History YMMV / WorldOfWarcraft

* ThatOneLevel:
** Gnomeregan, for being long, having trash that can be accidentally pulled, and for being relatively uninteresting. Even with parachutes that enable you to skip much of the early dungeon, some people complain and/or drop group when they get it in Dungeon Finder.
** Uldaman. It's actually something of a MyGreatestFailure amongst the developers, since they wanted it to be a winged dungeon yet wound up with a rather tedious dungeon with a pretty unique boss mechanic. The main downfall of Uldaman was that the level range was ''too high''. Normally you're good if you're within a couple levels of the dungeon mobs, but in Uldaman, you'd start off at the mid 30s, but later on would get to 40+ meaning low level players would [[SurpriseDifficulty get ambushed by mobs in their 40s]]. For awhile the recommended level range ended at ''51''. Oh, and Enchanters had to run this because there was a trainer in there. It has been nerfed a ''boatload'' of times and [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap became a much better dungeon since]].
** For overleveled players, [[HoldTheLine Battle for Mount Hyjal]] is one raid that nobody wands to go to, as due to its mechanics, it's not any faster regardless of how overleveled you are. Even at max level, it can take an ''hour'' to get through Hyjal (while any other BC raid with the exception of Karazhan can be cleared in 10 to 15 minutes)
** The Oculus. Much of the dungeon, including the final boss, involves using the abilities of drakes that are based on your specializations. If someone picks the wrong drake and/or misuses their drake, things become very difficult for the entire group. It's worth mentioning that even ''Blizzard'' as much as admitted The Oculus was ThatOneLevel when they severely nerfed it ''and'' added additional loot to the final boss just so people wouldn't quit immediately upon finding it as the dungeon finder's selection. To give an idea of just how much incentive they were giving, one of the new pieces of loot that had a small chance of dropping was a mount -- one that was previously a low-chance drop from a ''raid''. Also, the dungeon had three mutually-exclusive achievements (for not using one of the three drake types), all of which were required for Glory achievement. Those were outright removed due to the disagreements resulting from finding a group that all still needed the same one.
** Trial of the Crusader has only six bosses and no trash mobs. The latter would seem like a welcome change of pace, considering that some raids get criticism for long, boring or [[BossInMookClothing difficult]] trash, but it means that there's no world drops or normal encounters to break up the boss fights, and makes the raid even shorter, making it hardly worthy of a raid tier on its own. While some of the less popular raids have their fan bases, almost no one likes [=TotC=].
** Vashj'ir, for its mob density causing mobs to have a completely three dimensional attack range as well as how many bugs it had and respawn rates up the wazoo. It's also relatively tedious to have to swim or ride your seahorse around the very large zone and find the various caves and shipwrecks where [=NPC=]s are taking shelter.
** Deepholm for being excessively long and its quests spread throughout the map.
** Among the PVP areas, Tol Barad gets quite a bit of hate, since the attacking faction must hold three separate bases at once to take it. This tends to result in the attacker having difficulty taking the third base (for example, while the attackers take Warden's Vigil, the defenders will retake the Slagworks,and once the attackers set out to take the Slagworks, the defenders will head to the Ironclad Garrison). This tends to be disliked by [=PVPers=] for being poorly designed and by [=PVErs=] who don't like to have access to quests and the Baradin Hold raid be determined by their faction's skill at PVP. Although after some further balancing and buffs on the part of the attacking side, a lot of the hatedom for TB seems to have died down. In fact, the attacking team has been overbuffed, meaning they almost always win -- which is still imbalanced, but better because TB constantly exchanges hands, rather than stays in Horde / Alliance hands till the reset. Which is the reverse of what happened in Wintergrasp, the "TB" of ''Wrath''. Wintergrasp started out as being severely in favor of the attacking team, and while this meant you had little chance of holding the keep, you knew you would get it back right away in 2 hours. This was later re-balanced. If you want access to dailies, the "overbalance" approach works a little better, especially on servers where one side is much better at PVP.
** As far as Scenarios are concerned, there's certainly "A Little Patience". Although it's clearly meant to be a moment of CharacterDevelopment for Varian, an example of the effectiveness of teamwork for the Alliance and the act that secured the night elves' allegiance (in particular that of Tyrande) to Varian, it was so badly implemented that today it is remembered primarily as a mass of CharacterShilling (for Varian), changing a character for the worse (for Tyrande), and just another in a long line of things the expansion did to villify the orcs, making them look like racist, thick-as-bricks warmongers who fell for obvious traps and attacked a sacred place for no obvious reason.
** Ashran in ''Warlords of Draenor'' is widely disliked due to the poor writing, questionable design, and the fact that it's the only new battleground in the expansion, which lead [=PVPers=] to dislike the expansion as a whole.
** With 7.2, a group of quests to unlock new appearances for the artifact weapons was released. There isn't one for each spec; instead, there are perhaps a dozen such questlines distributed roughly evenly throughout the specs. Yet, while supposedly intended for solo play (sometimes with NPC help), the final battles of these questlines are ''punishingly'' hard for most characters, and seem balanced not for the role but for one particular class spec -- and other classes and specs might find it nigh-impossible. For example, Windwalker monks' use of Paralyze makes one part of the fight simple, but classes that don't have a 60-second stun with a 15-second cooldown have a much harder time. At the other end of the spectrum, on one site's page for the quests, the Fire Mage tips at one point literally consisted of a single entry: "lol". (It has been noted by some players that the questline is called the ''challenge'' quest, but others have noted that these quests were not on the test server and did not benefit from player feedback.)
** Seat of the Triumvirate is considered the most difficult Legion 5-man dungeon, with three out of four bosses qualifying for ThatOneBoss status. Some people immediately destroy the keystones if they get one for Seat.
** While only a city, Dazar'alor earns an impressive amount of hatred due to both its sheer size and layout. Half of the city is a {{Mayincatec}} pyramid with most commodities spread out across the various levels and the only way to ascend is to take winding staircases that take forever to ascend. The other half of the city is so far away that it requires a flight point to reach in a decent amount of time and once again, everything is spread out across different levels. While Boralus is equally large, everything players are likely to use regularly[[note]]Scrapper, profession trainers, flight point, harbormaster, and the ship to Zandalar[[/note]] are all kept close together rather than requiring several minutes of running up and down stairs to get from A to B.
** After many players wanted to see it firsthand for years and how much it was hyped up as the primary draw of 8.2, Nazjatar became universally reviled for its overall unforgiving design compounded with having daily quests that are mostly fetch quests, "kill X amount of monsters" quests, or "kill [elite mob]" quests, being congested with mobs that regularly appear in large packs and have high health compared to mobs in Kul Tiras and Zandalar, having reputations that are mandated for the expansion's second Pathfinder achievement, and just being laggy as hell for the average player. Contrast Mechagon, the other new quest hub introduced in the same patch, which was widely enjoyed because of its simple layout, more variety in quests, and having items that grant players a limited form of flight.
** [[FireAndBrimstoneHell The Maw]] is widely disliked. The approximate consensus is that Blizzard made the [=WoW=] universe's version of Hell [[GoneHorriblyRight a little too authentic]]. Forcing characters to run around on foot in a large zone unless they get rare drop mounts native to the Maw (with the flimsy HandWave that your other mounts are too afraid to go there... [[FridgeLogic even ones like purely mechanical motorbikes and helicopters]]); being unpleasant to look at and not in a cool "You're definitely in Hell" way; forcing players to leave, group up, and come back if they want to tackle the group content; the Eye of the Jailer putting a hard limit on how much you can do in a day; and having little content to do (a few dailies and a few weeklies to grind rep with Ve'nari makes up the bulk of it) anyway all contribute to a lot of players wondering what Blizzard was thinking. 9.1 sought to address some of this by adding a new quest hub in the form of Korthia, the opening questline to which removes the mount limit and Eye of the Jailer and can be skipped after the first time you've done it (though the option to skip requires that character to be level 60, which contains its own problems).

