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World of Warcraft trope list M to R.

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    Ma 
  • Macross Missile Massacre:
    • Several Alliance aircraft certainly qualify; Mages using Mirror Image are a slightly more arcane version.
    • An early Alliance quest in Northrend requires the player to defend an excavation site from gargoyles. The plane's Macross Missile Massacre even Robotechs to the targets.
  • Made of Explodium: Goblin and Gnome Technology. They tend to be the ones selling firearms, fireworks, and other explosives, and their inventions tend to be rickety, bulky, ill-conceived steampunk devices; you can often hear explosions going off when you visit one of their settlements.
  • Made of Good: Azerite, the "blood" of Azeroth that sprang to the surface in the wake of Sargeras plunging his sword into it, is more or less this. It's colored a brilliant gold with traces of cyan, the liquid form heals you when you stand in it, and it's used to power the player character's Heart of Azeroth. One Azerite Essence, in particular, fires an orbital beam that deals increased damage to and stuns aberrations, while others provide resistance to N'Zoth's corruption. On the other hand, it has an adverse effect on earth elementals and is highly combustible, being used for weapons by the Ashvane and Venture Companies.
  • Made of Phlebotinum: The game seems more Made of Phlebotinum than most fantasy worlds, what with all its magically-powered civilizations and crystal planeships and such.
  • Mage-Hunting Monster:
    • Felhounds are demonic creatures with no eyes that hunt by sensing magic. They typically come with some kind of Mana Burn ability. Warlocks can also summon a specialized version called a Felhunter, which is their best Anti-Magic pet.
    • Warp stalkers can teleport short distances, the process of which disrupts all spellcasting in the area around where they appear. Although they don't have any natural inclination to hunt magic, they are frequently trained for use as mage hunters. However, for balance reasons, if a Hunter tames a warp stalker it can neither teleport nor disrupt spellcasting.
  • Mage Killer: The blue dragonflight forces in Dragonblight have mobs, some of which are actually called mage hunters, that can put up a shield that reflects all spells of a single magic school. They're not a problem for classes that deal mostly or entirely physical damage, but will be a hassle for casters that use only one magic school at a time, especially if you're fighting more than one.
  • Magically Inept Fighter: Huntersnote , rogues and warriors cannot use Mana and don't have the runes to make up for it like death knights. This doesn't make them any worse at a fight than their magic-using allies, though.
    • In a variation of the trope, mana users have a lot less mana and spellpower in tanking and melee combat specializations, essentially trading most of their magical skill for muscle power.
    • Inverted with monks, who can use many of their spell-like abilities with energy and chi and even receive a mana bar upon assuming their healing specialization stance.
  • Magicians Are Wizards: The Great Akazamzarak in Dalaran makes a living as a Stage Magician, except he's not some charlatan, he's a master of portals and teleportation.
  • Magic Is a Monster Magnet: Primarily to the Burning Legion, although there's plenty of dangerous critters in Azeroth itself that like to snack on wizards.
  • Magic Knight: Paladins, death knights, and Enhancement shaman.
  • Magic Mushroom: One of the Thunder Bluff cooking dailies is to retrieve "Magic" Mushrooms for her cooking, and they are described as "delicious and completely absent of psychedelic properties." She insists they're innocent mushrooms, but her reaction after turning in the quest suggests no one is buying it.
    • Around Cataclysm, druids had a spell based on magical mushrooms. Their effects varied between Balance and Restoration.
  • Magic Pants: Druids can transform into various beasts without removing their clothes, and Shamans do the same for their Ghost Wolf form. Standard issue for worgen in Cataclysm.
    • Lampshaded by Prince Anduin Wrynn who has a different phrase for each class when you escort him. Naturally, this is what he asks druids about.
    • Many vanity items have the same effect for everyone, and there are a lot of quests involving some kind of transformation as well.
  • Magical Land: Pandaria, when compared to Draenor and the rest of Azeroth, mainly due to the fact that it has been shrouded in myth for thousands of years, and the negative emotions of sapient beings there can physically manifest themselves and cause major destruction.
  • Magikarp Power: From Vanilla through Wrath of the Lich King, a number of classes and/or specializations suffered from having a limited skill set at low levels, not receiving their core abilities or important passive skills until higher levels, but this was eased with later expansions.
  • Magitek: Naaru constructs such as the Exodar and Tempest Keep, Ethereal technology, Titan technology.
  • Magnum Opus: Deathwing and Nefarian have been carrying out experiments on the dragonflights, including their own, and each has their own crowning achievement. Nefarian considers reanimating Onyxia as his finest work, while Deathwing refers to Ultraxion as his greatest creation.
  • Make It Look Like an Accident: One quest undertaken by the Alliance has your character attempt to take out several key members of the Dark Horde in Burning Steppes using a certain tranquilizer. While this trope isn't explicitly in your mission orders, each one you take out dies in a manner that fits this trope, which pleases your superior.
  • Make Wrong What Once Went Right: The Infinite Dragonflight pretends to be trying to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, once to prevent the first orc invasion and another time to stop then-prince Arthas from slaughtering the citizens of Stratholme, his first step to becoming the Lich King. However, as they also try to kill Thrall before he can reform the Horde and help save the world, it becomes clear that they are not as altruistic as they say. Their true goal is actually to cause a series of events that would lead to the end of the world, of time and of everything and everyone. Though according to their leader, this is still better than the alternative. But he's insane, so nobody knows for sure.
  • Mama Bear:
    • In the WotLK beta, feral druids had a talent called Mother Bear, which increased attack power and decreased the amount of damage taken by a percentage for every other member in the party while in bear form.
    • Oddly enough, Sathal - one of the Burning Legion - is very much a Mama Bear. Slaying one of her daughters - the Wrath Priestesses - and spilling the blood enrages her, causing her to manifest and go after the player.
  • Mana:
    • All classes use some form of resource in order to use their special abilities. All magic-wielding classes use Mana, warriors and druids in bear form use Rage, rogues, druids in cat and monks in all stances but Serpent form use Energy, death knights use Runic Power, and hunter pets use Focus. In trope terms, they're all a form of mana, though.
    • Some classes have other resources: Death Knights use Runes, Rogues use Combo Points, Warlocks use Soul Shards, Druids use Combo Points in Cat Form, Balance Druids use Astral Power, Paladins use Holy Power, Shadow Priests used to use Shadow Orbs, Monks use Chi, and Enhancement Shamans use Maelstrom.
    • Bosses often have their own unique resources, which may charge over time until being released in a single attack, or slowly be spent until being recharged in a "recharging" phase.
  • Mana Drain: In lore, when the blood elves were deprived of the Sunwell's power, they did this to crystals and living creatures to maintain their magic dependency. In-game, they originally had the racial ability Mana Tap, which drained mana from a target and was used in combination with Arcane Torrent to buff the user. It was removed in 3.0.2 to reflect the blood elves now gaining power from the restored Sunwell.
  • Man on Fire:
    • Many attacks and spell animations involve this at some point, whether it's on the recipient's end or the caster's. The warlock spell Hellfire was a particularly notable example as it damaged the caster as well as all surrounding enemies. Demonology warlocks also had Immolation Aura only while in demon form, which later became a demon hunter spell. They are on fire and hurting any foes nearby, though it does not affect the user or allies.
    • In the intro to the Jade Forest, the Alliance quest "Welcome Wagons" and the Horde quest "Fire Is Always the Answer" send you to destroy Horde war wagons or Alliance supply crates, respectively, with aerial strikes. Any enemy laborers near the strike zone will be set on fire and die after a few seconds.
    • In the Alliance version of Siege of Orgrimmar, a gnome operative in the Underhold attempts to pilot a goblin shredder only to realize he's not familiar enough with the tech and crash it. He then runs around on fire as a robot attempts to put him out.
    • In the Tanaan Jungle intro, you're sent to set fire to the Bleeding Hollow clan's huts. Half of the time, a flaming Bleeding Hollow orc will run out, then attempt to put himself out by jumping off the cliff into the river below.
    • A toy sold during the Midsummer Fire Festival is a matchbook that sets the user on fire. The same effect happens during Visions of N'Zoth as a result of a Spicy Potion wearing off.
  • Marathon Level: Taken to an extreme in many classic dungeons and raids, but toned down significantly with each expansion. Blizzard discovered that dungeon/raid participation among the player base improved dramatically as the requirement to spend multiple hours in them at a time was reduced. Most instances in Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria have three or four bosses, and some of those that have five or more may have at least one of them be optional.
    • Several dungeons that are otherwise enormous are split into separate parts for the Raid and Dungeon Finder systems, usually limiting themselves to 2-4 bosses. The raids for the Raid Finder system, and Flexible Raids, which uses the same divisions, are largely split into wings, with no more than three or four bosses per part.
    • This is why some zones (Namely Deepholm and Suramar) were despised, as their story arc is notoriously long and takes awhile.
  • Marshmallow Hell: Mylune the dryad in Mount Hyjal is described as doing this to the player prior to giving out some of her daily quests.
  • Masked Luchador: Starting in 2014, the Day of the Dead holiday has "Contenders Costumes" for sale that turn players into luchadors who can attack other players that also put on a luchador outfit.
  • The Masquerade: Many dragons will take on a humanoid form for the purposes of interacting with smaller races. Once a deceptive tactic of Machiavellian proportions, the practice is by now so well-known and common that it borders on They Walk Among Us.
  • Massive Race Selection: Far more than the previous games. World of Warcraft began with eight playable races, all inherited from the RTSs, plus at least a dozen nonplayable sapient races inherited from previous games. Three expansions since World of Warcraft was first released have each added half a dozen new races or more while making some existing races that had been nonplayable playable. As of Dragonflight, there are 24 playable races and even more non-playable intelligent races.
  • Mass Monster-Slaughter Sidequest: It's practically a guarantee that any quest hub will have either a variant of this or 20 Bear Asses, if not both.
  • Mass Resurrection:
    • This ability was a guild perk prior to Legion, after which each healer class gets the ability at level 66 regardless of guild status.
    • Also used by Terenas Menethil II on the raid after his son, Arthas, kills the players.
    • High Inquisitor Whitemane, the final boss in the updated Scarlet Monastery, uses an interruptible version of this.
  • Master of Illusion: The cursed Arakkoa gained power over shadows from the raven god Anzu. In Burning Crusade, it was nothing more then having half of their forces invisible without a special elixir to reveal them, but in Warlords of Draenor, it was amped up to this. They can not only hide, they can take on the appearance of other things, or replace themselves with scarecrows. And they're not above hiding in plain sight either, which is how they kept the relics of Terokk away from the Adherents of Rukhmar.
  • Master Poisoner: The Assassination talent tree for Rogues partially focuses on this.
