latter was picked instead of Frost Blast.
  • The Comically Serious: He lapses right into this from time to time, particularly evident in one of his Stop Poking Me! quotes after rattling off his list of titles.
    Kel'Thuzad: How dare you poke the Archlich of Naxxramas, Lich Lord of the Plaguelands, Commander of the Dread Necropolis, Master and Founder of the Cult of the Damned, formerly of the Council of Six, Summoner of Archimonde the Defiler, the Betrayer of Humanity, Hearthstone Enthusiast, and Majordomo to the Lich King himself, KEL. THU. FREAKING. ZAD! Oh wait! I forgot "Creator of the Abomination"! Can we take it again from the top? What do you mean "No"? Fine! But I'm taking your soul for this.
  • Compelling Voice:
    • In Warcraft Lore, this is how undead are enslaved to their masters. If your master gives you a command, you cannot disobey it. Kel'thuzad's selection quote is a shorting of his infamous quote which usually accompanies either raising the dead or summoning them to his side.
      Kel'Thuzad: Minions, servants, soldiers of the Cold Dark. Obey the call of Kel'Thuzad!
    • Mindless rank and file just follow the commands of their master to the letter while intelligent undead commanders can figure out the best way to accomplish the command. Thus when Kel'Thuzad tells you to "Obey the call!" as his selection quote, he's commanding you to serve him as his Voice with an Internet Connection in the same way he would his more intelligent minions.
  • The Corrupter: His spotlight video states that he's actually been in the Nexus for a while, corrupting other heroes to aid him in taking the Nexus' power.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: Kel'Thuzad is all about Herd Hitting Attacks. The problem is that to get his combo off, he needs at least two heroic targets. This is later mitigated with him being able to summon his Glacial Spike which allows him to fight someone 1v1, but before he can do that, he will have to hit enemy heroes 15 times with his chains or root them with Frost Nova, and he lost the ability to chain enemies to structures.
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    Jaina: If it isn't the traitor, Kel'Thuzad.
    Kel'Thuzad: Ah, Antonidas' lapdog. How is he, by the way? Still dead?

    Valeera: Watch. Your. Back.
    Kel'Thuzad: Okay. I. Will.