* ScrappyMechanic:
** '''Daze''', a debuff that's present on everything in the game within minimal level range that dismounts and slows you if you're attacked from behind, it can make "Short jaunt through this area" into "Will you stop knocking me off my horse?!" Of the Mount Equipment available for use, it's the Comfortable Rider's Barding created from Leatherworking that's become the only one worth using as a means to ''prevent'' this mechanic from happening in the first place in [=PvE=] environments (without the risk of being superceded like the Light-Step Hoofplates from Crusader's Aura, for example).
** Inventory has been an ongoing problem with {{MMORPG}}s - and this game is no exception. Over your adventure, players will pick up ''loads'' of items that will take up space in your inventory. While you can indeed expand it (and it grows every expansion), it never feels as if you ever have enough space. This is especially true if you bother with crafting and gathering - since these are ''murder'' on your inventory space. (Items such as equipment do not stack)
** ''Daily Quests'' have gained an increasing amount of hatred during the ''Mists of Pandaria'' era. Blizzard dropped the ''Equip Faction Tabard'' mechanic from the previous ''Wrath of the Lich King'' and ''Cataclysm'' expansions where players would gain reputation for specific factions by having their tabards equipped in dungeons and gain reputation whenever enemies or bosses are killed. The reason is because the fanbase found this too easy to reap the end faction rewards so Blizzard dropped the faction tabards entirely in favor of forcing players into completing nothing but daily quests for faction reputation. It's extremely time consuming and fans nowadays are wishing for alternatives to gain reputation, including the return of faction tabards.
*** One of the worst parts of the daily quest grind was the fact that, for a long time, the daily quests for certain factions were ''gated behind'' the daily quests for the Golden Lotus. In other words, it was impossible (or at least, ''virtually'' impossible) to grind rep for, say, the August Celestials until you got at least Revered with the Golden Lotus. Even those players who didn't have a problem with daily quests in general ''did'' have a specific hatred for the Golden Lotus, generally because the Golden Lotus was in the way of the faction they actually ''wanted'' to build reputation with.
** You cast, you wait, you hook, you catch... it's fishing. And it's even more tedious than in real life. It's SO tedious, people will pay other people to do it for them.
*** Blizzard has given us fishing recipes and varied the fish you can catch and made it easier but you still spend hours upon end staring at a bobber because you must actively click on the bobber to catch a fish. A catch takes up to 20 seconds. It lacks the as-you-go ease of skills like First Aid and Skinning, the speed and travel value of something like Herbalism or Mining, the excellent buffs of Cooking, and even the entertaining lore value and XP gain of Archaeology. Plus anybody can do it, so it's not even that profitable in the Auction House. But it has achievements, so you have to do it ''sometime.''
** "(Insert mob name here) attempts to run away in fear!" Presumably this was done as a way of teaching players to use their snaring abilities such as the warrior's Hamstring, but it's quite an annoying mechanic to those who don't yet have access to such abilities.
** Azerite gear and the traits involved is widely disliked for two major reasons. The first is that the effectiveness of any given piece of gear depends on whether any of the traits available are desirable for the player, since while the ability to pick a trait for each tier gives players choice, the need to optimize means there's usually only a few viable traits, which may not be available. The second is that in order to unlock said traits, you need your Heart of Azeroth to be at a certain level, with better pieces of gear having steeper requirements, resulting in you having to grind for Azerite.
** Although the ire tends to be directed towards the players rather than the mechanic, the Armored Vaultbot rare in Mechagon counts. It can be opened in two ways -- either with a key which the players can create, or by kiting it to an electromagnet a not-so-short distance away. It cannot be killed through normal means as it just regenerates health almost instantly. The issue arises with the kiting process, as there tends to be at least one hunter or warlock who's either new to the process or just inattentive enough to leave taunt on their pet, meaning that until they listen to the complaints from everyone else the Vaultbot just stays in one place attacking that pet.
** Titanforging (or Warforging and Thunderforging in previous tiers), which gave gear a slim chance of going up several item levels at random, was widely derided for years by players who felt it invalidated gear progression and had a chance of giving better gear to inattentive players over ones who were more deserving.
** Corrupted gear was introduced as a temporary replacement for Titanforging. Items had a chance of spawning with a Corrupted affix which granted either a passive stat boost or a powerful proc ability. The system was based on risk vs. reward gameplay as the gear also applied Corruption to the player, which caused effects that became increasingly dangerous as the Corruption level rose. The Corruption effects have had a mixed response but the imbalance of certain Corrupted items has resulted in worse. Certain Corrupted items had the potential to increase a player's DPS output by a third or more, which is more than enough for a low ranking DPS to suddenly shoot to top DPS.
*** To help players, there were two ways of countering the corruption: Ashjra'kamas, Shroud of Resolve, a cloak that granted corruption resistance, and Titanic Purification, which removes the corruption entirely but also removes the benefit the corruption gave. However, to access them, the player needs to work through the 8.3 storyline, while corrupted gear started appearing as soon as 8.3 launched, instead of waiting for the point in the story where the player is introduced to the corruption system. Running the storyline once isn't too bad, but for players with lots of alts, that means grinding though the same story for each alt to counter the corruption on items they've been collecting since the patch dropped. For those players, the choice isn't of whether or not to use the corrupted gear, but whether to [[BetterOffSold sell]] or scrap the gear.
** Great Worms from Beyond. They're giant serpents that fly in the skies of Uldum and the Vale of Eternal Blossoms during Assaults and, when flown too close to, inflict a stacking debuff that lowers your flying mount speed until you can't move at all, forcing players to fly low to stay out of their range, and even then they're still fairly difficult to completely avoid. They seem to have been created to force players to be within combat range of other players in War Mode and prevent them from simply [=AFKing=] while flying high enough to avoid being dismounted by another player's Net-o-Matic 5000, the problem being that they're a nuisance for players outside of War Mode, as well.
