| 1 | [[WMG:[[center:[-''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' '''[[Characters/{{Warcraft}} Main Character Index]]'''\ |
| 2 | [[Characters/WarcraftPlayerCharacters Adventurers]]\ |
| 3 | '''[[Characters/WarcraftTheAlliance The Alliance]]:''' [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceStormwind Stormwind (Humans)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceLordaeron Lordaeron (Humans)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceGilneas Gilneas (Humans/Worgen)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceKulTiras Kul Tiras (Humans)]] [[Characters/WarcraftJainaProudmoore (Jaina Proudmoore)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceHumanKingdoms Other Human Kingdoms]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceIronforge Ironforge (Dwarven Clans)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceGnomeregan Gnomeregan (Gnomes)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceQuelThalas Quel'Thalas/Telogrus Rift (High Elves and Void Elves)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceDarnassus Darnassus (Night Elves)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceExodar The Exodar (Draenei)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceVindicaar Vindicaar (Lightforged Draenei)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceMechagon Mechagon (Mechagnomes)]]\ |
| 4 | '''[[Characters/WarcraftTheHorde The Horde]]:''' [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeOrgrimmar Orgrimmar (Orcs)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeDarkspearTribe The Darkspear Tribe (Trolls)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeThunderBluff Thunder Bluff (Tauren)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeTheForsaken The Forsaken (Undead)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeQuelThalas Quel'Thalas (Blood Elves)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeBilgewaterCartel Bilgewater Cartel (Goblins)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeHighmountain Thunder Totem (Highmountain Tauren)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeSuramar Suramar (Nightborne)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeZandalariEmpire Zandalari Empire (Zandalar Trolls)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeVoldunai Voldunai (Vulpera)]] - [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeOther Other (non-playable races)]]\ |
| 5 | '''Other factions:''' [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeOldHorde The Old Horde/Iron Horde]] | [[Characters/WarcraftTheScourge The Scourge]] [[Characters/WarcraftArthasMenethil (Arthas Menethil)]] | [[Characters/WarcraftSylvanasAndFollowers Sylvanas and her followers]] [[Characters/WarcraftSylvanasWindrunner (Sylvanas Windrunner)]] | [[Characters/WarcraftKnightsOfTheEbonBlade Knights of the Ebon Blade]] | [[Characters/WarcraftIllidanAndFollowers Illidan and his followers]] | [[Characters/WarcraftTheHordeGarroshsHorde Garrosh's Horde]] | [[Characters/WarcraftPandaria Pandaria]] | [[Characters/WarcraftOthers Other mortals]] | [[Characters/WarcraftTheOldGods The Void (The Old Gods)]] | [[Characters/WarcraftTheLight The Light]] | [[Characters/WarcraftEternals Eternals]] | [[Characters/WarcraftShadowlands Shadowlands (Death)]] | [[Characters/WarcraftTitans The Titans (Arcane)]] | [[Characters/WarcraftTheBurningLegion The Burning Legion (Fel)]] | [[Characters/WarcraftTheDragonflights The Dragonflights]] | [[Characters/WarcraftWildGods Wild Gods]] | \ |
| 6 | '''Individual media''': ''[[Characters/WarcraftIAndIIUnits Warcraft I And II]]'' [[Characters/WarcraftIAndIIUnits Units]] | ''[[Characters/Warcraft3Units Warcraft III]]'' [[Characters/Warcraft3Units Units]] | '''''Warcraft III'' Heroes''' | [[Characters/WarCraft2016 Film characters]] | ''[[Characters/HearthstoneHeroesOfWarcraft Hearthstone]]'' [[Characters/HearthstoneHeroesOfWarcraft characters]] | ''[[Characters/HeroesOfTheStormWarcraftUniverse Warcraft]]'' [[Characters/HeroesOfTheStormWarcraftUniverse characters in]] ''[[Characters/HeroesOfTheStormWarcraftUniverse Heroes of the Storm]]'' ([[Characters/HeroesOfTheStormWarcraftAssassins Assassins]] - [[Characters/HeroesOfTheStormWarcraftWarriors Warriors]] - [[Characters/HeroesOfTheStormWarcraftSupport Support]])-]]]]] |
| 7 | |
| 8 | In ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'', Heroes are the main leaders of the armies and have their own abilities, personalities, and voice lines. Unlike in ''Warcraft II'', they are not simply upgraded versions of regular units. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | In ''Reign of Chaos'', each race has 3 heroes, with a 4th added in ''The Frozen Throne''; they are summoned by a special Altar building[[note]]Altar of Kings for humans; Altar of Elders for night elves; Altar of Storms for orcs; and Altar of Darkness for undead[[/note]]. Additionally, ''Frozen Throne'' introduced a number of neutral heroes that can be hired from Mercenary Camps. The first hero costs nothing other than food; subsequent heroes can be summoned once the player's main Town Hall building is upgraded a second and third time, but will cost considerable resources. Heroes are classified as Cunning heroes (main stat is Agility), Warrior heroes (main stat is Strength), or Mystical heroes (main stat is Intelligence). |
| 11 | |
| 12 | The heroes' game design (stats, levelling, inventory) was borrowed from ''VideoGame/Diablo1997'' 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]] |
| 13 | ---- |
| 14 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 15 | |
| 16 | [[folder:Heroes in General]] |
| 17 | * AntiHoarding: Heroes can only carry 6 items. Multiple consumables (potions, scrolls) take up multiple item slots as well (while having a shared cooldown). ''Reforged'' allowed the items to stack in the campaigns but kept the feature for multi-player for balance reasons. |
| 18 | * ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Even after ''The Frozen Throne'' added a fourth hero for every side and neutral heroes that anyone can hire, each player remains limited to three heroes in a multiplayer game. |
| 19 | * ArmorPiercingAttack: Heroes that have purely offensive ultimate spells almost always bypass spell immunity [[note]]Bladestorm, Earthquake, Starfall, Death and Decay, Inferno, Tornado, Charm, Transmute, Doom, and Stampede, though Volcano does not[[/note]]. Spell Immune units will not be protected from being damaged or affected by these spells. |
| 20 | * BalancePowerSkillGimmick: All factions have this type of approach to the hero selection in ''The Frozen Throne''. The 3 heroes for all races in ''Reign of Chaos'' already leaned towards a flexible caster (Balance), a frontline warrior (Power), and a fragile but potentially very powerful usually-Intelligence hero (Skill). When the expansion came about, the 4th hero as a result was much more outside-the-box in design. This is with the exception of Undead, whose new hero fit into one of the existing roles much better. More details and explanations are in each of their race sections below. |
| 21 | * BoringButPractical: Unlocking an ultimate spell can be a major boon, but sometimes, maxing out two of a hero's spells can be just a useful if not more so. Some heroes like the Death Knight work well this way as their two key spells are very potent. The Lich can be effective this way too by maxing out Frost Nova for maximum snare time and damage or Dark Ritual to maximize Mana recovery for said Frost Novas. |
| 22 | * BrainsEvilBrawnGood: On average, intelligence heroes (or more accurately, caster heroes) in each faction tend to be more unpleasant and ruder than strength heroes, who tend to be more outwardly heroic. |
| 23 | ** Compare the [[GrumpyOldMan Archmage]] or [[TranquilFury Blood Mage]] to the [[BoisterousBruiser Mountain King]] for example in the humans. This is also very visible with the Undead heroes where the Liches and Dreadlords (actually strength-intellect hybrids) are heinous and monstrous, while the Crypt Lord is almost a PunchClockVillain in comparison. Additionally, the BigBad of ''Reign of Chaos'' is also an intelligence hero. Notable aversions are the [[OldMaster Orc Far Seers]] who are noble spiritual leaders, and the strength-favored [[AristocratsAreEvil Death Knights]] who enjoy wanton cruelty to the living. |
| 24 | ** Agility fighters tend to be [[AntiHero anti heroes]]. This is visible with Night Elf Demon Hunters only using the dark arts to fight existential threats like the Burning Legion, and the Wardens who do much dirty work for the Sentinels as jailers, assassins, and bounty hunters. The Orc Blademasters deliver brutal attacks with Wind Walk backstabs and critical strikes that can severely wound targets, but are still honorable fighters serving the new horde. The Dark Rangers are a tragic case, as they're former archers of Quel'thalas who are primarily upset over being forcibly raised as Banshees (originally) to serve the Scourge, and mainly lash out at targets in grief over their predicament. |
| 25 | * ContractualBossImmunity: Spells deal less damage to heroes (they only take 70% 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. |
| 26 | * ContinuingIsPainful: Heroes can be revived after they are killed in the melee game and in campaign missions with bases. However, reviving takes a long time and requires a lot of money depending on their level. Many melee games can become flat-out hopeless if you lose one or multiple heroes in a fight. You can revive heroes instantly at double gold cost at the tavern, but [[ResurrectionSickness they will start at half health and no-mana]]. Averted in ''The Founding of Durotar'', where Rexxar and his companions will be revived at full health at the last resurrection stone they approached only a few seconds after they die. |
| 27 | * DiminishingReturnsForBalance: In most if not all cases, an item that grants a passive ability that replicates a similar hero ability does not stack with duplicate items or the hero's own version of that ability. The strongest version of that effect will take effect. Any duplicates can be passed on to your other heroes, however. For example, the Demon Hunter can not simultaneously benefit from a Talisman of Evasion and the Evasion talent; however, if the Demon Hunter didn't place points into Evasion, the Talisman can be used as a weaker substitute to level 2 Evasion. |
| 28 | * DuelingPlayerCharacters: Various campaign characters you play as often become opponents in a later campaign. ''The Frozen Throne'' exaggerates this with Illidan Stormrage, who is an enemy for most of the first campaign, playable at the end of it, playable again near the end of the second campaign, and becomes the last opponent of the third campaign. |
| 29 | * DumpStat: Heroes have a stat that is optimal to stack, sometimes one that isn't a "primary" attribute. For instance, many strength heroes have trouble in the mana department and can benefit from regeneration and capacity as a priority while relying upon their baseline strength growth for survival. The Death Knight is a solid example as their basic attack is much less efficient than spending mana on Death Coil since it heals fellow undead or harms living opponents. Death Knights are also not typically risked as a tanking hero so there's even less incentive to stack strength or health items. |
| 30 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Heroes have their own special attack type, which causes them to deal full damage to all armor types except Fortified and Divine, but that wasn't always the case. It was patched into ''Reign of Chaos'', but originally (and still in the ''Reign of Chaos'' campaigns), all heroes (minus the few that had the Chaos attack type) had the Normal attack type. This is the same as most melee units (like Footmen and Grunts) and was effective against ranged units (like Archers and Riflemen). This meant it fit (both thematically and in balance terms) with melee heroes, like Paladins and Blademasters. However, it was out of place on ranged heroes such as the Lich and Priestess of the Moon, whose attacks dealt massive damage to ranged units without having to get close to them. Since heroes already had their own special armor type, it was a logical choice to give them their own attack type too. |
| 31 | * ExperiencePenalty: In ''The Frozen Throne'', creeps stop giving experience to heroes after they are level 5 (in melee games). This means that your hero will not be able to learn their ultimate ability without engaging in combat with the enemy army. This was not the case in ''Reign of Chaos'' where you could creep to level 10 if you wanted to. |
| 32 | * FighterMageThief: Warrior, Mystical, and Cunning heroes. They are heroes with the primary attribute Strength, Intelligence, and Agility respectively. Most heroes conform to these role archetypes pretty closely, unless they are a MechanicallyUnusualClass. Only the Orcish Horde has all 3 types available by default. Humans and Undead don't have Cunning Heroes, Night Elves don't have Warrior heroes. Neutral heroes come in all types. Factions with deficiencies can cover this lack of flexibility with the right neutral hero. |
| 33 | * FlunkyBoss: If there is an enemy hero in the campaign, there tends to be other additional aid. After all, they are the leaders of armies. The two times where it appears to be {{Subverted|Trope}} it is actually Double Subverted. |
| 34 | ** The Blademaster of the Blackrock Clan is fought alone without any mooks. But one of his abilities create Mirror Images, which can take damage, but cannot deal any, effectively acting as additional meat shields for the real Blademaster. |
| 35 | ** The Dreadlord, Balnazzar, exclusively attacks your bases alone. But he will summon multiple [[EliteMook Infernals]] once he is engaged in combat, so he essentially creates a force as strong as an entire army on his own. |
| 36 | * FragileSpeedster: A huge majority of SquishyWizard heroes are riding mounts and have higher movement speed than default, balancing their frailty a little bit. |
| 37 | * FrontlineGeneral: Most strength heroes and some agility heroes like the Demon Hunter lead their army from the frontlines and are capable or well suited for absorbing damage. |
| 38 | * HeroMustSurvive: In any BaselessMission, this is always a condition. |
| 39 | * HeroUnit: Which grants them perks like ContractualBossImmunity and limitations like only one iteration of a hero being allowed for recruitment per player and a maximum of three heroes recruited. However, there are ways around these limitations such as an ally leaving a game and thus granting you control of their army. |
| 40 | * LargeAndInCharge: Hero units are usually bigger than most units in a techtree. It helps visually distinguish them from their soldiers. Some heroes like the Tauren Chieftain, Crypt Lord, and Pit Lord are even bigger than the other heroes. |
| 41 | * TheLawOfPowerProportionateToEffort: Many heroes have channeling spells as their ultimates (or in some cases like the Archmage, as a normal spell). They are very powerful, but need the hero to stand still uninterrupted to maintain it. |
| 42 | * MookCommander: Any hero with an aura is one of these by default. |
| 43 | * NoBodyLeftBehind: When Heroes die, their bodies fade away, rather than rotting. Their corpses cannot be raised for spells that use it. Justified by gameplay mechanics, as unlike regular units, heroes can be revived at an Altar or Tavern, no worse for wear compared to when they were killed. |
| 44 | ** The living (not Undead) heroes ascend upwards while fading away, like a less cartoonish version of WingedSoulFliesOffAtDeath. |
| 45 | ** Undead heroes are a bit different. The Lich and Dreadlord implode and explode respectively while the Death Knight and Crypt Lord fade away without ascending. Instead of flying upwards, the undead has a special "dissipate" effect, where spirits and a ghostly skull ascend instead. This could possibly indicate their release from undeath, or signify them going to hell rather that ascending to heaven. |
| 46 | ** Hero models do not have decaying animations because of this mechanic. If their model was given to a unit in the editor, they would not rot like most units. The only exception is the Pit Lord, [[DevelopersForesight because a Unit-version of a Pit Lord]] appears in a mission in the Night Elf campaign in ''The Frozen Throne''. |
| 47 | * OneSteveLimit: This rarely if ever comes up in melee games, but if there are more heroes than there are names for them, the game will just add a number to the existing name (Samuro III, Destromath II). |
| 48 | * PowerGlows: Each hero's model visibly glows along with their weapons, which helps visually distinguish them from the normal units. |
| 49 | * RankScalesWithAsskicking: Heroes fill the role of generals and are usually as strong as a Tier 3 unit when they start at level 1, though they eventually become much stronger as they level up and gain items. |
| 50 | * SignatureMove: All melee-game heroes have unique skillsets, but for most of the heroes it's the first ability that is the flashiest (e.g Holy Light, Chain Lightning, Frost Nova) and most often maxed out. The second and third abilities, while often viable to max out or take early, tend to be less flashy. Some heroes who have more boring skillsets like Priestess of the Moon are more closely associated with their ultimates instead. |
| 51 | * SimpleYetAwesome: Single hero strategies are not quite as flashy as using multiple heroes, but they'll level up faster on their own and thus reach their ultimate spell as quickly as possbile. For heroes that receive a major power spike from their ulitmate, this strategy can be the way to go. |
| 52 | * SpeedSmartsAndStrength: This is represented by the Agility, Intelligence, and [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Strength]] attributes in the game. Strength points increase health and health regeneration. Agility points increase armor and attack speed. Intelligence points increase mana and mana regeneration. |
| 53 | * SpellBlade: At tier 3, each faction's shop allows heroes to purchase a magical Orb that empowers their attack with increased damage and an added effect. Melee heroes also gain the ability to attack air units. |
| 54 | ** Humans have the [[PlayingWithFire Orb of Fire]], which (depending on the version) either allows the hero's attacks to deal splash damage or [[AntiRegeneration reduce the healing and health regeneration received by the target]]. |
| 55 | ** Orcs get the [[ShockAndAwe Orb of Lightning]], which gives the user's attacks a chance to cast Purge on the target, greatly slowing it and [[StatusBuffDispel removing all buffs from it]]. |
| 56 | ** The Undead use the Orb of Corruption, which [[DamageIncreasingDebuff reduces the target's armor]]. |
| 57 | ** The Night Elves get access to the [[PoisonousPerson Orb of Venom]], which slows the attack target and deals minor damage over time. |
| 58 | ** Two more Orbs exist, but cannot be purchased and can only be dropped by neutral creeps on certain maps: the [[BlackMagic Orb of Darkness]] causes the hero's attack to place the Black Arrows effect on victims, causing them to spawn skeletons on death, while the [[AnIcePerson Orb of Frost]] allows the holder's attacks to inflict a heavy slow. The ''Founding of Durotar'' campaign also has an Orb of Slow that gives the holder's attacks a chance to cast the Sorceress's Slow on targets. |
| 59 | * SupportPower: Blurring the line between special abilities and this trope, some heroes essentially let you interface with supporting abilities. Abilities like a DefogOfWar work especially like this due to the range being essentially unlimited. |
| 60 | * ThreeStatSystem: Strength, which determines max health and HP regeneration; Agility, which determines armor and attack speed; and Intelligence, which determines max mana and mana regeneration. |
| 61 | * UniquenessRule: In skirmish games, each player is limited to one hero of any type. |
| 62 | * YouHaveResearchedBreathing: Heroes have backstory about their exploits and why they're legendary in the story, but for gameplay balance, they all start at level 1, and only start with a single level 1 spell, available to be unlocked. |
| 63 | [[/folder]] |
| 64 | |
| 65 | !!Human Heroes |
| 66 | [[folder:Human Heroes in General]] |
| 67 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/humans_groupphoto2_8.jpg]] |
| 68 | [[caption-width-right:250:Left to right: Mountain King, Archmage, Paladin, Blood Mage]] |
| 69 | ---- |
| 70 | * AntiRegeneration: Patch 1.31 modified the Orb of Fire item to reduce healing and regeneration by 35%. This gives it a good niche against the Undead to counter their HealingFactor mechanics and Death Coil's healing component when focusing on key targets. |
| 71 | * BalancePowerSkillGimmick: Paladin, Mountain King, Archmage, and Blood Mage. |
| 72 | ** Paladin is a semi supportive semi-tank healer StoneWall with some offensive capabilities against Undead opponents, Mountain King is a powerful frontline warrior who can deal and take a lot of damage, Archmage is a backline SquishyWizard with a flexible and supportive skillset, and the Blood Mage is completely focused on dealing massive magical spell damage and maintaining the mana to keep doing it. |
| 73 | * ElementalPowers: The heroes have different elemental powers in their abilities. [[MakingASplash Water]] and [[AnIcePerson Ice]] for the Archmage, [[PlayingWithFire Fire]] for the Blood Mage, [[ShockAndAwe Lightning and Thunder]] for the Mountain King, and [[LightEmUp Light]] for the Paladin. |
| 74 | * HerdHittingAttack: All of the heroes except the Paladin have spells that can do this. However, the Archmage and Blood Mage risk friendly fire, so its not uncommon to build a lot of Spell Breakers (who are immune to magic) to not have to worry about this. |
| 75 | * JackOfAllTrades: The Human Alliance heroes generally are more flexible than the heroes of the other factions, who tend to be more specialized and only have one flexible hero. They fill a variety of roles with tanking, healing-and-protection, harassment, nuking down targets, and more. Blood Magi can offer a degree of economic harassment with their Flame Strike spell and can steal enemy mana to sustain the effort, but they lack the defensive powers of the Blademaster and Demon Hunter who are also used in a similar role of harassment and mana-burning respectively. Mountain Kings offer valuable snares and stuns and a powerful nuke spell with its own stun, and their Avatar ultimate turns them into a formidable spell-immune tank, but their tanking prowess isn't on the same tier as an Undead Crypt Lord and they don't have the raw health potential of a Tauren Chieftain with Reincarnation. Paladins offers survival support for the Alliance with Holy Light and Devotion Aura, but they're not as ubiquitous as the Undead Death Knight due to their offense being limited to casting [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman Holy Light on the Undead]]. The Archmagi are perhaps a shining example of a jack of all trades caster, with a reasonably durable summon who can attack air units, area damage support like the Blood Mage (but it needs channeling), an aura that simply lets heroes and casters recover mana faster (very valuable in team games), and the Mass Teleport ultimate that is equally invaluable for both defensive and offensive use and has a generously short cooldown. |
| 76 | * MechanicalAnimals: Mechanical Critters, which are unique to the human Arcane Vault, serve as very slow spies in the early game. They are also used to block neutral creeps, since they do not draw aggro. Players often stand at a choke point and trick the neutral creeps into trying to attack them but are unable to reach because a mechanical critter is in the way. |
| 77 | * ATasteOfTheirOwnMedicine: Human players pose a major threat to Undead opponents as Paladins can damage all of their biological units with Holy Light. Human players can even exceed the Undead heroes' abilty to nuke down targets with nukes of their own: A Blood Mage may banish an Undead, boosting the magical damage they take by 66% and a Mountain King and Paladin may cast Storm Bolt and Holy Light respectively for a devastating combo. |
| 78 | * TeleportationRescue: Staff of Sanctuary allows any human player to save any unit they have, teleporting back to the highest tier town hall, disabling and healing it over time. This allows them to keep high value units alive and ready to redeploy. |
| 79 | * WolfpackBoss: A few times in ''The Founding of Durotar'', multiple human heroes form a boss encounter. The most infamous of these is in Act II on the Theramore Island submap, against a Level 14 Mountain King and Level 12 Archmage and Paladin. |
| 80 | [[/folder]] |
| 81 | |
| 82 | [[folder:Archmage]] |
| 83 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/archmage.gif]] |
| 84 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"This had better be worth it!"'']] |
| 85 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 86 | '''Abilities:''' Blizzard, Summon Water Elemental, Brilliance Aura, Mass Teleport (Ultimate)\ |
| 87 | '''Possible names:''' Tenn Flamecaster, Nilas Arcanister, Andromath, Shal Lightbinder, Aran Spellweaver, Manath Magesinger, Landazar, Doril Magefont, Peril Spellbinder, Conjurus Rex, Fordred Aran, Dalar Dawnweaver, Kelen the Seeker\ |
| 88 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Jaina Proudmoore\ |
| 89 | '''NPC Campaign character:''' Antonidas\ |
| 90 | \ |
| 91 | |
| 92 | Archmages hail from the [[TheMagocracy magical kingdom of Dalaran]], and use their magical powers to defend humanity from all external threats. Mounted on horseback, they can move quickly. They can bolster their armies with hulking Water Elementals, rain terror down upon their foes with Blizzard, and support allied spellcasters and heroes with Brilliance Aura. Their ultimate ability, Mass Teleport, allows them to quickly teleport large numbers of troops to friendly units or buildings, providing for a quick retreat or rendering aid to allies under attack. |
| 93 | ---- |
| 94 | * AnchoredTeleportation: Mass Teleport requires one friendly ground unit or building to serve as an anchor for the Archmage and nearby units to teleport to. |
| 95 | * BoringButPractical: Mass Teleport is one of few ultimate abilities with no direct offensive use or boost, but it can be devastatingly effective when used properly, as it allows two full control groups (24 units) plus the Archmage himself to be teleported to ''any'' friendly unit or building, giving his army unparalleled mobility to siege, intercept, or flee from enemy forces. |
| 96 | * CompositeCharacter: Archmagi are seniors like the ''Warcraft I'' Conjurers and may similarly specialize in summoning Water Elementals, but may also specialize in calling down dangerous Blizzards like the Magi of ''Warcraft II'', and hurl fireballs as a basic attack instead of a spell that requires mana. |
| 97 | * CrutchCharacter: Like the Far Seer below, the Archmage is at his most useful in early game, which is why he's often picked as the first hero; Blizzard is excellent for killing cluster of weak units or workers, while Water Elemental can tip early battles where there are few units. However, as the match progresses, armies become much bigger and weak units are replaced with stronger ones, reducing the usefulness of those two spells, so he can only contribute by increasing the mana regeneration of casters and other heroes through Brilliance Aura and moving armies around with Mass Teleport, needing other heroes to carry the battle. |
| 98 | * DecompositeCharacter: Archmagi do not have Slow, Invisibility, or Polymorph like their ''Warcraft II'' iterations. Sorceresses have these abilities instead. |
| 99 | * FragileSpeedster: They aren't very durable, but their horses mean they can move quickly and maneuver easily. And if he learns Mass Teleport and the foe can't interrupt it, [[SoLongSuckers he can just teleport to safety right before the enemy's eyes]]. |
| 100 | * GrumpyOldMan: Known for being gruff and impatient. |
| 101 | -->'''Archmage:''' Whatever. |
| 102 | * GuestStarPartyMember: Despite being one of the most common enemy heroes, the player only gets to play as an Archmage (Jaina) in two missions early on in the Human Campaign of ''Reign of Chaos''. She returns in ''The Frozen Throne'' for a brief segment near the beginning of Act II of ''The Founding of Durotar'', but quickly leaves the party again. |
| 103 | * AnIcePerson: Their Blizzard spell calls down a rain of ice. |
| 104 | * MakingASplash: They can summon Water Elementals. |
| 105 | * MagicStaff: The Archmage carries a staff which he uses to cast his spells. |
| 106 | * MassTeleportation: Their ultimate spell, Mass Teleport, which allows him to teleport himself and up to 23 friendly units to another friendly ground unit or building. |
| 107 | * MovesetClone: The Archmages are subjected to this a few times with imitators. |
| 108 | ** In ''The Founding of Durotar'', Admiral Proudmoore has a strong Archmage as one of his lieutenants, called "Chief of Chaplains". He has the same skills as a normal Archmage, except he also has a stronger version of the Demon Hunter's ManaBurn. |
| 109 | ** In the mission "The Dungeons of Dalaran", four Ghostly Archmages occupy the dungeon, but they have the same abilities as when they were alive, and the only difference is that they are classified as Undead. |
| 110 | * OddNameOut: Kelen the Seeker. All other Archmage names are their names without titles, though oddly Landazar and Andromath also both have [[NoFullNameGiven no last name]]. |
| 111 | * OurGhostsAreDifferent: Four ghost archmages that were killed by Arthas show up in "The Dungeons of Dalaran", unable to find peace in death. They have the same skills as when they were alive, and summon some still-very-corporeal water elementals. |
| 112 | * PlayingWithFire: Their regular attack is a fireball cast from their staff. |
| 113 | * RedOniBlueOni: The blue to the Blood Mage's red; the Archmage's focus on ice and water magic and their general apathetic disposition contrast with the Blood Mage's focus on fire spells and their burning desire for revenge. |
| 114 | * SimpleYetAwesome: As described under HeartIsAnAwesomePower above, Mass Teleport may not be as flashy as summoning a super unit to fight by your side, or channeling a super spell for massive damage, but the spell enables incredible mobility for your army. |
| 115 | * SquishyWizard: Doesn't have much health or armor and goes down fairly easily when focused. Their abilities help offset the weakness, though. |
| 116 | * SummonMagic: Summoning Water Elementals. They are reasonably strong ranged units. |
| 117 | * SupportPartyMember: Aside from Blizzard and Water Elementals, the Archmage doesn't personally contribute much in the way of damage nor can he stand in the front line and absorb damage. That being said, he has two amazing support abilities in Brilliance Aura and Mass Teleport to keep his army supplied with mana and on the move, and can spit out said Water Elementals to contribute damage and serve as meat shields. Blizzard comes into play the most in team matches, where allies can help divert attention so the Archmage can't be stunned, and it's more difficult to dodge the ice storms due to larger formations of armies. |
| 118 | * UndergroundMonkey: In the fifth Undead mission in ''Reforged'', "The Fall of Silvermoon", there are four Archmages that use a unique model, with a High Elven rider. |
| 119 | * {{Unicorn}}: The manual mentions unicorns as Archmages' mounts, though in the game itself they ride normal horses. |
| 120 | * WizardBeard: As the archetypical wizard of the Warcraft setting, the Archmage fittingly has a long white beard extending down his chest. |
| 121 | |
| 122 | [[/folder]] |
| 123 | |
| 124 | [[folder:Mountain King]] |
| 125 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mountainking.gif]] |
| 126 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"All right, who wants some?!"'']] |
| 127 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 128 | '''Abilities:''' Storm Bolt, Thunder Clap, Bash, Avatar (Ultimate)\ |
| 129 | '''Possible names:''' Bor Stonebreaker, Munin Ironcliff, Thorgas Broadaxe, Kelv Sternhammer, Grim Thunderbrew, Buri Frostbeard, Huginn Ironcliff, Thordin Rockbeard, Bandis Forgefire, Gar Doomforge, Beazel Bludstone, Modi Stonesmith, Aggronor the Mighty\ |
| 130 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Muradin Bronzebeard\ |
| 131 | '''NPC Campaign character:''' Baelgun Flamebeard\ |
| 132 | \ |
| 133 | |
| 134 | The mighty dwarven Mountain Kings (or Thanes) of Khaz Modan defend their mountain kingdom with ferocity and courage. Wielding enchanted hammers and axes, they safeguard the Alliance that saved Khaz Modan during the Second War against the merciless Horde, and are now sworn to its protection. They can stun enemies from afar with Storm Bolt, deal damage and slow foes around them with Thunder Clap, and deal extra damage and stun (noticing a theme?) with their passive bonus Bash. Their ultimate ability, Avatar, transforms them into a juggernaut colossus that deals bonus damage, and is tough to take down due to gaining additional health and armor, and also becoming immune to spells. |
| 135 | ---- |
| 136 | * AntiInfantry: The Mountain King with levels in Thunder Clap is one of the most effective anti ZergRush tools, due to Thunder Clap's area of effect, high damage, low cooldown, and powerful slow. |
| 137 | * AntiMagic: Avatar makes him immune to spells and magical damage from casters and heavy air units, which allows him to avoid the most dangerous threats to almost all heroes. |
