Mythology Gag / Heroes of the Storm

Most of the characters who come from the RTS games use the exact same (though obviously revoiced) lines they used when selected or ordered around in their original games. That aside, most of the unit quotes and Stop Poking Me! quotes are littered with them.

---

• Abathur:
  • He says perfection is able to be pursued, but not obtained, 'like the Ashbringer.'^note Ashbringer was a powerful and legendary sword in the lore, first referenced in vanilla World of Warcraft. A number of incomplete quests hinted at the sword's existence and suggested it would be obtainable by players. After years of red herrings and stalling, the sword was eventually given to an NPC character for story reasons. The closest the sword ever got to obtainable was a corrupted version that dropped in the original game's hardest raid instance, and it has since been made unobtainable. The player character finally obtains the non-corrupted Ashbringer at the beginning of the Legion expansion if they are playing as a Retribution Paladin (DPS Spec)
  • He also paraphrases one of his lines from Heart of the Swarm to express exactly what he thinks of your incessant poking:
    "Anger product of adrenaline, stress response, clicking. No clicking, no anger."
• Raynor:
  • He jokes that whenever there's a split decision in his life, the first one is usually the canonically correct one.^note In Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, there were a few branching story paths that the player got to choose from. Those choices could not be carried over to Heart of the Swarm, and the extras provided with the Collectors Edition of Wings of Liberty (The first StarCraft II expansion) provide the true path Raynor takes, which is the first choice everytime.
  • One of his skins bears a marked resemblance to Captain America's costume. (This was the subject of a double shout-out when it appeared in Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One.)
• Uther:
  • He laments that back in his day, they only had one type of paladin, and they only went up to level ten! ^note As opposed to World of Warcraft, which has three types of paladins and goes up to level 100.
  • He also complains about the icon of this game and remarks that it's weird to have an organization called "Order of the Weird Space Triangle Thing".^note Uther's Paladin order is named 'Order of the Silver Hand', and back in Warcraft III, the mouse icon for a Human player is a silver gauntlet/hand, and now it's just a space triangle, thus ruining the connection between the order and the icon.
  • He knows what you blood elves are planning to do to his grave... and he is not happy about it.^note There was a quest in The Burning Crusade for blood elf paladins involving defiling his tomb at the behest of Mehlar Dawnblade, a former pupil of Uther's who was bitter about the fall of Quel'Thalas.
• Tassadar:
  • One of his annoyed quotes is "And you thought orcs had large shoulder pads."^note In World of Warcraft, orcs were notorious for having their shoulder armor models scaled ridiculously bigger than most other races.
  • He's also somehow several steps behind in the unit development of his race, seeing that he's dead before the second game rolls in. Thus, he's shocked that there's no Dragoon or Reavers, and wonders what the heck is a 'Void Ray'.
  • Mecha Tassadar's Force Wall heroic looks suspiciously like a certain Fin Funnel Barrier.
• Nova jokes everyone would know she isn't Kerrigan if she had her own game. ^note Nova was the star of Starcraft: Ghost, a game that was notoriously put in Development Hellinvoked for years before Blizzard unceremoniously announced it was cancelled. She eventually became a minor character in Starcraft II.
• Muradin:
  • He tells the player not to worry if Blizzard kills their favourite character, assuring them that said character will probably come back alive in an expansion or two — and he should know!^note Muradin was believed to have been killed in Warcraft III. However, it was eventually revealed in the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King that he didn't die, merely being knocked out and losing his memory. On a more meta level, Blizzard is also notorious for bringing many of its characters Back from the Dead.
  • Killing Tassadar with Muradin also results him quoting the Dwarven Mortar Team from Warcraft III: "Clearly Tassadar has... failed!" ^note The actual quote is "Clearly Tassadar has failed us. You must not." It was originally said by Judicator Aldaris in StarCraft, but later became a Stop Poking Me! quote for said Mortar Team in Warcraft III as one of a number of Starcraft references from the same game.