** Horrific Visions are already a contentious feature, but out of all the Madnesses you can be afflicted with, Leaden Foot gets the most ire. Being slowed down by it during combat can be a death sentence and it contradicts one of the mechanics of Umbric's fight in Stormwind, where you have to walk over to him while dodging ice projectiles. Complaints were bad enough that the severity of the slow was nerfed with the July 14, 2020 reset. The only other Madness that comes close is Split Personality, which was nerfed in the same reset and is hated more for just being obnoxious, but at the very least that one has a very blatant visual cue so you can prepare and react accordingly.
** The Covenant feature has been subject to this as well. While Covenants offer a whole load of cosmetics and game-changing benefits, it has been the subject of anger due to a variety of factors:
*** First, it features classes and different Covenant choices that are ideal. For example, if you play X spec of one class, it's entirely possible that, going from spec to spec, to have a '''entirely different''' Covenant choice as the best one. This leads to a lot of scorn because you are unable to play each of your specs at their maximum potential because what's the best choice for one spec is a bad or only average one for the other. Meanwhile, people who dislike a specific Covenant (or want to pick a different one) may be forced to select it because it's the best performer (woe to any druid who decides to roll any other Covenant than Night Fae, whose active ability (Convoke the Spirits) [[GameBreaker is deemed a must-have]]), with entire specs doing '''upwards of 30% more damage''' in one Covenant compared to others who picked a different Covenant but have the same gear. It has been held as a prime example of ''Shadowlands''' obsession with loads of systems in place backfiring spectacularly. One noticeable aspect of the changes to the talent tree system in ''Dragonflight'' are certain talents that originated from these Covenants being available via the base or specialized talent trees, as a means to remedy this suddenly important choice and its consequences.
*** Second, it causes issues for players aiming at HundredPercentCompletion of cosmetics (pets, mounts, and armor sets) as it forces them to level an alt and play them actively in order to get the cosmetic they are after. And even then, some Covenant cosmetics are locked behind '''even more requisites''' in order to be able to obtain them; the best example has to be Tahonta, [[LongList where the Necrolord in question needs to be level 60, invest 7k anima in upgrading the Abomination Factory to level 2, and then find a very specific construct and build it, then have it with you when you kill the rare]], all to be '''eligible''' for a [[RareDrop very low drop chance]].
*** Third, if you choose the wrong Covenant or just changed your mind, you have to go through a tedious process to switch Covenant that's only possible to do once a week, not to mention '''none of the story campaign, renown or adventurers carry over''', so you have to pretty much start from scratch if you swap Covenants.
** The 9.1 Sanctum of Domination raid introduced Domination Sockets and Gems, mostly intended as a substitute for the widely-requested tier set bonuses. It quickly became apparent that it had the exact same problems as Corruption: gear with Domination Sockets was substantially more valuable than those without it (requiring some specs to ''reforge their Legendary item'' to a different slot to avoid a conflict), the impact of Domination Gems was great enough that players who were lucky to have one drop were immediately more useful than those without, and the Gems could only be upgraded through a grindy process. The subsequent major content patch disabled all Domination Sockets and reintroduced proper tier sets and bonuses.
** The new Dracthyr race in ''Dragonflight'' is widely criticized for having unusual restrictions on transmog. For Dracthyr in their normal draconic form, only the equipped shoulders, belt, and tabard are visible, which makes it difficult to create a unique style. Additionally, while their Visage form does have normal options, it cannot be transmogged separately and risks having ill-fitting items if trying to accommodate for both forms.
** Reaching level 60 unlocks various things such as World Quests, being able to skip story segments if they've been done on a previous character, and is a prerequisite to continuing other story segments. It also renders other elements as PermanentlyMissableContent; Chromie Time, the EXP Eliminator, and being able to queue up for certain non-current dungeons via the group finderas a result of Chromie Time cannot be used on level 60/61 characters, despite story segments from ''Battle for Azeroth'' and ''Shadowlands'' requiring this prerequisite. As a result, it is impossible to use the group finder to get some help on the Spire of Ascension in ''Shadowlands'' despite the Kyrian storyline necessitating a run of the dungeon in its Covenant campaign.
** Fyrakk's assault in the second season of ''Dragonflight'' is a world event that takes place in the Ohn'ahran Plains and Azure Span where players must fight a group of Primalists in a given zone, constantly under fire from the enemy. The big issue is that Fyrakk himself will periodically scorch the entire region in fire, causing massive damage over time to the area he's flying over. Anyone casually trying to do quests in the area are in for a rude awakening. The assault itself doesn't pay much outside of Whelpling Shadowflame Crests, a low-tier upgrade resource that can already be obtained in abundance via other world quests. The result is ThatOneLevel that pays poorly for all the effort needed to complete its missions.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: This game was a pretty big trendsetter amongst [=MMORPGs=], and frankly it shows.
** At the time, it's very hard to appreciate that this game set a ''lot'' of AntiFrustrationFeatures that became commonplace in games today. When you died, you were not at risk of losing your inventory nor did you receive an experience point penalty. These were both ''very'' big things back in 2004, but now most people can't even imagine playing an MMORPG without them. Even games that ''do'' have the player lose items upon death don't make items irreplaceable.
** The game has even had this trope happen with ''itself''. For example, most bosses from Classic and ''Burning Crusade'' feel very simplistic, borderline "tank-and-spank". Mechanics that were previously seen in raids were later implemented in ''five-man dungeons''. And most importantly, the standards for the worlds and dungeons have increased a ''lot'' over the years, making Outland (at the time, cutting edge) now seem disjointed, bare-bones, and monotonous after the increased standards by ''Cataclysm''.
*** To put it into perspective, some people like Wowcrendor mentioned that mechanics from ''Classic'''s Naxxramas of repositioning, by ''Wrath'', became ''five-man'' mechanics. By ''Battle for Azeroth'' (ten years later), a simple quest boss [[GetBackHereBoss requires the player to chase them around the arena]], while repositioning around environmental hazards -- mechanics almost completely unheard of in classic.