| 138 | * BattleCry: When using Avatar, the game plays an audio clip that screams "For Khaz Modan!". |
| 139 | * BoisterousBruiser: Very much so. He yells most of his lines, with several of them telling people to move out of his way. |
| 140 | * BloodKnight: According to the official description, Mountain Kings "live only for battle," and his quotes seem to match that. |
| 141 | --->'''Mountain King:''' Wait till ye see me in action! |
| 142 | * CoolHelmet: The Mountain King wears an impressive helm with curved horns, iconic enough to be part of the Dwarf heritage armor in VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft. |
| 143 | * CrowdControl: All their normal abilities lean toward this. Storm Bolt does a big hit of damage and stuns, Bash gives them a passive chance to stun, and Thunder Clap deals area of effect damage and slows all enemies hit. |
| 144 | * DiscOneNuke: Storm Bolt is, hands down, the strongest single-target disable and nuke available in multiplayer, and it's usable right from level 1. The reliable stun makes it phenomenal for locking down enemy heroes and interrupting channels right from the get-go, and if he levels it up further, the hefty damage allows him to simply destroy weakened units and heroes outright. The only thing keeping Storm Bolt in check is the Mountain King's tiny mana pool, but that can be solved with a Blood Mage to feed him mana and Banish targets to make Storm Bolt hit even harder. |
| 145 | * DualWielding: Wields a hammer in one hand and an axe in the other. |
| 146 | * GlacierWaif: As normal for a fantasy dwarf. Despite his very small model size, the Mountain King is a badass MightyGlacier, even more impressive in combat than the more generically heroic-looking Paladin. |
| 147 | * HotBlooded: The generic Mountain King [[LargeHam shouts most of his lines]]. The campaign Mountain King, Muradin Bronzebeard, is more relaxed, thoughtful, and wisecracking in contrast, though he has his own share of energetic lines. |
| 148 | * HerdHittingAttack: Thunder Clap hits all land units around the Mountain King and slows them. It is extremely effective at countering ZergRush strategies. |
| 149 | * TheJuggernaut: Once a Mountain King hits level 6 and pops Avatar, good luck taking him down - he's completely immune to crowd control and magic damage, hits like a truck with his spells and bonus attack damage, and has about five truckloads of health. |
| 150 | * LivingStatue: Avatar makes the Mountain King's skin stone-like and causes him to grow, giving this kind of a look. In lore, this is the Mountain King tapping into their ancestral powers, when they were Titan-forged before succumbing to the curse of flesh. |
| 151 | * MagicKnight: The Mountain King is a powerful physical fighter and tank but he attacks rather slowly so he deals a huge amount of his damage as magical burst damage between Storm Bolt and Thunder Clap. |
| 152 | * MightyGlacier: They're tough and deal heavy damage, but also move and attack fairly slowly and suffer from a fairly small mana pool to cast their spells. |
| 153 | * NoSell: While using Avatar, the Mountain King is immune to spells. After later patches, this only applies to enemy spells, so friendly units can still heal him. |
| 154 | * OddNameOut: [[RedBaron Aggronor the Mighty]] is the only Mountain King with no last name. |
| 155 | * OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Likes fighting? Check. Hammers and axes? Check. Lives in cities under the mountain? Check. Like drinking? If the "Thunderbrew" name is any indication, check. Exaggerated Scottish accent? Check. |
| 156 | * PintSizedPowerhouse: He's a dwarf, with the stature that implies, but is ''the'' frontline tank for Human armies, able to take a few hits and hit back harder. |
| 157 | * ShockAndAwe: Storm Bolt and Thunder Clap both make use of lightning magic. |
| 158 | * SuperMode: Avatar transforms them into a juggernaut that hits hard and is even harder to kill, with magic immunity and a huge health bonus. |
| 159 | * ThunderHammer: Storm Bolt is a lightning hammer and deals massive damage when thrown. |
| 160 | |
| 161 | [[/folder]] |
| 162 | |
| 163 | [[folder:Paladin]] |
| 164 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/paladin.gif]] |
| 165 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"I live to serve all believers."'']] |
| 166 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 167 | '''Abilities:''' Holy Light, Divine Shield, Devotion Aura, Resurrection (Ultimate)\ |
| 168 | '''Possible names:''' Granis Darkhammer, Jorn the Redeemer, Sage Truthbearer, Malak the Avenger, Gavinrad the Dire, Morlune the Mighty, Agamand the True, Ballador the Bright, Manadar the Healer, Zann the Defender, Arius the Seeker, Aurrius the Pure, Karnwield the Seeker, Buzan the Fearless\ |
| 169 | '''Playable Campaign characters:''' Arthas Menethil, Magroth the Defender\ |
| 170 | '''NPC Campaign characters:''' Uther Lightbringer, Duke Lionheart, Dagren the Orcslayer, Halahk the Lifebringer\ |
| 171 | \ |
| 172 | |
| 173 | The Paladins of the Silver Hand were formed in the Second War to fight back the marauding Orcish Horde, when priests of Stormwind began to study arms and knights of Lordaeron were tutored in holy magic. Now wielding both, the Paladins, armed with mighty warhammers and unshakable faith, defend their kingdom and the innocent from all manner of threats. They can heal their allies and burn undead foes with Holy Light, make themselves invulnerable with Divine Shield, and provide extra armor for their allies with Devotion Aura. Their ultimate ability, Resurrection, brings 6 allied units back to life, enabling them to turn the tide of battle when all hope seems lost. |
| 174 | ---- |
| 175 | * BackFromTheDead: Resurrection summons an angelic figure made of light that restores six friendly corpses to life... unless they were already reanimated, chewed on, gibbed, or converted into skeletons by the undead. Notably, you can revive units even if you are at the [[ArbitraryHeadcountLimit max food limit]], which means Resurrection is one of the only spells that potentially goes around that game mechanic. |
| 176 | * BlingOfWar: Uther's [[PaletteSwap model]] features shining armor in white and gold with added lion symbols in contrast to the plainer plate and leather worn by the regular Paladin. In ''Reforged'', most of the campaign Paladin variants feature heavily decorated plate armor, particularly Uther and Arthas. |
| 177 | * CombatMedic: Unlike most healing heroes and units, the Paladin is comfortable at or near the front lines. He is very durable with Devotion Aura and Divine Shield prevents him from being damaged. |
| 178 | * CoolSword: Dagren the Orcslayer's model in ''Reforged'' has him inexplicably wielding the iconic Ashbringer from VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft. |
| 179 | * CripplingOverspecialization: The Paladin is one of the most highly specialized heroes, being a powerful asset when batting the Undead faction with Holy Light, but only able to support with their spells outside of battling the Undead as Holy Light only damages Undead units. As a result, they tend to show up most in 1v1 matches against the Undead and in team games where their healing and armor aura are great support for their team. |
| 180 | * GracefulInTheirElement: With Holy Light's ability to damage the Undead and Divine Shield providing up to 35 seconds of invulnerability, the Paladin is well suited to battling the Undead faction and becoming invulnerable to all sources of damage. Divine Shield is also an excellent counter to the [[AlphaStrike Undead's nuke spells]]. Undead players must take special care to protect their Acolytes and Ghouls from Paladin raids, lest the Paladin level up unopposed and go from a nuisance to a major danger. In team game, the Paladin remains an ideal hero against The Undead, but can opt for early Devotion Aura instead of Divine Shield to bestow significant armor points to allies. |
| 181 | * GuestStarPartyMember: Magroth the Defender is one of the [[OptionalPartyMember optional]] variety in "The Ruins of Dalaran" in ''Terror of the Tides'', being an optional rescuable hero that will help Maiev and Malfurion stop Illidan. He does not join in the final mission. |
| 182 | * HammerOfTheHoly: Devout {{Church Militant}}s wielding a [[{{BFS}} truly impressive warhammer]]. |
| 183 | * HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: The Paladin wears heavy plate armor, but no helmet unlike their previous incarnation. |
| 184 | * HolyBurnsEvil: Holy Light can heal living allies, but it can also damage undead enemies. This is quite useful in the Human campaign, since the undead are the main enemies for most of it. |
| 185 | * HolyHandGrenade: Holy Light can only be used aggressively on the Undead (or demons flagged as Undead). It cannot be used to heal them if allied. |
| 186 | * HumongousHeadedHammer: The Paladin carries a two-handed sledgehammer the size of their own torso. |
| 187 | * IdealIllnessImmunity: According to the Death Knight's unit lore, Paladins are immune to all disease up to and including the Plague of Undeath (although GameplayAndStorySegregation means they are still vulnerable to the Meat Wagon and Abomination's Disease Cloud effect). |
| 188 | * KnightInShiningArmor: Though they may not ride horses in this game, the Paladins are also known as the noble and selfless Knights of the Silver Hand, devoted to protecting humanity from whatever threatens it. |
| 189 | * LightEmUp: He has light-based powers. |
| 190 | * MechanicallyUnusualClass: They are unique in that their unusual heal/nuke spell can only harm Undead units. They are also unique among melee heroes in that they have an EvilCounterpart, the Death Knight whose heal/nuke ''only'' harms the living and ''only'' heals the Undead. |
| 191 | * MovesetClone: Like the Archmage, in ''The Founding of Durotar'', the Paladin has a Admiral Proudmoore lieutenant counterpart with all the same abilities, called "Chief Petty Officer". |
| 192 | * MutualDisadvantage: |
| 193 | ** Towards the Undead. Paladins have a lot more offensive capabilities against the undead than the other races due to Holy Light, but conversely, Undead heroes and units are the only ones [[note]]besides a few neutral units and mercenaries that also have access to these undead abilties, and the Night Elven Avatar of Vengeance[[/note]] that can raise or destroy enemy corpses which can make Resurrection close to useless in a battle. |
| 194 | ** When dueling opponent Paladins, they have no offense spells for direct damage, limited to their melee attack and any offensive items they have. |
| 195 | * NighInvulnerability: When using Divine Shield he's immune to damage and spells. When fully upgraded it lasts for ''35 seconds.'' |
| 196 | * NoSelfBuffs: The Paladin can't heal himself with Holy Light. Fortunately, he can protect himself with Divine Shield instead. |
| 197 | * OddNameOut: The name Granis Darkhammer doesn't sound exactly Light-themed. |
| 198 | * OldSoldier: Apart from Arthas, the regular Paladin and the campaign variants are all generally depicted as older and hardened veterans. |
| 199 | * ThePaladin: Natch. They are particularly the "defend the innocent" good type, though Arthas shows that [[WellIntentionedExtremist even these can fall to darkness]], while the Rexxar campaign-only Shield of the Deathlord mentions a paladin who murdered his own family thinking they were impure. |
| 200 | * PaletteSwap: Due to the number of Paladins that show up in the campaign, there's a few recolored variants of the standard hero with black or white hair, while Uther's model has unique white and gold armor. ''Reforged'' goes beyond just swapping colors and gives most of the Paladins in the campaign their own unique model with different weapons. |
| 201 | * RecurringBoss: Many, many Paladins show up as opponents in the campaigns, especially the Undead campaigns that take place in Lordaeron. Most of them have the names of the generic Paladins, but some get unique names. |
| 202 | * ShootTheMedicFirst: A Paladin can be a huge pain to fight because of how much healing that Holy Light provides, as well as the armor boost from Devotion Aura. It can make it hard to focus down or kill certain units when he's around. However, low level Paladins can be killed surprisingly easily by focus fire because he can't use Holy Light on himself. He has Divine Shield to counteract this weakness a bit, but it takes a lot of levels before he truly is very difficult to kill. |
| 203 | * SpellBook: The Paladin carries a large holy libram at their side which they pull out and use for their spells. |
| 204 | * StoneWall: The Paladin has almost no offensive capabilities whatsoever (barring Holy Light against Undead), but he's fairly bulky by himself, can pop Divine Shield to protect himself from focus fire, and can make allies very hard to kill with his armor aura and healing. |
| 205 | * SupportPartyMember: All of his abilities involve healing, protection, and overall increasing durability and survivability of your other units with almost nothing in the way of offense. His offensive potential is against undead. You'll need other heroes to do actual damage. |
| 206 | * ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: They are very specialized for team game support with healing plus buffing the team's armor and/or fighting the Undead with Holy Light, but they are very good at their roles. |
| 207 | |
| 208 | [[/folder]] |
| 209 | |
| 210 | [[folder:Blood Mage (''Frozen Throne'')]] |
| 211 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bloodmage.gif]] |
| 212 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"Burning to avenge."'']] |
| 213 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 214 | '''Abilities:''' Flame Strike, Siphon Mana, Banish, Phoenix (Ultimate)\ |
| 215 | '''Possible names:''' Eldin Sunstrider, Tanin Hawkwing, Lorn Bloodseeker, Aldos Firestar, Gilaras Drakeson, Hale Magefire, Kath'ranis Remar, Tyoril Sunchaser, Sylvos Windrunner, Tenris Mirkblood, Marakanis Starfury, Geldor Earthfire, Halendor Burnkin, Kelen the Destroyer\ |
| 216 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Kael'thas Sunstrider\ |
| 217 | \ |
| 218 | |
| 219 | The high elves of Quel'Thalas were all but wiped out when the Scourge invaded, seeking the power of their sacred Sunwell. Driven to seek new sources of magic, the Blood Mages turned to the fel, augmenting their already considerable magics with demonic power which they use in their ruthless quest to avenge their fallen people. They can call pillars of flames with Flame Strike, steal enemies' mana with Siphon Mana, and render enemies unable to attack with Banish. Their ultimate ability, Phoenix, summons a magical bird of fire that burns all enemies and itself over time; when it dies, it can be reborn from its egg. |
| 220 | ---- |
| 221 | * AchillesHeel: |
| 222 | ** Both Flame Strike and Siphon Mana require channeling, making the Blood Mage vulnerable to interruptions such as stuns, roots, and silences (Flame Strike 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). |
| 223 | ** The Blood Mage can do nothing to enemies that have magic immunity, since most of his kit relies on offensive debuffs and magic damage. His basic attack is very weak. Even his Phoenix only deals magic damage and thus can't touch them. |
| 224 | * AnimalMotifs: Phoenixes, and birds in general. In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', the phoenix is the crest of the blood elves. |
| 225 | * AntiStructure: Flame Strike 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 land units, but they have the ability to evacuate the blast zone (unless they are snared or stunned). |
| 226 | * BlackMage: The Blood Mage is designed as an extremely powerful offensive damaging spellcaster. He is supposed to use Banish on his target, then Flame Strike them and right click them with his Phoenix, and to keep his mana up by draining it from enemy heroes or casters. This gives him massive potential damage and makes him self sustaining. However, in practice, its often [[SupportPartyMember more common for him to see a lot of support use by being a mana battery for mana dependent heroes.]] |
| 227 | * BoringButPractical: Not a very flashy way to play, but a Blood Mage pairs incredibly well with a Mountain King as a SupportPartyMember; the Blood Mage can feed the Mountain King mana and Banish targets so that the MK can follow up with a Storm Bolt dealing 66% additional damage, presenting a major setback to any target's health. This combo also works with a Paladin against an Undead opponent by amplifying Holy Light's damage component. |
| 228 | * CallBack: A member of the Sunstrider and Windrunner families is a possibility for which Blood Mage you end up recruiting. Kael'thas Sunstrider, and Sylvanas Windrunner are both campaign characters. |
| 229 | * 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 Flame Strike after being Banished) and defensive utility (for saving units that are being dogpiled by heavy melee attackers). |
| 230 | * GlassCannon: For maximum damage, Blood Magi can Banish a target and nuke it with Flame Strike and/or their Phoenix summon for heavy damage, but they have low vitality 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. |
| 231 | * 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). |
| 232 | * ManaDrain: The main purpose of Siphon Mana, though it can also be used to transfer the Blood Mage's mana to an ally. |
| 233 | * MundaneUtility: |
| 234 | ** Flame Strike is one of the few abilities in the game that can knock down trees en masse on a short cooldown, letting armies with a Blood Mage take surprise expansions and open alternate attack paths without investing in artillery. |
| 235 | ** One perfectly viable way to play the Blood Mage (particularly in smaller games) is to forgo Flame Strike entirely and just use him as a mana battery for a mana-hungry hero like the Mountain King, by using Siphon Mana to steal the opponent's mana and feed it to his partner. |
| 236 | ** Some players skill Banish first because it is a 0-cooldown disable that has to be dispelled, basically used like a better version of Sleep to aid in creeping and catching escaping units, though it cannot interrupt channeling spells. Banish also makes a great healing booster for Holy Light or Priest Heal but it's a double-edged sword due to the damage vulnerability. |
| 237 | * NoSell: The Blood Mage can inflict this against hero magic-''damage'' resistance using Banish. Heroes take 30% less damage from spell damage but Banish gives the target a 66% damage penalty to more than overcome this condition. The Mountain King's Storm Bolt is typically used to capitalize on this debuff, but a Paladin can also use Holy Light if the target is Undead. Banish is even more powerful in team games where allies can use their own instant damage nukes to capitalize on the debuff. |
| 238 | * OddNameOut: Kelen the Destroyer. Just like the Archmage, all other names are just a name, but the Kelen name [[RedBaron comes with a title]]. |
| 239 | * ThePhoenix: Their Ultimate summons one to attack enemies. With high damage, a burning aura that damages everything (including itself), and the ability to revive itself on death, the Phoenix can add a lot of damage to an army. |
| 240 | * PlayingWithFire: Flame Strike is a signature ability, and they have 3 orbs of felfire hanging above them at all times. Their ultimate even summons a massive Phoenix made of fire. |
| 241 | * RedOniBlueOni: The red to the Archmage's blue. The Blood Mage uses fire spells and has a burning desire for revenge, while the Archmage uses ice and water spells and is an apathetic GrumpyOldMan. The Paladin also acts a blue contrast, resisting the urge for vengeance with a stoic personality, using Holy Light powers in contrast to {{Hellfire}}, and fighting enemies face-to-face with passive toughness instead of staying behind the army for protection. Blood Magi are intended for offensive use while Paladins provided defensive utility. |
| 242 | * SkillGateCharacters: 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. |
| 243 | * SquishyWizard: The Blood Mage works wonders as both a powerful offensive caster in larger games and a valuable and versatile support caster in smaller ones, but he's rather fragile with a weak basic attack. |
| 244 | * StatOverflow: Siphon Mana can push the Blood Mage's mana pool over the maximum. |
| 245 | * SummonMagic: Their Ultimate summons a Phoenix. Unlike other summons the Phoenix doesn't have a timed life, instead they have a passive ability that damages everything around them, including the Phoenix itself, meaning they will eventually run out of health even if they are out of combat. They come back if their egg survives but there can only be one at a time. |
| 246 | * SupportPartyMember: When played as a mana battery and nuke booster, the Blood Mage is a great support hero, but does not function much at all without his spellcasting hero partner. |
| 247 | * TranquilFury: Despite constantly going on about revenge and hatred, Blood Mages are generally quite soft-spoken. |
| 248 | [[/folder]] |
| 249 | |
| 250 | !!Night Elf Heroes |
| 251 | [[folder:Night Elf Heroes in General]] |
| 252 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nightelf_groupphoto2.jpg]] |
| 253 | [[caption-width-right:250:Left to right: Demon Hunter, Keeper of the Grove, Priestess of the Moon, Warden]] |
| 254 | |
| 255 | * AntiMagic: The Night Elf Ancient of Wonders sells Anti-Magic Potions at the highest tier, which grant temporary immunity to spells, though it can be dispelled. It pairs well with the Demon Hunter if he has a lot of levels and is well equipped with items. It is also good on both the Keeper of the Grove and Priestess of the Moon because they both have powerful channeled ultimate spells. |
| 256 | * ArmchairMilitary: Unlike the other races, Night Elves heroes are not built around [[FrontlineGeneral standing their ground in the front lines]]. The Demon Hunter is the best at it, but it takes [[MagikarpPower a lot of levels and items]] to get him comfortable in that role compared to a lot of strength heroes who can do it effortlessly [[note]]Additionally, since the Demon Hunter's ultimate turns him ranged, it's clear he is not meant to stand in the front line as a pure tank, but rather behind tank units as a tanky damage dealer[[/note]]. The rest of the heroes stand behind the frontline troops (Keeper, Priestess) or move in and out of combat (Warden). The faction is more reliant on certain units like Druid of the Claw (in Bear form) and Mountain Giants to do the tanking. Night Elves can also get around this by hiring a strength Tavern hero like Pandaren Brewmaster or Goblin Alchemist. |
| 257 | * BalancePowerSkillGimmick: Priestess of the Moon, Demon Hunter, Keeper of the Grove, and Warden. |
| 258 | ** The Priestess of the Moon is a JackOfAllStats and JackOfAllTrades without any outstanding strengths or flashy skills besides her ultimate, Demon Hunter is a melee mage and hero killer who can be deceptively durable and grows to be quite the powerhouse with levels and items, Keeper of the Grove is a rushing and hero killing oriented SquishyWizard, and the Warden is a MagicKnight built around TeleportSpam and hit-and-run tactics. |
| 259 | * DarkIsNotEvil: Despite being based on Night and Moon based magic, the Night Elven heroes are generally on the side of good. |
| 260 | * InvisibilityWithDrawbacks: Like the female night elf units, the Priestess of the Moon and the Warden can both turn invisible at night if they stay still. |
| 261 | * TeleportationRescue: Night Elves has the Staff of Preservation in their shop, which teleports a unit back to the highest-level town hall, saving them from being killed. Unlike the human Staff of Sanctuary, it does not heal them, but Night Elves have Moon Wells to take care of that. |
| 262 | [[/folder]] |
| 263 | |
| 264 | [[folder:Demon Hunter]] |
| 265 | [[quoteright:169:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/demonhunter.gif]] |
| 266 | [[caption-width-right:169:''"At last, we shall have revenge."'']] |
| 267 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Agility\ |
| 268 | '''Abilities:''' Mana Burn, Immolation, Evasion, Metamorphosis (Ultimate)\ |
| 269 | '''Possible names:''' Shadowsong, Shadowfury, Shadowstalker, Flameseeker, Darkweaver, Darkterror, Darksorrow, Sindweller, Painkiller, Hellbourne, Wrathbringer, Ragerunner, Firebrand, Bloodwrath, Terrorblade\ |
| 270 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Illidan Stormrage\ |
| 271 | \ |
| 272 | |
| 273 | First founded by Illidan Stormrage, Demon Hunters are shadowy warriors, shunned by broader night elf society, who turn the terrible powers of the Burning Legion against them. They ritually blind themselves to develop "spectral sight," allowing them to see demons and undead with greater clarity. They can burn away enemies' mana and damage them with Mana Burn, cloak themselves in flames with Immolation Aura to damage nearby enemies, and dodge enemy attacks with Evasion. Their ultimate ability, Metamorphosis, transforms them into a terrifying demon with massive bonuses to health, health regeneration, and damage. |
| 274 | ---- |
| 275 | * EleventhHourRanger: Each time a Demon Hunter (Illidan) can be played, it is pretty briefly near the end of each campaign. |
| 276 | ** In ''Eternity's End'', Illidan is the sole hero of his own level in the penultimate mission, and leaves before the final battle against Archimonde. |
| 277 | ** In ''Terror of the Tides'', Illidan is the primary hero of final mission after being the antagonist for the entire campaign, and Malfurion, who was the BigGood to that point, becomes the hero to the secondary base instead. |
| 278 | ** In ''Curse of the Blood Elves'', Illidan is only playable in the final two missions of the campaign, [[SpotlightStealingSquad taking the spotlight from the other playable characters]]. |
| 279 | * AchillesHeel: Evasion makes a Demon Hunter surprisingly resilient, but disables and chain nukes can give them a difficult time. [[ArmoredButFrail Chain nukes can be particularly bad as they ignore Evasion]], while movement impairing effects will hamper their ability to close the distance when Metamorphosis is unavailable. A Blood Mage with Banish and a Mountain King with Storm Bolt can inflict two disables in quick succession and amplify nuke damage by a staggering 66%. Finally, their Metamorphosis does not grant them Spell Immunity, unlike the Mountain King's Avatar, so snares, stuns and nukes can still ruin their day. They can potentially work around it with the Ancient of Wonder's Anti-Magic potions, but that can be dispelled. |
| 280 | * AntiInfantry: Immolation allows the Demon Hunter to deal damage to a lot of units early on. Metamorphosis makes him into more of a OneManArmy by making each hit a HerdHittingAttack. |
| 281 | * AntiStructure: Because Metamorphosis grants the Demon Hunter the Chaos damage type, he deals twice as much damage to buildings by default than other heroes. Because of this he greatly outdamages all other heroes (except Tinker with Robo-Goblin) with his right clicks on buildings when he is transformed. |
| 282 | * ArmoredButFrail: With their "armor" being a combination of innate armor and Evasion, Demon Hunters are highly resistant to attacks. They are, however, less resilient to spells. Fortunately for them, the Night Elf faction shop also happens to sell [[TheJuggernaut Anti-Magic Potions.]] |
| 283 | * BadPowersGoodPeople: Well, "[[AntiHero good]]" might be a stretch, but they seek to defend the night elves against the Legion and use the Legion's dark powers to combat it. |
| 284 | * BalanceBuff: Their attack while using Metamorphosis used to damage friendly units until it was patched. |
| 285 | * BlindWeaponmaster: They ritually blind themselves and wear blindfolds. Their "spectral sight" still allows them to see their prey; whether they can see anything else is left ambiguous. |
| 286 | * CloseRangeCombatant: If he hasn't transformed using Metamorphosis, the Demon Hunter can only attack in melee range, Immolation only damages enemies that are close to him, and Mana Burn has a low cast range of 300, which is about half of a standard ranged unit's attack range. |
| 287 | * DualWielding: Dual-wields large glaives. |
| 288 | * {{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. Finally, unlike the Blademaster, the Demon Hunters' tool kit has limited ranged capability with ManaBurn and ''especially'' with Metamorphosis. |
| 289 | * FragileSpeedster: Zig-zagged; they have fast movement speed and low health, but their Evasion ability and high armor actually makes them decent tanks... as long as they don't get focused down by spells from enemy heroes, a major concern against Undead whose heroes can all spec instant damage nukes or Human players that go for Mountain King. |
| 290 | * GenderFlip: While Demon Hunters are all male in the original ''Warcraft III'', ''Reforged'' gives the option to make them female through a skin. |
| 291 | * LightningBruiser: Demon Hunters lean towards FragileSpeedster more than this trope by default due to his relatively low health pool, but [[SuperMode Metamorphosis]] adds 500 more health and significant health regeneration. This makes them more durable than most strength heroes, especially if combined with points in his Evasion passive. The transformation comes with no penalty to speed, so he is still just as fast as before. |
| 292 | * MageKiller: Their quick speed and Mana Burn ability makes them excellent anti-spellcaster heroes. |
| 293 | * MagikarpPower: Early on, a Demon Hunter isn't capable of much other than harassing with Mana Burn. However, they're the Night Elves' premier frontline hero for a reason, as picking up more levels brings out the raw damage their right-clicks can do and skilling Evasion makes them deceptively resilient. |
| 294 | * ManaBurn: One of their normal abilities. The mana also combusts, causing damage equal to the amount drained. |
| 295 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: All of the Demon Hunter names are over-the-top in how dark and edgy they sound, though some of the names sound more threatening than others. |
| 296 | * {{Nerf}}: Mana Burn's damage has been considerably reduced after being patched, though it was given a lower mana cost and cooldown to compensate. |
| 297 | * OddNameOut: Painkiller is the only name about deliberately ending someone's misery. |
| 298 | * OneManArmy: With some items, the Demon Hunter can become this in Metamorphosis. His [[HerdHittingAttack splash damage]] and high attack speed can allow him to take out a small army by himself. |
| 299 | * PayEvilUntoEvil: Their whole shtick is to turn the dark powers of the Legion against the demons. |
| 300 | * RecurringBoss: In ''The Frozen Throne''. Unlike most instances of this trope in regard to heroes, each time a Demon Hunter is fought, it's one character, Illidan Stormrage. He is fought as an enemy hero in three separate missions (two in the Sentinels Campaign and one in the Scourge campaign), with the last of them acting as the FinalBoss to the main story. |
| 301 | * ShoutOut: |
| 302 | ** Their war glaives are very similar to the [[Franchise/StarTrek Klingon Bat'leth]]. |
| 303 | ** An in universe shout out, some unit models have a Pandaren mug shot painted on the center of their war glaives. |
| 304 | * SuperMode: Metamorphosis transforms them into a shadowy demon. It's not as strong as the Mountain King's Avatar, giving the same health boost but not the spell immunity, armor and damage increase. Instead, it gives a boost to HP regeneration, a ranged attack that inflicts [[InfinityPlusOneElement Chaos damage]] with splash damage, something that is very deadly thanks to the Demon Hunter's high attack speed. Compared with the Mountain King who's ultimate makes him a melee powerhouse, the Demon Hunter's Ultimate turns him into a ranged killing machine. |
| 305 | * WreathedInFlames: Immolation Aura cloaks the Demon Hunter in flames, damaging all nearby enemies. It continually drains mana while active, though. |
| 306 | |
| 307 | [[/folder]] |
| 308 | |
| 309 | [[folder:Keeper of the Grove]] |
| 310 | [[quoteright:169:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/keeper.gif]] |
| 311 | [[caption-width-right:169:''"I must safeguard the land."'']] |
| 312 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 313 | '''Abilities:''' Entangling Roots, Force of Nature, Thorns Aura, Tranquility (Ultimate)\ |
| 314 | '''Possible names:''' Larodar, Anubris, Nandieb, Califax, Bandalar, Malorne, Gholbine, Dagda, Nuada, Oghma, Centrius, Ceredwyn\ |
| 315 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Malfurion Stormrage (referred to as "Furion" in ''Reign of Chaos'')\ |
| 316 | '''NPC Campaign characters:''' Cenarius [[labelnote:*]]He is actually a MovesetClone class called "Demigod" which has modified stats, and the additional ability Cyclone[[/labelnote]], Califax\ |
| 317 | \ |
| 318 | |
| 319 | The Wild God Cenarius, son of Elune and the great stag Malorne, is the patron of the wild forests of Azeroth and protector of the night elves. His sons, the Keepers of the Grove, are charged with protecting their father's domain. With the upper body of a night elf and the lower body of a stag, the Keepers of the Grove stand ready to respond to any who would threaten the wild places they and their charges call home. They can immobilize and damage enemies with Entangling Roots, bring trees to life to do battle with Force of Nature, and let allies damage melee attackers with Thorns Aura. Their ultimate ability, Tranquility, heals all allies in a large area for 20 hit points per second. |