  • May Contain Evil: Saronite. In fact many forget that it doesn't just contain evil, it's Made of Evil. Namely, it's made of the blood of the Old God Yogg-Saron, and people who mine it tend to go insane. So clearly, the logical response here was to wear the stuff, preferably on your head so Yogg-Saron can whisper in your ear more easily.
    • Played with in the Halloween candy Chewy Fel Taffy, which contains a disclaimer that it "doesn't contain any actual demonic energy".
  • May–December Romance: Stalvan Mistmantle is apparently thought of as an "old man" by the student with whom he was infatuated, while he claims he was only a few years older. It's unclear who is correct, since Stalvan's age is never disclosed.
  • Mayincatec: The trolls.

    Me - Mi 
  • Meaningful Background Event: In Terrace of Endless Spring, if you look straight ahead, you can see the Sha of Fear fighting with Tsulong prior to your defeat of the Protectors of the Endless. After you win, Tsulong succumbs and must be defeated as the next boss.
  • Mechanical Animals: An entire class of these exist, known as the mechanized animals. This includes exploding sheep, mechanocats, and robotic chickens.
  • Merchant City: Gadgetzan and Dalaran.
  • Merchant Prince: The leaders of Goblin society are known as Trade Princes, usually the most business savvy, greedy and ruthless of the lot.
  • Messianic Archetype:
    • Tirion Fordring, Highlord of the Argent Crusade, who started out a hermit exiled for showing mercy to an orc, got the Call to Adventure and vowed to rebuild the Silver Hand, and has, by the present, become Azeroth's premier honorable paladin who actively urges both sides to join together and destroy the evils threatening them all.
    • Thrall is the rightful heir of the Frostwolf who was raised in slavery only to lead a rebellion which freed his people from the Alliance's internment camps. He reunited his people with the elemental spirits and led their exodus from Lordaeron in search of a new home in Kalimdor. Eventually he abandoned his role as Warchief in order to fully take up his role as Earth Warder and protector of all Azeroth.
    • Prophet Velen was once a leader of all Eredar until Sargeras appeared and tempted them to join the Legion. Where his companions fell to temptation, Velen foresaw the truth. He led the exiled Draenei into their alliance with the Naaru and their subsequent exodus from Argus and has continued to guide them in all matters since.
  • Metal Detector Puzzle: Digging fragments for Archaeology involves surveying a dig-site, which places a scope and indicator light on the ground. The scope's direction, and the color of the light give a vague idea where the fragments are, although the further away you are, the less accurate the direction is.
  • Metaphorgotten: Two of the male pandaren's "/silly" lines are fumbled metaphors.
    Pandaren: It is said, "elephant tusks will not grow out of a dog's mouth." But I mean, you can still get them in there. Use some glue, some tape, a rubber band, it's fine...
    Pandaren: It is said, "to err is human". (chuckles) Stupid humans...
  • Miles Gloriosus: Kingslayer Orkus. At least, at first. Thanks to some Character Development, he becomes the boast and performs a Heroic Sacrifice so the player can get Alliance war plans back to Horde command, thus becoming the hero he had always dreamed of being.
  • Mind Control: Tons of examples among the various NPCs and bosses, both in the lore and in the game itself. There is also a spell available to the Priest class that lets them take control of other players/ humanoid monsters for a short while. Less direct forms are available in some forms for other classes. As of Legion, Priests can use a talent to make their Mind Control spell work this way as well, though just on monsters, and only for a few minutes.
  • Mini-Dungeon: The game used to have several places commonly referred to as mini-dungeons. These were areas in the main game world, that otherwise functioned similar to dungeons, with elite enemies designed to be fought as a group. They usually had quests associated with them with rewards similar to ones you'd get from actual dungeons. However, in later expansions most of the enemies in them lost their elite status, making them easier to solo and not any different from normal areas.
    • In Mists of Pandaria, Scenarios can be considered a new form of this, largely taking place in areas you can visit in the regular world. They use an objective structure and usually only have one real boss, are fairly quick to complete and only have 3 players rather than 5.
  • Minor Injury Overreaction: In Nagrand, Harold Lane gets a scratch and is found dying in his tent; the other members of his hunting party generally ignore him, and after players complete a number of quests for him, he miraculously recovers.
    • Harold is a parody of Harry Street from The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway, who also suffers a minor injury; except Harry's injury becomes infected, and he dies.
  • Minus World: There are some unfinished zones as well as places where it's possible to fall outside the game world. Most of such places have been made inaccessible though. Examples include a village of dancing trolls (near Darkshore, if memory serves), Mount Hyjal, the Ironforge Airfield (you actually fly above it if you take the gryphon from anywhere within southern Eastern Kingdoms to the northern Eastern Kingdoms, but actually having time to see what's going on is more fun. Hint: Dwarves killing ice trolls. Fun!), and an area under Stormwind that was basically just unfinished texture patches. You'll usually get teleported out of these areas by a GM and sanctioned for entering them, which has led many players to question Blizzard's decision to still leave areas such as the dancing troll village 'accessible' (to be fair, Mount Hyjal shouldn't have been accessible without using exploits or wall climbing).
    • The Cataclysm expansion finally made accessible all of the formerly closed zones in the old world, including Hyjal, the Dancing Troll Village, and the Ironforge Airfield.
    • Other notable areas include a prototype of Outland, the Emerald Dream, the Karazhan catacombs, fake Zul'Gurub, an untextured prototype of Zin-Azshari, fake Northrend, sealed-off pieces of Silvermoon, GM Island and Developers' Island. Most of those can only be accessed via third-party tools.
    • There are also myriad ways to "fall through the world." placing you in a bizarre freefall where you can run around under the continent, but not cast anything or recall back to the real world. Sometimes the game will detect this glitch and drop you to a set area that seems to be the official graveyard for Minus World (Sentinel Hill for Alliance, Crossroads for Horde).
      • One of the weirdest was the "Dwarf Farm Tunnel" in Wetlands. Originally, there was a Dwarf farm on the northern face of the mountain containing Ironforge. Up the road from it was a tunnel entrance that, when entered, would cause you to fall through the world and into an area of blank sky. It was the same as falling off of Outland. You would fall until you eventually died. If you were stupid enough to fall in as a ghost, your only hope was to pray that the weird circular movement you moved in would somehow launch you back up onto land. Some people were able to jump through this tunnel and fall through the blank sky without dying. When this happened you would see nothing but blank sky, yet the radar would show you traveling South (the direction that the end of the tunnel was facing.) You could not control your movement, and if you passed "under" terrain that you had not yet explored, you would be awarded with the experience points of having "discovered" the land. Once you passed "under" water, you would stop moving and you would hear the sound of yourself swimming without the risk of drowning (though if out in the ocean one could get fatigued, which was the only way to end this perpetual underworld traveling.) Swimming under lakes would allow you to change directions until you were no longer "under" the water, at which point you would resume traveling in whichever direction you were moving without being able to alter direction or speed. Of course it was a little difficult to get to this tunnel, and as of Cataclysm, it's sealed off.
      • And now with the launch of Cataclysm allowing flight in old world, if you do manage to glitch beneath the terrain you can fly around safely down there. Dangers abound, however. Flying into a "No flight allowed" region will dismount you to your death, and water seems to extend infinitely down.
    • Currently, the old Pre-Cataclysm version of Eastern Kingdoms is accessible as a minus world via Naxxramas. This also has a small "minus sub-zone" in the undeveloped original planned entrance to Naxxramas (had the entrance to Naxxramas been the raid portal at the back of Stratholme.)
  • Miracle Food: Mages have spells to conjure food and water, which can serve an entire party or raid group. Fittingly, some levels of the food are called "manna cakes". As with all conjured items, they disappear from your inventory after you log out, and can't be sold or mailed.
  • Mirrored Confrontation Shot: In a Call-Back to the original series, Battle for Azeroth features this in its promotional materials.
  • Missing Child: One quest in pre-Cata Durotar involves an orc woman asking the player to find some trace of her missing son. She warned him that the local crocolisks were powerful and vicious, to which he grew angry and stormed off. The story goes as one might expect, and the player finds his amulet in the stomach of a crocolisk.
  • Missing Mom: Practically everyone, including, but not limited to: Jaina Proudmoore, both Varian Wrynn and his son Anduin, Moira Bronzebeard, Medivh, Garrosh Hellscream, Baine Bloodhoof, Kael'thas Sunstrider, Chen Stormstout's niece Li Li, and Saurfang the Younger. Their mothers either died when they were young, or are completely unknown.
    • Jaina's mother appears in Battle for Azeroth, averting this trope.
    • Thrall's mother Draka appears in Shadowlands, potentially averting this trope; their interaction (if any) has yet to be shown.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal:
    • The Knights of the Ebon Blade were a highly trained force of undeath serving the Lich King, up until they were sent to rout the paladins at Light's Hope Chapel. It turns out they were cannon fodder that the Lich King used to draw out Tirion Fordring, so Darion Mograine turned the Death Knights against the Lich King.
    • The Blood Elves joining the Horde instead of the Alliance was a combination of mistreatment by Grand Marshal Garithos back in Warcraft III and help from the Forsaken.
    • When Garrosh took over the Horde, he started alienating everyone who wasn't an Orc, leading them to join together behind Vol'jin to take him out.
      • This event almost caused the Blood Elves to leave the Horde and rejoin the Alliance, but an incident in Dalaran had Jaina Proudmoore arresting the Blood Elves there, so they abandoned that and joined with Vol'jin instead.
    • The Nightborne and Void Elves' decisions to join the Horde and Alliance have bits of this and Because You Were Nice to Me. The Nightborne were distrusted by the Night Elves because they had previously sided with the Legion, while the Blood Elves who faced the same situation showed them sympathy. The Void Elves were held in contempt by the Blood Elves for studying Void magic, while Alleria Windrunner showed them how to control the Void without succumbing to it.
  • Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Old Hillpaw has lived alone since his wife died and gradually warms up to the player.
  • Mithril: It exists, but it's disappointing compared to the original or in other settings. Due to the Expansion Pack World franchise and the leveling process in general, gear is continually replaced. When the game was new, mithril was the second- or third-best naturally-occurring ore available. Players could make weapons and armor out of it and some of those weapons would probably last them until just before the endgame. Today, over a dozen better metals have been introduced, and mithril is just another relatively brief part of leveling.

    Mo - Mr 
  • The Mole: Yarzill the Merc, a Netherwing Dragon posing as a Goblin mercenary and hired by the Dragonmaw Orcs; he sends players on missions to retrieve dragon eggs, relics, and to poison the Orcs' food supply.
  • Money Sink: Tons, designed to drain gold out of the economy to prevent rampant inflation.