  • He asks The Lost Vikings if they've ever been to the Badlands...^note Blizzard crated blatant Inksuit Expies of them in World of Warcraft called the "Lost Dwarves", who were part of a questline in the Badlands following the development and release of Cataclysm. which prompts them to joke that they haven't been to many good lands. The Vikings themselves make a reference to that as well in their Stop Poking Me! quotes.
• Illidan:
  • He misses Chaos Damage. ^note Chaos Damage was the most powerful damage type in Warcraft III, able to penetrate all forms of armor, including the super-powered divine armor that existed only on very powerful units in the single player campaign. Illidan himself gained Chaos Damage whenever he used his Metamorphasis skill.
  • He's also appalled Blizzard added Monks instead of Demon Hunters as a class in World of Warcraft. ^note Illidan himself is a Demon Hunter, and his feelings mirror those of some long-time demon hunter fans, who had hoped the class would have made it into World of Warcraft by now. Hilarious in Hindsight now the next expansion, Legion, is finally introducing the demon hunter as a playable class.
  • Humorously, he tries using the Skull of Gul'dan (an artifact which turned him into a half-demon hybrid) for a Hamlet impression.
  • In his dating app profile, he wrote that he hates "crazy chicks who wants to lock you up for thousands of years." ^note A reference to Maiev Shadowsong, leader of the Wardens who guarded him during his long imprisonment. After he was released to help fight the Burning Legion but was later exiled, Maiev set out to recapture him, becoming increasingly obsessed with reimprisoning and later just plain killing him as time went on, and discovered she was nothing without him after he was killed atop the Black Temple. He's worried that said crazy woman is right behind him.
  • He gets in on the Running Gag with the phrase "Darkness calls":
    *phone buzzes* Illidan: Hold on. Darkness just texted me. ^note Previously a joke between Arthas, Tichondrius, the regular Dreadlord, and the regular Demon Hunter. It's broken out to involve characters from Diablo and even Starcraft here.
• E.T.C.: 'Wherever I go is the cow level!' ^note This is reference to the Running Gag of Blizzard games having a secret cow level. It was rumored in the first Diablo that there was a secret cow level you could access, but it was really an Urban Legend of Zelda. The original Starcraft referenced this with the cheat code 'thereisnocowlevel'. However, in Diablo II, they actually did create a secret cow level, which returned in Diablo III.
• Thrall, Warchief of the Horde:
  • His first joke line is confusion as to what's going on, before remembering that it's the "joke thing", which he hasn't done in a while. He then reminisces about the RTS days and the grand scale of them... but he doesn't miss the poking. ^note Thrall was last playable in 2002's Warcraft III. The joke lines when you kep clicking a unit have been a staple of Blizzard games since 1995 — in particular, orc units complain about constantly being "poked".
  • He jokes that in a few Heroes expansions he'll be replaced by Garrosh Hellscream. ^note In World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Thrall stepped down as Warchief and appointed Garrosh as his successor.
  • He checks out his abilities to see what they gave him this time...then apologizes to Rehgar for "getting all the good stuff". ^note Rehgar's kit was originally designed for Thrall, but after deciding that it wasn't what they wanted for him, they used it for Rehgar and went back to the drawing board for Thrall.
  • And he comments disparagingly on the game's "plot", claiming that he didn't approve any of it.^note Given that he's voiced by Chris Metzen, it's pretty likely that he did approve the game's story, or was even the guy paid to write it.
• Tyrande:
  • She thinks she's Sailor Moon. Complete with "In the name of Elune, I will punish you!"
  • She also received a mass Invisibility Cloak ultimate that originally belonged to Mirana. ^note Back in the original Dota, Mirana used Tyrande's model and voice set. (This was later changed to just give her stealth.)
  • She asks the player to put an apple on her head so she can shoot it off.
    Tyrande: It's been a while since I used this bow.
  • She grumbles that when the Night Elf women ruled Kalimdor, they experienced an era of peace... until the men woke up.
  • She also wonder where her sabertooth tiger went, mention not having seen it in a while, and try calling it back. ^note In Warcraft 3, her model was of her mounting a snow sabertoothed tiger, but it's not present in this game, and wasn't in World of Warcraft either..