** The history of the Dragons hasn't exactly been rosy. The War of the Ancients saw Ysera ForcedToWatch her beloved partner Malorne's brutal, torturous death to Archimonde, Deathwing and his Black Dragonflight betraying the other Dragonflights and slaughtering countless dragons, including all but a small handful of the Blue Dragons, which ended up driving Malygos to insanity and seclusion. The Red Dragonflight goes on to be enslaved by the Old Horde for decades, ''Wrath of the Lich King'' sees Malygos come out of hiding only to go even ''more'' insane and try to forcibly take control of Azeroth's magic in a ritual that could destroy the world, causing the surviving Aspects no small anguish as they're forced to kill him. ''Cataclysm'' not only reveals that Nozdormu is doomed to become twisted into Moruzond and be killed by heroes, but ends with ''all'' dragons in Azeroth being stripped of their immortality ''and'' being rendered sterile. ''Legion'' has [[spoiler:Ysera corrupted by the Nightmare and the heroes forced to kill her, and the Death Knight mount questline can potentially end with the Deathlord slaughtering the last of the Red Dragonflight's eggs, dooming them to extinction]]. ''Dragonflight'' at last throws dragonkind a bone as they return to their homeland, the Dragon Isles, begin to rebuild and repopulate, and at the end, [[spoilers:the Aspects get their powers back]].