  • Money Spider: Averted, as most animal/nonhumanoid enemies drop Shop Fodder instead of cash, although you can still find a two-handed sword inside of a spider.
    • Enemies dropping money is fairly common in dungeons; while Shop Fodder goes to the person who gets to loot the corpse, money can be split between the party.
    • The trash mobs in the Arachnid Quarter of Naxxramas are a literal example of this trope.
  • Monowheel Mayhem: Two mounts obtainable from Mechagon are monowheels, one as a Rare Random Drop from a vignette mob and the other from a meta-achievement.
  • Monster Is a Mommy: A Howling Fjord quest, "We Call Him Steelfeather", features you being tasked with learning why a hippogryph, Steelfeather, has been attacking Fort Wildervar for food. You learn that Steelfeather has a nest and is in fact a "she". The questgiver acknowledges that he wouldn't want to move a nest over a new neighbor, either, and tells the trapper next to him that he won't be getting a Steelfeather trophy after all.
  • Mood Whiplash: Although it's constantly possible in an open-world game like this, it's especially noticeable in the standard Forsaken zone progression. Silverpine is a dramatic and dark war story in which the tragic plight that is the heart of the Forsaken's problems are explored... and then your character enters Hillsbrad Foothills, and things suddenly become a knockabout comedic parody.
    • Within Hillsbrad's own quests, there's one notable instance of this. Meeting Orkus, he's proven himself an incompetent blowhard throughout the entire quest chain. Then while on Purgation Isle, he begins telling you things about his life, like how he met his frost wyrm mount, Horde politics, and at one point, says you're his first real friend. Then he takes on three level ?? Alliance "players" and tells you to get on his mount and fly away, leaving him to fend for himself. You fly a short distance before the wyrm u-turns and picks him back up. Before reaching Tarren Mill, he asks you to take his mount somewhere cold to live before dying of his injuries. When you land, the NPCs in Tarren Mill honor him as a fallen hero and his death is treated as genuinely sad.
    • Earlier on in Hillsbrad, there is a very jarring shift in tone. Azureload Mine involves a comedic quest where you save the aptly named Dumass from being eaten. Afterwards, you are sent to the Sludge Fields, where you meet Warden Stillwater are tasked with covering up his atrocities. Those atrocities include human experimentation, stitching together three farmers into one massive abomination, and an area with "human seedlings." Said seedling are humans who have been buried up to the neck, completely helpless against the cannibalistic ghouls that skulk around the area. It gets even better, though. You get a quest in which you can either dig up these people and save their lives or bash their heads in with a shovel. It's probably one of the darkest questing hubs in the game. After you're done, you go to Southshore, where Helcular whips his rod out and asks you to use it in order to "empower" all of the female dark rangers fighting off the invading Worgen.
    • Silverpine itself has one. As mentioned, the overall quest chain is quite dark. Then you get the quest to kill the worgen druids sneaking around pretending to be actual bears. The questgiver lamphades the absurdity of the situation.
    • In Felwood, there's a heartwarming quest where you raise an Ancient from birth to maturity. When he freezes at the top of the hill you found him at, he tells you to come back years later to find him growing big and strong. If you're a Horde player, your next quest may be a goblin quest, where the girl in charge basically says "yeah, that stuff about you protecting the forest was cute, but now you have to help us cut the trees down. Tough shit."
    • Pandaria has a fair share of these. Questing in the Jade Forest starts out rather dark, then gets more lighthearted with meeting Lorewalker Cho and Pandaren in general... and then another clash between the factions frees the Sha of Doubt.
  • Mook–Face Turn:
    • This quest has you show the Dusk Lily sigil to Duskwatch members to convince them to desert and help the Nightfallen resistance.
    • In this quest you do something similar to Primalists attacking the Emerald Dream.
  • Mook Medic: A major shock to players in Stanglethorn Vale is when they run into Kurzen Medicine Men; not only do they heal, but it's possible to pull more than one at a time, and they'll heal each other. Players who lack interrupts or enough DPS may find them unkillable.
  • Mook Promotion:
    • In Cataclysm, invokedHogger becomes a dungeon boss in Stormwind Stockade, gaining about 15 levels or so in the process.
    • Mana Devourers are usually just pests, but in Return to Karazhan dungeon, the players are shrunk to miniature size upon entering the library, and have to fight one as a Boss.
  • Moral Luck: The Pandaren starter quests feature reckless Ji Firepaw performing an action to save their moving island, the giant turtle Shen-zin Shu. This act would have killed the creature but for the presence of Horde and Alliance healers. Counterpart Aysa Cloudsinger's reaction is a What the Hell, Hero? to Ji.
  • Moral Myopia: During the Horde war campaign in Battle for Azeroth, a Kul Tiran officer out to avenge Daelin Proudmoore scoffs at Rexxar's request for an honorable duel, implying it's hypocritical for him personally to ask that. Bear in mind that Daelin launched an unprovoked assault against a non hostile power, took no prisoners, destroyed the countryside, violated a parley and attempted to assassinate Rexxar, forcibly seized the city of his daughter when she attempt to protest based on Theramore and the orcs' shared history, refused attempts at diplomacy and finally was killed in a direct frontal assault with nothing dishonorable about it.
  • Mordor: There are several, but the most obvious is Icecrown, which takes its design directly from the film version of The Lord of the Rings and contains an area called Mor'drethar. The difference being where Mordor is mainly covered in fire and lava, Icecrown is mainly, well, icy.
    • As for general appearance and landscape, Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes are far closer, especially with Blackrock Mountain being the equivalent of Mt. Doom. Burning Steppes is full of dark-skinned orcs and even has a black gate on the border with Redridge Mountains. While Icecrown Citadel definitely shares appearance with the likes of Barad-dûr, very little else in that zone compares. Shadowmoon Valley in Outland is an excellent example: a broken, dying wasteland where armies clash, with a huge erupting volcano right in the middle, it's a dead ringer aside from the green lava.
  • More than Mind Control: Features regularly in Mind Control scenarios, and combined quite frequently with Evil Feels Good.
    • Throughout Mists of Pandaria, there are many examples of people corrupted by the Sha, right up to Garrosh Hellscream possessed by the heart of Y'Shaarj; however, during the last fight of the expansion, it seems that Garrosh is in full control and is doing everything because it's what he wants, not because of Old God corruption.
  • Morton's Fork:
    • In the Stonetalon Mountains, the Horde's mine is overrun with agitated earth elementals. Sergeant Dontrag tells you in his quest dialogue that he can either stay in the mine and get killed with everyone else or get killed by Krom'gar when he finds out they lost the mine, so he went with the third option, do nothing.
    • The very first storyline when you arrive on Draenor has the Alliance and Horde faced with either letting the Iron Horde travel through the Dark Portal into Azeroth or freeing the Shadow Council leaders that are powering it from their side. Both would have terrible repercussions, but plot dictates you end up destroying the Dark Portal anyway to keep the Iron Horde confined to Draenor.
  • Motivation on a Stick: There used to be a trinket like this (literally a Carrot on a Stick) that increased mount speed, later removed from the game.
  • Motive Decay: Sorry, Illidan, Kael'thas. We need bosses for Burning Crusade.
    • Getting "corrupted" by the Old Gods tends to be this in general. Deathwing was once much more subtle, although it can be argued that in Cataclysm, he didn't need to work as hard at getting the Alliance and Horde to fight each other as he did in promoting strife between the Alliance members.
  • Mr. Exposition: Uther serves this purpose in the Halls of Reflection.
    • In Cataclysm, there's a quest in Silverpine which is essentially you riding horseback next to Sylvanas while she tells you the history of Lordaeron and how the Forsaken came to be. It lasts for a good 2-3 minutes and plays out all in a cutscene.
    • A Shattrath City quest in Outland involves Khadgar summoning a familiar to show you around the city and tell you about the Aldor and the Scryers.
    • Lorewalker Cho tells you a lot of lore stuff as you accompany him on several quests throughout Pandaria. He also serves as the Haunted House Historian for your raid on the Mogu'shan Vaults.
    • Kil'ruk the Wind-Reaver, the first mantid Paragon you encounter, tells you much about the mantid's history, and if you reach Exalted with the Klaxxi, their true purpose.
    • During the warlock class quest to obtain green fire, there's a point where you have to ask your demons about the tome you've found that started it. While your demons are varying degrees of helpful, the Observer will not only tell you about the Tome's origins, but its author, the planet of Xerrath, its inhabitants, and its ultimate fate. Your character lampshades this unexpected helpfulness, and the Observer responds that he's more than happy to repay you with knowledge for letting him devour the mana of your foes.

    Mu - My 
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Female Naga have four or six arms, the Shivarra are 20-foot tall, six-armed, demon women, and various undead constructs tend to have a few extra arms thrown in for good measure.
  • Multishot: A hunter skill.
  • Mundane Utility:
    • The Tahret Dynasty Mallet was "crafted by the titans, blessed by the sun-kings and who knows what else", and you're going to use it to smash pygmys. The item's description says it all.
      Tahret Dynasty Mallet: This artifact is beautifully crafted. You suspect it was intended for an activity more dignified than this one.
    • The Nightborne harness their unmatched mastery of time magic to quickly age wine to perfection.
    • Mages can use the powerful arcane entity that lives within the artifact weapon Aluneth to conjure food. Aluneth is not amused.
      Aluneth: (when the player makes mage food) "The very powers of the ancient titans are at your command, and you choose to create... tasty treats?"
  • Murder by Mistake: On the Lost Isles, Megs Dreadshredder goes out to stop an impending attack on the Town-in-a-Box by bringing the fight to the Naga. After killing several Naga and a Faceless One, Megs reveals she made a mistake, the Naga weren't going to attack, and sends the player off to save the Goblins from a Pygmy attack.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Stalvan Mistmantle not only kills his student, but also, her lover.
  • Musical Nod: Pet Battles are fought to MIDI versions of songs from the first two Warcraft games.
  • Mustache Vandalism: The world quest "Loa Your Standards" in Dazar'alor involves you putting mustaches on the Raptari druids' idols of their loa, Gonk.
  • The Mutiny: Players take part in a few of these. It's how Tony Two-Tusk got his own pirate crew, and how Warchief Mor'ghor, a Fel Orc who makes Warchief Garrosh Hellscream look like a Reasonable Authority Figure, meets his end.
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
    • Earthbreaker Haromm, one of the Kor'kron Dark Shaman who force the elements to obey their command, says "The elements... What have we done..." as he dies.
