Memes / World of Warcraft

All right chums, I'm back! LET'S DO THIS!

Since it's existed for nearly 20 years and has a dev team that loves to get in on the fun, it's no surprise that World of Warcraft has as many memes as it does.

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Please add entries in the following format:

• The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme.[[/labelnote]] ^ExplanationLike this.

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YOU ARE NOT PREPARED for these memes:

General and Pre-World of Warcraft

• If Saurfang killed himself, everyone else would die instead.^ExplanationSaurfang's fame originated from when he could be mind controlled by Alliance players raiding Orgrimmar. He was a very effective Horde-killing tool, with Cleave as his signature move. Over time, he has effectively become the Warcraft version of Chuck Norris, with Cleave instead of roundhouse kicks.
  • Only Hogger would stand a chance against him.^ExplanationHogger's infamy is also likely due to the fact that for many Alliance races (human, gnome, and dwarf) he's the very first Elite they ever see. First timers tend to not understand precisely what the Elite tag means, go at him, and get slaughtered. In this sense, he has something of a Horde counterpart in Flat Tusk. Not to mention the fact that Hogger has exactly 666 health points... as does Flat Tusk, oddly enough. He's somewhat of an ascended meme: one of the statistics tracked by the game is "deaths by Hogger" and in Cataclysm he's the final boss of the Stormwind Stockades instance. Or they could team up and look for Mankrik's wife. ^ExplanationIn the Barrens, there is a quest given by an orc named Mankrik to look for his wife. She was incredibly hard to find, which would often result in new players using the zone's general chat to ask for help. Unfortunately Barren's general chat was the equivalent of 4chans /b/ at the time and several magnitudes worse than bad CoD chat. It also didn't help that the NPC corpse one had to examine was labeled "Beaten Corpse" instead of "Mankrik's wife".
    • The Mankrik meme has reached ascended status: in a quest in Thousand Needles, the player has become haunted by a troll's ghost; in one of his randomly appearing monologues, he reminisces about the Barrens, then asks, "Hey, did they ever find out what happened with Mankrik's wife?"
    • And this repeated itself come Warlords of Draenor - child!Mankrik asks the player to find his girlfriend, who's actually alive this time... but standing next to the corpses of her parents and dog when she's found.
  • Saurfang? Pfft. Lord Darius Crowley cleaves with his fists.^ExplanationLord Darius Crowley does cleave attacks without a weapon and is generally badass in the Worgen starting zone.
    • Saurfang can do the same, he just uses the less powerful axe so we can still have a world to play in.
    • Crowley already cleaved the world in half, then he cleaved it back together.
• "Skinning a bear should aggro every bears in a 40 yard radius. It makes sense, you are skinning their best friend." ^ExplanationThis one is from a post on the forums that followed an announcement that mining nodes near a mob would increase the likelihood that they would attack you. It's referenced by Blizzard in an April Fools' joke. A later example came when the new druid cat and bear models were revealed, and as with every change a torrent of outrage poured in on the forums. One poster commented: "Didn't you know, Blizzard? Reskinning a bear aggros every bears."
  • Became an Ascended Meme in the World of Warcraft: The Molten Core April Fools announcement.
• "GIVE WARLOCKS GREEN FIRE" ^ExplanationFel magic is often represented by the color green. It's a common belief among warlocks that having their fire spells be green instead of orange would be incredibly awesome. They do get a green fire spell in Cataclysm. And in patch 5.2, Rise of the Thunder King, Warlocks get a long class quest that grants them green fire in all their fire-based spells.
• Anal [link ability]
  • reported
    • reported for reporting
    • reported for reporting a report ^ExplanationHappens often in trade chat by linking ability, item, quest, talent, effect or achievement tooltips. Examples range from silly to outright gross (anal [Blood Spatter]). Variants include chains such as [Ferocious Butt][Pounding][For the Children!], baby [ability], Harry Potter and the [item], and various puns and song lyrics.
• Movie titles are better with Murlocs ^ExplanationAnother trade chat spam tactic, where movie titles are modified to have Murloc in them.
  • Murlocs in general are an absolute Fountain of Memes due to their goofy appearance and hilarious battle cry combined with a surprising lethality in numbers that makes them Lethal Joke Characters - murlocs tend to stick together, making it difficult to draw one of them alone, and will flee when on low health, likely drawing even more murlocs into the fight. Due to all this, murlocs are one of the most iconic and recognizable creatures in Warcraft lore despite their almost non-existent importance in the lore.
• "I Am King of the Sea/but I'm not Aquaman!"
• Hammer of Vindication is overpowered!
  • Slap in the Face is even more so.
  • Oh no!
• Jingle bells, (humans/Forsaken) smell, a (night elf/tauren) laid an egg; (gnomes/trolls) are n00bs and (dwarves/orcs) are boobs and (draenei/blood elves) can't get laid!
  • A mock Christmas carol highlighting cross-faction feelings.
• LF rouge to unlock (lockbox)!
  • Why do you need a French communist for that?
  • Rouges are overpowdered!^ExplanationRogues are famous for having an easily misspelled class name, and many jokes have been made about it.
• Everyone is necrophiliac for Sylvanas.
  • Everyone is furry for Lady Vashj, and Alexstrasza.
• King Varian Wrynn: Lord of the Chin.
  • CHINTERCEPTED! ^ExplanationThe comic's art style is rather exaggerated. Among other things, Varian tends to be drawn with a huge chin.
  • King Varian Chynn.
• TOO SOON! IT IS TOO SOON!! ^ExplanationYelled by Ragnaros during his battle.
  • This one reached Ascended Meme status in Lich King; one of your Wolvar companions in Scholazar Basin repeats the line, and several other infamous/famous boss quotes, as you quest with him. Evidently he heard them when adventurers such as you told him about the encounters.
    • It was "ascended" as early as Burning Crusade; in the Hewn Bog of Zangarmarsh, one of the ogres overseeing the operation has a chance of saying "Too soon! You are slacking off too soon!"
  • BY FIRE BE PURGED!!
  • Ragnar-Os! "Two scoops, Executus, two scoops!" "By fiber be purged!"
    • And yes, someone made a commercial.
• CAT DURID IS 4 FITE!!!^note A guide for Druid players written in intentionally bad English by a player named Alamo (who, when heckled, responded with a much more eloquently-written post, showing that he does have a good grasp on English and wrote the guide that way on purpose because it would be funnier). He's since been referenced several times by official material, including a card in the TCG, and spawned a number of copycat posts for other classes.
• It's [color] and looks [something]er than your average [category] or [category].
• OH NO WHY IS ANIMALS ON MY FACE? ^ExplanationFrom Halbrium's guide to shaman PVP, when detailing how to fight druids.
• GHOSTCRAWLER PROMISED ME A PONY! ^ExplanationOften used to mock people who complain about features that got stuck in Development Hell or just dropped for the time being.