• Sonya:
  • She happens to be The Ahnold and makes a couple of Shout-Out quotes to Schwarzenegger's film Conan the Barbarian. In addition, it probably ain't a coincidence that she shares her name and hair color with Red Sonja.
  • She threatens to take the player Out with a Bang in a very familiar manner:
    Sonya: You! Death by Snu-snu!
• Malfurion reminds you that he's an archdruid, not a prophet.^note Furion was the basis for the Prophet in the original DOTA, due to legal issues between Blizzard and Valve, eventually Prophet becomes Tequioa and later just Nature's Prophet in Dota 2.
• Jaina:
  • She can recite "Azrath Metrion Zinthos".
  • She tries to defy making a Frozen (2013) reference, telling the player to "let it go"... then realises she just made one by accident. She gets over it, and if she kills an enemy Jaina she happily snarks, "The cold never bothered me anyway!"^note Let it Go was a solo song performed by the main character of Frozen, a blonde girl with ice-magic powers, and "The cold never bothered me anyway" is a memetic line from the same song.
  • When ordered to dance, she would execute the animation of Crystal Maiden doing Freezing Field ^note Jaina used to be Crystal Maiden's original model in the classic Defense of the Ancients: All-Stars
  • She can also find a white hair, hoping it's not a sign of bad things to come. ^note In Mist of Pandaria, Theramore is destroyed by a Mana Bomb and Jaina get's partially caught in the blast, bleaching a streak of white in her hair. This is the point where her character completely changes, going from being a huge advocate of peace to believing the Horde needs to be eliminated for the safety of all Azeroth.
• Valla:
  • Notes that she wouldn't have to respond to the player clicking on her if she were back in Diablo III,^note there were no Stop Poking Me! quotes in Diablo III, and indeed very few quotes overall.
  • Pretends she doesn't have enough Hatred to pull off an attack^note hearing "not enough X" is a common occurance in Blizzard games.
  • Asserts that Hatred must be tempered by Discipline^note Demon Hunters in Diablo III have two ability pools: pure offensive abilities are powered by Hatred, pragmatic and cunning moves by Discipline.
  • And says that things would be a lot easier if she had a follower, wondering aloud where Kormac's got to.^note There were three followers available in Diablo III to serve that exact purpose, with Knight in Sour Armor Kormac being one of them, alongside Black Magician Girl Eirena and Lovable Sex Maniac Lyndon.
• Azmodan:
  • He warns his minions that there is nothing more toxic or deadly than a Nephalem child. It works particularly well thanks to his physical resemblence to Waternoose.
  • Later, he starts having Anxiety Dreams about Nephalems and woozles.
  • He wants to write a series of books about the battle and spend some time scattering them about.
• The Lost Vikings:
  • One of their skills is named after League of Legends famous meme "Spin To Win!"
  • Olaf's shield in one of the color variations for the Viking's Master skin bears a striking resemblance to a shield wielded by a certain captain.
  • Baelog has a few Shout-Out quotes under his belt.
    Baelog: [after reviving] I'm back, baby!
    Baelog: [when ordered to attack] It's clobbering time!
  • When using "Jump!", Erik does the same animation as when he jumped in their game, and Olaf holds his shield above himself, which he could do in their game to float in midair.
• Upon killing Nova, Stitches declares he's not afraid of no ghost.
• Sylvanas:
  • If you keep poking her, she'll quote her sister Alleria: "Do that again and you'll pull back a stump."
  • She also mentions that she has never been a night elf. ^note Before blood elves and high elves had a proper model in World Of Warcraft, Sylvanas used a re-skinned Night Elf model. She later got a unique model more akin to her Warcraft III incarnation in Wrath of the Lich King.
  • And for the record: no, she won't sing a song for you. She's a heartless undead banshee, not a music box.^note A famous quest in World of Warcraft has you deliver Sylvanas a locket belonging to one of her sisters, after which she asserts to you that she has forgotten that life and cares nothing for it or anyone connected to it, only to summon a choir of banshees to sing Lament of the Highbourne, a song of her people sang in memoriam of the elves who died during the Scourge attack on Quel'thalas. (Sylvanas herself was killed and turned into a banshee). A music box which played the song on command with a 1 hour cooldown was a cosmetic reward for players who successfully earned the almight timesink of a legendary Shadowmourne.