** The history of the Dragons hasn't exactly been rosy. The War of the Ancients saw Ysera ForcedToWatch her beloved partner Malorne's brutal, torturous death to Archimonde, Deathwing and his Black Dragonflight betraying the other Dragonflights and slaughtering countless dragons, including all but a small handful of the Blue Dragons, which ended up driving Malygos to insanity and seclusion. The Red Dragonflight goes on to be enslaved by the Old Horde for decades, ''Wrath of the Lich King'' sees Malygos come out of hiding only to go even ''more'' insane and try to forcibly take control of Azeroth's magic in a ritual that could destroy the world, causing the surviving Aspects no small anguish as they're forced to kill him. ''Cataclysm'' not only reveals that Nozdormu is doomed to become twisted into Moruzond and be killed by heroes, but ends with ''all'' dragons in Azeroth being stripped of their immortality ''and'' being rendered sterile. ''Legion'' has [[spoiler:Ysera corrupted by the Nightmare and the heroes forced to kill her, and the Death Knight mount questline can potentially end with the Deathlord slaughtering the last of the Red Dragonflight's eggs, dooming them to extinction]].

** Thrall's love interest Aggra is apparently the [[DieForOurShip target]] of many a RevengeFic from Thrall/Jaina shippers. It gets pretty vicious. Even before Aggra existed, there was already a bit of a ship war between Arthas/Jaina and Thrall/Jaina. It quieted down for bit only to come back roaring in full-force in ''[BFA=]'' where Thrall and Jaina are given a moment together that comes off like ShipTease.