  • Ascended Meme: I Was Promised A Pony

  • DEATHWING PROMISED ME A PONY!
  • GHOSTCRAWLER PROMISED ME A MOOSE!
• "This (change/statement) is a slap in the face to (affected class/players)."
• Hello, Barrens Chat! ^ExplanationBarrens chat, since alleviated by Cataclysm, has become infamous due to the fact that the Barrens are huge, and for the most part, empty. Bored people leveling and questing would often post things on general chat. And the Barrens cover about 20 levels worth of quests, so there were a lot of people for a long time.
• The ice stone has melted!
  • The ice stone has melted!
  • The ice stone has melted!
  • The ice stone has melted!
  • The ice stone has melted! ^ExplanationA bug during the Midsummer event caused this message to flood the chat boxes of players on the entire realm server, instead of just those in the 5-man dungeon where it happened. It was an event that pretty much everyone at the level cap did daily.
    • This one has reached Ascended Meme status as of Warlords of Draenor, where one of the lootable treasures contains a piece of ice with a 30-second duration. After 30 seconds, "The ice stone has melted!" pops up across the screen.
• Tauren and Draenei rogues exist, they're just so good at stealth that even their class selection button is hidden at the character creation screen. ^ExplanationA joke about Draenei and Tauren PC's being unable to use the rogue class. Originally the meme was only about Tauren rogues, since Tauren were the only race that couldn't play them in Vanilla. When the Draenei (a race that's similarly physically large and also has hooves) were added in BC, the joke was applied to them as well, since the idea that such large creatures with cloven hooves could sneak around and assassinate people was apparently very amusing.
  • When you go to loot a mob you killed and nothing is there? Tauren rogue (or draenei rogue).
  • If you fell off Aldor Rise, a draenei rogue pushed you. If you fell off Thunder Bluff, a tauren rogue pushed you.
  • Have you ever seen a tauren rogue? (No.) Exactly!
  • Officially an Ascended Meme as of Mists of Pandaria thanks to Mishka who is not only a Draenei Rogue, but also a Rogue Healer using Bandages.
  • Also mentioned in Hearthstone with the "Master of Disguise" card which represents a beautiful female blood elf and the description is "She's actually a male tauren. People don't call him "Master of Disguise" for nothing."
  • Even more amusing when you realize that Tauren technically can use Rogue-esque abilities... as long as they're Druid in cat form.
  • Tauren and draenei rogues (including Highmountain and Lightforged) were confirmed for 10.0 in the leadup to the release of Dragonflight, thus either canonizing or killing the meme for good, depending on your view.
• JOHN FUCKING MADDEN
  • Now you see, the Ogres are the biggest guys on the field. There's nobody on the field bigger than the Ogres, that's why they're the biggest guys on the field. ^ExplanationFeral druid DPS during the TBC-Wrath era was infamous for its complexity, being centered around maintaining a large number of buffs and debuffs, and reliance on judgment calls, where the right call ended in triumph and the wrong one in disaster. Around this time in the game's history, it was common for DPS rotations/priority systems to be shown as flowcharts, and the complexity and ambiguity of Feral DPS made its flowchart into a tangled mess resembling the convoluted plays drawn up by American football commentator John Madden. The "ogres" thing is an extension of the John Madden reference, as he was prone to making Shaped Like Itself/Captain Obvious comments/predictions to fill air time.
• When's that new feature coming? Soon^TM. ^ExplanationBlizzard is known for not always giving solid dates on patches and hotfixes.
• "Why Am I Ticking?"
  • "Because you are the bomb. Run!" ^ExplanationA common trick for old (and new) bosses is to make one player actively detrimental to the others. This is the most famous example, though sadly, this raid has been removed.
• WORKING AS INTENDED. ^ExplanationBlizzard, when asked about a feature or event that makes little to no sense or that players don't appreciate will usually respond with this, unless it's a bug. Which it sometimes may be both.
• Did he drop any good loot? ^ExplanationOften seen in trade chat (The new Barrens, as above) when people are tired of seeing '(celebrity) died / RIP'
• You will melt faces as a shadow priest in PVP. ^ExplanationFor the longest time people considered Shadow spec for priests to be an absolute joke in raids (though in Classic much of it was that the class was too much in demand as healers), while being overpowered in PVP combat if played well due to its many "frustration" abilities. Also helped by the fact that Mind Flay, a mainstay ability for Shadow-spec priests, had an icon that looks like a melting human face. Has since died down due to better balancing efforts.
  • You will melt faces as a shadow priest in PVP. ^ExplanationYes, repetition of the phrase is also a meme. In the WoW forum thread where the phrase was introduced, the poster accidentally double-posted, causing dozens and then hundreds of other posters to play off it. The thread eventually reached hundreds of pages, many of which were little more than reposts of reposts of reposts.
• check patch notes ^ExplanationWhen someone asks about a recent or upcoming change in trade, someone will always say "check patch notes"
• WoW is hard. ^ExplanationFrequent response to people having trouble with WoW, complaining about any aspect being too hard or even sometimes asking for advice.
• "Can I have your stuff?" ^ExplanationPlayers who feel the need to rant about the game on the forums before they quit (which 75% of the time they don't) tend to annoy the forum lurkers, they usually show absolute disinterest and ask if the person can give them their gold/gear/whathaveyou, sometimes with the implication that they believe said quitters are unlikely to be serious.
• Horde bias! ^ExplanationComplaints on the official forums about Blizzard favoring the Horde got so out of hand that if someone doesn't like something, another person will humorously call this out. Even if it's a bad thing for the Horde and/or good for Alliance.
• "<insert character name here> was/is right".^ExplanationCharacters usually referenced with this meme are Daelin "Kill all orcs" Proudmoore, Malygos, the "Kill all mortal magic users" Blue Dragon Aspect, Garrosh "Paint It Red" Hellscream, and Varian "Destroy the Horde" Wrynn, but it may be used with any character that expresses a violent viewpoint. May come in the form of an opinion piece on why the subject is right and/or an image macro depicting the subject.
• "Zarcrawler", the lovechild of the developer Greg Street (aka Ghostcrawler) and community manager Zarhym. Witness its origins here.
• "We could do that, but it'd cost a raid tier."^ExplanationA developer (Bashiok) once described a particularly called-for feature in game as a "choice between it and a raid tier." It has now become common practice to sarcastically respond to any suggestion, no matter how trivial and simple it would be to implement, with "It would cost a raid tier."
  • Became an ascended meme. In the Alliance garrison, there is a gravestone with "Ray D. Tear" on it. That was in an expansion that actually had one fewer raid tier than expected.
    • And then Ray D. Tear became a Brawler's Guild boss.
• Khadgar is a pretty shit wizard. ^Explanation A reference to the linked video. Often crops up (usually with fondness) when Khadgar is mentioned in forums or ingame chat.
• Kek. ^ExplanationAs part of a Blizzard-imposed cross-faction language barrier, any words said out loud (/say, /yell, etc.) will appear to members of the opposite faction as nonsense words of the same length. The initialism 'lol' spoken by a Horde character would appear as 'kek' to an Alliance character. The less-used opposite-direction word is 'bur'.
  • Topkek. ^ExplanationThere's a snack that is named this. Due to the coincidence, many people have been posting pictures of the snack in the same vein as the original kek.
• Zul'Again / There must always be a Troll Dungeon.^ExplanationEvery expansion until Warlords added a new troll instance of some kind or another — Vanilla had Zul'Gurub and Zul'Farrak, Burning Crusade had Zul'Aman, Wrath had Gundrak and Drak'Tharon Keep, Cataclysm revamped Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman, and Mists had the first half of Throne of Thunder entirely focused on the Zandalari.
  • "Need to name a city? Do what we do - and add 'Zul' in front of a random word.
• Once you go troll, you never reroll ^explanationWhatever the reason, trolls are one of the least-played races in the game. This combined with their distinctive accent, cool culture and trappings, and lanky form has given them a highly devoted fanbase despite (or because of) its small size. Players who make troll characters their mains are said to stay loyal to the race for the rest of their WoW careers, leading to this adaptation of the old adage "Once you go black, you never go back." It sees its own derivatives with other similarly "niche" races as well (e.g. "Once you go gnome, you know you're home"). Ironically, this meme also led to a surge of players opting for the Troll race around Mists of Pandaria.
• HUMAN. PALADIN. ^explanationA niche meme within the WoW community, human paladin characters on the official Story forum have a reputation for being self-righteous, virulently anti-Horde, and especially virulently anti-Forsaken. Other race/class combos receive similar stereotypes: orc or tauren shamans being pro-Thrall "peaceful Hordies," undead warlocks being ardently pro-Sylvanas, etc. However, the human paladin stereotype is the most pervasive. If a human paladin makes a post critical of the Horde, expect to see it pointed out.
• Another fucking horse! ^explanationAn incredibly disproportionate number of Alliance mounts are horses, including human and worgen racial mounts along with several reputation-based ones, leading some to feel that Blizzard simply uses a horse when they can't think of anything. While the Horde have a disproportionate number of wolf mounts, it's not to the same extreme. For example, both Alliance and Horde had three new reputation mounts available at the start of Battle for Azeroth. The Horde got a pterodactyl, a bloodswarmer, and a hyena, all but the last of which could fly. The Alliance got three horses.
  • Alternately, World of Horsecraft.
  • The fate of all horse mounts. ^explanationOne of the Maw-themed mounts added in patch 9.1 is an undead horse that serves the resident Legions of Hell. The mount has this as a flavor text, making the meme an ascended one.
• Small indie company. ^explanationWhenever a bug or the product of shoddy development makes one wonder how something made it past QA, or when Blizzard says that something would take too many resources to fix/change that, from the player's perspective, should be trivial.
  • Multi-dollar company.^explanationDespite Blizzard being a multi-billion dollar company, their tendency to seemingly invest very little in actually supporting the game leads to the claim they only spend a few dollars on it.
• Hotline Jaina ^explanationSomeone on the subreddit made a template of the Drakeposting meme that used drawings of Jaina Proudmoore instead. It took off pretty quickly.
• "Glad you could make it, Uther" / "Glad I could make it, Arthas" ^explanationActually from Warcraft III, but who's counting. Before the mission "The Culling" in the Human campaign of Reign of Chaos, Arthas and Uther share a tense conversation. Someone on 4chan posted a version of it that was bizarrely flipped on its head, with Uther saying Arthas' lines and vice versa, but still maintaining their characters (e.g., "Then you must consider this an act of treason!"). Various pastiches of the conversation began to make their rounds on fan sites, including ones similar to Hitler Rants where Arthas and Uther discuss completely unrelated topics.
• Work is da poop! No more! ^explanationOne of many quotable phrases from the endlessly quotable orcish peons. This one is particularly popular around expansion or major patch releases, as many dedicated players schedule time off work to play.
• fun detected ^explanationBlizzard has gained a reputation over time for taking elements players enjoy, such as harmless cosmetics and quality-of-life options that reduce monotony in irrelevant content, and nerfing them until they aren't enjoyable anymore seemingly out of spite (For example, a toy that changes your appearance that lasts 30 minutes with a 10 minute cooldown, will likely be changed to a duration of 10 minutes with a 30 minute cooldown). There's also the perception that Blizzard is nerfing harmless fun instead of fixing broken mechanics and game-breaking bugs. Thus when something fun is discovered there will immediately be people demanding that it be kept quiet, lest too many people start having fun and make Blizzard nerf it. On the flip side there are also jokes about how the best way to get broken mechanics fixed is to start enjoying them.
• Continuity exists to enhance a story, not to tie the hands of creators. ^explanationAn actual quote from an interview with Sean Copeland. It has since been appropriated by the fandom to mock Blizzard's habit of ignoring continuity and pre-existing lore in the name of the Rule of Cool.
  • "We didn't feel like talking about it" ^explanationAnother actual quote from an interview, where they stated that the reason for the Alliance not using the Vindicaar against the Horde was that "it didn't fit with castles, sieges, swords and ships theme" of the expansion, and that it would, as such, not be mentioned at all. Also used as an example of Blizzard conveniently ignoring/forgetting things that should, in theory, be hugely important to the story.
  • "It was written from the Titans' point of view" ^explanationWorld of Warcraft: Chronicle had been written as the definitive guide to Warcraft lore, even including an introduction that says as much. When later expansions started heavily contradicting said lore, Danuser stated at Blizzcon 2019 that Chronicle was "Written from the Titans point of view". Besides being a Hand Wave, many noted that a great deal of Chronicle occurred after Sargeras killed the Titans, leading to much mockery.
• Lawyered. ^explanationCurrent lead game designer Ion Hazzikostas was a lawyer before he entered the video game industry, so any time he gives equivocating answers, makes vague commitments or promises, or makes questionable "interpretations" of past statements from himself or other devs, his legal background is usually invoked by fans.
• BREWMASTER. ONLY. ^explanationIn Legion, the artifact weapon for Brewmaster monks had a unique over-the-shoulder idle pose. When a few shots of NPC's holding weapons in the same style leaked for BfA, many monk players gave into possessiveness and demanded that the pose be kept only for Brewmasters.
• The Adventures of Associate Professor Whom/Timelord Grundlebash ^explanationThe chronicles of the adventures of the aforementioned characters (a Worgen death knight◊ and a Mag'har orc monk◊, respectively), which poke fun at the super dodgy timeline of the leveling experience that has resulted from revamps and story progression over the life of the game. To give you an idea of just how weird it gets, the first two steps in Whom's story are "Dies" and "Reborn as a death knight five years prior to death," and it only gets more bizarre from there.
• wipe it ^explanationMocking the supposed tendency of raid leaders to tell the group to die and regroup for another attempt after even minor setbacks in a boss fight. Often co-opted for giving up easily in non-gaming scenarios as well. (The term "wipe" refers to a Total Party Kill.)
• "You think you do, but you don't." ^explanationThen-Executive Producer J. Allen Brack responded to a fan question at Blizzcon, regarding whether they had considered running older versions of the game like Vanilla in addition to the evolving current release, with this line. He cited the example of running a dungeon being so monotonous to even get started compared to the ease of joining a queue in modern WoW, which is one of many hardships that nostalgic players might gloss over when looking back. But the line came off as extremely callous and dismissive, instantly immortalizing it. Quoted in situations where developers claim or imply they know what players want better than players themselves, or in response to almost any player request (no matter how simple or obvious) that hasn't been implemented for whatever reason.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight with the announcement of WoW: Classic at Blizzcon 2017, done on stage by none other than Brack, which fans have half-jokingly interpreted as him 'eating crow' for that infamous answer.
  • Became an Ascended Meme at Blizzcon 2019, where Brack mentioned there was vanilla ice cream available at the show, adding that "You think you want it, and you probably do."
• This entire city must be purged. ^explanationAnother Warcraft III meme, from the same mission as "Glad you could make it." This line, said by Arthas when he resolves to kill all of Stratholme's population to keep them from becoming undead, is often invoked by fans whenever some community (real-life, online, or otherwise) does something the poster finds objectionable.
  • This entire company must be purged. ^explanationIn July of 2021, Blizzard was sued by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing related to allegations of an incredibly toxic, misogynistic work culture where female employees were routinely sexually harassed, overworked, passed over for promotions or raises, and threatened into silence. The line from Warcraft III became memetic almost immediately.
• Click the fucking Lightwell ^explanationA signature talent of Holy priests used to be Lightwell, an object dropped by the priest to heal the rest of the raid. Its healing efficiency and ability to heal up to 10 players were unrivaled by any other priest spell. So what's the catch? Players had to click on it themselves to receive the healing. No prizes for guessing how many players actually did so in a chaotic raid environment, seeing as how it would usually require melee to leave DPS range and casters to stop DPS and move to click on it. Also no prizes for guessing who got the blame for "not healing" when the Lightwell was right there. The spell had its functionality changed in Mists of Pandaria before finally being removed altogether in Legion, but being so iconic for one of the most enduring healing specs in the game, its legacy lives on.
  • This one also became an Ascended Meme (in the more family-friendly form of "Click on the Lightwell!") as a loading screen tip.
• Breath. Of. SINDRAGOSA. ^explanationA Frost death knight talent introduced in Warlords of Draenor that, since its inception, has been pretty much the only viable talent option in its row. This wouldn't be too obnoxious if it weren't for the talent requiring a very specific playstyle that only a minority of players actually like, requiring tediously precise resource management with little room for error that often leads more to nervous breakdowns than actual enjoyment. Breath's sheer unshakability has led to the ability itself being a High-Tier Scrappy that turns off many players who would otherwise find the Frost death knight appealing, with many veteran death knight players calling for it to be removed altogether.
• Imagine going to McDonald's...^explanationA copypasta spawned from this forum post which compared the unpopular random possible improvements on gear drops (Titanforging, sockets, tertiary stats, etc.) to a hypothetical situation at McDonald's where, after the reader orders some chicken nuggets and sits down to eat them, another customer makes the same order, but receives a bunch of additional stuff free of charge. The forum post was first made during Battle for Azeroth, but most of the criticisms of excessive RNG had been there since Legion if not Warlords.
• Warcraft III: Refunded ^explanationWarcraft III: Reforged was a highly anticipated remastering of the original classic RTS game. It was announced at BlizzCon 2018 to an enthusiastic crowd, promising modifications to the campaigns to accommodate retcons, better in-game cinematics, and improved online play, among others. Come January 2020, however, and the actual released game has none of the aforementioned features, online play is buggy and unreliable, the "remastered" cinematics (especially the iconic Arthas vs. Illidan fight) look terrible, the entire game is bugged to hell, and worst of all, Blizzard took a massive hammer to the vibrant and creative modding community, heavily restricting modded content and pre-emptively claiming a copyright on any content made with the in-game editor. Perhaps even worse than that, they also abrogated the original version of the game for online play and made it inaccessible. The game launched to a Metacritic user score of 2.7, sinking rapidly to 0.5 in the following days, and the popular edit to the logo reached peak meme status. It became especially bitter once Blizzard actually started denying refunds for trivial reasons in an effort to prevent losses.
• Rogues do it from behind ^explanationIn the game's initial incarnation, rogues had a number of powerful attacks that could only be used from behind the target, and were almost unique in this regard. Eventually, this was made into a song by Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, which took advantage of the obvious sexual innuendo. Though the positioning restrictions have been loosened considerably since Vanilla — its lone remnant nowadays is Backstab merely increasing its damage from being behind the target, rather than being an outright requirement to perform the move in the first place — the meme (and the double entendre) have persisted.
• A lot of people love comparing the scene where Grommash drank the demon's blood to the merger between Activision and Blizzard, stating Blizzard would've thrown away the cup... only to down the whole pot due to how one-sided the merger is for the former in the long run.
• I agree, nerf DH.^explanationDemon hunter was a High-Tier Scrappy for a long time because of Havoc's insane damage, mobility, survivability, and ease of use at a time when most other damage specs were only allowed to have two out of those four, Vengeance being the go-to tanking spec for Mythic+ in the first few months of Shadowlands, and demon hunter players having the stigma of being insufferable and/or incompetent. On the forums, this phrase is sometimes jokingly said in response to someone asking to have something else nerfed, someone posting on a demon hunter character having a complaint about anything, or something completely unrelated.
• Draenei pilots ^explanationThe draenei seem to have a knack for crashing their spaceships — the Exodar, the Xenedar, and the Genedar (which became Oshu'gun in Nagrand) all ended up being crash-landed at some point, leading to jokes about draenei pilots being an entire race of Captain Crashes. As popular parody artist Nyhm put it, "It must be hard to drive with a squid up on your face!". To the draenei's credit, only one of those is actually genuinely their fault: the Exodar crashed because of sabotage by Kael'thas' loyalists, and the Xenedar crashed because the Burning Legion shot it down.
• Free with six months subscription!^explanationSince Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard has offered, at no additional cost, a mount to players choosing the six-month subscription option. The mount is otherwise available separately in the store itself. With Battle for Azeroth's rather cold reception, the first of these bundles in particular, was seen as a cynical cash grab. Not helping matters was that a similar deal (usually a mount but sometimes a different reward) was offered no less than five times in a three year period.
• Sad Thrall ^explanationIn late 2020, Blizzard released a commemorative Thrall statue on the Blizzard Gear Store. However, the statue's face — particularly the despondent-looking eyes and the bizarrely wide mouth — made the statue an easy target of mockery, as did its $600 price tag. Many players found it unintentionally appropriate given how depressed Thrall and Saurfang were for most of BfA.
• ENOUGH! ^explanationWoW bosses are prone to the Heads I Win, Tails You Lose trope. If they win, you die and have to retry the encounter, but if they lose and the plot requires them to survive, they proceed to immobilize you while yelling "Enough!" or something similar.
• The story's not over/Wait and see!^explanationThe standard response given by the writers when particular story beats become unpopular with the playerbase. Has become a meme mostly because the alluded-to payoff has a tendency to either never come at all, be completely underwhelming, or end up being even worse.
• Bobby Kotick's maze ^explanationBobby Kotick is the CEO of Activision Blizzard. The phrase comes from Twitch streaming personality Rich Campbell who, out of frustration, went on a colorful rant about how he's sick of the game and called the people around him "ants running around in Bobby Kotick's maze". It is used by people who are dissatisfied by the direction of the game has been going.
• Sexy Bowl of Fruit ^explanationIn September 2021, Blizzard announced that they will replace paintings to be less sexual. One portrait had its cleavage covered while another that depicts a scantily clad woman is replaced by a picture of a fruit bowl. This was criticized as tone deaf damage control over their current legal allegations and the fruit bowl is mentioned any time something sexual appears.
  • X-45 Heartbreaker^ExplanationIn a similar fashion as the above, Blizzard's reaction to the backlash over gratuitous censorship is... to triple down on it. Cue the popular rare mount Big Love Rocket having its icon changed and renamed to the above,which only invited further mockery and backlash.
  • "Goofy jokes and occasional mature innuendos are part of WoW, and probably always will be." ^ExplanationNot long after making such a claim, players noticed that numerous innuendos and jokes were removed from the game such as Jormuttar is Soo Fat... being renamed to Culling Jorcuttar.
  • Town Dwellers ^Explanation The Maximillian of Northshire questline in Un'Goro Crater, a Shout-Out to Don Quixote, features the player helping Maximillian save various "Damsels". Which consists of him throwing one woman to her death (then blaming the player for not catching her), killing another's parrot (thinking it a deadly phoenix), and helping a Blood Elf man fetch his clothes from a lake. As part of Blizzard's recent censorship, the three "Damsels" are now called "Town Dwellers". Besides sounding silly on its own, players were quick to point out that Un'Goro doesn't even have any towns. Much like the other changes, it received much mockery.
• Expansion "leaks"^ExplanationTowards the end of an expansion's runtime, usually in the run up to the release of the final major patch, fan forums get flooded with messages purporting insider information on the next expansion. The general trend is that they're mostly variants of whatever the lore theorist community is clickbaiting about recently, there's a few hot-button hooks shoved in that players have been asking for (e.g. Tinker class), and the main evidence against it is there's too much conspicuous pandering for it to be real. As the announcement date nears, there's often one guy who has real info and images from the upcoming expansion, and the reaction is that it's obviously fake too.
• The monkey's paw curls.^ExplanationA reflection of how the players are better off not asking Blizzard for changes, because when these changes happen, they tend to make things worse. For example, when night elf players asked for night elves to get more relevance to the story, they were thrust into the spotlight by having their homeland destroyed. When pandaren players asked for the Vale of Eternal Blossoms to be restored, it got reverted to its pre-5.4 state... and filled with hostile mobs..
• Organized line-up, or HECTIC FREE-FOR-ALL!^ExplanationCertain quests, especially if the starting area has an influx of players, will all be waiting on certain objects or mobs to appear in order to obtain quest items or kill quest targets. You're either one of two people. Either you line-up single file and wait your turn, or everyone circles around the target hoping to be the first that clicks the item or enemy.
• It's a Rumble Promotion!^ExplanationAs part of a Cross Promotion for the upcoming Warcraft Rumble ,a in-game mini-event was added where the player must collect coins to play on a in-game machine to obtain all figurines. Unfortunately, the event quickly got into the player's nerves due to the massive flooding of duplicate quest-starters for the event in their mailboxes if they did so much as relogging.
• World of Warcraft (WoW) Players Excited for Glorbo's Introduction^ExplanationA trend as technology has gotten better is that trashy, low-effort gaming news sites are now using AI bots to scrape popular topics and comments from communities like Reddit and convert them into articles en masse with little if any human input. Users on r/wow took note, and fought back by coming together to talk about "Glorbo", a fake feature with nonsensical details improvised communally on the spot, in order to feed the bots junk data and expose their use. Sure enough, within hours the discussion showed up in an article on one site, which caused the story to spread among real human journalists (gaming and otherwise) and prompting a Blizzard employee to hop on the joke. The offending site would soon take down the article and remove its WoW section entirely. Other communities like Destiny 2 or Baldurs Gate 3 would intermittently follow suit by demanding their devs add Glorbo to trip up their own AI news bots, cementing "Glorbo" as an emblem of the backlash against ever-growing AI content farming in gaming news.

