Characters / Heroes of the Storm: Warcraft Support

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This page is for how Warcraft and World of Warcraft Support-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 Supports

Healers

Alexstrasza, The Life-Binder

Voiced by: Wendee Lee (English)^note Other Languages: Olga Kuznetsova (Russian)

"I shall do what I must."

Empowered by the titans to be the Aspect of the red dragonflight and guardian of all life on the planet, Alexstrasza and her flight watched over the mortals of Azeroth. Though not content to just sit back and watch, she has most recently assisted the mortal races of the world against the threat of Deathwing and his black dragons. Sacrificing much of her power to see Deathwing destroyed, Alexstrasza now resides atop the draconic holy site of Wyrmrest Temple, having passed her guardian duties onto the creatures she once protected.

In the Nexus, Alexstrasza is a shapeshifting Healer. Her trait, Dragonqueen, temporarily transforms her into a colossal dragon after a short delay, granting her extra health, reducing the duration of crowd control effects used on her, empowering her abilities, and converting her basic attack into a cone of flame that damages enemies and heals allies. Gift of Life sacrifices a portion of Alexstrasza's current health to heal an ally for 150% of the health spent. In dragon form, it becomes Breath of Life, greatly reducing the cooldown and removing the health cost. Abundance places an area on the ground that bursts after a long delay, healing all allies inside of it for a percentage of their maximum health. Empowered by her trait, the ability becomes Preservation, greatly increasing the area of effect and healing amount. Flame Buffet launches a fireball that sets enemies on fire, dealing damage over time. Hitting a burning enemy with the ability deals bonus damage, slows the target, and refunds the mana cost. In dragon form, it becomes Wing Buffet, which instead damages and knocks back enemies in an arc.

Her first Heroic ability is Life-Binder. Alexstrasza binds her own life with that of an allied hero, rapidly healing both herself and the ally. After two seconds, the hero with a lower percentage of health is healed up to the health percentage of the other hero. Her other Heroic is Cleansing Flame. Alexstrasza takes to the sky, raining down five fireballs over six seconds at the location of the mouse cursor. Fireballs heal allies and damage enemies. A few seconds afterwards, she lands at the cursor location.

Her current skins are Dragon Aspect Alexstrasza, Dark Queen Alexstrasza, and Spectral Wyrm Alexstrasza.

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• Adaptational Modesty:
  • A bit. She at least wears pants to cover her thighs, but otherwise kept her Stripperiffic chain mail.
  • Played straight with her Dragon Aspect skin, which gives her a set of leather armor over her whole body (albeit a skintight one).
• Arrow Catch: She catches one of Hanzo's arrows in Dragons of the Nexus, then turns it into a tree branch. She does the same thing on her home screen, presumably to Hanzo yet again.
• Badass Cape: While she's always had one in WoW, her model in this game adds much more ornate designs and a huge fur collar.
• Breath Weapon: She breathes fire for her basic attacks in dragon form. One of her Storm Talents causes it to apply Flame Buffet to all enemies it hits, letting her pump out a serious amount of damage.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: She's got one of the largest bust sizes in the game, which is emphasized by her Cleavage Window and is the fact she's the only Hero in the entire game with Jiggle Physics on them.
• Cast from Hit Points: Her Gift of Life saps 15% of her current health to heal her allies. This can be mitigated via a talent or through her Dragonqueen form.
• Combat Medic: Alexstrasza comes with strong healing power and reasonably high sustained damage with Flame Buffet, letting her burn away enemies' health while keeping her allies healthy. Then she activates Dragonqueen and starts ripping the enemy a new one while boosting her healing output even further.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Her dragon form gets reduced duration on crowd control effects, making it hard to shut down the power boost with stuns or silences.
• Damage Discrimination: Her magic fire restores the health of her allies while burning her enemies.
• Death from Above: Cleansing Flame has Alexstrasza take to the skies, bombarding the battlefield with fireballs that either damage enemies or heal allies.
• Difficult, but Awesome: While Alexstrasza's skills are simple by design, getting the most out of them can be very challenging. Gift of Life sacrifices her life to heal and cannot affect herself, which combined with the delay of Abundance means she is incredibly vulnerable should she decide to use the skill too many times. Similarly, Abundance a long delay and a small area, forcing Alexstrasza to know where her allies can safely stand in a teamfight without getting blown up, especially because the delay and very visible particles give enemies plenty of time to react. Life-Binder is potentially a 100% heal for either hero, but the ability by design requires one target to have more health than the other, meaning it can easily do absolutely nothing in the wrong situation. This means that Alex and/or her partner have to manage their positioning and health totals very carefully if they want to get the most out of it. And while Dragonqueen makes her very, very powerful while it's active, the duration is 15 seconds compared to the cooldown of 150 seconds, requiring Alexstrasza to manage the skill carefully lest it be unavailable at a crucial time.
• Fire Purifies: Almost all of her skills have this as her motif and a few of her abilities do these for her allies.
• Friend to All Living Things: As the Aspect of Life, it's her charge to maintain mortal life, and destroy those that threaten it.
• Good Is Not Soft: Don't let her affable and motherly disposition fool you, she still is the 'Dragon Queen & Guardian of life' and if she has too, she will burn her foes to crisp.
• Green Thumb: She has the ability to transform objects into plants or grow them at her feet. Her Hearthing animation has her grow a red flower, then pluck and smell it.
• Heal It With Fire: The impacts of Cleansing Flame and her fiery breath while in Dragonqueen heal any allies in the areas as well as damage enemies.
• Heal Thyself: Her Abundance can heal herself, which is crucial for maintaining the health to use Gift of Life.
• Horned Humanoid: In her default form.
• Large Ham: She tends to put a lot of enunciation on certain words, especially when she's lecturing someone.
• Lead the Target: Abundance is a rare friendly version of this. With its massive delay, you can't expect to plop it down in a teamfight and just have your whole team sit in it without the enemies focusing them down. It's better to put the heal where your allies are going be by the time it bursts, so they can spend the delay dodging instead of standing. Conveniently, if you cast it at max range, you have almost exactly enough time to reach it just as the heal activates, letting you cast it while you're retreating without needing to stop.
• No-Sell: Dragonqueen has an odd quirk where Alexstrasza is invulnerable for a split second as she transforms back to her elf form when it expires. While this is usually completely irrelevant, it can lead to some funny situations where she accidentally dodges otherwise fatal damage.
• Odd Friendship: Seems to have started up a friendly rivalry with Hanzo somewhere offscreen, before both entered the Nexus proper.
• Other Me Annoys Me: In-universe, normal Alexstrasza is implied to have this with her Cursed Hollow counterpart, Aspect of Death Alexstrasza, and the two are seen fighting during the siege of King's Crest. The latter wins.
• Our Dragons Are Different: A shapeshifting demi-god dragon lady who heals her allies with fire.
• Playing with Fire: Her Flame Buffet, Cleansing Flame, and basic attacks.
• Power Echoes: Her voice has a very noticeable reverb effect.
• The Red Mage: She has plenty of healing, but can also deal lots of damage with skillful aiming of Flame Buffet.
• Scaled Up: The effect or her Trait. Also rare because it's the good guy who's doing it.
• Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Averted where it regards her jewelry, which changes shape and size depending on her form, but according to her...
  Alexstrasza: You have no idea how difficult it is to find jewelry that can change sizes.
• Spam Attack: Flame Buffet features a mere 2 second cooldown. With no mana cost so long as she hits every reset, it can quickly pump out lots of damage.
• Stripperific: More subdued than her WoW outfit, but still showing lots of skin.
• Super Mode: Dragonqueen, which boosts all of her abilities while it's active. Note that it does not increase her physical abilities much. She doubles her attack damage but only gets about 30% more HP... and trades it all in for a massive hitbox. Even as a dragon, she needs to hang back and play defensively.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Both her Dragonqueen form and Cleansing Flame can be used to avoid attacks, their attacks damage enemies and they heal allies. Cleansing Flame also allows Alexstrasza to secure kills, reposition or move far away to another location on the map, while being completely safe, as Alexstrasza is removed from the map.
• Synchronization: A variant with her Life-Binder heroic. Life-Binder synchronizes Alexstrasza's Hit Points to that of her chosen allied hero, healing the hero with a lower percentage of health up to the higher health percentage of the other hero.
• Tactical Withdrawal: Cleansing Flame removes Alexstrasza from the map, making it a safe option for her to escape if necessary. If she's in Dragonqueen form, there is not even a cast time, allowing her to immediately fly away.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Dragonqueen allows her to shapeshift into a massive dragon (although technically, the elf form is her shapeshifted form and the ability instead temporarily turns her to her default).
• Weaksauce Weakness: Alexstrasza should not be taken against heroes with easy access to knockback effects, particularly Junkrat. Abundance is extremely telegraphed and has no benefit if the enemy is able to knock everyone out of the zone, and she has no real way to zone enemies herself outside of a short window to cast Wing Buffet in her dragon form.
• When You Snatch the Pebble: She seems to have this kind of test with Hanzo in the Dragons of the Nexus cinematic, with the challenge being defeating her. After he does, they both ascend to The Nexus.
• Wind from Beneath My Wings: Wing Buffet launches a blast of wind with a flick of her wings.
• Worthy Opponent: Considers Hanzo to be one after he defeats her.

Anduin, King of Stormwind

Voiced by: Josh Keaton (English)^note Other Languages: Nikolai Bystrov (Russian)

"For the Alliance above all!"

Anduin Wrynn is the son of King Varian, and the current High King of the Alliance. Unlike his brash and decisive father, Anduin is renowned for his patience and skills in diplomacy. Where Varian is a warrior, Anduin instead sought the path of the Holy Light, under the tutelage of Velen the Prophet. He strives for peace between the nations of Azeroth above all else. He played a leading role in stopping Garrosh Hellscream from destroying the world, a battle which nearly cost Anduin his life. Despite this, Anduin still saved Garrosh while he was captive and on trial, preventing him from eating poisoned food.

In the years following this, Varian would tragically fall defending Azeroth from the Burning Legion. Anduin was thus crowned High King of the Alliance and took up his father's sword, Shalamayne. Unfortunately, Anduin's hopes for peace were dashed when Sylvanas Windrunner, now Warchief of the Horde, burned Teldrassil to the ground. Though he now leads the armies of the Alliance across all of Azeroth, Anduin's ultimate goal is to put an end to the bloodshed he abhors, even if it means getting his hands dirty.

Anduin is a ranged Healer based on a Holy priest from World of Warcraft. He has two traits: Pursued by Grace heals a nearby ally for a small amount whenever he attacks an enemy hero. His second, Leap of Faith, can be activated to pull an ally to Anduin's location, making them Unstoppable while they fly. His basic abilities include Flash Heal, a heal on a short channel and very short cooldown; Divine Star, a heavenly bolt that damages enemies before returning to Anduin to heal allies; and Chastise, a swell of light that damages and roots the first enemy hero hit.

His first heroic is Holy Word: Salvation, which surrounds Anduin in a holy field that rapidly heals nearby allies and Protects them from all damage. His second heroic is Lightbomb, which imbues an ally with the Light, causing them to damage and stun nearby enemies after a delay then gain a shield that scales based on how many enemies were hit.

His current skins are Neo-President Anduin and Emperor of the Dominion Anduin.