• Anub'arak:
  • He pokes fun at how he's the king of the nerubians, who are Spider People, but looks more like a giant beetle himself.
  • He's driven to fury at the mention of the word 'raids'^note which mirrors the anger of real-life fans that he was an initial patch dungeon boss rather than a raid boss. May also double as a joke about the brand of insecticide given his status as a bug person, even mentioning Paragon, the first raiding guild who slew him as a raid boss, by name.^note For bonus irony, one of his "yes attack" responses in Warcraft III was "Raid!".
  • He also lampshades the questionable logic behind enrage timers.
    Anub'arak: Ten more minutes of this abuse and I will go berserk!
• Arthas:
  • He asks the player if they ever feel like they're Hearing Voices.^note Almost certainly Ner'zhul, the original Lich King, whom it was claimed died before Arthas returned in his place.
  • He jokes that no man could defeat him, but 10 or 25 could do it.^note The Arbitrary Headcount Limit of World of Warcraft raids in Wrath of the Lich King.
• Nazeebo:
  • Will have you know that he's got friends on the other side.
  • Grimskull Nazeebo bears a strong resemblance to True Assassin and Zero Assassin.
• Kael'thas has a skill in which he sends in a tornado to keep the enemy afloat and when upgraded, can hit and send multiple enemies afloat. This brings in mind for a certain spell from Invoker: Tornado/Wes-Quas-Wex. ^note Much like Jaina and Crystal Maiden, Kael used to be the original model and name of Invoker (who is now Carl).
• Rehgar jokes that he could get used to this "video game" thing.^note Reghar has never actually appeared in a Warcraft video game, only appearing in extended media such as comic books and novels.
• Arthas is now friends with Darkness. ^note Back in the original Warcraft III, his Death Knight annoyed quote implies that he's left out of the loop when everyone are getting chummy with Darkness ("Who is this 'Darkness', anyway?"). Years later, now, they're friends in Real I.D, both Death Knight and Crown Prince Arthas have annoyed quotes that they're real good friends.
• Diablo:
  • Unlike the Protoss Stalker, thinks fear is not always an illusion.
  • As far as he's concerned it's better to reign in the Burning Hells than to serve in the High Heavens.
  • He has a joke to tell you. Sadly, it's not a good one.
    Diablo: You ever heard that one about the warrior who thought he could put a soulstone in his head? It's an enthralling tale!
  • One of Diablo's Stop Poking Me! lines is demonic-sounding Black Speech. When played in reverse, he's saying "Good children look both ways before crossing the street." This is similar to the original Diablo when he had a similar backwards line about eating vegetables and going to bed.
• Rexxar:
  • He needs all the loot for "hunter reasons". ^note In the early days of World of Warcraft, hunters would ask for or outright take loot that was better for other classes, since weapon and gear restrictions were much looser back then, claiming that it was a hunter weapon. "Hunter reasons" has since become a running joke amongst the fandom.
  • He never gets lost in Desolace. Except when... well... actually, he takes that back. ^note Rexxar was a primary quest giver for a famous quest chain in vanilla World of Warcraft. He would wander sporadically around the Desolace zone, infamously making it a chore to find him.
  • He enjoys a bit of Hearthstone in his spare time. Oh, and every time you lost to a hunter? That was him. ^note Rexxar is the default and most well-known hunter class hero in Hearthstone.
  • Last time he accidentally summons a cow, a deer, a bear and a rat whenever he says their species name, now he summons in a horse, a bull, a monkey and a swine.^note One of Rexxar and generic Beastmaster's annoyed quote in Warcraft 3 involve them speaking an animal's name while meaning something else (e.g: "Deer" for "Dear", or "Bear" as in a verb, not the animal). Now Rexxar expands the vocabulary.
• Lunara makes a reference to a rather well-known generic Dryad poke quote "I'm so wasted! I'm so wasted!" if poked enough. Also she appreciates it if you don't call her 'Mylune'.
