History Characters / Warcraft3Heroes

** The Alchemist is also one of two heroes, along with the Blademaster, who can exceed the normal movement speed limit of 400 units and reach up to 522 units, thanks to Chemical Rage. This is technically because the normal Alchemist is swapped out with a different version of the Alchemist who provides the Chemical Rage "buff" with their normal inate stats and has a higher movement speed cap of 522. This is similar to the Pandaren Brewmaster activating Storm, Earth, And Fire.

** The Alchemist is also one of two heroes, along with the Blademaster, who can exceed the normal movement speed limit of 400 units and reach up to 522 units, thanks to Chemical Rage. This is technically because the normal Alchemist is replaced by a different version of the hero who provides the Chemical Rage "buff" with their normal inate stats and has a higher movement speed cap of 522.

* MechanicallyUnusualClass: The Alchemist is the only melee hero that has a built-in ranged attack for hitting air units, waiving the need of an orb to do so, and the only hero who can generate resources from their Ultimate, and thus extend your bank beyond the typical limits of a map's resources and sellable items, outside of methods like the Orc Pillage ability, or the Night Elf ability to gain infinite lumber from Wisps.

* {{Foil}}: While similar to the Demon Hunter as a deadly yet honorable fighter, Blademaster gameplay contrasts with the Demon Hunter with a focus on HitAndRunTactics insead of direct confrontation. Unlike the Demon Hunter, Blademasters and their Mirror Images have no ranged capabilites, and need to be in melee range to use any of their attacks.

* {{Foil}}: While similar to the Orc Blademaster as a deadly yet honorable fighter, Demon Hunter gameplay contrasts. Mana Burn only works on Mana users while Windwalk provides a universal attack buff. Immolation, Evasion, and Metamorphosis all encourage direct confrontation as opposed to the HitAndRunTactics employed by the Blademaster.

* {{Foil}}: While similar to the Demon Hunter as a deadly yet honorable fighter, Blademaster gameplay contrasts with the Demon Hunter with a focus on HitAndRunTactics insead of direct confrontation.

* MagikarpPower: The Blademaster's only source of damage is his basic attack until level 6, where he gets the long-cooldown Bladestorm. That being said, his incredibly fast attack speed and high-level Critical Strike mean that it's often more than enough to tear enemies apart once he gets some levels and attack-boosting items.

* GlassCannon: For maximum damage, Blood Magi can Banish a target and nuke it with Flame Strike or their Phoenix summon for heavy damage, but they have low damage capacity for a hero and their Banish does not stop heroes or casters from casting potentially dangerous spells, it just disables their basic attack. Their Phoenix is also penalized with a strong debuff that causes them to be unaffected by Fountains of Health, and rapidly lose health until they become an egg. It is crucial to fly the Phoenix to safety before they become an Egg, as they Phoenix Egg is very fragile and its survival is necessary to get the best milage out of the Blood Mage ultimate.
* HellFire: In lore, they fuel their fire magics with demonic energy, and part of their signature look is the three orbs of felfire always orbiting around them. Tellingly, two of their spells (Siphon Mana and Banish) became warlock spells in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' (though Flame Strike did go to mages).

* ScissorsCutsRock: Somewhat unintuitively, the Dark Ranger's Charm spell can be used on targets that have Spell Immunity. It is instead units with Resistant Skin who cannot be affected by the spell.

** Rexxar does not have the ability to summon hawks and instead has a basic nuke and stun with Storm Bolt. A Hawk that can see the whole map would ruin the exploration experience. The Hawk fits better in the RTS game, where it can be used to spot where the enemy is going and if they have invisible units, whereas no such enemy attacks or invisible units are a threat in the campaign.

* AcidAttack: The alchemist can fling a bottle of acid at opponents, decreasing their armor and deals damage over time.

* WakeUpCallBoss: In ''Reforged''. She is the first high leveled enemy hero with an ultimate spell. Earthquake makes her a big threat to the player's towers in the final mission, which is a HoldTheLine mission.

* GlassCannon: For maximum damage, Blood Magi can Banish a target and nuke it with Flame Strike or their Phoenix summon for heavy damage, but they have low damage capacity for a hero and their Banish does not stop heroes or casters from casting potentially dangerous spells, it just disables their basic attack. Their Phoenix is also penalized with a strong debuff that causes them to rapidly lose health until they become an egg and resurrect if the egg survives. It is crucial to fly the Phoenix to safety to have another lease on life, as they Phoenix egg is very fragile.