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• Achilles' Heel: Anduin's Immortality Field Heroic is incredibly powerful and can salvage games on its own. But it can be interrupted by any stun or boop, which many characters have and some characters have more than one of. If you're playing against them, you go Lightbomb... Or hold your Salvation until all those disruption skills have already been used.
• All-Loving Hero: Anduin is a pacifist who tries to see the best in almost anyone. Besides racists like Garrosh, and enemies to all life like the Legion and the Scourge, there is next to no one he wouldn't be able to get along with.
• Armor Is Useless: He's wearing armor on his upper body, but is no more tanky for it. Maybe his enemies just know to aim for the face and legs?
• Barrier Warrior: Can protect his entire team with Holy Word: Salvation, a single person with Lightbomb or himself with talents like Power Word: Shield.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Anduin is a Reluctant Warrior and a Nice Guy who wishes for peace, but he absolutely doesn't tolerate the Legion, the Scourge, Garrosh or Sylvanas.
• Big Damn Heroes: Leap of Faith lets him potentially pull one of these off, yanking an ally out of a bad spot and into safety. Doubly so if he pulls an ally out of a crowd control effect.
• Combat Medic: While he's heavily healing-based, his talents encourage him to damage enemies for bonuses and he has an entire build path based around his basic attacks. With the right build, he can actually solo Bosses, though this is in no way a wise use of the character.
• Composite Character:
  • Anduin's outfit is a mix between the priest robes he wears in Legion and the heavy plated armor he wears in Battle for Azeroth.
  • Anduin is mostly a Holy priest, but has other iconic spells or talents taken from the Discipline specialization, like Power Word: Shield or Speed of the Pious. Lightbomb is a spell from Hearthstone, and he also has the iconic Inner Fire priest spell in the form of a talent, which has existed since Warcraft III.
• Constantly Curious: He's always inquiring about everyone around him. For a few examples, he asks both Xul and Deckard if he can study their magics after the fight, is intrigued by technology like Probius and Lucio's music, and embarrasses himself staring at Lunara because he's never talked to a dryad before.
• Continuity Nod: Anduin in Heroes is taken from the time in Battle for Azeroth, so he is very confused to see timeshifted versions of people he knows.
  • Anduin can't believe that Arthas, the Lich King, who has long been defeated since the end of Wrath of the Lich King, is still somehow alive.
  • The default Jaina in Heroes is from a time when Jaina was still the peace-seeking diplomat Anduin came to admire, before she Took a Level in Cynic and most of her blonde hair became white. To the more up-to-date Theramore Jaina, he expresses that he'll always have her back.
  • When he sees Illidan in the Nexus, he wonders who is guarding Sargeras now, since Illidan became Sargeras' jailer at the end of Legion.
• Cool Sword: He wields Shalamayne like his father, now infused with the Holy Light. That said, he never actually uses it to hit someone directly with it.
• Desperation Attack: Anduin's Desperate Prayer talent lets him instantly heal an ally for a massive amount of health, but self-stuns for two seconds. Use it wisely.
• Dreamworks Face: He has a hilariously exaggerated one on his Neo-President skin.
• Enemy Mine: Anduin tries to remind Horde heroes that other threats are above the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde.
  Anduin: Put your grievances aside. We have a common enemy to deal with. Again.
• Foil:
  • Anduin is a Holy priest, while Whitemane is a Discipline priest. Both are Combat Medics though and have access to a root. Both possess heroics that both heal and protect their team (Holy Word: Salvation and Scarlet Aegis) and an Area of Effect damage heroic (Lightbomb and Divine Reckoning).
  • Holy Word: Salvation bears a resemblance to Tyrael's old Sanctification. While Anduin only grants his allies Protected instead of Invulnerability, he also heals them, but like the old Sanctification, he needs to channel the ability and can be interrupted by any Daze, Stun, or Silence effect.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Subverted. It might look like he's not wearing headgear, but...
  Anduin: Mhh? Oh! Actually, I am still wearing the helmet, it’s just transmogrified to “hidden.”
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Divine Star and Lightbomb are intended to hit multiple enemies and Anduin has access to talents like Holy Nova.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Lightbomb, of course. Divine Star can also be talented to explode when Anduin catches it.
• I'll Take That as a Compliment: Not said word-for-word, but being told by Whitemane that he is "unworthy to join the Scarlet Crusade" has him answer with this trope.
• Immortality Field: Holy Word: Salvation makes all allies around Anduin immune to damage while also healing them. The field is broken early if Anduin is hit with hard crowd-control, however.
• Improbable Age: He's only 18 and is one of the most talented priests in the world as well as a respected leader of the Alliance.
• Insistent Terminology: When Johanna tries to get a rise out of him while calling him "paladin", he clarifies that he's actually just a priest... that happens to wear armor and carry a sword. By the time he finishes his sentence he decides to concede the point.
• It's Personal: He shows visible anger towards Gul'dan, who has caused much war and strife and whose doppelganger from another universe killed Anduin's father, Varian.
• Lampshade Hanging: As his quote under Enemy Mine above shows, he is well aware of how often the Alliance and the Horde have been forced to put aside their differences and work together against a greater threat.
• Leitmotif: Anduin's theme in Heroes is a remix of his theme from World of Warcraft, which itself has elements of both Varian's theme and the theme of Stormwind.
• Light 'em Up: All of his abilities involve this trope in some form.
• Mistaken Identity:
  • StarCraft characters Nova and Raynor think that Anduin is a character from their franchise named Valerian Mengsk. Why? Both characters have blond hair in bob cuts, are the Lighter and Softer sons of famous human monarchs (though Arcturus was more of an Evil Overlord compared to Varian's The Good King) who assumed the throne after said fathers' defeats, and share a voice actor. In late 2020, cosmetics were released which allow Anduin to wear Valerian's outfit.
  • Anduin himself thinks the zerg are a new form of silithid and the protoss are heavily corrupted draenei.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Anduin has a unique line if he casts Leap of Faith on Varian, proclaiming that he'll save his father, which he could not when his father died in Legion.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Flash Heal requires a brief channel, just like how it works in World of Warcraft.^note Funnily enough, this version is one of the longer-casting main heals by virtue of not being instant, whereas the WoW version is comparatively, well, a flash. If Anduin tries to move before the cast is finished, it even makes the same 'spell failed' sound effect World of Warcraft does.
  • The way Anduin casts Holy Word: Salvation is a reference of his usage of it in the Battle for Azeroth cinematic. He even says the same line he said in the cinematic.
    Anduin: Stand as one!
  • As the Priest representative of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Anduin naturally also makes some references to it, like how he is Casting a Shadow there despite clearly being a Holy priest, or how he uses his opponent's own minions to beat them to death. Or how he is out of cards.
  • The skin tints for Anduin's base skin are all named after regions inside the Kingdom of Stormwind.
• Nice Guy: He's quite polite to most heroes, especially other prominent Alliance members. He's also one of the few heroes with overall positive dialogues with Murky and The Butcher, and is mostly just curious about allies he doesn't understand.
• Non-Indicative Name: Discussed in one of his poke quotes, regarding Leap of Faith.
  Anduin: Why did the priesthood call it a Leap of Faith? No one leaps, and it certainly doesn't require faith. I've always thought Life Grip would be more accurate.
• Ornamental Weapon: He doesn't swing his sword when he Basic Attacks in melee. The only times he even holds it are for the animations on Divine Star and Lightbomb, where he basically uses it as a Magic Wand. This doubles as a Continuity Nod, since he was pretty bad at using it in the Battle for Azeroth cinematic.
• Painfully Slow Projectile: Chastise fires off a rather slow and easily dodgeable ball of light that roots the enemy, which is why it is best used as a follow-up.
• Perpetual Smiler: Neo-President Anduin constantly has a smug smile on his face.
• Ship Tease: With Nova, although Nova doesn't exactly reciprocate.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • Anduin is a very strong all-around healer. He's like ETC or Valla in the sense that, while he may not always be the right character to play, he is never the wrong one.
  • This also extends to his "Life Grip" Trait. Heroes of the Storm is a game when entire matches can be lost if your opponents get a single kill. Anduin therefore has the power to un-lose the match every seventy seconds.
• Spam Attack: Flash Heal only has a 4 second cooldown by default. With certain talents, Anduin can even play this straighter or invert it.
• Sword Beam: Anduin swings his sword when he uses Divine Star.
• Undying Loyalty: To the Alliance, but especially to his and his father's friends.
  • To Greymane, Anduin's closest adviser after he became king, who has become very protective towards Anduin after Varian's death.
    Greymane: If I am to accept help, then I am glad it comes from you.
    Anduin: And as long as I live, I shall gladly give it.
  • To Valeera, Anduin's father's gladiator partner. After she became Varian's adviser, she swore loyalty to solely Varian and Anduin, and she became Anduin's secret spy after his coronation.
  • To Jaina, his Honorary Aunt.
    Anduin: I've got your back, Jaina. Always will.

Brightwing, Faerie Dragon

Voiced by: Amber Hood (English)^note Other Languages: Dorothée Pousséo (French)

"Fight time!"

Brightwing is a faerie dragon, a race of playful sprite-like creatures who typically live in forests inhabited by the night elves. Despite her cutesy looks and small frame, she has a frightening amount of power. She is an Original Generation character who represents the faerie dragon unit from Warcraft III.

Brightwing is a ranged Healer based around global mobility and sustained healing. Her Soothing Mist trait causes her to passively emit a healing pulse every few seconds, healing herself and nearby allies. It can also be activated to release a pulse that cleanses debuffs from allies. Her actives include Arcane Flare, an AoE blast that does more damage at the center and casts a free Soothing Mist heal if it lands, Polymorph, a powerful point-and-click disable that briefly turns an enemy into a harmless critter, and Pixie Dust, a buff that speeds up an ally and reduces spell damage they take.

Her first Heroic ability, Emerald Wind, generates a massive whirlwind around her that damages and knocks back enemies. Her second Heroic ability, Blink Heal, stores up to two charges that she can consume to teleport a short distance to an ally, healing them in the process.

Brightwing cannot mount. Instead, she can Phase Shift to an ally hero anywhere on the battlefield on a long cooldown, healing them for a percentage of their maximum health on arrival.

Her current skins are Fey Dragon Brightwing, Monarch Brightwing, Luxorian Monkey Brightwing, Bewitching Brightwing, and Destroyer Brightwing.