Vanilla and World of Warcraft: Classic

• Lapdogs! All of you!^ExplanationSaid by VanCleef (R.I.P.) upon knocking his HP down far enough. Unfortunately, not repeated by his daughter.
• Blades of light!^ExplanationSaid by Champion Herod, final boss of the Scarlet Monastery Armory, when he uses his "Instant Death" Radius. For older players, it's synonymous with "get away from the boss NOW".
• I'LL RIP THE SECRETS FROM YOUR FLESH!^ExplanationSaid by Interrogator Vishas, the first boss of the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard and now final boss of Rank 1 of the Brawler's Guild.
• Arise, my champion!
  • At your side, milady! ^ExplanationSaid by Whitemane and Mograine, respectively. Became somewhat of an Ascended Meme in Mists of Pandaria - when the Scarlet Monastery was remade, they were given new voice actors but this voice line remained unchanged.
• "RELEASE THE HOUNDS!"^ExplanationSaid by Houndmaster Loksey in Scarlet Monastery
• And lest ye forget: LEEROOOOOOOOOOOY. JEEEEEEEEEEENKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS.
  • "At least I have chicken." ^ExplanationFrom the famous video about WoW mocking both overprepared guilds and players who charge in without a plan. Though most people pick up more quickly on the latter, given what Leeroy Jenkins represents as a trope.
• A certain rather (in)famous and narmful video featuring a rather loud raid leader named Dives went viral after a battle against Onyxia went pear-shaped, resulting in a profanity laden outburst that no doubt ruptured several eardrums (sadly the original was taken down by Youtube; the link leads to a re-upload by the original poster). Highlights include:
  • "More DOTS. Throw more DOTS. OK Stop DOTS!"^note This is an Ascended Meme, by way of one of the Onyxia achievements
  • "Crushim was feared into-" "WHO THE FUCK WAS THAT? CRUSHIM, WHAT THE FUCK?!?"
  • MANY WHELPS! HANDLE IT! ^note  Actually a Beam Me Up, Scotty!, the actual line is "WHELPS! LEFT SIDE! EVEN SIDE! MANY WHELPS! NOW! HANDLE IT!" Also, another Ascended Meme, by way of the same Onyxia achievements
    • FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!! That's a FUCKING FIFTY DKP MINUS!!! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT SHIT?^ExplanationDKP, or "Dragon Kill Points" is a player-constructed "currency" that players use to bid on loot from raids. Points are given for attendance and taken away if players do something stupid like wipe the raid, as the player did by being "feared" into Onyxia's whelps.
  • Hearthstone also referenced this one in the form of the Raid Leader minion, whose quotes and flavor text are references to the video.
  • Dives also infamously was involved in a similar raid-gone-sideways event involving Ragnaros. The result was a Ventrilo call that makes him sound like the angriest part time raid leader, part time drill sergeant, ever.
    • WHY THE FUCK DO I SEE DEAD PEOPLE WHERE THEY'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO FUCKING BE?! ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID OR FUCKING BLIND?!
• Onyxia deep breathes more! ^ExplanationAfter a patch, a post on the forums complained that Onyxia would use her Deep Breath ability more often. This is not really seen anymore, but it was used to mock players complaining about random events having their chances of occurring either raised or lowered.
• doodad_nox_door_spider02 ^ExplanationIn Naxxramas, one of the openable doors in the Arachnid Quarter showed this as its tooltip when moused over.
• The Ashbringer... ^ExplanationA legendary sword crafted by Magni Bronzebeard and wielded by Alexandros Mograine against the Scourge. It used to be possible to obtain the corrupted version from Mograine in Naxxramas (he's no longer part of the raid so the sword can no longer obtained in the game), though there wasn't a method to un-corrupt it. In Wrath of the Lich King Tirion Fordring gets it from Darion Mograine at the Battle of Light's Hope Chapel, and the combination of Tirion's paladin powers and the hallowed ground of the Chapel cleanse the sword. This pretty much ended all speculation on the Ashbringer.
  • The Ashbringer...^ExplanationA flashback scene in the Caverns of Time has most of the founding members of the Scarlet Crusade say this one after the other when they resolve to build the sword. They must have really liked the name.
    • It's a trap!
    • FOOL! YOU'VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD! ^Explanationthe latter two were common responses to someone mentioning the Ashbringer
  • Becomes an ascended meme in Legion: Retribution Paladins will get to wield it after Tirion is killed.
• Your heart... will explode... ^ExplanationWhispered to random players during the Ahn'Qiraj raid by the boss C'thun: this particular threat was apparently deemed silly.
• LOOT THE FUCKING COREHOUNDS! ^ExplanationIf there is still loot on a mob, it can't be skinned. Corehound skins were valuable back in the day, so raid members would yell at whoever got the loot for that particular one to go back and loot it so they could skin.
• AWW DUDE Four STR, four STAM leather belt?! AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! Level 18? UUUUH, OHHHH~ (Used in Ventrilo harassment) ^ExplanationFor some context, a player was recorded saying this mockingly after finding the Forest Leather Belt, orgasm noises and all. An infamous Ventrilo troll recorded it and played it later to his Vent channel, much to the chagrin of the player.
• Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker
  • Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker
  • Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker
    • Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker
  • The ice stone has melted!
  • Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker
  • Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker ^ExplanationIn city chats, the chat will often be flooded with people re-linking this one item over and over, often as part of a contest in which the last person who links it will win something, as a bid to trick people into flooding trade chat with spam. The problem, however, is that Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker is just memetically famous
• ARCANITE REAPER! HOOOOOOOO! ^ExplanationIn vanilla WoW, Arcanite Reaper was one of the highest-damage non-Epic weapons you could craft as a blacksmith. The line in question comes from the Illegal Danish series, originating in Zinwrath: The Movie.
• "It's white and looks longer than your average cloak or cape." ^ExplanationA comment describing Stoneskin Gargoyle Cape on Thottbot, later an Ascended Meme in its official description.
• Иммолейт. Импрувед. Это означает, что возможность его резиста КРАЙНЕ! МАЛА! ^TranslationImmolate. Improved. Which means the possibility of it's resistance is EXTREMELY! LOW! ^Explanation A Russian meme stemming from a video of a man describing how to play warlock in PvP. In the video he claimed that the Improved Immolate talent is used to counter fire resistance (which, in fact, didn't reduce the resistance, but improved damage). To prove his point of view he used a Cluster F-Bomb and a lot of large hams which led to the videos popularity.
• Tell me about those Conqueror shoulders again? / TWO FUCKING ATTACK POWER ^ExplanationA reference to a rather infamous YTMND called Huhuran Is Serious, wherein an angry (and probably inebriated) tank goes on a massive rant about how a bow that dropped from Princess Huhuran, a very difficult boss in the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, the second-to-last raid of Classic, was in fact a downgrade from a rifle from Molten Core, the very first raid in the game. His sarcastic enthusiasm of getting "two fucking attack power" (one seventh of a DPS point at the time, trivial compared to the stats lost on the bow) combined with his racist rant against the guild's incompetent healer put the rant into legend, not quite on the same level as "50 DKP minus" above, but still certainly notorious.
• HUNTER WEAPON! ^ExplanationThanks to poor class design and gear itemization in Vanilla and to a lesser extent Burning Crusade, the Hunter class suffered from having no melee weapon type or stat that was clearly "for" them. As such, it became known that any weapon, no matter what type or with what stats, could be considered a potential Hunter weapon, and be distributed to a Hunter over another class who would find it more useful.
• The best reason to play a paladin ^ExplanaionEven compared to other classes at the time, paladins in Vanilla were not very well designed and were extremely boring to play. They had few offensive abilities and most of their combat gameplay was simply auto-attacking and waiting it out. This was mocked in an infamous forum post by a player named Genkaku, which argued that the paladin's slow pace and "roughly zero combat interaction" made it the best class to play while downloading or watching porn.
  • Bubble + Hearthstone ^ExplanaionPaladins have the Divine Shield ability that granted Nigh-Invulnerability and immunity to any interruptions for a short time shown as a bubble around the player. Since paladins had poor performance in PvP and its duration was slightly longer than the casting time of the Warp Whistle, "hearthstone", using this combination was a common tactic for paladins who stumbled upon enemy players. It was referenced both in-game itself and in fan content
• Mataus the Brocaster ^ExplanationMataus the Wrathcaster was an NPC who guided warlock players to getting their Tier 3 armor set in the original version of Naxxramas. His dialogue was extremely abrasive and confrontational, but when clicked on, he gave very friendly and warm responses like "Hey there!", "What can I do for you?" and so forth in a very jovial tone. This amusing contrast led to him becoming a bit of an Ensemble Dark Horse during the last few months of Vanilla.
• FRAWST SHAWK ^ExplanationFrost Shock is a Shaman spell that deals a big hit of Frost damage and slows the targets's movement speed. In Vanilla, it was widely considered overpowered in PvP and many Shaman PvP guides tongue-in-cheek boiled down to "spam Frost Shock." Its infamy was exacerbated by frustrated and envious Alliance players, who often complained about it since the Shaman was a Horde-specific class at the time. Many videos of the age made reference to Frost Shock's feared power.
• I am THEX! ^explanationOn the r/classicwow subreddit, someone made a post saying they were excited for the release of WoW Classic in August 2019, and enthusiastically declared they were going to make a "shaman named Thex." The poster's enthusiasm was apparently infectious, as everyone who commented also said they would make a character named Thex, and in a short time, "Thex" became Classic's first real celebrity character.
  • This one quickly became an Ascended Meme as shortly afterwards a new build on the Live Public Test Realm for 8.2.5 added Thex as an NPC in Orgrimmar.
• Andrew Luck retired to play WoW.^explanationIndianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck announced his retirement just a few days before World of Warcraft: Classic was set to launch. Him being just 29 with a fairly successful record, the decision came as a surprise, leading to many speculating, jokingly or otherwise, that he retired so he could spend his days playing the game. Cue countless people on Reddit, the official forums, and other sites speculating about his faction, race, and class.
• Cookie's Cove^explanationThere are numerous arguments about the acronym to be used when looking for a group for the dungeon Deadmines between "DM" (which is shared with the much higher-level Dire Maul dungeons) and "VC" (which refers to the dungeon's last boss, Edwin VanCleef), so some people jokingly started to refer to it as CC for Cookie's Cove after the dungeon's optional boss Cookie, who is often killed after VanCleef.

• Black Lotus Mafia ^explanationBlack Lotus is a rare herb used for making flasks (potions that significantly increase player power and are considered requirements for raiding). For the first 6 months or so of Classic, Blizzard left the spawn rates the same as in the original Vanilla game, despite the fact that even small Classic servers have many more people than the largest Vanilla servers. This led to the infamous "Black Lotus Mafia," a group of multi-boxers and gold farmers who would use multiple accounts to gather up all Black Lotus as it appeared and hoard the supply to massively gouge the price. This in turn made the price of flasks skyrocket, to the point where players would have to routinely completely drain their purses week after week for them. On faction-unbalanced servers, the disadvantaged faction was often denied flasks entirely. Players were outraged at Blizzard's shortsightedness in not adjusting the spawn rates and refusal to act on the issue. In May 2020, the spawn rates were finally adjusted, leading to many a meme gleefully poking fun at those who had been previously hoarding the herb.
• I'm regenerating 5 HP per second and there's nothing you can do about it!^explanationWhen the game launched, trolls had some pretty weak racial traits. Of particular note was the laughably underpowered Regeneration, which caused troll players to regenerate 5 health per second even when in combat, a pathetically weak value even at the time. It became an easy target of mockery among PvP players given how much it paled in comparison to orcs' stun resistance (via Hardiness) or undeads' ability to break crowd control effects (via Will of the Forsaken).
• Big Bad Pauldrons.^ExplanationThe "Big Bad Pauldrons" from Zul'Farrak were one of the best Plate shoulder pieces of armour obtainable at that level... and since not many other decent pauldrons could be made or obtained, it was super super common to see Warriors and Paladins wearing those well into the endgame.
• "Hybrid Tax!"^ExplanationA holdover from MMORPGs like EverQuest was that Druids, Shamans, and Paladins were "Hybrid" classes - thus they paid the "Hybrid Tax" of not being able to do any role decently... outside of healing.
• The Green Hills of Stranglethorn.^ExplanationIn Stranglethorn Vale, a quest series involves the titular book, "The Green Hills of Stranglethorn", having most of its pages ripped and scattered around the zone. Unfortunately, the page drops all randomly dropped - meaning it was very very rough and time-consuming to complete the quest, and heavily luck based.
  • The Green HELL of Stranglethorn.^ExplanationIt became That One Sidequest because of the random drops element.

Burning Crusade

• "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!" ^ExplanationYelled by Illidan when you start his fight, and also in the Burning Crusade trailer that featured him. And eventually, this becomes Illidan's Catchphrase
  • In an Easter Egg, the Well of Eternity dungeon has unique voiced dialogue for Past!Illidan if you run the dungeon wielding his signature Warglaives of Azzinoth. "Curious weapons you wield... such power. You seem prepared."
  • Becomes an Ascended Meme in Legion, when Illidan tells his Illidari demon hunters that they "are prepared" in a lore video, and "Prepared" is one of the Demon Hunter's talents.
  • Same expansion, Gul'dan is killed by Illidan after thinking he could manipulate him. In the same way Gul'dan killed Varian too. Alas, Gul'dan is not prepared.
• I know what you're thinking. But Tempest Keep was merely a setback! ^ExplanationPart of a long speech by Kael'thas Sunstrider at the beginning of his fight in Magister's Terrace. "X was merely a setback!" is often used to joke about the potential return of raid bosses. What most players fail to realize is that you never killed Kael'thas in Tempest Keep; in fact, if you had the quest from A'dal to kill him, he'll show up as you turn it in to taunt you about still being alive. It's an ascended meme: one of the san'layn in Icecrown Citadel starts the encounter with "Naxxanar was merely a setback!" and the same is true of Hogger in Stormwind Stockades: "FOREST JUST SETBACK!" and Crusader Lord Valdelmar in Tyr's Hand "The Scarlet Crusade is not over! Undeath is merely a setback!".
• /waggle ^ExplanationThe tails of female draenei draw attention to the way they sway their hips when they run. Since a lot of players consider them attractive, this quickly became a meme. The forward slash is a reference to the game's emote system.
• Lor'themar Theron.
  • Who? ^ExplanationThe Blood Elf leader, although having a large part in the Sunwell Trilogy manga, does next to nothing ingame. He was often referred to players as "that Blood Elf guy" but the meme really took off with this video.
    • He was given an important part in the quests surrounding the Isle of Thunder and Mogu excavations during Mists of Pandaria and rose from obscurity to be a capable leader who cares for his people and questions Garrosh's reckless warmongering.
    • But sadly, in perhaps the ultimate irony, players most likely still don't know his name, as most NPC's refer to him by his rank, Regent Lord.
• I hate you so much, Cookie. ^ExplanationFrom a rather humorous conversation in the draenei starting area between Cookie the cook and the captain.
• Lore. LOL ^ExplanationThe explanation for Draenei joining the Alliance with shamans and Blood Elves joining the horde with Paladins was seen as violating the lore.
• Say it with me now; I will not move when Flame Wreath is cast or the raid blows up.^ExplanationDuring the Burning Crusade a midtier boss called Shade of Aran would use the ability Flame Wreath which, if you move, does damage to the entire raid.
  • And then it returns for Legion... prompting some people to start repeating it.
• Follow me, stranger. This won't take long. ^explanationIn what is often referred to as the biggest lie in WoW, Khadgar's Servant says this before giving the player a tour of Shattrath City. Completing the quest is required to unlock the Scryer and Aldor factions, which in turn are required to access most of the city's services. The problem is that the Servant moves incredibly slowly, often stops to speak at length about in-game history that most players either don't care about or have already seen, and, should the player get distracted and not follow it, will despawn, causing the player to fail the quest and have to do it all over again. Players quickly got weary of having to do this quest on every single character they made.
• "Druids gained the ability to deal damage." ^ExplanationDruids, Shamans, and Paladins suffered heavily during Classic as having their other specs be super underpowere - Druids especially as they had no real way to deal damage, even Paladins could survive, Druids couldn't even pop a spit bubble.

Wrath of the Lich King

• Not one, but two Jormungar Worms! ^ExplanationSaid by an NPC at the Argent Tournament, this went meme when people realized how tricky it was fighting both at the same time.

  Vegeta, what does the scouter say about the Jormungar count?

  IT'S OVER ONE!

  WHAT? TWO?!

• Press 1 for horse ^ExplanationIn the Death Knight starting zone, you have to steal a horse from a nearby farm as part of a quest to get your mount. New players who didn't read the quest text had no idea how to turn in the horse for the quest, and asked in general chat. The button that delivered the horse to the questgiver replaced the first button on your action bar, which is bound to 1 for most people.
• IN THE MOUNTAINS
• "This pear... so delicious." ^ExplanationCaptain Falric in the Halls of Reflection says "Despair... so delicious." during his fight. Many players misheard this.
• FLESH FROM BONE!
  • FLESH TROMBONE! ^ExplanationSaid by Lord Jaraxxus when he uses a specific ability. He has such an exaggerated way of talking that almost everything he says can be memetically mutated.
  • YOU FACE JARAXXUS, EREDAR LORD OF THE TRIFLING GNOME, YOUR ARROGANCE SHALL BE YOUR INFERNO!
    • And when we got to Argus, it turned out that Jaraxxus's past uncorrupted self was just as hammy as his EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION! incarnation. "YOU FACE JARASUM, GRAND VIZIER OF THE CONSERVATORY!"
• BOOOOOOOOOOONE STOOOOOOOOOOOORM ^ExplanationLord Marrowgar yells this during his Bonestorm attack, in a very dramatic fashion. Now an Ascended Meme as a Battle Pet move, as well as in the Hearthstone version of the Marrowgar boss fight.

  • Cast Bonestorm or go to hell!

• Also similar to Kael'thas' line, Sindragosa's "SUFFER MORTALS, AS YOUR PATHETIC (insert whatever here) BETRAAAAAAAAAAYS YOU!" ^ExplanationAs with 'flesh from bone' and 'in the mountains,' this went memetic largely because it was a very difficult fight at level, so your average raid would hear this line over and over and over again in the course of a night. Her little voice-break in the middle of betrays was very distinctive.
  • Remixed.
• "We named him Dranosh..."
  • It means "waste of 90 seconds" in Orcish. ^ExplanationThe Horde version of the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter is prefaced by a lot of dialogue between the death knight and his father, who has come to kill him and claim his body. One of the lines is "We named [my son] Dranosh. It means 'heart of Draenor' in Orcish." It's a touching scene, but since there's no way to skip it, players very quickly tire of having to sit through the whole thing.
• Bolvar's dialogue with Tirion at Icecrown Citadel is very exploitable. One of many examples:

  Akama: Without it's master's command, the Illidari will become an even greater threat to this world. Control must be maintained... There must always be... [dramatic fel lightning] a Lord of Outland!

  Maiev: The weight of such a Burden... it must be mine! For I need job now anywa-

  Bolvar Fordragon: The dragons' flame... sealed my fate. The world of the living can no longer comfort me. Place the horns upon my head, Maiev. Forevermore - I will be the Lord of Outland.

  Akama: What the heck are you doing here?!

  Bolvar: Icecrown is nice and all, but I heard there are concubines here!

  Tirion: [shocked] Bolvar... by all that is holy...

  Bolvar Fordragon: Tell them only that they are not prepared...

  Bolvar Fordragon: and that Bolvar Fordragon is on vacation...

  Maiev: But...

  Bolvar Fordragon: [/flirts at Mother Shahraz] NOW GO. LEAVE THIS PLACE – AND NEVER RETURN.

• Good news, everyone! I fixed the poison slime pipes! ^ExplanationSaid by everyone's favorite Affably Evil Mad Scientist, Professor Putricide. In this case, it's from the Rotface fight.
• The new loading screen for Northrend features a very exploitable picture of Bolvar◊, which quickly resulted in this thread.
• CITIZENS OF DALARAN ^ExplanationWith the advent of Patch 6.0.2, one-time Raid Destroyer Algalon the Observer became fairly trivial for players at level 90 to solo. As a result, Rhonin's speech, once very rare, following any player handing in the quest gained from defeating Algalon started to be heard once every five minutes, or even more frequently. There was even an addon created to shut him up, and in time the event was tweaked to only be audible in the immediate vicinity.
• I'll get you next time, Gadget!! ^ExplanationThe Lich King's behavior in WotLK—confronting the player only to leave without harming them—has drawn frequent comparisons to Dr. Claw.
• No king rules forever. ^ExplanationThe Arc Words of Wrath of the Lich King, now applied to WoW's status as the top MMORPG after the game lost 44% of its subscribers over the course of Warlords of Draenor. The last time the sub numbers were so low was in December 2005. It then gained plenty of new life during the debacle with Diablo Immortal, since it had been hyped as another new entry in the series only to be revealed as a mobile game that was a reskin of a preexisting one. The massive Internet Counterattack that ensued included a persistently deleted and reposted comment that lead in with this line, with Blizzard itself being the king that had finally fallen. This kept on being used after the anticlimactic finale of Battle for Azeroth, the disastrous launch of Warcraft III Reforged and later the toxic workplace scandal during the runtime of Shadowlands causing many players and even content creators backing them to make an exodus to other rival games, prominently Final Fantasy XIV.
  • I see only X before me. ^ExplanationArthas final words acting as followup to the one above. Originally "darkness", X being replaced with something random or something that is seen as a fault with Blizzard.
• Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later.◊ ^ExplanationIn Patch 3.2, many players started repeatedly running the newly released Trial of the Champion and Trial of the Crusader instances for epics, as well as chain-running old dungeons for emblems. The instance servers were unable to handle the load for a while until Blizzard fixed the problem. During that time, trying to enter any instance whatsoever spammed the chat log with this message.
  • Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later.
  • Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later.
  • Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later.
  • Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later.
  • The Ice Stone has melted!
  • Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later.
  • Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later.
• Death knight "mount" names ^explanationAs part of a promotion for Wrath of the Lich King Classic, everyone who completed the death knight starting zone received an account-wide flying mount. Players who presumably had no interest in playing a death knight otherwise made death knight characters with names like "Gibmountlul," "Mountpls," "Wantmount" and similar.