    • Algalon the Observer in Ulduar is a herald of the Titans, whose job is to determine if planets were developing according to the Titans' plans, or if they were deviating too much, such as being corrupted by an Old God, in which case the whole planet was to be "re-originated". When players fight and stop him, he comments on their resolve to save Azeroth, and regrets that in the eons he had been doing this, he never considered the countless lives he wiped out.
    • Garrosh attempts to inflict one of these unsuccesfully on Warlord Krom'gar. He quickly realizes that Krom'gar felt no guilt or remorse for what he had done and quickly gets rid of him.
      Garrosh: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
  • My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: In Dalaran, there are "Orcish/Common" dictionaries; it might explain why the Humans and Orcs are still at war.
    Hi - A threatening war cry, especially when accompanied by a wave or bow.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong:
    • Lord Godfrey is willing to set aside his disdain for the Worgen because his liege, King Greymane is trying to restore their humanity; once he finds out Greymane himself is a Worgen, his Fantastic Racism overrides his loyalty. To be fair to Godfrey, all Worgen past and present, except for the Gilneans in Cataclysm, are mindless, bloodthirsty killing machines.
    • Considering your various abilities and how many people you kill through the game, you're still probably included.
    • General Nazgrim is fought as a boss in the Siege of Orgrimmar guarding the entrance to the Underhold. He's fighting because he's bound to his oath and not because he approves of Hellscream's methods. If you kill him as a Horde race, he says he's glad it was you who killed him and hopes you'll bring a new era for the Horde.
  • My Name Is Inigo Montoya: In the Blade's Edge Mountains, the NPC fighting alongside players against Goc wants the dragon-killing gronn to know who killed him.
    Baron Sablemane: [Alliance] It's only right that you know the name of the one who will take your life. Baron Sablemane. It will be on your lips as you gasp your dying breath.
    Rexxar: [Horde] I am Rexxar, son of the Mok'Nathal, champion of the Horde. And the torment at your hands is at an end. By my name, I shall put an end to your life.
  • My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Unless a fight is designed around the enemy's mana reserves, said enemy can cast spells at you even if you drain its mana down to zero.
    • This is not always the case - at least when it comes to your garden variety mook. Casters will cast until they're out of mana, and then proceed to run up to melee range to hit you with their staff, until they regenerate enough to cast again.
    • Said enemies that run up and whack you with their staff will do a LOT of damage with said staff. Compared to a player character that is a caster whacking an enemy with their staff... you might as well be hitting them with a noodle.
    • Several enemy abilities work differently than player ones of the same name. Player Whirlwinds strike all enemies around them once for half weapon damage. Enemy Whirlwinds strike all enemies around them a few times over a period of a few seconds, for standard damage, more akin to the Warrior talent Bladestorm.
  • Mysterious Note: Quite literally with this item.
  • Mystery Meat:
    • Mystery Meat is the ingredient in several Cooking recipes. It comes from all manners of beasts as well, even including giant scorpions.
    • Northrend has something similar, Chilled Meat, which is its version of Mystery Meat. Apparently, due to the conditions of the northern continent, it comes already refrigerated once you're done butchering.
  • Mystical High Collar: Many wizard outfits include one.
  • Myth Arc: The first volume of the World of Warcraft: Chronicle established one of these for the Warcraft universe. A clash of Light and Shadow created the known universe at the dawn of time. As it turns out, personified elements of that shadow, the Void Lords, want to unmake the universe, and they have been trying to influence the material plane ever since to carry out that goal. Not only did they sire the old gods in order to corrupt Azeroth, but fear of their victory is also what led Sargeras to form an army of demons to begin with. Essentially, everything bad that's ever happened in the Warcraft universe has been a direct or indirect result of the Void Lord's plans, and putting a stop to that is the ultimate goal.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Gul'dan goes bare-chested and starts attacking players at melee range at one point during the encounter in the Nighthold raid, showing the bony spikes he has in his back. It's most likely a reference to the 2016 WarCraft film, where he did the same against Durotan.
    • The duel between Saurfang and Sylvanas in Reckoning is also a recreation of the duel between Durotan and Gul'dan of the movie: An old orc decides to fight against the Warchief knowing he won't survive but that it's needed to make the Horde see how evil their Warchief is.

    Na 
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: TONS! Some examples:
    • Most orc names tend to be this. Grom/Garrosh Hellscream, Kargath Bladefist, Orgrim Doomhammer, Tagar Spinebreaker, Teron Gorefiend, Nekrum Gutchewer... However, the orcs are one of the few cases where this trope is justified. Last names are given to orcs who did something really impressive in their lives. In a warrior culture, more often than not, this involves beating someone to death in a cool way. Hellscream is called Hellscream because he screams in a cool way, Bladefist actually has a blade for a hand, Doomhammer wields his hammer of doom, the Doomhammer, Spinebreaker probably broke someone's spine, Gorefiend was a fiend that created a lot of gore and you can probably guess what Gutchewer did.
    • Unholy Death Knight PCs get a minion who has one, of the Noun Verber variety. However, as the names are re-randomized every time you summon the minion, this has the potential for hilarity. And of course, the class is called Death Knight.
    • Some races have these. The Faceless Ones and the Dreadlords come to mind.
    • The Old Gods and their minions deserve a special notice for having names that no human should have to pronounce. Bonus points for having their name inspired by a very certain mythology.
    • Deathwing the Destroyer, aka Deathwing the Aspect of Death, aka Deathwing the World Breaker. Also known as the Black Scourge, the Dark One, Blood's Shadow, the Cataclysm, Shuul'wah, Death Incarnate and the Unmaker of Worlds. Deathwing spares no expense in this department.
    • Illidan the Betrayer.
    • Archimonde the Defiler.
  • Names to Trust Immediately: A few, like Alexstraza the Lifebinder. One notable example in lore is Uther Lightbringer, the very first paladin.
  • Nature Is Not Nice: Quite a few examples.
    • There are countless hostile wild animals: at least one species for each zone. There are also hostile treants.
    • Druids use the power of nature, generally to violent ends.
    • The Botani in Warlords of Draenor are a plant-based equivalent to the Zerg in Starcraft.
  • Naval Blockade:
    • In the Howling Fjord, the Northsea Freebooter pirates set up a blockade around the Alliance settlement of Westguard Keep. A daily quest involves breaking it by dropping bombs from a zeppelin.
    • Gadgetzan, on the coast of Tanaris, is being blockaded by Southsea pirates. One quest has the player fly over the blockade in a rocket-propelled hot air balloon and drop bombs on the pirate ships.
  • Nay-Theist: Unlike their cousin races the Klaxxi and Qirajinote , the Nerubians have abandoned all worship of gods entirely. They consider it madness to worship a god, considering it the equivalent of a fly worshipping the spider coming to eat it. Given the personalities of the gods that made them, this is a pretty reasonable point of view. As a result, while Nerubians aren't exactly nice they do seem to be the one intelligent insectoid race that playable characters can seemingly work with long term.

    Ne - Ni 
  • Near-Villain Victory: At the climax of Ny'alotha, N'Zoth has very nearly achieved his goal of taking the Chamber of Heart and recreating Azeroth as the Black Empire. He's already driven the entirety of the raid group to insanity when suddenly the player is able to break free of his influence and unleash an attack that vanquishes the Old God once and for all.
  • Needle in a Stack of Needles: The "quest" to unlock the Baa'l pet involves finding 13 ordinary pebbles scattered around Zandalar, Kul Tiras and the Broken Shore. The last of these is found in the middle of the ocean between Zandalar and the Broken Isles, in an underwater cave, that is full of pebbles. The correct one? None of them, it's actually back at the cave entrance and you swam over it to reach the hundreds of fakes.
  • Nemean Skinning: If you have the Skinning skill, you can make leather out of anything from bears to dragons.
  • Nemesis Weapon: Inverted in the Icecrown Citadel questlines as one of them involves creating an antithesis to the Lich King's weapon, Shadowmourne: a giant axe forged from the hammer that Arthas himself discarded when he took Frostmourne for the first time, imbued with the souls of his servants and the power that once imprisoned the Lich King, all to create a weapon specifically intended to end Arthas' reign of undeath.
  • Nepharious Pharaoh: Dark Pharaoh Tekahn is the leader of a faction of very sphinx-like creatures who allied themselves with Deathwing, the Big Bad of the "Cataclysm" expansion.
  • Neutral in Name Only: The goblins of the Steamwheedle Cartel are neutral in the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde, and their quests and hubs are available to both factions. However, Gazlowe, the leader of the Steamwheedle town of Ratchet, is much more closely aligned with the Horde. In Warcraft III, he designed the Horde's main city of Orgrimmar, and later the Horde commander's garrison in Warlords of Draenor. He even leads a Horde-aligned island expedition in Battle for Azeroth. Meanwhile, Ratchet offers few quests to Alliance players and they mostly use it as a convenient travel hub. In Patch 8.3 of Battle for Azeroth, after Gallywix disappears, Gazlowe finally drops the pretense and becomes Trade Prince of the Horde-aligned Bilgewater Cartel.
  • Neutrality Backlash: Genn Greymane, the king of Gilneas, abandoned the Alliance and bricked up his entire city behind a giant wall. Then the worgen came... Something of a subversion, since Greymane brought his troubles down on his own head.
  • Neutral No Longer: The Gilneas worgen and Bilgewater goblins in the Cataclysm expansion.
    • And in Mists of Pandaria, Jaina Proudmoore, the Kirin Tor and the blue dragonflight.
      • Which is partially reversed in Warlords of Draenor. Khadgar is still a top member of the Kirin Tor, and having worked with Thrall and Vol'jin's Horde for the invasion of Draenor, he orders the Kirin Tor forces on Draenor to work with Horde players, despite Jaina's orders.
  • Never Found the Body: John J. Keeshan, who is thought to have performed a Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the Redridge Mountains storyline, but reappears in the Burning Steppes.
    • Turalyon and Alleria, since the Second War. In the Legion expansion, a message from them can be found in the Paladin Order Hall. These two have been hunting the Burning Legion across the stars for a thousand years, but were ultimately defeated in the final battle. They even apologize to their son Arator about leaving, and state it was a sacrifice to ensure his safety and the survival of the world.
    • A lot of old world NPCs after the Cataclysm.
    • Illidan was said to have been driven off the Black Temple by Maiev instead of visibly killed by players, leaving possible room for reviving him like the Devs have off-handedly mentioned, and now openly admitted, with the release of information about the next expansion, Legion, which prominently features Illidan.
    • The inhabitants of Cenarion Hold in Silithus, since that's where Sargeras decided to plunge his gigantic sword.
  • Never Going Back to Prison: In Tol Dagor, if Jes Howlis is killed while his brother Bobby is still alive, the latter will escape while saying that he'll never go back to his cell.