| 320 | ---- |
| 321 | * AttackReflector: Thorns Aura causes damage to any melee attacker that hits a friendly unit near the Keeper. |
| 322 | * BlowYouAway: Cenarius has the ability Cyclone. |
| 323 | * CrutchCharacter: Among the Night Elf heroes, he is most powerful at early game rush strategies, but is far weaker than the rest in the late game when dispels become plentiful, making two of his abilities useless. Tranquility likewise becomes fairly weak if the opponent has any disables whatsoever to interrupt it, which any competent enemy probably will if they see a Keeper in your army. |
| 324 | * GoodCounterpart: Thorns Aura is this to the Dreadlord's Vampiric Aura. Instead of the aura healing allies for a percentage of their melee damage dealt, Thorns Aura causes enemies to suffer a percentage of their melee damage dealt. If both auras are present in battle and at equal level, then Thorns Aura will heavily negate Vampiric Aura making it a powerful direct counter. |
| 325 | * GreenThumb: All their abilities involve some kind of plant magic. |
| 326 | * TheMarvelousDeer: Their bodies' lower half is a stag, and they are the grandsons of the great white stag Malorne. |
| 327 | * TheMedic: Once he has Tranquility, this becomes one of the Keeper's main roles in combat. Unlike the other Night Elf healing spell, Rejuvenation, it cannot be dispelled save for interrupting the channeling. |
| 328 | * MovesetClone: Cenarius is technically another class called "Demigod". He has much higher base stats and divine armor, but all his abilities are the same, except he also has Cyclone. |
| 329 | * NonindicativeName: Somewhat confusingly, Malfurion Stormrage is designated a Keeper of the Grove, but is not a child of Cenarius and is a Night Elf that is not a stag-centaur. Keeper of the Grove refers to his class and skills, but not his race. He is still Cenarius' greatest pupil and knows the same skills that the Keepers all would, and in-universe he is mostly known as "Archdruid". |
| 330 | * OneSteveLimit: Averted. Malorne is a generic Keeper of the Grove name. Malorne the great stag is also the grandfather of all the Keepers of the Groves. Maybe he's named after his grandfather. |
| 331 | * OurCentaursAreDifferent: Swap out a night elf for a human and a stag for a horse. |
| 332 | * PlantPerson: They have wooden-esque right hands and manes of leaves that flow down their backs. Their antlers also resemble tree branches. |
| 333 | * TheRightHandOfDoom: Their right hands resemble large wooden claws. |
| 334 | * RedMage: The Keeper has one of the best hero killing spells in the game with Entangling Roots, but also the great mass healing spell, Tranquility. |
| 335 | * SummonMagic: Treants are summoned in a unique manner by Force of Nature. They are converted from an area of trees, rather than summoned in front of the Keeper. |
| 336 | * SquishyWizard: Keepers possess strong disruptive spells and a decent heal as their ultimate but have very low survivability under fire. |
| 337 | ** Malfurion in the ''Reign of Chaos'' Night Elf campaign has a path to overcome the weakness and become a full on CombatMedic. He always carries the Horn of Cenarius, which adds 200 health and 2 HP regeneration, so Malfurion has around 1100 health at max level with no other items. With some stat or armor items and a Necklace of Spell Immunity (dropped by [[OptionalBoss The Largest Panda Ever]] in the 5th mission) to prevent Tranquility from being interrupted, he makes a [[https://youtu.be/c3LzxALN-9s?si=JRqlI7jsUxJ5MdJX&t=600 shockingly effective frontline tank]] in the [[HoldTheLine final mission]]. This is not something he can replicate in ''The Frozen Throne'', as the item drops in that campaign don't lean towards tanking and he no longer carries the Horn of Cenarius. |
| 338 | * WhenTreesAttack: Force of Nature animates an area of trees into Treants to attack enemies. Leveling up the ability causes it to create more Treants from a larger area of trees. Notably, if the player does not target enough trees, the max number of treants is not created. |
| 339 | |
| 340 | [[/folder]] |
| 341 | |
| 342 | [[folder:Priestess of the Moon]] |
| 343 | [[quoteright:169:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/priestess.gif]] |
| 344 | [[caption-width-right:169:''"Warriors of the night, assemble!"'']] |
| 345 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Agility\ |
| 346 | '''Abilities:''' Scout, Trueshot Aura, Searing Arrows, Starfall (Ultimate)\ |
| 347 | '''Possible names:''' Kathris Starsong, Adora Nightshade, Mora Moonsinger, Felore Moonray, Anara Chillwind, Kera Stardragon, Mave Whisperwind, Delas Moonfang, Mira Whitemane, Theta Saberfang, Tygra Snowscar, Ariel Darkmoon, Diana Windwood\ |
| 348 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Tyrande Whisperwind\ |
| 349 | \ |
| 350 | |
| 351 | Devotees of the moon goddess Elune, the Priestesses of the Moon are the main religious and military leaders of the night elves. Riding atop great cats and armed with deadly longbows, these women will stop at nothing to keep their forests pure and unsullied by any who would trespass. They can summon an owl to reveal the map with Scout, add extra Fire damage to their shots with Searing Arrows, and grant allied ranged troops extra damage and accuracy with Trueshot Aura. Their ultimate ability, Starfall, summons a star shower that damages all enemies caught in the storm. |
| 352 | ---- |
| 353 | * ActionGirl: One of only two female main-faction heroes, the other being the Warden (also of the night elves), and the only standard playable female hero in the base ''Reign of Chaos'' game. |
| 354 | * AerithAndBob: Most of the Priestess names are fantastical or archaic, but three of them are relatively common names for women in the present; Diana, Mira, and Ariel. |
| 355 | * AntiStructure: Because Starfall hits buildings (though for reduced damage) and they can't move out of its range, it's not uncommon to see high-level Priestesses tear down entire bases if left unchecked. |
| 356 | * ArrowsOnFire: Their Searing Arrows consumes a little mana per shot to set their arrows on fire, increasing damage. Unlike real-life flaming arrows, however, they are not designed to damage buildings (although they can do that too). |
| 357 | * BoringButPractical: All of her skills except Starfall are all pretty boring. But they do their job well, especially Trueshot Aura, which benefits a huge majority of the units in the Night Elf techtree, including the Demon Hunter in [[SuperMode Metamorphosis]]. |
| 358 | * ChurchMilitant: Their role is both religious and military. |
| 359 | * DeathFromAbove: Their ultimate spell sends waves of falling stars into every nearby enemy (land and air) and structure. |
| 360 | * HorseArcher: A mistress of the bow who rides a great cat in the same manner as a horse. |
| 361 | * HorseOfADifferentColor: Their panther mount, the Frostsaber. |
| 362 | * InvincibleMinorMinion: Owl Scouts are invulnerable, allowing them to spy on enemies with ease as they can't be repelled. |
| 363 | * JackOfAllStats: The Priestess has a pretty even stat distribution, with a surprisingly high intelligence gain, but low base intelligence. This ties [[JackOfAllTrades into her versatility, but lack of outstanding strengths]]. |
| 364 | * JackOfAllTrades: The Priestess of the Moon has a versatile skillset and can do a little bit of everything but lacks the specialization of the other Night Elf heroes. She is an effective support hero with Scout and Trueshot Aura, but she can deal some damage with Searing Arrows and can be a huge factor in fights with Starfall. Just about the only things she can't do are heal and duel enemy heroes, as she lacks any sort of burst damage or disable. |
| 365 | * {{Lunacy}}: Their powers come from the moon goddess. |
| 366 | * MageMarksman: The Priestess of the Moon wield both bows and the divine magic of Elune against their enemies. |
| 367 | * MeteorSummoningAttack: Their Starfall ultimate calls down waves of falling stars that deal heavy damage on anything that walks within the spell's radius. |
| 368 | * PantheraAwesome: They ride large cats into battle. |
| 369 | * PersonOfMassDestruction: Starfall, if allowed to channel, can deal the most damage to the highest amount of units of any spell in the melee game. Unlike most AOE damage spells, it has no limits on the total amount of damage it can do per wave and the area is much larger than any other AOE damage spell. If a Priestess is not interrupted or killed, she can destroy entire armies with the spell. |
| 370 | * QuirkyBard: At early levels, the lack of burst damage spells makes her a very support-oriented character, sending out Owl Scouts to key points to spy on enemy activities, buffing ranged units with Trueshot Aura, and/or using Searing Arrows to help focus-fire a target. However, once she unlocks her ultimate ability Starfall, she gains a powerful HerdHittingAttack against multiple targets, but is vulnerable to interrupts stopping the channeling of the spell. When Starfall is too risky to use due to the opponent bringing out stuns, she can fall back on her support powers, perhaps even using a Tome of Retraining to reallocate her skill points. |
| 371 | * SupportPower: The Owl Scout fills this role, letting the player send out a flying spy who can spy on enemy movements and reveal stealth as well. The Owl is Invulnerable and Spell-Immune so the Owl doesn't need attention to avoid enemy fire and essentially works as a movable DefogOfWar. |
| 372 | * TrueSight: The owl summoned by Scout can see invisible units. |
| 373 | * TheUnfought: No Priestess of the Moon is fought as an enemy hero in any of the campaigns. The (High Elven) Ranger class in the campaign who is a MovesetClone (besides having Cold Arrows instead of Searing Arrows) serves as a substitute in the gameplay sense. |
| 374 | [[/folder]] |
| 375 | |
| 376 | [[folder:Warden (''Frozen Throne'')]] |
| 377 | [[quoteright:169:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/warden.gif]] |
| 378 | [[caption-width-right:169:''"My prey is near."'']] |
| 379 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Agility\ |
| 380 | '''Abilities:''' Fan of Knives, Blink, Shadow Strike, Vengeance (Ultimate)\ |
| 381 | '''Possible names:''' Alsa Iron-cell, The Iron Raven, Marin Bladewing, Shalis Darkhunter, Sira Moonwarden, Saithis, Malace Shade, Kiri Starstalker, Anaya Felgrove, Mirana Starlight, Felhala Starmoon, Drelanim Whisperwind, Cordana Felsong, Nalmeena Darkfollow\ |
| 382 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Maiev Shadowsong\ |
| 383 | \ |
| 384 | |
| 385 | The secretive Wardens are the night elves' special police force in Kalimdor. Where others protect the night elves from external threats, the Wardens keep watch on internal ones. They serve as the jailers and marshals of night elf society, rooting out all manner of threats to their peaceful existence from within -- from tracking and apprehending fugitives, to guarding the prisons that hold the worst criminals, to assassinating those too dangerous to be allowed to live. They can damage and poison enemies with Shadow Strike, throw knives out in a circle with Fan of Knives, and teleport short distances with Blink. Their Ultimate ability, Vengeance, summons a shadowy Avatar of Vengeance that creates Spirits of Vengeance from nearby corpses to attack the Warden's enemies. |
| 386 | ---- |
| 387 | * ActionGirl: One of the few female heroes and a capable direct combatant, and unlike the others, Wardens are expected to get up close and personal with their enemies. |
| 388 | * BlackMage: 2 of her 3 main non-ultimate spells are offensive. One is an instant area of effect nuke, and the other is an instant nuke that deals DamageOverTime after. Blink is also often used aggressively to more effectively target her two nukes, since they are both short ranged. |
| 389 | * DeviousDaggers: Both Fan of Knives and Shadow Strike are throwing knife-based. Even the edge of their cloak appears to be lined with blades. Fitting for a SecretPolice operative. |
| 390 | * FlashStep: Blink lets them teleport short distances. |
| 391 | * FlechetteStorm: Fan of Knives. |
| 392 | * FragileSpeedster: The Warden's Blink ability makes her extremely mobile, letting her weave in and out of battle with ease and making her nearly impossible to evade as long as she has mana. If she runs out of mana or if locked down by disabling effects, she folds very quickly. |
| 393 | * GlassCannon: The Warden outputs a lot of spell damage, but she is very fragile for a melee agility hero. This is made worse by the fact that her spells are close ranged. |
| 394 | * MagicKnight: Despite her primary attribute being Agility and having a melee attack, the Warden is still primarily a spellcaster, as the damage inflicted by Fan of Knives and Shadow Strike far eclipses her regular attack. |
| 395 | * MagikarpPower: At low levels, the Warden is pretty unremarkable, with spells that don't do much and low health. However, as she levels up, Fan of Knives and Shadow Strike both start doing actual damage and Blink's cooldown and mana cost decreases dramatically, making her a hard-hitting, highly-mobile threat that can ravage worker lines with impunity, shred enemies around her with spell damage, and flee halfway across the map before the enemy can react. |
| 396 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Nowhere near as exaggerated as the Demon Hunter, but her list of names seems to follow the Priestess of the Moon's naming conventions put through a DarkerAndEdgier filter. |
| 397 | * OddNameOut: All Warden names seem like normal Night Elven names, except [[SpellMyNameWithAThe "The]] [[RedBaron Iron Raven"]], and Saithis. |
| 398 | * PoisonedWeapons: Shadow Strike hurls a poisoned dagger at the target. |
| 399 | * RingsOfDeath: They wield a large circular chakram as their main weapon. |
| 400 | * SdrawkcabSpeech: The Spirit of Vengeance has unintelligible voice lines resembling speech. This is due to the Spirit's voice lines actually being snippets of Maiev's lines played backwards. |
| 401 | * SecretPolice: The Wardens serve as this in night elf society. |
| 402 | * SummonMagic: The Avatar of Vengeance is a summoned unit that will summon additional spirits from nearby corpses. |
| 403 | * TeleportSpam: A lot of Warden gameplay is built around moving in and out of combat with Blink. At max level, it has a very short 4-second cooldown and virtually no mana cost, allowing her to use it with impunity (it was even spammier before, with a ''1-second'' cooldown when maxed). |
| 404 | * UniqueEnemy: Maiev Shadowsong herself is the only Warden fought in the campaigns, during the MOBA-style mission in the Blood Elf campaign. |
| 405 | |
| 406 | [[/folder]] |
| 407 | |
| 408 | !!Orc Heroes |
| 409 | [[folder:Orc Heroes in General]] |
| 410 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/orc_groupphoto2.jpg]] |
| 411 | [[caption-width-right:250:Left to right: Tauren Chieftain, Blademaster, Far Seer, Shadow Hunter]] |
| 412 | |
| 413 | * BalancePowerSkillGimmick: Far Seer, Tauren Chieftain, Blademaster, and Shadow Hunter. |
| 414 | ** Far Seer has the most flexible skillset as a JackOfAllTrades, Tauren Chieftain is a powerful MagicKnight who is able to absorb a huge amount of damage and disrupt fights, Blademaster is a micromanagement intensive ConfusionFu GlassCannon hero (and also the only Skill hero that is Agility instead of Intelligence), and Shadow Hunter is built around healing, support, and disables in a faction that is starved of it (which lets them cover weaknesses instead of amplifying their own strength). The Shadow Hunter's ultimate is also one of the gimmickiest in the whole game. |
| 415 | * FighterMageThief: The clearest example of all playable factions, with the Tauren Chieftain as the Fighter, the Far Seer as the Mage, and the Blademaster as the Thief in ''Reign of Chaos''. The Shadow Hunter is a MechanicallyUnusualClass that is mostly The Mage but incorporates elements of The Thief. |
| 416 | * MechanicallyUnusualClass: Orcs are the only faction that between their heroes, they only have one aura (Endurance) instead of two [[note]]Devotion and Brilliance for Humans, Thorns and Trueshot for Night Elf, Unholy and Vampiric for Undead[[/note]]. Instead, their second aura (War Drums, also called Command Aura) is carried by a unit, the Kodo Beast Rider, and it is leveled up by a research upgrade. |
| 417 | * MisleadingPackageSize: The Voodoo Lounge sells Tiny Great Halls, which is a pocket Great Hall that builds at full size very quickly and can be made by a hero rather than a worker. This allows for potentially very quick expansion building late game. If players of other races use the items, they will get an equivalent town hall of their race. |
| 418 | * SuperSpeed: The Voodoo Lounge's Scroll of Speed gives a huge speed boost in an area, allowing the Orc army to easily outmaneuver the enemy's army. |
| 419 | [[/folder]] |
| 420 | |
| 421 | [[folder:Blademaster]] |
| 422 | [[quoteright:166:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blademaster.gif]] |
| 423 | [[caption-width-right:166:''"My blade seeks vengeance!"'']] |
| 424 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Agility\ |
| 425 | '''Abilities:''' Wind Walk, Mirror Image, Critical Strike, Bladestorm (Ultimate)\ |
| 426 | '''Possible names:''' Tojara, Nikoro, Kajind, Mikasa, Samuro, Akinos, Mazuru, Yozshura, Daisho, Kigami, Arashicage, Moogul the Sly, Jubei\ |
| 427 | '''Playable Campaign characters:''' Grom Hellscream, Samuro\ |
| 428 | '''NPC Campaign characters:''' [[VideoGame/SamuraiShodown Jubei'thos, Haomarush, Genjuros, Khanzo]], [[NoNameGiven Blademaster of the Blackrock Clan]], Mizgill, Gorgosh, Bonethirst, Bloodgrin, Nera'thor, Sagra'nel, Rend, Maim\ |
| 429 | \ |
| 430 | |
| 431 | The Burning Blade clan of orcs was among the most vicious and unstable of all the corrupted clans in the demonic Horde. Ultimately their violence caused the clan itself to collapse entirely. Having seen the results of their fall from honor, the elite warriors of the Burning Blade -- the Blademasters -- swore an oath to free themselves and their people from the demons' grasp forever. They can randomly increase their attack damage with Critical Strike, create illusory copies of themselves with Mirror Image, or gain speed and invisibility with Wind Walk. Their ultimate ability, Bladestorm, causes them to become a spinning engine of death, continually slashing at all nearby enemies for a short time. |
| 432 | ---- |
| 433 | * AchillesHeel: True sight, especially in or near your base can limit Blademaster's disruptive and harassing capabilities. Mana Burn to a lesser extent, since the Blademaster is reliant on his spells to get out of trouble. Human Arcane Towers do both and are one of his biggest counters. |
| 434 | * BalanceBuff: Mirror Image was enhanced so that images deal 20% of the Blademaster's original damage, allowing images to distract from the Blademaster and provide extra damage output. |
| 435 | * {{BFS}}: Wields a giant katana-like sword. Grom Hellscream prefers a big battle axe instead. |
| 436 | * CharlesAtlasSuperpower: No explanation is offered for the Blademaster's more ''mystical' abilities except their impossible skill with a sword or, in Grom Hellscream's case, a battle axe. |
| 437 | * CloseRangeCombatant: The Blademaster is the only hero with no ranged abilities whatsoever. He has to get up close and personal with opponents in order to do anything, which is where Wind Walk comes in handy to let him close the gap. |
| 438 | * ComboPlatterPowers: There are two Fel Orc Blademaster types in the last Blood Elf campaign mission, "Lord of Outland" that don't have Wind Walk and instead have a different ability for direct combat. Both abilities are taken from strength heroes and make the hero more of a direct fighter, removing their agility themed stealth aspect entirely. |
| 439 | ** The ones with the standard model (Bonethirst, Bloodgrin, Sagra'nel, and Rend) have the passive Bash, which makes their attacks even more dangerous, since it stacks with Critical Strike. |
| 440 | ** The ones with the Grom Hellscream model (Nera'thor and Maim) have Shockwave, giving a direct AOE nuke and making the hero a partial MagicKnight. |
| 441 | * ConfusionFu: His fighting style, between turning invisible and confusing his enemies with his mirror images, is to make the enemies constantly wonder where the real Blademaster is. |
| 442 | * CriticalHitClass: Much of the Blademaster's killing power comes from his Critical Strike. At max level, it can deal 4x his normal damage on proc, dealing crippling damage to whatever's on the receiving end, and his fast attack speed means that he can rack up a lot of them if he can stay alive. |
| 443 | * DifficultButAwesome: Unlike most Orcs, the Blademaster is too fragile to charge into the enemy recklessly and hope for the best, meaning you have to keep an eye on him at pretty much all times and make sure he doesn't get picked off and to convincingly use the mirror images to misdirect your enemies. However, once you get the requisite micromanagement down, the Blademaster is by far the deadliest combatant among the Orc heroes. |
| 444 | * DoppelgangerSpin: Mirror Image creates up to three illusions of the Blademaster that deal reduced damage and take increased damage, but look just like him to the enemy. As part of the effect, it also shuffles his position with those of the images, making it harder to find the real one. |
| 445 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: |
| 446 | ** Wind Walk originally did not have a backstab mechanic, making it a pure scouting and escape ability with few offensive applications. It also kept the Blademaster's collision box, which meant that you could still be surrounded or blocked. Both changes were made pretty early on in the version history. |
| 447 | ** Oddly, Grom Hellscream is one of the only heroes in Warcraft III that when he reappears in ''World of Warcraft'' does not fight in any style resembling how he fought in this game, never turning invisible or creating clones of himself. His Warrior class suggests he's more of a brute fighter which implies much less finesse than the Blademaster. |
| 448 | * {{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. |
| 449 | * GlassCannon: Has exceedingly high damage output thanks to Wind Walk and Critical Strike along with a blistering attack speed, but not nearly as much durability. Luckily, they have Wind Walk and Mirror Image to help get out of danger or provide additional sustained damage in the case of the later. |
| 450 | * GuestStarPartyMember: In both Orc campaigns, the Blademaster hero is controlled only briefly. |
| 451 | ** In ''The Invasion of Kalimdor'', Grom Hellscream is a computer-controlled ally (or [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment potential enemy if the player attacks him]]) in his first appearance, and then is playable for two missions before he and the whole Warsong Clan suffer DemonicPossession under the campaign's ArcVillain. |
| 452 | ** ''The Founding of Durotar'' has a short section at the start of Act II where Rexxar's party stays behind and Samuro has his own StealthBasedMission to set up the bombs. After this is done, he is not seen again for the rest of the campaign. |
| 453 | * HitAndRunTactics: The main strategy of the Blademaster is to run or sneak into the enemy's midst, wreak havoc with its high damage, and then escape before the enemy can successfully counter. Mirror Image was eventually buffed so images deal 20% of the Blademaster's original, allowing some variation from the standard hit-and-run attacks. |
| 454 | * KatanasAreJustBetter: The Blademaster's sword is Japanese styled, going with their {{Samurai}} motif. However, Grom Hellscream prefers a battle axe and has a more traditional Orc warrior personality yet performs identically to Samurai Blademasters. |
| 455 | * 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. Blademasters tend to get more mileage out of Claws of Attack than most heroes for this reason. |
| 456 | * MookLieutenant: Despite being heroes, their role within the Magtheridon army is limited to being lieutenants leading small bases. |
| 457 | * OddNameOut: Moogul the Sly is the only name with a title. |
| 458 | * RecurringBoss: Blademasters are the most common enemy hero when facing hostile orcs. Throughout the story, [[GameplayAndStorySegregation despite their lore]], they tend to be the heroes most likely to be aligned with the Burning Legion. The only hostile Blademaster that isn't part of the legion is the [[HeroAntagonist one that works for Thrall]] in the 3rd mission of the Night Elf campaign. |
| 459 | * SamuraiShinobi: Combines elements of samurai (able to pull off a SingleStrokeBattle or magical spinning sword attacks, meditation, carries a banner on his back) and ninja (DoppelgangerSpin and invisibility attack that deals extra damage on the first hit). |
| 460 | * SpinAttack: Bladestorm damages all nearby foes while also [[SpinToDeflectStuff protecting the Blademaster from all magic for the duration]]. |
| 461 | * SuperSpeed: The manual's explanation as to why the Blademaster turns invisible from Wind Walk is that he is moving too fast for the eye to see. |
| 462 | * UnexplainedAccent: No other orc in the whole franchise has the Blademasters' exaggerated Japanese-sounding speech patterns. In the campaign, only Samuro has this accent (which is fitting because he is also one of the default Blademasters), and other campaign Blademasters speak with exaggerated patterns but do not have the accent. |
| 463 | * WarmUpBoss: The unnamed "[[NoNameGiven Blademaster of the Blackrock Clan]]" is the first HeroUnit fought in the ''Reign of Chaos'' campaigns [[note]]this is not counting the last 3 levels of the prologue campaign, which were part of the demo but removed from the original release, though restored in ''Reforged''[[/note]]. He fights alone, without any backup. On normal mode, he is only level 2 and is very easy to take on. On Hard mode, he is level 6 and more of a threat with Bladestorm, showing the potential danger of high-level enemy heroes. |
| 464 | |
| 465 | [[/folder]] |
| 466 | |
| 467 | [[folder:Far Seer]] |
| 468 | [[quoteright:166:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/farseer.gif]] |
| 469 | [[caption-width-right:166:''"The future is ours."'']] |
| 470 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 471 | '''Abilities:''' Chain Lightning, Far Sight, Feral Spirit, Earthquake (Ultimate)\ |
| 472 | '''Possible names:''' Gar'dal Grimsight, Negal Fireye, Kazil Darkeye, Magis Coldeye, Bale Bleakstare, Gorr Grimwolf, Kag'ar Winterfang, Nazgrel, Morg Wolfsong, Kazragore, Fenris'ar Gul\ |
| 473 | '''Playable Campaign characters:''' Thrall, Drek'thar\ |
| 474 | '''NPC Campaign characters:''' Throk'Feroth, Mazrigos |
| 475 | \ |
| 476 | |
| 477 | Under Thrall's guidance, the orcs threw off the chains of demons and embraced their shamanistic past. Far Seers represent the pinnacle of shamanic power; wielding the might of the elements and able to divine the future, they are the spiritual leaders of the New Horde, riding great wolves into battle. They can deal damage to numbers of enemies with Chain Lightning, reveal hidden areas of the map with Far Sight, and summon fierce spirit wolves to bolster their forces with Feral Spirit. Their ultimate ability, Earthquake, causes the ground beneath an area to tremble and break, rapidly destroying buildings and slowing the movement speed of those caught within. |
| 478 | ---- |
| 479 | * AntiStructure: Earthquake damages buildings in its area of effect, but not units which are merely slowed. |
| 480 | * CanisMajor: Their wolf mounts, as well as their spirit wolf summons. |
| 481 | * ChainLightning: One of their signature abilities, releasing a lightning bolt that bounces between enemies, damaging each one. |
| 482 | * CriticalHit: Spirit wolves have a chance to deal critical damage when upgraded. |
| 483 | * CrutchCharacter: Usually picked for early domination, the Far Seer's Feral Spirits give him a massive edge in early game, but pales compared to the late game potential of the other 3 heroes, lacking the raw damage of the Blademaster, the power and durability of the Tauren Chieftain, or the utility of the Shadow Hunter. |
| 484 | * DefogOfWar: Far Sight lets the Far Seer reveal a portion of the map, [[TrueSight along with any invisible enemies in it]], through the fog of war. The ability also has global range. |
| 485 | * DishingOutDirt: Their Earthquake ultimate. |
| 486 | * GameplayAndStoryIntegration: In two separate missions that take place in underground caves, Thrall does not have access to Far Sight, since it logically cannot be used in such a setting. |
| 487 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: Two Far Seers show up as enemy heroes in a mission belonging to the demon worshipping Blackrock Clan faction. They are probably meant to represent some kind of high-ranking Orc Warlocks. In ''Reforged'', this is somewhat addressed, though not fixed. The models are changed to Stormreaver Warlocks and their class is renamed "Warlock", but they are still a MovesetClone and have the same shamanistic Far Seer abilities. |
| 488 | * GuestStarPartyMember: Drek'Thar's brief playable stint in Act I of ''The Founding of Durotar'' is limited to an optional quest inside the sub-map "Thunder Ridge". |
| 489 | * HorseOfADifferentColor: They ride large wolves. |
| 490 | * InTheHood: They wear hoods, adding an air of mystery to them. |
| 491 | * JackOfAllTrades: Not [[JackOfAllStats of all stats]], since he's more of a SquishyWizard, but his skillset is a mishmash of functions between SummonMagic, Scouting, Damage, and AntiStructure. |
| 492 | * NobleWolf: They are the noble spiritual leaders of the free New Horde, and wolves are a major symbol of theirs. |
| 493 | * OneSteveLimit: Averted. One of the generic Far Seer's names is Nazgrel, the same name as one of Thrall's commanders. He shows up in ''The Frozen Throne'' as a Raider and is a Warrior in World of Warcraft. Another is Morg Wolfsong, who is a minor Shaman questgiver in the same campaign. |
| 494 | * {{Seers}}: As if the name weren't enough of an indicator, Far Sight can reveal large unexplored areas of the map, though they can't see the future (at least in game; shaman have been known to receive omens and visions in lore). Many of their in-game quotes hint at this as well. |
| 495 | * ShockAndAwe: Chain Lightning. |
| 496 | * SupportPower: Far Sight gives you access to a DefogOfWar with unlimited range. At level 3, it can reveal an incredible chunk of the map. |
| 497 | * WizardBeard: They have a thick, white, moustache-less beard, to drive the point that they're the Horde's counterpart to the Archmage. |
| 498 | [[/folder]] |
| 499 | |
| 500 | [[folder:Tauren Chieftain]] |
| 501 | [[quoteright:166:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chieftain.gif]] |
| 502 | [[caption-width-right:166:''"I have an axe to grind."'']] |
| 503 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 504 | '''Abilities:''' Shockwave, War Stomp, Endurance Aura, Reincarnation (Ultimate)\ |
| 505 | '''Possible names:''' Marn Thunderhorn, Tygore Dusthoof, Tam Windtotem, Durn Harpyslayer, Kam Ghoststeer, Kel Stonebull, Mull Stormhoof, Grok Bloodhorn, Malar Plainstrider, Taur Runetotem\ |
| 506 | '''Playable Campaign characters:''' Cairne Bloodhoof, Baine Bloodhoof\ |
| 507 | \ |
| 508 | |
| 509 | These wise, mighty chieftains are the tauren's leaders in life as well as in battle. Wielding mighty axes and bearing their clans' ancient totems, the Tauren Chieftain is charged with upholding the honor and simplicity of tauren culture. They can damage units in a line with Shockwave, stun enemy units around them with War Stomp, and grant their allies improved attack and movement speed with Endurance Aura. Their ultimate ability, Reincarnation, allows them to return to life when killed once every four minutes. |
| 510 | ---- |
| 511 | * AchillesHeel: Neither of the Tauren Chieftain's spells hit enemy air units, and his melee attack means he can't reach them with basic attacks either without an orb. |
| 512 | * AntiStructure: Shockwave deals full damage to buildings, making it lethal against clusters of low-health buildings like Farms or towers. |
| 513 | * AutoRevive: Reincarnation always revives the Tauren Chieftain at full health and mana after 5 seconds, as long as the ability is off cooldown when he dies. There's no external way to stop him from reviving [[note]]There is one circumstance where the Chieftain will die without reviving, which is if he is in a transport and it dies over deep water or unpathable terrain (cliffs, deep water, or heavy tree density). This will have him marked as dead without ever triggering Reincarnation. The reasoning for this is because the Chieftain is technically not on the map while in the transport which means he can't trigger Reincarnation because he technically doesn't have it while on the transport. Additionally, him respawning over unpathable terrain wouldn't really be helpful either[[/note]]. |
| 514 | * BackFromTheDead: Their ultimate ability, Reincarnation. |
| 515 | * CloseRangeCombatant: The Chieftain is this not just because he's melee, but because War Stomp only applies the damage and stun to enemy land units near him, and Shockwave's slow projective makes it not as effective at range as most AOE nukes. This weakness is alleviated a bit by the movement speed from Endurance Aura. |
| 516 | * MagicKnight: The Tauren Chieftain's damage is mostly from Shockwave. He is melee and attacks slowly, even with Endurance Aura. |