Cataclysm

• Gamon will save us! ^ExplanationGamon is a very low-level NPC in Orgrimmar who rogues must pickpocket in an early quest. To be pickpocketed, he has to be attackable. As such, many Horde players like to kill him on sight for the sake of a laugh. When Horde Death Knights first ride into Orgrimmar, Gamon chases after them, claiming he will save the city. In Cataclysm, Gamon became a level 85 Elite but is still attackable, massacring armies of even top-geared players. He's been updated for subsequent expansions and has a huge axe to indicate he's no longer someone to mess with.
  • Since becoming a minor raid boss, it is possible to wipe entire Alliance raids by kiting Gamon into them.
  • Has reached Ascended Meme status when Gamon helps in the fight against Nazgrim in the Siege of Orgrimmar. The achievement for having Gamon give the finishing blow is even called "Gamon Will Save Us!"
• Basic Campfire for Warchief! ^ExplanationFrom a lost forum thread where the poster created an initial list of 50 better choices for Warchief then Garrosh Hellscream. One of them was 'Basic Campfire', the fire any character can make to cook food: the posters seized on that one and ran with it. With the publishing of a Garrosh-centric article on WoW Insider, this mutated into "Abesik Kampfire".
  • "Don't blame me, voted for Basic Campfire."
  • Vol'Jin for Warchief 2012 ^ExplanationThe more plausible option to replace Garrosh was the troll leader Vol'Jin, who opposed him at several points. Became an Ascended Meme towards the end of Mists of Pandaria with Garrosh overthrown and Vol'jin succeeding him.

• Genn. Motherfucking. Greymane. ^ExplanationGenn Greymane has become a man among men to his fanbase shortly after it was revealed the worgen were confirmed for Cataclysm.
  • "I didn't know that Genn could actually fight!" ^explanationThe Alliance Lore during Mists of Pandaria pretty much centered entirely around the Wrynn family and Jaina, and with the Warlords of Draenor setting being so removed from the events of Azeroth, Genn was basically Put on a Bus. so Genn pretty much didn't get to even do much until Legion, when people joked that he could actually fight and were surprised that he got to do things.
• I remember it well. It was a bright, shiny day... I was just mindin' my own business, when all of a sudden, Deathwing appeared! I said to myself, "I'm gonna punch that dragon in the face!" ^explanation"The Day Deathwing Came" has become one of the most favorited quests ever.
• With the Twilight's Hammer cult being a major antagonist in Cataclysm, the advent of the Twilight Dragonflight and the addition of the Twilight Highlands, people have taken to making (largely mocking) Twilight references whenever one of these comes up.
  • The game itself does as well... one of the worgen /silly jokes is 'At least we don't sparkle...'
• My body is clad head to toe in heirlooms! Look at your armor, now back to mine. Yes, my horse is made of stars!
  • For Twinkles! A more loyal star pony has never been seen.
• The Rainbow Generator item, which shoots rainbows at enemies. It does very weak damage, but it's become very popular to show people firing this thing off, one image even showing somebody hitting The Lich King with it.
• I tried to make an entry here...
  • ...but I couldn't, because Hungering Cold has a cast time. ^Explanation The Death Knight ability Hungering Cold, which freezes all enemies close to the caster in blocks of ice, was deemed too powerful in PvP. Fair enough, but Blizzard's solution of giving it a cast time is one of the most derided Cataclysm balance decisions to date. One of the threads mocking the change was titled "I tried to stop Thrall's assailants..." (referring to a quest where Thrall is attacked while the player character is stunned and helpless), with the post itself reading "...but I couldn't, because Hungering Cold has a cast time." The rest of the thread continued in this fashion before it was regrettably deleted.
• Watch your clever mouth, bitch! ^ExplanationSaid by Garrosh Hellscream to Sylvanas Windrunner, after she mockingly salutes him. Notable because the exchange is not only uncensored, but voiced. After years of relative obscurity, the line attracted attention again in the Shadowlands expansion, after players discovered that it was retroactively edited to remove the curse (along with a similar line by another character). The official justification was that a dev likes playing this T-rated game with his young child and thought that kind of language was inappropriate and jarring, but many players had the more cynical interpretation that they just couldn't stand someone being mean to their Creator's Pet. In protest of what they see as censorship (and illogical, since this game features death, gore, genocide, bigotry, and allusions to sexual violence), players will often go out of their way to call Sylvanas a bitch every chance they get, or things like "a [REDACTED]" to reference the removal.
• GO'EL, GO'EL, GO'EL, GO'EL... ^Explanation Aggra during a questline that made you save Thrall. "Go'el" is Thrall's true name, and Aggra will keep reminding you of that during said questline. Used whenever Aggra is mentioned.
• POWAH! ^ExplanationDuring the long intro speech for the Archbishop Benedictus boss fight, the speech is extremely overdone and many players will /y POWAH as he says power.
  • Darth Benedictus. ^ExplanationThe parallels to Darth Sidious are pretty obvious.
  • Lord Voldemort references are a decent second in popularity, due to the "there is no X or Y - only power" speech being almost identical to Voldemort's speech in the first Harry Potter movie, although far from the only obvious Shout-Out by raid bosses.
• "Break yourselves upon my body. Feel the strength of the earth!" ^ExplanationOzruk, a boss in the Stonecore instance, repeats this phrase when he uses his main boss mechanic. As he is an infamous killer of uncoordinated random groups who ignore mechanics, people heard this a lot. And people tend to see in it more than one sense.
• HUSH TYRANDE!!! ^ExplanationIn the Caverns of Time dungeon based on the Well of Eternity, Malfurion speaks this line to Tyrande in a very harsh tone at the end of the dungeon, when she is on the ground crying. The line is actually directly taken from the novelization of these events, but in the book, the line was said calmly and soothingly, with Malfurion attempting to comfort Tyrande. In game, however, the line is spoken harshly and condescendingly, for some reason. Very much a, 'Dumbledore Asked Calmly' moment.
• The Elevator Boss.^ExplanationIn Blackwing Descent there's an elevator that moves faster than a player falls; missing it by a second is fatal. The resulting number of deaths led to it being mockingly called a boss... and then Blizz added a stat to track the deaths
• ANSWER ME! WERE YOU BLOODY BITTEN?! ^explanationThe Alliance storyline in Grizzly Hills features the army trying to make an alliance with some local homesteaders and trappers, who turn out to all be suffering from the worgen curse. The big reveal happens when you rescue an Alliance sergeant who had been captured by them, who asks the above question. However, in Cataclysm, worgen became an Alliance race, which makes the whole quest line hilarious for worgen players. The phrase became a shorthand for any quest that fails to take into account the player's background (class, race, or previous experiences).

Mists of Pandaria

• The Mists of Pandaria cinematic was revealed, and the scene where the unnamed human hands the unnamed orc his spear while the pair stares at Chen Stormstout has become a meme.
  • The unnamed human has been dubbed "Captain Mustache" by some and is being hailed as a Memetic Badass on par with Saurfang and Crowley. Others seem to think he's Jaina's (possibly non-canon) brother Tandred.
  • Towards the end of the expansion, Blizzard released a follow-up cinematic featuring the characters drowning their sorrows at a tavern after getting their asses kicked. The short's two sole lines of dialogue have already reached memetic status in the community.
  Human: So...it was a bear?
  Orc: In a HAT!
• Arise, my champion! ^Explanation Said by Inquisitor Whitemane when she flaunts every rules of a priest and puts everyone in the group to sleep using the overpowered version of a defunct spell and then resurrects the final boss while in combat. Also used to mock bringing old bosses back before Kael'thas invented a new meme for that (see above)
• how u mak pnada ^ExplanationPeople probably (hopefully) jokingly asking how to make a Pandaren character before the proper expansion was released has become somewhat common in city chat.
  • how u mak pinata
  • where u go 2 betle pets ^ExplanationSame as above, but asking how to battle with minipets again before it was implemented.
• The Sha of Happiness has taken the official forums by storm. {◕ ◡ ◕}
  • The horror and terror in this thread is unfathomable! I must put a stop and en... {◕ ᵥ ◕} *blinks* Stand strong adventurers, its reign shall end shortly. ^ExplanationBlizzard´s representative about this onslaught of terror.
  • {◕ ◡ ◕}{◕ ◡ ◕}{◕ ◡ ◕}{◕ ◡ ◕}{◕ ◡ ◕}{◕ ◡ ◕}
  • Became an Ascended Meme in Battle for Azeroth where the pet awarded for completing Raiding with Leashes VI is Happiness, a miniature prime Sha.
• 28g 50s ^ExplanationWith the new loot system introduced by the Pandaria expansion, bosses in LFR instances and bonus rolls from Charms of Good Fortune will always give this amount of money as a consolation if the player did not win any gear. May be brought up by those expressing frustration with the system.
  • "Got gold."/"Gold. FUCK!" are common things to hear at the end of every fight. Never in the history of capitalism have so many people been so angry to get so rich.
    • And with the new random Legendary item drops in Legion, one suspects that ''"THE FUCKING RING!"'' and variants thereof will be joining that phrase for a while.^ExplanationThe ring Sephuz's Secret was introduced with an extremely underwhelming proc that very few classes could use in very few circumstances for very little gain. Because of the RNG for Legendary drops, it was considered a better time investment to level a new character for another shot at a first Legendary rather than try and farm out a second Legendary if the first one you got was useless. Naturally, it seemed like half the playerbase got the useless ring as their first, prompting cries of frustration. Later in the expansion Sephuz was heavily buffed to make the proc both stronger and more accessible, making it at least decent for most classes and very strong for some, but the bad taste from its launch version still remains.
• "The WILL...of the Klaxxi...is a turtle!"^ExplanationSaid by Korven the Prime, one of the Paragons of the Klaxxi. He's supposed to be saying "eternal," but due to the voice, it sounds like "a turtle." This has been heavily referenced on the official forums and in-game as well, including several hunters naming their turtle pets "WillOfTheKlaxxi."
• Me gonna ook you in the dooker! ^ExplanationA much quoted line from the Stormstout Brewery boss Ook-Ook, typically used as the punchline to a "Shaggy Dog" Story.
  • The hozen speak in a weird mixture of Engrish and Poirot Speak, so this was to be expected. Riko in particular:
  "COME AT ME, BROKKERS!"
  "I'm back, you DOOKERS!"
  "Grook dem florkin' wikkets!"
• Jaina is a Dreadlord. ^ExplanationJaina was once the voice of diplomacy in the Alliance; ever since the bombing of Theramore she became a war hawk hating anyone in the Horde, even the more reasonable leaders, and as of Legion, has left Dalaran in anger because it has been opened to the Horde again... players unhappy with the change speculate that this new, angry Jaina is a Dreadlord in disguise, compounded with Dreadlords in general being excellent Master of Disguise (one could impersonate Medivh), and the more recognized pacifist Jaina is either in hiding, got shanghai'ed to Heroes of the Storm or 'died in Theramore', this speculation usually taking form to referring the current angry Jaina to be 'a Dreadlord in her costume', or complimenting how good that Dreadlord is in 'impersonating' Jaina. Ascended not in the game proper, but in Heroes of the Storm where Jaina gets a Dreadlord skin. The meme itself is often a Discredited Meme though, as there has been no factual basis for it, and Battle For Azeroth seems to confirm she is herself.
  • "X" is a Dreadlord. ^Explanation Same basic meme but focused on other characters, like Genn Greymane, Anduin Wyrnn, or Sylvanas Windrunner.
• "X" was a legitimate military target. ^Explanation Baine in Tides of War dismisses Taurajo being firebombed with this line, then shortly afterwards exiles any tauren who fights back against Alliance military targets, despite the Alliance forces sieging the gates of Mulgore and having psychotic generals in their ranks. The moment cemented Bain's change to an Extreme Doormat. Horde fans (especially Garrosh supporters) often apply this to Theramore as well — the Theramore bombing is presented in-game as Garrosh's Moral Event Horizon, but Theramore was indisputably the center of Alliance operations in the Barrens and southern Kalimdor, so many Garrosh fans bristle at how the attack is depicted as unforgivably heinous. Especially as the civilians were all evacuated safely, unlike Taurajo.

Warlords of Draenor

• In Warlords of Draenor, explore the savage world of Draenor, as you savage the savages of the savage jungles and savage deserts and savage mountains and savage the savage races with savage savage savages. #Savage ^ExplanationWhen Blizzard announced Warlords of Draenor at Blizzcon 2013, they... Might have overused the word 'savage'. They immediately caught this one, making a weird cross between a forced meme and a real meme.
• KaraSpire 2014! ^ExplanationAt Blizzcon 2013, it was announced that Karabor (Black Temple before its corruption) and Bladespire Citadel (an imposing ogre fortress) would be the capital cities on Draenor for the Alliance and Horde respectively. There were immersive questlines involved in taking these cities; the Alliance would defend Karabor from an Iron Horde onslaught, and the Horde would capture Bladespire from the ogres. The playerbase was generally very excited for this, but in June 2014, the devs said on Twitter that they had been replaced as bases with two tiny, generic, faceless hubs on the PvP-oriented island of Ashran, located well away from most of the action and largely separate from the overarching storyline of the expansion. This caused an uproar in the playerbase, who had a number of criticisms: the new Ashran hubs lacking anything like the scale or epic feel of the original capitals; the squandering of an excellent way to integrate the draenei better into the Alliance (Karabor was the base of the draenei Exarchs on Draenor); the Ashran hubs being easily attackable by the opposite faction; the bases being almost entirely orc- and human-based, where many players felt the orcs and humans hogged too much of the spotlight from the other races on their respective factions; and the fact that players would have these involved, epic storylines to take or defend these cities, only to later have little to no reason to go back there. Combine that with a flimsy (and almost counterintuitive) story explanation by the developer Lore, and following that the reveal that they had changed their plans soon after Blizzcon without ever bothering to inform the playerbase, and the community went nuts. It led to an extensive campaign (though ultimately unsuccessful) to get the old capitals restored - there was a chain of nearly 40 threads on the topic on the US forums alone, and an extensive hashtag campaign on Twitter, using lines such as #SaveOurCities, #KaraSpire2014, #SaveKarabor, #SaveBladespire, and #Trashran. Months later, the capitals were still a sore point for critics of the expansion.
• "I really wish they didn't kill off this new 'Prophet Velen' character they added for Warlords before Killing him off."^ExplanationProphet Velen, unless one digs VERY deep into the expanded universe, gave players the impression that ever since a single line at the end of The Burning Crusade he has just been sitting in the Exodar not doing anything. The Alternate Universe in Warlords of Draenor has Velen dying and giving his powers to Yrel.
  • "You'd be forgiven for thinking Velen was a brand new character for Warlords of Draenor".
• RISE, MOUNTAINS ^Explanation Tectus, a stone elemental boss in the Highmaul raid, says this during his fight. A lot. Needless to say, players latched on to it.
  • RISE, MOUNTAINS
  • RISE, MOUNTAINS
  • RISE, MOUNTAINS
  • RISE, MOUNTAINS
  • RISE, MOUNTAINS
  • The ice stone has melted!
  • RISE, MOUNTAINS
  • RISE, MOUNTAINS
  • Then this website popped up.
• Khadgar gets angry. Madgar.
  • Khadgar stands in the fire and dies. Badgar.
    • Khadgar is going to be a father. Dadgar. ^ExplanationKhadgar is a relevant character again in Warlords of Draenor. A thread on the official forums appeared that made a rhyming pun in the style of the above, quickly filled up with similar Khadgar permutations, and inspired a wealth of similar threads for just about any character you can think of.
• "Times change." ^explanationSaid by Garrosh Hellscream to Gul'Dan during the Warlords of Draenor opening cinematic. Often used in response when someone complains about changes to the game's mechanics.
• I just finished all the Alliance storylines in Draenor but I still have no idea who this spooky undead axe midget from the loading screen is. Does he only show up in Horde quests?
  • That would be Durotan's crotch
    • just fuck me up now ^ExplanationDraenor's loading screen is a group shot of all the major orc leaders in the expansion. Someone posted a thread on Reddit mistaking Durotan's large skull belt buckle and belt-hooked axe for a separate character, and the above exchange ensued. An Ascended Meme in Heroes of the Storm, as an obtainable profile portrait featuring Durotan's lower half under the name "Crotchety Axe Guy".
• DRAENOR IS FREE!^explanationShouted by AU!Grom Hellscream in the cinematic after the defeat of Archimonde. Despite Grom's brutal war campaign and attempted genocide of the Draenei and Frostwolves, he was apparently "redeemed" at some point despite never having shown remorse or attempted any form of atonement whatsoever. The "hold hands and cheer" ending was heavily criticized for providing absolutely no explanation as to why anyone would be okay with letting Grom and the surviving Iron Horde get off scot free, and many point to it as an example of WoD's weak writing and storytelling. The phrase itself is often Snowclone'd for half-assed "redemption" arcs, actual or hypothetical, in WoW and in other games.
• Get back in the mines, Lantresor. ^ExplanationA follower with the mining trait can be assigned to the mine in a player's garrison, which increases its ore yield. The trait appears randomly on followers, except for one who starts with it guaranteed: Lantresor of the Blade, a popular quest giver. Because he's likely the first one you get with the trait, and the fact that he doesn't have anything else unique about him, most players just stick him in the mines and forget about him forever. This was considered a sad/funny fate for the character. Referenced in Battle for Azeroth's Mag'har recruitment scenario; three decades have passed since we've been to Draenor, and in that time he's swapped out his lance for a pickaxe.
• MOAR SPIKES ^explanationHorde architecture (especially orc architecture) in game is often made fun of for its perceived overreliance on spikes. This became particularly poignant during Warlords, where, while the Alliance got elaborate, fortified buildings befitting a major commander's base, the Horde's Level 2 and Level 3 upgrades did seemingly nothing but make the buildings marginally bigger and add more and more spikes.
• Everything. ^explanationA lot of jokes about how Gul'dan needs to take up marketing and advertising classes popped up when this was his reply to Grommash's question about what they will give in return for drinking the demon's blood which would've bound them as slaves.