    Kel'Thuzad: Ah, Uther. Always wanted to thank you for the urn. It's made quite the phylactery. note 
  • Death is Cheap: Can instantly resurrect himself when he picks his phylactery talent and gathers enough Regen Globes.
    Kel'Thuzad: Death holds little meaning to a servant of the Lich King.
  • Delayed Explosion: Both Shadow Fissure and Frost Nova blast an area after a delay.
  • Dem Bones: As a Lich, he resembles a skeleton clad in robes. There's not an inch of muscle or sinew on him.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Kel'Thuzad is very fragile and all of his spells aside from Frost Blast are skillshots, meaning that he needs to have good positioning to get off his combo without being picked apart in the process. Doubly so with Chains of Kel'Thuzad, which requires Kel'Thuzad to land the initial cast and then land a second chain on an enemy near the first, while also predicting where the chain will pull the targets so that he can land his other spells correctly. To top it all off, being able to land his abilities is required to reach his full potential via Master of the Cold Dark, as otherwise his damage output is relatively mediocre. However, if the player can manage all of the above, Kel'Thuzad becomes a team-wipe machine that can dish out frightening amounts of damage and crowd control.
  • Disaster Dominoes: This is the case when Kel'Thuzad picks the upgrade to Frost Blast at level 20, which can lead to a chain reaction of Frost Blast explosions, if he can kill one hero while under the effects of Frost Blast.
  • The Dragon: To Arthas after his ascension to Lich King.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Apparently, Kel'thuzad's beloved cat, Mr. Bigglesworth, is also in the Nexus. And Kel'thuzad is not... pleased at the possibility of someone harming him a second time note .
    Mr. Bigglesworth: [meows]
    Kel'thuzad: Oh, no. Don't you worry, Mr. Bigglesworth. I won't let anyone harm you this time!
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold: As per the norm for Warcraft liches, Kel'Thuzad favours frost magic in direct combat. Hell, his trait is even called Master of the Cold Dark.
  • Evil Is Hammy: Double subverted. He is usually a softspoken man... but he lapses into hamminess when issuing threats or commands. He also really gets into the hammy spirit if you select him as your announcer.
    Announcer Kel'Thuzad: HERO! OF! THE! STOOOOORM!!
    Kel'Thuzad: (once his quest is completed) The master has granted me true strength!
    Kel'Thuzad: (once his quest is completed) Yes! This is the power promised me!
  • Evil Laugh: Well, he trends more towards the Evil Chuckle than outright laugh, but it's still in the spirit of things.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Kel'Thuzad utilizes powerful magical spells centered around freezing and rotting his opponents - those are not the powers of a good person.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Courtesy of Michael McConnohie.
  • Expy: Zig-zagged. Kel'Thuzad was the basis of Dota 2's Lich (who was named after him in the old Defense of the Ancients: All-Stars) and retains the dark ice mage persona, but only retains the Frost Nova spell (in which Dota 2's Lich had his renamed into Frost Blast) and overall undergoes Divergent Character Evolution, since Kel'Thuzad is less support, more nuker.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Make no mistake. Kel'Thuzad may address his minions in praising tone, he may be soft spoken towards his enemies, he may form Villainous Friendships with other undead, and he may indulge in Hearthstone on the side - but he is so far past the Moral Event Horizon that even the following should be taken as an Implied Death Threat:
    Kel'Thuzad: It's alright interloper... We all make mistakes.
  • Fighting a Shadow: If his Phylactery is charged, killing him accomplishes next to nothing; take comfort in the experience gain and heal up quickly - because he is already alive again.
  • Foil: To Kael'thas, who incidentally shares the initials "KT", as both are mages that can disable multiple enemies and deal massive area damage with a trait that augments their basic abilities. Aside from the obvious fire/ice dichotomy, Kel'thuzad's trait is a quest that increases his raw damage, while Kael'thas's trait is an activated ability that augments his spells' AOE. On the other hand, Kel'thuzad's spells lean more towards crowd control, while Kael's spells are more focused on bursting down multiple enemies. They even have similarly themed heroics in Pyroblast and Frost Blast: while the former simply deals a crapton of damage, the latter roots enemies to set up a spell combo that does a crapton of damage.
  • Ghostly Chill: Kel'Thuzad can use this to his advantage by picking a level 20 talent that makes him dash forward and damage anyone he passes through.
  • Glass Cannon: Kel'Thuzad has almost no additional mobility and a rather low health pool, like most other mage heroes in the game. Once he completes his quest though, he can completely obliterate the enemy team. Case in point, he's capable of dealing up to 8,000 damage with a single cycling of his spells, more than enough to kill any hero short of a high-leveled Cho'Gall or someone with temporary damage resistance buffs.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Anyone who is not Arthas must be careful how they choose their words, if they don't want to anger Kel'Thuzad. Don't tell him what to do.
    Kel'Thuzad: No, you kneel!
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Kel'Thuzad's kit is both based around and rewards being able to catch 2 heroes with his spells. It's safe to say that if he's fighting one hero, he's probably dragged one of their friends into it as well.
  • High Collar of Doom: All Warcraft liches wear one with an Ancient Egyptian aesthetic.
  • An Ice Person: Where Jaina focuses on softer, wintery spells, Kel'Thuzad's magic is based on the icy dead north.
  • Kneel Before Zod: Not so much kneeling, but his reveal trailer and a movement quote both command his enemies to:
    Kel'Thuzad: Bow... before Kel'Thuzad!
  • Large and in Charge: As The Dragon of the Lich King, his model is also freakishly huge. He is floating, but it's noteworthy that he towers over giants like Cho'Gall and Diablo though this is actually consistent with the Lore of Warcraft; Liches are seldom shorter than households are tall.
  • Large Ham: Kel'Thuzad normally speaks in softspoken voice, but he is certainly capable of hamming it up with the best of them if appropiate.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Wait in the shop with Kel'Thuzad selected, and he will tell you that he has 'been waiting a loooong time for this', and you really shouldn't keep him waiting any longer.
  • Literally Shattered Lives: He does this to Varian, Johanna, and Sgt. Hammer in his reveal trailer.
  • Make Them Rot: One of his spells, Death and Decay, is an archetypical spell commonly associated with powerful undead —Liches in particular— within the Warcraft universe, and nothing is immune to its effects: Forests collapse as the trees can no longer support their own weight, metal corrodes and rusts, the living age and die, stones blacken and crumble, and even magically animated beings find themselves rapidly drained of whatever sustains them.