| 517 | * MightyGlacier: While not necessarily slow due to their Endurance Aura, Tauren Chieftains can still have trouble positioning themselves in battle due to their large, unwieldy hitbox. But once they do get in position for a Shockwave or War Stomp, watch the damage start racking up. |
| 518 | * MechanicallyUnusualClass: The Tauren Chieftain is the only hero in the melee game that has a fully passive ultimate, and the only one that triggers on death. He is also the only hero that has 2 passive abilities. |
| 519 | * MundaneUtility: Endurance Aura can be leveled to speed up resource harvesting of Peons whenever the Chieftain is in the base. |
| 520 | * OldSoldier: The campaign Tauren Chieftain, Cairne, definitely qualifies, and the voice of the regular multiplayer version gives the same impression. |
| 521 | * RankScalesWithAsskicking: The chieftains lead their people and are also the most fearsome of them in battle. |
| 522 | * SlapOnTheWristNuke: War Stomp is one of the most dramatic looking and sounding spells. Despite this, it deals negligible damage. Compared to the Mountain King's Thunder Clap, it trades off dealing about half of the damage to have a stun instead of a slow. |
| 523 | * ShockwaveStomp: War Stomp. It does damage to land units around the Chieftain and stuns them. |
| 524 | * TheStoner: Their StopPokingMe quotes give off this vibe after they mention the peace pipe. |
| 525 | ---> '''Tauren Chieftain:''' Oh... I can see my ancestors... |
| 526 | * SwordBeam: Shockwave sends out a wave of energy along the ground from the Tauren Chieftain's axe. |
| 527 | * TheUnfought: No Tauren Chieftain is fought as an enemy hero in any of the campaigns. The Tauren are never an antagonistic force in any of the campaigns. During the Night Elf campaign when the Tauren would have been part of Thrall's Horde at the time, the only Horde hero they fight is a Blademaster. |
| 528 | * ViolationOfCommonSense: An effective, if seemingly insane way that a Tauren Chieftain refills his health and mana if he's high level is to have his troops kill him and Reincarnate with full health and mana. It's faster than most methods of healing him (especially since he has a massive health pool). It makes sense if you don't have a healing ward ready and are not going to be fighting while Reincarnation is cooling down. Plus, enemy players have no way to know if the Chieftain has used his ultimate yet unless they saw him die recently, and as such will probably ignore him as much as possible since focusing down a Tauren Chieftain with Reincarnation first in a fight will probably only make things worse for yourself. |
| 529 | * WhyWontYouDie: Tauren Chieftain is extremely difficult to kill at high levels. He has among the highest strength of all heroes, can stun all land units around him, runs faster than most heroes with Endurance Aura, and comes back to life if he dies after 5 seconds with full HP and Mana when he dies. |
| 530 | [[/folder]] |
| 531 | |
| 532 | [[folder:Shadow Hunter (''Frozen Throne'')]] |
| 533 | [[quoteright:166:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shadowhunter.gif]] |
| 534 | [[caption-width-right:166:''"Want to see somethin' real scary?"'']] |
| 535 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Agility\ |
| 536 | '''Abilities:''' Healing Wave, Hex, Serpent Ward, Big Bad Voodoo (Ultimate)\ |
| 537 | '''Possible names:''' Zul'kis, Zul'abar, Zul'rajas, Zul'maran, Jo Jo Headshrinker, Shaka-zahn, Shakti-lar, Mezil-kree\ |
| 538 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Rokhan\ |
| 539 | \ |
| 540 | |
| 541 | Among trolls, those skilled in voodoo magic and battle become the revered leaders of their tribes; these leaders are called Shadow Hunters. Wielding a variety of magics, Shadow Hunters can heal and sustain their allies, curse their foes, and commune with the spirits to bargain for power or plead for aid in the interest of carving out a future for the trolls. They can heal multiple allies at once with Healing Wave, summon a fire-spitting snake totem with Serpent Ward, and turn enemies into random animals with Hex. Their ultimate ability, Big Bad Voodoo, allows the Shadow Hunter to turn all nearby friendly units (but not himself) invulnerable for up to 30 seconds. |
| 542 | ---- |
| 543 | * AnimalMotifs: As with most trolls in ''Warcraft'', reptiles and amphibians. Hex turns enemies into frogs, and their summoned Serpent Wards are (as one might expect) snake-shaped. |
| 544 | * ForcedTransformation: Hex turns enemies into random critters (which are determined by the map tileset). Note that unlike the Sorceress's Polymorph, Hex ''does'' work on other heroes (albeit with reduced duration). |
| 545 | * HollywoodVoodoo: Although the religious element of actual Vodoun is present to some degree (bargaining with spirits and such), it's mostly just a cool Caribbean-flavored variant of shamanic magic. |
| 546 | * IncreasinglyLethalEnemy: Shadow Hunter can be a huge problem for his enemies if he can stack up Serpent Wards all over a fight. If they aren't killed before the next one spawns it gradually adds up to a lot of damage. |
| 547 | * ImmortalityField: Essentially what Big Bad Voodoo does for everyone except the Shadow Hunter himself. |
| 548 | * MechanicallyUnusualClass: He is a ranged Agility hero that plays almost exactly like an Intelligence caster. To add to this, he has very low agility gain and high intelligence gain per level. This makes him less fragile than your average SquishyWizard, but also means he deals less damage because of his low primary attribute gain. |
| 549 | * TheMedic: For the Orcish Horde, which has a bigger issue with health sustain than the other races. An early Shadow Hunter can mitigate these issues with Healing Wave so you rely less on salves from the Voodoo Lounge or waiting to research Healing Wards. |
| 550 | * MundaneUtility: |
| 551 | ** Serpent Wards are not just extra damage in a fight, but also very effective for scouting out unexplored areas or to watch for potential ambushes, especially if placed on top of high cliffs. |
| 552 | ** Big Bad Voodoo can be used as an instant, large area dispel due to granting invulnerability. This can be useful if multiple spellcasting units were hit by a AOE silence, or a huge number of your units have been hit by powerful debuffs. |
| 553 | * NighInvulnerable: Big Bad Voodoo turns allies invulnerable for a period of time. However, it [[NoSelfBuffs does not work for him]]. |
| 554 | * NoSelfBuffs: The Shadow Hunter himself is still vulnerable to damage when channeling Big Bad Voodoo (as well as stuns that would break the spell). Worse, as invulnerable units can't even be targeted. Enemy attacks can ''only'' hit him. Additionally, Big Bad Voodoo will dispel certain positive buffs when active and it cannot be reapplied. Most notable of these is Bloodlust. |
| 555 | * NoSell: Unlike most summoned units Serpent Wards are immune to magic. This means they are immune to dispels and spellcasters trying to attack them and they are instead weak to long ranged siege weaponry which can knock them out in 1-2 shots. |
| 556 | * OddNameOut: Jo Jo Headshrinker is the only generic Shadow Hunter name that does not have any Troll naming conventions. |
| 557 | * PragmaticAdaptation: Because ''The Founding of Durotar'' is more of a open-world RPG instead of a Real Time Strategy, Rokhan does not have Big Bad Voodoo, since its use is for large scale army battles. Instead he gets a new ultimate, Voodoo Spirits, which is effectively a reskinned Locust Swarm and more generally useful for combat. |
| 558 | * RedMage: He has offensive and defensive capabilities between the ability to heal and support, while also disrupting with Hex and summoning damaging wards. |
| 559 | * ShootTheMedicFirst: The total healing from Healing Wave adds up to a lot between multiple units. When the enemies have a Shadow Hunter, the best option is usually to try to focus him down quickly before he can cast too many healing waves. |
| 560 | * SupportPartyMember: Shadow Hunters have no direct damage abilities and their only kind of damaging attack is Serpent Ward. However, they provide Healing Wave to a largely healing-starved orcish army, and Hex is an excellent way of disabling powerful enemy units. This trope is best exemplified, however, in Big Bad Voodoo, which makes everyone but the Shadow Hunter invulnerable. |
| 561 | * ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks: Their basic attack throws a glaive at the target. This is a bit of a case of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, as in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', most shadow hunters use bows. |
| 562 | * TheUnfought: No Shadow Hunter is fought as an enemy hero in any of the campaigns. This is because the Horde is OutOfFocus in the Frozen Throne campaigns and never show up as antagonists. |
| 563 | * WitchDoctor: Not to be confused with the unit, Troll Witch Doctor, but it still fits in his abilities being based around healing and curses. |
| 564 | |
| 565 | [[/folder]] |
| 566 | |
| 567 | !!Undead Heroes |
| 568 | [[folder:Undead Heroes in General]] |
| 569 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/undead_groupphoto2.jpg]] |
| 570 | [[caption-width-right:250:Left to right: Dreadlord, Lich, Death Knight, Crypt Lord]] |
| 571 | |
| 572 | * AlphaStrike: A known undead strategy, also called the "Undead nuke". Undead is the only race where all the heroes can instantly damage an enemy with a nuke spell (except other Undead with the Death Knight). Many use the heroes this way to quickly kill key enemy targets or heroes. The most common combo is Death Knight's Death Coil and Lich's Frost Nova. The Dreadlord's Carrion Swarm or Crypt Lord's Impale can also be added for a triple-nuke. This strategy is aided by the fact that you need fewer Acolytes than other factions' workers (since lumber is harvested by Ghouls instead), so there is the option of rushing to Tier 2 extra early for a second hero by diligently protecting your gold mining Acolytes from base raids. |
| 573 | * BalancePowerSkillGimmick: Death Knight, Crypt Lord, Lich, Dreadlord. |
| 574 | ** Death Knight is a JackOfAllTrades who can do a lot of what an undead army needs but is not as specialized as the other three, Crypt Lord is TheMinionMaster and frontline StoneWall that becomes a MightyGlacier as he gains levels and items, Lich is a SquishyWizard built around damage and mana with the option to go defensive if needed, and the Dreadlord is a melee strength hero that plays more like a SquishyWizard and is focused on disrupting fights with his spells. |
| 575 | ** The Dreadlord in ''Reign of Chaos'' was the Power by default, being the best at close combat among the original three, but he was pushed to Gimmick by the Crypt Lord being a better Power than both him and the Death Knight by all metrics. This is unlike the other factions, where the newest hero in the expansion was the Gimmick hero. |
| 576 | * BoringButPractical: The Tomb of Relic's tier 3 non-Orb item is remarkably more boring than the other races. Instead of a [[TeleportationRescue Staff of Sanctuary]], [[AntiMagic Anti-Magic Potion]], or a [[MisleadingPackageSize Tiny Great Hall]], they get Scroll of Healing (up to 2 stocked at a time), which heals 150 health in a relatively large area. Getting them on 3 heroes would give the entire undead army up to 450 more health, making their armies extremely difficult to fight head-on, and it rewards most Undead army's tendency to use a [[ZergRush mass of weak units]]. This gives the Undead a strong incentive to get a lot of heroes, more than other races. Even though the scrolls can be bought from any Goblin Merchant, the convenience of having them on demand at the player's base means the player does not have to extend their forces to try to control the neutral building (that may not even be on the map) to do the same. |
| 577 | * CardCarryingVillain: The Death Knight and Lich both have lines where they call themselves "evil". The Dreadlord is the most ObviouslyEvil of them and talks about darkness, his intelligence, and eating souls. The Crypt Lord is the only exception, where his personality is more akin to a soft-spoken BoisterousBruiser compared to the rest of them. |
| 578 | * DefeatEqualsExplosion: Uniquely among heroes, when Dreadlords and Liches die, they don't just fall down. Dreadlord explode into a swarm of bats, and the Lich implodes into nothingness with only a bit of frost as they disappear. |
| 579 | * DevourTheDragon: As befitting the Undead, both Lich and Death Knight have an ability to do this with benefits to the caster's mana and health respectively. |
| 580 | * EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily: Within the same factions of the Undead, the ''Undead'' leaders get along just fine thanks to the Curse of Undeath making it difficult to be around the living, and many being hated by their kind for betraying the living. Dreadlords are a different case as they're ''Demonic'' rather than Undead overseers who are tasked with keeping the Scourge in line for the Burning Legion. |
| 581 | ** This gets carried into gameplay as well. In team games, the Undead have some advantages that are exclusive to them, such as building and regenerating on blight, which means they are not really able to build defensive structures in a living ally's base, but they could bolster an Undead ally's base. Several powerful hero spells can only target undead too, such as Death Coil or Dark Ritual. Due to the strong synergy between Undead heroes, it's a common strategy in team games to all play Undead and pick different heroes and play close to each other. |
| 582 | * FrontlineGeneral: Three of the four Undead heroes (except the Lich) are melee Strength heroes who tend to hang out near or at the frontlines. Death Knight's are very common but they are more valued for their Death Coil's nuking or healing and Unholy Aura than for deliberately engaging in melee; they tend to stay back behind melee units. The Dreadlord also hangs back slightly due to being relatively fragile and more focus on mana growth than the typical strength hero. The Crypt Lord is best suited for leading ''at'' the front with their tanking abilities, and powerful LifeDrain ultimate. This philosophy also crosses into gameplay as the Undead heroes can combine their nuke spells to blast priority targets and are thus encouraged to stay grouped up instead of running off on their own, especially since Death Knight healing is so pivotal and they can all conveniently buy Scrolls of Healing from a Tomb of Relics to provide additional mass healing. |
| 583 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: They have mostly threatening names that allude to darkness, death, or cold. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Crypt Lords have an association with Ancient Egypt instead.]] |
| 584 | * NoSelfBuffs: A variation. Ironically, three of the four Undead Heroes have support abilities, and all of these abilities (except Unholy Aura) are suboptimal when applied on themselves. Death Coil cannot be cast on the Death Knight at all, he needs to use Death Pact (which is overall a weaker heal) to heal himself. Frost Armor is better on a frontline tank like an Abomination or Crypt Lord, since the Lich is not meant to tank either way. Vampiric Aura is carried by the Dreadlord, who is the most fragile frontline strength hero, so it's more for actual frontline melee heroes and units rather than the Dreadlord himself. |
| 585 | * ObviouslyEvil: All of them look and act evil. And they are. The Lich even nods to this by declaring "The ancient evil survives." upon being recruited. The Dreadlord is so vampiric and demonic with a matching VampireVords personality that it verges on parody. |
| 586 | * WeakenedByTheLight: Like all biological undead, Undead heroes and the Demonic Dreadlord are all vulnerable to the Paladin's Holy Light, making Human Paladins more powerful than usual for countering Undead Heroes. This gets even worse if a Blood Mage is in tow to Banish them for a +66% damage penalty. |
| 587 | [[/folder]] |
| 588 | |
| 589 | [[folder:Death Knight]] |
| 590 | [[quoteright:161:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/deathknight.gif]] |
| 591 | [[caption-width-right:161:''"The pact is sealed."'']] |
| 592 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 593 | '''Abilities:''' Death Coil, Death Pact, Unholy Aura, Animate Dead (Ultimate)\ |
| 594 | '''Possible names:''' Lord Nightsorrow, Lord Soulrender, Lord Dethstorm, Lord Maldazzar, Lord Darkhallow, Lord Lightstalker, Baron Bloodbane, Baron Felblade, Duke Dreadmoore, Duke Ragereaver, Baron Frostfel, Lord Darkscythe, Duke Wintermaul, Baron Perenolde, Baron Morte\ |
| 595 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Arthas Menethil\ |
| 596 | \ |
| 597 | |
| 598 | Death Knights are the premier warriors of the Undead Scourge. Though they were once paladins who ventured north to find the source of the Plague of Undeath, these former champions of truth now serve the Lich King, riding at the head of his dreaded armies and sowing chaos and destruction in their wake. Mounted atop fearsome undead deathchargers and wielding runeblades infused with dark magic, they bring terror to all who would stand in the Scourge's way. They can heal their undead allies and damage living enemies with Death Coil, sacrifice a friendly undead unit to restore their own health with Death Pact, and grant their allies improved movement speed and health regeneration with Unholy Aura. Their ultimate ability, Animate Dead, brings to life the corpses of the 6 most powerful nearby units, putting them all under the Death Knight's control for the duration. |
| 599 | ---- |
| 600 | * AnimateDead: Literally the name of their ultimate, which reanimates corpses near the Death Knight (friend or foe). Conveniently, units raised this way are flagged as Undead regardless of what they were in life, allowing the Death Knight, and Lich, to sacrifice them for their own abilities. The Disease Cloud upgrade affects these units as well so that you may utilize Disease Cloud even if you don't have Abominations or Meat Wagons. |
| 601 | * AristocratsAreEvil: All of their randomly-generated names contain a title of nobility -- "Baron," "Lord," or "Duke." |
| 602 | * BlackKnight: An evil knight clad in black armor. They [[HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic do not wear any kind of identity-concealing helmet]], however. |
| 603 | * BoringButPractical: They're not the flashiest hero to recruit mainly due to mediocre attack rate and damage. Much of their utility is in throwing Death Coils for damage or healing, buffing your army with Unholy Aura's healing and speed buff, and occasionally skilling and using Death Pact for an efficient self-heal. However, they provide a lot of staying power to the Undead as their damage spell is also a great way to save your units from being picked off. Meanwhile, Unholy Aura allows your troops to passively heal automatically off of blight and maneuver more swiftly. The most boring builds skip Animate Dead at Level 6 in favor of maxing out both Death Coil and Unholy Aura because they're that effective. |
| 604 | * CallBack: |
| 605 | ** Unholy Aura is very similar in principle to the Death Knight's Haste spell in ''Warcraft II'', except it provides a universal HealingFactor instead of an attack rate buff for a select few units. Death Pact's self healing works like the self-healing in the old version of Death Coil, except you must kill one of your units and you gain up to 300% of that unit's current health. |
| 606 | ** In ''Warcraft II'', the Death Knight unit made comments alluding to his limited patience. The Death Knight hero sometimes comments that "My patience has ended." when selected. |
| 607 | ** Baron Perenolde's name implies that he has ties to the ruling family of Alterac. Upholding Alterac's infamous betrayal of the Alliance in the Second War, he has joined The Scourge, the successor to the Dark Horde, and carries on Alterac's reputation for treachery. |
| 608 | * CombatMedic: Unlike most healers, the Death Knight likes to be near the front lines. He wants to be within Coil range of any allies that need healing, but also any enemy he can try to nuke. Due to his poor melee attack, he rarely wants to be in the thick of battle, but with points in Death Pact, he can do some tanking too. |
| 609 | * ContinuityNod: In ''Warcraft II'', Death Knights were Liches mounted atop undead horses and one of the few units vulnerable to Paladins' Exorcism. This next generation of Death Knights are instead fallen Paladins who were corrupted by the Lich King and wield EvilCounterpart versions of the Paladin spells and are vulnerable to Holy Light just like their predecessors were to Exorcism. The Death Knights of the second war still exist, but they were transformed into the new Lich heroes. |
| 610 | * CoolSword: They are known for using runeblades, swords emblazoned with runes that grant the weapon magical powers. |
| 611 | * DevourTheDragon: Death Pact lets the Death Knight sacrifice his own non-Hero units to restore health based on that unit's current health. In addition to all the expendable, timed life fodder the Undead can summon to begin with (including the ones raised by the Death Knight's own Animate Dead, which are invulnerable, so they always heal him for the full amount when sacrificed), simply using it on a lowly Ghoul is already more efficient than chugging a healing potion. |
| 612 | * EvilCounterpart: Explicitly described in-game to be this to Paladins, having many equivalent abilities, including a reversed version of Holy Light that damages the living and heals undead, a self-protection ability with similar usage to Divine Shield, an empowering aura (albeit more offensive than Devotion Aura due to the speed boost), and the ability to reanimate dead units. Its original name during development was even the Anti-Paladin before it received the Death Knight name, initially used for a separate hero unit whose model got reused for the Revenant creeps. |
| 613 | * FallenHero: The Death Knights were not turned by the Plague like the rest of the undead -- [[ThenLetMeBeEvil they defected willingly in response to persecution from distrustful people of Lordaeron, who accused them of secretly being infected]]. Some Death Knights like Arthas Menethil gave into (unwittingly or otherwise) the lure of corrupting power from The Lich King out of despair or desperation to save their people from the Plague of Undeath. |
| 614 | * {{Foil}}: Their overall theme of an unholy healer and reanimator contrasts with the Lich whose spells are themed around freezing, decaying, or sacrificing targets; Death Coil is still an effective nuke against the living, nonetheless. Their sacrifice spell also contrasts, being used to heal the caster instead of restore mana. |
| 615 | * FragileSpeedster: Relatively speaking, Death Knights are this compared to their former Paladin selves. They have slightly less base armor and more base health, giving them minutely less effective health. However, they also lose Devotion Aura's defenses in place of Unholy Aura's speed and regeneration and are slightly more vulnerable to focus fire... although with Death Pact, the practicality of doing so is still rather minimal. |
| 616 | * GenderFlip: While all Death Knights in the original ''Warcraft III'' are male, a skin in ''Reforged'' makes the multiplayer Death Knight female instead. |
| 617 | * GracefulInTheirElement: Inverted with the Paladin hero as their element is battling the abundant living factions and their Death Coil has no effect on enemy Undead at all. However, this does mean that living neutral heroes are less desirable due Death Coil being unable to heal them. |
| 618 | * HealingFactor: Unholy Aura provides this as one of its components, allowing health recovery to the Undead Army even without blighted ground. |
| 619 | * HellishHorse: Rides an armored skeletal horse with horns known as a "deathcharger." |
| 620 | * HeWhoFightsMonsters: The Paladins of the Second War were specialized to heal the sick and wounded and perform Exorcism on Death Knights and their skeleton minions. When the Plague of Undeath caused vilification due to the Paladins' disease immunity, some grew resentful and defected to the Lich King, becoming Death Knights themselves. What is ironic is that the Death Knights of the Second War are now their Lich allies. |
| 621 | * JackOfAllStats: The Death Knight is the most [[JackOfAllTrades well rounded of the Undead heroes]] and is able to heal allies, nuke living enemies, increase his army's mobility, keep himself alive by "eating" a unit, and potentially turn the tide of a battle with his ultimate. While somewhat durable as a strength hero, he isn't exceptionally tanky and more built around speed and supporting. He's considered the safest first hero to pick on Undead in most circumstances, unless you're doing a hero-specific strategy that requires one of the other heroes' specializations (like using a Lich to rush or using a Dreadlord to be paired with Ghouls/Abominations). |
| 622 | * MagicKnight: The Death Knight's damage mostly comes from Death Coil. He has low attack damage, and his attack speed is very slow. As a result, players will often prioritize itemizing their Death Knight with mana gear at every opportunity. |
| 623 | * MechanicallyUnusualClass: They are unique in that their unusual heal/nuke spell can only harm living units. They are also unique among melee heroes in that they have a GoodCounterpart, the Paladin whose heal/nuke ''only'' harms the Undead and ''only'' heals the living. |
| 624 | * MundaneUtility: Unholy Aura's move-speed booster can be handy while a Death Knight is back at a home base. Ghouls and Goblin Shredders can move to and from lumber trees more quickly, helping boost your lumber economy for the more lumber-intensive units and technologies. |
| 625 | * MutualDisadvantage: When fighting other Death Knights solo, neither can use their Death Coil offensively, they can only slowly melee one another and use whatever offensive items they have on hand. |
| 626 | * NoBodyLeftBehind: The fate of Animate Dead units after their timer expires is that they explode, so they [[DeaderThanDead cannot be raised again]] for the same purpose. |
| 627 | * NoSelfBuffs: Zigzagged: while Death Coil can't be used on the caster to heal himself, Death Pact (kills an allied undead unit to absorb some or all of its HP) ''only'' works on the caster, so the Death Knight has a means to keep himself alive, it just requires additional skill points. |
| 628 | * OddNameOut: Baron Perenolde is unusual as it's a standard name without the usual references to evilness, similar to Arthas Menethil. |
| 629 | * OneHandedZweihander: The Death Knight wields a sword that looks to be at least a meter long with one hand. He uses the other hand to keep a grip on his horse. |
| 630 | * RedMage: While the Death Knight's main purpose is to be a healer for his troops, Death Coil is a useful nuke too, as long as it's targeting a living opponent. |
| 631 | * RevenantZombie: Their ranks are filled with corrupted Paladins who have entered a state of Undeath with all of the perks and weaknesses it entails plus they retain their original personalities. Like all biological Undead, they can be hurt by a Paladin's Holy Light. |
| 632 | * ReviveKillsZombie: {{Inverted|Trope}} with Death Coil, which does damage to enemy living units and heals friendly undead units. |
| 633 | * ShootTheMedicFirst: Death Knights often make extremely high-priority targets for enemies fighting an Undead player since his only form of self-healing requires killing allied units and because of his high damage and healing potential. Furthermore, Death Pact is often passed up as taking it means not using the skill point to improve his other skills, which are generally more valued for the improvement they give to your army, and using Death Pact means he has less mana to spend on Death Coil. |
| 634 | * SwordBeam: The Death Knight's spellcasting animation has him aiming his sword at his target, like it's a MagicWand. When casting Death Coil it looks like it's being blasted out of his sword. |
| 635 | * UniqueEnemy: Only two Death Knights are fought in the campaign, both of them during the final mission of ''The Frozen Throne's'' Night Elf campaign. |
| 636 | * WeCanRuleTogether: After Ner'Zhul's Dark Horde lost the Second War to the Human Alliance, Ner'Zhul used his new Lich King powers to lure disaffected Alliance Paladins to join him as his new Death Knights. |
| 637 | * YouCantKillWhatsAlreadyDead: The expansion makes Animate Dead's units invulnerable in exchange for lasting less time. This makes them great targets for abilities like Death Pact or the Lich's Dark Ritual (restores mana) as the units will survive to be usable again for this purpose. |
| 638 | [[/folder]] |
| 639 | |
| 640 | [[folder:Dreadlord]] |
| 641 | [[quoteright:161:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dreadlord.gif]] |
| 642 | [[caption-width-right:161:''"The night beckons."'']] |
| 643 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 644 | '''Abilities:''' Carrion Swarm, Sleep, Vampiric Aura, Inferno (Ultimate)\ |
| 645 | '''Possible names:''' Terrordar, Nerothos, Bleakill, Necros, Fearoth, Dethecus, Maldibion, Nochthitus, Gholbine, Rashgarroth, Aramachus, Zilfallon, Lorthiras, Zenedar, Mullioch, Algammon, Banehallow, Ven'Gyr\ |
| 646 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Varimathras (with modified skills, has some Pit Lord abilities)\ |
| 647 | '''NPC Campaign characters:''' Mal'Ganis, Tichondrius, Anetheron, Dalvengyr, Detheroc, Balnazzar, [[SuperBoss Talnivarr the Sleeper]] \ |
| 648 | \ |
| 649 | |
| 650 | Dreadlords, also called Nathrezim, are among the most powerful of demons and the primary agents, spies, and enforcers of the Burning Legion, sent to keep lower units in line and prepare worlds for the demonic invasion. On Azeroth, they have been tasked by the Legion to oversee the Scourge, the vast undead army tasked with weakening the inhabitants of Azeroth so that they cannot offer resistance to the Legion. They can send out a swarm of bats against foes with Carrion Swarm, put enemies to sleep with Sleep, and allow allies to recover health when damaging enemies with Vampiric Aura. Their ultimate ability, Inferno, summons a mighty Infernal demon from the sky. |
| 651 | ---- |
| 652 | * AristocratsAreEvil: Like the Death Knights, Dreadlords are like a nobility in the Burning Legion thanks to their VampireVords theme and charming personalities. Like aristocrats, they domineer over their subjects to ensure they carry out the will of their supreme leadership. |
| 653 | * BadPowersBadPeople: They're so ObviouslyEvil that it verges on parody and their spells are vampire-themed overall. |
| 654 | * BarrageOfBats: Carrion Swarm fires a wave of bats at enemies, although strangely the ability icon actually shows a swarm of locusts. |
| 655 | * BatOutOfHell: Going with their whole "demon vampire" thing, Dreadlords are demons that have giant bat wings and can launch a wave of bats at enemies with Carrion Swarm. |
| 656 | * BlackMage: The Dreadlord's active abilities are all targeted towards damaging or disabling foes. Even his summon ability involves damaging and stunning an area first; that aspect of Inferno is almost as important as the summon itself. |
| 657 | * ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Most plot-relevant Dreadlords have a different colour palette than that of the player they belong to. This, in turn, also helps players to recognize which Dreadlord is which, given several appear in the campaign, and often in groups. To further emphasize this, most of these Dreadlords carry an Orb of the same colour they use. Some Dreadlords, however, do share a colour (Mal'ganis and Detheroc are green, and Tichondrius and Varimathras are red), but these identically-colored Dreadlords only show up when the previous one had been killed. |
| 658 | * ComboPlatterPowers: Several campaign Dreadlords switch out their default abilities for other skills, suggesting they each have their own specialization in magic (often tied to the element of the orb they carry), whereas the default Dreadlord has skills mostly in line with a Warlock, built around Fel magic. |
| 659 | ** Varimathas has Rain of Fire and Doom instead of Carrion Swarm and Infernal. He has similar skills to the Pit Lord and gives the player a taste of their skills in the campaign. In-universe it suggests that Varimarthas favors fire magic, since he also carries an Orb of Fire by default. Unlike some of the other "altered" Dreadlords, Varimathras's two replacement spells still serve the same function as the spells they are replacing (AOE damage and damage spell that summons a big unit). |
| 660 | ** Detheroc swaps Vampiric Aura for Shadow Strike and Inferno for Death and Decay, and he carries the passive Disease Cloud like an abomination. These abilities make Detheroc an even more dedicated caster with skill in Necromancy and poison magic, eschewing melee combat and SummonMagic for it. The poison theme to the abilities also ties to the orb he carries being an Orb of Venom. |
| 661 | ** Balnazzar swaps out Carrion Swarm for Finger of Pain (a weaker Finger of Death), Inferno for Rain of Chaos (a much stronger version of Inferno that summons multiple Infernals), and has a 5th ability, Earthquake. His Orb, Orb of Darkness allows him to create skeletons if his target dies after he attacks it, potentially allowing even more minions. This makes him an extremely powerful summoner and focused on sieging bases. |