Legion

• In case of sub loss, break glass. ^{Explanation (Spoilers)} A teaser for Legion features Illidan encased in crystal and alt!Gul'dan presumably releasing him. As Illidan is a fan-favourite character and Legion comes after an extended period of subscriber loss for WoW, with the game falling to levels not seen since 2005, fans began photoshopping the image with 'in case of sub loss, break glass' as a joke about Blizzard's clear attempt to Win Back the Crowd.
• "An illusion!? WHAT ARE YOU HIDING!" / "Something's not quite right...." / "Who goes there?" ^ExplanationDuring the Suramar questline in the Legion expansion, players are given an illusionary disguise to wander around Suramar City. The sentries in the city utter the quoted line before casting a spell that would dispel the disguise. Since there are many sentries located throughout the city, players hear these three lines A LOT. This is more problematic in the "elite" area of the city, as there are more sentries AND they are more difficult to kill.
  • As if sort of apologizing for this one, patch 7.1 introduced a quest that allowed the players to take revenge against the nightborne loyalists by subjecting them to the same treatment. Now, if only there was a repeatable version of this...
  • Also referenced in an Argus quest that puts you in stealth, with ethereals saying "A dissimulation? What are you concealing?◊"
• Nomi's tendency to burn food has become legendary. ^explanationNomi is an NPC that acts as the pathway to develop the player's cooking skill during the Legion expansion. To do this, the player has to give him some food in exchange for the possibility of learning new cooking recipes. Unfortunately, Nomi is a shit cook and burns a lot of the food the player gives him and the recipes the player gets are few and far in between. However, Word of God states that he will get better as the expansion progresses.
  • Became an Ascended Meme by being referenced in one of Blizzard's hotfix notes.
  Blizzard hotfix note: Nomi will now also check your bank to see if you have any Silver Mackerel for him to burn.
  • A common joke is that Sargeras is renaming his forces the Nomi Legion.
  • Nomi's Ascended Meme status peaked during April Fools 2017 in the open beta, where Blizzard made all of Dalaran attackable... and gave Nomi world boss-tier stats. Cue entire raids dedicated to fighting Firelord Nomi.
  • Has reached the real world in a review for the World of Warcraft Cookbook.
  • Nomi was later introduced in the Hearthstone expansion Rise of Shadows... with an ability that turns his burnt food into fire elementals.
• Vol'jin didn't make Sylvanas the Warchief, the writers did. ^explanationVol'jin was pretty much Out of Focus when he was the Warchief, and rather than promote someone with values closer to the Horde or bring Thrall back, he out of nowhere picks Sylvanas. This is combined with the portrayal of the Battle of Broken Shore, where Varian (The High King of the Alliance)is not depicted in media alongside the Horde's actual leader, but Sylvanas, who appears in the Legion cinematic, the Broken Isles loading screen, and hogs the spotlight in the Broken Shore scenario in-game, with Vol'jin having no dialogue after she appears.
  • Vol'jin died to a trash mob ^explanationVol'jin was a fan favorite character prior to his ascension as Warchief at the end of Mists of Pandaria. Despite this, Blizzard had him die on the Broken Shore, but instead of going down in a blaze of glory like Varian Wrynn, he was ran-through by a Felguard's spear and died to fel corruption later, sitting on his throne. This is pretty much a meme used in resentment towards Blizzard for their treatment of one of the franchises most popular Breakout Characters.
• Illidan did nothing wrong! ^ExplanationBorrowed meme from Berserk, this is basically Xe'ra's questline in a nutshell, constantly praising Illidan during the flashback sequences as the chosen one. At the end of the questline, Xe'ra more or less blames the player for his fall (the quest will acknowledge if you actually killed Illidan, but if you didn't then you're blamed for indirectly causing it), unless the player is a demon hunter. Suffice to say, this didn't go over so well with a lot of players.
  • MY DESTINY IS MY OWN! ^explanationWhen Illidan and Xe'ra finally meet... he kills her.
• Time to feed the junkies. ^explanationThe Nightfallen are literal mana addicts whose behavior and animations are clearly based on addicts of hard drugs. Many players simply refer to them as junkies. Every day they have to be fed ancient mana to continue providing services.
• THESE MORTALS DARE NOT CHALLENGE MY CLAIM TO THE AEGIS! ^explanationGod-King Skovald, the Arc Villain of the Stormheim zone, became a butt to many jokes due to his remarkable Simpleton Voice and his obsession with the Aegis of Aggramar. Fans like to believe he sees it as his Companion Cube.
• These are drogbar rocks. DROGBAR STONES! ^explanationDrogbar mobs at Highmountain and the Neltharion's Lair dungeon are fond of saying this line when aggroed.
  • PUNY KARKUN. SHOULDN'T BE HERE. ^explanationThe drogbar are just very quotable in general.
  • GO KISS A TAUREN!
• After Antorus, some fans suggested Sargeras raped Azeroth. ^explanation Throughout the Antorus raid, Sargeras surrounded Azeroth in cloud form. Azeroth contains the soul of the female Titan Azeroth, who the expansion reveals Sargeras is canonically infatuated and obsessed with. When he takes physical form at the end of the raid, he looks like he is glomping onto and straddling the planet. The stabbing of Azeroth with his sword has both been made into a Double Entendre and been depicted as an If I Can't Have You… scenario.
• The Ice Stone has melted!
• THE BAGSLOTS BROKE EVERYTHING! WHY DID WE NOT LISTEN? ^explanationCharacters' basic backpack cannot be replaced and has remained at the original 16 item slots for its entire existence, even as expansions add replaceable bags twice that size or more for every other slot. A way to increase its size has been requested for a long time, but the response has always been that a lot of essential character code runs through the basic backpack, and it's simpler and less risky to add bigger replaceable bags if the goal is more storage space. Legion's Patch 7.3.5 added bonus item slots to the basic backpack when you add an authenticator to your account. It also added a perceived large number of obvious bugs all across the game, leading people to joke that we should have heeded the devs' warnings.
• Get into the vat and jump on the fruit! ^explanationThere's a world quest in Suramar where you have to help the vintners make arcwine. In addition to various ingredients, you also have a chance to be told to stomp on the fruit mixture. However, for some reason, that instruction appears far, far more often than any others (which tell you actually put in the ingredients), leading both to memetic status and bewilderment as to how this wine is supposed to be any good. The fact that you have only a limited time to do it and it's rather inconvenient doesn't help.
  • This was referenced when the Nighthold was revamped as a neutral zone for playable nightborne in 7.3.5.
  Sylverin: I brought samples to dispel the unfounded rumors that our wine tastes too footy... I mean too fruity!
• "So says the shadow of Xavius!" ^explanationA response by Malfurion Stormrage during the Darkheart Thicket dungeon, when Xavius threatens the party - the Xavius that appears in the dungeon is an avatar as Xavius cannot fully manifest in the real world outside the Emerald Nightmare. Often used as a clapback to insults or threats, or to mock Malfurion, who somehow managed to lose to said avatar anyway, as Xavius points out ("Even an echo of my power was enough to overwhelm you!").
• DEADLY: Withered J'im ^explanationFor most of Legion 's timespan, the world boss rotation was apparently random, meaning which boss was available each week was up to chance. For some reason, Withered J'im spawned a lot, sometimes even two weeks in a row, while certain bosses, particularly some such as Nithogg who dropped hidden Artifact appearances or Na'zak the Fiend who dropped crafting recipes were not seen for months (in Na'zak's case, he was not seen for over a year). This wasn't helped by the fact Withered J'im was also the source of the Unstable Arcanocrystal trinket, which was controversial on its own right. The world boss rotation was only fixed with Patch 7.3, while J'im is forever remembered as a Memetic Troll who spawns instead of the boss you want.
• A tank's worst enemy: seagulls ^explanationThe Eye of Azshara dungeon is home to numerous neutral seagulls that fly around minding their own business. They aren't critters, though; they're level 110 elite mobs, and many players have ended up aggroing them by accident (particularly while fighting Serpentrix, as the area is already filled with mobs and targeting the wrong one by accident is quite easy), leading the tank to be assaulted by a flock of angry seagulls.
  • Has become an Ascended Meme as shown by the Legion Dungeon Event's picture in Battle.net being a draenei hunter being attacked by a pair of seagulls while the rest of his party fights Serpentrix.
  • In Patch 7.1.5, a special Brawler's Guild encounter was introduced featuring a boss seagull called "a Seagull", titled "The Real End Boss", and who has an ability called "Fury of Gull'dan" which is described as "You have angered the seagull. This is an error. Damage inflicted increased by 100%. Forever. Or, at least, until you're dead."
• X ruins the fjarnskaggl.^explanationFjarnskaggl is a herb growing in Stormheim, which became memetic because of its name and a book, part of the herbalism quest chain, claiming that it can be ruined by just about anything.
• "I've sacrificed everything! What have you given?" ^explanationOne of the responses demon hunter NPC's give when clicked on. Leaving aside that most players by this point have sacrificed quite a bit, it's highly memorable and quotable, and can be snowclone'd for a variety of purposes.

• GREYMANE'S FORCES HOLD THIS WARDEN TOWER! BREAK THEIR RANKS! SHOW NO MERCY! ^explanationHow Sylvanas prompts Horde players to assault Warden towers currently held by the Alliance. Since World Quest notifications pop up without any prompting from the players simply by approaching the quest area, it's not uncommon for players to be haphazardly riding/flying along only for Sylvanas to suddenly start screaming in their face.
• GIVE US THE BANSHEE QUEEN!^explanationIn Stormheim, one of the main focuses of the area's questline is Genn's relentless hunt for Sylvanas in vengeance for Liam's murder and seemingly leaving Varian to die at the Broken Shore. When aggroed by Horde players, Gilnean mobs in the area, have a chance to say this line, and due to a bug in early versions of the expansion, they said it a lot.
• I've got your back, Archdruid! ^explanationThisalee Crow is a bodyguard follower for the Druid class hall in Legion, and this is her quote when she appears and accompanies the player in the world. However, her flight form failed to trigger properly when flying was first introduced in the Broken Isles, which led to her repeatedly spawning, saying this phrase, falling, despawning, and spawning all over again, saying this phrase in her trademark loud, high-pitched voice every single time.
  • I've got your back, Archdruid!
  • I've got your back, Archdruid!
  • I've got your back, Archdruid!
  • I've got your back, Archdruid!
• What rogue class hall?^explanationIt's a common joke on fansites (particularly /r/wow) that rogues don't have a class hall in Legion. This is mostly because the rogue is the archetypal spy/thief class, so it would make sense for them to deny its existence, but there's also a few other jokes that tie into it: occasionally the corpse of an "Unfortunate Adventurer" can be seen near the entrance; rogue players were hopeful that their traditional haunt of Ravenholdt would serve as their class hall, rather than the Hall of Shadows beneath Dalaran as was actually the case; and a not-infrequent bug will sometimes spawn a duplicate Bookcase Passage behind the one that's actually supposed to be the entrance to the class hall, preventing the rogue from accessing it.
• The Pimple Popper DK^explanationThe Unholy Death Knight was heavily redesigned in Legion to be focused around giving enemies "Festering Wounds" with certain abilities, while "bursting" those wounds for extra damage with others. The parallels to acne are pretty clear. Even prestigious guides will usually stoop to referring to the mechanic as "popping zits" at least once.
• "I will see to it the Nightborne end their long isolation as defenders of Azeroth, not conquerors."^explanationA fairly popular World Quest in Suramar ends with Thalyssra declaring the above. As one of the first things the Nightborne did after rejoining the world was helping Sylvanas conquer Kalimdor and burn down Teldrassil, fans were quick to mockingly refer back to this line.