** Thrall's love interest Aggra is apparently the [[DieForOurShip target]] of many a RevengeFic from Thrall/Jaina shippers. It gets pretty vicious. Even before Aggra existed, there was already a bit of a ship war between Arthas/Jaina and Thrall/Jaina.

* AngelDevilShipping: Since ''Battle for Azeroth'' and the two have fully settled into their new roles, it's been a growing trend to ship High King Anduin Wrynn (AllLovingHero blessed by the Light) and Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner ([[EvilIsSexy Attractive but ruthless]] undead) together.

* EvilIsSexy:
** It's unlikely Onyxia would have been gotten away with a thousandth of what she got away with if not for people's assumption that she was the returned King's mistress and previously Bolvar's. In all likelihood, she really was the returned Varian's mistress for the short time she had him [[CharmPerson spellbound]].
*** Though we don't see it firsthand, Lord Daval Prestor (aka human form Deathwing) was said to be quite handsome.
** High Inquisitor Whitemane, Mother Shahraz, Blood Queen Lana'thel, and many others.
** Higher level undead, such as Sylvanas, Arthas, as well as Dark Rangers and Death Knights in general sure maintain... uhm... well-honed bodies.

** The Trolls, Dear god the trolls. Once being a mighty in the lore, they have just constantly lost over and over again. Being humiliated by the Night Elfs, Pandaren, High Elfs, the Humans, the Scourge, and the player characters. They've only won two conflicts in the lore period, against the Aqir, and Bleeding Hollow Clan (the latter conflict so insignificant it was only mentioned in the Chronicle Books). They've also been used in a bunch of raids and dungeons to the point fans joke their will also be a troll raid every expansion.