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• Ax-Crazy: Bizarrely, for a faerie dragon. Examples of Stop Poking Me! quotes:
  Brightwing: I will gladly tear you limb from limb if you continue. <3
  Brightwing: Why poke Brightwing? Oooh! Is it because you want Brightwing to gnaw flesh from finger?
• Blood Knight: Her kill quotes imply as much.
  Brightwing: Did you suffer greatly? I hope so. <3
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: As a Fair Folk, her personality and mannerisms are more closer to this trope.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Her intro video.
  Brightwing: Hi new friends! I am Brightwing! Do you know about faerie dragons? Well, we like happy things! Like, nature, and making new friends! Oooh, and snacktime! [chomp munch]
• Brick Joke: As of Heroes 2.0, one of the tints for her basic skin is named "Darkwing"; see Evil Twin below.
• Buffy Speak: As a faerie dragon, she has a hard time formulating sentences in human languages.
  Brightwing: Human words are hard to make together talking for expressing things.
• Canon Immigrant: Brightwing originally comes from Heroes of the Storm, but was added to World of Warcraft in the Legion expansion as a questgiver and champion in the druid order hall, and later made it into Hearthstone (in the Classic set as a replacement for Sylvanas no less).
• Combat Medic: Brightwing's Arcane Flare is a rather powerful nuke, especially for a healer, and her Polymorph is one of the strongest disables in the game. As a tradeoff, her burst healing is lacking. Furthermore, the fact that she can join a fight from anywhere on the map via Phase Shift means she can afford to spend more time away from her team to soak experience and push lanes.
• Coordinated Clothes: Her Destroyer skin has the exact same alternate tints as Deathwing's default skin, letting them pair up perfectly.
• Cute and Psycho: Very cute, very psycho.
• Cute Critters Act Childlike: Brightwing possesses an overall child-like, playful disposition with a bit of psychopathy thrown in.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Brightwing is labeled "Hard" for a reason. Despite her abilities being mechanically simple, making good use of them requires a lot of map awareness and good positioning. Her comparatively low burst healing means that while she can put out a lot of healing over the course of a game, she needs to play her cards right to actually save lives, especially as her main burst heals also put her in the line of fire (and, in the case of Phase Shift, requires channeling on top of that). A bad Brightwing can easily overextend and get picked off, while a good Brightwing can essentially save allies from anywhere, at any time, while being a major nuisance in teamfights.
• Everyone Has Standards: Brightwing finds Abathur very frightening.
  Brightwing: You are scary creature I am scared of!
  Abathur: Fear. Appropriate.
• Evil Twin: Not her, though she claims to have a twin brother called Darkwing who is "not very nice".
• Expy: Of Puck. A recursive example as with Stitches, as Puck's original model was a Faerie Dragon. It is ultimately subverted; while Brightwing and Puck look similar, are both trickster-ish, and have similar-looking abilities, they play very different roles: Brightwing is foremost a healer, while Puck focuses on disrupting the opponent.
• The Fair Folk: As a faerie dragon, she's probably as close to the playful trickster archetype as Warcraft gets since Warcraft gameplay always consists of Everything Trying to Kill You, RTS or MMO.
• Forced Transformation: One of her basic skills. Notably, it is a one of the few fire-and-forget kind of disables without any significant drawbacks, making it an incredibly powerful disable. The skill's icon is drawn from the Warcraft III version of the series' traditional spell, though it cannot actually turn enemies into sheep as said icon would imply - instead, it can turn them into a crab, a pig or a squirrel.
• Invisibility: Her Invisible Friends talent for her Blink Heal heroic can grant this both to Brightwing and her chosen ally hero that she heals using the heroic. Combined with the low cooldown of Blink Heal, it's actually possible for Brightwing to make herself and her team mates invisible at late-game.
• Killer Rabbit: Small, cute, playful and has a high-pitched, childlike voice. She's also dissonantly violent and will congratulate her allies on being murderous and bloodthirsty.
• Lead the Target: Her Arcane Flare deals more damage at the center of the blast and will proc a free burst of Soothing Mist if an enemy hero was damaged the center of the blast.
• The Medic: Passively heals nearby allies with Soothing Mist, and can teleport to heal using the Blink Heal heroic. Focuses more on keeping allies at high health than burst healing.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: She strikes the perfect balance of childlike playfulness and psychopathic bloodthirst.
• Nonindicative Name: Discussed in one of her poke quotes.
  Brightwing: The Emerald Dream is not a dream and has no emeralds. Ooooh, deep thought. Head hurts now.
• Original Generation: Brightwing is an exclusive addition to Heroes of the Storm, to represent the faerie dragon race.
• Our Dragons Are Different: A faerie dragon. Technically she's not a real dragon, just a spirit of the Emerald Dream that superficially resembles one.
• Pet the Dog: She genuinely thanks heroes who heal her in turn without any references to violence, which is very nice.
  Brightwing: Thank you, friend!
  Brightwing: Healing is good! You are a good person!
• Randomized Transformation: Brightwing's Polymorph ability turns the target into a crab, squirrel, or pig at random. There's no mechanical different between any of the forms though, it's just for flavour.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Brightwing is a very forgiving healer, as she has powerful abilities that easy to use and doesn't even need to worry about healing aside from positioning. However, her abilities are very strong; she has team wide sustained healing, global presence thanks to Phase Shift, and an insane disable skill. Players who can capitalize on her strengths can do amazing things. Keep in mind, however, that "simple" does not mean "easy," making her a hero that's easy to pick up but harder to play well.
• Sociopathic Hero: An odd case; despite her psychotic tendencies, Brightwing seems relatively good-natured and nice to anyone she likes. But... she also eats people, loves inflicting pain, and - unlike Stitches - is fully aware of what she's doing.
  Brightwing: I enjoy brutally killing you very much!
• Teleportation Rescue: As of her rework, her Phase Shift now heals an ally hero for a percentage of their maximum health, potentially saving them when used correctly.
• Teleport Spam: Her Blink Heal heroic has 2 charges with a 9 second cooldown.
• To Serve Man: She very much enjoys eating humans. Her reveal trailer showed her chowing down on a recently-deceased Lumberjack Uther, and she gets excited for snack time whenever an enemy dies.
  Like many Faerie Dragons, Brightwing is happiest darting around the forests of Ashenvale, healing friends, and then grabbing a light snack. By the way, did you know a human head only weighs ten pounds? Talk about light!
• Why Won't You Die?: A passive heal, a unit-targeted polymorph, and a speed boost that also reduces incoming spell damage make Brightwing infuriatingly hard to bring down in a one-on-one. And that's not even getting into her Heroics or teleportation ability.

Li Li, World Wanderer

Voiced by: Kim Mai Guest (English)^note Other Languages: Olga Zvereva (Russian)

"Ready for adventure!"

Chen Stormstout's energetic, mischievous and adventurous young niece whom he took to adventure with him in Pandaria. Born upon Shen-zin Su the Wandering Isle, Li Li Stormstout led a somewhat uneventful life until she began reading the journals of her uncle Chen. Soon, nothing would sate her desire for adventure, exploration, and pestering adventurers in the Valley of the Four Winds.

Li Li is a ranged Healer based on non-targeted abilities who does best when the enemy focuses attention on her. Her trait, Fast Feet, increases her movement speed and speeds up her cooldowns for a brief duration whenever she takes damage. Her first basic ability is Healing Brew, which tosses out a bottle of healing tea that auto-targets the most injured ally, with a low cooldown and mana cost. Cloud Serpent summons a miniature dragon at the side of an allied hero that attacks nearby enemies. Whenever the dragon attacks, the ally is healed. Finally, Blinding Wind sends out two gusts of wind that home in on the two nearest enemies, prioritizing heroes. Enemies hit by the winds are blinded and slowed for a short duration.

Her first Heroic ability, Jug of 1,000 Cups, summons a massive jug above Li Li that rapidly distributes brew to the most injured ally in a range around her. Every time the jug heals an ally, the cooldown of the ability is increased, up to a cap. The other is Water Dragon, which summons a massive spirit dragon that comes crashing down on the nearest enemy hero, dealing damage and applying a massive slow to them and all other enemies it hits.

Her current skins are Adventurer Li Li, Explorer Li Li, Shadowblade Li Li, Festival Li Li, Shadowpaw Li Li, and Gata de Batalla Li Li.

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• Attack Animal: Li Li's Cloud Serpent buff attaches one of said animals to an ally to help attack while Water Dragon summons one to collide with an enemy.
• Attack Drone: Cloud Serpent is practically this.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Attention Deficit... Hey Look, A Flower!
• Blow You Away: Li Li can conjure a cyclone to attack and blind enemies.
• Cuteness Proximity: Around Murky.
• Fragile Speedster: While no more likely to survive a big damage combo than any other healers, her Fast Feet passive makes her very fast while you're trying to kill her if you don't hit her with something like that. Getting as many talents that improve the passive as possible will make her look a lot like a self-only panda version of Lucio.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: She's implied to be healing you with tea (probably because they can't show a minor drinking), although the game drops plenty of hints that her "brew" is of a more traditional Stormstout variety...
• Healing Potion: Li Li's healing spells, Healing Brew and Jug of 1,000 Cups, which may or may not be alcoholic.
• The Medic: Apart from Lt. Morales, Li Li is practically the medic, having excellent healing capabilities but being clunky at best with anything else.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: She's Chen's niece and was raised among other pandaren, but you couldn't tell that from her voice.
• Pain & Gain: Li Li's trait reduces her cooldowns whenever she takes damage. Taking careful, controlled amounts of damage will allow her to spam her already low-cooldown abilities with absolute impunity.
• Shoot the Medic First: Exploited, oddly. Her trait being activated from damage means that as long as she isn't dying, the enemy team attacking her is a good thing, encouraging players to walk the line between avoiding and seeking damage. Not to mention several of her talents cause Fast Feet to give additional bonuses, like increased mana regeneration or increased armor every second its active, making putting her down an even more difficult affair for the enemy. However, since her heal automatically targets the lowest health hero within range, Li Li has to be careful not to take too much damage so that her allies aren't deprived of too much healing.
• Side Effects Include...: She mentions that drinking too much healing brew will make you stupid... and fat... and lazy.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • Gameplay-wise, Li Li is one of the simplest heroes in the game, with abilities that aim themselves, a trait that boosts her survivability, and a play style that boils down to glorified Button Mashing. However, that doesn't mean she's not a potent healer in her own right.
  • Her rework in the Alexstrasza patch has actually added some depth to her kit. While she can very easily be played in her old style, there are now rewards for taking more risks: the Talent that causes her Trait to reduce her cooldowns has been made permanent, meaning an ideal Li Li is flitting around the battlefield taking little bits of damage and spamming her spells. Jug of 1,000 Cups can also be canceled mid-use, which is important because its base cooldown has been reduced to 20 seconds, but scales back up to its old value (70) as you hand out more and more brew.
• Spam Attack: Her healing cannot be manually targeted, but has a very short cooldown. Her Jug of 1,000 Cups spams even faster.
• Temporary Blindness: Her Blinding Wind skill sends out gusts to temporarily blind nearby enemies.
• What the Hell, Hero?: While a lot of Stop Poking Me! quotes are either fun natured or getting annoyed at the prospect of being poked, Li Li goes even further and tells you what you should be doing in a frantic action game like Heroes of the Storm (though it's a kid like Li Li, she'd say it in a softer manner):
  Li Li: Umm. Ah. Hey! Shouldn’t we be fighting? I mean, it’s fun talking and all but... I think our teammates are waiting on us, you know?
• Why Won't You Die?:
  • Don't be fooled. Li Li is one of the tougher heroes to pin and take down due to the short cooldown on her heals, her passive that boosts her movespeed, and her blind making you miss some of your attacks. Even worse, being damaged lowers her cooldowns at an impressive rate, meaning you could potentially be helping her by trying to off her. And, worst of all, one of her talents at level 20 causes her to take less damage the longer Fast Feet is active for, causing any attack in the heat of battle that doesn't kill her to be effectively pointless.
  • The entire point behind Jug of 1000 Cups. With the very rapid healing, everyone on Li Li's team within range of the ability becomes nigh-unkillable.

Malfurion, Archdruid

Voiced by: Ed Trotta (English)^note Other Languages: Marc Brunet (French), Radik Mukhametzyanov (Russian)

"Elune, grant us strength!"

An archdruid of the Cenarion Circle and the world's most powerful druid, Malfurion commands the powers of nature as granted to him by the Keeper of the Grove demigod, Cenarius. Malfurion, while technically a part of the Alliance, is more concerned with the protection of Azeroth as a whole than politics and is more than willing to work with most races for the greater good. But he has often a strained relationship with his brother Illidan, who betrayed the night elves for convoluted reasons during the War of Eternity. Malfurion is the beloved of the Priestess of Elune, and central leader of the night elves, Tyrande Whisperwind much to the dismay of his brother.

Malfurion is a ranged Healer who focuses on healing over time, with some support-oriented damaging skills. His activated trait is Innervate, which restores some mana to an allied hero and lowers the cooldowns on their basic abilities. His basic abilities are Regrowth, which grants a massive heal over time to an ally, Moonfire, which deals damage in a small area, revealing enemies and instantly healing all allies with Regrowth on them if it hits an enemy hero, and Entangling Roots, which covers an area with spreading plant growth, rooting any enemy heroes caught.

His Heroics are Tranquility, which creates a large healing aura around Malfurion that grants a small amount of Armor to allies with Regrowth, and Twilight Dream, which damages and silences enemies in an area around Malfurion.

His current skins are Waywatcher Malfurion, Storm Mantle Malfurion, Betrayer Malfurion, Druid of the Flame Malfurion, and Greatfather Winter Malfurion.