  • Magikarp Power: Kel'Thuzad starts as essentially a crowd-control bot, with tricky-to-hit skills that don't offer a tonne of damage. However, once Master of the Cold Dark is completed, he becomes a serious threat. This is especially apparent in the early and midgame, where his quest gives him a big spike in power. However, as he scales differently, he eventually is Brought Down to Normal mage levels once you reach the lategame.
  • Necromancer: Kel'Thuzad is the Necromancer in Warcraft. After his death and reanimation as a Lich merely raising rank and file undead no longer interests him; he has minions for that. His attention lies in using his powers as a Lich to push the boundaries of what you can do with The Undead, and this is reflected in one of his level 20 talent choices: summoning a shade which casts Death and Decay that is just as potent as if he had cast it himself.
    Kel'Thuzad: By the will of the Lich King they shall be destroyed! And then... their service begins!
  • Nostalgia Level: Not to the same degree as Samuro, but Kel'Thuzad's voice lines are very close to his original ones from Warcraft III, with a few of the Lich hero and Necromancer unit's voice lines thrown in as well. If you can get past the transition to the skillshot nature of his spells, it is thus a close proximation of him in said game.
    Kel'Thuzad: The ancient evil survives.note 
    • Playing as Kel'Thuzad while simultaneously having him as an announcer could prompt announcer!Kel'Thuzad to mistake hero!Kel'Thuzad for Ras Frostwhisper or Rage Winterchill. Both were potential names for Lich Heroes in Warcraft III Multiplayer and Skirmish.note 
  • Not Quite Dead: Unlike in its first iteration, Kel'Thuzad's phylactery was not found in Naxxramas after his defeat in Wrath of the Lich King. Lampshaded in one of his Stop Poking Me! lines.
    Kel'Thuzad: You heroes were so busy looting your precious Tier 7, you completely forgot to look for my phylactery, mwahahahaha...! Fools.
  • Obviously Evil: Take one look at him and you know he is evil. Then he starts speaking in cordial terms and you know it is a ruse.
  • Old Shame: In-universe example. He doesn't sound that proud to be a former Council of Six member, when he lists his string of titles.
  • One-Steve Limit: Both Kel'Thuzad and Kael'thas are often shortened to KT. Should the former score a kill on the latter, he will emote "There is only room for one KT around here."
  • Our Liches Are Different: The archetypal and most famous Lich, possibly in all of fiction.
  • Painfully Slow Projectile: Frost Blast, despite being homing, travels only slightly faster than a hero's normal walking speed. However, it accelerates over time.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: After finishing his Master of the Cold Dark quest, he can wipe out an entire team with a single rotation of his abilities.
  • Power Echoes: His voice has a heavy reverb effect, like it did in previous games.
  • Power Floats: He's always a few inches off the ground - just as well since Liches don't have feet in the first place. He also has a hero-exclusive mount that has him floating on a cloud of cold mist to move faster. Notably, Kel'Thuzad's physical limitations mean that he cannot use any other mounts.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Kel'Thuzad is an Evil Sorcerous Overlord of The Undead who has crossed the Moral Event Horizon long ago and who intends to literally scourge the world of all living beings... Except for his living Right-Hand Cat whom he enjoys playing with in his dance emotes.
  • Right-Hand Cat: His cat, Mr. Bigglesworth, is the only living being he tolerates. His dance emote calls Mr. Bigglesworth to his side so he can play with him for a moment. May God have mercy on you if you wish it harm.
  • Spam Attack: Master of the Cold Dark used to decrease his cooldowns once halfway charged (now made baseline). Talents like Chain-Link and Arcane Echoes can drastically reduce the cooldowns of Chains of Kel'Thuzad and Death and Decay respectively if they hit enemy heroes, and a level 20 upgrade to Shadow Fissure used to completely reset the heroic ability's cooldown if he hits an enemy with it, with a weakened version eventually being added to Kel'Thuzad's base kit.
  • Squishy Wizard: Like all other mages, his health pool is rather low, although he can bolster his defenses at level 4.
  • Sorcerous Overlord: Kel'Thuzad's rank amongst The Undead Scourge is second only to The Lich King, and while Arthas embodies the physical might of The Undead, Kel'Thuzad's focus is on the magical prowess that can be obtained without mortal inhibitions.
    • Even in his reveal trailer he addresses a Death Knightnote , a Dreadlordnote , and a raised Nerubian Queennote  as his minions - and judging by how they bow before him as he approaches, it is very clear that it is not just for shownote .
    • In game, he will reprimand those under his command who greet him using standard voice lines such as 'A suitable ally' that he is definitely not just suitable, and they should remember who they serve!
  • Soul Jar: One of his talent choices is his phylactery, which allows you to instantly respawn after collecting 12 Regen Globes. It is also the urn of King Terenas the Second; the same king whose child is now the Lich King.
  • Technicolor Death: Normally, when he dies, he freezes all over and then crumbles, but when his Phylactery (the Urn of Kings) is charged it appears and sucks him in.
  • Try to Fit That on a Business Card: A Meme Acknowledgment, as in Kel'Thuzad's spotlight and Making-Of video, the Blizzard employees recited all the titles Kel'Thuzad has, which a Reddit user kept posting for over a year until Kel'Thuzad was finally released. Kel'Thuzad is:
    The Archlich of Naxxramas, Lich Lord of the Plaguelands, Commander of the Dread Necropolis, Master and Founder of the Cult of the Damned, formerly of the Council of Six, Creator of the Abomination, Summoner of Archimonde the Defiler, the Betrayer of Humanity, Hearthstone Enthusiast and Majordomo to the Lich King himself.
  • Undying Loyalty: Kel'Thuzad is one of the very few people that Arthas referred to as a 'friend' after his Face–Heel Turn and it is very much reciprocal; even if Kel'Thuzad is forced to slay his master in the Nexus, he wishes him a quick return in stark contrast to so many other of Arthas's servants whom express gratitude over being free from his control.
  • You Are Already Dead: Frost Blast, similarly to Kael'thas' Pyroblast, cannot be evaded once it is cast on its target. The damage is actually not that frightening, but since Kel'Thuzad's target and everyone around it will be rooted, he can easily unleash a combo that will very likely kill at least one enemy provided that Master of the Cold Dark is completed, and if he upgraded Frost Blast at level 20, that one kill may very well set off a chain reaction that obliterates the entire enemy team.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Implied to be the case when he kills Death Knight Sonya.
    Kel'Thuzad: Your services are no longer required, death knight.
  • You Will Not Evade Me: The Chains of Kel'Thuzad can be connected with Kel'Thuzad's Glacial Spike, pulling his victim to the spike and making it trivial for Kel'Thuzad to follow it up with his other abilities.