  • Never Mess with Granny:
    • Grandma Wahl of Gilneas seems like a typical old lady, but don't mess with her kitty! Because she will transform into a worgen and beat you up with her rolling pin.
    • Granny Marl in the Gilnean village of Bradensbrook asks for your help dealing with undead ravens attacking her crops. Rather than have you kill them for her, she asks you to mark them with flares so her poor eyesight won't prevent her from shooting them down herself.
  • New Game Plus: See invokedAlt-itis, in YMMV. The heirloom items available for purchase with endgame emblems are usable at any level and grow along with the character they're on at any given moment, along with generally having Superior-quality stats when your character doesn't even see useful Uncommons on a regular basis until level 20 and beyond. You'll go through enemies like a buzzsaw until you start to reach the heirlooms' level limit.
  • Newbie Immunity: Resurrecting at a Spirit Healer, as opposed to finding and recovering your corpse, normally incurs Resurrection Sickness, which significantly reduces your health and damage and basically makes you useless in combat for 10 minutes. However, players under level 10 can resurrect at a Spirit Healer with no penalty, and up to level 20 Resurrection Sickness has reduced duration.
  • New Skill as Reward:
    • In Classic, a Paladin would learn the Redemption spell (a convenience spell that restores a dead player back to life) as a reward for a quest.
    • Numerous crafting recipes have been and still are rewards for quests; there are too many of them to list.
    • During the Demon Hunter starting quest chain, you gain several abilities from slaying demons as part of the quest chain, including Eye Beams.
  • New World Tease:
    • Sort of: In the final chamber of the Blood Furnace, you can look straight down through the floor and catch a glimpse of Magtheridon's Lair. And in Magister's Terrace, there is a scrying orb that you can click to get a glimpse of the Sunwell Plateau.
    • In Legion, after players defeat Kil'jaeden at the Tomb of Sargeras, Argus can be seen in the sky.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: You do this in an uncomfortably high number of quests, often enforced by But Thou Must!.
    • Drak'tharon Keep, a citadel of hostile ice trolls, is proving to be a major impediment for the war effort, so the player is tasked with capturing ice trolls so that they may be interrogated for information. Drakuru, one of your captives, tells the player that the Keep is currently besieged by Scourge and offers the player a truce: if the player can gather the components Drakuru needs, Drakuru will perform a magical ritual to cleanse the Keep, presumably earning the trolls' gratitude. The player agrees and, after a series of quests, eventually enters the Keep with Drakaru, but in the process causes the Keep to fall to the Scourge. Turns out Drakuru was secretly an agent of the Lich King and the "cleansing" ritual was designed to break the Keep's last magical defenses holding back the Scourge. When the player enters Zul'Drak, the neighboring zone and home of the ice trolls, he finds the loss of the Keep to the Scourge has let in a large Scourge invasion force led by Overlord Drakaru, now seeking to "cleanse" all of his troll brethren. The player must now undermine the Scourge invasion all the while pretending to work with Drakaru, who thinks the player is his best buddy for helping him take over the Keep. In the end, the player succeeds and defeats Drakaru in battle after disrupting his operations in Zul'Drak.
      Arthas: As for you... I spare your insignificant life as a reward for this amusing betrayal. There may yet be a shred of potential in you.
    • In Outland's version of Shadowmoon Valley, you hear rumors that Teron Gorefiend, the first ever death knight and a generally very evil guy, may have returned to the Valley, though he's supposed to have fallen in battle ages ago. Given this potential threat, you seek out information from an Ancient Shadowmoon Spirit. The Spirit requests you gather items that once belonged to Gorefiend so that the Spirit can use the items' residual connection to Gorefiend to locate him. You gather the items, only to discover that the Spirit is the trapped spectral remnant of Gorefiend and that bringing the items together allows Gorefiend to return. Gorefiend thanks you for freeing him and promptly rides off to join up with Illidan and become a raid boss in Black Temple.
    • Goblin characters were apparently getting a truly epic one of these, but it's now merely moderately epic. It is now a complete coincidence that Deathwing shows up and wrecks your home island just as you kick a rather large bomb into a volcano. The volcanic destruction of the island you wind up marooned on, however? Yeah, that's still pretty much down to you, a giant turtle and a rocket launcher.
    • While on one of your periodic murderous rampages through Northern Stranglethorn Vale, you come across an adorable baby raptor who adopts you as a parent and follows you around. Dawww. A few totally unrelated quests later while she's tagging along, she digs up a troll skull which you feel the need to take to an NPC for examination. You inexplicably agree to try to resurrect the troll to whom said skull belongs. No points if you guess early on that the skull belonged to someone who should have remained dead, possibly even by your hand a long time ago. The resurrected bad guy kidnaps your newest friend and as of 4.1 is the source of no shortage of trouble in the area.
    • A quest chain in Arathi Highlands starts with a dwarf suggesting you go investigate strange voices in the ruins. The voice claims to be a princess and has you undertake a series of quests that will free her from bondage. Turns out she's not a princess, and when you report back to the dwarf he is nonplussed at your actions. Fortunately he knows how to reverse the effect.
    • The final boss of the Blood Furnace calls you a fool for interrupting his ritual, and wishes you luck when you beat him, telling you that you'll need it. Since the ritual chamber was directly above Magtheridon's Lair, it is implied that the spell was supposed to keep Magtheridon restrained, and you just weakened the bindings by stopping the ritual.
    • A larger plot related example happens in Cataclysm, where Thrall steps down as Warchief of the Horde and names Garrosh Hellscream as his successor, the one person in the Horde who is undoubtedly the WORST Orc for the job. Afterwards, relations between the Horde and Alliance have gone nowhere but downhill, ultimately culminating in the destruction of Theramore and the start of full scale war between the Horde and Alliance.
      • On the contrary, per Thrall's conversation with Vol'jin, Garrosh, at least until he jumped off the deep end in 5.1, was exactly the kind of Orc Thrall wanted.
        The Horde cries for a hero of old. An orc of true blood that will bow to no human and bear no betrayal. A warrior that will make our people proud again. Garrosh can be that hero.
    • In Felwood, it's implied that the decidedly unfortunate fate of Bloodvenom Post is the indirect result of the player's actions. Pre-Cata, the player was sent to "corrupt" Winna Hazzard's kitten... and, well, things went downhill from there.
    • The climax of the first zone in Mists of Pandaria has one that kicks off the plot of most other zones; After spending a majority of the zone arming and training one of the native races after they join your faction, they go to war in the middle of a clearing where the Pandaren were readying a statue where Yu'Lon, the Jade Dragon and one of Pandaria's revered spirits could re-incarnate herself. As the battle begins and artillery fires, the statue gets damaged and falls. With this, the hatred the Alliance and Horde share for each other finally manifests as a Sha that's easily a hundred feet tall. While you do manage to destroy the Sha by destroying its energy fonts, the clearing is eternally scarred by Sha energy, the Jade Dragon has to wait several more years before she can reincarnate and the seven great Sha all over the continent awaken and begins causing horrible chaos everywhere else. It's implied it was going to happen sooner or later anyway, but still, it's a major Player Punch to know that you had a hand in it.
    • This in turn leads to the Klaxxi who get you to wake all their paragons and encourage you to spend weeks grinding their quests and then go into raids and kill the Empress only to make a rather large reveal when you hit exalted and have done every quest in the zone for them... They're trying to reawaken the Old Gods, the quote is: "Great was the Old One, and terrible was His wrath. He consumed hope and begat despair; He inhaled courage and breathed fear.". And you've just aided their cause magnificently. Great job. At least they gave you a cool scorpion to ride around on.
    • Anduin Wrynn, by convincing the August Celestials to let the Alliance, the Horde and Pandarian refugees into the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, most likely helps a great deal in Garrosh unearthing the heart of Y'Shaarj, devastating the Vale and granting him the power of an Old God.
    • Khadgar is attempting his very best to avert this outcome in Warlords of Draenor. Right at the start of the expansion's storyline, the player must free Gul'dan and his top Shadow Council members to stop the Dark Portal. Khadgar is forced to accept the trade-off for the moment, but his particular subplot shows he is very concerned about what Gul'dan may be up to and is doing everything possible to track the warlock and his minions down before they can cause anything close to the damage they're capable of.
    • Wrathion ends up pulling this. In his quest to stop the Burning Legion from invading Azeroth, he decides to free Garrosh from his imprisonment and send him back in time with Kairozdormu to an alternate Draenor. The intent was that Garrosh, under Kairoz's watchful eye, would convince the orcish tribes to work with the Azerothians against the Legion. Instead, Garrosh murdered Kairoz at the earliest opportunity and formed the Iron Horde to invade Azeroth himself. The war losses left Azeroth weaker than it had been at the end of the Siege of Orgrimmar, and to top it all of, it was alternate Gul'dan who kickstarted the very invasion Wrathion was trying to prevent in the first place.
    • Azshara's ultimate plan is to free N'Zoth. The players enter her Eternal Palace raid to kill her and prevent this. Unfortunately, they all carry with them the Hearts of Azeroth that Magni gave them at the start of the expansion, which Azshara drains over the course of her encounter and uses to break her master's chains. And this was her plan the whole time.
    • In Korthia, the player is tasked with helping Caretaker Kah-Than locate Fatescribe Roh-Kalo, presumably to keep him safe from the Mawsworn, then it turns out Kah-Than was actually the dreadlord Kin'tessa, who captures Roh-Kalo and takes him to Torghast. The next time you see him, he's been subjugated by the Jailer and is a boss in the Sanctum of Domination.
    • On the non-player side of things, back in Classic, Thrall wanted to make a gesture of peace to the dwarves of Ironforge, so he sent the player on a quest chain to rescue Moira Bronzebeard from the Dark Iron dwarves who had kidnapped her. Unfortunately, after assassinating the emperor in his throne room, it turns out she was not an unwilling captive and is very, very angry at both Ironforge and Thrall now. Whoops!
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
    • The Forsaken invasion of Gilneas drives the Worgen to rejoin the Alliance.
    • An Alliance ship shooting down the goblins and the hostile SI-7 lead the goblin refugees to team up with the orcs.
    • Kologarn in Ulduar, whose corpse conveniently becomes a bridge across an otherwise impassible ravine. Highlighted here.
    • Grommash Hellscream and Ner'zhul undo their invasion of Karabor when the former's lust for power causes the latter to summon the Dark Star; instead of being the weapon of mass destruction to wipe out the Draenei, Velen sacrifices himself to reawaken the Dark Star as the Naaru K'ara, and destroys the Iron Horde naval fleet.