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• Animal Motifs: Aside from his antlers (which he grew), parts of his outfit have other animal parts, such as claws and wings.
• Badass Santa: His Greatfather Winter skin. He rocks the look even better than Rehgar due to that huge beard of his.
• Battle Couple: Is this when on the same team as his wife, Tyrande.
• Combat Medic: Regrowth by itself is a very slow heal-over-time. Malfurion needs to actively hit enemy heroes with Moonfire to give his team bursts of healing. He also can choose a few offensive talents, which greatly increase his damage potential.
• Composite Character: Malfurion's kit is largely based on the Keeper of the Grove hero unit from Warcraft III, which he also shared the skillset of in the campaign. His kit and certain talents also make him a mix between the Balance and Restoration druid specializations from World of Warcraft.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Malfurion is simple enough to play, but playing him efficiently is another matter entirely. As his playstyle emphasizes keeping Regrowth active on as many allies as possible at any given time, a good Malfurion player needs to be able to keep tabs on who has the buff and for how much longer, so that he can maximize uptime by knowing when to recast and on whom. He also needs to hit Moonfire consistently for healing in the middle of a fight as Regrowth heals very slowly, and catching an attentive enemy with Entangling Roots can be fairly tricky. Finally, Malfurion needs to keep track of all this without getting his squishy self killed.
• Druid: The Archdruid, just like in World of Warcraft.
• Face–Heel Turn: One of his skins, named Betrayer, is him in Illidan's place as the Stormrage brother who made a bargain with Sargeras and had his eyes burned out; presumably he also was responsible for the creation of the second Well of Eternity. Illidan has a skin from the same timeline, Shan'do, which shows him in Malfurion's place as Archdruid, as does Tyrande, whose Warden skin says that she became his jailer instead of Maiev Shadowsong.
  • Affably Evil: He's still using the Nice Guy voiceset from Malfurion's other skins, but altered into a lower tone. Like Illidan's Shan'do skin, it hasn't been clarified whether or not this is his actual demeanour or Blizzard just deepened his voice and called it a day.
  • Casting a Shadow: He seems to have used either corrupted druid magic or warlock-like spells rather than becoming a demon hunter.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: He speaks in a much lower voice when using it.
  • Fauns and Satyrs: The skin physically resembles a Warcraft satyr, complete with claw-like metal protrusions on either hand (although they're purely decorative). Given that Warcraft satyrs started as night elves who pledged themselves to the Burning Legion and were transformed into goat-like demons, this is an appropriate tie-in.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: His regular skin doesn't have a shirt but this one emphasizes it much more clearly.
    • He also has a Druid of the Flame skin, which puts him in the place of Fandral Staghelm. Affably Evil and Walking Shirtless Scene still apply, but Casting a Shadow becomes Playing with Fire.
• Forced Sleep: His "Emerald Dreams" talent, which causes Entangling Roots to put enemies to sleep after the root wears off.
• Green Thumb: Entangling Roots is a textbook nature spell and can even become more naturey by summoning treants with the right talent.
• In Harmony with Nature: As a prerequisite to Druidism, one must be in harmony with nature to utilize it.
• Lunacy: Moonfire which calls down a beam of lunar energy.
• Magic Staff: He carries a one with a crescent moon floating in the crook.
• The Medic: Heal-over-time oriented. Very good at keeping heroes topped up, but not as much at burst healing, requiring some forethought as to when to use Regrowth. His heroics, though, can make or break a teamfight.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: One of his kill quotes, "Pathetic wretch!", sounds this way because of Characterization Marches On. It's actually a call back to an attack line of his from Warcraft III.
• Regenerating Mana: His Innervate trait grants this to an allied hero. This can be upgraded with a certain talent to give Malfurion half the mana bonuses as well.
• Schmuck Bait: You need to pay attention which heroic the enemy Malfurion chose before deciding on whether to dogpile on him at the start of the fight. If you dogpiled on him and he actually chose Twilight Dream over Tranquility, congratulations, you've just set yourselves up for the perfect initiation by the enemy.
• Simple, yet Awesome: An entry-level, cheap Healer for a mere 2000 gold, he comes packed with potent abilities for newbies and veterans alike. A heal, a nuke, and most dangerously a large area root that can catch multiple enemies in it.
• Spam Attack: Moonfire has low cooldown and mana for an AoE nuke. Certain talents can reduce its cooldown temporarily to 1.5 sec, allowing you to spam it with impunity.
• Squishy Wizard: Malfurion packs powerful healing and utility spells, but low health. That being said, his healing and root mean that he's not easy to kill unless you burst him down quickly.
• Support Party Member: He's not much for damage, but he provides a lot of utility with Area of Effect crowd control, teamwide healing over time, and his unique trait to top off other mana users.
• When Trees Attack: Can summon roots to tangle you up, which can be improved to create a Treant to add further damage.

Rehgar, Shaman of the Earthen Ring

Voiced by: Matthew Mercer (English)^note Other Languages: Mikhail Belyakovich (Russian)

"I will fight to my last breath!"

Born on Draenor and raised as a gladiator of the ogres, Rehgar Earthfury is a fearsome orc who had his experience in gladiatorial combat. After the Second War ended, Rehgar became an underground arena fighter and embraced Warchief Thrall's new shamanistic ways. He eventually managed his own team, and trained fighters to become gladiators, such as the night elf Broll Bearmantle and the blood elf Valeera Sanguinar, as well as his prized champion Bloodeye Redfist, who was killed by the mate of a rival he slayed. Luckily, Rehgar immediately found his replacement, an amnesiac human who would eventually be called Lo'Gosh, who in truth was the missing king of Stormwind, Varian Wrynn. Lo'Gosh, Broll and Valeera fought valiantly at Dire Maul and Rehgar was able to make a fortune. Lo'Gosh however was determined to restore his memory and Rehgar, who knew Lo'Gosh no longer wanted to be his slave, quietly hoped that his team would try to escape. At that point, Rehgar had his fill of the arena and offered his services to Thrall as an adviser and later joined the Earthen Ring.

Rehgar is an aggressive Healer hero who directly engages in combat in the frontline when necessary. His trait, Purge, can be activated to either remove all debuffs from an ally or heavily slow an enemy. His basic abilities include Chain Heal, a wave that heals his target as well as two additional allies nearby; Lightning Shield, which surrounds a friendly target with lightning, dealing damage to nearby enemies; and Earthbind Totem, dropping a totem on the ground that slows nearby enemies, but can be destroyed.

Rehgar's first Heroic is Ancestral Healing, a massive burst of healing on the target hero after a short delay. His second Heroic is Bloodlust, which grants himself and nearby allied heroes increased attack and movement speed for a few seconds, and causes them to heal for a percentage of the basic attack damage they deal to their target.

Instead of a mount, Rehgar can transform into a Ghost Wolf which has no cast time and isn't cancelled when taking damage, but moves slower than a normal mount. In this form, his next Basic Attack deals bonus damage and makes him lunge towards his target.

His current skins are Storm Wolf Rehgar, Ironclaw Rehgar, Greatfather Winter Rehgar, Mecha Rehgar, Drek'thar Rehgar, and Shaman Adept Rehgar.

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• Animal Motifs: Wolves. It's his spirit animal, and it's everywhere in his clothing.
• Antidote Effect: His Purge Trait both plays this straight and inverts it simultaneously.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: One of his Stop Poking Me! quotes:
  Rehgar: My spirit animal? What do you think?
• Ascended Extra: Rehgar debuted in short stories and comics from the Warcraft Expanded Universe, which featured the Rogue hero Valeera Sanguinar, the Rogue representative of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, and Varian flipping Wyrnn King of Stormwind and first amongst equals of the entire Alliance, and the main character of the same comic Rehgar debuted in. This is Rehgar's video game debut, and he makes mention of getting used to this "video game thing" if he's poked enough. And even more so, he's also the first orc introduced in the game, he got in before Thrall (although previously, Blizzard planned to have Thrall enter first with Rehgar's kit, but then backed away after realizing that he could be much more. They then searched another orc shaman to handle the kit, and they picked Rehgar). After his newly gained popularity in Heroes, he eventually made it to World of Warcraft in the Legion expansion with the title Hero of the Storm.
• Badass Boast: From his trailer.
  Rehgar: Heroes of the Storm? *laughs* I am the storm!
• Badass Santa: He has a seasonal alt skin where he dresses as Greatfather Winter, a paper-thin pastiche of Santa Claus within the World of Warcraft universe.
• Blood Knight: His quotes show that he really enjoys a good fight.
• Bloodlust: The eponymous heroic provides Life Drain and copious amounts of attack speed to Rehgar and any nearby allied hero for a short time.
• Call a Human a "Meatbag": If he kills one.
  Rehgar: Not even close, pinkskin!
• Combat Medic: Similar to Uther and Kharazim, Rehgar is supposed to support the frontline, which is why he sports a higher health pool than ranged Healers. To make effective use of his trait and his Earthbind Totem, Rehgar is required to directly engage the enemy with his teammates sometimes. He's also got a pretty strong basic attack even before factoring in Ghost Wolf's damage bonus; if he opts for Bloodlust, Rehgar can tear chunks out of the enemy by himself.
• Composite Character: Rehgar's claws, wolf pelt, and the abilities Lightning Shield and Bloodlust call to mind the original Shaman unit of Warcraft III. He also inherits the Shadow Hunter's Healing Wave ability (renamed Chain Heal). His Ghost Wolf and Earthbind Totem are taken from World of Warcraft, though, and Ancestral Healing resembles the classic Nature's Swiftness ability, which allowed the shaman to instantly cast a huge Nature spell.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Ancestral Healing has both a long cooldown, making it Too Awesome to Use, and a delay before activation, making it easy to mess up the timing and resulting in allies dying before it goes off or most of the healing getting wasted on someone who's relatively healthy. However, it is still the biggest heal in the game, and a good Ancestral Healing can easily turn the tides of a fight.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: He carries a claw in one hand only, which is strange considering his Storm Wolf skin wields one in both hands.
• Jack of All Trades: Rehgar is far more mobile than most healers, has respectable healing over time, can take talents to be uniquely effective at taking most mercenary camps compared to other healers, can do some good damage, Ancestral Healing is an excellent burst heal and the Earth Shield talent can aid such a goal from using Lightning Shield on an ally, and the slow from Earthbind Totem can be very handy for both helping your team chase enemies down or escape them. He's a bit better supporting melee characters so he has more effective Lightning Shield targets and Bloodlust is generally better with melee characters, but he ain't half-bad with ranged characters (not to mention most ranged characters aren't very good at taking mercenary camps) and at the very least he can always use Lightning Shield on himself. He's even able to reduce enemy attack speed with his Earthbind Totem with a talent, which is usually a thing done by Tanks.
• Magic Knight: Rehgar is a melee fighting hero who uses magic (such as lightning shields) to support allies in combat.
• Master of All: Notorious for this following his rework. "Rehgod" had high damage, crowd control, durability, healing, and mobility, pushed fairly fast, and wasn't even particularly complicated to play as, letting him utterly dominate the meta until Blizzard brought him down to slightly above par.
• The Medic: Overall, Rehgar is a more burst-oriented healer.
  • Has chain healing as a basic skill.
  • He can drop a Healing Totem in the ground, healing an entire group with it.
  • One of his heroics is a special and strong heal, but it suffers a delay after activating it and.
  • His Lightning Shield can also be talented to provide an actual shield.
• Noble Wolf: He's wearing a wolf head mask, and can transform into a ghost wolf. He's also a fairly stand-up guy.
• No Self-Buffs: Rehgar, like all healers, cannot use Purge on himself. For a time, he also wasn't able to use Ancestral Healing on himself due to balance reasons, but this was eventually reverted.
• Our Orcs Are Different: A prime example of the "Blizzard" orc, which is only to be expected.
• Shock and Awe: As a shaman, Rehgar has access to Lightning Shield, which deals damage to enemies around the shielded target.
• Stone Wall: He has the second-highest health pool of all Healer heroes. Plus, if you get close to killing him, he can drop an Earthbind Totem to slow you down, instantly transform into a ghost wolf to flee, and in a pinch, restore roughly 80% of his health bar with Ancestral Healing.
• Token Good Teammate: His Ironclaw skin comes from a world where Garrosh Hellscream had a better time of invading Azeroth, conquered Orgrimmar and spared Rehgar's life in exchange for him training Garrosh's warriors. He accepted because he believed the Iron Horde could only be brought down from within.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Can transform into a ghost wolf instead of using a mount. The bonus it gives to the first autoattack he does when exiting it also encourages players to shapeshift as often as possible in the middle of a battle.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Three of his skins make him walk around without a shirt. It's assumed he isn't chilly because he can turn into a wolf.
• Why Won't You Die?: Rehgar is one of the harder heroes to pin down and kill, primarily due to his Ghost Wolf form^note Basically an instant mount that does not get dispelled on damage, heals, and totem.
• Wolverine Claws: Wields a set with his left hand. His Storm Wolf skin gives him a second set.