| 662 | ** [[SuperBoss Talnivarr the Sleeper]] is interesting because he swaps out Vampiric Aura for Trueshot Aura (an aura he cannot benefit from), and Inferno for a specialized version of Rain of Chaos, which lets him summon his own, tougher Infernals. Even though Trueshot Aura does not help him, it does help his skeleton archer minions, which are the main source of damage in the encounter against him. Ultimately his job is to be a SupportPartyMember and to tank for his minions, despite being a SuperBoss. |
| 663 | * CripplingOverspecialization: Zigzagged in regard to Vampiric Aura, though it arguably applies to the hero as a whole due to the importance of auras in how armies are structured. |
| 664 | ** Vampiric Aura has a much narrower use than most auras. If you look at the undead techtree, they can only build two normal melee units: Ghouls and Abominations [[note]]Acolytes and Gargoyles can get Vampiric Aura too, but Acolytes are workers and not used for combat except very early in the game and Gargoyles only get it when fighting other air units in melee range [[/note]]. This gives it less utility than the Death Knight's Unholy Aura, [[OvershadowedByAwesome which applies to all units and has them recover health without having to hit any units]]. Vampiric Aura is only extremely powerful if a player were to go rush mass abominations with the "Unholy" upgrade line, but that strategy leaves huge weaknesses to air units and spellcasters (which would normally be covered by the "Creature" upgrade techtree units like Crypt Fiends and Destroyers, which you are less likely to build in this strategy). In order to use it optimally, you would have to put yourself in a vulnerable box that is easily countered. |
| 665 | ** It can end up Downplayed because of the MagikarpPower aspect of the skill, where it loses some of the "Crippling" aspect of the trope. The healing it provides grows as the game goes on as the affected unit's attack damage increases. The aura applies to most Undead summoned units (especially the Infernal) and 2 of the 3 other Undead heroes [[note]]3 of the 5 if you count the two Undead neutral heroes[[/note]]. So even if it affects few units, it affects the most important ones. In strategies where Gargoyles are used as AntiAir, it works incredibly well at Level 3 and can really help them outlast their targets thanks to their ''very-high'' melee damage [[note]]but be wary of hard-counters like Dragonhawk Riders or Troll Batriders who you don't want to use air-melee against [[/note]]. It becomes even more powerful in team games, as Vampiric Aura is extremely well suited for the melee-combat heavy Orc faction. |
| 666 | * CutscenePowerToTheMax: In the campaign cutscenes Dreadlords are often shown teleporting to taunt a hero or concocting their plans. In-game, Dreadlords can only teleport by themselves with the help of certain items. |
| 667 | * DynamicEntry: Inferno drops an Infernal on the targeted spot in the form of a FlamingMeteor that stuns and damages surrounding enemies before the Infernal itself stands up and starts punching. |
| 668 | * EvilCounterpart: Vampiric Aura is this to the Keeper of the Grove's Thorns Aura. Instead of causing enemies to suffer a percentage of their melee damage dealt, Vampiric Aura heals allies for a percentage of their melee damage dealt. If both auras are present in battle and at equal level, then Thorns Aura will heavily negate Vampiric Aura. |
| 669 | * EvilGenius: Almost all of the campaign Dreadlords: Tichondrius, Dalvengyr, Varimathras, Detheroc, and Balnazzar, have significantly (45%) more intelligence than the average Dreadlord, with only Anetheron and Mal'Ganis excluded. It could be considered GameplayAndStoryIntegration given their high ranks and in-universe cunning and leadership skills. Even the multiplayer Dreadlord has better intelligence growth than usual, with the Lich being the only Undead hero to surpass them. |
| 670 | * FatBastard: ''Reforged'' inexplicably gives obese models to Anetheron and Detheroc. |
| 671 | * ForcedSleep: The Sleep spell is an extremely straightforward example of this. |
| 672 | * TheFriendNobodyLikes: Dreadlords are the only hero where within the same faction virtually every single one is viewed with resentment and disdain by the other heroes. A lot of this is because they are agents of the Burning Legion and jailers of the Lich King, and the large portions of the sentient Scourge leadership (like Kel'Thuzad and Arthas) wants to free their master from their grasp. |
| 673 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: Zigzagged. They are high ranking enforcers of the Burning Legion who out rank the Lich King himself (though they are happy to be the TheManBehindTheMan and pretend to be subservient to him). The Dreadlords get treated in this manner when shown commanding Undead factions in the campaign story far more than any of the other undead heroes. However, in melee mode, Dreadlords are just an optional hero that can be recruited and it's usually a Death Knight who is in the spotlight and acting as the focal point of an Undead army for pragmatic reasons. The Dreadlord is more of a [[BalancePowerSkillGimmick gimmick hero]] in terms of actual gameplay. |
| 674 | * GoodWingsEvilWings: Their bat wings put them firmly on the "Evil Wings" side of the spectrum. |
| 675 | * HornedHumanoid: They have curved horns coming forward out of their foreheads. |
| 676 | * HorrorHunger: Appears to have a variant of this; they often say "I must hunt soon" when idle or "I hunger!" when attacking. |
| 677 | * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: They have responses that give this effect. "What, mortal?", "You thought of ''that''.", and "That was my ''plan''." convey the sense that even though Dreadlords are high-ranking members of the Burning Legion, they are still playing along with taking orders from the player as opposed to bossing around the Lich King himself. This is despite their high ranking which means ''they'' should be giving the commands. |
| 678 | * LifeDrain: Vampiric Aura gives it to all nearby friendly melee units, giving them a portion of damage they deal out as health. Despite having a lifestealing passive with Vampiric Aura, the Dreadlord has [[{{Irony}} rather poor right clicking and frontline potential]], and the aura is more for the other heroes and units (especially the Infernal). |
| 679 | * MagikarpPower: Dreadlord has shades of this trope, though not as much as the Crypt Lord (who has even greater potential). |
| 680 | ** 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 Inferno, 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.]] |
| 681 | ** Vampiric Aura is the most late-game oriented of the auras, becoming much stronger as Undead heroes get more damage. |
| 682 | * MechanicallyUnusualClass: Despite being a strength hero, the Dreadlord plays much more like an intelligence caster. He has low starting strength and modest strength gain, but high base intelligence and good intelligence gain (same as his strength). He is far less durable than all other strength heroes and frequently needs to be protected and micromanaged well to not die. Most campaign Dreadlords take this further, where they have 45% more intelligence than normal Dreadlords, but their other stats (which are used for direct combat) stay the same. |
| 683 | * NonPlayerCharacter: Unlike the other faction heroes, the player never gets to play as a normal Dreadlord in the campaigns, but instead play as Varimathras, [[ComboPlatterPowers who has half of the normal skills swapped with the Pit Lord]]. |
| 684 | * OurVampiresAreDifferent: Clearly designed to evoke a classical vampire, from the abilities, to the quotes, to the bat AnimalMotif, to the [[VampireVords slight Romanian accent]]. Earlier versions of the unit (known then as the Dread Lord) were also more vampiric and less demonic, lacking horns, hooves and armor and instead wearing a robe, though they still had wings and massive claws. |
| 685 | * PurposefullyOverpowered: Tichondrius and Balnazzar both have Rain of Chaos, which is an insanely overpowered version of the standard Dreadlord ultimate (it summons 2-4 Infernals, costs no mana and has a lower cooldown than the normal Inferno ultimate) and their other abilities are also very annoying, with Tichondrius having [[SlapOnTheWristNuke Finger of Death]] and Balnazzar having [[AntiStructure Earthquake]]. Both are treated as a major ClimaxBoss in-game, with Tichondrius being the last opponent of the penultimate level and Balnazzar is the enemy hero of the last mission of Sylvanas' arc. |
| 686 | ** Anetheron has Rain of Chaos as well, though he is otherwise a normal Dreadlord and not a ClimaxBoss. |
| 687 | ** There's also [[SuperBoss Talnivarr the Sleeper]], who has his own version of Rain of Chaos and is extremely tough overall in combat. |
| 688 | * QuirkyBard: The vanilla Dreadlord tends to be a supporting hero, selected last or taken first in circumstances such as team games where your team can cover their deficiencies or when you can leverage their strengths. While Carrion Swarm gives a damaging spell option, it's most efficient against a large group of enemies. If you get a Dreadlord to level 6 however, Inferno is an amazing ability, summoning a powerful Infernal golem to fight for your army. Sleep may also come into play against a solo harassing Blademaster, or to interrupt a channeled spell. |
| 689 | * RecurringBoss: There are multiple enemy Dreadlords in the campaigns since they act as the main agents of the [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Burning Legion]]. Unlike most of the other recurring enemy heroes, the Dreadlords are more prone to having altered skillsets, and most of the named Dreadlords carry an orb. |
| 690 | * SkillGateCharacters: 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. |
| 691 | * SquishyWizard: Relatively speaking, they're this compared to other Strength heroes. The Dreadlord's lower health and armor relative to other heroes and lack of a truly potent defensive ability make him less suited to frontlining. His value instead comes from his ability to force his enemies into sleep or deal damage with Carrion Swarm, and at high levels, has his Infernal to do the fighting for him. |
| 692 | * TheStarscream: Parodied. One of the generic Dreadlord's gag responses has him plotting to overthrow the player. |
| 693 | --->'''Dreadlord:''' And then... after I overthrow this fool... [[RightBehindMe o-oh hello! I didn't know you were there!]] |
| 694 | * SummonMagic: The Infernal called down by the Dreadlord's ultimate ability is easily one of the most powerful melee fighters in the game; it runs quickly, has loads of health, hits like a sack of bricks, stuns enemies it lands on, has a passive ability that burns everything around it for good measure, and is immune to magic so using AntiMagic spells on it like on most summon units doesn't work. It can also be healed by the Death Knight or by the Dreadlord's Vampiric Aura to make it even harder to kill, making it hugely threatening against ground armies. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking It can also knock down trees to open surprise attack paths.]] |
| 695 | * SuperBoss: Talnivarr the Sleeper is an OptionalBoss in ''The Founding of Durotar'', and one of the few that is a HeroUnit. He is in the Outland Arena with his two fellow gladiators, Destroyer Zardikar (a powerful Doom Guard) and Sinstralis of the Pain (a powerful succubus), who are both units. Because of this, Talnivarr is the [[MagikarpPower only one that personally gets stronger]] the more times you beat him, starting at level 2 and ending up at level 15 at his strongest. His stats are also far greater than any other Dreadlord, especially his Agility, and thus his armor. More information on him and his fellow gladiators is available on [[Characters/WarcraftTheBurningLegion this page]]. |
| 696 | * WingsDoNothing: Lampshaded during one of their StopPokingMe quotes. |
| 697 | --->'''Dreadlord:''' If I have wings, why am I always walking? |
| 698 | * WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: The main reason the campaign Dreadlord Mal'Ganis is extremely weak in a gameplay standpoint is because he loses Vampiric Aura and Inferno and gains two abilities that are only useful for the first mission where he appears. Dark Conversion, which turns a villager into a zombie, and Soul Preservation, which sends a zombie to the "nether-realm" (removing it from the map). Soul Preservation is only used in "The Culling" for Mal'Ganis to reach the mission's GameOver objective. Otherwise, he is just a weak hero with no ultimate and only 2 abilities that are useful for combat. ''Reforged'' restores Vampiric Aura and Inferno, making him as formidable as a normal Dreadlord. |
| 699 | [[/folder]] |
| 700 | |
| 701 | [[folder:Lich]] |
| 702 | [[quoteright:161:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lich.gif]] |
| 703 | [[caption-width-right:161:''"The ancient evil survives."'']] |
| 704 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 705 | '''Abilities:''' Frost Nova, Frost Armor, Dark Ritual, Death and Decay (Ultimate)\ |
| 706 | '''Possible names:''' Ordin Frostbane, Ras Splinterspine, Morbent Fell, Rage Winterchill, Araj the Summoner, Kali'naj Dethknell, Rak Coldskull, Din Frostfire, Calis Wraithson, Venim Iceblade, Naze the Eternal, Ras Frostwhisper, Coldreaver, Cho'Nammoth, Kryptikk Soulslayer, Alandil Lieng\ |
| 707 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Kel'Thuzad\ |
| 708 | '''NPC Campaign character:''' Rage Winterchill\ |
| 709 | \ |
| 710 | |
| 711 | The first Liches were originally Orc Death Knights, warlocks who were transformed into twisted aberrations of their former selves by the Legion when Draenor was destroyed. They are empowered with the vengeance of the cold north and the decay of death itself, but their tremendous magical power carries an equally tremendous price: they are enslaved to the will of the Lich King, Ner'zhul. Ner'zhul recruited additional Liches by corrupting Magi, the Human Alliance counterparts to the Orc Death Knights. One of Ner'zhul's most notable recruits is the human Kel'Thuzad who began his career as a Mage studying the forbidden arts of necromancy. Liches can damage groups of enemies with Frost Nova, grant allies armor and slow their attackers with Frost Armor, and sacrifice a friendly undead unit to gain mana with Dark Pact. Their ultimate ability, Death and Decay, damages all units and buildings in a large area, friend or foe, for 4% of their maximum health every second. |
| 712 | ---- |
| 713 | * AnIcePerson: They specialize in ice magic, coming from the GrimUpNorth. In-game, they possess Frost Armor and Frost Nova. |
| 714 | * 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. One way to use this to devastating effect is to hide a Lich behind trees, use line of sight from a unit like a Shade, and cast Death and Decay on a town hall structure to sneakily halt expansion activity. |
| 715 | * ArtShift: The Lich's icon was redrawn between ''Reign of Chaos'' and ''The Frozen Throne'', becoming more [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/4/45/BTNLichVersion2.png/ streamlined and more obviously a skeleton face]], where the original was from [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/b/b8/BTNHeroLich.png/ a dramatic low angle but was hard to see the details of]]. |
| 716 | * BlackMage: Though he actually does have a defensive ability with Frost Armor, the Lich is commonly played as a pure offensive caster (taking Frost Armor last), using Frost Nova as much as possible and Dark Ritual to cast more Frost Novas, or Death and Decay if sieging a base. |
| 717 | * BlackMagic: Dark Ritual and Death and Decay are their main "dark" arts, but the Lich King also favors Frost magic as well. Frost Nova is the Liches' prime damage spell and is commonly paired with Dark Ritual to supply mana to cast it, while Frost Armor is available as a situational defensive magic. |
| 718 | * BodySurf: In the second game, Death Knights were the souls of orc warlocks who were forced into the bodies of dead human knights. When Ner'zhul became the Lich King, these death knights were remade into Liches, losing the Death Coil spell but keeping Death And Decay. |
| 719 | * CrutchCharacter: Liches when first-picked are ideal rushing heroes, since Frost Nova is a DiscOneNuke that can deal huge damage to multiple small foes and it is extremely effective for killing low level heroes. His Dark Ritual allows him to sacrifice ghouls or skeletons to keep blasting the enemy heroes or army with Frost Nova since an early-game army can not burst him down. Later in the game the Lich dies very easily in combat compared to the other 3 Undead heroes (who are all strength heroes) and Frost Nova is no longer the army destroying spell it once was if players go further up their techtree and get more durable units. [[DownplayedTrope Despite this]], Death and Decay is still an unmatched AntiStructure spell and getting chain-nuked by Frost Nova and the other Undead damaging spells is still extremely unhealthy for any hero. The Lich doesn't become obsolete but becomes very dependent on other heroes like the Death Knight to keep him alive. |
| 720 | * DecompositeCharacter: The Lich King's Liches have among their ranks, the Death Knight casters from ''Warcraft II''; they kept their Death and Decay talents while their Death Coil was swapped for a new Frost Nova. Meanwhile, the new Death Knights are a new generation, largely consisting of RevenantZombie former Paladins, who have a variant of Death Coil, and have an even more powerful ability to raise the dead. |
| 721 | * DiscOneNuke: Frost Nova. Deals a ton of damage to its main target, significant damage in an area, and slows all units in that area to a crawl. It is one of the most effective hero killers in the early game. |
| 722 | * DemBones: Entirely skeletal, though they also wear long flowing robes. |
| 723 | * DevourTheDragon: Like the Death Knight, the Lich can use Dark Ritual to consume a unit, though to refill his mana instead of health. It pairs excellently with Frost Nova for providing a steady stream of damage bursts, and Necromancers or Rods of Necromancy for summoning timed-life fodder. |
| 724 | * EqualOpportunityEvil: True for all of the Undead forces, but Liches are notable for being recruited from multiple races, especially Orc Warlocks and Human Magi. This is notable as heroes in ''Warcraft III'' usually have a single representative race but Liches get around this by being embodiments of any powerful sorcerer -- whose bodily remains are still available -- that is selected by the Lich King. Kel'thuzad stands out as a Human Mage who betrayed his kin for promises of power, and is the playable Lich representative in both Undead campaigns. Multiplayer Liches are mostly Orc Warlocks at heart, but the diversity of names suggest Humans, Elves, and perhaps Ogre-Magi are among them too. |
| 725 | * EvilIsDeathlyCold: In contrast to the Archmage's ice magic, which is more raw elemental power and comes from their [[MakingASplash water-based magic]], the Lich's ice powers are firmly rooted in the chill of the grave. |
| 726 | * EvilGenius: Most of the Liches are former Orc Warlocks and by extension, ''Warcraft II'' Death Knights, but Ner'Zhul also recruited corruptible Human Magi, most notably Kel'Thuzad. Both magicians favor intellect and magic over brute force. |
| 727 | * FightingAShadow: Liches don't use their original form in battle, a fact that is demonstrated when Kel'thuzad is resurrected and discards his original form. The form implodes when the Lich is temporarily defeated. |
| 728 | * {{Foil}}: Their spells are themed around freezing or decaying the life out of targets, in contrast with the Death Knight being an unholy healer and reanimator of the dead. Their sacrifice spell also contrasts, restoring mana and letting them deal more damage instead of healing the caster. |
| 729 | * FourIsDeath: '''Death''' and Decay deals 4% of a target's health per second. |
| 730 | * GlassCannon: The Liches' Frost Nova is devastating against clusters of small units and single targets of opportunity and Death and Decay does damage equal to 4% of a target's total health per second in a large area, long enough to kill or destroy them. However, Liches can't take much abuse for a hero unit and work best with a Death Knight to heal them. Frost Armor can help to an extent but is usually forgone in favor of Dark Ritual to supply mana for Frost Nova and ensure the Lich can nuke targets in tandem with a Death Knight. |
| 731 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: Liches have a variety of different names with some of them being names that are indicative of the Lich being another species besides an Orc, but all melee Lich heroes use the same voice lines of Orc Liches sworn to Ner'Zhul. In the story campaign, Kel'thuzad manages to avoid this by having his own unique lines that indirectly acknowledge his history as a Human Mage and Necromancer. |
| 732 | * GoodPowersBadPeople: Their Dark Ritual is the only one that is deliberately dark themed and relies on a sacrifice for mana. Their Frost and Decay magic are all themed around processes that occur in nature and aren't evil in and of themselves. The Liches use them to devastating effect nonetheless, and this isn't even ''fel magic'' which is noted for its corrupting influence. |
| 733 | * GuestStarPartyMember: Despite being one of the most common enemy heroes, the player only gets to play as a Lich (Kel'Thuzad) in two missions in ''Reign of Chaos'', and only the very first Undead mission in ''The Frozen Throne''. It is a bit downplayed in the ''Reign of Chaos'' campaign, since even though Kel'Thuzad is not playable in the final mission, he is still the mission objective that the player has to protect. |
| 734 | * KillItWithIce: Their signature Frost Nova can hit like a truck against multiple targets and is one of ''the'' reasons for recruiting a Lich. It's such a good ability that more often than not, it's paired with the Dark Ritual spell and perhaps some mana potions to keep the Lich well supplied to cast this ability. |
| 735 | * {{Necromancer}}: More of a theme than their actual in-game abilities. Death and Decay makes use of death magic, but they don't reanimate bodies like the Death Knight can. The Lich's spells are themed around conditions inhospitable to life, such as deadly cold, sacrificing for mana, and rapid decay. The Death Knight by contrast can work in the opposite direction as an unholy healer and reanimator of ''any'' corpse. |
| 736 | * OddNameOut: Alandil Lieng and Cho'Nammoth stand out for not being flashy names relating to winter or some other superlative; the former to be a regular name of presumably an Elf or Human, while the latter is similar to the Ogre Mage Cho'gall's name. |
| 737 | * OneSteveLimit: Averted. Rage Winterchill shows up as an enemy hero in the last mission of ''Reign of Chaos'' but he has Finger of Death. It's also a name for generic liches. |
| 738 | * OurLichesAreDifferent: They are essentially floating skeletons wearing flowing dark robes who levitate and specialize in ice and death magic. In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', it is further explained that liches' souls are stored in {{Soul Jar}}s called phylacteries, and they can only be truly killed if their phylactery is destroyed. Also, with the exception of Kel'thuzad in the campaign, almost all Liches seen in ''Warcraft III'' are of Orcish origin, with some odd names out leaving things open for speculation. |
| 739 | * PercentDamageAttack: Death and Decay deals the Max HP percentage variant on this trope. Unlike most versions of this trope, this spell is intentionally made to easily tear apart tanky enemies and it ignores Spell Immunity and ContractualBossImmunity. In practice it's [[AntiStructure mostly used against buildings]]. |
| 740 | * PowerFloats: The Lich's immense power is shown through floating rather than running or riding a mount (like all other SquishyWizard heroes). He is the only hero with the "hover" movement type (a few units like Sorceresses, Banshees, and Wisps have it too). This is mostly visual, though it has a small gameplay element, in that a Lich can't set off goblin land mines, which could be relevant in the campaigns. |
| 741 | * RecurringBoss: Generic Liches are one of the more common enemy heroes in the campaigns. They serve multiple masters through the campaigns, between the Lich King or specific Dreadlords in the name of the Legion. |
| 742 | * RobeAndWizardHat: Their long, flowing black robes are a key part of their trademark appearance. |
| 743 | * 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. Unlike 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). |
| 744 | * SquishyWizard: While they can alleviate their lack a physical damage mitigation with Frost Armor, they still have slim health pools and need protection from magic nukes. The Lich is the most fragile Undead hero, offsetting their powerful spells and powerful mana recovery ability. |
| 745 | * WakeUpCallBoss: The Lich is the first high level enemy hero that is a threat in the ''Reign of Chaos'' campaigns. A level 6 and level 10 Lich are the enemy heroes in the [[HoldTheLine 5th mission]] of the Human Campaign, "March of the Scourge" (on both Normal and Hard). This mission is often considered to be the first difficult level in the campaigns. Both Liches have high levels in Frost Nova and know Death and Decay, which means they will blast your army and destroy your base if you do not focus them down. |
| 746 | |
| 747 | [[/folder]] |
| 748 | |
| 749 | [[folder:Crypt Lord (''Frozen Throne'')]] |
| 750 | [[quoteright:161:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cryptlord.gif]] |
| 751 | [[caption-width-right:161:''"From the depths, I come."'']] |
| 752 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 753 | '''Abilities:''' Impale, Spiked Carapace, Carrion Beetles, Locust Swarm (Ultimate)\ |
| 754 | '''Possible names:''' Thebis-Ra, Typhis-Ahn, Anubiros, Memphis-Ahn, Horus'aman, Nephri'thos, Arak-arahm, Tuten'arak, Pharoh-moth\ |
| 755 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Anub'arak\ |
| 756 | \ |
| 757 | |
| 758 | The fearsome Crypt Lords were once the kings of the mighty underground kingdom of Azjol-Nerub, which stretched beneath the continent of Northrend. When the Scourge, led by the Lich King, proved its supremacy in the War of the Spider, the Crypt Lords were swayed to join the Scourge and were granted the immortality of undeath. These massive, insectoid beings are the mightiest of the Scourge's warriors and guard their holdings in Northrend. They can deal damage to enemies in a line and hurl them into the air with Impale, improve their armor and return damage to melee attackers with Spiked Carapace, and create Carrion Beetles from enemy corpses (5 in the campaigns, 6 in the melee game). Their Ultimate ability, Locust Swarm, sends out a horde of locusts to attack enemies, which return and heal the Crypt Lord. |
| 759 | ---- |
| 760 | * AchillesHeel: None of his abilities are any good against air units except Locust Swarm. He and his Beetles cannot attack air naturally and Impale can't hit air units, even if they are grounded by Web or Ensnare [[note]]The ability also cannot impale land units affected by Ensnare or Entangling Roots. Internally, because it alters the elevation height of the units it hits, it flat out cannot target enemies that are affected with a debuff that fixes their elevation height, particularly to the ground level, like Web and the two previously mentioned abilities[[/note]]. Carapace also cannot return damage to any air units the way Footman's Defend can. |
| 761 | * AncientEgypt: Crypt Lord multiplayer names all have obvious Egyptian influence, and they wear headdresses with an Egyptian aesthetic. |
| 762 | * ArmorPiercingAttack: Locusts are unusual because they are summoned units who automatically attack enemies and their damage type is the same as spells. But these attacks also damage spell immune enemies. The actual attack damage is reduced by armor value, however. Because it can bypass spell immunity, the Crypt Lord is one of the few heroes [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2bffaANqqU that can outfight a Mountain King.]] |
| 763 | * AttackReflector: Spiked Carapace damages melee enemies that attack the Crypt Lord by a portion of the damage dealt and also increases his armor. |
| 764 | * BadassBoast: Several of his lines make big claims about his strength. Due to his great durability, he's not lying. |
| 765 | --->'''Crypt Lord:''' My might cannot be matched! |
| 766 | * BalanceBuff: Impale was known for being a buggy ability for a long time, where enemies were invulnerable while in mid-air, which meant that you could flat out miss nukes you are trying to combo with (especially ones with projectiles like Death Coil or Storm Bolt) because the enemies were invulnerable for a short time when the spell was about to hit. It was eventually fixed in a patch in 2020. |
| 767 | * BigCreepyCrawlies: They resemble massive rhinoceros beetles with praying mantis arms. |
| 768 | * BeetleManiac: Aside from being large beetles themselves, he can also create up to 5/6 Carrion Beetles to attack enemies. |
| 769 | * BoisterousBruiser: Downplayed, since he's actually quite soft spoken compared to the Mountain King, but he is still TheBigGuy who favors making a BadassBoast instead of acting like a CardCarryingVillain like the other undead heroes. |
| 770 | * BoringButPractical: Spiked Carapace is not flashy, but it makes Crypt Lord much more durable and [[AttackReflector punishes enemies]], especially GlassCannon melee heroes and units, from taking what would normally be free shots at him. Due to his low mana pool, he rarely has the option to go for both his active abilities as well, so secondary skill points are often spent on the passive. |
| 771 | * CripplingOverspecialization: The most common problem players have with the Crypt Lord is that he offers very little to an army besides being a tank and his Beetles to be additional meat shields. He is extremely durable and can potentially disrupt fights with Impale, but he is also slow moving, does not deal a lot of damage without his ultimate, and unlike most [[MagikarpPower late game powerhouse]] heroes, he doesn't actually have an army destroying or hero killing skill (Storm Bolt, Critical Strike, Cleaving Attack, and Metamorphosis's splash are all examples), nor does he carry a powerful aura (such as Endurance Aura or Devotion Aura) like other defensive tank heroes. While exceptional at dueling enemy heroes and outlasting them, enemies will likely just try to kill more fragile heroes and units first when facing a Crypt Lord and just try to kill him last. |
| 772 | * ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: He can do this to enemies with (what else?) [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Impale]]. |
| 773 | * InvincibleMinorMinion: The Locusts are summoned units, but are completely invulnerable and cannot even be selected. They do die if [[NoOntologicalInertia the Crypt Lord does, however]]. |
| 774 | * LifeDrain: Locust Swarm is a variation on this. The Locusts will damage enemies in the area and when they return, they will heal the Crypt Lord based on a portion of the damage they dealt. Each one returns and heals the Crypt Lord 20 health after dealing 26.6 damage (2 attacks on a 0-armor target, more if the target has high armor), and all of them return at the end of the duration. As such, the Crypt Lord's enemies are incentivized to either try to focus down the Crypt Lord before the spell ends so he doesn't get that heal at the end or run away so the Crypt Lord gets little healing. |
| 775 | * MagikarpPower: Among Undead Heroes, the Crypt Lord is really nothing more than a StoneWall meat shield (and meat shield summoner with his beetles) until level 6. Learning Locust Swarm is a massive power spike for him, even compared to other heroes, and changes him into a MightyGlacier. |
| 776 | ** The Crypt Lord is made artificially less durable. Unlike all other heroes he has 25 base health instead of 100. So, even though he has 26 starting strength, he still only has 675 health at level 1 (like a Death Knight) instead of 750 like the Pit Lord (who has the same starting strength). |
| 777 | ** He does not have any real ability to support or output huge spell damage like the other 3 heroes for Undead. He has some stun threat potential, but no real damage from Impale either. In order to truly deal damage, he needs Locust Swarm. The perk of the LifeDrain aspect of the spell is an added bonus. |
| 778 | ** He also has very high strength growth, so his health pool and attack damage outstrip the other Undead heroes greatly when he reaches high levels. He also has very fast attack speed for a strength hero, 1.9 base cooldown, whereas almost all others have between 2 to 2.5. [[note]]Only the Dreadlord, who has poor strength growth and durability, has faster (1.8). The Goblin Alchemist has Chemical Rage to boost his attack speed, but his base attack time is still the very slow 2.5.[[/note]] |
| 779 | * MightyGlacier: The tankiest of the undead heroes, he is slow-moving and focused on defense, and his low mana pool means he's limited in how much he can use his abilities. Initially, [[StoneWall the damage he and his beetles deal is subpar]], but once they learn Locust Swarm, the Crypt Lord becomes a huge threat with his damage output. |
| 780 | * TheMinionMaster: The Crypt Lord can raise Carrion Beetles from nearby corpses. Unlike most summoned units, Carrion Beetles do not have a timed life and last indefinitely, though he can only have up to 5/6 at a time. Conveniently enough, the Undead have a structure that generates free corpses, allowing him to fill out his beetle count before entering battle. Part of his threat is also all the beetles he can summon in-battle to replace his initial batch, as long as there is a supply of corpses and he has the extra mana. |