Battle for Azeroth

• The real reason for Battle for Azeroth ^ExplanationThe announcement of Battle for Azeroth at Blizzcon kept the spark igniting the resurgent Alliance vs. Horde conflict secret, leading many people to make various tongue-in-cheek memes about the two factions going to war over some trivial dispute, such as pizza toppings.
• Maps of uncharted islands ^ExplanationDuring the Blizzcon panel announcing BFA, the "Island Expeditions" segment referred to explorers giving players "maps of uncharted islands," missing the fact that "uncharted" means that no maps of said area exist. Many people were quick to jump on poking fun at the contradiction.
• Zappyboi ^ExplanationAn Ensemble Dark Horse troll shaman from the Battle for Azeroth cinematic, who gained notoriety for his Impossibly Cool Clothes and his spectacular spellcasting, even taking down Genn Greymane with his lightning blasts. Since the trolls lack a clear leader following the death of Vol'jin, many people have (only half-jokingly) suggested Zappyboi for the position. He became a prominent character in the cinematic "Old Soldier" with him being a Naïve Newcomer that kept Saurfang from walking off to die before the Siege of Lordaeron began. His real name is confirmed to be Zekhan; the Fan Nickname came about from a "Who Would Win?" meme posted to the WoW subreddit that referred to him as "one zappy boi." Has become an Ascended Meme as Bwonsamdi calls him "zappy boy" to his face in the Shadows Rising novel.
• T'PAARTOS! ^ExplanationAnother Ensemble Dark Horse that appears during the quest to recruit Lightforged Draenei and whom you have to help through the trial, T'paartos has a tendency to speak in third person and is very... expressive.
• The [blank] is waiting for you ^explanationLead game designer Ion Hazzikostas infamously said "The Horde is waiting for you" to during a Q&A to Alliance players who wanted high elves to be added as an Alliance allied race. In lore, the majority of the high elf population became blood elves and later joined the Horde, but high elf NPC's are a major fixture of Alliance questing and were notable enough to be specifically called out by Elisande at the climax of the Suramar storyline. The callously dismissive response began to be Snowclone'd for a variety of situations, include the Horde's Stupid Evil actions datamined on the BfA alpha/beta ("If you want to not be evil, the Alliance is waiting for you") and various class concerns ("Death knights, if you want not terrible mobility, demon hunters are waiting for you").
• NAARU VULT!/LUX VULT! ^explanationThe Mag'har Orc allied race storyline was datamined and it was revealed that at some point within the 35 years since the events of Warlords of Draenor, High Exarch Yrel has been instructed by the Draenor Naaru to lead a crusade against the Mag'har Orcs. Since then, the crusade's feats include forcibly converting Orcs to their cause, and killing them if they resist; two examples of this include being responsible for Durotan's death and successfully converting Grommash's son (who players jokingly refer to as Garrosh Heavenscream) into the Light. Ironically enough, Horde players generally seem to *love* these lore developments, while Alliance players generally seem skeptical.
• HUMAN POTENTIAL™ ^explanationThere is a questline where Shandris Feathermoon meets John J. Keeshan (a thinly veiled Expy of Rambo) and gushes over his accomplishments, and she later makes a comment about "human potential". Alliance players, and night elf players in particular, dislike this questline for many reasons: 1. They feel that it's a Ship Sinking of the Shandris/Jarod pairing; 2. They dislike the fact that yet another female elven character may be getting set up with yet another human male, and object to this human in particular, as he is a meme character; 3. They feel it is out of character for Shandris to gush about "human potential", and feel that this is another attempt by the writers to shill for the humans at the expense of the night elves, similar to how Tyrande was treated in "A Little Patience". Given WoW's trend of female elf/male human pairings, a lot of snark has been spouted about "human potential" being of the below-the-waist variety. The dialogue in question was removed because of the fun people made at it, but the meme persists.
• Tier sets died for this. ^explanationWith the introduction of Azerite gear, the dev team felt tier set bonuses were no longer relevant and excessively obstructed gearing choices, so tier sets were discontinued in BFA. This also meant, however, that the unique artwork associated with each class's tier set was gone, which the devs justified by saying that coming sets would be based on the raid rather than classes. Unfortunately, many players found the leaked sets for Uldir, the first BFA raid, highly underwhelming, and there is only one set per armor type now (meaning 4 cosmetic "sets" rather than 12 per tier). In light of this, many players despondently began to reply "tier sets died for this" whenever the Uldir sets were brought up.
• Morally grey. ^explanationDespite Blizzard's promises for the Alliance-Horde conflict to feature Grey-and-Gray Morality, both the expansion and the prequel novel Before the Storm by Christie Golden are anything but. Said ironically, especially when Anduin acts like a goody-two-shoes or Sylvanas does something despicable.
  • The Alliance can do no wrong. ^ExplanationWhile the Alliance didn't have as many atrocities to their name as the Horde, the narrative since Mists Of Pandaria turned to whitewash or outright ignore all Alliance on Horde crimes such: as the Dwarves exterminating an entire Tauren tribe in Barrens out of greed, the Stormpike trying to raid and kill Frostwolf clan, an Alliance general intentionally targeting goblin civilians, the Alliance initially shooting first in Cataclysm, ETC. Some of the Alliance characters who do these actions are even treated unironically as heroes by the narrative. Basically undoing the promised morally grey.
  • BURN IT! ^explanationThe crown jewel of the above meme. Sylvanas' original plan in the War of Thorns prepatch event was to occupy Teldrassil and force a favorable peace to ensure the Horde's security after the discovery of Azerite. However, her Warbringers video has her inexplicably abandon this plan and order Teldrassil burned, seemingly for no other reason than to spite a dying night elf huntress who tried to remind Sylvanas of her humanity. Teldrassil's burning was known to happen since Blizzcon, but the party responsible was kept secret; Sylvanas expressed surprise at the event immediately afterwards, and many players suspected it was either an accident or the work of an outside party like Azshara or N'Zoth. The Warbringers video put the kibosh on that, showing Sylvanas had burned Teldrassil as part of a tantrum because a dying ranger upset her. Though the Shadowlands expansion shows she always planned to genocide the elves in order to strengthen Zovaal[[/spoiler.
  • "free will". ^explanationThe official reason why people join the Forsaken after being raised, is that they do it of their own volition, but considering some examples (newly raised Forsaken cheering for Sylvanas when her forces were the one who killed them in the first place, which happened in multiple quests), most people don't really believe it. Originally from Cataclysm, where those first instances were seen, but gained considerable momentum with Battle For Azeroth where the people turning against their former allies became much more evident and central to the storyline.
    • Undeath changes you. ^explanationAnother attempt at explaining the aforementioned changes of personality is that the act of dying then being resurrected is extremely traumatizing. While it would make some sense, what turned the explanation into a meme are the numerous instances where someone's personality doesn't seem to change that much, directly contradicting it. Even for those who accept it, it is criticized as being lazy writing that skips depicting any of said trauma that would make those characters' decisions more palatable. As it is, players see fallen Alliance instantly becoming loyal to their killers, and are just supposed to take the writers' word for it that their actions make sense.
  • Faction Pride ^explanationBfA was advertised as an expansion centering around the faction conflict and "faction pride" for both the Horde and Alliance, but most story-focused players are having a hard time finding pride in their faction. Horde players who like the Dark Is Not Evil aspect are stuck following another Stupid Evil Warchief making a Face–Heel Turn and are forced to go along with heinous acts of cruelty, but those who like playing the bad guys find themselves shamed by the narrative and betraying Sylvanas anyway. But it also applies to Alliance players being frustrated with spoiled "victories", toothless leadership, general portrayal of ineptitude and the feeling of being an afterthought/plot device to the Horde story. Players dissatisfied with the story direction often snark about "muh faction pride" to mock the current narrative of the game.
  • Brennadam ^explanationPart of the Stormsong Valley questline involves Horde forces launching an unprovoked surprise attack on the town of Brennadam. The sheer brutality of the attack and its aftermath (Horde enemies are seen hanging civilians from the buildings, and several Horde world quests require you to torture and enslave terrified children and murder a doctor who just wants to help the wounded) has caused the attack and its events to become the premiere example of how badly the narrative has failed the Grey-and-Gray Morality Blizzard claimed the expansion would entail. Its infamy is exacerbated by leaked info revealing that the attack was originally supposed to be done by the quillboar (the main enemies for most of the zone) and that it was changed last-minute to a Horde attack, which thoroughly pissed off many Horde players who felt like the Alliance quest writing team had thrown them under the bus for no other reason than shock value, a sentiment not helped by the fact that the attack is almost completely unrelated to Stormsong Valley's main, Naga and Faceless focused plotline, and seems to have been added purely to give Kul Tiras yet another reason to side with the Alliance.
  • Mistweaver Nian ^explanationIn what is considered by many to be the "crown jewel" example of the alleged Grey-and-Gray Morality theme falling flat on its face, a Horde-exclusive world quest in Tiragarde Sound added in 8.1 requires you to massacre unarmed, defenseless nurses and wounded patients purely because their leader, the titular Mistweaver, is admitting Alliance soldiers to her hospital. Needless to say, many Horde fans were livid when this was discovered.
  • "The Horde fights with honor. Can you say the same?!" ^explanationBrewmaster Lin, a Horde-aligned rare mob that spawns in Nazmir during Incursions, says this when aggroed. Needless to say, many, many players find his claim laughable at best after everything Sylvanas and her supporters have done throughout the war, and this is not helped by the fact that Lin is clearly meant to be the Horde counterpart of the above mentioned, Alliance-aligned Mistweaver Nian, despite how vastly different the circumstances surrounding the two are.
  • "Can you say the same for Teldrassil?" ^explanationIn the Rescue Baine scenario, Mathias Shaw and Saurfang take jabs at each other about their factions atrocities, with Shaw first referencing Garrosh by stating it's not the first time the Alliance had to depose a corrupt Warchief. When Saurfang mentions they've also "Killed a sovereign ruler in his home" (King Rastakhan), Shaw retorts, "A home that still stands; can you say the same for Teldrassil?" Many see the retort as summarizing the expansion's conflict: The Alliance attacking military targets (Dazar'alor and Undercity) and offering enemies a chance to surrender, while the Horde attacks civilian targets (Brennadam and Night Elf civilians) and killing everyone, with the writing treating both as equal.
• The Three Sisters ^explanationA comic released prior to BFA, which has hit-or-miss (Depending on who you ask) writing and dialogue but gained..."notoriety" for its sub-par art, especially the three eponymous sisters' faces, which were often distorted or bizarrely unexpressive.
• The Ice Stone has melted!
• "We are all Akunda" ^ExplanationA quest chain in Vol'dun has the player entering the temple of Akunda - which requires them to take the name "Akunda". This Interface Screw changes yours and even nearby players' names to "Akunda".
  • "Akunda loa of the storm - his name is my name too! And when you're down and grey? He'll wipe your mind and say you're now Akunda loa of the storm! DA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA!" sang to the tune of "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt"
• "Highmountain tauren, Highmountain tauren, Highmountain tauren." ^explanationIn-game dialogue and quest text often refers to players by their race, e.g. "Come this way, dwarf," or "Here's your gold, orc." However, the allied races introduced for Battle for Azeroth had names such as "Lightforged draenei" or "Highmountain tauren," which are much longer and clunkier than the original race names, which leads to some pretty awkward text and dialogue that's widely been mocked. The most glaring example of this is a quest in Northern Stranglethorn where a resurrected Bloodlord Mandokir chastises the player for being gullible enough to help him, saying, "<race>, <race>, <race>. You didn't think I was actually your friend, did you <race>?" Fine enough for orcs or dwarves, but saying "Highmountain tauren" or "Lightforged draenei" that many times in rapid succession was widely ridiculed as incredibly clunky and awkward.
• #ShouldersForSaurfang #NoHonorNoShoulders #ShouldersForZappyboi ^explanationAfter the "Old Soldier" cinematic was released, Horde players who disapproved of Sylvanas and support Saurfang started this small meme. In the cinematic, both Saurfang and Zekhan (Zappyboi) have meaningful moments removing their pauldrons to commit to suicide by combat with the Alliance, due to Sylvanas' dismissal of the Horde's traditional sense of honor. Players started transmogrifing away their shoulders (They can be made invisible) as a result.
• "Wakanda forever!" ^explanationDue to the similar accents of the Zandalari trolls (as opposed to the Caribbean accents of the trolls seen previously) and the fact that Zandalari NPC's say "Zandalar forever!" as one of their generic lines(Which was implemented in the beta before the movie was released), this quickly became a meme in Horde trade chat, even before Alliance players reached 120 and could begin adventuring on Zandalar.
• X Allied Race confirmed! ^explanationAllied race is a major draw of this expansion. This system widens the number of potential races Blizzard could make playable by allowing races similar to existing ones, and forgoing a low-level starting zone. The side effect is that any bit of dialogue or new NPC model will result in speculation that they will be the new allied race.
• A :turtle: TURTLE :turtle: MADE :turtle: IT :turtle: TO :turtle: THE :turtle: WATER :turtle: ^explanationEach instance of ':turtle:' is a turtle emote. This is a reference to a World Quest in either Zandalar or Kul Tiras in which you help hatchling turtles reach the water from their buried nests, using a magical scroll to blow up predators like crabs and birds. When a baby hatchling reaches the water, the questgiver, an elderly Tortollan woman, has a chance to say the above quote. Considering the quest requires you to save 12, and it can pop up multiple times throughout the week, people hear this quote a lot. Sometimes, other quotes from the quest might be used instead.
  • Like "What are you hiding?" in Legion, this later received an 'apology' World Quest in which you play one of the crabs and have to stop the turtles from getting to the water. The AI in charge of the scroll is very trigger happy though and turtles are guaranteed to slip through, resulting in "Another turtle made it to the water!"
• Beta for Azeroth ^explanationBattle for Azeroth released in a quite unpolished state compared to Legion. Not only in terms of bugs (many of which were reported during beta but weren't fixed until people raised a stink about them on social media after release), but there were just a ton of little design issues that made it seem like the content was built but never actually tested (like the debacle over the transmog weapon from Taloc). The first few weeks of the expansion, every Tuesday when new content would unlock you would get a new controversy about how that content is broken or unbalanced. A few class specializations were explicitly released in an unfinished state to be fixed in patches. All this combined led disgruntled players to remark that what they're playing is the "paid beta" and sarcastically hope that the game is better "when it's finally released". Time will tell whether that sentiment will die down.
• The boat that doesn't float ^explanationThere was a promotion early on in BfA where players who purchased a 6-month subscription would get a mount from the game shop for no extra charge. The mount in question was the Dreadwake, a flying ghost pirate ship. However, it works like a normal mount, meaning that in areas where flying is disabled (currently all max-level zones) it swims, rather than floats, which many players found dumb since the mount is literally a boat. The promotion was widely seen as a desperate and cynical cash grab to keep sub numbers up; BfA has consistently been marred by heavy criticism from all angles, leading many dissatisfied players to snark that they were being baited to pay for a subpar expansion and a "boat that doesn't float."
• Garrosh 2.0. ^explanationA common fan moniker for Sylvanas, seeing how she has started yet another Alliance-Horde war, alienated the more honor-bound part of the Horde (including a racial leader who now plots against her and whom she tried to assassinate), and now, like Garrosh in the Siege of Orgrimmar, is shown on a Blizzcon slide to be wielding a weapon associated with the Old Gods. Officially Sylvanas's fate will not be an exact rehash of Garrosh's, but players are not hopeful.
  • Musical Warchiefs ^explanationRelated to the above, as the parallels between Garrosh and Sylvanas grew ever more obvious, it became almost a foregone conclusion that she would be replaced. This meme likens the very frequent changes of Warchief (Thrall to Garrosh to Vol'jin to Sylvanas to the hypothetical new one) to a game of musical chairs. The meme was even alluded to at BlizzCon 2019 as the "Warchief Shuffle." The shuffle has apparently ended with the elimination of the Warchief position after Sylvanas abandoned the Horde...at least for now.
• Baine, the Great Devourer ^explanationSpawned from a forum post in Story Forums in which Insane Troll Logic is used to theorize whether Baine would eat Blood Elf leader Lor'themar over a few disagreements. It later mutated into Baine being an all-consuming Eldritch Abomination and the true great evil of BfA.
• Comrade Umbric. ^explanationUmbric waxes philosophical a bit about Gallywix and his cohort hoarding their wealth at his Pleasure Palace in Azshara while chasing down the Trade Prince, offhandedly lamenting the workers toiling under his rule and ordering the deaths of the "opportunistic" socialites and partygoers at the Palace. Cue jokes about him wanting to overthrow capitalism.
• Those who lack loyalty also lack honor ^explanationOverlord Geya'rah, the leader of the Mag'har orcs, has this to say when it is revealed that Baine went behind Sylvanas' back to deliver Derek Proudmoore to Theramore. Given, however, that the history of the Horde is rife with coups, betrayals, and rebellions (including by Durotan, her own father, in two separate timelines) done in the name of honor, many players found this statement bewildering when it was leaked.
• WOONS ^explanationImitating (or mocking) Magni Bronzebeard's extremely strong Scottish accent. "Woons" specifically is supposed to be "wounds," referring to the cracks in the earth where Azerite leaks out. Much like the "Greymane's forces" meme from Legion, the meme appears to have caught on mostly because Magni's world quest prompts can take players by surprise.
  • Ascended as of Shadowlands, where the Night Fae recap play of the events of the expansion has the character playing Magni spell it 'woonz'.
• IS HE THE BOMB THIS TIME!? ^explanationJaina's line after Baine attempts to give back Derek. Despite the fact that it's a reference to Theramore, may people latched onto the line's slightly hammy delivery and the many, many living bomb jokes.
• DARKNESS CANNOT ABIDE WITHIN THE LIGHT! ^explanationThose who play the Battle for Stromgard and happen to be facing or fighting alongside Lady Liadrin, this line is said by her many, many times during the fight, sometimes several times in a row. Also deeply ironic considering Liadrin is serving Sylvanas who, even before outright confirmed to be a villain, could be considered an example of Dark Is Evil
• Broken Water Striders ^explanationBlizzard announced equipment for mounts, one of which would allow any mount to water walk, while also announcing the removal of water striders' innate ability to water walk. This was justified by saying the water strider mounts were "too dominant" among players and explained in-game by Nat Pagle somehow "breaking" them and costing the striders their ability to water walk. Blizzard claims anyone who already had a water strider would get a free piece of water walking equipment, but since it's only good for one mount on one character, many players were outraged at having to pay for something that was already free. Though it was later revealed the equipment would work on all mounts at once.
• World of Hordecraft / Battle For the Horde^explanationDue to the expansion, once again, focusing more on the Horde than the Alliance (to the point that, with the Burning of Teldrassil being an explicit genocide of the Night Elves, most of the story and all of the CGI cinematics were about how Saurfang, the one partly responsible for it, felt instead), people have taken to call the expansion these names.
  • "The War between the Horde and the Horde is heating up, and the Alliance is there too." ^explanationOriginated from a fan video that parodied "Patch 8.1 Survival Guide", used to further highlight how much Out of Focus the Alliance is compared to the Horde, despite the expansion being marketed as faction pride .
  • "Better to be ignored than harmed" ^explanationSummary of the response from Horde players who aren't happy with the expansion either. They say that all that story focus is a case of Blessed with Suck, making the Horde the center of all the questionable moment-to-moment writing and drawing more attention to all the author fiat that got the story to this point. The fact that there's a debate over who actually has it worse, despite it being agreed that the Horde have more focus, is arguably a meme in itself.
• "This world... looks good. But it's... wrong... broken... fallen apart." ^explanation Varok Saurfang's line to Thrall in the "Safe Haven" cinematic is often used by players to sum up the overall state of World of Warcraft as of the Battle for Azeroth expansion. Saurfang asking Thrall to return to the Horde with the latter representing the players who have long since unsubscribed from the game to return playing is also a popular meta interpretation.
• "World of Sadcraft"^explanationIt's been noted that most of the cutscenes involve characters mournfully staring into the distance. Most notable with Jaina and Saurfang.
  • Sadfang^explanationRelated to the above, Saurfang's constant depression throughout the narrative led to him having this nickname.
• Something has spooked one of de brutosaurs, sending it into a panic. Dis chaos is de last thing de city needs. Help de merchants by rescuing the cargo before you get stomped on! ^explanationA world quest in Dazar'alor glitched out one day and started to repeat itself non-stop even if you already completed the quest or didn't even have it (including on newly-created Zandalari Trolls, who couldn't even access world quests). Much like The Ice Stone has melted! people like to repeat this non-stop to make fun of the repetitiveness.
• Step 1: Take the Deeprun Tram ^explanationIn 8.2, quest directions were revised to ostensibly be more step-by-step, but it turned out to be buggy, and the changes are now infamous for sending the player on multiple runarounds for what should be a simple trip, often sending them to different continents to reach a location a couple zones away. In particular, the new system seems to have an obsession with sending the player to Ironforge and subsequently taking the Deeprun Tram to Stormwind, when there are much, much more efficient ways of getting to the latter city. Multiple BfA quests require the player to take relics or treasures to various places across the world, which means these new "helpful" quest directions are constantly present.
  • Step 2: Take the Deeprun Tram
  • Step 3: Take the Deeprun Tram
  • Step 4: Take the portal to Ashran ^ExplanationIt also had trouble with the Warlords of Draenor garrison instances, often recommending that in order to travel anywhere on Draenor the player had to portal out to Ashran first, as opposed to simply taking the flight path from the garrison itself.
• Bannerbae/Flag Girl ^ExplanationIn the same way as Zekhan/"Zappyboi", she's a Forsaken banner carrier from the war campaign finale who gained notoriety and became an Ensemble Dark Horse for how she slammed her banner down to signal the opening of the gates of Orgrimmar in order to let Thrall carry Saurfang's body into Orgrimmar after Sylvanas killed him, declared that the Horde was nothing and left the scene.
  • [TING TING] ^ExplanationRelated to the above, the very sound of the banners tapping against the ground has quickly become symbolic of the revolution.
• Worst. Brewfest. Ever. ^explanationThe finale of the war campaign was released during the in-game holiday Brewfest (an In-Universe analogue to Oktoberfest), which for the Horde is held in Orgrimmar (the site of the final cinematic). Cue many a joke about people coming to take part in the festivities being greeted with an unpleasant surprise.
  • The Mag'har joined us in Brewfest. ^explanationThe previous year, something similar happened when people started unlocking the Mag'har orcs allied race (due to reputation requirements, this first happened by the time Brewfest was active). The questline for unlocking them ends with the orcs teleporting from alternate Draenor to, again, the gates of Orgrimmar. The situation gets even more hilarious when Overlord Geya'rah says lines such as "This world is...not what I expected." Became an Ascended Meme the next year when, after the Brewfest revamp (necessary after the Dark Iron dwarves officially joined the Alliance), the Horde Brewfest is held by the Mag'har orcs.
• Gods, he was so strong then.^ExplanationDaelin Proudmoore is voiced by Mark Addy, best known for portraying Robert Baratheon in Game of Thrones in which one of his memorable quotes is "Gods, I was so strong then." It's also a reference to how Daelin was a That One Boss in The Frozen Throne Bonus Campaign.
• Jaina had to let it go.^ExplanationJaina sports similar hairstyle to that of Elsa from Frozen and a quest in Kul Tiras for Alliance player has the player and Katherine Proudmoore helping Jaina to let go of her past regrets that involved deaths of her friends and loved ones.
• "I really like this Lor'themar Theron character they added to the game." ^ExplanationMuch like Velen before, Lor'themar Theron was incredibly Out of Focus between Patch 5.2 of Mists (where he led the Horde forces on the Isle of Thunder) and 8.2 of BfA (when he aided adventurers in the Eternal Palace).
• MoP 2.0. ^explanationIn addition to the Garrosh and Sylvanas parallels, players are also quick to point out similarities between Saurfang's rebellion and Vol'jin's, as well as overall similarities in story arcs between the two expansions. This one got a new lease on life when 8.3 was previewed, as the Vale of Eternal Blossoms was restored to its pre-5.4 state and Wrathion once again offers the player a quest to obtain a legendary cloak, just like back in Mists. And then in the leadup to Shadowlands, Sylvanas escaped justice and opened a portal to another world that becomes the setting for the next expansion, which tracks step-for-step with what Garrosh did in the transition from Mists of Pandaria to Warlords of Draenor. It almost ends up seeming like a Whole-Plot Reference.
• Ratchet & Clank are joining WoW!^explanationThe preview of patch 8.3 announced the Vulpera (an anthropomorphic fox race) and the mechagnomes (a race of gnome cyborgs) as allied races for the Horde and Alliance respectively. Players almost immediately noticed the obvious parallels with the wildly popular Ratchet & Clank video game series, whose protagonists are Ratchet, a fox-like alien, and Clank, a small humanoid robot.
• Diaper gnomes. ^explanationThe mechanical limbs of the Mechagnome allied race don't show gear, so the mechagnomes are frequently laughed at for their pants resembling, well, diapers.
• WRYNN PUNCH ^explanationThe introductory cinematic for Patch 8.3 reintroduces Wrathion, the last black dragon, with him coming to visit King Anduin Wrynn in Stormwind Keep to discuss the rise of N'Zoth. At this first meeting, however, the normally serene and level-headed Anduin's immediate reaction to seeing him is to haul off and punch him in the face. It was a rather shocking O.O.C. Is Serious Business moment for Anduin, and object-labeling exploitables quickly took off from the scene.
• Nomi joined the Horde because he heard they liked burning things. ^explanationIn the Vulpera unlocking quest chain, the previously neutral Nomi is revealed to have joined the Horde. As mentioned in the Legion folder, Nomi near constantly burns his food, which has led to fans joking that he saw the Horde burning Teldrassil, Stormwind, and Brennadam and decided to join the faction that burns things as much as he does.
• Vuwpewa ^explanationThe Vulpera allied race for the Horde is a species of fox-like humanoids. Foxes and other canids being popular in the Furry Fandom, people began to make various memes and image macros involving vulpera characters speaking in "furryspeak," which essentially involves replacing L's and R's with W's to imitate baby talk, and usually pseudo-innocent, thinly veiled sexual innuendos. It's especially popular with vulpera warlocks and death knights, the "cutesy" speech style being perceived as an amusing contrast with the more "hardcore" elements of those classes.
• MAKE :clap: ESSENCES :clap: ACCOUNT :clap: WIDE :clap: ^explanationEach ":clap:" is a clapping hands emoji, which are used to imitate clapping on every word to emphasize a point. Essences are core Azerite powers introduced in 8.2 that affect playstyles and power in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, they have to be obtained separately by each character, one of many things that, according to the playerbase, makes BfA less than alt-friendly. Virtually every day on forum sites, people will call for essences to be made available to all characters on an account once unlocked.
• The Red Alliance ^explanationAfter the Horde eliminated the warchief position in favor of a council of racial leaders, many people pointed out that the Horde now looks more like an Alliance than the faction actually named the "Alliance." (The Alliance is currently led by a High King, a role which some fans have come to criticize as being "the Alliance's blue Warchief.")