Tyrande, High Priestess of Elune

Voiced by: Elisa Gabrielli (English)^note Other Languages: Hélène Vauquois (French), Olga Zubkova (Russian)

"I heed the voice of Elune."

Tyrande Whisperwind is a Priestess of the Moon and commander of the night elf Sentinels. She grew up with the Stormrage brothers thousands of years ago, and eventually fell for Malfurion, much to Illidan's despair. After the War of the Ancients, Tyrande was left in charge of Ashenvale. However, millennia later, Kalimdor was invaded by strangers. Tyrande planned to drive the interlopers away from the lands, and built her elven forces. She awakened Malfurion and the other druids from their slumber, and also released Illidan from his imprisonment against Malfurion's advice. Eventually, Tyrande was called forth along with Malfurion, as well as Thrall and Jaina Proudmoore, by Medivh, who urged them to put aside their rivalry and unite against the Burning Legion. Despite her distrust of the mortals, she worked alongside the two and even grew to respect them.

The release of Illidan would eventually come to haunt Tyrande however, as she and Malfurion answered a distress call from Maiev Shadowsong to help her recapture the Betrayer. Maiev, bitter that Tyrande had slain her Watchers to free the criminal, lied to Malfurion and left the priestess for dead at the hands of the Scourge. Contrary to Maiev's plans, the Stormrage brothers put aside their difference to save her and made peace. After this, Malfurion would once again enter slumber, leaving Tyrande to take care of the Sentinels. Due to the pressure of orcish forces in Ashenvale, she eventually decided that the night elves would join the Alliance.

Tyrande is a ranged Healer who mixes healing with damage. Her trait is Hunter's Mark, which heals her each time she lands a Basic Attack and can also be activated to mark any enemy, amplifying the damage they receive. Her first ability is Light of Elune, which heals herself or an ally and has two charges that share a single cooldown. Each ability that hits an enemy hero or Basic Attack she lands lowers the cooldown. Sentinel emits a spirit owl that has infinite range and scouts the area it flies through, damaging and revealing the first hero it hits. Her final basic ability, Lunar Flare, fires an arrow that lands after a delay, stunning all enemies in a small area.

Her first Heroic ability is her signature move, Starfall, bombarding a wide area with numerous low-damage bolts of energy over several seconds that slow all enemies hit. Her second Heroic ability, Shadowstalk, globally grants her entire team stealth, and also heals them for a significant amount over time.

Her current skins are High Priestess Tyrande, Blood Elf Tyrande, Eagle Eye Tyrande, Warden Tyrande, and Love Goddess Tyrande.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: Despite her vocal hostility towards Illidan, she is surprisingly remorseful if she kills him.
  Tyrande: Oh, Illidan... may peace find you now.
• Alternate Universe: Her two skins come from the consequences of two alternate versions of The War of The Ancients. In one, where Illidan is the Shan'do and Malfurion the Betrayer, Tyrande became his Warden and Maiev took her place as High Priestess; in the other, she is Tyrande Windrunner, named for her ancestor, who was the first Sun Queen, and serves as Silvermoon's Ranger-General in place of Sylvanas, preparing her people for the journey to Outland in TBC (which means the Skin!Tyrande is a descendant of the original).
• Apologetic Attacker:
  • If she kills her husband Malfurion.
    Tyrande: [after killing Malfurion] My love! Forgive me...
  • Also, while not a direct apology, she expresses regret for the death of Brightwing.
    Tyrande: [after killing Brightwing] A shame to kill a child of Ysera.
• Arrows on Fire: While it's since been removed, she once had her Searing Arrows ability as an optional talent.
• Attack Animal: She can send an owl sentinel to attack enemies and scout areas.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Shadowstalk grants a global Area of Effect heal-over-time effect for her allies and stealth. However, the ability has a long cooldown, the heal is weak, and outside of some rare cases, the stealth mechanic can neither save someone nor set up ambushes well. Compared to Starfall, which sports a shorter cooldown, provides slows, area denial and, since it deals damage, also reduces Light of Elune's cooldown, Shadowstalk doesn't provide enough benefits to be a serious alternative.
• Battle Couple: Can be this with Malfurion if she is on the same team with him.
• Combat Medic: Exaggerated Trope. Prior to her rework in the Mephisto patch, she pumped out as much damage as any Assassin. While this has been a little toned down, her healing output is still relatively low, even if she manages to stay in combat and reduce the cooldowns. Instead, Hunter's Mark is the absolute heart of her kit: if she helps her team get a kill first — and remember, if her team does that, they won the teamfight — her low healing output no longer matters.
• Crutch Character: Her ability to stun, isolate and apply kill pressure on opposing Heroes is unparalleled in the early stages of a match. However, as time passes and opponents start being able to Cleanse off her debuffs, her power output wanes.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Her Hunter's Mark ability. Incredibly useful to quickly take down enemy heroes. Due to the introduction of the Armor system, it now counts gameplay-wise as an Armor-Piercing Attack.
• Energy Bow: She wields one with the bow being physical but the string and arrows being generated by magic.
• Fanservice Pack: Let's just say that her choice of clothing for this game is a bit more daring compared to what she usually wears.
• Field Power Effect: Her Shadowstalk heroic applies a global buff that turns her entire team invisible while healing them at the same time.
• Foil: To Sylvanas - they're both female elven archers, but, while Tyrande's get-up looks more ceremonial and most of her abilities are light-themed (moonlight mind you), Sylvanas' looks more pragmatic and her abilities are more shadow and poison.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Tyrande is The Chosen One of Elune, and represents Elune as her high priestess. Tyrande also represents both sides of Elune - the harmonic healing and loving Mother Moon, and the Night Warrior who smites her foes.
• Happily Married: It seems she and Malfurion are still going strong.
• Jack of All Stats: Downplayed. Tyrande's value lies in her ability to help her team focus down a single hero with Hunter's Mark and Lunar Flare. Outside of that, she provides decent damage, below-to-average heals and some utility, like vision, a damage-increasing aura or Spell Armor. With the right talents, she can significantly increase her healing or damage, or a mixture of both.
• Invisibility: Her Shadowstalk heroic grants this to her entire team, making it great for setting up ganks and teamfights, helping her allies get out of a bad situation, or even just applying a global heal if needed.
• Legacy Character: As noted under Alternate Universe, her Blood Elf skin's Tyrande Windrunner character is merely a distant descendant of the original.
• Lunacy: As the high priestess of the moon goddess, Elune, Tyrande's abilities are largely lunar-themed.
• Mage Marksman: Of the Arcane Archer variety, she has magic bow that generates light arrows and at least 2 of her abilities implies special arrows which weakens or stuns enemies.
• Male Gaze: Accuses player of this.
  Tyrande: I am both a warrior and a priestess. It is wise to ogle neither.
• Ms. Fanservice: Plenty of her skins show off her legs and she has an impressive bust to match. Even just locking her in's gonna to give you a clear side-view of her butt.
• My Greatest Failure: She still believes that releasing Illidan was a mistake and lets him know that. However, that doesn't mean she's happy to see him dead.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: For the most part Tyrande sounds like she's back to her Warcraft III tone. However, when casting Starfall and she says, "Feel the wrath of the heavens!" you can spot her voice suddenly slipping to the faux-troll accent seen in later World of Warcraft installments.
• Projectile Spell: Her Sentinel lets her cast a spirit owl that flies in a straight line, which has infinite range and scouts the area it flies through, damaging and revealing the first hero it hits.
• The Red Mage: She's got a cheap heal that can be upgraded for spammability, a long-range AoE stun that can be upgraded to hit very hard and have massive range, and an infinite-range owl that can be upgraded for damage or utility; overall, she's one of the (if not the) most versatile healers in the game.
• Squishy Wizard: Tyrande is largely a very vulnerable healer, despite her above average attack range, due to her small health pool. As she is required to constantly attack enemies to reduce the cooldown for Light of Elune, she is very close to the frontline, and since she lacks peeling or mobility options, she can quickly go down once an assassin is onto her.
• Target Spotter: Her trait Hunter's Mark puts a big red mark on the target enemy, increasing their damage taken. If her teammates are competent, they will immediately focus that enemy down, helped by the increased damage.
• Visible Invisibility: Tyrande's Shadowstalk Heroic grants stealth. Of course the opponent is still able to see a "shimmer", a vague distortion, if they are looking carefully.

Uther, The Lightbringer

Voiced by: Michael McConnohie (English)^note Other Languages: Bernard Bollet (French), Oleg Kutsenko (Russian)

"The Light abandons no man!"

The first paladin on Azeroth and Grand Master of the Order of the Silver Hand. Prior to the Second War, he was a student of Archbishop Alonsus Faol. When news reached Lordaeron of Stormwind's destruction by the orcish Horde during the First War, the two of them - along with Saidan Dathrohan, Turalyon, Gavinrad and Tirion Fordring - founded the Order of the Silver Hand. During the Second War, he led his paladins into battle and rose to become one of the newly formed Alliance's greatest heroes. His title, "the Lightbringer", was earned at the Battle of Blackrock Spire, given to him after the battle by General Turalyon.

Prior to the events of Warcraft III, Uther took Prince Arthas Menethil of Lordaeron as his apprentice, hoping that he would grow into a benevolent and powerful paladin. Alas, eventually Arthas took a long jump down the slippery slope with the Culling of Stratholme, alienating both his mentor, Uther, and his lover, Jaina, before he went off to Northrend. After Arthas' return to Lordaeron, where he had slain his own father, Uther took it upon himself to defend the ashes of his king, kept in a magical urn. Arthas sought out the urn, so as to transport Kel'Thuzad's remains, and after a heated fight, Arthas slew his former mentor. To this day, Uther is still remembered as one of the Alliance's greatest heroes.

Uther is a melee Healer and one of the purest and strongest supports in the game, having incredible utility in teamfights and laning. His trait has two effects - Devotion grants bonus Armor for few seconds to everyone he heals, and Eternal Vanguard allows him to persist as an invulnerable spirit for a short period when he dies, still able to heal his allies with the low-cooldown Flash of Light. His active abilities include Holy Light, a strong single-target heal that also restores Uther's health; Holy Radiance, a straight-line projectile that damages enemies and heals allies it passes through; and Hammer of Justice, a melee bash that stuns the target.

Uther's first Heroic ability, Divine Shield, temporarily grants an ally invulnerability to damage and crowd control and gives them a movement speed boost. His second Heroic ability, Divine Storm, damages and stuns all enemies in an area around him.

His current skins are Grand Marshal Uther, Lumberjack Uther, Judgment Uther, Medic Uther, and Sulfuron Uther.