| 781 | * 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. The Beetles are also handy scouts thanks to their ability to burrow and thanks to their lack of a food cost. |
| 782 | * TheQuisling: The backstory for the Crypt Lord reveals they were Nerubian Spider Lords who betrayed their people to the Scourge for rewards in undeath. |
| 783 | * RandomizedDamageAttack: Locust Swarm is this in regard to its total damage because of AIRoulette. Locusts actually do a very consistent 13-14 damage with 1 second cooldown and attack from melee range. This means that each Locust can do up to 13.5 DPS, which with 20 locusts over its 30 second duration would mean it can [[https://www.reddit.com/r/WC3/comments/q8ao62/a_closer_look_at_locust_swarm/ potentially deal up to 7500 total damage]] (accounting for the fact that it takes 4 seconds for all 20 locusts to be summoned). However, their short attack range (making them easy to kite) and their flawed AI (they have a critter-like ability where they will wander instead of looking for targets to attack) causes a lot of variations in the damage's consistency. Player testing found the ability's total damage in optimal conditions is between 2000 and 3000. |
| 784 | * RevenantZombie: Like the Human Death Knights, the Crypt Lords were rewarded with the undeath by the Lich King and fully retain their original personalities. Though the campaign Crypt Lord Anub'arak seems to be a slave with just enough free will to complain about it, [[AmbiguousSituation possibly]]. |
| 785 | * SpikesOfVillainy: Spiked Carapace. [[AttackReflector They aren't just for show either]]. |
| 786 | * TheStoic: Compared to his fellow Undead heroes, the Crypt Lord lacks the sadism and theatricality. He rarely has any big shows of emotion. |
| 787 | * StuddedShell: With Spiked Carapace, the Crypt Lord gains an attack reflector as well as increased armor value. |
| 788 | * SuperMode: Locust Swarm is not a transformation per se, but instead summons a bunch of invulnerable units to attack nearby enemies. These units die if he dies but heal him as they damage enemies and again at the end of the duration. It functions like an odd fusion of a transformation spell and a summon spell. |
| 789 | * SuperPersistentPredator: Locusts fly and chase after anyone in the area for a long distance even if the Crypt Lord is stunned. Almost nothing can stop them while the Locust Swarm is active, besides running/teleporting out of range or killing the Crypt Lord. |
| 790 | * TheSwarm: Locust Swarm can damage up to 20 enemies at a time. Alternatively, if there is only one target, up to [[DeathOfAThousandCuts 7 locust can attack that same target at a time]]. This effectively means that the Crypt Lord is nigh-impossible to duel one-on-one. |
| 791 | * ToughBeetles: They are giant [[ScarabPower scarab beetles]], are among the most durable heroes in the game, and he can also create up to 5/6 dangerous Carrion Beetles to assist him. |
| 792 | * TheUnfought: No Crypt Lord is fought as an enemy hero in any of the campaigns. In story, they are only in Northrend at the time of the story. In ''The Frozen Throne'' all enemy Undead are fought in Lordaeron or near there (like Dalaran). |
| 793 | * WhyWontYouDie: A Crypt Lord can be insanely hard to kill at when he reaches high levels. He has the [[SuperToughness highest armor and strength]] of all undead heroes, can stun multiple ground foes on a low cooldown, and is healed when Locust Swarm ends. Additionally, he is the most ideal target for the Undead's support spells and auras, benefitting [[NoSelfBuffs far more than the casters]] from Death Coil [[note]]due to Crypt Lord's high armor, he gets more "effective health" from healing, as each health point is more valuable and harder to deplete[[/note]], Vampiric Aura [[note]]the Crypt Lord has great strength growth so he deals more damage than the Dreadlord (despite a slightly slower base attack time) and he is more comfortable in the frontline tanking damage which means he spends more time attacking rather than running[[/note]], and Frost Armor [[note]]the buff stacks very well with Spiked Carapace, giving the Crypt Lord massive armor and huge punishment for any melee attackers[[/note]]. |
| 794 | |
| 795 | [[/folder]] |
| 796 | |
| 797 | !!Neutral Heroes (''Frozen Throne'') |
| 798 | [[folder:Neutral Heroes in General]] |
| 799 | [[quoteright:168:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tavern_6.png]] |
| 800 | [[caption-width-right:168:The Tavern, where Neutral Heroes are hired]] |
| 801 | |
| 802 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: |
| 803 | ** Even though they are OnlyInItForTheMoney, you can still get one at no gold or lumber cost if they are your first hero, as long as you have an altar. |
| 804 | ** Though most of them would (even the Dark Ranger if she is free Undead), several of the heroes would not believably be mercenaries. Many of them are fanatical lieutenants to AlwaysChaoticEvil factions and [[WorthlessYellowRocks won't be fighting for other factions just for gold]], while others would never work for a specific faction, as such, hiring them from the tavern is just an excuse for the player to be able to access them: |
| 805 | *** Naga Sea Witches basically all work for Azshara or Illidan. Even if they agreed to do mercenary work, no amount of gold would convince them to fight for the Night Elves. |
| 806 | *** Pit Lords only work for the Burning Legion. They would likely only work with The Scourge in a lead role similar to the Dreadlord, but not if that particular faction is loyal only to the Lich King. |
| 807 | *** Firelords are elementals with the [[OmnicidalManiac motivation to destroy all life]], possibly working for the Old Gods. They'd most likely team up with The Scourge but only in an VillainTeamUp capacity. |
| 808 | *** While it's believable that a Beastmaster would work for Horde (they're half-orcs, and in fact one of them became the Horde's champion) or even the Night Elves (due their strong link to nature and wildlife), it's very unlikely that they'd agree to work for the Alliance or ''especially'' the Scourge. |
| 809 | * ItsAllAboutMe: Tavern hero gameplay leans a lot more selfish. None of them have built-in auras, and only the Goblin Alchemist has a defensive support ability. They are also all very mana intensive, requiring a lot more to function than most of the standard race heroes. By default, this makes them very well suited for Night Elves, who have Moon Wells. Humans can support their mana hungry neutral heroes with considerably more effort if they pick the Blood Mage or less commonly, the Archmage. In the case of Undead, the Dark Ranger and/or Pit Lord also have good synergy as the Death Knight can heal them and Obsidian Statues can help them recover mana. |
| 810 | * MercenaryUnits: These heroes can be hired by any player, regardless of race, from neutral Taverns. |
| 811 | * MultiplayerOnlyItem: |
| 812 | ** The Tinker, Firelord, and Alchemist do not appear anywhere in the campaign, having been added to the game after the campaigns were finished. |
| 813 | ** In melee games, AI players will never hire neutral heroes. |
| 814 | * OnlyInItForTheMoney: They'll work for any faction who pays them, without any objection. |
| 815 | * SixthRanger: Dark Ranger and Pit Lord are classified as Undead and are effectively a 5th and 6th Undead hero and can thus be healed by the Death Knight; Obsidian Statues also provide them with much-needed mana & health recovery support. Alchemist, Beastmaster, and Brewmaster are also effective options for the Night Elves due to providing them with early-game tanking heroes who can replenish efficiently at Moonwells. See their entries for more details. |
| 816 | * TheUnfought: Most of them. The player only faces off against Naga Sea Witches and Pit Lords in the campaigns. And if it counts, the player also kills a Pandaren Brewmaster in the TowerDefense bonus mission. |
| 817 | * VillainsOutShopping: Relatively speaking; When the Sea Witches, Pit Lords, or Firelords aren't busy with supporting their existential threat factions, they're available for hire at Taverns to do battle in smaller skirmishes for entertainment. |
| 818 | * YouAllMeetInAnInn: Parodied. The fact that you hire a commander of your army from a random Tavern is a parody of the trope and a reference to the start of a lot of fantasy adventure stories. |
| 819 | [[/folder]] |
| 820 | |
| 821 | [[folder:Naga Sea Witch]] |
| 822 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/seawitch.gif]] |
| 823 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"I stand ready."'']] |
| 824 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 825 | '''Abilities:''' Forked Lightning, Frost Arrows, Mana Shield, Tornado (Ultimate)\ |
| 826 | '''Possible names:''' Anna Kondra, Scilla Murkshadow, Ursula Snakemane, Lady Venomtongue, Lady Serpentra, Lady Darkscale, Serena Scarscale, Asprah Serpus, Venna Seastorm, Charib'dishal\ |
| 827 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Lady Vashj\ |
| 828 | \ |
| 829 | |
| 830 | When the Legion invaded Kalimdor and made war upon the ancient night elf empire, Queen Azshara, along with her highborne loyalists, was blasted beneath the sea. Transformed into monstrous serpentine creatures by their queen's magic, the naga remain fervent loyalists to Azshara. Leading the naga are the sea witches, those who have mastered both the bow and the arcane magic that was so prized among their highborne predecessors. Sea witches can empower their bow attacks with ice magic with Frost Arrows, protect themselves with Mana Shield draining mana instead of health, and shock multiple targets at once with Forked Lightning. Their ultimate ability, Tornado, summons a massive tornado that wreaks havoc on buildings and can toss enemy units high in the air. |
| 831 | ---- |
| 832 | * AerithAndBob: Between the outlandish names available, the player can get a Sea Witch with the relatively common names of Anna, Ursula, or Serena. |
| 833 | * AnIcePerson: The Sea Witch can imbue her arrows with frost magic to deal extra damage and slow down her target. |
| 834 | * AntiStructure: Tornado deals heavy damage to buildings directly under it and minor damage to buildings in the general vicinity. Compared to the Far Seer's Earthquake, Tornado has a smaller area-of-effect for its maximum damage, but has the advantage of being more disruptive to units, being able to slow air units, and more importantly, being mobile. |
| 835 | * BlowYouAway: The ultimate Sea Witch spell summons a controllable tornado. It is great for destroying buildings and temporarily slowing down enemy units by tossing them into the air (if they get too close) or hindering their movements. |
| 836 | * CompositeCharacter: She acts as an iced-themed snare hero who provides lightning AreaOfEffect damage, similar to the Undead Lich and Orc Far Seer respectively. Mana shield also works on a similar principle to the Death Knight's Death Pact (sans requiring a target to sacrifice, but with less less mana efficiency) while Tornado lets her siege bases but not damage units, like with the Far Seer's Earthquake. |
| 837 | * CrutchCharacter: Probably the defining example of this trope in multiplayer. The Naga Sea Witch is one of the most powerful heroes in the early levels. |
| 838 | ** The Sea Witch is able to cheaply slow down any target early on with her Frost Arrows (something that normally would only be available on Tier 2 units onwards, units like Dryads, Sorceresses, Shaman, or Frost Wyrms). When she is picked up in a smaller game, it's almost always to pressure the enemy hero with Frost Arrows and force out a quick win. |
| 839 | ** Additionally, Forked Lightning deals a lot of damage to a small number of units. As the size of armies get bigger the spell's usefulness diminishes. |
| 840 | ** She is also one of the only heroes that benefits from the immediate recruitment from the Tavern, since she can apply pressure as soon as the start delay is over and the player has an altar, instead of taking 1 minute to create her after the altar is built. |
| 841 | * DoNotTouchTheFunnelCloud: Downplayed. While Tornado does the most damage to buildings on contact, buildings in its general vicinity will also take minor damage, and it can slow and toss units from a considerable distance away. |
| 842 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: Despite the Naga being aquatic in nature, the multiplayer Naga Sea Witch can't swim for balance reasons (although Lady Vashj is amphibious in the campaign). |
| 843 | * MageMarksman: Equally adept both at arcane magic and using a bow. |
| 844 | * ManaShield: Literally the name of one of their spells, which drains the Sea Witch’s mana to shield her from damage. |
| 845 | * OddNameOut: Charib'dishal, out of the available Sea Witch names. It does not follow the standard first-name-last-name or title-last-name setup and there are no references to Snakes or the Sea. However, the name itself is a reference to a Greek Mythological sea monster "Charybdis". |
| 846 | * PunnyName: Anna Kondra, as in anaconda. |
| 847 | * RecurringBoss: Throughout ''The Frozen Throne''. Due to how prevalent the Naga are as opponents, it is often a Sea Witch leading them, if it's not Illidan himself. |
| 848 | * ShockAndAwe: The Forked Lightning spell shoots lightning at up to three opponents. |
| 849 | * ShoutOut: One Sea Witch is fittingly named [[Franchise/TheLittleMermaid Ursula Snakemane]]. |
| 850 | * SssssnakeTalk: Appropriately enough, the Naga Sea Witch has a hissing voice and tends to stretch out her S's to some degree. |
| 851 | * UselessUsefulSpell: Mana Shield. Being able to tank more damage by using her mana as a second health pool sounds nice, but the Sea Witch is dependent on spells to have an impact in battles and is already so mana-hungry that turning on Mana Shield will take her out of the action ''faster'' than facetanking damage with her health pool. Not to mention, putting skill points into Mana Shield to learn it and improve its efficiency means not putting points into her other spells, limiting her usefulness. |
| 852 | |
| 853 | [[/folder]] |
| 854 | |
| 855 | [[folder:Dark Ranger]] |
| 856 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/darkranger.gif]] |
| 857 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"I'm here, as always."'']] |
| 858 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Agility\ |
| 859 | '''Abilities:''' Silence, Black Arrow, Life Drain, Charm (Ultimate)\ |
| 860 | '''Possible names:''' Anya Eversong, Nara Pathstrider, Anthis Sunbow, Clea Deathstrider, Cyndia Hawkspear, Mira Shadewither, Amora Eagleye, Siren Ghostsong, Somand Wayfinder\ |
| 861 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Sylvanas Windrunner\ |
| 862 | \ |
| 863 | |
| 864 | The undead Scourge wrought untold havoc upon the elven lands of Quel'Thalas in its quest for the power of the Sunwell. The greatest defenders of Quel'Thalas, the elven rangers, fell against the undead onslaught, and many were forcibly raised from the dead as banshees, elven spirits that can possess their foes. Now freed from the Scourge as part of the Forsaken, however, many banshees chose to possess their own corpses, regaining their former skills and adding their dreaded powers to make a formidable combination. They can prevent all enemy spellcasters in an area from casting with Silence, empower their ranged attacks and raise undead minions with Black Arrow, and drain their targets' hitpoints with Life Drain. Their ultimate ability, Charm, allows them to permanently take control of an enemy unit. |
| 865 | ---- |
| 866 | * AerithAndBob: Anya and Mira are not uncommon names in the present for women, in contrast to the other possible names like Anthis and Siren. |
| 867 | * AntiMagic: Silence is one of the most effective anti-magic abilities in the game, capable of shutting down spellcasters in a wide area of effect. |
| 868 | * ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: The Dark Ranger can potentially defy the trope by going over the max food limit by using Charm when at max food. She can do this as many times as needed, as long as her units stay alive, though obviously the player will not be able build any more units for other purposes. |
| 869 | * BoringButPractical: The Dark Ranger is not a very flashy hero, but has a very useful skillset that is able to counter spellcasting units with Silence and steal many high-value units with Charm. She can pose a threat to heroes by damaging them over time and sustain her health with Life Drain (which also makes her deceptively durable) and finally her Black Arrow also makes her good at creeping and building momentum in fights. |
| 870 | * BorrowingFromTheSisterSeries: Dark Rangers function like hero versions of the [[Franchise/StarCraft Protoss Dark Archon]]. Their Charm spell is very much like Mind Control; unlike the Banshees' Possession, it also works on air units and does not "kill" the caster, albeit it does not work on heroes or creeps above level 5. Silence also serves a similar role to Feedback as an anti-magic measure. The Dark Ranger also has a form of SpawnBroodling with Black Arrow which debuffs a biological target so that they spawn a Dark Minion skeleton if they die under the debuff. |
| 871 | * CharmPerson: Their ultimate ability. Unlike the [[DemonicPossession Possession]] used by the Banshee, it can be used on flying units and units that are normally immune to spells (like Spellbreakers and Dryads), though like Possession it can't be used on heroes and high-level creeps. |
| 872 | * DemBones: The minions summoned by the Black Arrow's victims are even tougher than the regular Undead skeletons. Because Black Arrow doesn't need to be the killing blow on a unit, it's not uncommon for a battle to end with four or five newly-spawned skeletons. |
| 873 | * IncreasinglyLethalEnemy: Converting several enemy units to Dark Minions can easily turn the tide of a battle in the Dark Ranger's favor early on. |
| 874 | * LifeDrain: One of their abilities. It channels enemy health into the Dark Ranger. It was eventually patched to even apply the Black Arrow effect if you've added points into it. |
| 875 | * MageMarksman: She is mainly an archer but supports her abilities with quite a bit of dark magic. |
| 876 | * MindControl: Charm permanently converts an enemy unit to the Dark Ranger's faction. Some restrictions apply, such as Resistant Skin blocking the spell. |
| 877 | * {{Necromancer}}: Black Arrow can raise undead minions when the target affected by it dies. |
| 878 | * NoSell: An inversion, as Charm bypasses Spell Immunity. It still can not bypass Resistant Skin for balance reasons, however. |
| 879 | * RequiredSecondaryPowers: One perk of Charm (shared with the Banshee unit's Possession) is that the charmed units will have research upgrades they've received, minus default racial combat upgrades. This means if you charm a Crypt Fiend whose player researched Burrow and Web, your techtree will automatically research those upgrades and your newly charmed Crypt Fiend will have access to both Burrow and Web. This is particularly useful if you are playing the same race as the units you are charming, as effectively it will allow all your units to get access to the upgrades without any cost to you. An example would be an Undead player that only researched Ghoul and Abomination upgrades going for a Crypt Fiend, like the example above. |
| 880 | * RevenantZombie: Dark Rangers are Banshees who forcibly possessed their own corpses and retained their cunning and intellect that possessed while living. |
| 881 | * SimpleYetAwesome: Charm allows you to steal quite a number of powerful unit types and the ability is on a 45 second cooldown so you don't have to wait too long to have it available again. The main issue will be keeping mana supplied as the spell is moderately expensive to cast. |
| 882 | * SixthRanger: No pun intended - however, the Dark Ranger makes a phenomenal addition to Undead armies despite nominally being neutral, especially in combination with a Lich and Death Knight. Her Silence helps shut down enemy casters to make up for their lack of area crowd control, Black Arrow skeletons make excellent fodder for Death Pact and Dark Ritual, she's flagged as Undead so the Death Knight can heal her, and can have her mana/health replenished by Obsidian Statues. |
| 883 | * ScissorsCutsRock: Somewhat unintuitively, the Dark Ranger's Charm spell can be used on targets that have Spell Immunity (a trait shared with most offensive ultimate abilities). It is instead units with Resistant Skin who cannot be affected by the spell. |
| 884 | * TragicMonster: All Undead can quality, but the Dark Ranger is very somber about her undead status and gains a deep resentment towards the living as a result, with many of her responses indicating this. |
| 885 | * TrickArrow: Black Arrow adds extra damage. Additionally, any target who dies while under the effect of Black Arrow will be raised into a skeleton. |
| 886 | * WeakenedByTheLight: Like all Undead, she is vulnerable to the Paladin's Holy Light, making Human Paladins more powerful than usual for countering Undead Heroes. This gets even worse if a Blood Mage is in tow to Banish her for a +66% damage penalty. |
| 887 | [[/folder]] |
| 888 | |
| 889 | [[folder:Pandaren Brewmaster]] |
| 890 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pandarenbrewmaster.gif]] |
| 891 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"Fresh, cool ale here!"'']] |
| 892 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 893 | '''Abilities:''' Breath of Fire, Drunken Haze, Drunken Brawler, Storm Earth and Fire (Ultimate)\ |
| 894 | '''Possible names:''' Mojo Dark-Ale, Sinjo Honeybrew, Kesha Wildbarley, Tatsa Sweetbarrow, Mushi Ale-Hearth, Jinto Reedwine, Masha Storm-Stout, Polo Barrel-keg\ |
| 895 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Chen Stormstout\ |
| 896 | \ |
| 897 | |
| 898 | The Brewmasters of Pandaria walk the lands, seeking the finest brews and spirits and spending their time concocting their own recipes to share with travellers. However, when push comes to shove, they prove themselves just as capable of fighting as they are at drinking and brewing, bringing their Pandaren might and agility to bear against their foes. The Brewmaster's claim to fame is his Breath of Fire, burning enemies in a wide area in front of him. It becomes even more powerful in combination with Drunken Haze, which douses enemies in booze to reduce their movement speed and make them miss some of their attacks; it also causes them to ignite when hit by Breath of Fire, receiving further burn damage over time. In melee combat, the Brewmaster's Drunken Brawler ability lets him evade enemy attacks and deal powerful critical hits, and in the heat of battle, his ultimate ability Storm, Earth, and Fire splits the Brewmaster into three mighty Pandaren warriors, each able to wreak havoc with their own powerful set of abilities. |
| 899 | ---- |
| 900 | * AntiInfantry: The Drunken Haze + Breath of Fire combo is terrific for tearing down masses of weak units, making the Brewmaster a huge threat to enemies favoring masses of Ghouls, Footmen, and the likes. Even using Breath of Fire on its own can put a huge dent into infantry clusters. |
| 901 | * AscendedMeme: They were originally based on an April Fools joke of a supposed Pandaren faction that was being added to the game. |
| 902 | * BigFun: The Brewmaster is a [[BearyFriendly friendly giant-panda man]] and is appropriately wide and heavy. |
| 903 | * BoisterousBruiser: They're lively and good-natured, though no less lethal in combat for it. |
| 904 | * BoozeFlamethrower: This appears to be how the Brewmaster uses Breath of Fire, based on the animation. Furthermore, enemies drenched by Drunken Haze will be set on fire when hit by Breath of Fire. |
| 905 | * {{Combos}}: Uniquely, the Brewmaster has two abilities that are meant to directly combo with each other. Dousing enemies with Drunken Haze and then hitting them with Breath of Fire will ignite them for further damage over time, dealing more damage than simply using the two separately. |
| 906 | * DrunkenMaster: Underestimate the drunk panda at your peril - he ''will'' rip entire armies a new one if left unchecked. |
| 907 | * EliteMook: The 3 Pandas summoned by Storm, Earth, and Fire. Each are as powerful as level 7-8 creeps and nearly each as powerful as an ultimate summon on their own. Storm is a powerful ranged spell caster like a Dark Wizard, Earth is a tank with AOE damage potential, like a Tauren and Mountain Giant, and Fire is effectively a more fragile higher damage Infernal that is not Spell Immune. |
| 908 | * FighterMageThief: A three-for-one deal with Storm, Earth, and Fire. The Earth panda is the Fighter, with his high durability and ability to taunt enemies; Storm is the Mage, with multiple spells to help shut down enemies and support his allies; and Fire is the Thief, a relatively fragile, hard-hitting melee fighter. |
| 909 | * FightingPanda: Whether in hand-to-hand or by setting things on fire, the Pandaren Brewmaster can more than hold himself in a fight. |
| 910 | * GuestStarPartyMember: A Pandaren Brewmaster joins Lady Vashj and Kael in a level if you successfully beat the TowerDefense level before, where the [[DefeatMeansFriendship final boss was a Pandaren Brewmaster]]. He is only around for that one level and there is no plot explanation as to why he is there. |
| 911 | * HerdHittingAttack: Drunken Haze into Breath of Fire can easily decimate hordes of weak units with high area-of-effect damage. |
| 912 | * MagicKnight: While Drunken Brawler's critical damage is nice, it's somewhat let down by the Brewmaster's slow attack speed, especially compared to the Blademaster. He'll be doing the bulk of his damage with his spells, with his impact in a battle often being determined by his mana supply. |
| 913 | * MagikarpPower: The Brewmaster is very weak before level 3, having poor crowd control and unimpressive stats. He wants at least a few points for his Drunken Haze + Breath of Fire combo to take effect. Once he has some levels, he deals a huge amount of magical damage, a respectable amount of physical damage, and is very durable with evasion and his ultimate stopping him from taking damage. The three pandas summoned by Storm, Earth, and Fire are also extremely powerful, so Brewmaster gets a much larger power spike than almost all of the other tavern heroes from learning his ultimate. |
| 914 | * OptionalPartyMember: Chen Stormstout is this in ''The Founding of Durotar''. Having him in your party is not necessary to beat the campaign, though he makes it considerably easier. |
| 915 | * PungeonMaster: They're pretty pun-happy in their responses, with a few sprinkled into almost all of their response categories. |
| 916 | -->'''Pandaren Brewmaster:''' ''(selected)'' "Is trouble brewing?"\ |
| 917 | '''Pandaren Brewmaster:''' ''(ordered to attack)'' "I bring ''panda-monium!''" |
| 918 | * SixthRanger: They're a popular pick for Night Elf players who otherwise lack their own strength hero and would like one to lead a charge. Moonwells really help them stay supplied with mana and health to this end. |
| 919 | * SummonMagic: Storm, Earth, and Fire is an odd combination of a summon ultimate and a [[SuperMode transformation]] ultimate. It hides the Brewmaster and replaces him with 3 summons that are each about as strong as a normal ultimate summon (such as a Doom Guard) but if they all die within the duration he does too. The summons together are stronger than a Brewmaster would be in any normal game, but they have different skills and their power does not scale at all with the Brewmaster's like other transformation spells. Due to the campaign's gameplay and all the fancy items he can get, Chen Stormstout in ''The Founding of Durotar'' can become far more powerful than all 3 of the pandas and [[PowerUpLetdown may end up becoming weaker]] by using Storm, Earth, and Fire. |
| 920 | * UselessUsefulSpell: Taking Drunken Brawler early is usually a poor investment as the Brewmaster has the greatest impact with his two active abilities, while his slow attack rate makes the critical hit chance a crapshoot. Storm, Earth, and Fire will also provide a great defensive advantage anyway by making the opponent deal with three different versions of the Brewmaster. If a Talisman of Evasion happens to drop, then you have a good substitute for the Evasion component. |
| 921 | ** Due to the far different gameplay of ''The Founding of Durotar'' creating unnaturally powerful heroes, Drunken Brawler is considerably more powerful there (especially since it gets a 4th level where it gets a chance to deal 6x damage), while Storm, Earth, and Fire is the spell that verges on this trope due to not scaling with the Brewmaster's power at all. |
| 922 | [[/folder]] |
| 923 | |
| 924 | [[folder:Beastmaster]] |
| 925 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/beastmaster.gif]] |
| 926 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"I hear the call of the wild."'']] |
| 927 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 928 | '''Abilities:''' Summon Bear, Summon Quilbeast, Summon Hawk, Stampede (Ultimate)\ |
| 929 | '''Possible names:''' Mag Bearmaul, Tagar Bearclaw, Gorsh Talonfang, Maxx Rocmane, Gaz Boartusk, Mok Rocksnout, Gish Eagle Eye\ |
| 930 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Rexxar |
| 931 | \ |
| 932 | |
| 933 | The Mok'Nathal are a clan of half-ogre, half-orc hybrids, native to Draenor. Some accompanied the Horde on its first invasion of Azeroth, but their mixed ancestry meant they never quite fit in; outcast from both ogre and orc society, they honed their hunting arts to become Beastmasters, isolated from all civilization and relying only on themselves, their companions, and their skills to survive. These lone wanderers are able to call forth all manner of beasts to aid them in combat and seek to perfect their skills through mimicry of beasts. They can summon a powerful bear with Summon Bear, a quill-shooting boar with Summon Quilbeast, and a proud hawk to scout the map with Summon Hawk. Their ultimate ability, Stampede, calls down a horde of rampaging thunder lizards to explode against the Beastmaster's enemies. |
| 934 | ---- |
| 935 | * AchillesHeel: The trouble with relying upon summons is that the Beastmaster is vulnerable to anti-magic play. If his animal friends get dispelled, much of his offense is eliminated. |
| 936 | * ActionBomb: The thunder lizards summoned by Stampede explode upon contact with the enemy. |
| 937 | * AnimalStampede: The Beastmaster can summon a stampede of Thunder lizards. Though unlike most stampedes, [[ActionBomb they explode on contact]]. |
| 938 | * AntiAir: Quilbeasts, especially if you have several of them, as they can splash damage (when maxed out) to air units which are more likely to clump together. |
| 939 | * BearsAreBadNews: Their most durable and versatile summon is a bear, which can teleport at high levels. |
| 940 | * TheBeastmaster: Duh. In-game they generally summon their pets, but that's more a case of GameplayAndStorySegregation. The campaign Beastmaster, Rexxar, names all his pets and has a personal connection with each of them (though in the game, only Misha the bear doesn't have a life timer). |
| 941 | * CrutchCharacter: The Beastmaster has very powerful summons, especially the Bear which offers an extremely valuable meat shield. However, due to being countered so hard by dispels, he can be pretty lackluster late game. However, dispels take a while for each race to get ahold of, all of them requiring at least Tier 2 (Tier 3 for Undead), so it is possible to gain an advantage against the enemy before then. |
| 942 | * DualWielding: They dual-wield axes. |
| 943 | * FullBoarAction: The Quilbeast most resembles a boar or warthog, though its ability to shoot quills also brings to mind a porcupine. |
| 944 | * GlassCannon: Both the Quilbeast and the Hawk (at max level) have low health but are able to output a lot of damage. Notably the Hawk starts unable to attack but ends up with the highest damage output. |
| 945 | * HeadHat: They wear a beast head as a helmet. |
| 946 | * MagikarpPower: Not the Beastmaster himself, who is more of a CrutchCharacter, but specifically the Summon Hawk spell. Hawks grow the most in power per level. The level 1 Hawk is only a scout with no attack, the level 2 Thunder Hawk deals about 20 damage a hit (less than the other summons at the level), and the level 3 Spirit Hawk deals over 50 damage a hit (far outstripping the other summons) and is permanently invisible. It can be risky committing to leveling Hawks, because they are much weaker then Bears and Quilbeasts in combat until level 3, and due to their higher cooldown (a Beastmaster can have multiple Quilbeasts or Bears active, due to their duration being much longer than the ability cooldown, but only one Hawk). |
| 947 | * NobleBirdOfPrey: Summon Hawk summons a "proud hawk" that's useful for spying on enemies, as its upgraded versions can both see invisible units and are invisible themselves. |
| 948 | * NonHumanHumanoidHybrid: Though in lore all manner of races take up the Beastmaster mantle, in-game they are always the orc-ogre hybrid Mok'Nathal. |
| 949 | * PeltsOfTheBarbarian: They have the wanderer-warrior culture of a classic fantasy barbarian, and all their (limited) clothing consists of furs. |
| 950 | * PragmaticAdaptation: Rexxar has slightly different skills from a normal Beastmaster to accommodate ''The Founding of Durotar'' being an exploration-based RPG instead of an RTS. |