* GlassCannon: For maximum damage, Blood Magi can Banish a target and nuke it with Flame Strike or their Phoenix summon for heavy damage, but they have low damage capacity for a hero and their Banish does not stop heroes or casters from casting potentially dangerous spells, it just disables their basic attack. Their Phoenix is also penalized with a strong debuff that causes them to rapidly lose health until they become an egg and resurrect if the egg survives. It crucial to fly the Phoenix to safety to have another lease on life, as they Phoenix egg is very fragile.

* GlassCannon: For maximum damage, Blood Magi can Banish a target and nuke it with Flame Strike or their Phoenix summon for heavy damage, but they have low damage capacity for a hero and their Banish does not stop heroes or casters from casting potentially dangerous spells, it just disables their basic attack.

* MundaneUtility: Carrion Beetles make handy targets for the Death Pact and/or Dark Ritual, particularly from Level 2 and on due to their health surpassing Skeleton Warriors. Because they never expire, they're more likely to be available for this purpose. The trade-off is that the Crypt Lord needs to spend a small sum of mana (50) to raise each Beetle but this can give the Crypt Lord a niche as a mana battery for a Lich hero.

* VillainsOutShopping: Relatively speaking; When the Sea Witches, Pit Lords, or Firelords aren't busy with supporting existential threats, they're available for hire at Taverns to do battle in smaller skirmishes for entertainment.

The heroes' game design (stats, levelling, inventory) was borrowed from ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' and ''VideoGame/DiabloII'', and went on to influence the game design of the PlayerCharacter in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients'' before it became ''VideoGame/Dota2'' started out as a Frozen Throne map and many of the characters found their origins in these heroes. Four Heroes in ''Dota 2'' still have proper names lifted from the generic heroes names of Warcraft III. [[note]] Terrorblade (Demon Marauder) and Darkterror (Faceless Void) are lifted from the Demon Hunter, Banehallow (Lycan) is lifted from the Dreadlord, and Razzil Darkbrew (Alchemist) is a combination of Razzil Naypolm and Ezzel Darkbrewer from the Goblin Alchemist. However, only Terrorblade is commonly known by his proper name, with the rest known by their class.[[/note]]

* ShootTheMageFirst: If facing an Undead player [[ShootTheMedicFirst that doesn't have a Death Knight]] but has a Lich, he is often the top priority hero target. He blasts out massive amounts of damage, has a ton of mana and mana recovery, and is very fragile. Unlikely most SquishyWizard heroes, he is not also [[FragileSpeedster fast moving]], so is considerably easier to kill than them (even if he can potentially make himself tankier and harder for melee heroes to catch with Frost Armor).

** Both Flamestrike and Siphon Mana require channeling, making the Blood Mage vulnerable to interruptions such as stuns, roots, and silences (Flamestrike fizzles if he's stunned during the channel time before the spell takes effect, and Siphon Mana will be cut short and not drain the full amount).
** The Blood Mage can do nothing to enemies that have magic immunity, since most of his kit relies on offensive debuffs and magic damage and his basic attack is very weak. Even his Phoenix only deals magic damage and thus can't touch them.

* AntiStructure: Flamestrike has an advantage over Blizzard due to not being blunted by structures. This enables Blood Magi to contribute to base sieging efforts more efficiently than Archmagi. It is still just as powerful against regular units, but mobiles have the ability to evacuate the blast zone unless snared or stunned.

* DoubleEdgedBuff: Banish makes the target more vulnerable to magic damage and stops it from attacking, but also makes it immune to physical damage. This gives the spell both offensive (no one wants to eat a Storm Bolt or Flamestrike after being Banished) and defensive utility (for saving units that are being dogpiled by heavy melee attackers).

* AnIcePerson: She shoots bolts of ice in Warcraft III. In '"Reforged'' she shoots arrows instead.

* ContractualBossImmunity: Spells deal less damage to heroes (they only take 75% damage from them), most spells have a reduced duration on heroes. There are several spells [[note]]usually some kind instant kill spell like Charm or Transmute, or extremely powerful debuffs like Doom or Polymorph[[/note]] that they are completely immune to. Normal units can attain hero status duration and immunity to certain spells (though not reduced damage taken) if they have the Resistant Skin passive.