    • Kil'jaeden corrupted Velen's son Rakeesh and tricks Velen into helping kill him as part of a millennia-long plot for revenge. Kil'jaeden then seeks to capitalize on Velen's Roaring Rampage of Revenge to lure him and his allies into an ambush where he can finally kill his personal nemesis and some of the greatest threats to the Burning Legion. Unfortunately for Kil'jaeden, Velen turns out to be much more than the passive old prophet that he has spent the last few years as. Velen and his allies turn the ambush around, killing Kil'jaeden on his own turf (which is one of the only places Kil'jaeden will die permanently), then Velen makes good on his promise of returning to his home (now the Legion's homeworld) and personally leads the counter-invasion that ends the Legion once and for all. To Kil'jaeden's credit, his final words reveal that he might have sided with Velen from the beginning if he thought they had a chance, and would accept the accidental results of his actions after all.
    • Yogg-Saron's Curse of Flesh was meant to corrupt the servants of the Titans and make them easy to kill. However, turning the servants into flesh and blood mortals happened to have the side effect of granting them mortal traits, such as courage, resolve, and heroism, unwittingly planting the seeds for those most capable of stopping Yogg-Saron and his brethren for good.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
    • What. WHAT. Sadly, he's not actually seen around Maelstrom as in the Beta. He does appear in a quest in Uldum as a holographic projection, however.
    • It does appear in Brawlpub, which takes it to a new level: a clockwork gnome makes a version with a robotic shark.
  • Nipple and Dimed: Like in most computer games, the "naked" female models are wearing underwear that covers all naughty bits. Even if a character is wearing clothes that clearly don't allow for any underwear, the bras and panties re-appear if you take off the clothes.

    No 
  • No Recycling: The game allows unwanted magical items to be disenchanted for materials to enchant new gear; this is in fact the only way to obtain most enchanting reagents. More appropriately, skills such as herbalism, mining, skinning, and even engineering allow you to recover additional loot from NPC corpses of the appropriate type, including the occasional rare item.
  • Noble Demon: Thassarian pre-Heel–Face Turn.
  • Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Male Goblin. Try a /chicken when playing as one. Other races work too, but this one plays the trope straight.
  • Nobody Poops:
    • Zigzagged as far as the player is concerned. There are a few outhouses around, but perhaps one for every hundredth NPC, and that's being generous. Still, there are more aversions than typical for a video game.
    • A large number of quests involve you digging through animal poop. It's become a bit of a Running Gag that each new expansion contains at least one quest of this type somewhere.
    • There's a quest line where you accidentally eat a valuable seed, and have to collect the ingredients for a powerful laxative, then pay a visit to a nearby outhouse.
    • Ogre camps are a general aversion to Nobody Poops, because they don't bother with outhouses. Visibly.
    • A Horde quest line in Jade Forest has you gathering materials to build an outhouse for a goblin who is complaining that there's no proper place for such activities in the wilderness. And then he weaponizes it with the help of the Forest Hozen against the Jinyu.
    • In Warlords of Draenor, the PC's garrison has a functioning outhouse that, upon entry, rewards an achievement: "Staying Regular." Also, the Garrison has a jail with chamberpots that have obviously been used.
  • Nobody Touches the Hair: Lor'Themar Theron.
  • No Dead Body Poops: The Pit of Saron
    Forgemaster Garfrost: [when killed] Garfrost hope giant underpants clean. Save boss great shame. For later.
  • No Eye in Magic:
    • The Lunatic Gaze spell, used by Yogg-Saron and the Laughing Skulls, will only drain the sanity of players who are facing it. Also, Eadric the Pure's Radiance and Isiset's Supernova are blinding attacks that will only work on players who look at it.
    • On a similar principle, He Softfoot's Eye Gouge only works if his aggro target is facing him.
  • No Full Name Given: Alliance characters in Battle for Azeroth are accompanied by a female Kul Tiran Warrior only known as Taelia. At the end of the base campaign, she reveals her last name: Fordragon, and that she is the daughter of Bolvar Fordragon, who the player knows is the current Lich King. The follow-up campaign uses her full name, and the reveal gets more focus in the following Shadowlands expansion.
  • No-Harm Requirement: Keeper Karithus needs bear fur, doe hair, and saber-toothed cat whiskers to use in a ritual. He asks you to retrieve these materials from the live animals without harming them, but you don't fail the quest if you happened to kill an animal in the process.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The players get to do this to, of all people the Lich King. Granted, you have had three phases of fight with him beforehand not counting Remorseless Winter, and he's just been the victim of Tirion.
  • Noisy Nature: Everything that attacks on all planets and dimensions will make a lot of noise in the process, even when it shouldn't.
  • No MacGuffin, No Winner: Several Gnome recon planes crashed in the Borean Tundra, and Alliance players get quests to help a pilot follow security protocol, which includes destroying the planes to prevent the technology from getting into anyone else's hands. Naturally, Horde players are tasked by a Goblin to retrieve one of the planes so he can study it. The Goblin actually does get some parts, but it turns out Goblin reverse-engineered Gnome technology works about as well as you'd expect.
  • Non-Combatant Immunity: During the Death Knight starting quest, the quest that provides you with your first weapon comes just before a quest in which you must duel a failed initiate. Applies to the initiate too, as they're chained right next to an equipment rack, and you can't attack them 'til they're geared up.
  • Non-Combat EXP: Experience can be earned by using gathering professions as well as for discovering areas of the map. Many quests also offer experience for activities that involve no combat. You can get a token amount of experience for "breadcrumb" quests in which one NPC asks you to talk to another, who then gives you quests, as well as other quests that involve professions.
  • Non-Indicative Name:
    • The Outlaw Rogue's Mastery skill, "Main Gauche," increases the rate at which you attack with the weapon in your right hand. "Main Gauche" is French for left hand.
    • Fort Triumph falls to the Horde in Tides of War, and this is lampshaded in the narration when it points out that they tried to take on the advancing armies alone.
    • Goblin-related background stories occasionally refer to three trade wars that took place between various cartels. By all accounts, the "Peace War" was the most violent of these conflicts.
    • The Blood Knights are not Blood Knights.
    • "Dreadlords" are demons best known for being Manipulative Bastards, and not for being fear-inducing.
  • Noodle Incident:
  • No OSHA Compliance:
    • Blackrock Depths is built inside a volcano and is populated by evil dwarves. What makes them evil? The handrail-less bridges and walkways that are nothing but giant chains built over pools of lava. Even the capital cities feature these.
    • Aldor Rise features small open air elevators that go up a huge sheer cliff.
      • Speaking of elevators, it would probably be faster to list those elevators in the game which actually do exhibit OSHA compliance. Said list is pretty much limited to the elevators in Undercity, and even they aren't perfect.
    • Ironforge has pools of lava all over, only some of which have grates to stop you from falling in.
    • The Undercity has pools of green glowing liquid all over - not dangerous to players but animals dipped in a similar substance have grown huge and attacked people.
      • Back in the beta, the green liquid was dangerous and would actually kill you. Blizzard wisely changed it after people kept dying, in a capital city that was supposed to be safe.
    • Silvermoon City is suspended over a Bottomless Pit that is thankfully guarded by invisible walls, though there's a lot of other Malevolent Architecture, with lots of Floating Platforms and no guard rails.
    • The Dalaran Underbelly. A tunnel that ends in a 500+ foot drop, strange potions are lying around everywhere, and a lovely shark swimming around by some shops, waiting to munch on anyone who gets too close.
      • One of those potions will turn you into a flying bug. Many a player has discovered the hard way that "Only works in Dalaran" is quite literal. Hint: The end of that tunnel is not considered Dalaran.
      • To be fair, that "tunnel" was originally built as part of Dalaran's sewer system. If you go to the area northwest of Hillsbrad where Dalaran was originally located, you can see the pipe down in the crater that tunnel connected to. The designers probably didn't think that mages would take the city and magically lift the whole thing 500 feet in the air. Then again, in a magical world, in the main magical city in that world, whose inhabitants are all mages...maybe they should've had some more foresight.
      • Legion just cements that the mages of Dalaran aren't that good with OSHA compliance, as they provide a portal from the city to the crater... at ground level. Rather than move the portal a few feet to one side so it's over solid ground, instead they just put up a small sign that says "Warning: Drop."
    • The Gnomish city Gnomeregan, abandoned due to having been flooded with radiation, is a partial subversion... except that not only is there a lack of rails in most places, but an elevator entrance to the subterranean city features a heavy lid slamming over the elevator shaft as the platform descends.
    • Tauren capital Thunder Bluff is another offender, with the whole city built on a mesa hundreds of feet tall. The only safety is afforded by fences that are low by human standards, let alone the Tauren who are quite a bit taller. The plains at the foot of Thunder Bluff are frequently littered with the corpses of players who fell or jumped off. The Tauren city in Highmountain is just as bad.
    • Blackrock Spire is pretty bad in this respect too. The dungeon - supposedly a city inhabited mostly by orcs and dragons - is full of narrow bridges and easily-accessible ledges with no handrails whatsoever. While the bridges may be defensive structures a la Khazad-dûm, where they aren't over lava they're over drops that you need a parachute to survive.
    • Gilneas has several very high bridges with no railings whatsoever.
    • Grim Batol, a high-end dungeon with damaged bridges over fatal drops, prevents you from Mind Controlling enemies to prevent abuse of this trope, since there are pits everywhere.
    • Vortex Pinnacle also has abundant ledges, unlike Grim'Batol, you can both fall off and mind control enemies, and while a tornado will save you, the player, enemies don't have the same mercy.
    • Orgrimmar itself has a Thunder Bluff-like mesa in the center, and several cliff faces easily accessible to players - complete with waist-high railings that are easily jumped over to the doom of many players. The towers where Horde players go to ride zeppelins don't even have railings at all. Not to mention the spikes that are on every building and many furnishings in the area.
    • Skyreach in Warlord of Draenor is on the top of a mountain, and has no handrails anywhere; it's even possible to fall to your doom while indoors. Justified in that the place is inhabited by the Arakkoa, who can fly to safety.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: According to the lore, Gnomes are a complete aversion of this. They plan meticulously, taking more time to draw schematics of things than it takes to actually build them, and will often test, redesign and upgrade their inventions until they are perfect. Those tanks that go backwards and teleporters that get you to your destination but hundreds of feet in the air, those are the unperfected prototypes.
  • North Is Cold, South Is Hot: Azeroth fits this trope to a T. In the south, you will find Tanaris, Stranglethorn Vale and the Swamp of Sorrows. In the north, you have Northrend, and the snowy Winterspring in northern Kalimdor.
    • Now subverted for Azeroth with Pandaria in the south, but played straight within Pandaria with snow in the north, and swamps, farmland, and jungles in the south. Interestingly enough, north of the snowy Kun-Lai Summit is the warm Isle of Giants.