| 951 | ** 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, and Storm Bolt makes him much better in direct combat. |
| 952 | ** Rexxar's Bear, Misha, is much stronger than a normal bear, has no timer for her life, and casting the spell again will resummon her at full health instead of summoning more bears. In the melee RTS, momentum and urgency from trying to use multiple summons on the enemy is a huge element of the Beastmaster's gameplay, but in a slower exploration game, having a single, powerful summon to tank creeps is much more fitting, and that urgency element is only preserved in the Summon Quilbeast spell, which is still the same (though it costs less mana likely to downplay the hero's mana issues for the campaign). Misha also cannot blink, so players can't use her to bypass barriers. |
| 953 | ** Rexxar has a built-in ranged attack against air units, where he [[ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks throws his axes at them]]. This allows him to engage enemy air units without having to buy a (often pretty expensive) orb, which means the campaign can use air units early on as enemies, since Rexxar will reliably be able to engage with them. |
| 954 | * ShockAndAwe: At higher levels, his summoned hawk can attack with bolts of lightning. |
| 955 | * SixthRanger: Another solid pick for the Night Elf faction as they provide a tanking hero the faction otherwise lacks and can summon a bear who tanks effectively as well. Their main drawback is that dispels are a major AchillesHeel, so their late game performance can suffer. |
| 956 | * SummonMagic: His whole gimmick. Every single one of his basic abilities conjures an animal companion. |
| 957 | * TeleportSpam: The Bear at max level can Blink. Why is not explained in game and the Warcraft III site's only comment is ''[[RuleOfFunny "Teleporting Bears are funny"]]''. It is a useful tool to stop them from being kited. |
| 958 | * {{Thunderbird}}: The Hawk as it gains levels will fire lightning bolts. |
| 959 | * TrueSight: The Beastmaster's summoned hawk can see invisible units. |
| 960 | * UndergroundMonkey: The Beastmaster's summons have different colorations based on the tileset of the map. The colors for "tropical" settings like Lordaeron Summer, Sunken Ruins, and The Barrens have all 3 brown. "Cold" settings like Lordaeron Winter and Icecrown have all 3 white (with the bear looking the same as the Polar Bear creeps in Icecrown). Some "Mystical" settings like Ashenvale, Dungeon, and Underground have the bear and hawk purple and the quilbeast black. |
| 961 | * WalkingShirtlessScene: They wear their beast head helmet, a cape, a single pauldron, a loincloth, and boots. Their legs and chests are completely exposed. |
| 962 | * WeaksauceWeakness: The Beastmaster is heavily countered by dispels since all of his spells are based around summoning units. Stampede is the exception, where the thunder lizards are actually spell projectiles that look like units, but being a long-duration channeled ability means any stun/root/sleep/silence effect will end it prematurely. |
| 963 | |
| 964 | [[/folder]] |
| 965 | |
| 966 | [[folder:Pit Lord]] |
| 967 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pitlord.gif]] |
| 968 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"I come from the darkness of the pit."'']] |
| 969 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 970 | '''Abilities:''' Rain of Fire, Howl of Terror, Cleaving Attack, Doom (Ultimate)\ |
| 971 | '''Possible names:''' Azgalor, Brutillus, Mongrethod, Destromath, Gogonnash\ |
| 972 | '''NPC Campaign characters:''' Mannoroth (cinematic only), Azgalor, Magtheridon |
| 973 | \ |
| 974 | |
| 975 | The annihilan, also known as Pit Lords, are powerful demons in the service of the Burning Legion, serving as commanders and fearsome warriors alike. They fight with fanatical zeal and revel in bringing death and destruction. In battle, they are powerful warriors that instill terror among their foes and cleave them apart with their tremendous blades. They can use Rain of Fire to raze enemies from above, reduce their damage output with Howl of Terror, and strike multiple enemies at once with their Cleaving Attack. Their ultimate ability, Doom, places an undispellable curse on a non-Hero unit that prevents it from casting spells and damages it until it dies. Upon the victim's death, a fearsome Doomguard will be summoned from its corpse under the Pit Lord's command. |
| 976 | ---- |
| 977 | * ImAHumanitarian: Parodied. One of their gag responses has him say "I think I have someone stuck in my teeth". Nothing in the lore suggests they actually have ExtremeOmnivore tendencies, and it seems to poke fun at their FatBastard status. |
| 978 | * ArmorPiercingAttack: The mechanics of Cleaving Attack make it so that for the units hit by the cleave (not the main target) ignores Armor value, treating it as zero. This means with enough levels of the skill you can deal more damage to a high armor target by attacking the units around them instead of them directly. The cleaving (not the direct attack) also [[AlwaysAccurateAttack ignores evasion]] which helps against Demon Hunter, Pandaren Brewmaster, or anyone with a Talisman of Evasion [[note]]though if the Pit Lord is blinded (by skills like Curse or Drunken Haze) he can miss both the main attack and the cleaving [[/note]]. |
| 979 | * BadBoss: In addition to shutting down and killing enemy units, Doom can also be used on friendly units to convert them into Doomguards. Dooming an allied unit to create a Doomguard is potentially a smarter move because you can control where and when the Doomguard spawns. |
| 980 | * BeardOfEvil: He has a large grey beard. The default Pit Lord in ''Reforged'' is clean-cut instead. |
| 981 | * BloodKnight: As per their lore, Pit Lords take pleasure in terrorizing and slaughtering enemies. |
| 982 | --> '''Pit Lord:''' ''(when given an attack order)'' This will please me! |
| 983 | * CallBack: Doom works similarly to how lore describes the rumored effect of "Summon Daemon" in ''Warcraft I''. However, instead of the Pit Lord sacrificing himself, a friendly or enemy unit is selected for the Doom ritual. The summoned Doomguard is visually very similar to the Daemon and fills a similar role as a major summon. |
| 984 | * ContinuityCameo: Most of the Pit Lords, Azgalor, Destromath, and Mongrethod, makes cameos in different Legion controlled areas (especially in the Legion expansion). Gogonnash and Brutillus may even be present as well, but under the misspelled names of Gorgonnash and Brutallus. |
| 985 | * CrutchCharacter: Pit Lords have the highest starting strength and health in the game. Their innate tankiness plus Rain of Fire also makes them among the best heroes at soloing small early-game creep camps at level 1 (minus spell immune mobs like Mud Golems or ones that can stun him out of Rain of Fire, like Kobold Tunnelers). A player can quickly start trying to get experience on him even before building combat units. If a Pit Lord player plays quickly, they can keep their Pit Lord ahead of the enemy heroes in experience, and maybe get a power spike from learning Doom. Later in the game, they start to fall into their MasterOfNone shortcomings as other heroes will outshine him, and the Doom Guard can be killed by dispels unlike all other ultimate summons. |
| 986 | * DoubleWeapon: They carry giant double-bladed spears. |
| 987 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Pit Lords appeared as campaign exclusive heroes in ''Reign of Chaos''. They have higher stats and Chaos Damage-dealing attacks, since they weren't designed to be balanced. They also used a [[ComboPlatterPowers mix of spells from other heroes]] that emphasized more AntiStructure and MagicKnight style of gameplay. [[note]]Their skills were Shockwave, Thunder Clap, Reincarnation, and Earthquake, which gives them two ultimates[[/note]] |
| 988 | * FatBastard: He is very ObviouslyEvil while being heavyset with a large gut and thick legs (though Pit Lords are actually very muscular and bulky rather than fat). One of his gag responses has him saying [[WesternAnimation/FatAlbertAndTheCosbyKids hey hey hey!]]. |
| 989 | * HerdHittingAttack: All three of the Pit Lord's basic abilities can strike multiple enemies, and while Doom only works on a single target, the Doomguard it spawns ''also'' has several area-of-effect abilities. |
| 990 | * JackOfAllTrades: A MagicKnight who has Rain of Fire as a spin on the Archmage's Blizzard, Cleave for dealing with being surrounded, and Howl of Terror for enemy-debuffing utility. Finally, they can Doom a friendly or hostile unit which summons a Doomguard with their own set of damage and utility spells, essentially giving the Pit Lord four more spells to play with along with a powerful demon to fight with them. Pit Lords don't have any outstanding strengths besides their bag of tricks they can perform. |
| 991 | * MasterOfNone: The Pit Lord lacks a specific specialization and is frequently outperformed in his potential skills by other heroes. |
| 992 | ** He is less durable than dedicated tank heroes like Crypt Lord or Tauren Chieftain (due to having no dedicated tanking abilities, only having high natural strength and being reliant on Howl of Terror), he is a weaker offensive caster than a Lich or Blood Mage (due to not having as much mana to cast spells and Rain of Fire being weaker than other offensive spells), he is less of a mass killing OneManArmy than the Demon Hunter or the Mountain King (due to Cleaving Attack offering less overall damage, and not being able to attack and use Rain of Fire at the same time), and he lacks the utility to control combat to the extent of heroes like the Shadow Hunter or Dreadlord (due to having much weaker crowd control with Howl of Terror, which only reduces damage). |
| 993 | ** This also applies to his ultimate summon, the Doom Guard. It bears closest comparison to the Dreadlord's Infernal. The Doom Guard is a well-rounded heavy melee unit (that can also attack air units) with lots of utility spells and Resistant Skin and is summoned on death by a DamageOverTime debuff on one target. The Infernal in contrast is more of a melee powerhouse, having Spell Immunity and a permanent Immolation effect, attacking faster and hitting harder than the Doom Guard, and is summoned through an area stun on land units, while having no active spells or the ability to attack air units at all. |
| 994 | * MightyGlacier: They're big and slow, but also fairly bulky and can pack a decent punch. |
| 995 | * NonPlayerCharacter: The only one heroes of the original release of ''The Frozen Throne'' that was never playable in the campaigns, but instead we get [[ComboPlatterPowers some of their abilities mixed in with the Dreadlord's]] in Varimathras. [[note]]All the neutral heroes below Pit Lord on this page were patched in later, so their absence is justified[[/note]] |
| 996 | * ObviouslyEvil: Extremely so, especially compared to the other neutral heroes. He's a big, heavy reptilian demon with a permanent SlasherSmile who is "adept at terrorizing enemies". His sadistic personality also doesn't leave much open to interpretation, unlike the [[PunchClockVillain Crypt Lord]] or [[TragicMonster Dark Ranger]]. |
| 997 | * OneManArmy: If he is well equipped with items and/or buffs, the Pit Lord can charge into huge swaths of land units and cleave them for huge amounts of damage. Though he does not perform this role as well as other heroes specialized for it. |
| 998 | * OurDemonsAreDifferent: Pit Lords are demonic brutes with [[OurCentaursAreDifferent vaguely-reptilian, quadrupedal lower bodies and vaguely humanoid upper bodies]]. The Doomguards they summon more closely resemble the classic BigRedDevil wielding {{Flaming Sword}}s. |
| 999 | * PaperTiger: Pit Lords are not really as powerful as their appearance suggest. |
| 1000 | ** A level 7 Pit Lord appears in ''The Tomb of Sargeras'', and at a glance, it looks like it would be a dangerous foe. However, this specific Pit Lord is a non-hero unit, having high health but only dealing about 25 damage a hit (roughly as much as a level 1 Pit Lord hero). He only has the abilities War Stomp and Raise Dead. As such, he is not nearly as much of a threat as it would seem, and far less than the hero version of the Pit Lord. |
| 1001 | ** The melee game Pit Lord, despite its fearsome appearance, is a tanky JackOfAllTrades rather than a frontline damage dealing hero and will lose to most other strength heroes in direct combat. Almost every time an enemy Pit Lord appears in the campaigns (besides the example above), they are [[PurposefullyOverpowered buffed up]]. |
| 1002 | * PerpetualFrowner: In contrast to their SlasherSmile icons and models, the Pit Lord's portrait in the original game has a very deep and permanent frown. |
| 1003 | * PlayingWithFire: Rain of Fire, a spell that acts as a weaker version of the Arch Mage's Blizzard but calls down fire instead of ice and sets units on fire to deal damage over time. |
| 1004 | * PurposefullyOverpowered: |
| 1005 | ** Azgalor in the last mission of ''Reign of Chaos'' is the most dangerous of the killable heroes in the level. He has higher stats than normal heroes and the chaos damage type. He also has two ultimate spells, which would be both Reincarnation and Earthquake. This makes him disproportionately powerful compared to any normal hero, and he takes a lot of effort to bring down. |
| 1006 | ** Magtheridon is the final Pit Lord hero fought in ''The Frozen Throne'' and he is the FinalBoss of the Alliance Campaign. He has extremely inflated health, mana pool, damage, and armor. He also has 11 abilities instead of the usual 4. He has the standard Pit Lord Howl of Terror and Cleaving Attack, but also has Finger of Death, Shockwave, Frenzy, Bash, Frost Nova, Rain of Chaos, Hardened Skin, and True Sight. Since he's supposed to fight 4 max level heroes and their entire army it is justified, even if he has his own minions to help him fight. |
| 1007 | * SixthRanger: Like the Dark Ranger, the Pit Lord and his Doom Guard is flagged as Undead and can be healed by Death Coil. He is more durable than the other undead heroes (except the Crypt Lord) and can be picked up as a more durable alternative to the Dreadlord, the hero whose skillset the Pit Lord is closest to. |
| 1008 | * SlasherSmile: Their default expression in their icon and model is an especially prevalent one. |
| 1009 | * SummonMagic: Their ultimate Doom does damage to a unit every second until they die and a Doomguard is summoned in their place. Doomguards aren't as strong or fast as [[LightningBruiser Infernals]], but they are still very strong and have a flexible selection of spells to play with. |
| 1010 | * WeaksauceWeakness: While the Pit Lord's Doomguard is formidable, unlike other units summoned by ultimate abilities it doesn't have spell immunity, making it weak to dispels. Dispels also counter Howl of Terror, which is how the Pit Lord's army gets an edge in large scale fights. |
| 1011 | * YourDaysAreNumbered: The victim of Doom can't cast spells and loses health at an alarming rate, spawning a demon on death. It's possible to outlast the spell, but it takes a lot of healing spells and time. |
| 1012 | * WeakenedByTheLight: Like his Dreadlord counterpart, he is vulnerable to the Paladin's Holy Light, making Human Paladins more powerful than usual for countering him. This gets even worse if a Blood Mage is in tow to Banish him for a +66% damage penalty. |
| 1013 | [[/folder]] |
| 1014 | |
| 1015 | [[folder:Tinker]] |
| 1016 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tinker_4.gif]] |
| 1017 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"All parts accounted for!"'']] |
| 1018 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 1019 | '''Abilities:''' Pocket Factory, Cluster Rockets, Engineering Upgrade, Robo-Goblin (Ultimate)\ |
| 1020 | '''Possible names:''' Gazz Stripbolt, Riket Contraption, Mekka Gobb, Tek Piecetinker, Plug Rattletrap, Ratso Steamwheedle\ |
| 1021 | \ |
| 1022 | |
| 1023 | Goblins are known for their ingenuity and peculiar mechanical know-how, and the Tinker is no exception. Armed with a Claw-Pack/Hammer-Tank combo, the Tinker's boundless enthusiasm is never diminished, even when the occasional part may fail. Or explode. Tinkers can construct a Pocket Factory which automatically deploys Clockwerk Goblin soldiers that explode on death, fire Cluster Rockets that stun and damage enemies in an area, or get an Engineering Upgrade that passively increases their damage and speed and boosts their other abilities. Their ultimate ability allows them to transform into a Robo-Goblin, gaining bonus strength and armor, dealing extra damage to buildings, but becoming Mechanical until it's toggled off. |
| 1024 | ---- |
| 1025 | * AchillesHeel: |
| 1026 | ** Cluster Rockets and Pocket Factory only affect land units, so the Tinker has few offensive options against air-heavy army compositions. |
| 1027 | ** Disables and slows that affect mechanical units prevent Tinker from fully being a LightningBruiser in Robo-Goblin form. Notably, Frost Wyrms and Raiders (in decent numbers) counter the Goblin Tinker very hard. Undead Nerubian Towers and their Tier 2 and 3 Necropolis also have a slowing attack that pierces Robo-Goblin, which makes them the hardest race for Tinker to harass. |
| 1028 | * AscendedMeme: The Tinker was originally announced as an April Fools joke in 2004. However, the idea proved to be legitimately popular, so Tinkers were added in the next major patch. |
| 1029 | * ActionBomb: The clockwork goblins spit out by his Pocket Factory explode when they die or expire, dealing damage in an area. They can also be commanded to detonate manually. |
| 1030 | * AntiInfantry: Due to having two active spells that deal damage in an area, the Tinker can be very effective at killing a large number of weak enemies. |
| 1031 | * AntiStructure: In Robo-Goblin form, the Tinker deals double his normal damage to buildings. Engineering Upgrade increases the damage, up to 3.5x at maximum level. Throw in his Cluster Rockets, which can also hit buildings, and a high-level Tinker is not someone you want near your base. |
| 1032 | * AwesomeBackpack: By default, the Tinker wears a mechanical backpack with a pair of claws extending from it, used for his melee attacks. It also [[BackpackCannon has a rocket launcher built in for firing his Cluster Rockets]]. |
| 1033 | * 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 and to the Robo-Goblin form, rather than to get points in two spells that you should not be spending the mana on. |
| 1034 | * DoubleEdgedBuff: Robo-Goblin granting mechanical status is mostly positive, as it prevents the Tinker from being targeted or damaged by most spells, especially the most dangerous hero killers like Frost Nova, Storm Bolt, or Entangling Roots. However, it also prevents the Tinker from receiving most buffs like Bloodlust, Roar, or Unholy Frenzy (though he can get Inner Fire). It also prevents him from being healed by spells, fountains, or Moon Wells, which means he has to transform back to get that healing and it limits his ability to tank damage. |
| 1035 | * DualModeUnit: The only true hero version of this. Unlike all other heroes with transformations, the Tinker can easily shift between the normal form and the Robo-Goblin form. |
| 1036 | * FragileSpeedster: With his Engineering Upgrade, Tinker can run around very quickly and cast his spells throughout the map, he can be hard to catch but still dies rather easily when he is caught. |
| 1037 | * HitAndRunTactics: A very common way to play the Tinker is to take advantage of his FragileSpeedster (or LightningBruiser if he has his ultimate) status and try to disrupt the enemy bases with his pocket factories and flee before the enemy brings their army to retaliate. |
| 1038 | * HerdHittingAttack: Both Cluster Rockets and the Clockwerk Goblin's Kaboom deal area of effect damage. |
| 1039 | * HumongousHeadedHammer: His primary weapon in Robo-Goblin form is a hammer with a comically huge head, bigger than his entire body. The weapon is scaled down significantly in ''Reforged.'' |
| 1040 | * TheJuggernaut: In Robo-Goblin form, most spells cannot target or affect him (because he is mechanical), and he gains both strength and armor, so it is normal for high level Tinkers to just charge at expansions and destroy them with no way to stop him. It also means he can be repaired by workers, giving him another way to restore health in combat. |
| 1041 | * LightningBruiser: In Robo-Goblin form, he becomes extremely tough to kill with the bonus strength, armor, and mechanical status, while being the same speed as before. |
| 1042 | * MacrossMissileMassacre: Cluster Rockets bombards an area with a flurry of rockets that stun and damage enemies. The damage is pretty minimal, and the stun is fairly short, but the ability also has a very low cooldown and hits a large area with Engineering Upgrade, allowing a Tinker that builds around the ability to put out some serious sustained damage and frequent interrupts. |
| 1043 | * MagicKnight: Other than Demolish which allows Robo-Goblin to deal a lot of attack damage to buildings, Tinker's damage to non-building units is mostly done from his spells or summons instead of his attacks. |
| 1044 | * MagikarpPower: The Tinker is highly dependent on levels to perform well. He wants multiple points in either Pocket Factory (more commonly) or Cluster Rockets (on occasion) and Engineering Upgrade in order for the spells to be truly dangerous. Maxed Engineering Upgrade increases the spawn rate of the Clockwerk Goblins by about 60% (from one every 5 seconds to 3) and area of the Cluster Rockets by 45% (from 200 to 290 AOE), as well as giving him the speed boost of Endurance or Unholy Aura. Robo-Goblin also makes him into TheJuggernaut and among the most durable and most dangerous AntiStructure heroes in the game. |
| 1045 | * MechanicallyUnusualClass: The Tinker is the only melee intelligence hero in the melee game and has a few traits unique to him. |
| 1046 | ** The organic Tinker plays like a spell casting version of a Blademaster, focusing heavily on HitAndRunTactics, instead of playing like a ranged SquishyWizard who stands in the backline of a battle. |
| 1047 | ** In Robo-Goblin form he plays a lot more like a strength hero. He stands in the front lines and soaks up damage and casts spells. Unlike many strength heroes he can run away when needed. He can also default to his organic form's playstyle, except with better building damage. |
| 1048 | ** The Robo-Goblin form also makes him the only Mechanical hero in the game, making him immune to a number of spells (both beneficial and harmful) while allowing workers to restore his health by repairing him. |
| 1049 | ** Robo-Goblin is the only transformation spell for a hero that is on command instead of a temporary SuperMode. This makes the Tinker the only hero that is a true DualModeUnit. |
| 1050 | * MookMaker: The Pocket Factory spell creates a small structure that produces a slew of small clockwork goblins to attack opponents. The rate starts at one every 5 seconds, but it does down to 4.5/3.5/3 as the player levels up Engineering Upgrade. |
| 1051 | * OddNameOut: Mekka Gobb doesn't follow the typical goblin name convention where the last name especially alludes to a mechanical device. The name instead declares that the Tinker is a mechanical person, akin to a person being called "Robot Man". |
| 1052 | * PoweredArmor: The Tinker’s ultimate ability works this way, transforming him from his pack on his back. The original version looked like a tank or a vehicle, while ''Reforged'' despite still having tank-like treads, it looks much more like a mecha, having arms and a more visible pilot seat. |
| 1053 | * StoneWall: The Tinker in Robo-Goblin is this in regard to fighting units. As a frontline hero, Tinker has no damage steroid (not counting the small damage bonus from Engineering Upgrade) besides Demolish, which only affects buildings. |
| 1054 | ** The transformation adds strength, armor, and the mechanical status. All of these benefits are defensive in nature, especially since the Tinker is an intelligence hero and does not get bonus damage from strength. |
| 1055 | ** Cluster Rockets also does very little damage compared to other AOE damage spells and is used more for disruption. Unlike all other stuns that heroes have, the Tinker also cannot attack or move when using Cluster Rockets, which limits his ability to maximize damage output. |
| 1056 | ** Additionally, due to his high speed, if the Tinker in Robo-Goblin isn't near the enemy base and attacking their buildings, he is more likely to be running around and forcing the enemies to chase him while spamming his spells instead of engaging directly in melee combat with them. |
| 1057 | * TankGoodness: The Robo-Goblin form heavily resembles as tank, though instead of a cannon it has a [[HumongousHeadedHammer giant hammer]] as its main weapon instead. |
| 1058 | |
| 1059 | [[/folder]] |
| 1060 | |
| 1061 | [[folder:Firelord]] |
| 1062 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/firelord.gif]] |
| 1063 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"Beware, I live."'']] |
| 1064 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Agility\ |
| 1065 | '''Abilities:''' Soul Burn, Summon Lava Spawn, Incinerate, Volcano (Ultimate)\ |
| 1066 | '''Possible names:''' Ragepyre, Hatespark, Blazefury, Heatflayer, Volcanus, Flashfire, Kar the Everburning, Smolderas, Singeslayer\ |
| 1067 | \ |
| 1068 | |
| 1069 | Firelords are powerful sentient Fire Elementals. While Elementals were banished to the Elemental plane upon the Old Gods' defeat, wizards have learned to summon Elementals back into Azeroth, with the Firelords among them. These creatures now roam the land, sewing fiery chaos in their wake. Their destructive abilities include silencing and burning enemies with Soul Burn, conjuring Lava Spawn that can multiply in the heat of combat, and empowering their attacks to Incinerate enemies with a stacking damage bonus and causing victims to explode on death. Their ultimate ability summons a Volcano that spews molten rocks to stun and damage surrounding units. |
| 1070 | ---- |
| 1071 | * ArmorPiercingAttack: Averted. Volcano is the only offensive oriented hero ultimate that does not affect Spell Immune units. |
| 1072 | * AntiMagic: [[WreathedInFlames Soul Burn]] is a single-target silence that also deals damage over time and reduces the attack damage of the victim. Unlike the Dark Ranger's Silence, which is suited for groups of small fragile spellcaster units, Soul Burn is for strong creeps or units with spells that can also deal some damage with their attack, or heroes. |
| 1073 | * AntiStructure: Volcano deals extra damage to buildings and is more powerful against them because they can't just move away (besides Night Elf ancients). |
| 1074 | * BlackMage: Fitting stereotypes about characters with fire powers, the Firelord's spells are all offensive in nature and built around damage, even if they aren't doing damage directly. Soul Burn deals a lot of damage over a significant duration, Lava Spawns are the [[GlassCannon highest damage but least durable]] early game summons, Incinerate stacks damage on each attack and deals damage in an area if the target dies, and Volcano blasts all targets with molten rock for damage and stun. |
| 1075 | * ContinuityCameo: All of the firelord heroes save Smolderas appear in the Firelands in ''World of Warcraft'', either on the Molten Front or within the raid itself. |
| 1076 | * CrutchCharacter: Lava Spawns are extremely powerful early game, able to split and heal if they are not killed quickly. Soul Burn also is a huge DiscOneNuke that needs to be countered with dispels. Later on, Lava Spawns are [[GlassCannon quite easy to kill compared to a lot of other summoned units]] and Soul Burn can be easily dispelled. Firelords then are forced to change their gameplay to playing around Volcano and trying to hit the enemy base and expansions with it. |
| 1077 | * FogFeet: Firelords have a fiery version of this trope. |
| 1078 | * GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: The Firelord is the only hero who has no connection with previously introduced existing factions in Warcraft III. He predates the Elemental Lords being introduced. Before his introduction there was no hint that elementals were even capable of sentience and speech. |
| 1079 | * IncreasinglyLethalEnemy: Firelords are very dangerous in a sustained fight. Incinerate gives him a stacking damage bonus and Lava Spawn can split once they attack a certain number of times. |
| 1080 | * LivingLava: Lava Spawns are made of lava. The Firelord's body also looks this way. |
| 1081 | * {{Nerf}}: Incinerate was originally fully passive. It was changed to cost mana instead, changing it an "arrow" type ability. |
| 1082 | * OddNameOut: Kar the Everburning is the only name with a distinct title. |
| 1083 | * OmnicidalManiac: According to the official website, his motivation is to extinguish all life. Given how elementals all used to work for the [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Old Gods]], it would make sense. |
| 1084 | * PlayingWithFire: As expected of a fire elemental, all of the Firelord's abilities are fire themed. |
| 1085 | * WeaksauceWeakness: Firelord is very dependent on Soul Burn and his Lava Spawns to kill casters/heroes and to deal damage. Dispels counter both of them. Volcano is also a channeling spell and is countered by many abilities that can interrupt it. |
| 1086 | * WhyAmITicking: Incinerate turns targets into living bombs that explode violently if they die under the effect, dealing damage around themselves. Note that units killed this way leave no corpse behind. |
| 1087 | |
| 1088 | [[/folder]] |
| 1089 | |
| 1090 | [[folder:Goblin Alchemist]] |
| 1091 | [[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alchemist.gif]] |
| 1092 | [[caption-width-right:163:''"Ready to brew!"'']] |
| 1093 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 1094 | '''Abilities:''' Healing Spray, Chemical Rage, Acid Bomb, Transmute (Ultimate)\ |
| 1095 | '''Possible names:''' Razzil Naypolm, Niffy Gurglebeaker, Ezzel Darkbrewer, Lapis Concocter, Savvy Foulmixer, Fictious Warpotion\ |
| 1096 | \ |
| 1097 | |
| 1098 | A goblin alchemist riding a chemically subdued ogre into battle. Can damage and decrease enemy armor with Acid Bomb, attack faster with Chemical Rage, heal allies with Healing Spray, and instantly kill enemies by turning them into gold. |
| 1099 | ---- |
| 1100 | * AcidAttack: The alchemist can fling a bottle of acid at opponents, decreasing their armor and dealing damage over time. |
| 1101 | * CombatMedic: While certainly potent in a fight with Acid Bomb and Chemical Rage, the Alchemist's Healing Spray also makes him an effective healer if you choose to build him as such. |
| 1102 | * DamageDiscrimination: Notably, Healing Spray previously did ''not'' have this, meaning that it can heal enemies in the area of effect as well; a BalanceBuff changed it to only affect allies, though its healing output had to then be lowered in response. |
| 1103 | * DualWielding: While affected by Chemical Rage, the ogre wields two large glaives. |
| 1104 | * HumanResources: The Alchemist's ultimate spell turns an enemy unit into gold, which is added to the player's resource pool. The higher level the target has, the more gold. This also makes the Alchemist the only hero that can generate resources for the player. |
| 1105 | * JackOfAllTrades: Alchemist can feasibly be built around maxing any of his main abilities. He can focus on healing by maxing Healing Spray, he can focus on offensive supporting with Acid Bomb, or he can try to build up his damage potential by maxing Chemical Rage. |
| 1106 | * LightningBruiser: In Chemical Rage, the Alchemist gains massive movement and attack speed, allowing him to easily close the distance and strike very quickly. |
| 1107 | * MagikarpPower: Alchemist starts the game rather weak as his spells don't have that much impact early on when they have one point in them, but he becomes a lot more powerful as you put multiple levels into each of his spells. He scales well into late game once he has some damage items for Chemical Rage and when gold on the map becomes very hard to attain (because gold mines ran dry) Transmute is extremely powerful, especially since it can instantly kill very expensive units like Knights, Tauren, or Frost Wyrms. |
| 1108 | * MechanicallyUnusualClass: |
| 1109 | ** 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. |
| 1110 | ** 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" and has a higher movement speed cap of 522. This is similar to the Pandaren Brewmaster activating Storm, Earth, And Fire. |
| 1111 | * MightyGlacier: When not in Chemical Rage, he moves and attacks slowly, though he still does a bit of damage with Acid Bomb and having naturally high attack damage. |
| 1112 | * MundaneUtility: Due to the bonus movespeed of Chemical Rage, it is just as common to use it to run away as to engage with enemies. This is unlike almost all other [[SuperMode transformation spells]], which are always used to commit to an engagement. |
| 1113 | * OneHitKill: Transmute instantly kills the target unit and is most effective against expensive targets, which also provide more gold to the player when turned into gold. |
| 1114 | * OnlyInItForTheMoney: Implied by his status as a mercenary hero and being, well, a goblin. He is a bit more obvious about it than the Tinker, though: |
| 1115 | --> '''Alchemist:''' ''(ordered to attack a hero)'' FOR THE HIGHEST BIDDER! |