Shadowlands

• Shadowblands. ^explanationAfter the reveal at Blizzcon and the release of the press kit, fans began giving this as a nickname to the expansion after learning that it would feature only five new zones and no new playable races or classes.
  • Systemlands ^explanationAnother derisive nickname for the expansion, referring to the many systems of advancement and progression it introduces, including covenants, soulbinds, conduits, and crafted legendaries. Many players believe this to be a mistake and that the devs would be better off simplifying the expansion.
  • Foreshadowlands ^explanationYet another insulting nickname that appeared towards the end, referencing Shadowlands' numerous Aborted Arcs and poorly-elaborated plot.
• When Invincible doesn't drop one too many times. ^explanationSome fans have joked that Sylvanas destroying the Helm of Domination was in response to not earning the Invincible mount from the Icecrown raid. (an item that has a 1% chance of dropping from the Lich King final boss.)
  • Alternatively, fans have come up with all sorts of reasons as to why Sylvanas would break the Helm of Domination. This ranges from the helm being soulbound to straight-up being unable to equip it due to either being a Huntress (who can't wear Plate equipment) or her ears couldn't fit in.
• Bolvar hasn't kept up with class changes. ^ExplanationBolvar pointedly changes his color scheme from red to blue before fighting Sylvanas in the intro cinematic, and loses handily. His poor performance is attributed jokingly by fans to his switching from Death Knights' Blood specialization to Frost, not realizing that said spec is now Dual Wield-only and his two-handed hammer won't let him use his main skills. Jokes that he underwent Power Creep due to sitting in Icecrown for 4 expansions resulting in him being 40 levels lower are also common.
  • Jokes about Bolvar jobbing in general.^note After having some buildup, implying he was losing his grip on sanity, could become a danger to Azeroth, and being the Lich King, Bolvar's first act in the expansion was... to be curb-stomped by Sylvanas, to the point an old geriatric orc actually put a better fight than him, since Saurfang at least managed to scratch her.(while it's made clear that Sylvanas was just toying with Saurang and got caught off-guard by one lucky hit versus her not holding back against Bolvar, it is still jarring)
• BREAK GLASS BREAK GLASS BREAK GLASS^ExplanationSimilar to the analogous meme from Legion. Battle for Azeroth was heavily marred by criticism and, though sub numbers are no longer published, conventional wisdom is that subscriptions dropped precipitously over the expansion. One of the defining features of Shadowlands, since it involves journeying in the land of the dead, is the return of various favorite characters like Uther and Kael'thas, as well as introducing many long-called for features such as improved character customization. Many thought this to be another attempt to Win Back the Crowd similar to reintroducing Illidan in Legion. For bonus points, the introductory cinematic includes Sylvanas shattering a hole through the sky.
  • Easy wins!^ExplanationWith dropping player numbers, growing customer dissatisfaction, and the above-mentioned lawsuit detailed in the General folder, Blizzard's PR hit an all-time low. A month later, an overview of minor Patch 9.1.5 was revealed, with features such as free Covenant and Conduit swapping (effectively the below-mentioned "ripcord"), additional character customization (which Blizzard strung players along with the promise of more of after launch, only to claim months later there were no plans for them), including the eyes for Nightborne characters (an infamous sticking point for player Nightborne compared to their original NPC models), the option to skip the Shadowlands intro sequence in the Maw on alts, along with Legion Timewalking dungeons and solo queuing for old Island Expeditions. Such a deluge of long-demanded and player-friendly changes all dropping at once, some of which contradict earlier statements and plans, combined with the timing, instantly made players suspicious that Blizzard is looking for any way they can regain some good will, even if they have to swallow their pride or re-allocate dev time. The phrase "easy wins" popped up a lot, with players suggesting more things they could do with relatively low effort for good PR. Others cynically pointed out that Blizzard only gave players what they wanted a year late, while their company's reputation was burning down around them.
• I hope we meet _____ in the Shadowlands. ^explanationPlayers saying which dead characters they want to meet in the Shadowlands, often long-forgotten or inconsequential characters, or else ensemble dark horses like Zuni.
  • Aren't they dead though? ^explanationRespondents (willfully or otherwise) Comically Missing the Point and saying that whatever character shouldn't come back because they're dead.
• _____ is the Jailer ^explanationBased on a passing resemblance between their crowns, some fans were speculating that the Jailer, the ruler of the Maw in Shadowlands, was, in fact, Terenas Menethil, Arthas' father and the deceased king of Lordaeron. The devs have since confirmed multiple times that the Jailer is a new character, but the fan community nevertheless decided to have a bunch of fun joking that he was secretly one of various minor characters.
• "Though shunned by the living, you tirelessly strive to protect them."^explanationIn Shadowlands, core races now have updated voice-overs for starting a new character. The first one for new undead was widely mocked after being datamined for being contradictory to their past characterization, so the wording was changed very quickly.
• Trashlooms. ^explanationBlizzard announced that heirlooms would no longer increase experience gained in Shadowlands and would instead give set bonuses. Said bonuses: more rested experience, increased out of combat regeneration, and dealing aoe damage upon leveling up have been derided as weak at best and worthless at worst. Rested experience is only good for people who work on an alt occasionally. Increased regeneration is superfluous as basically every class has a healing ability by level ten. And since most leveling up is done by turning in quests or from the experience bonus at the end of a random dungeon, the aoe damage wouldn't hit anything. Heirlooms are very expensive to purchase and especially expensive to upgrade, so the new system (which requires buying and upgrading multiple pieces of gear for much lower benefits) is seen as totally counter-intuitive given the high price of buying them.
• AWESOME IN-GAME EVENT. ^explanationDuring the Shadowlands Beta, cutscenes and some events in Maldraxxus were given the placeholder that just delivered the text of "AWESOME IN-GAME EVENT". Which happened quite frequently.
• #PullTheRipcord ^explanationThe core new feature of Shadowlands is the Covenant system, where players pledge themselves to one of four Covenants representing the realms of death. In exchange, the Covenants provide players with new powers, including a new ability for each class granted by each Covenant. Concerns about tying player power to a role-playing/aesthetic choice surfaced almost immediately. Balancing so many new abilities for every situation is almost impossible, and in the modern game players expect to able to do a wide variety of content and optimize themselves for everything they do, but switching Covenants is by design not a trivial matter, as Blizzard intends it to be a meaningful, long-term choice. Blizzard has held firm in their stance of keeping the Covenant abilities separate, but during an interview with popular YouTuber Preach Gaming, lead designer Ion Hazzikostas admitted that if Blizzard needed to "pull [the] ripcord" of allowing players to freely swap Covenants or at least Covenant abilities, "it exists." After this interview, many high-profile players and content creators voiced support with the hashtag #PullTheRipcord for allowing this from the start. In the end, Covenants went live with the limitations still in place, to widespread negative reception, and it would take the better part of a year for plans to relax them to be announced.
• Ol' Reliable Garrosh ^explanationThe Afterlives episode featuring Revendreth shows an orc being torturously drained of anima repeatedly, all but stated to be Garrosh Hellscream. The bulk of the short is an address by Revendreth's leader to his subjects, acknowledging the anima shortage from the lack of new souls reaching the dimension but reassuring them that the "old reliables" and "workhorses" already in their custody are providing enough to survive. The latter statement is punctuated with a cut back to the orc being drained. A comparison was made to Denathrius milking Garrosh like a cow, and that imagery took off in places like Reddit, including snowclones of other memes about milking. ("I have nipples, Denathrius. Could you milk me?")
  • Garrosh is still being farmed in the afterlife.^explanationGarrosh Hellscream, as the final boss of the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, drops the rare and highly sought-after Tusks of Mannoroth, a plate shoulder item with a distinctive appearance. Many players kill Garrosh week after week in all difficulties — a practice known as "farming" — for a chance at the item. When the Revendreth video was released, players jumped on he connection pretty quick.
• "SYLVANAS!" ^explanationIn the prepatch cinematic, as Anduin is abducted by the Mawsworn, Greymane shouts a Big "NO!" then bellows out Sylvanas's name, rightly knowing she's to blame. Since it's shouted in the same way as he shouted her name during the Battle of Gilneas, fans have joked that any slightly bad thing happening around Genn leads to him shouting "SYLVANAS!" like she's always to blame.
• "Nothing escapes the Maw." ^explanationThe Story Trailer for Shadowlands includes this Badass Boast from The Jailer...when the player character escapes said Maw immediately after entering said Shadowlands. Players were also quick to note that they can just Hearthstone out, and that many classes and races have abilities to teleport at will.
• Winged Kyrians transporting the player character. ^explanationThe Ascended Kyrians graciously transport the player character throughout Bastion by grabbing them by their neck while they ragdoll in the wind.
• Your mount ignores your call within the Maw. ^explanationMounts don't work in the Maw, mostly to make the place feel inhospitable and dangerous. However, years upon years of players honing their instincts to mount up to go pretty much anywhere means they're constantly attempting to summon their mounts in the Maw, only to be greeted by the aforementioned red text and (proverbially or otherwise) facepalming at themselves for forgetting yet again. Meanwhile, classes such as druids (with Travel Form) and shaman (with Ghost Wolf) enjoy mocking other classes for being forced to walk while they can zip around with minimal inconvenience.
• Buttons!
  • Mrazz! ^explanationIn Torghast, a random floor event has the player releasing the Maldraxxian Moriaz the Red from imprisonment, who then asks the player to search for their baby abomination, Buttons. When they reunite, they have the aforementioned dialogue, where the Mood Whiplash makes it hilarious.
• The Ice Stone has Melted!
• 35 Anima. ^explanationSimilar to the "28g50s meme above". The reward you get from a dungeon or raid boss, or mythic dungeon chest, if you don't get any other loot. Seen as a pathetically disappointing reward given its low value (sanctum upgrades require several thousand anima to purchase) and the sheer difficulty of many raid boss fights and mythic dungeons in the expansion.
• "Alt-friendly". ^explanationBlizzard stated the intention of making Shadowlands more friendly for players who have multiple characters (alts). However, many players have noted that reaching the current expansions is more alt friendly but the various systems of grinding (Torghast, World Quests, Renown, Anima, Sanctums, and Gear) make the actual Shadowlands extremely alt-unfriendly.
• Complaint registered. ^explanation Finding Mythic+ groups using the premade group finder has become infamously difficult and competitive in Shadowlands, and a market of people selling runs for gold has exploded in response, even though it's against the rules to advertise paid runs in the finder tool. There are so many of them now that it's common for people to find nothing but paid runs there, so it's popular for players to report them en masse and upload the screenshot of their chat windows showing nothing but "Complaint registered," the notice that appears when you report a player.
• "Choreghast" ^ExplanationTorghast: Tower of the Damned is a procedurally-generated instance and was one of the heavily promoted new additions in Shadowlands. However, it quickly earned the nickname "Choreghast" for being boring but also extremely important for power progression, due to Torghast being the sole source of Soul Ash (outside of one-time quest rewards), a material necessary for crafting legendaries. Many players began to compare the weekly Torghast challenge to a chore.
• Creep/Stinky/Goo Goo/Bubbles/Roots is restless. Get them to Reldorn! ^ExplanationOn patch 9.1, there's a new feature where the covenants assaults the maw. Much like the Ice stone example however, one of the quests needed to progress the Venthyr assault requires to feed a gorm npc that, once you feed him enough,floods this message to the chat boxes of every player doing the invasion. As a result, expect to see this a lot whenever you do a venthyr invasion.
• "I will never serve!" ^ExplanationSylvanas's Heel Realization at the end of the Sanctum of Domination raid fell incredibly flat after many pointed out that she had been serving the Jailer for quite awhile, and her surprise at the Jailer's motivation is often compared to the Shocked Pikachu meme.
• i'll fucking do it again. ^ExplanationIn stark contrast to Sylvanas above, Garrosh's cutscene in the Sanctum of Domination raid where he says he regrets nothing was much more appreciated, comparing it to the Goofy meme. The fact that a single dev's in-engine pet project, with no support from the rest of the team besides the voice actor, was better received than the entire dev team's high-production main storyline also got memed on.
• "He's got the Sigils!/The Jailer's got the Sigils!" ^ExplanationA meme to mock what is perceived as the Jailer's poorly explained motivation for collecting the sigils. When asked why or how it's a bad thing for him to obtain the sigils, the common response is "because he's got them!"
• Wave to Gor'groth ^ExplanationShadowlands introduced a new starting zone designed for new players, so that they learn the basic mechanics. A quest teaches how to use basic emotes. However, many new players seem to struggle with the explanation, so it's a common sight in newcomer chat to see players accidentally saying "wave to Gor'groth".
• The Jailer's Snap ^ExplanationMuch like Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, the Jailer collects a series of MacGuffins that grant him effective omnipotence to reshape reality. He collects them all in Patch 9.1, and around the same time, a lawsuit from the state of California exposing Activision-Blizzard's toxic work culture came to light. The combination of the lawsuit, a disappointing patch, a poorly-explained and snail-paced story, and other issues led to several high-profile content creators (Preach Gaming, Pyromancer, MadSeasonShow, and others) quitting the game all at once, and released numbers showed stark declines in active Blizzard users (though WoW's specific sub numbers aren't published anymore). The joke that the Jailer "collected all the infinity stones and made half the player base disappear" (akin to "The Snap" where Thanos snaps his fingers and 50% of all life is instantly wiped out in Infinity War) followed soon after.
  • "This world is a prison! And I will set us all free!"^ExplanationIn a similar spirit of the above, Sylvanas often excused every one of her increasingly evil actions with this line that Azeroth felt like a prison, which is why she's plotting behind the Jailer's back for that, and a lot of fans tend to not buy Sylvanas' excuse, disliking her overall character arc. By Shadowlands Patch 9.1, after all of the above, fans now chime in that Sylvanas' wish is granted: She set all the players free from Azeroth by making them quit the game due her disliked character arc that was considered 'going nowhere' on top of the other reasons above. The exploitability of this meme has produced photoshopped screenshots◊ where the rift to the Shadowlands is replaced with a rift to another game, such as Final Fantasy XIV.
• Fart cloud/Sylvanas farts away.^ExplanationSylvanas's flying ability, which she suddenly acquired in Battle for Azeroth and has mostly been using for the purposes of Villain: Exit, Stage Left, has drawn certain comparisons.
• WoD 2.0.^ExplanationShadowlands has been subject to comparison with the infamous Warlords of Draenor expansion, chiefly for a lack of meaningful content outside dungeons, raids and PvP, along a botched narrative where a villain (Grommash/Sylvanas) suddenly pulls a Heel-Face Turn despite never showing remorse before or attempting any form of atonement and never answering for any of their crimes. It doesn't help the fact Shadowlands is scheduled to conclude its narrative in a .2 patch just like WoD or the fact Shadowlands seems to end with as many raids as WoD did (Highmaul, Blackrock Foundry, Hellfire Citadel vs. Nathria, Sanctum of Domination and Sepulcher of the First Ones).
• The Eternity's End (Patch 9.2) reveal trailer produced quite a few memes.
  • Zereth Mortis is completely unique and completely different.^ExplanationThe 9.2 Developer Preview introduced Zereth Mortis, a zone described as being a whole new experience, citing things such as floating rocks and trees. Players quickly pointed out that such features weren't exactly new, often citing the Burning Crusade's Nagrand as an example. Others compared the design to other areas already in the game, such as calling Zereth Mortis "Green Bastion", or pointed out that many of the "new" character models were just new reskins on top of old meshes.
    • Water we can walk on! It's unlike any other water we've ever seen before! ^ExplanationThe 9.2 Developer Preview put a surprisingly heavy emphasis on the water in the new zone, presenting it as something new and unseen before, even thought it just looks like... water. Except that we can walk on it. Something that players could do since vanilla with potions or the right classes.
  • They're time-gating dialogue now?^ExplanationZereth Mortis introduces the Cypher of the First Ones, a new language used by it's denizens, that players have to learn through a yet-undisclosed method. However, the framing of the method both A: made it pretty clear that it will require a fair bit of time to unlock, and B: that a lot of content is locked behind learning it, leading players to comment that they'll have to grind several weeks just to understand what the NPCs are saying.
  • Final chapter of the saga that started in Warcraft 3.^ExplanationA developer made the memed claim about 9.2, End of Eternity, stating it finishes the story started in Warcraft 3. Fans were quick to mock the quote endlessly, citing that absolutely nothing about the Shadowlands, the Jailer, or anything from the expansion was even hinted at back in Warcraft 3. Indeed several parts of the expansion were never hinted about at all until shortly before the expansion itself. Instead, they hold that Legion, the expansion that dealt with defeating the Burning Legion once and for all, was the actual "final chapter of the saga started in Warcraft 3". Alternatively, the fact that the night elf campaign in WC 3 (the final chapter of the story mode) was also called "Eternity's End" has led to jokes about how the quote is an Accidentally-Correct Writing.
  • Then why did you take Tier Sets out? ^ExplanationAfter the trailer revealed that Tier Sets were returning to the game, something that the players have been requesting for years, the devs claimed that they "have also been waiting for the return of Tier Sets." Which came off as incredibly disingenuous because not only were the developers the ones who removed Tier Sets in the first place, but they were also the ones who have been ignoring the years of requests to bring Tier Sets back.
• 3D printed gods ^ExplanationPatch 9.2 datamining revealed obviously artificial-looking prototypes for the Pantheon of Death, implying that the fleshy ones we met in 9.0 were originally constructs, too.
  • Diaper Gods ^ExplanationMuch like the Mecha-Gnomes in Battle for Azeroth (See: Diaper Gnomes above) players started taking one look at the... underwear the 3D printed gods wore and put the label on them too.
  • Elune is a robot. ^ExplanationSince all the covenant leaders are artificial beings created by the First Ones, with the Jailer in particular having a mechanical skeleton under his skin, some players assume the same of Elune, whom the Winter Queen calls her sister.
• The Jailer has never known defeat. ^ExplanationThe initial Dungeon Journal entry for the Jailer raid boss describes him as "a cosmic being who has never known defeat", except that Zovaal's defeat at the hands of the other Eternal Ones and his exile to The Maw is how he became the Jailer in the first place. It was written out of the entry later on.
• Baine sitting/"Why is he even here?" ^ExplanationBaine Bloodhoof was among the Horde leaders kidnapped by the Jailer's servants, was freed by the players quickly, and dropped off in Oribos. He proceeded to sit down and not do much of anything substantial for the following months and patches. The discussion around his character from then on generally consisted of jokes about him sitting in Oribos, or asking what the point of him being there was.
  • He was trying to come up with the perfect line!^ExplanationIn a cinematic for Patch 9.2, Baine hears that Sylvanas may not wake up and simply responds "Maybe she shouldn't". Cue jokes from the playerbase that the wait was worth it, he spent all his time sitting in Oribos waiting to use that line, and Baine is a chad who comes out of nowhere to drop the best piece of writing in years before dipping again.
• "Coincidence"^ExplanationMany of the story beats promised in 9.2 looked suspiciously similar to what has been happening in its rival game Final Fantasy XIV such as remaking reality, ancients who have created everything in the world, the claim that 9.2 will be an ending to a decade long saga and the final sigil looks like a plot important memory crystal in Shadowbringers. While many of these were most likely coincidental, it does give off an unfortunate implication that Blizzard is desperate enough to rip off its competitor.
• Jaina's 180.^ExplanationIn a datamined cutscene, Jaina emphatically refuses to work with Sylvanas to save Anduin, angrily declaring that she will never trust her. Once Uther says to trust him instead, Jaina's immediately on board with the plan and states they'll all work together to save Anduin. Cue jokes about Jaina pulling the fastest 180 in history.
• They did Arthas dirty/Sylvanas making it all about her^ExplanationThe cinematic at the end of the Anduin fight in Sepulcher of the First Ones is notable for finally revealing where Arthas was after being thrown into the Maw. The Jailer used him to forge Kingsmourne, leaving behind only a faint wisp like fragment of his soul. After a very touching scene of Anduin breaking free of the Jailer's domination magic, the second half of the cinematic is dedicated entirely to Sylvanas monologuing at Arthas's soul about how evil they both were before she tells him to vanish and be forgotten by all. Fans quickly leapt on how the cinematic mistreats Arthas and focused too much on Sylvanas.
• That was fucking lame.^ExplanationA twitch streamer's reaction to the Jailer's ending cinematic became a common reaction to the end of the raid, as it was full of cliched dialogue and revealed nothing about the Jailer's motivations, perspective, or even original transgression that got him imprisoned in the first place. Many were also quick to mock the last second hint that Zovaal was trying to unite the universe against an even greater threat, citing that not only were there zero hints of such until that point, but that said storyline had already been done several times before with the Lich King, Wrathion, and Sargeras being notable examples.
  • Jailer spills his tendies^explanationThe final cinematic features the Jailer having a flashback to his original imprisonment, where he was forced to his knees looking up at his four siblings. Popular streamer Asmongold compared it to the famous Apu Spills His Tendies meme, which features a frog character on the ground with a spilled lunch tray looking up at the bully who pushed him down. Edits emphasizing the comparison became ubiquitous on Warcraft fansites.
• Everyone is a Dreadlord^explanation During The Lords of Dread council fight in Sepulcher, the titular dreadlords takes the appearances of past expansion bosses, while strongly implying the took those forms to manipulate other factions in Azeroth for years.A lot of people were quick to mock this notion or point out how nonsensical it is.For example: one of the dreadlords items from the loot table indicate they impersonated a Demon Hunter before(one who interacted with Illidan himself, no less), which makes no sense because Demon hunters can easily detect Dreadlords with their spectral vision, even when disguised. Or the fact they somehow took the form of Burning Legion demons before, despite the fact the Dreadlords themselves are/were part of the Burning Legion before so it comes off as completely unnecessary and/or strange. As a result of this nonsense, this meme gained attraction and players now joke that everyone can be a dreadlord, even themselves. A dev post did later clarify the two were just fucking with players by fueling their paranoia.
• Nipple Man.^explanationZovaal's model has rather prominent nipples that are often made all the more prominent in the cinematics due to the frequent low-angle shots of him. Combined with his apparent lack of depth, personality, or motivation, this has resulted in several jokes about how his nipples are the most notable thing about him. As such, many players derisively refer to the Jailer as "Nipple Man".
• Sylvanas was sentenced to do Maw dailies ^explanationIn Patch 9.2.5, Tyrande sentences Sylvanas to scour the Maw and release all the souls doomed there, a task that it's implied may take eons. However, players were struck by the similarity of the sentence to the (often dull) daily quests in the Maw that involved doing the same thing. Some found the connection humorous in and of itself, while others saw it as cruel and unusual punishment (the Maw dailies are not very popular). Others found it amusing and/or sad that the devs saw it as an appropriate punishment for Sylvanas to do what players had been doing for the past two years.
• "I'm Mary Poppins, y'all!"^ExplanationA daily in Revendreth involves you grabbing an umbrella and floating on it, prompting many people to say "I'm Mary Poppins, Y'all!"
• "Time for the Danse Macabre!"
  • Prance forward!
  • Shimmy right!
  • Sashay left!
  • Boogie down! ^ExplanationIn Castle Nathria, one mechanic is called the "Danse Macabre" where players are forced to take their places and dance according to what the boss calls out.
• Chris metzen^ExplanationIn July 2021, right in the wake of the badly-received patch 9.1, the state of California filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard concerning their workplace culture, in particular, sexual harassment and "frat boy" culture. Unflattering details about Blizzard veterans like Alex Afrasiabi and Jesse Mc Cree came to light. Shortly thereafter, Chris Metzen, who by that point had long left Blizzard, posted "Chris metzen" [sic] on Twitter by accident, presumably trying to search what people said about him.
• The Jailer was behind X^ExplanationA very popular way of mocking the Shadowlands retcons regarding The Jailer being behind every major event or tragedy in the franchise(no matter how little sense it makes) is to roll with it and put him everywherefor comedic effect.
• What Shadowlands?^ExplanationMany players, especially roleplayers, have written Shadowlands off as Fanon Discontinuity and pretend not to have heard of it.