    Lunara, First Daughter of Cenarius 

Voiced by: Amy Walker (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lunara_hots.jpg

Lunara is a dryad, the Dryad, among the night elf Sentinels. As her title suggests, she's the first to be created by the demigod Cenarius. Much like Brightwing, she is an Original Generation character meant to represent a generic game unit — the Dryad, naturally.

Lunara is a Ranged Assassin hero that focuses on pursuing enemies and wearing them down with heavy damage over time. Her trait, Nature's Toxin, causes her attacks and damaging abilities to poison targets, dealing damage over time. Repeated applications of the toxin increase its duration, up to three times. Noxious Blossoms deals damage in a small area after a short delay, easily spreading Nature's Toxin to multiple targets. Crippling Spore slows all enemies afflicted by Nature's Toxin and applies an additional stack. Her third ability summons a Wisp that grants vision and has increased vision while inside a bush, but can be killed. Reactivating the ability while the Wisp is active allows Lunara to move it to a new location.

Her first Heroic ability is Thornwood Vine, which deals damage to all enemies in a line and holds up to 3 charges. Leaping Strike, her other choice, has 2 charges and allows Lunara to become Unstoppable and leap over a target enemy, dealing heavy damage to them and briefly applying a massive slow.

Lunara does not use mounts. Instead, her Dryad's Swiftness grants her a passive 20% bonus to her movement speed at all times.

Her current skins are Wild Champion Lunara, Sentinel Lunara, Warden Lunara, Winter Veil Lunara, and La Parca Lunara.


  • Anti-Magic: One of her talents is a more powerful Spell Shield that blocks 75% of ability damage. This reflects the dryads' magic resistance in Warcraft.
  • Berserk Button: Harming nature in any way.
  • Blood Knight: She's actually quite bloodthirsty for a dryad who are usually a peaceful race
    Lunara: It's only what you deserved.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: Stepping on a twig is considered reason enough for her to throw a spear at you.
  • Call-Back: One of her Stop Poking Me! lines references a line the dryad unit in Warcraft III said she would do.
    Lunara: And then she said 'I'm so wasted! I'm so wasted!' and I told her if she didn't shut up right then, I'd send her to the glue factory.
  • Damage Over Time: She's the game's leading master of this, packing some of the most potent and long-lasting DOT effects out of any hero; it's not uncommon for enemies that think they've gotten away to keel over from her poison damage several seconds later. The tradeoff is that she lacks burst damage; she's good at killing things, but she won't kill them quickly.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Occasionally.
    Lunara: You are giving me away? What am I, flowers?
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Her description says that merely stepping on a twig on her knowledge means that you need to die horribly.
  • Expy: Her bouncy movement, ability to mark targets with her trait which she can then convert into a damaging slow and skill that send out a Wisp to scout an area for her give her a LOT in common with Kalista. On the other hand, Lunara averts this when it comes to her 'predecessor', Aiushtha the Enchantress, even if the latter used the Dryad model back then and they are both protecting nature, Lunara does nothing about 'converting the neutrals' or healing.
  • Fragile Speedster: The first hero (besides Falstad if he is not attacked) that moves faster than normal without using an ability. She's as squishy as they come and folds very quickly however.
  • Good Is Not Nice: While dryads are known for being peaceful, Lunara is... not.
    Lunara: You may have met some nice dryads... I'm not one of them!
  • In a Single Bound: Her Leaping Strike Heroic pulls off a leap with impressive distance and height to keep Lunara in front of her enemy.
  • Javelin Thrower: She carries a spear, and throwing it forms the basis of many of her abilities.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One of her poke quotes
    Lunara: I'm game... I mean I'm in a game... between humans and the forest. Good versus evil? Or maybe just red versus blue?
  • Mechanically Unusual Class: The unusual part is Lunara's movement. She is permanently faster than other heroes, but her movement speed isn't static. It comes in the form of bounds and leaps, being much faster when she jumps and slowing down when she lands. This can be utilized to stutterstep chase more effectively, as she can keep moving with the faster jumps and only stops moving when she attacks.
  • Nature Hero: More bloodthirsty than the usual example, but Lunara fights for the protection of nature.
  • Nature Is Not Nice: Let's just say she's a bit Knight Templar about the whole Nature Hero thing. Not to mention that she uses her nature powers to make other people die painful deaths by poison.
  • Original Generation: Dryads appeared in Warcraft before, but this specific dryad did not.
    • Canon Immigrant: She was added to Warcraft in the Legion expansion, but really only as a background character with nothing to say. She also appears in Hearthstone, this time as a full-fledged hero for the Druid class.
  • Our Centaurs Are Different: Dryads are half deer, half night elf.
  • Poisonous Person: Her trait causes her attacks and damaging abilities to poison the target for damage over time. Additional attacks and abilities against a poisoned enemy will apply additional stacks, increasing the duration.
  • Status-Buff Dispel: She gets the Warcraft Dryads' Abolish Magic ability as a late-game talent, which removes negative status effects from herself and an ally.
  • Status Effect-Powered Ability: Crippling Spore applies an additional stack of Nature's Toxin to all enemies already affected by it.