| 1116 | * PowerUpFullColorChange: The Alchemist's ogre [[PurpleIsPowerful turns purple]] during Chemical Rage. |
| 1117 | * RedMage: He has the ability to heal, but also deal spell and attack damage. |
| 1118 | * SixthRanger: Notable for being a viable hero for any faction thanks to Healing Spray even healing Undead units. His mix of healer, armor debuffer, and LightningBruiser make him valuable for any army and any faction will appreciate the extra gold from Transmute. |
| 1119 | * SuperMode: In-game, Chemical Rage is treated as a transformation that gives the Alchemist increased attack and movement speed while active. At max level, an Alchemist under Chemical Rage has ''the'' highest attack speed of any hero in the game; throw in some damage items, and watch him mulch anything that tries to take him in a straight fight. |
| 1120 | * TooImportantToWalk: The alchemist rides an ogre slave. |
| 1121 | |
| 1122 | [[/folder]] |
| 1123 | |
| 1124 | !!Campaign Only Heroes |
| 1125 | |
| 1126 | [[folder:Campaign Heroes in General]] |
| 1127 | * ComboPlatterPowers: Most of the melee game heroes have clear themes in their abilities, especially the human heroes who has a preference for specific ElementalPowers. The campaign exclusive heroes all have skillsets made from existing heroes (or sometimes units), rather than original abilities (with the exception of the Warlock, who has extremely overpowered original abilities), even if it would go against the theme of the hero. |
| 1128 | * UniqueEnemy: Most of them only appear once, maybe twice, if they are a special class. |
| 1129 | [[/folder]] |
| 1130 | |
| 1131 | |
| 1132 | [[folder:Murloc Sorcerer]] |
| 1133 | [[quoteright:249:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/msorceror.png]] |
| 1134 | [[caption-width-right:249:''"You may have rescued the others, but I'll see to that the exalted one does not go completely unappeased."'']] |
| 1135 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 1136 | '''Abilities''': Rain of Fire\ |
| 1137 | '''NPC Campaign character:''' [[NoNameGiven Murloc Sorcerer]] |
| 1138 | \ |
| 1139 | |
| 1140 | An enemy hero that was originally exclusive to the ''Reign of Chaos'' demo. The missions he appeared in were cut from the final game, but his missions were partially restored in ''The Frozen Throne'' as part of the generic custom campaign (without voice acting), and fully restored into the canon prologue campaign in ''Reforged''. The Murloc Sorcerer is the high sorcerer of the Underworld Minions, a faction that resides on the Darkspear Isles and antagonizes the trolls there. He shows up in the second half of the demo campaign. Unlike most heroes, he has only one ability, Rain of Fire. |
| 1141 | |
| 1142 | ---- |
| 1143 | * AstonishinglyAppropriateAppearance: In the original Warcraft III, he has red and orange coloration and wields fire powers. |
| 1144 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: The murloc sorcerer and his minions cannot swim in gameplay and do not have the means to cross deep water. In their first appearance in a cutscene, they are seen emerging from the sea. |
| 1145 | * KillerRabbit: Downplayed overall. Murlocs are mostly viewed as cute and harmless in and out of universe, so a cult leader murloc that is an actual threat is very unusual. Then again, he really is not as dangerous as he claims to be. |
| 1146 | * KingMook: He is a PaletteSwap of the murloc mooks and they all share the same animations. Moreso in ''Reforged'' where his model actually is larger than the other murlocs. |
| 1147 | * PlayingWithFire: He throws fireballs, and his one ability is fire themed. |
| 1148 | * PurpleIsPowerful: In ''Reforged'' he is purple instead of red and orange. |
| 1149 | * RecurringBoss: Originally, despite the high sorcerer being slain at the end of "The Fires Down Below", another Murloc Sorcerer shows up in the final mission, "Countdown to Extinction" to help the Sea Witch try to defeat Thrall. This is averted in ''Reforged'', where the final mission, that faction sends a Mur'gul Shadowcaster, [[EliteMook the strongest Murloc creep]] that was originally introduced in ''The Frozen Throne'', in the place of the sorcerer for those attack waves. |
| 1150 | * SquishyWizard: He is not particularly durable and will go down quickly if focused on. |
| 1151 | * VersionExclusiveContent: Since the missions where this hero appears were cut from ''Reign of Chaos''. He appears in all other versions of the game, but most notably in ''Reforged''. |
| 1152 | * WarmUpBoss: In ''Reforged''. Even though he is the second enemy hero faced in the campaigns (after the Archmage in mission 3), and the first to be a high level (6), he is not much a threat in combat, only having Rain of Fire. |
| 1153 | |
| 1154 | [[/folder]] |
| 1155 | |
| 1156 | [[folder:Sea Witch]] |
| 1157 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zarjira.png]] |
| 1158 | [[caption-width-right:250:''"Very well, your choice is made! The air you breathe now will be your last"'']] |
| 1159 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 1160 | '''Abilities''': Summon Water Elemental, Brilliance Aura, Earthquake (Ultimate)\ |
| 1161 | '''NPC Campaign character:''' [[NoNameGiven Sea Witch]] [[note]]World of Warcraft reveals this character is named Zar'jira[[/note]] |
| 1162 | \ |
| 1163 | |
| 1164 | Like the Murloc Sorcerer, the Sea Witch was originally a demo-exclusive enemy hero that was fully restored in ''Reforged''. The true leader of the Underworld Minions, the Sea Witch is an undead naga that demands sacrifices. She shows up in the final mission of the demo-exclusive prologue campaign missions to deal with Thrall herself. She tends to be confused with the Naga Sea Witch, especially in ''Reforged'' where her model is changed to match one. |
| 1165 | |
| 1166 | ---- |
| 1167 | * AnIcePerson: She shoots bolts of ice in Warcraft III. In ''Reforged'' she shoots arrows instead. |
| 1168 | * TheArtifact: Despite her being changed to be a Naga Sea Witch in ''Reforged'', she still has the same abilities as originally, rather than having the ones belonging to the Naga Sea Witch or any Naga abilities in general. |
| 1169 | * DishingOutDirt: Her ultimate spell is Earthquake. In [[CutscenePowerToTheMax cutscenes she is shown collapsing caves and sinking islands]]. |
| 1170 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: She debuted before the Naga Sea Witch. The ''Reign of Chaos'' Sea Witch has the abilities of other heroes in the campaign, rather than any unique abilities. The idea of a Sea Witch that ranks over murlocs in an army becomes an element of the Naga race in ''The Frozen Throne''. To match the lore of World of Warcraft, her model in ''Reforged'' was changed from the original Night Elf Ghost to a Naga Sea Witch, fully committing to the {{Retcon}}. |
| 1171 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: |
| 1172 | ** She is unable to walk on deep water. She is able to do it in a cutscene, but looking at the map on the editor will indicate her cinematic self's movement type is actually "Flying" which suggests that the "Amphibious" movement type was not programmed into ''Reign of Chaos''. |
| 1173 | ** She is not classified as Undead, despite being a ghost. Though it's not particularly relevant, since spells that affect undead units do not appear. |
| 1174 | * KingMook: She would technically count as this (not counting ''Reforged'' which changed her model). Some smaller ghosts that are her servants with the same model as her appear in the mission just before her debut. |
| 1175 | * MakingASplash: She can summon water elementals. |
| 1176 | * MageMarksman: In ''Reforged'' she uses a bow, while keeping her spellcasting skillset. |
| 1177 | * NinjaPirateZombieRobot: She is a ghostly Undead Naga Sea Witch, which seems to give her powers (in lore) exceeding a normal Naga Sea Witch. |
| 1178 | * SquishyWizard: She is quite easy to kill, as a ranged intelligence hero with no defensive abilities. |
| 1179 | * StarterVillain: She is the last foe of the prologue campaign and does not return in the main campaigns of the game, though she is not defeated, and the game's main conflict is not tied to her at all. |
| 1180 | * VersionExclusiveContent: Just like the Murloc Sorcerer, she is prominent in ''Reforged'' after being cut from ''Reign of Chaos'' and sidelined in ''The Frozen Throne''. |
| 1181 | * 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. However, Thrall's units actually have ways of dealing with both of her abilities (Raiders can Ensnare her to interrupt Earthquake and Shamans can kill her Water Elementals with Purge), meaning she also tests whether you can use unit abilities effectively. |
| 1182 | |
| 1183 | [[/folder]] |
| 1184 | |
| 1185 | [[folder:Ranger]] |
| 1186 | [[quoteright:241:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ranger_56.png]] |
| 1187 | [[caption-width-right:241:''"You think that I'm running from you? Apparently you've never fought elves before."'']] |
| 1188 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Agility\ |
| 1189 | '''Abilities''': Scout, Cold Arrows, Trueshot Aura, Starfall (Ultimate)\ |
| 1190 | '''NPC Campaign characters:''' Sylvanas Windrunner, Jennalla Deemspring |
| 1191 | \ |
| 1192 | |
| 1193 | What the Dark Ranger used to be when she was alive. Originally a hero for the Human Alliance, the Ranger was cancelled, with some of their abilities reworked into other heroes[[note]]Flaming Arrows given to Priestess of the Moon as Searing Arrows, while Cold Arrows were later given to the Naga Sea Witch[[/note]], while in the campaign they use similar abilities as the Priestess of the Moon. In the ''Reign of Chaos'' campaign, the Ranger class is exclusive to Sylvanas Windrunner, the HeroAntagonist that opposed Arthas in his invasion of Quel'thalas. In the first undead mission of ''The Frozen Throne'' it's possible to fight against another Ranger named Jennalla Deemspring, though she has no characterization. |
| 1194 | |
| 1195 | For information about the character Sylvanas Windrunner, see Characters/WarcraftSylvanasWindrunner. |
| 1196 | |
| 1197 | ---- |
| 1198 | * ActionGirl: A female exclusive hero. |
| 1199 | * AnIcePerson: She can fire ice arrows that can slow enemies down. |
| 1200 | * FanservicePack: In the original version, both Ranger heroes are fully-covered in leather armour, which only shows some cleavage. In ''Reforged'', their new models, in addition to being more detailed, are based on Sylvanas' model from ''Wrath of the Lich King'', complete with bare midriffs. |
| 1201 | * ForestRanger: The Ranger is a master of survival and archery that dwells in the forests, hunting down any intruders within the elven lands. |
| 1202 | * InTheHood: Fitting for a ForestRanger she wears a cowl. |
| 1203 | * MovesetClone: Functionally identical to the Priestess of the Moon, albeit with Cold Arrows instead of Searing Arrows. |
| 1204 | * PaletteSwap: Shandris uses a Night Elf version of the Ranger's model in the campaign, though she is just a stronger Archer. |
| 1205 | * SummonMagic: Can summon an owl to scout the area and reveal invisible units. |
| 1206 | * UselessUsefulSpell: A very rare NPC version of this trope. Owl Scouts are of no use to the computer. [[TheAllSeeingAI It already knows where you are.]] At most it will help them kill your Shades. |
| 1207 | |
| 1208 | [[/folder]] |
| 1209 | |
| 1210 | [[folder:Banshee]] |
| 1211 | [[quoteright:149:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/banshee_7.png]] |
| 1212 | [[caption-width-right:149:The Banshee in ''Reforged'']] |
| 1213 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Agility\ |
| 1214 | '''Abilities:''' Silence, Howl of Terror, Life Drain, Charm (Ultimate)\ |
| 1215 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Sylvanas Windrunner\ |
| 1216 | \ |
| 1217 | |
| 1218 | Exclusive to ''Reforged''. In lore, Sylvanas Windrunner is slain and turns into a banshee. In ''Reforged'', she becomes a Banshee hero that is very similar to her Dark Ranger self. This hero bears some physical similarity to Sylvanas' [[OneWingedAngel flying banshee form]] that she uses in ''World of Warcraft'' starting with ''Battle for Azeroth''. Not to be confused with the Banshee unit in the Undead techtree. |
| 1219 | |
| 1220 | ---- |
| 1221 | * AdaptationalBadass: In the original ''Reign of Chaos'' she becomes a slightly more durable Banshee that does not have Possession. In ''Reforged'' she becomes a hero. |
| 1222 | * GuestStarPartyMember: Only playable for a portion of one mission, "The Fall of Silvermoon". When Sylvanas returns, her character class changes to Dark Ranger. |
| 1223 | * MovesetClone: Almost identical to the Dark Ranger, except she has Howl of Terror instead of Black Arrow. |
| 1224 | * PowerFloats: She floats, rather than walking like the Ranger and Dark Ranger. |
| 1225 | * VersionExclusiveContent: Her being a hero in that mission is exclusive to ''Reforged''. |
| 1226 | |
| 1227 | [[/folder]] |
| 1228 | |
| 1229 | [[folder:Ancient Guardian]] |
| 1230 | [[quoteright:166:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ancientguardian_8.png]] |
| 1231 | [[caption-width-right:166:An Ancient Guardian in ''Reign of Chaos''. Pictured is Fire Protector]] |
| 1232 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 1233 | '''Abilities''': Firebolt, Sleep, Inner Fire (Fire Protector), Frost Nova, Frost Armor, Curse (Ice Protector), Storm Bolt, Lightning Shield, Chain Lightning, Evasion (Lightning Protector)\ |
| 1234 | '''NPC Campaign characters:''' Fire Protector, Ice Protector, Lightning Protector\ |
| 1235 | |
| 1236 | |
| 1237 | Three ghost Keepers of the Grove that appear in the ''Reign of Chaos'' Night Elf campaign. They are the guardians of the Horn of Cenarius on Moonglade Isle. Tyrande needs to slay them in order to awaken Malfurion Stormrage. They are three spellcasters that have completely different spells than the living Keepers of the Grove, having control over the elements instead. |
| 1238 | |
| 1239 | ---- |
| 1240 | * CharacterSelectForcing: The Ancient Guardians are countered very strongly by Dryads in the first mission where they are available. Though it's not necessary to defeat the guardians, the mission they appear in is a notoriously difficult TimedMission on Hard Mode and Dryads will heavily speed up the process of killing them. |
| 1241 | * ElementalPowers: Instead of standard Keeper spells, they have elemental spells that mostly match their names. Though some liberties are taken, such as Ice Protector having "Curse" and Fire Protector having "Sleep". They also all have Orbs that match their elements. |
| 1242 | * FlunkyBoss: They all have Owlbears (renamed "Wildkin" in ''The Frozen Throne'' and ''Reforged'') to help them fight. |
| 1243 | * MiniBoss: They appear at the end of "The Awakening of Stormrage", the 3rd mission of the Night Elf campaign. Even though they are the last enemies of the mission, the real challenge of the mission is destroying the large orc base with the Blademaster on the way to them. They do not have ultimate spells and are treated more like strong creeps than true enemy heroes. |
| 1244 | * SquishyWizard: They are not any more durable than a standard Keeper, except Lightning due to his Evasion. |
| 1245 | [[/folder]] |
| 1246 | |
| 1247 | [[folder:Warlock]] |
| 1248 | [[quoteright:235:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/warlock_7.png]] |
| 1249 | [[caption-width-right:235:''"Hear me, night elves! The time for reckoning has come!"'']] |
| 1250 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 1251 | '''Abilities:''' Rain of Chaos, Dark Portal, Bash, Finger of Death (Ultimate), Spell Immunity\ |
| 1252 | '''NPC Campaign characters:''' Archimonde, Kil'jaeden (cinematic only), Gul'dan (cinematic only) |
| 1253 | \ |
| 1254 | |
| 1255 | An extremely powerful Hero class exclusive to [[BigBad Archimonde]] (in gameplay), boasting bloated stats, Divine Armor, Spell Immunity, Chaos Damage and powerful summoning spells. Kil'jaeden and Gul'Dan both have no abilities and are there just for cinematic reasons. |
| 1256 | |
| 1257 | For information about the character Archimonde and Kil'jaeden, see Characters/WarcraftTheBurningLegion. |
| 1258 | |
| 1259 | For information about the character Gul'Dan, see Characters/WarcraftTheHordeOldHorde. |
| 1260 | |
| 1261 | ---- |
| 1262 | * AntiMagic: He's immune to all magic. |
| 1263 | * BeefGate: Exaggerated. The Warlock's main function for most of "Twilight of the Gods" is to protect his base from the player assaulting it. At no point in the mission does the player get the objective to destroy the base. [[LordBritishPostulate Some players are not dissuaded though.]] |
| 1264 | * DeathOfAThousandCuts: Since Divine armor reduces all non-Chaos damage taken to 5%, the most effective way to deplete the Warlock's health if the player chooses to try (besides [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman Furbolg Champions]]), is to hit him with many instances of low damage. A mass of archers or of towers. After all, he can't reduce the damage taken to below 1. |
| 1265 | * FinalBoss: In ''Reign of Chaos'', Archimonde engages against the player's forces in the final 45 seconds of the HoldTheLine final mission ''Twilight of the Gods''. [[HopelessBossFight The player is very unlikely to kill him in that time]]. |
| 1266 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: In a sense with the two cinematic warlocks, based on the World Editor. Neither appear in gameplay and their stats are never visible to the player in the campaigns, so the editor makes them out to be far weaker and more incomplete than the story suggests they are. |
| 1267 | ** Kil'jaeden is a cinematic-only hero. Unlike Mannoroth (another cinematic only hero), who is set to have around 5000 health and have spells, Kil'jaeden has no spells and has relatively normal stats, though has an extremely high intelligence gain. In lore, Kil'jaeden is roughly as powerful as Archimonde. This mostly implies that Mannoroth was intended to be fought in gameplay at some point and Kil'jaeden was never meant to be. |
| 1268 | ** Gul'dan is similarly cinematic only. He also has no abilities, since he is a PosthumousCharacter through the entire game and only appears in flashbacks. Strangely, he is programmed be a strength hero, to have 1500 range (more than a siege weapon) and naturally deal around 140 damage a hit, higher on average than Archimonde. |
| 1269 | * InfinityPlusOneElement: His attacks deal Chaos Damage, which deals full damage to all armor types and is reduced only by armor value.[[note]]Normal heroes use Hero Damage, which is largely the same but gets a damage penalty against Fortified armor.[[/note]] |
| 1270 | * TheJuggernaut: The Warlock has extremely high stats, is immune to spells, and has Divine Armor, so most attacks only do one point of damage to him. As such, he is very hard to kill. |
| 1271 | * LordBritishPostulate: This unit is designed to be too strong for players to defeat. It hasn't stopped players from doing so by building a big enough army or exploiting his ArtificialStupidity. [[note]]If a Ballista (Glaive Thrower in ''Reforged'') fires at the Warlock from outside his line of sight, he won't move far enough to see it, [[DeathOfAThousandCuts allowing it to slowly pick away at the Warlock's HP.]] [[/note]] |
| 1272 | * MasterOfAll: While nominally an Intelligence hero, he also has huge Strength and Agility, which grants him a lot of HP, armor and attack speed. |
| 1273 | * OneManArmy: Because he's so resilient, this hero can take on entire armies and win even without his spells. |
| 1274 | * PurposefullyOverpowered: Due to his role as the FinalBoss of the ''Reign of Chaos'' campaign, this unit is ''ridiculously'' powerful. Additionally, players [[HopelessBossFight are not meant to take him down]]. |
| 1275 | * RandomizedDamageAttack: His damage spread is massive. Most heroes have between 5 to 25 difference between the minimum and maximum damage they deal. His damage spread is over ''110'', which means in the mission he appears, without items, he would do anywhere between 62 and 176 damage per hit. |
| 1276 | * SlapOnTheWristNuke: Finger of Death instantly deals 500 damage to a target, which is a lot (able to kill most tier 1 units and severely cripple anything else). However, the tooltip claims it "turns the target inside-out", which would probably be a lot more of an instakill of it were true. |
| 1277 | * SummonMagic: Rain of Chaos brings down four Infernals; Dark Portal permanently summons several Doomguards and Felhounds that don't yield any experience upon dying. |
| 1278 | * ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: His Divine armor means that he takes only ScratchDamage from all damage types except Chaos. In ''Reforged'', 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. This did not work in the original ''Reign of Chaos'' as Furbolg Champions had the Normal attack type. |
| 1279 | |
| 1280 | [[/folder]] |
| 1281 | |
| 1282 | [[folder:Dark Knight]] |
| 1283 | [[quoteright:235:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/garithos_portrait_216.jpg]] |
| 1284 | [[caption-width-right:235:''"Humanity shall rise again!"'']] |
| 1285 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 1286 | '''Abilities:''' Holy Light, Shockwave, Devotion Aura, Avatar (Ultimate)\ |
| 1287 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Lord Garithos |
| 1288 | \ |
| 1289 | |
| 1290 | A powerful mounted knight that boasts great HP, armor and speed, as well as both offensive and defensive abilities. This class is exclusive to Lord Garithos. One of the two only campaign-exclusive heroes that the player can control outside custom maps (though only during one mission), the others being exclusive to enemy factions. |
| 1291 | |
| 1292 | For information about the character Othmar Garithos, see Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceLordaeron. |
| 1293 | |
| 1294 | ---- |
| 1295 | * CutsceneIncompetence: A particularly famous example is Varimarthas killing Garithos with two waves of Rain of Fire, when the Dark Knight is an extremely durable tank hero that can turn Spell Immune. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHkwZsQYTRk Players found he would handily win against both Varimathras and Sylvanas if they were to actually fight.]] |
| 1296 | * DarkIsNotEvil: While the only character to use this hero class is an immense {{Jerkass}}, despite the class name and the dark armor he wears, he nevertheless has heroic intentions. |
| 1297 | * GuestStarPartyMember: He is playable for the last mission of Sylvanas' story arc in ''The Frozen Throne'', after being an enemy hero in the previous mission. He does not return after the mission. |
| 1298 | * LightningBruiser: Unlike the Paladin above, who is extremely bulky but is slow and focused on defense, the Dark Knight is much faster (he's riding a horse after all) and, instead of the defensive Divine Shield and Resurrection abilities, he has the offensive Shockwave and Avatar. |
| 1299 | * LightEmUp: Can use Holy Light to heal living allies or harm undead enemies. |
| 1300 | * MagicKnight: Deals a large amount of damage with both his attacks and his spells (especially every mission he appears as an enemy hero, he's fighting the Undead, which lets him use Holy Light as a second nuke). |
| 1301 | * MasterOfAll: The Dark Knight is somewhat overpowered when it comes together. He boasts extreme damage (both in his attacking and spells), durability (especially the combo of Devotion Aura and Avatar), speed, and supporting with his aura and his healing. Analyzing his skillset would determine he would be [[MagikarpPower weak and vulnerable early but grow to be very strong with levels]], but he always appears as a high-level hero, covering this weakness entirely. |
| 1302 | ** Overall, he has combined all the positive aspects of the heroes whose abilities he's lifted from while having none of the weaknesses. The main weakness of the Mountain King is his slow speed and lack of supportive abilities. The main weakness of the Paladin is his slow speed, weak offensive options, and not being as tanky as the Mountain King. The main weakness of the Tauren Chieftain is his lack of right click damage. The Dark Knight has all these weaknesses covered. |
| 1303 | ** [[JustifiedTrope He is designed this way]] because the mission where he is played, he has a highly incomplete techtree (because he kicked the Blood Elves out of his faction), with no spellcasters and 1 flying unit, so his [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer only option is to just try to steamroll his enemies]]. |
| 1304 | * NonindicativeName: For a "Dark Knight", it seems to only refer to the color of his armor. Otherwise, none of his powers seem to be based on darkness, and in fact it seems to be the opposite. Particularly if his version of Shockwave is interpreted as a form of light magic. He could have been called "Grand Marshal" like Garithos' actual title. |
| 1305 | * PaletteSwap: Garithos' model in the original game is a modified Knight with dark armor, a winged helm, and with the sword and lance replaced by an axe and shield. |
| 1306 | * RedemptionDemotion: The campaigns mostly avoid doing this with heroes that join you after you fight them, like for example Varimathras is level 5 on the mission where he's the enemy and starts level 5 when he joins Sylvanas. On Normal mode, the Dark Knight is the same; being level 8 as both an enemy and ally. The trope does apply on Hard mode, where Garithos will be buffed to level 10 as an enemy and start reverted to level 8 as a playable character. |
| 1307 | * ScreamingWarrior: The Dark Knight's version of Avatar simply screams when using the spell (the same sound effect as the Pit Lord's Howl of Terror). Lord Garithos isn't [[FantasticRacism going to be doing]] a BattleCry for Khaz Modan after all. |
| 1308 | * SuperMode: Dark Knight's Avatar causes [[{{Sizeshifter}} him to grow a bit larger, and then shrink down afterwards]]. Unlike the Mountain King, there's no change in appearance besides size, but the Dark Knight still gains bonus damage, armor, and Spell Immunity. |
| 1309 | |
| 1310 | [[/folder]] |
| 1311 | |
| 1312 | [[folder:Elder Sage]] |
| 1313 | [[quoteright:242:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/elder_sage.png]] |
| 1314 | [[caption-width-right:242:''"I pledge my loyalty."'']] |
| 1315 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Intelligence\ |
| 1316 | '''Abilities:''' Chain Lightning, Feral Spirit, Shadow Strike, Reincarnation (Ultimate), Permanent Invisibility\ |
| 1317 | '''Playable Campaign character:''' Akama |
| 1318 | \ |
| 1319 | |
| 1320 | A Draenei melee spellcasting hero. This class is exclusive to Akama. One of the two only campaign-exclusive heroes that the player can control outside custom maps (though only during one mission), the others being exclusive to enemy factions. |
| 1321 | |
| 1322 | For information about the character Akama, see Characters/WarcraftIllidanAndFollowers. |
| 1323 | |
| 1324 | ---- |
| 1325 | |
| 1326 | * ChainLightning: His main damaging spell. |
| 1327 | * DualWielding: Uses a pair of kamas to fight. |
| 1328 | * GuestStarPartyMember: He is only playable in the last mission of the Alliance campaign ''Lord of Outland''. In the previous mission he was an ally NPC hero. The mission where he is playable is the only mission where you are required to have 4 heroes, which reinforces the trope further. |
| 1329 | * JackOfAllStats: He has a strange mishmash of a skillset, with 2 damaging spells (1 for multiple foes, 1 for a single foe), SummonMagic, and Reincarnation, but not to tank like for the Tauren Chieftain, but rather to counteract his GlassCannon status. |
| 1330 | * MagicKnight: Leans more towards the "Magic" part, being an intelligence hero whose three main spells consume mana. He has poor HP, but has high armor, and the Reincarnation Ultimate helps with his survivability. |
| 1331 | * MechanicallyUnusualClass: He is the only melee intelligence hero in the campaigns. He also has high armor like an agility hero. |
| 1332 | * PoisonedWeapons: Has the Warden's Shadow Strike. |
| 1333 | * StealthExpert: Like most Draenei in the ''Frozen Throne'' Alliance campaign, he's permanently invisible unless he attacks or casts spells. |
| 1334 | * SummonMagic: Like the Far Seer, he can summon a pair of spirit wolves with Feral Spirit. In synergy with his stealth-based gameplay, they are also invisible. |
| 1335 | * ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: The Elder Sage would not be a particularly good hero with his skills, besides his invisibility. However, the mission he is a GuestStarPartyMember for he is assigned to a StealthBasedMission [[note]]This quest is to destroy power generators that are powering defenses for Magtheridon's bases. It is technically optional, but not doing it basically makes the mission near impossible[[/note]] that he is exceedingly good at. His summons are invisible like him, the opponents he fights mostly do not have True Sight, and Reincarnation gives him enough durability and mana to cheese his way through his section even if you play it poorly and lose all of your Draenei troops. |
| 1336 | * TheUnfought: Unlike all other campaign heroes (besides the Banshee in ''Reforged''), the Elder Sage is never fought as an enemy hero. |
| 1337 | |
| 1338 | [[/folder]] |
| 1339 | |
| 1340 | [[folder:"Admiral"]] |
| 1341 | [[quoteright:312:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/admiral_2.png]] |
| 1342 | [[caption-width-right:312:''"Death to the blackbloods!"'']] |
| 1343 | ->'''Primary attribute:''' Strength\ |
| 1344 | '''Abilities:''' Monsoon, Forked Lightning, Howl of Terror, Summon Sea Elemental (Ultimate), Hardened Skin, Cyclone\ |
| 1345 | '''NPC Campaign character:''' Admiral Daelin Proudmoore |
| 1346 | \ |
| 1347 | |
| 1348 | Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, the main antagonist of Rexxar's campaign, is labeled in-game as a "Paladin". Despite this, he has a completely different skillset and will be called "Admiral" on this page for descriptive purposes. This hero is a strong frontline fighter with many spells at his disposal and is fought at the very end of ''The Founding of Durotar''. |
| 1349 | |
| 1350 | For information about the character Daelin Proudmoore, see Characters/WarcraftTheAllianceKulTiras. |
| 1351 | |
| 1352 | ---- |
| 1353 | * BlowYouAway: He has Cyclone as a non-hero ability. |
| 1354 | * CoDragons: He is fought with the Chief Petty Officer and the Chief of Chaplains, which are just a high-level Paladin and Archmage with different class names. |
| 1355 | * FinalBoss: Of ''The Frozen Throne'', more so in ''Reforged'', where ''The Founding of Durotar'' is the last campaign unlocked, instead of available from the start. He is the last opponent of the final campaign and will put up a significant challenge. Can also double as a PostFinalBoss due to ''The Founding of Durotar'' having a lower difficulty compared to the RTS campaigns and Daelin Proudmoore's relative VillainOfAnotherStory status in regard to the main plot of ''The Frozen Throne''. |
| 1356 | * FlunkyBoss: He is accompanied by a Paladin and Archmage (both level 15), and a group of elite guards, who are much stronger than the knights and tauren. |
| 1357 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: His skillset is fitting of some kind of Hydromancer, but in lore, Daelin Proudmoore is just a BadassNormal with no skill in magic. This is probably to justify the ImprobablePowerDiscrepancy of his role as the FinalBoss of ''The Founding of Durotar'' a little bit. |
| 1358 | * MagicKnight: A bulky hero that hits hard and has many offensive spells. |
| 1359 | * NonindicativeName: His in-game class name is "Paladin", which obviously does not describe him, not having any of the abilities or wielding the power of light at all. He only has a Paladin's animations. |
| 1360 | * OneManArmy: His skillset is extremely effective at fighting entire armies. Without the help of Rexxar and his companions, his Monsoon can wipe out the entire Horde army in seconds and he can hold out against them almost indefinitely. |
| 1361 | * PurposefullyOverpowered: The character is meant to be a final boss for 3-4 level 15 heroes, so he is incredibly powerful. |
| 1362 | * RandomizedDamageAttack: Not as bad as Archimonde, especially given how much stronger everything is in ''The Founding of Durotar'', but his damage spread is 60, which is about twice as much as the next highest hero. |
| 1363 | * RecurringBoss: The Admiral is actually fought twice, once at the end of Act II in Tidefury Code and again at the end of Act III in Theramore City. His first appearance he is slightly weaker (having slightly less health and damage, and far less mana) and he does not have Summon Sea Elemental. |
| 1364 | * ShockAndAwe: Has both Forked Lightning and Monsoon. |
| 1365 | * SignatureMove: His Summon Sea Elemental spell is exclusive to him, as unlike the one that the Naga Royal Guard has, it summons multiple sea elementals. |
| 1366 | * SwordAndGun: In the original game he only wields a sword, but in ''Reforged'' he wields both a saber and a pistol, fitting for an admiral of the navy. |
| 1367 | * SummonMagic: His ultimate allows him to summon multiple Sea Elementals. |
| 1368 | * {{Teleportation}}: If the Admiral leaves his "boss area" in Act III, a trigger will teleport him back to where he is at the beginning of the map (with a blink visual effect). This is probably to make it so that the player can't cheese him by drawing him all the way to the Horde base. |
| 1369 | |
| 1370 | [[/folder]] |
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