Dragonflight

• The Age of Mortals didn't last very long.^explanationThe Dragon Aspects, empowered by the Titans to protect Azeroth, lost their power when Deathwing was defeated in Cataclysm, and Alextrasza declared that the "Age of Mortals" had begun. The Dragonflight cinematic, however, saw her proclaim that it was time for the dragons to be the planet's guardians again, only about five-ish years later in-game. Many people found this amusing, and pointed to the multiple devastating wars that occurred in that short timespan, as if the dragons were so unimpressed by how well a job the "mortals" had done that they were revoking their privileges. Not helping is the launcher splash screen of Alexstrasza which is positioned such that she seems to be disapprovingly looking down on the viewer.
• The Stone Chad.^explanationBesides Watcher Koranos resembling the Chad meme◊, he has a very touching and emotional story in the Dragonflight announcement trailer despite not having a single word of dialogue. A lot of fans were impressed by his solemn determination to reopen the path to the Dragon Isles even though all his friends were dead, with many stating they cared more about him after four minutes of screentime than they do about Zovaal after an entire expansion centered around him.
• Ducks!^explanationThe announcement trailer featured a group of ducks, something that hadn't been featured in World of Warcraft before. As a result in many fans semi-jokingly took to ignoring the new Gnoll, Tuskarr, and Centaur models along with the new race and the island in general to focus entirely on the ducks and ask if they're tamable or if there will be a duck mount.
• What sword?^explanationThe sword stabbed into Azeroth at the end of Legion, which nearly killed her several times in Battle for Azeroth, is still there two expansions later. Some players feel that Azeroth's life is still in danger from said sword and it should in some way be addressed. After Alexstrasza's comment in the Dragonflight trailer that the world was healing, players commenting about the sword were met with this hypothetical response of a dev who had completely forgotten this plot thread.
  • Became an Ascended Meme for the announcement of The War Within at BlizzCon 2023, which had Ion wearing a shirt with the question superimposed over a picture of the sword and a prop◊ of Sargeras's sword surrounded by "What sword?" signs.
• TAUREN ROGUES^explanationAfter Blizzard announced that all races will be able to play as Rogues, Mages, and Priests starting in Dragonflight, the most notable addition is the Tauren Rogue, a meme that has existed since Vanilla, and players are excited to finally play as one. Developer Brian Holinka even went out of his way to talk about Tauren Rogues, making this a case of Ascended Meme.
• Derp Roar/Sad Roar ^explanationThe new Dragonflight class, the Dracthyr, ended up mocked right away for their extremely underwhelming roar, which many hoped it was a placeholder from beta but ended up making it to live servers. Any attempt to take them serious was instantly undermined thanks to the hilarious roar and off-putting appearance of the new class, which gave a bad first impression of them to say the least.
• Veritistraz / Sad Dwarf ^explanationA quest in The Waking Shores simply requires you to sit next to a red dragon (in a Dwarf visage) and listen to him tell a depressing story. The sheer contrast of the unusually good writing for a minor quest made him a fan favorite.
• The Azure Lag ^explanationThe Azure Span zone is home to the Community Feast which is one of the only means to actively farm Tuskarr reputation, as well as one of the multiplayer Dragon races and another reputation that can be farmed in the open world. Unfortunately, it seems that the devs didn't consider the implementation of sharding for these events, and The Azure Span has become infamous because of the massive amount of lag it creates across the entire zone for every player, much to the chagrin of everyone in the zone.
• Yes chef! ^explanationThe Iskaara Community Event allows players to collaborate in building a perfect bowl of soup. Whenever a player is chosen to help, they gain access to an Extra Action Button whose only purpose is to cause the player to /say "Yes chef!". Naturally, it gets spammed very frequently.
• LET FLY
  • LET FLY
  • LET FLY
  • FOCUS FIRE
  • LET FLY ^explanationA trash mob(Nokhud Lancemaster) in the first area of The Nokhud Offensive dungeon says these lines repeatedly, which tends to get on players' nerves. It has since been died down after a hotfix was pushed that makes Lancemasters spam their lines a lot less.
• "So, I have to unlock all the glyphs on every character, right?" // "That's the neat part - you don't!" ^ExplanationYou only have to unlock the glyphs on one character - meaning every alt you send through the Dragon Isles will start with max dragonriding talents
• "Sure it took 14 years, but better late than never, right?" ^ExplanationFlying has been something Blizzard has apparently regretted since they added it - as they have basically tried to limit it to late/max level content to flat out taking it away since Wrath. Dragonflight disables your flying mount, but gives you a better mount and Dragonriding as part of the main campaign, which was accessible on day one.
  • "Took them ten years, but better late than never, right?"^ExplanationA few of the dailies take the form of minigames - but this time, they're not seen as a waste of time or something players "put up with" like the Tortollan Seeker quests or the Flappy Bird quest in Shadowlands - in fact players can completely skip the racing or rock climbing quests.
• Joking that if it weren't for "Burning Crusade Classic", nobody would have known who Sabellion is. ^ExplanationSabellian is actually a minor character in the "Blades Edge Mountains" story arc, but only alliance players really interact with him. Because players would skip Blades Edge mountains as early as Wrath or even The Burning Crusade, most people didn't go past that storyline that revealed there were black dragons still alive in Outland.
• Crafting Cartels^explanationA new feature in Dragonflight is the Crafting orders system, in which the players engage in crafting Bind-on-Equip gear via crafting orders to other players. Unfortunately, this system has been subject to some serious abuse with entire groups of people demanding the same massive fees before they do your crafting and mass report the competition that offers lower prices to get them silenced/banned from the game thanks to Blizzard's automated report system.
• Raszageth's tiny arms^explanationProto-dragons like Raszageth have a pair of stubby arms similar to a T-rex which are easy to miss when looking at her. Players began joking that she was really angry about the size of her arms and couldn't be taken seriously as a boss because they were too busy staring at said arms.
• Shark Attack. ^ExplanationOne common trinket has a chance on hit to summon a shark that will slam into the target. Because it's a very common trinket to get while leveling up and world quests often give an upgraded version from time to time, people often see a lot of others with that trinket and sometimes during a raid you'll see multiple sharks going off at once from multiple directions.
• Keepy-Uppy/Hackey Sac/Hackey-Drac/Juggling/Hacky-Demon^ExplanationThe head chef making the soup in Iskaara will kick players out of the broth if they try to jump into the pot. However, Demon Hunters and Dracthyr have a passive that lets them glide, and adjust their momentum&Trajectory so they could send themselves back to the pot. While waiting for the community feast to begin, sometimes you'll see a Demon Hunter or a Dracthyr jumping in, getting thrown out, then double-jumping so they glide back into the soup to see how many times they get thrown out.
• Stay away from those primal conduits!^ExplanationAn early quest has items called "Primal conduits" that act as hazards. However, you are being escorted by a NPC who will say "Stay away from those primal conduits!" every time you get close... and players can toggle the voice clip over and over again.
• Captain Lancer^explanationAfter completing the Community event Siege of Dragonbane Keep, the rare mob Captain Lancer immediately spawns nearby, and subsequently gets clobbered by the raid of players in a Curb-Stomp Battle. Memes often make fun of Lancer resigned to his inevitable fate.
• A triumphant roar echoes from atop the Seat of the Aspects as Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy is formed.^explanationWith the addition of the new low-drop item to craft Nasz'uro, a Evoker-only legendary weapon, this emote happens whenever the legendary is successfully crafted, is visible to every player in that realm and sometimes the emote happens multiple times per minute. The frequency of this emote led to comparisons with the Rhonin speech from WOTLK-era Dalaran.
  • A triumphant roar echoes from atop the Seat of the Aspects as Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy is formed.
  • A triumphant roar echoes from atop the Seat of the Aspects as Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy is formed.
  • A triumphant roar echoes from atop the Seat of the Aspects as Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy is formed.
  • A triumphant roar echoes from atop the Seat of the Aspects as Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy is formed.
• Maiev Shadowsong points at the nearby Felflame Brazier.^ExplanationDuring the night elf heritage questline, Maiev is very eager at pointing at felflame braziers you need to extinguish, to the point of flooding the chat log with emotes◊.
• It's a Rumble Promotion!^ExplanationIn a promotion for the upcoming Warcraft Rumble, Mizzen sent a letter starting a quest driving the character to visit the demo table. However, intentionally or not, Mizzen sent this letter every day even if you've already completed the quest.
• Dragonflop ^ExplanationA nickname given to Dragonflight after it was confirmed the expansion sold way less copies than Shadowlands and Battle for Azeroth. This nickname only gained more popularity after the expansion was noted by players to have way less population than Shadowlands in spite of being better received.
• "Everyone's here!" ^ExplanationA quest near the end of the Emerald Dream questline has almost every named character joining you against an elite mook.
• Jokes about the Scarlet Crusade^ExplanationIt was revealed that the Forsaken never took over Gilneas because the Scarlet Crusade moved in instead. After having constantly killed their leadership, players were wondering just how they still keep coming back and posing anything resembling a threat.
  • You can never defeat us, we are legion
  • How many times must we teach you this lesson, Scarlet crusade?
  • Who said "Arise, my champion" now?!
• Blunderstorm.^ExplanationPatch 10.2.6 was shrouded in secrecy, having no PTR and only teasing some kind of awesome pirate-themed event. When the event, Plunderstorm, was actually announced on release date, it turned out to be a battle royale PvP minigame with not much replay value for PvE-only players, and a ridiculously long reputation grind to get the actually cool cosmetic rewards. Also, weirdly for a pirate-themed event, it was put in an instanced version of Arathi Highlands instead of a more iconic pirate location like Plunder Isle or Freehold. Reception has been... mixed to say the least, with players calling the event underwhelming, or complaining about the reputation grind or forced PvP.

The War Within

• Punished Anduin ^ExplanationThe expansion cinematic reintroduces Anduin Wrynn, traumatized from his actions during Shadowlands, with a much older and rugged design.
• They finally remembered! ^ExplanationIt was a massive meme throughout the Shadowlands and Dragonflight expansions that the giant Sword of Sargeras remained stabbed into the Silithus zone and was somehow completely forgotten about. The expansion cinematic makes it clear that they're finally bringing the focus back to it.
  • "That sword was aimed at someone." ^ExplanationThe cinematic ends with Thrall and Anduin staring at the Sword of Sargeras while Anduin says the above line as they ponder who the visions they've been receiving are coming from. Players were quick to make jokes about how everyone forgot that Magni spent an entire expansion talking about Azeroth's world soul and telling people that Azeroth was a slumbering Titan as we were running around collecting her blood.
• "Hear. Feel. Think." ^ExplanationThe reveal cinematic features a female voice saying "Hear me" along with a brief psychic vision to Anduin and Thrall. Since the Player Character in this game's biggest competitor is contacted in a similar way by that title's Big Good, jokes and memes popped up that a Crossover between WoW and Final Fantasy XIV was eminent, especially since XIV producer Naoki Yoshida had previously expressed interest in one.

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The Ice Stone has melted!

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