''(This page concerns the MMORPG. For YMMV tropes applying to the RTS games, click [[YMMV/{{Warcraft}} here.]])''

* FanPreferredCouple:
** For some, Thrall/Jaina. Cue widespread outrage when [[SatelliteLoveInterest Aggra]] was introduced in ''Cataclysm'' just to put an end to it. Not entirely surprising, though as Metzen's deep hatred of this couple is well-known. Later on, the moment that Thrall and Jaina had together after rescuing Baine in ''Battle for Azeroth'' that came off like BelligerentSexualTension ended up bringing back the ship in full force.
** Another example would be [[ToyShip Wrathion/Anduin]]. Even some Blizzard employees ship them to the point that the writer of ''Literature/WarCrimes'' has to confirm that they're just "Good friends". [[spoiler:Blizzard just adds fuel to the fire during ''Legion'' and ''[[Franchise/WarcraftExpandedUniverse Wolfheart]]'' by keeping it ambiguous whether or not the latter got married despite being the King of Stormwind]].
** Jaina/Sylvanas after ''Wrath'', owing to their similarities as characters and shared traumatic experiences.

** Many sets of gear have themes of naming, such as references to the boss's abilities or the boss itself. For example, [[http://wowpedia.org/Flameweaver_Koegler Flameweaver Koegler]], a boss of the revamped Scarlet Halls who is burning books, drops "Bradbury's Entropic Leggings", which is a reference to Creator/RayBradbury, who wrote Literature/Fahrenheit451

** While a DracoInLeatherPants fandom for Warchief Sylvanas is a thing everywhere, it is particularily strong in Russia, where numerous popular YouTubers have made videos in her defense, whether as a plot device (i.e. Sylvanas is an interesting villain) or as a character (i.e Sylvanas is at least somewhat justified in her ruthless actions). It does not help that what is supposed to be a MoralEventHorizon moment for Sylvanas -- bombing her own city so that it would not fall into enemy hands -- is an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_of_Moscow_(1812) integral]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth#World_War_II part]] of Russian defense policy.

** Saurfang is practically the Warcraft universe's Creator/ChuckNorris, having several [[http://www.wowpedia.org/Saurfang_facts Saurfang Facts]] to his name.

** Darius Crowley, an NPC from the Worgen starting zone, is also shaping up to be this. He, too, [[http://www.wowpedia.org/Crowley_facts has his own page of Crowley Facts]].

* {{Woolseyism}}: In the Chinese version, [[http://www.wowpedia.org/File:Lord_Marrowgar.jpg Lord Marrowgar]] gets a [[http://www.wowpedia.org/File:Chinagar.jpg different look]] because bones aren't allowed to be shown in video games there.

* BreatherBoss: Magmorax in the Aberrus raid in ''Dragonflight'' is a substantial difficulty drop compared to previous bosses prior such as Rashok and Zskarn, having comparatively very few mechanics which are all simple to handle. The developers uncharacteristically admitted that Magmorax should have been earlier in the raid to provide a more gradual difficulty curve.

** For some, Thrall/Jaina. Cue widespread outrage when [[SatelliteLoveInterest Aggra]] was introduced just to put an end to it. Not entirely surprising, though; Metzen's deep hatred of this couple is well-known.

** Jaina Proudmoore. After everything she suffered in Warcraft III, things have still been going badly for her (especially after the bombing of Theramore). After Mists of Pandaria, despite seemingly toning down her hatred in ''Literature/WarCrimes'', the writers always find a way to make Jaina [[TookALevelInJerkass take levels in jerkass]] and stick to hating the Horde as if the events of the novel never happened, such as being obstructive to the Horde during ''Warlords of Draenor'' and having Khadgar replace her as head of Dalaran because he decreed Dalaran to be a neutral hub and she refused to accept any of the Horde in "her" Dalaran. It kind of felt like someone in the writing team feels like [[TrueArtIsAngsty the peaceful but strong-willed Jaina is a pussy and the angry war hawk Jaina is wonderful]] while the fandom might not generally agree. Things continue this way in ''Battle for Azeroth'', with Jaina still staying off the Kirin Tor's Council of Six, keeping her distance from her boyfriend Kalecgos and being blamed for her father's death. Then when she finally met her mother face-to-face after many years, Katherine [[OffingTheOffspring sentenced Jaina to death]] (at [[FalseFriend Lady Ashvane's]] insistence) and declared [[IHaveNoSon Jaina to be "no daughter of (hers)"]]. '''Ouch.'''