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• Alternate Universe: His Judgment skin (clad in the Tier 2 Paladin set of the same name) is from a world where Uther survived his fight with Arthas, but was badly injured (and presumably, he still lost that urn). When Varian Wrynn sent the forces of the Alliance to Northrend, this version of Uther was among those who marched against the new Lich King.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: The guy from his Lumberjack skin isn't even called Uther.
• Arch-Enemy: Although not used thematically within the trailers or tutorials, in standard gameplay, Uther has unique (and rather cold) lines towards Arthas.
• Back from the Dead: One of his Storm Talents allows him to resurrect on the spot after Eternal Vanguard ends, sort of like Leoric's trait.
• Barrier Warrior: Devotion allows him to grant Armor to allies by healing them; considering that his heals also affect himself, this means Uther gets the Armor as well. Divine Shield puts an impenetrable barrier on an ally.
• Beware the Nice Ones: As Arthas may find out, you don't want to get on his bad side.
  Uther: Rot in Hell, boy.
• Bling of War: His regular and Grand Marshal skins are based on the Grand Marshal's Aegis set from World of Warcraft, which is nearly entirely golden.
• Calling Your Attacks: Sometimes yells out "Divine Storm!" while using it.
• Combat Medic: Unlike Tyrande or Kharazim, who are essentially assassin-healers, Uther is a Healer that doubles as a tank, he pairs a healthpool more commonly found on a bruiser with two heals that are both guranteed to hit himself in addition to whoever he's aiming at, and a trait that makes anyone he heals (read: also him, all the time) tankier, while further discouraging the usual reaction to the team's healer being on the frontline with the other half of his trait and talents that make him even harder to bring down.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Benediction, one of Uther's level 16 talents, is an active that causes his next basic ability to have a greatly reduced cooldown and mana cost, either for burst healing, or devastating lockdown combos.
• Cool Old Guy: He guided Raynor (or the player) in the tutorial and generally is pretty relaxed, fully aware that he already died and is now in the Nexus. He also acts as a wise and Cool Uncle to younger people like Jaina and Varian, and a grandpa to the new generation of Light wielders like Johanna and Whitemane who think their youth makes them better than him.
• Deadpan Snarker: Uther is not an old fool. If you try to mock him, he will respond with a very witty reply. In fact, he's got a scathing comment saved up for nearly everyone he doesn't approve of.
  Uther: Yes, we get it - you're edgy. Congratulations. Can we move this along?
• Difficult, but Awesome: While Uther was marked "Easy" for the longest time, that's only for having simple abilities. Uther is very much an "easy to learn, hard to master" character because timing is everything when playing him; it's not just about removing damage using his abilities, but using Devotion to help allies tank even more damage under fire to offset his low healing numbers and also finding opportunities to safely stun enemies.
• Foil: To fellow paladin, Yrel. Uther is the most tank-like healer in the game, and Yrel is a tank who can become a Combat Medic for her team if she chooses the right talents.
• Grumpy Old Man: Not usually, but he parodies the stereotype in some of his Stop Poking Me! responses:
  "Back in my day, there was only one type of paladin, we were glad to have 'em. And we could only level to 10! What are you now, level 100? More? (sighs) You kids these days."
• Holy Hand Grenade: The Holy Shock talent gives him the option of using Holy Light to deal damage instead of heal allies. The damage is only half as much as the heal, but it also only costs half the mana and cooldown and Uther still gets the self heal, not to mention that it's a pretty big heal to begin with. His other basic abilities and Divine Storm are this by default.
• Humongous-Headed Hammer: His Hammer of Justice ability that stuns the enemy. Also he carries a pretty big one as his standard weapon. His Medic skin makes it more like a staff.
• Iconic Outfit:
  • Uther's standard skin is most of the classic PvP armor from World of Warcraft. His Grand Marshal skin completes the set.
  • He also can wear the iconic Tier 2 paladin set, the Judgment Armor, or an alternative version wielding Sulfuron. The Judgment Armor especially fits Uther, as he held the Libram of Justice.
• "Instant Death" Radius: Played with. His own damage is absolutely nothing to write home about, but even so, many heroes will make a point to avoid getting anywhere near Uther. He may not kill you, but his team definitely will while he stuns you for a small eternity with his unavoidable Hammer of Justice and Divine Storm combo.
• It's All My Fault: As seen in his intro interactions with Jaina, Uther blames himself for Arthas' Start of Darkness and the guilt weighs heavily on him, which presumably feeds into his interactions with his former protegé.
• Jack of All Trades: His potential for durability, crowd-control and grinding the enemy down with the right build has had a lot of players play him as a Bruiser or Tank.
• Killed Off for Real:
  • Uther in the Nexus clearly remembers being slain by Arthas, who also references it. That would make this Uther either the soul inside Frostmourne, or the one set free after Arthas was slain. Doesn't stop him from kicking all sorts of ass.
  • Averted for his Judgment and Sulfuron skins, which depict him from a timeline where he survived his encounter against Arthas, and basically took Tirion Fordring's place in the war against The Lich King.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Anytime Uther is talking to Kel'Thuzad, the Lich King, and Xul (all of whom are also voiced by Michael McConnohie), Uther has the chance to respond with "You know, you sound awfully familiar..."invoked
• Logical Weakness: Uther's healing, armor and ultimates are excellent for pitched battles. Therefore, Uther is one of the least effective Healers around while he and his team are unable to commit to a head-on fight against the enemy team and both sides are just skirmishing.
• Luke Nounverber: "The Lightbringer" is a title, not a name, but his Medic skin drops the "the" part, leaving him as Uther Lightbringer.
• Magic Knight: As a Warcraft paladin, he switches between smashing his enemies with his hammer, blasting them with a Holy Hand Grenade and healing his allies.
• The Medic: One of the straightest examples in the game. Literally, too — his third skin, aptly named 'Medic', is a medic from the Starcraft universe who uses either Magic from Technology or Clarke's Third Law in place of the Light and and who vaguely resembles the Apothecaries from the Space Marines faction in Warhammer 40,000.
• Mentor: To Raynor, and by proxy the player, during the tutorials. Formerly to Arthas as well, although that didn't work out well for him.
• Mighty Glacier: Uther's healing is limited by long cooldowns, meaning most of it comes in the form of big, infrequent bursts. On top of this, he has a rather slow movespeed, and packs both powerful healing and near warriorlike durability when built for it. With the right talents, he can put out a modest bit of damage too.
• Mighty Lumberjack: One of his skins, complete with woodcutting axe. His name is changed to Arthur Light, and he apparently comes from our world — British Columbia, specifically.
• Mr. Exposition: In the Tutorial. He's basically there to explain everything to the player and/or Raynor.
• Murder by Inaction: Uther, as the Nexus' Mr. Exposition, is very well aware that he can't outright kill his teammates within the matches of the Nexus, even if he direly wants to... But nothing is stopping him from just not helping his supposed teammates.
  Kel'Thuzad: Ah, Uther. Always wanted to thank you for the urn. It's made quite the phylactery.
  Uther: That just cost you a heal, right when you needed it.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: When Uther dies, his trait kicks in and allows him to hang around for a little while and dispense heals. He can heal much faster when he's dead than when he's alive. The end result is that there are situations in which a dead Uther is actually more beneficial to your team than a live one.
• No-Sell: His Divine Shield ultimate is one of the game's best at doing this - a player with it on them is immune to absolutely everything save for Time Stop.
• Not the Intended Use: He's supposed to be a Healer, but his mixture of durability and crowd-control have had players play as a Bruiser for their team or even its main Tank, which in some way makes him easier to use as his team will not have to be as reliant on him providing them armor and healing in bursts to close out fights if they've chosen another Healer to go with Uther.
• The Paladin: Of the Warcraft variety, and his mix of abilities and potential functions is emblematic of how paladins could be tanks, healers or DPS in World of Warcraft.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He has kill quotes for demons like Diablo and Kerrigan which amount to this.
• Real Men Love Jesus: Or the Light in this case.
• The Rival: To Johanna.
• Ship Tease: Uther gets flustered when Lt. Morales compliments him.
• Shoot the Medic First: No, on a second thought, don't. Uther is the one healer it's generally advised not to focus, thanks to his tankiness and trait; in fact, killing Uther just gives him access to the best single-target heal in the game, and often an Uther that runs out of mana can get away with deliberately getting himself killed to squeeze out more healing for his allies.
• Stone Wall: As a Support with tank attributes, Uther is extremely powerful defensively, both as a target himself, and in his ability to save his allies. On the other hand, his offensive output is extremely low, only graduating to Gradual Grinder levels with certain talents that require him to put himself at greater risk to make use of them.
• Surprise Difficulty: Uther's abilities are mechanically very simple, but as the real good points to him require good timing (providing armor to himself or allies to survive burst damage, not using this healing on mere poke damage because healing that will just cause him to run out of mana, putting Divine Shield on allies right when they're about to take a lot of damage, locking down enemies with his stuns while allies are in range to best take advantage of it...) and he's a melee Hero without any sort of mobility, most would agree the difficulty label of "Easy" is underselling playing him. It wouldn't be until 2024 that Uther's difficulty was updated to a more appropriate "Hard."
• Unknown Rival: Johanna repeatedly insults Uther. Uther responds like an old man scolding a child as he's above such petty inter-order rivalries.
• Victory by Endurance:
  • Uther gets into this trope with using the all of the Holy Light talents - Holy Shock doesn't do a lot of damage, but its cooldown is far lower, will literally give him 5 mana after completing the Silver Touch quest, it heals even more if he's getting low on health, it heals himself and nearby allies while he autoattacks... oh, and did we mention that Uther can also have Divine Shield which is one of the best ways to stop a lockdown/burst damage combination that is also about the only way to stop a hero that can endlessly heal himself and damage you from range repeatedly?
  • The Hammer of Justice build also makes him good at this. By completing a comparatively simple quest, he gets mana back for landing basic attacks and reduces the cooldown on Hammer of Justice, while other talents give him a movement speed boost from casting it and the ability to slow the target and reduce its damage output. While he won't kill you quickly, letting Uther get in range to cast Hammer of Justice once means you'll get hammered again, and again, and again...
• Why Won't You Die?: Uther is already a relatively tanky hero who can heal himself (which, by extension, gives him bonus armor from Devotion and makes him even tankier), but when you kill him, his Eternal Vanguard trait makes his spirit linger around for a little while and reduces the cooldown on his heal to the level of a Spam Attack, allowing him to make a teammate extremely hard to kill with the constant heals and armor. To top it all off, a lategame talent allows him to come back to life with 50% HP after Eternal Vanguard runs out, forcing you to kill him again.

Whitemane, High Inquisitor

Voiced by: Erica Lindbeck (English)

"Let the inquisition commence!"

At a young age, Sally Whitemane witnessed the horrific undead plague sweep through Lordaeron, which turned her family into mindless Scourge, forcing her to kill them. From that day, she swore vengeance against the undead, vowing to exterminate every last one of them. Many like-minded individuals also rose up and joined the newly-formed Scarlet Crusade, an offshoot of the disbanded Order of the Silver Hand, intent on purging the world of the plague. Unknown to the followers however, the Scarlet Crusade was a Corrupt Church created by the dreadlord Balnazzar in a scheme to defeat the treacherous Lich King and the Forsaken.

Whitemane quickly rose through the ranks of the Crusade, eventually attaining the position of High Inquisitor. Under her thumb, the Scarlet Crusade grew more hostile, corrupt, violent and paranoid, until the armies of the Alliance and Horde were forced to intervene. Whitemane operated from the Scarlet Monastery in the Tirisfal Glades, along with her champion, Renault Mograine. Although the Alliance and Horde killed Whitemane and her crusaders many times, the priestess' unwavering will and faith in the Light gave her the power of resurrection to bring them back every time.