    Sylvanas, The Banshee Queen 

Voiced by: Patty Mattson (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sylvanas_hots.jpg

Sylvanas was the Ranger-General of Silvermoon, and a member of the famed Windrunner family. Serving the Alliance to fight against the orcish Horde during the previous wars, her marksmanship was unmatched. However, when the Undead Scourge attacked Quel'Thalas, in spite of her bravery and cunning, Sylvanas was defeated and slain. As retribution for her pestering, Arthas defiled her soul using Frostmourne and turned her into a banshee. Some time later, Illidan cast a spell that weakened The Lich King, causing Sylvanas and many undead to regain their free will. With that, she rounded up as many freed citizens as she could and declared themselves the Forsaken. Shunned by the Alliance, Sylvanas instead joined an uneasy pact with her old enemies, the Horde.

Sylvanas is a Ranged Assassin hero based on the Dark Ranger hero from Warcraft III, who is specially suited to disable units and structures. She has two traits: Banshee's Curse causes her to inflict up to three stacks on enemies she hits with basic attacks, and increases the damage she deals to enemies with three stacks. Her other trait, Black Arrows, can be activated to temporarily cause all minions, mercenaries, and structures that are damaged by her to be stunned. Her basic abilities include Withering Fire, which fires five arrows in quick succession at the nearest enemy and will reset the cooldown when she scores a takedown; Shadow Dagger, a Damage Over Time attack which spreads between nearby enemies when Sylvanas attacks the initial target; and Haunting Wave, a group of damaging banshees which fly forward and can be reactivated to teleport to their location.

Her first heroic, Wailing Arrow, fires a powerful shot which can be detonated to damage and silence enemies in an area. Her other choice is Mind Control, a skillshot which will silence and slow the first enemy hero hit and force them to move towards Sylvanas.

Her current skins are Dark Lady Sylvanas, Ranger-General Sylvanas, Sugar Plum Sylvanas, Warchief Sylvanas, Blood Raven Sylvanas, and Lunar Sylvanas.