      • Kun-Lai is only covered in snow due to its altitude, like Dun Morogh. There is only snow far up in the peaks.
  • No-Sell:
    • Blackwing Lair has black dragon mobs in elven form that are completely immune to magic damage, requiring the melee DPS in the raid to fight them alone.
    • The passive ability for Critter-type Battle Pets is that they have complete immunity to being stunned, rooted, polymorphed or put to sleep.
  • No Sense of Time: Ten thousand years is a long time. Like a really long time. Ten thousand years ago, no one on Earth was speaking Proto-Indo-European yet and agriculture was a new, exciting technology. Nonetheless there are multiple NPCs who've been around and active since at least ten thousand years ago, and some of them aren't even elves.
  • No Such Thing as H.R.: Played with in the Goblin starting area, after getting an "attitude adjustment" one of the responses the Troll slaves gives is that they're going to complain to HR. Since this adjustment involves copious amounts of electricity, it's doubtful that Goblin HR is anything more than lip service.
  • Not Afraid of Hell: Sylvanas Windrunner inverts this trope to the point of her entire motivation centering around her not wanting to return to the other side after catching a glimpse of it following a failed suicide attempt. She would rather break the entire cycle of life and death than end up in The Maw - a bleak realm of endless torment that serves as Warcraft's.
  • The Nothing After Death: Both Arthas and Sylvanas refer to this. It might have something to do with both of them being already undead, though.
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Cataclysm brings this to a head with Deathwing devastating Azeroth simply by reemerging from his hideout. Yes, he is that powerful now. In addition, many races gained access to previously unavailable classes due to their constant exposure to different cultures, Thrall stepped down as warchief of the Horde, and Baine took over as chieftain of the tauren following Cairne's death.
  • Not Quite Dead: Pretty much everyone from Warcraft III whose death wasn't shown on screen returns, and even some whose were. This continues throughout the expansions, with bosses defeated in world zones or 5-man dungeons frequently putting in appearances in later raids.
  • No True Scotsman: There have been four or five Hordes and each one is convinced that only they are the legitimate Horde. Bonus points to Garrosh's Horde, which outright calls itself the True Horde.
  • "Not So Different" Remark:
    • In Duskwood, when Tobias Mistmantle confronts his evil brother Stalvan over him killing the student he had a crush on and her lover, the now undead Stalvan confirms the accusation and says that Tobias is now feeling what he felt- enough rage to want to kill someone, prompting Tobias to assume his Worgen form. After Tobias and the player kill Stalvan, Tobias has a Big "NO!" and runs off, but when you turn in the quest, he's decided that it's up to him whether he lives as a monster.
    • Anduin asks if you're any different from Garrosh if you blindly trust Wrathion in search of power in the legendary cloak questline.
    • During the Demon Hunter starting questline, there is a cinematic showing a young demon hunter calling out Illidan on this, asking if the demon hunters are any different than the demons they hunt. After risking her life to save Illidan while fighting a pit lord, she has her answer: demons destroy, demon hunters protect.
    • Elisande tries to invoke this during her "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the elven armies assembled before her. Specifically, she says that the Blood Elves, at least, should understand the need to take drastic measures and consort with the fel to survive. The Blood Elves stand strong against Elisande, but her words prove true as the Blood Elves in general, and Liadrin in particular, express respect and sympathy to the Nightborne allied with them where the Night Elves offer haughty mistrust. Thalyssra cites this as one of the factors in the Nightborne joining the Horde.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Millhouse Manastorm seems to be goofy, cowardly, and full of himself, but when you face him in the Brawler's Guild, he's one of the hardest opponents, with you having to take off 47 million health in 2 minutes, when most enemies do not even have a quarter of that amount. In order to accomplish that, you must take advantage of beams that give a damage buff, but not only do you still need to damage him very quickly, but the beam can also empower Millhouse until he kills you in one shot.
  • Not-So-Safe Harbor: Booty Bay. Especially when it's New Year's and the guards are too drunk to intervene if another player attacks you within the city.
  • Not Worth Killing:
    • One has to wonder why so many minor threats are allowed to exist in the starting areas, which are near major capitals, instead of being wiped out to secure the area. In the case of the Frostmane Trolls south of Anvilmar, the Dwarves simply don't consider them a major threat, focusing more on the Troggs, the still warring Dark Iron Dwarves, and the other Trolls.
    • Arthas plays with this, as a necromancer he wants to kill the mightiest warriors in Azeroth, and raise them as part of his undead army; so unlike other cases of this trope where the killer doesn't feel the victim is worth the time or effort to kill, he spends a lot of time and effort looking for the strongest warriors, and using challenges to make them as strong as possible before killing them.
    • During the Third War, the Burning Legion used the Scourge to eradicate any forces in the Eastern Kingdoms that might interfere with its invasion: namely, Lordaeron, Quel'thalas, and Dalaran. The rest of the human kingdoms were spared because they were too weak to be a threat to the Legion.
  • No Waterproofing in the Future: In Mechagon, the mobs at Junkwatt Depot will rust when it rains from a weather control device, slowing them and making them easier to kill.
  • No, You: During the Ardenweald world quest "Tough Crowd," if you incorrectly accuse an audience member of being a boggart, they will sometimes retort, "No, YOU'RE a boggart!"
  • Number of the Beast: The "Sigil of the Unseen" upgrade sold by Ve'nari in the Maw costs exactly 666 Stygia.

    O - On 
  • Obvious Rule Patch:
    • A fairly obscure item called the Luffa would remove any bleed effect. A boss over 20 levels later would put a hefty bleed dot on raid members at fairly regular intervals. Everyone would equip their Luffa and make Moroes a total joke. The next patch put a spell level cap on the Luffa: you couldn't remove bleed effects over level 60 anymore.
    • Other such items got similar treatments, essentially turning this into standard procedure. There are many such items in Mists of Pandaria that already state that they won't work on players above level 94...long before the next expansion was even announced.
    • Similar restrictions exist for item enchantments, both to limit abuse of high-level enchantments on low level items and to keep certain temporary effects out of later content rather than removing them completely.
    • An old patch for WoW allowed everyone in a group to place marks — graphical icons that go above monsters or players and are used to make them more visible or indicate a kill order for the group — instead of only the group's leader being able to do it. There followed an unofficial add-on which allowed players to automatically strobe the marks across the group members, rapidly swapping them around, much to the annoyance of many players. The very next patch added a notification of who was setting marks.
    • In July of 2009, a hunter was discovered with a worgen for a pet, and within a few hours the hunter community had figured out how and where to get this particular beast. Pretty much everyone who could obtain one had one. Within two days, the tamed worgen were patched to have all their skills and attacks completely removed, and after a few more days, they were replaced entirely by ordinary white wolves. This is only the case for the single Worgen, any "beast" that was not a beast (such as a slime or a hydra) was allowed to stay (Presumably, Blizzard's future plans to make Worgen playable would have made players keeping Worgen as pets dive too close to invokedUnfortunate Implications for their tastes).
    • There was a video posted on YouTube in 2007, where a paladin killed, in one move, Lord Kazzak, a raid boss designed for dozens of players to take several minutes to bring down. The Reckoning talent had the effect that when a paladin was struck they might gain a stack of Reckoning, causing their next attack to hit twice. One enterprising player dueled a rogue many times without ever striking back, then went up to the boss in question and proceeded to hit it more than a thousand times in one blow. Within twenty-four hours, the talent was nerfed so that it caused you to hit twice for the next few attacks. Of course, seeing as Reckoning was about the only ability in the entire game that possessed neither stack limit nor duration, this was only to be expected. note .
      • On the subject of Lord Kazzak, players looking to cause trouble could lure Kazzak all the way to Stormwind and watch as he proceeded to sack the city, wiping out NPCs and low level players left and right. Blizzard eventually responded by ensuring bosses like Kazzak would not leave their designated areas.
    • A similar flaw happened at the launch of Classic with the Shaman's Windfury Weapon. Windfury weapon gives a chance on a basic attack to duplicate that auto-attack twice more with boosted damage. The problem was when the game came out, Windfury Weapon could proc off of itself infinite times. It was very rare but not unheard of for a player to be one-shot by a PvP Shaman because Windfury procced twelve or fourteen times off a single swing. One of the first patches ever for the game included a hard limit on how many times Windfury could proc off itself, which only reduced it to unbelievably strong.
    • Before the Cataclysm expansion revamped most quests from vanilla WoW, there was a long Alliance quest chain in the zone of Ashenvale where the intermediate quests made use of an item called "Dartol's Rod of Transformation", which temporarily turned the player into a furbolg. The change was purely cosmetic, but the rod was usable anywhere in the world and had no use limit, so players often kept the rod and never turned in the quest, as it was more attractive than the actual quest rewards. In patch 3.0.2, the text "Only usable in Ashenvale" was added to its description, but the restriction was never actually implemented and it was still usable outside Ashenvale. Eventually, Blizzard gave up and removed the requirement to turn in the rod at the end of the quest, allowing players to complete the quest and still keep it indefinitely. The modern version of the quest chain, introduced in Cataclysm, uses another item called simply "Dartol's Rod", which is indeed only usable in Ashenvale. However, players who had the old rod before Cataclysm are allowed to keep it.
      • This change was later reverted, though some versions of the rod still have the requirement stated in the item description without being actually applied. Furthermore, Blizzard announced that in Warlords of Draenor, most such quest items can be kept after the questline.
    • Due to the way stats scale, a level 80 Paladin used some Mists of Pandaria drops to greatly increase his stats beyond what a level 90 in the same gear would have. Combined with Vengeance, which boosts attack power based on the strength of enemy attacks, he was able to solo several bosses in Mogu'shan Vaults, a level 90 raid. Blizzard quickly capped Vengeance so that it could not exceed the health of the user.
    • Early in the game's release, endgame PvP suffered from a problem where the damage a player did - suitable and balanced for PvE - was so high compared to their own health that certain classes could kill other endgame players outright in a single hit or two. PvP became a game of getting off that first devastatingly powerful nuke before the enemy could. This problem was addressed by adding Resilience to the game: A stat which existed for absolutely no purpose except to reduce the damage players take when facing enemy players.
      • Later on, PvP Power was added as an offensive stat, basically to counteract Resilience. In Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard eliminated both stats in favor of other tweaks to the basic damage calculations, but a special rule still exists to limit the amount of damage players deal with critical hits to other players.
      • PvP in general was subject to a lot of rule changes, especially when it comes to stun and crowd control effects. Those were fine in PvE, but for PvP most crowd control effects were nerfed significantly in a number of ways, some of which also applied in PvE. In addition, a trinket was added that allowed players to break out of such effects once every 2 minutes, which previously only the undead racial Will of the Forsaken ability could do.