Whitemane is an aggressive ranged Healer based on a Discipline priest from World of Warcraft. Her trait is Zeal, which places a buff on any ally she heals, further healing them for the damage Whitemane deals to enemy heroes. In addition, activating Zeal grants Whitemane a temporary Spell Power boost but reduces her own Armor. Her first ability, Desperate Plea, heals an ally for a small amount. The ability has almost no cooldown, but each cast puts a stack of Desperation on her, temporarily increasing the ability's cost up to three times. Inquisition channels on an enemy hero, firing a beam that slows and damages the target. Her third basic ability is Searing Lash, which burns a line of fire into the ground, burning a second line in a cross shape if a hero was hit. Additionally, her fourth ability Clemency lets her channel a healing beam on an ally and shares its cooldown with Inquisition. Casting either Inquisition or Clemency removes one stack of Desperation.

Her Heroic abilities are Scarlet Aegis, granting a large amount of Armor and a medium heal to all allies in an area around Whitemane; and Divine Reckoning, calling in holy wrath in a large area to deal damage and create a burning patch for a short time.

Her current skins are Celestial Empress Whitemane, Cursed Witch Whitemane, and Showstopper Whitemane.

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• All Witches Have Cats: Cursed Witch Whitemane certainly does, as it rides alongside her in her skin's unique mount animation.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: At level 20, Whitemane has access to Purge the Wicked, which deals damage over time and reduces an enemy hero's Armor.
• Birds of a Feather: Nope. You'd think Whitemane would get along with a holy crusader like Johanna who fights a corruption that plagues her and her order, but unlike Johanna, Whitemane is too blind to see who and what is actually truly corrupted. She doesn't even get along with a Light-loving woman like Yrel, saying that her race doesn't know how to wield the Light the way it should be used.
• Combat Medic: Whitemane is based on a Discipline priest in World of Warcraft, which makes her a terrible healer if she only relies on Desperate Plea to heal allies. Desperate Plea inherently discourages her to spam the ability, as Whitemane's increasing mana costs for it will quickly drain her mana. Instead, use it to apply Zeal which incites Whitemane to get into the thick of fights by directly giving the damage she causes to enemy Heroes as healing. She can pump out decent damage through Inquisition and poke handily with Searing Lash, fueling her healing.
• Combat Stilettos: She wears high heeled shoes into battle and is one of the more aggressive healers in the game.
• Combos: Inherently based around it - Desperate Plea is a pretty ineffectual heal if she doesn't proceed to soon make use of the Zeal buff it provides by damaging the enemy team with Inquisition or Searing Lash. At level 16, Whitemane can pick Harsh Punishment, which allows her to root an enemy hero, if they are hit by Searing Lash while she casts Inquisition on them.
• Composite Character: Whitemane possesses several abilities of the Discipline specialization of a priest from World of Warcraft, but many talent and ability names are actually taken from the paladin class. Divine Reckoning also functions at its core like the paladin spell Consecration, with the added mechanic to heal her allies that are affected by Zeal.
• Crippling Overspecialization: In fights, her healing output is very strong, but she cannot heal her allies well outside of fights against heroes, as the only way Zeal can heal her allies is when Whitemane attacks heroes. Furthermore, Inquisition can only be channeled on heroes and Searing Lash is only half as effective if she doesn't hit heroes with it. This was lessened by her rework, which moved the mandatory Clemency talent to a baseline ability, giving her an out-of-combat heal.
• Cross Attack: Her Searing Lash burns fire in a cross-shaped Area of Effect as long as it hits an enemy hero. Crosses aren't actually a holy symbol in Warcraft, but the symbolism mixed with her theme is pretty obvious.
• Death Ray: Inquisition is a laser beam that will slow and damage an enemy.
• Dominatrix: She not only dresses like one with her leotard, her high heels with thigh-high stockings, her ornate staff and her chapeau, she also is very commanding and condescending towards her allies, and immediately tries to establish authority and dominance over them. Her taunt's animation has her put her right foot forward, stamp it down, and grind it into the ground.
  Whitemane: Yes, do your mistress' bidding! (she's, uh, just happy you killed an enemy, not something else)
• Evil Laugh: A truly epic one that she lets loose almost every time she targets an enemy hero with Inquisition. She could give the Wicked Witch of the West a run for her money.
• Facial Markings: She retains her facial markings around her eyes, befitting her status as the High Inquisitor.
• Fantastic Racism: Anyone who is not human - be it any kind of undead, orc, draenei, murloc, elf or any other race - is an impure heathen and not worthy of the Light in her eyes.
  Whitemane: (Evil Laugh) It's almost as if this thing believes it's a person!
• Femme Fatalons: Subverted, her gloves have claw-like ornaments.
• Flying Broomstick: Cursed Witch Whitemane's custom mount is a a broomstick, which also replaces her staff.
• Foil: Her skillset makes Whitemane a sort of counterpart of Auriel. Both of them are Healer heroes that rely on damaging enemies for their healing power. The big difference is that Auriel chooses a champion to generate healing for her and has a mostly defensive kit, while Whitemane needs to generate her own damage and has a mostly offensive kit.
• The Fundamentalist: She hates anyone and anything not as zealous in the Light as she is.
• Galactic Conqueror: Celestial Empress Whitemane waits for her chance to overthrow the Star Princess Li-Ming... and then bathe the galaxy in fire.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: While Whitemane is a priest and healer in nature, as the High Inquisitor of the Scarlet Crusade, she favors a very aggressive style of healing by smiting her foes, which matches the fanatical sadistic crusader that she represents.
  Whitemane: The priest in me likes when you confess your sins, but the inquisitor in me likes to punish you.
• Glass Cannon: Identified by players as such, especially because of the iconic talent Fanatical Power, which Blizzard initially removed after Whitemane's rework in September 2019, but (after negative feedback from players) was given to her baseline. Whitemane can turn herself into a glass cannon when she uses the activatable part of Zeal, which grants her temporarily massive Spell Power at the cost of Armor, allowing her to seriously threaten squishy Assassins or Healers, better yet, while healing herself and allies! Doing this will also require her to be standing totally still while at -25 Armor...better hope no one interrupts her.
• Hated by All: There is next to no one in the Nexus who actually likes her. Not even a Nice Girl like Yrel likes Whitemane. The feelings are mutual.
• Hat of Authority: It's not the same one she wore in World of Warcraft, but still, Whitemane's look would not be complete without an epic chapeau. And it's not on her loot table this time.
• Holy Ground: Divine Reckoning sets up a consecrated ground that burns all enemies inside the area.
• Holy Hand Grenade: All of her abilities channel the Light, which is used to rain down fire and destruction.
• Hypocritical Humor: In her spotlight trailer, the first hero she is shown healing is the Forsaken leader, Sylvanas. The first hero she kills in the video is the Diablo III crusader, Johanna.
• Iconic Outfit: Whitemane retains her very cosplay-popular outfit. Her distinctive revealing outfit (and the hat) was one of the reasons for her rise in popularity in the World of Warcraft fandom. An Easter Egg paying homage to her outfit was even added in 2024, where searching for "chapeau" in the shop will bring up Whitemane.
• Knight Templar: Her faith in the Light is strong, but she is so blinded by her convictions, her thirst for vengeance and her beliefs that she is a force of good, that anyone who opposes her must be evil and impure in her eyes.
• Lady of Black Magic: A cruel, sadistic holy priestess who is well-spoken regardless. Although she doesn't use Black Magic so much as light to heal and dish out damaging beams of light.
• Life Drain: Whitemane's not going to heal you for very much on her own, she does much better taking the life right out of the enemy team's hides into her own team.
• Light Is Not Good: She's a holy priest of a Corrupt Church of the Light - a religious fanatic hellbent on exterminating all undead by any means. Oh, and she's the pawn of a dreadlord.
• Meaningful Name: Fitting her name, despite her age, she sports silver-white hair. And unnaturally white hair is often an indicator that this person is not good.
• Ms. Fanservice: One of the more well-known ones from Warcraft, and arguably why she's noteworthy enough to be added.
  • Her standard outfit narrows down into a tabard, showing off her hips and legs^*It's obscured (but still visible) in her key art, but is quite prominent on her actual model.
  • Her Celestial Empress skin also has an underboob window in the middle of her outfit.
  • Cursed Witch Whitemane shows off even more of her legs and has a cut top.
  • Her Showstopper skin looks something out of Moulin Rouge!
  • All of her skins show she's very busty, though not to the extent of Alexstrasza.
• Murder by Inaction: This is her response when Whitemane gets a takedown on Jaina, which in her eyes is a Karmic Death, as Jaina did the same when she fled to Kalimdor after the Scourge turned Lordaeron into the Plaguelands.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In one voice line, Whitemane notes that without proper guidance, "crusades quickly become onslaughts", which is a reference to the fact that at the start of Wrath of the Lich King, General Abbendis was manipulated into sailing with an elite force of the Scarlet Crusade to Northrend, renaming themselves the Scarlet Onslaught. The Onslaught was found to be manipulated by another dreadlord, Mal'Ganis.
  • She quickly tells the player that her new chapeau is not on her loot table. This is a reference to the fact that Whitemane was "farmed" by World of Warcraft players, as her chapeau not only was a good item with decent stats for many classes, but also a much sought-after transmog item.
  • In a case of Dramatic Irony, a voice line of hers references a future event in Legion, where she is resurrected as one of the Four Horsemen of the Ebon Blade. Of course the still-living Whitemane in the Nexus thinks that this is bollocks, as she would never serve the undead.
  • Whitemane is famous for her encounter in the Scarlet Monastery, where she resurrects her champion and other crusaders. She notes how interesting it is for a change when she is the one who is resurrected by someone.
  • On a similar note, she makes an Incredibly Lame Pun based on her famous "Arise, my champion!" line.
    Whitemane: I always ensure my champions keep on fighting till the end. (Beat) Well, Renault always got a rise out of that one. Huhuhu. ^*"A rise" as in having a laugh, but also the fact that when Mograine died the first time in their boss encounter, Whitemane would always appear to resurrect him.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: Whenever she casts Inquisition. She does more of a Noblewoman's Chuckle if she uses Clemency on her allies instead.
• No-Sell: Whitemane has access to a unique version of Cleanse, which renders an allied hero Unstoppable. Scarlet Aegis' Storm upgrade turns this up a notch by making everyone affected by Scarlet Aegis Unstoppable. She can also produce a similar effect by being one of the few healers that can hope to save allies from some otherwise really hopeless situations, like getting dragged into the entire enemy team nearly alone...aside from a Desperate Plea from Whitemane followed by the rest of her kit and a Divine Reckoning on the enemy team piling in on that ally. She herself is also able to pull this off on herself as well unless the enemy team has enough lockdown to prevent her from using her abilities, making the poorly-dressed priestess surprisingly as tough as nails.
• Nostalgia Level: Whitemane is meant to be played like a Discipline priest, although her abilities are renamed to better match her fantasy as the High Inquisitor of the Scarlet Crusade. Atonement was renamed to Zeal, Penance was renamed to Inquisition and Power Word: Barrier was renamed to Scarlet Aegis. Plea was a Discipline spell that used to cost more mana, the more allies were affected by Atonement.
• Of Corsets Sexy: Her outfit features a corset-like lower half.
• Pet the Dog: Whitemane treats everyone like a servant, but she can say plenty of nice things to her champions who serve her well.
• Playing with Fire: She calls in holy fire for Divine Reckoning and Searing Lash. Fire is her favorite method to "cleanse" the impure.
• Power at a Price: Whitemane can temporarily increase her Spell Power, but will also reduce her Armor during that time. She generally can provide big bursts of healing at the cost of burning down her mana rapidly.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Her outfit is bright scarlet and accented by black and gold. She's not a good person.
• Red Is Violent: She enjoys punishing her victims a little too much. The entire Scarlet Crusade turned more violent under her leadership.
• The Red Mage: Whitemane is by design this. Any talents that increase her damage automatically increase her healing.
• Sadist: Considering her Dominatrix personality, this is a very fitting characteristic of hers. Cursed Witch Whitemane also loves torturing the living, which is why she is employed by the Raven Lord.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Compared to other Heroics in the game, both of her Heroics don't look very interesting when looking at them in an isolated case. Scarlet Aegis is an Area of Effect heal that grants Armor; Divine Reckoning just damages all enemies in an area. However, in conjunction with her Zeal mechanic, both of her Heroics are far more impressive and effective, allowing Whitemane to grant her entire team mass protection and/or strong bursts of healing.
• Spam Attack: Desperate Plea has an 0.3 second cooldown, although this is balanced by its low impact and the Desperation mechanic. The cooldown of Searing Lash is also quite short, giving her a constant source of pain to bolster her Zeal.
• Squishy Wizard: Whitemane is the Healer with the lowest hit points in the game, and if she uses the activatable part of Zeal to increase her Spell Power, she lowers her own Armor. She also has no mobility tools and her only crowd control tool requires her to stand still and channel it, making her a priority target to take down.
• Status Buff: Played straight as Whitemane's strategy is to basically buff allied heroes with Zeal, but also inverted with the Desperation debuffs when she abuses her Desperate Plea.
• Stripperiffic: Most priestesses definitely don't display their butts and thighs as much as Sally Whitemane does (...aside from also Tyrande).
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: She would rather kill most heroes than work together with them.
  Whitemane: My desire for victory supersedes my desire to destroy you. For now.
• Tom the Dark Lord: She's a maniacal, thoroughly evil Knight Templar and pawn of the Legion. This is in spite of the fact that her first name is Sally.
• Un Evil Laugh: Clemency allows Whitemane to essentially cast Inquisition on allies as a heal. She still attempts a laugh, but it's a lot more half-hearted and akin to a chuckle.
• Unwitting Pawn: Mal'Ganis openly mocks Whitemane, as she is not aware that she and her beloved Crusade are just a tool for the Legion.
  Mal'Ganis: (Evil Laugh) If only you knew.
• White Hair, Black Heart: She has the hair to match her name, and is a racist fanatic who seems to get a kick out of hurting people.