  • Anti-Structure: While she doesn't get bonus damage against structures specifically, her ability to lock them down with Black Arrows (one of the very few ways to disable structures) makes it very dangerous to let her approach one with a minion wave.
  • Attractive Zombie: Despite being undead, she has a considerable amount of sex appeal with her revealing outfit.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Mind Control on one hand is a displacement + Silence with a good duration. It's perfect for getting a target defenseless and in range of Sylvanas' other abilities. On the other hand, it's a Painfully Slow Projectile that only affects a single hero, and can easily be bodyblocked by tanks. Even considering its powerful level 20 that makes it a full-on Spam Attack, Mind Control is generally too niche to pick over Wailing Arrow.
  • Badass Boast: From her intro trailer:
    Sylvanas: I am Sylvanas Windrunner, Queen of the Forsaken! And if you will not serve me in this life... then you will do so in the next!
  • Blood Knight: Besides her apathy for being in a game, she is one of the most bloodthirsty characters in the Nexus. Two of her assist quotes are "You gave them what they deserved!" or "You've got a certain...talent"
  • Combat Pragmatist: Sylvanas isn't the strongest hero in a straight fight and most of her Talents revolve around improving her ability to clear waves rather than up her damage potential. However, leave her alone for a second and you can bet that she'll be pushing an unattended fort with an army of mercenaries at her back. She's also more than capable of running away from a bad situation if you try and stop her. And when she does have to fight, her heroics ensure that it's not going to be a fair fight. Downplayed with her rework, which makes her much more capable in direct combat.
  • Cycle of Hurting: Her Black Arrow trait stuns whatever minion, mercenary, or structure she hits. Which means she can perma-stun and take down a Fort by herself. For about 10 seconds, anyway.
  • Damage-Increasing Debuff: Upon tagging an enemy three times with basic attacks, Banshee's Curse will increase all damage Sylvanas does to that enemy.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: Sylvanas' damage numbers don't seem very impressive on paper until you notice how quickly they add up. Pair the continuous damage output with her mobility, and she can shred enemies' health bars at an alarming rate while keeping pace with their attempts to flee.
  • Devious Daggers: She has an ability that throws a dagger at her foe, fitting with her deceitful and self-serving personality.
  • Expy: One of her annoyed quotes makes her point out her long list of similarities to Kerrigan:
    Sylvanas: I thought I was the only one who was murdered by a cruel man, raised as a powerful and horrible abomination, subsequently crowning myself queen and dedicated my subjects to orchestrating my vengeance... But then I met Kerrigan!
  • Fantastic Racism: Her hatred of trolls makes things tense with (the equally racist) Zul'jin. Although, even Vol'jin probably won't be safe if he's added.
  • Flat Joy: She's one of the least enthusiastic Nexus brawlers, with a halfhearted battle cry at the start of each match and a halfhearted clapping when her team wins.
  • Foil: To Tyrande, they're both female elven archers, but, while Tyrande's get up looks more ceremonial and most of her abilities are light-themed (moon light mind you), Sylvanas' looks more pragmatic and her abilities are more shadow- and poison-themed.
  • Forest Ranger: Used to be one when she's alive, and can be one again in her Ranger General alt skin. Even when she's undead, she still fits the trope, if a very dark version of it.
  • Fragile Speedster: Low HP and HP growth, attacks quickly, and has an escape mechanism for when she needs to run.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: The Ranger General skin. In spite of depicting Sylvanas before the fall of Silvermoon, its only actual change other than the obvious aesthetic differences is the removal of the echo from her voice—her quotes are the same (relating her distaste for being undead).
  • Glass Cannon: Her 2018 rework greatly ups her damage potential, letting her quickly poke apart enemies once she stacks Banshee's Curse on them. She's just as squishy as ever, though.
  • Ironic Nursery Tune: One of her lines is a short threat given in a singsong voice.
    Sylvanas: A tis-ket, a tas-ket, I'll put you in a casket.
  • Kick the Dog: If Sylvanas kills Kael'thas, she will insult both her opponent and his deceased father.
  • Life Drain: Has a talent called this, which heals her for a portion of damage dealt to enemies with three stacks of Banshee's Curse.
  • Mage Marksman: Sylvanas wields many enchanted Trick Arrows and banshee magic.
  • Mind Control:
    • Her Mind Control heroic, which forces an enemy to walk towards Sylvanas. Useful for forcing enemies out of position and right into Sylvanas's sights, which is especially devastating for the likes of Morales. The older version of the heroic let you control the target's movement directly.
    • The Possession talent lets Sylvanas permanently take control of enemy minions. It works on a charge system, and needs three charges to steal a catapult.
  • Mind-Control Music: Mind Control makes her sing The Lament of the Highborne to control her target.
  • The Minion Master: One of her talents allows her to convert minions to her side. Lackluster by itself, but its very low mana cost, multiple charges, and 8-second cooldown makes it spammable. She also has the Mercenary Queen talent at level 4, making allied mercenaries near her far more powerful while also causing Banshee's Curse to stun them at three stacks, making it much easier to take them.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Sylvanas makes it clear in one Stop Poking Me! line that she was never a night elf. Due to a lack of models at the time, she was initially given a night elf model in World of Warcraft.
    • With her rework at the end of 2018, Sylvanas was given a new hearthing animation, which is clearly inspired by the opening of Battle for Azeroth.
  • Obvious Rule Patch:
    • Back when Black Arrows was a permanent trait, it disabled structures with abilities as well as basic attacks. This was fine for most of the game, but became a problem for a few months after the 2018 Gameplay Update when the secondary tower that used to assist forts and keeps was removed. With that gone, Sylvanas could lock down an entire fort without any problems, which, coupled with the buffs to minions, made her a pushing monster. Blizzard's eventual solution was to limit her disable on buildings to only her AA, meaning she had to be close and focus fire.
    • This was doubled over with her rework later that year, but limited to only last 10 seconds, meaning she could only lock down building uninterrupted for 13 seconds every 30 seconds max.
  • Our Banshees Are Louder: One of her abilities send a wave of Banshees to deal damage, and she can also teleport to them.
  • Pet the Dog: If paired with Valeera, she will instead urge her to fight for the glory of... Quel'thalas.
  • Power Gives You Wings: Sylvanas gains a black aura resembling wings while Black Arrows is active.
  • Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The most common use of Sylvanas' Mind Control is to force an enemy to walk directly into your team, spelling their doom. You can also make them stand in powerful AoEs or throw them into towers.
  • Revenge: Obviously, she's still bitter at Arthas for defiling her soul. Humorously, her kill quote against Thrall implies that she's also bitter about him handing over the Horde to Garrosh.
  • The Rival: She and Kerrigan each consider the other unworthy of calling herself "queen".
  • Sarcastic Clapping: If her team is victorious, Sylvanas gives out a halfhearted clapping.
  • Spam Attack: Downplayed with the reworked Withering Fire, which shoots more slowly and has a fixed cooldown; however, getting takedowns will refresh the ability, letting Sylvanas potentially shoot down multiple enemies in succession with repeated casts. The original version played this much straighter.
  • Status Effects: Her Wailing Arrow Heroic inflicts the Silence status on enemy Heroes caught in its initial blast.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: If Sylvanas is played alongside Kael'thas. The two have some lingering animosity from their earlier lives, and will snipe each other with insults both petty and venomous.
  • Travel to Projectile: She can reactivate Haunting Wave to become Unstoppable and quickly dash to where the banshees are. One of her talents lets her cast a second Haunting Wave as long as she used the first for mobility.
  • You Will Not Evade Me: Mind Control forces the enemy hero to run towards Sylvanas.

    Zul'jin, Warlord of the Amani 

Voiced by: AndrĂ© Sogliuzzo (English)note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zuljin.jpg

The chieftain of the forest trolls of the Amani tribe and a former member of the Old Horde. Zul'jin waged war against the elves of Quel'Thalas to defend his home of Zul'Aman and united the trolls there with his own charisma. While at first declining the offer the join the Old Horde, after being rescued from the captivity of the elves by Orgrim Doomhammer, an indebted Zul'jin pledged loyalty to the Old Horde and handled the battle against the elves of Quel'Thalas. However, when the Old Horde was defeated, Zul'jin seemingly vanished and the Amani trolls scattered and returned to the life of savagery.