* AntiStructure: Flamestrike has an advantage over Blizzard due to not being blunted by structures. This enables Blood Magi to contribute to base sieging efforts more efficiently than Archmagi.

* AntiStructure: Strictly speaking, Death and Decay is just as effective versus non-structure units as it is against structures; the difference is that an army can walk out of the area of effect while buildings can't (besides Night Elven ancients, and even then they're so slow it will do a number on them anyway), making it far more effective at razing bases in general. It also does percentage-based damage, making it more damaging versus enemies with higher HP, which buildings usually do compared to units.

** Dreadlords have poor combat stats for a melee strength hero and get a huge power spike when they reach level 6. They are commonly played solo without other heroes to split experience with to try to get to level 6 as soon as possible. Once they have Infernal, they try to swiftly end the game with the power spike. [[CrutchCharacter However, if they can't end the game quickly, their Infernal power spike will end (as it can't stand against multiple high-level heroes and highly upgraded troops) and the solo Dreadlord will fall off.]]

* MagikarpPower: Dreadlords has shades of this trope, though not as much as the Crypt Lord (who has even greater potential). Dreadlords have poor combat stats for a melee strength hero and get a huge power spike when they reach level 6, so they are commonly played solo without other heroes to split experience with to try to get to level 6 as soon as possible and try to swiftly end the game with the power spike of their Infernal. Vampiric Aura is also the most late-game oriented of the auras, becoming much stronger as heroes get more damage.

* IncreasinglyLethalEnemy: At a glance, the Avatar of Vengeance has less health and deals a lot less damage than most ultimate summons. However, if given the chance to summon some Spirits of Vengeance, they can output more damage than any one summon.
* InvincibleMinorMinion: Spirits of Vengeance summoned by her Avatar of Vengeance are completely invulnerable and put out a decent bit of damage. However, [[NoOntologicalInertia if the Avatar dies or expires, all Spirits of Vengeance it summoned die as well]].

* EliteMook: The Infernal that the Dreadlord summons is a stronger melee fighter than all other land units that players can build, with the possible exception of the Mountain Giant.

* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Because Carrion Beetles are permanent until killed, the Crypt Lord is limited to having a maximum of 6 in play at a time as a balance measure.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: They resemble massive rhinoceros beetles with praying mantis arms. The Carrion Beetles look more like giant stag beetles.

* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: His Divine armor means that he takes only ScratchDamage from all damage types except Chaos. In Twilight of the Gods, the player is able to get ahold of Furbolg Champions from a mercenary camp, an otherwise unimpressive unit for its cost and not particularly good at the mission's primary HoldTheLine objective. However, Furbolg Champions are the only player-attainable unit on the map that has access to Chaos damage. If the player gets enough, they can kill the Warlock in about 20 seconds, instead of about 3-5 minutes against mass archers, towers, or glaive throwers.

* SkillGateTactic: The Sleep spell can be very crippling to armies, able to disable half of the units in them if you are not able to micromanage your units to wake your other units up. If you can, it is just a minor inconvenience. Dreadlord users in multiplayer often prioritize Carrion Swarm instead and use Sleep only if the interrupt would be impactful, or use Sleep mostly for creeping (because creep AI does not include waking each other up). Many players get a lot of practice against this spell because of how many Dreadlords you fight in the campaigns.

* SkillGateCharacter: In multiplayer, the Blood Mage is considered one of the weakest (first) heroes simply because Flame Strike is too slow and unlikely to ever hit a human opponent that knows how to dodge it (so much so that the flame pillar delay had to be reduced in a patch). If they don't or can't dodge it (in the case of workers, who are usually too slow, or someone already impaired, such as a follow-up to a Mountain King's Storm Bolt), the spell is extremely devastating. The Blood Mage is still used as a support for a Mountain King in high level games though (as a second or third hero), since his other spells combo phenomenally well with the Mountain King.

* BoringButPractical: Engineering Upgrade simply makes the Tinker faster, improves his other spells, and gives him a little more attack damage. In many cases it's better to level the Upgrade passive to effectively add more value to your active spell of choice than to get points in both spells that you should not be spending the mana on.