Supports

Medivh, The Last Guardian

Voiced by: Michael Bell (English)^note Other Languages: Guillaume Orsat (French), Andrey Sokolov (Russian)

"Let the games begin."

Medivh is the last Guardian of Tirisfal. He was possessed by the dark titan Sargeras while still in the womb of his mother, Aegwynn. Sargeras' influence drove him insane, causing him to open the Dark Portal and allow the orcish Horde to ravage Azeroth. His deception was discovered and he was killed by the Alliance, but he was later resurrected by Aegwynn. As an atonement for his crimes, he became the mysterious Prophet that warned of the next coming of the Burning Legion during the Third War. While at first unsuccessful, he managed to convince Thrall, Jaina Proudmoore, Malfurion Stormrage and Tyrande Whisperwind to stand united against the demonlord Archimonde, eventually destroying him in the Battle of Mount Hyjal. Medivh then disappeared, believing that the world no longer had a need for Guardians.

Medivh is a powerful ranged Support whose skill ceiling is very high, but offers incredible utility in his abilities. Medivh's trait is Raven Form, which replaces his mount with an invulnerable raven that can fly over the terrain. His first basic ability is Arcane Rift, a short-ranged projectile that pierces enemies and deals a small amount of damage, and has its cooldown reduced and mana refunded if it strikes an enemy hero. Medivh also has a baseline quest, The Master's Touch, which drastically increases the damage and cooldown reduction of Arcane Rift after hitting 40 heroes without dying. Force of Will grants an impenetrable barrier to an ally, preventing all damage done to them for a short time and healing them for a percentage of the damage blocked. Portal creates a pair of connected portals that allies can travel between. The portals last several seconds and can be used an unlimited number of times while they remain.

His first Heroic ability is Poly Bomb, which turns an enemy hero into a harmless flying sheep. When the ability expires, enemies standing near them will be turned into sheep who can also spread this effect. His second option, Ley Line Seal, is a large, slow projectile that freezes enemy Heroes it hits in Time Stop for a short period.

His current skins are Magus Medivh and Knight Owl Medivh.

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• Animal Motifs: Ravens. His cloak is decorated with black feathers, his staff has a wooden raven atop it, his portals have two stone raven wings covering their bottom sides and he transforms into a raven instead of mounting.
• The Archmage:
  • As the Guardian of Tirisfal, he is the most powerful mage in Azeroth, to the point that not even Deathwing wants to anger him directly.
  • In-game, Medivh's claim to fame is his sheer versatility, especially compared to other mages. Sustained damage, scouting, mobility, team support, damage mitigation, crowd control: Medivh can do all of these things and more, which no other hero in the game can boast. In fact, he is often considered one of the few heroes with no natural counters because, if you're good enough with him, he has an answer for virtually anything the enemy team throws his way.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Preaches peace and cooperation between races, but now that he is sound of mind and body, he absolutely cannot stand people like Gul'dan or anything that has to do with demons and will strike you down if you stand in his way.
• Big Damn Heroes: Thanks to Raven Form letting him traverse the battlefield unimpeded and observe the battle from above, Medivh can easily pull these off by dropping in on an ally who's in trouble, bailing them out with Force of Will and Portal, and potentially cleaning house with his Heroics and Arcane Rift.
• Clever Crows: Azeroth's most powerful mage has a Raven motif.
• Combat Medic: Granted, it's more 'Combat Support' than specifically Medic, but Medivh has huge damage potential thanks to his spammable Arcane Rift. His ability to support is also especially combat-related, considering his supportive tools are entirely useless to allies not actively at risk.
• Deflector Shields: Force of Will creates a Nigh-Invulnerable barrier on his teammate that lasts for a short while. It has a low cooldown to make it spammable, but remember it doesn't prevent crowd control effects.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Possibly the most difficult hero in the game. Medivh is very squishy, team-reliant, and has below average damage output in the early game due to having Arcane Rift as his only damage-dealing skill, but he compensates with the rest of his skills having a lot of utility. Good Medivh players know when to assist their team mates with their skills when needed, and can even use their skills to save themselves in a tight spot. Furthermore, completing The Master's Touch in a timely manner is a daunting task. While Medivh can make some of the craziest dives with Raven Form, Force of Will, and Portal, it takes a serious amount of skill to pull off, especially since one slip-up and he's back to square one. The reward is extremely powerful, giving Medivh sustained damage output comparable to many Assassins and letting him rip apart enemies with impunity.
• Dramatic Irony: Medivh is probably taken right after either the end of Reign of Chaos or The Frozen Throne, so most of his quotes with those he knew of (Thrall, Jaina, Malfurion) seem to reflect how good they were in their union against Archimonde. Pity that he never realized once that's done with, the Alliance-Horde union he temporarily created shattered quite easily and one of them, Jaina, becomes a shadow of her former self, making Medivh's praise, that she will be the greatest mage of all, kind of ironic.
• Exact Words: Force of Will prevents all damage dealt to the target. And that's all it prevents. They can still be stunned, rooted, polymorphed, silenced, or any other effect that isn't purely taking damage.
• Forced Transformation: His Poly Bomb Heroic ability turns the target into a defenseless sheep, and spreads to nearby enemies when it expires. Unlike Brightwing's Polymorph, this one only turns the target into winged sheep.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Among the many mages in this game, Medivh is The Ace, which in-game shows by the fact that, in the hands of the most skillful players, he is considered to be the one hero who can beat and outmaneuver almost anyone.
• Great Escape: With two powerful disables to choose from for his Heroics, Force of Will to shrug off damage, portals to make a quick getaway, and an invulnerable Raven Form, Medivh is very good at escaping from trouble, or helping allies escape from the same.
• Grumpy Old Man: Like Uther, he does complain a bit about the modern times and its youth.
  Medivh: In my day, heroes only had one ultimate to choose from! And they were grateful for it!
• Hurricane of Puns: Four of his Stop Poking Me! quotes feature him making a bad animal pun.
  Medivh: I was once possessed by the demon lord Sargeras. Used as an unwitting vessel for his dark and infernal soul. But now, I'm as free as a bird...
  Medivh: I don't see why everyone is so distrusting of this Raven Lord. He seems a perfectly fine fellow to me. Of course, birds of a feather do flock together.
  Medivh: I call myself the Prophet, but in truth, there is no prophecy to fulfill. I suppose you could say I'm just... winging it.
  Medivh: The spell is called "Polymorph", because with a little practice you can technically transform someone into any animal. Most mages are simply too... sheepish to give it a try.
• Magic Staff: Medivh wields Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian.
  Medivh: Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian, is a unique and powerful artifact passed down from Guardian to apprentice for generations. Pay no attention to that druid holding another one. Or that priest. Or Khadgar. In fact, never pay attention to Khadgar. ^*The staff was available to priests, mages, warlocks and druids in World of Warcraft, up until the release of Wrath of the Lich King. In later expansions, Khadgar, as Medivh's successor, can be seen wielding his master's staff.
• Mythology Gag:
  • His level 20 upgrade talent for Ley Line Seal is called Medivh Cheats!, a reference to the Karazhan chess event in World of Warcraft.
  • He gets a subtle Take That! at Kael'thas in opening dialogues by mentioning his own death wasn't nearly the setback that Kael's was.
  • Many of his Stop Poking Me! quotes are references to the Karazhan raid, Medivh's home, and how messed up it is.
    Medivh: An upside down version of Karazhan? Buried under the real tower? Well, that's absolutely insane! Only a madman would do such a... oh, wait...
• Nice Guy: A lot of his quotes towards other heroes are very amiable.
• Nostalgia Level: His Portal skill with the portal itself being blue brings to mind the inactive Dark Portal in World of Warcraft prior to the Burning Crusade expansion...not to mention the very Dark Portal that he created which essentially caused all of the Warcraft universe's plot. His Poly Bomb ultimate references the distinctive Polymorph spell of the Warcraft universe with its especially recognizible visual of turning (flying) enemies into sheeps flying with wings, unlike Brightwing who has an ability called Polymorph with its classically-styled sheep-eating-grass icon but cannot actually turn enemies into sheep (turns them into a crab, squirrel or pig). Additionally, his Raven form is a concept taken right from something he did in Warcraft III and shared with the game's Druids of the Talon with a few differences (namely Nigh-Invulnerability while using it).
• Portal Door: His Portal skill creates two that connect to each other.
• Pre Mortem Oneliner: When casting Ley Line Seal, Medivh will sometimes exclaim "Checkmate."
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Parodied by one of his lines.
  Medivh: Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I mean yes, I died, but people love to embellish.
• Support Party Member: One of the purest examples in the game. Medivh was formerly labeled as a Specialist and not Support, despite all but one of his skills being dedicated to helping his allies or debilitating enemies. The one skill that isn't is Arcane Rift, his only ability capable of dealing damage. The reason for the Specialist label was due to not making new players confuse him for a solo-healer, like most Support heroes were. With the class rework, this became obsolete.
• Spam Attack: Arcane Rift has a 7-second cooldown, but if an enemy hero is hit, the cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds and its mana cost is refunded, allowing you to spam it with impunity. Completing The Master's Touch quest can improve its damage and cooldown down to only 1 second.
• Thinking Up Portals: His main gimmick.
• The Virus: His Poly Bomb heroic not only turns an enemy into a sheep, but when it expires, any enemy heroes near the Polymorphed target are also Polymorphed into sheep. This effect can go on indefinitely, until the enemy team spreads out enough that they're too far apart to continue the chain reaction.

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