** Fyrakk's assault in the second season of ''Dragonflight'' is a world event that takes place in the Ohn'ahran Plains and Azure Span where players must fight a group of Primalists in a given zone, constantly under fire from the enemy. The big issue is that Fyrakk himself will periodically scorch the entire region in fire, causing massive damage over time to the area he's flying over. Anyone casually trying to do quests in the area are in for a rude awakening. The assault itself doesn't may much outside of Whelpling Shadowflame Crests, a low-tier upgrade resource that can already be obtained in abundance via other world quests. The result is ThatOneLevel that pays poorly for all the effort needed to complete its missions.

*** First, it pushes TierInducedScrappy, with classes and different Covenant choices that are ideal. For example, if you play X spec of one class, it's entirely possible that, going from spec to spec, to have a '''entirely different''' Covenant choice as the best one. This leads to a lot of scorn because you are unable to play each of your specs at their maximum potential because what's the best choice for one spec is a bad or only average one for the other. Meanwhile, people who dislike a specific Covenant (or want to pick a different one) may be forced to select it because it's the best performer (woe to any druid who decides to roll any other Covenant than Night Fae, whose active ability (Convoke the Spirits) [[GameBreaker is deemed a must-have]]), with entire specs doing '''upwards of 30% more damage''' in one Covenant compared to others who picked a different Covenant but have the same gear. It has been held as a prime example of ''Shadowlands''' obsession with loads of systems in place backfiring spectacularly. One noticeable aspect of the changes to the talent tree system in ''Dragonflight'' are certain talents that originated from these Covenants being available via the base or specialized talent trees, as a means to remedy this suddenly important choice and its consequences.

** ''Wrath of the Lich King'' is not only considered by many to be the game's best expansion, but the moment where it met the peak of it's history.[[note]]As evident by the fact that the expansion's run had the highest number of subscribed players at 12 Million.[[/note]] Thanks to its improvements to the game design, coherent zone and art design, Introducing a well received [[TierInducedScrappy (if then overpowered)]] class in the form of the 'Death Knight', acclaimed raids and dungeons, and an engaging plot that manages to satisfyingly wrap up one of the series most popular [[VideoGame/WarcraftIII storylines.]] Its popularity was a likely factor in why the game's next expansion ''Cataclysm'' in comparison was met with a great amount of criticism, especially when it came to the [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks changes to the world design]] and a generally weaker received story [[note]] Some common criticisms, Thrall being replaced by the then ill-received [[ReplacementScrappy Garrosh]] as Horde Warchief (as well as Thrall himself taking center stage to [[SpotlightStealingSquad most characters),]] The BigBad Deathwing, for most players felt like He came [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere from nowhere,]] and a greater sense of attention being given to The Horde over The Alliance.[[/note]] Even the expansion's main villain Deathwing, while liked well enough on his own, is considered to be a weaker character than the titular Lich King, Arthas. The same arguably extents to the later expansions as well, since even before their individual releases, A common question is or was "How does it compare to ''Wrath''."

* AccidentalNightmareFuel: An [[GameBreakingBug unfortunate bug]] happened on 9.0 prepatch release week, and as a result of new improvements and features added to the barber shop, a player can end up looking completely like this with the game mixing and mistaking textures. Examples includes [[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/jaq43m/if_you_change_your_gender_and_cast_mirror_images/ transgender-looking mirror images]], [[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/jap9j0/something_aint_right_here/ bizarre races mixtures]] and [[https://imgur.com/a/tF5bL4G a creepy elf]].

** '''Daze''', a debuff that's present on everything in the game within minimal level range that dismounts and slows you if you're attacked from behind, it can make "Short jaunt through this area" into "Will you stop knocking me off my horse?!"