Zul'jin is a Ranged Assassin who represents the classic Warcraft II Axethrower unit. His trait, Berserker, passively increases his attack speed based on his missing health. It can also be toggled on to increase Zul'jin's attack damage at the cost of health per attack. Zul'jin also has a baseline quest, You Want Axe?, which permanently increases his basic attack damage for every fifth attack he lands on a hero. At 75 stacks, his attack range is increased, and at 150 stacks, Twin Cleave will revolve a second time. His basic abilities include Grievous Throw, a skillshot that hits the first two enemies in its path and causes them to take bonus damage from Zul'jin's next three basic attacks; Twin Cleave, throwing two axes in a large, circular arc that deal damage and slow enemies hit; and Regeneration, allowing Zul'jin to channel and heal 30% of his maximum health over 4 seconds, but is canceled upon taking any damage. Additionally, Zul'jin has a fourth ability, Amani Rage, which cuts his current health in half then rapidly heals it back.

His first Heroic ability is Taz'dingo!, which makes Zul'jin Unkillable when activated - his health can be reduced to 1, but no lower. The other choice, Guillotine, throws an enormous axe that deals medium damage in a small area, dealing greatly increased damage based on how injured Zul'jin is.

His current skins are Warbringer Zul'jin, Emberlord Zul'jin, and Lunar Zul'jin.