• Li-Ming admits something about her master Isendra having no cooldowns in her Teleport. ^note Isendra is the Sorceress in Diablo II, back in those days, Teleport really was spammable because it has no cooldowns when compared to what it's like in Diablo III
• If Xul kills Azmodan, the former compares the latter unfavorably with his fellow Lesser Evil (who looks like a giant maggot) Duriel.^note Duriel was notorious as a shining example of Diablo II's That One Boss that's incredibly tough to beat and can kill off unprepared players easily. Due to the drop of difficulty in Diablo III in general, Azmodan looked less tough to beat than Duriel.
• Medivh:
  • He muses on the concept of an upside-down version of Karazhan underneath the tower, but dismisses it as something only a madman would come up with. ^note A reference to the scrapped "Lower Karazhan" area in World of Warcraft.
  • If you never get the event you want in the Karazhan opera house, don't worry. Neither does Medivh.
  • In his day, heroes only had one ultimate to choose from, and they were grateful for it!^note Warcraft 3 heroes, to be precise.
• Varian:
  • He admits of still watching 3v3 Arena matches, and though a bit biased, his favorite setup is 'Warrior-Druid-Rogue'. ^note Referring the 3v3 Arena of World of Warcraft and his old life as Lo'gosh, taking the Warrior, whereas the two other spots are for his gladiator friends Broll Bearmantle (Druid) and Valeera Sanguinar (Rogue)
  • He knows about Hearthstone and thought it was 'too fantastic' for him, noting how absurd it is that Garrosh Hellscream of all people can order him around. ^note In Hearthstone, Varian is a Legendary card exclusive for the Warrior class... which is represented by his Arch-Enemy, Garrosh.
  • He advises the player to never trust anyone named Prestor, saying "It's always a dragon, always.". Katrana Prestor was the human disguise of Onyxia, while her father Deathwing passed himself as Daval Prestor.
• Genn wonders if "those Defias fellows" would agree to rebuild Gilneas. They most probably wouldn't ^note In World of Warcraft, the Defias Brotherhood was founded by Stormwind's masons, who, thanks to Onyxia's machinations, were denied their salary for rebuilding Stormwind and became a crime syndicate out of vengeance.
• Lúcio:
  • He actually DOES like the Hasselhoff music Reinhardt listens to, he just doesn't want to admit it around him. ^note  In Video Game/Overwatch, Lúcio and Reinhardt's spawn room interactions revolve around them bickering over Lúcio's techno music before Reinhardt's 'classic' Hasselhoff.
  • Click him enough times and he'll ask if anyone's up for a game of Lucio Ball. He then clarifies that he's not the one who named it. ^note Lucio Ball was a special mode during Overwatch's Summer Games event
• Genji's new Heroic skill, X-Strike, had him yell out "Ryuugekiken!!"^note The phrase used to be Genji's Pre Ass Kicking One Liner for his Dragonblade, until it was replaced with the current one "Ryuujin no ken o kurae!!"
• Kel'Thuzad's reveal trailer depicts all four Undead heroes from Warcraft III with the aforementioned hero and the three alternate skins shown. Jaina is the Dreadlord, Sonya represents the Death Knight, Zagara represents the Crypt Lord, and Kel'Thuzad is naturally the Lich.
• In a non-hero example, the Swarm Host bosses on Warhead Junction take their attack patterns from Slivan, a boss from Heart of the Swarm, albeit greatly watered down (because no one needs to constantly deal with twenty Banelings at once in this game).
• Gul'dan:
  • Gul'dan's dance emote is the dance to MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This", just like playable orcs in World of Warcraft.
  • One of Gul'dan's Stop Poking Me! lines is a twist on the playable orc's /silly line "It's not easy being green".
  Gul'dan: Don't let others mislead you. It is far easier being green. In fact, why don't we discuss it... [the sound of pouring and something bubbling is heard] over a drink? ^note This is referring to the Blood of Manneroth, which Gul'dan convinced the orcs to drink that turned their skin green and enslaved them to the Burning Legion.