  • All Trolls Are Different: In this case a forest troll, the green-skinned kind.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: Gets a boost to his attack speed as his health lowers. His trait can be activated to Cast from Hit Points while increasing his attack damage. One of his Heroics makes him Unkillable for 4 seconds and the other gains bonus damage the lower his health is. In short, Zul'jin is clearly built for brute force and head-on attacking at the expense of pretty much anything else.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Averted. Zul'jin is probably most well known for his World of Warcraft appearance, which took place after he had permanently lost an arm and an eye due to his torture by the elves. Both arm and eye are intact in Heroes of the Storm.
  • Badass Normal: Zul'jin is just a troll with determination and throwable axes... lots and lots of axes - it's enough to send even demons, angels, necromancers, shamans, paladins, psionic aliens, druids, wizards, and Time Masters to their end. Although he does channel the power of the loa when he activates Taz'dingo!.
  • Battle Cry: TAAAAAAAAAZ'DIIINGO!!note 
  • The Berserker: Literally the name of his trait, which increases his basic attack speed by 1% for every 1% of his health he's missing. He can also manually activate it to increase his basic attack damage in exchange for losing health with every attack.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Has a cheerful disposition when he's fighting people.
  • Boring, but Practical: Much like Raynor and Valla, one of Zul'jin's talent builds is to focus heavily on his basic attacks. It becomes notably less boring for the enemy team when he starts gaining massive attack speed and damage stacks, and even extended attack range from his traits and talents, and becomes a living buzzsaw to their healthbars.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Noteworthy because Zul'jin does openly ponder how he just gets new axes once he's thrown them out.
    Zul'jin: Where all de axes come from, anyway? I throw axe, I get new axe! Throw axe, new axe! Mmh. Dis some powerful voodoo.
  • Canon Immigrant: Not Zul'jin himself obviously, but his Regeneration ability. As of Battle for Azeroth, the playable Zandalari Trolls have an exact copy of this ability as a racial, recovering 25% of their HP over 4 seconds. It's even named Regeneratin', the phrase shown on the progress bar while Zul'jin is channeling.
  • Critical Status Buff: The passive component of his Berserker trait lets Zul'jin attack faster the lower his HP is.
  • Death or Glory Attack: Taz'dingo! or Guillotine combined with his Berserker trait. Either Zul'jin dies first or the enemy hero dies, or even both die at the same time, since both heroics and his trait only gain value if Zul'jin's HP is critically low. Often times, however, most players using Zul'jin know just the right time to use either his heroics and his trait to utterly annihilate their target.
  • Didn't See That Coming: Zul'jin clearly doesn't expect being healed by teammates, but he will express gratitude towards those who do so regardless.
    Zul'jin: Huh. (Beat) Good healing! Good times!
  • Expy: Zul'jin's style is basically a combination between Huskar and Olaf.
  • Fantastic Racism: Towards elves in particular.
  • Fireball Eyeballs: Similarly to how his markings glow, when activating his trait you can spot in the UI portrait that his eyes will light aflame.
  • Gathering Steam: Downplayed example. While he is no slouch in combat normally, he has a popular talent which increases his attack speed every time he kills an enemy, stacking up to five times for a short duration and refreshed with every attack he makes, making him at home in prolonged engagements. Kill him quickly before he has a chance to kill anything and he won't be capable of even gathering steam before he dies. Just be careful of his Taz'Dingo! Heroic, which is dangerous for an altogether different reason.
  • Glass Cannon: Zul'jin isn't too durable to begin with, and his damage output is inversely proportional to his remaining health. As his health drops low, he becomes monstrously powerful, capable of easily ripping enemies apart before they can finish him off.
  • Hates Everyone Equally: Zul'jin really doesn't care for anyone presently in the Nexus, even disregarding his thoughts on elves. The only one he seems to harbor any respect for is Orgrim Doomhammer, and he does appreciate any healing tossed his way, even if it's from an elf.
  • Heal Thyself: His Regeneration ability, which lets him channel to recover 25% of his max health over 4 seconds. He draws on the Healing Factor common to all trolls.
  • Heroic Resolve: For a certain definition of 'hero', anyway. His Taz'dingo! heroic ability prevents his health from dropping below 1 for 4 seconds.
  • Hope Spot: Guillotine has a very long range and by predicting an enemy's movement, Zul'jin can execute a fleeing enemy that thinks they're now safe with very low HP and just retreated behind their gate since there's no warning whatsoever on where the axe will land. Even moreso if they retreated with bigger HP, but Zul'jin just got off from a fight that kept his HP low. Or if he talented his Guillotine at level 20, so even if the landing missed, the axe then starts to roll to them... And especially if they just drank from the fountain and yet the axe falls to them right after they just drank.
  • I Can Still Fight!: Zul'jin isn't done until you've landed the killing blow on him. Unlike most characters who will retreat and hearthstone when their health drops critically low, Zul'jin will either retreat to the backline and quickly regenerate before returning for more, chipping away from range before launching his Guillotine, or he'll scream out Taz'dingo! and make you flee head over heels from a veritable Axe Storm.
  • I Work Alone: Not that Zul'jin's player should adopt this attitude, but Zul'jin himself is fiercely independent, Hates Everyone Equally, and doesn't expect help from anyone — one of his replies to being healed is genuine surprise that anyone would help him, and his response to being ressurrected by Auriel has him invoke Let Us Never Speak of This Again.
  • Last Chance Hit Point:
    • Can be invoked with his Taz'dingo! heroic. It makes his trait skyrocket his attack speed, but Zul'jin won't last long if he doesn't use Regeneration, if there is no ally Support hero nearby or if he can't get off enough autoattacks after taking Taz'dingo!'s upgrade at level 20.
    • Similarly, Guillotine's upgrade can be a lifesaving ability if he casts Guillotine while he is very low. The catch is that Guillotine needs to kill an enemy hero for Zul'jin to completely restore his health, though this considerably gets easier the more hurt Zul'jin is.
  • Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Lampshaded if Zul'jin is revived by a skill like Auriel's Resurrect.
    Zul'jin: Uh, we're gonna keep this between us, ya?
  • Mighty Glacier: Zul'jin is significantly tankier than his fellow ranged auto-attack assassins like Raynor, Valla, Fenix, or Lunara, and a close second to Greymane. He also packs the highest DPS amongst them and an ultimate that lets fight on long after he should have reasonably bit the dust. On the other hand, he has very limited mobility options, meaning that he can't really go after vulnerable opponents... Zul'jin kills his enemies one after the other based on whoever's closest.
  • Off with His Head!: He is a headhunter. His Guillotine heroic ability has him launch a massive cleaver that deals more damage when Zul'jin is at low health. He also gets a talent ability that specifically is called Headhunter, which increases Zul'jin's attack range and damage against enemy heroes after he's killed each of them at least once.
  • Power at a Price: He can increase his damage by 25% at the cost of 2% of his maximum health per basic attack.
  • Power Tattoo: His tribal markings will glow when he activates his Berserker trait.
  • Pretender Diss: Gives one out to both Thrallnote  and Zeratulnote :
    Zul'jin (upon killing Thrall): You may carry his hammer, but you be no Doomhammer, boy!
  • Scarf of Asskicking: Sports one and wears it around his mouth. He also mocks Zeratul for having a similar scarf, since he had it since Warcraft II which was long before Starcraft was even conceived.
    Zul'jin (upon killing Zeratul): Da scarf was my thing first!
  • Situational Sword: Zul'jin's playstyle is this. At full HP, he's a mediocre hero that doesn't put out a lot of damage outside of activating his Berserker trait. However, once his HP is critically low, his attack speed skyrockets, his Berserker trait practically costs nothing at 1 HP, and his Taz'dingo! and Guillotine gain their maximum value.
  • Spam Attack: Zul'jin becomes more and more potent at this as his health decreases; If at low percentages, it borders Storm of Blades.
  • Taking You with Me: Zul'jin's Heroics can invoke this: If he uses Taz'dingo!, then he would be able to kill at least one hero before just a tiny hit kills him. With Guillotine, since there's a delay on when the axe will fall, a low-HP Zul'jin can throw the Guillotine shortly before he's killed, and the axe falls and deals damage so massive that his attacker may just die as well. And, at level 20, should his opponent die first, it doesn't actually end in a Mutual Kill and Zul'jin gets the last laugh, as Guillotine will then completely restore his health.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Is there an elf of any kind on Zul'jin's team? If yes, expect neither to be happy about it.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: As a result of emulating the old Warcraft II Troll Axethrower tone (before Trolls got their own Jamaican-like accent), Zul'jin's supposed Troll accent feels more subdued that it can be easy to mistake it as another accent.

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