    • In the Legion expansion, Gul'dan dropped a very specific trinket called the Draught of Souls which, for most classes, was a decent on use damage item with a fairly low cooldown. Arms warriors, however, had a plethora of skills to augment the damage of said trinket (some basically passive like the Colossal Smash debuff on the target, and 3 others with cooldowns that aligned almost perfectly with the Draught of Souls cooldown) to such an extent that it became basically indispensable for that class, 20-30% (!) of the overall damage being done with the trinket effect being pretty common. Which was not only a problem because it forced warriors to acquire that trinket and design their playstyle around it, but also because it was practically impossible to come up with a better trinket until the end of the expansion, while the trinket dropped in the middle of it. This led not only to an overhaul of the warrior's number-crunching (Colossal Smash got nerfed while a lot of other skills were buffed to compensate for this), but also to a 20% nerf for Draught of Souls exclusively for the Arms warrior.
    • For a long time, people who had quests in dungeons often would join a group to complete the quest then leave before the dungeon was finished. To combat this, Warlords of Draenor gave every dungeon quest from that expansion onwards the added requirement of killing the final boss of the dungeon (i.e. a quest to loot something from the first boss of Black Rook Hold will also require players to kill the final boss of Black Rook Hold) so groups wouldn't have to stand around waiting for a new party member to finish.
    • The Mage Tower Challenges in Legion were notorious for having a difficulty highly dependent on a player's class and specialization. Most notably, Destruction warlocks and Windwalker monks had to fight the same boss, but while warlocks were stuck using a subpar demon due to it having their only interrupt ability, monks had a sixty second long incapacitate with a 15-second cooldown, making that part of the fight a cakewalk. Blizzard would later Nerf the monk incap ability so it only lasted long enough to function as an interrupt.
    • Getting the hidden skin for the Havoc demon hunter's artifact required looting a special necklace that caused an NPC to kick them up to a massive felbat they had to kill. Many savvy players realized they could just glide from nearby Highmountain to reach the felbat and kill it that way without farming for the necklace. Once flying was introduced to the Broken Isles, the felbat was patched to be out of phase (and thus unattackable) for anyone who didn't have the necklace in their inventory.
    • Corrupted gear in patch 8.3 was designed to grant the wearer benefits at the risk of detrimental effects that worsen the higher their Corruption level is, until at 80+ Corruption they would have to deal with constant self-inflicted damage and snares on top of increased damage taken and decreased healing received. Some high-geared players learned to funnel pieces with Twilight Devastation (which deals damage that scales with the user's health) to their tanks until they had Corruption levels of over 200 and just use invincibility periods to bypass the penalties while the tanks did absurd amounts of damage. Rather than nerfing Twilight Devastation's damage, a hotfix in July 2020 added another penalty that caused players with 200+ Corruption to lose 25% of their health a second while in combat. However, the Corrupted gear system was retired in patch 9.0 a few months later, rendering the addition of this rule ultimately moot.
  • Odd Friendship: The Mag'har orcs from the alternate universe Draenor and the Bilgewater Cartel goblins. In Legion, after recruitment of the former, you can see a number of NPCs from both hanging out, notably one in the quests leading to Mechagon where a Mag'har engineer and Bilgewater engineer are collaborating on a project to make a ship for the Horde using the technologies of both. Another example being a female goblin who becomes obsessed with one of the Mag'har tribes, the Laughing Skull, and is wearing a Laughing Skull mask and embracing the Laughing Skull's destructive tendencies by... destroying things. For no reason, which is un-goblinlike (unless it belongs to the enemy, which in this case it does not, if they can't steal it for profits, or use it to reverse-engineer something).
  • Odd Name Out: The Venthyr Anima Conductor daily quest "Census of Sins" sends you to read the sinstones of several souls sent to Revendreth. The first six have long names and descriptions of how their sinful actions led to them being condemned. The last is simply named Devin, and his sinstone just says that "He meant well, but there were consequences."
  • Of Corsets Sexy: The Trial of the Champion leather chestpiece and its lookalike have this look on female characters.
  • Offing the Offspring: A quest in Nazmir has you meet the ghost of a girl who asks you to find her mother. When you do, it turns out her mother sacrificed the child to stave off her own death (or for the promise of immortality). When you slay the mother, Bwonsamdi casually remarks that it's just two more souls for him.
  • Offscreen Teleportation:
    • Because the game needs to respawn enemies for other players to kill/loot, it's extremely common to be ambushed from an enemy that you killed. This was especially prevalent in the release of Cataclysm, and in Silithus where the mob density is actually quite high.
    • And because the game is controlled by a server, it doesn't always wait for the "offscreen" part; at its most extreme, a new enemy can respawn the instant the first one is killed, right on top of the first one's corpse.
    • The Illidari NPCs in Azsuna are all characters involved in the demon hunter class hall. As such, if you're playing as one, the entire group will always happen to be present wherever they need to be at the moment. This is handwaved if you talk to Malevolence, who explains that she's using her portals to transport everyone back and forth as needed.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • The goblin captain and navigator of Trade Prince Gallywix's ship are arguing over who got them lost in a thick fog, but when they get out of the fog, they end up in the middle of an Alliance-Horde naval battle.
    • Deathwing when he sees Thrall aiming the Dragon Soul, Deathwing's weapon lost forever during the Well of Eternity, straight at him and taking a good chunk off of his back.
  • Oh, My Gods!: Several variants per race.
    • Humans: By the Light!
    • Night Elves: By Elune/the goddess!
    • Tauren: By the Earthmother.
    • Draenei: By the Naaru/the Light!
    • Trolls: By the spirits/Loa.
    • Orcs: By the ancestors.
    • Blood Elves: By the Sunwell/the Light!
    • The Forsaken invoke Sylvanas in a similar way, saying things like "Dark Lady watch over you."
    • Pandaren: By the Jade Serpent!
    • Void Elves: May the shadows guide you.
    • Humans of Kul Tiras: By the tides!
    • Nightborne: By the stars!
  • Oh, No... Not Again!: For Alliance players, killing the Forsaken just outside Greywatch will occasionally get the response "Oh... not this again."
    • In Eversong Woods, a local magister tasks the player with punishing two of his students by temporarily turning them into boars.
      Apprentice Ralen: [upon being turned into a boar] What? Oh, not this again!
  • Oh, Wait!: Tony Two-Tusk, a pirate captain that you kill, comes back as a very chatty spirit and haunts you until you take him to his ex-wife to resurrect him; he may come to this Heel Realization:
    Spirit of Tony Two-Tusk: They say I have a bad reputation as a pirate, but you don't see me sailing around indiscriminately killing people just to make a profit. Oh, wait...
  • Old-Fashioned Fruit Stomping:
    • In the Legion expansion, part of your infiltration into the Nightborne city of Suramar involves assisting in the making of arcwine, the drink Nightborne elves use to sustain their need for mana. The process includes getting into the vat and stomping the berries used to make it, along with adding ingredients as instructed. Later, this sequence becomes a repeatable World Quest.
    • In Battle For Azeroth, the questline to recruit the Vulpera into the Horde features a return to the Suramar vinyard, where production has been down. In this case the elf in charge isn't making good use of his resources, having the diminutive Goblins do the grape-stomping when the larger, heftier, bigger-footed Tauren are on hand to do the job.
  • Old Save Bonus:
    • In general, the highest-level gear from one expansion is better than the lowest-level gear from the next, giving those who raided, say, in Warlords of Draenor a bit of an edge over those who didn't going into Legion.
    • Buying an "heirloom" item lets any other character on your account freely create copies of it, allowing you to level up your alts much faster.
    • Going back a bit farther, the "Kirin Tor" faction from Wrath of the Lich King has also returned in Legion, and those who improved their reputation with them previously get discounts in Dalaran's new location above the Broken Isles.
  • Olympus Mons: Subdue the freaking Raven God and use him for a ride? What about one of Alexstrasza's handmaidens? One of several flavors of dragon that would sooner eat you than look at you? Birds made of living fire? The daughter of one of the four most revered Pandaren spirits? The mate of the snow leopard goddess who is one of the most coveted hunter pets? Take your pick, and more!
  • Omnicidal Maniac:
    • The goal of the Burning Legion is to unmake the universe.
    • Deathwing becomes this as a result of the Old Gods' corruption.
  • Once More, with Clarity: Playing both Alliance and Horde can result in this, given that in most places where there are separate Alliance and Horde quests both storylines are running at the same time.
  • Once Upon a Time: Lorewalker Cho uses this to introduce the "Blood in the Snow" scenario, and talks about a meeting between King Varian and the Council of Three Hammers, which happened only a few minutes ago. Many of the scenarios are implied to be him telling stories, during which time players might be transformed into a member of the opposing faction if they're not part of the faction featured in the scenario.
  • One-Gender Race:
    • The Mogu. Apparently, the Twin Consorts, the penultimate boss in Throne of Thunder, are, according to the Dungeon Journal, "the only known female Mogu in existence"note , and the developers comment that they are literally carved out of stone.
    • In-game, most minor races only have one gender represented, since Blizzard would have to make more art assets otherwise. This is fine for things like Arakkoa or Murlocs or Ethereals, but a bit odd in the case of mammalian races like the Tol'vir or the Ogresnote .
    • Harpies play it straight, with all known members of the species bearing invariably female secondary sex characteristics. Within the lore, it's rumored that they breed with captive males of other species in order to reproduce, but are also capable of Generation Xeroxing asexually.
  • One-Man Army:
    • In gameplay, every class ends up being this against normal world mobs once they reach max level and get geared out. Acknowledged in-game during a Mists of Pandaria daily quest. The quest giver sends you to fight some invading monsters, claiming that the only things around that could stop them are the local Physical God, and you.
    • In gameplay, the race leaders are this, being that they are powerful enemies with millions of health and it takes a lot of players to defeat them. In Lore, this is downplayed as although they are powerful, they can be easily overwhelmed by a larger number of enemies, or by surprise attacks.
  • One-Steve Limit:
    • Lampshaded by one shaman of the Earthen Ring who is worried that people are getting them confused with the druid group, the Cenarion Circle.
      Stormcaller Jalara: Many confuse the Earthen Ring with the Cenarion Circle. ...I TOLD Thrall we should name ourselves the "Earthen Square".
    • In Winterspring is a large owl the locals called "Deathwing", until they found out that name was taken, so now they call her "Hell-Hoot".
    • In Pandaria, you must kill a wolf called Cracklefang so that someone else can claim the name.
    • Monks heading to the Peak of Serenity for training will find two "Master Cheng"s, a Pandaren who tests you on Roll, and a Blood/High Elf who tests you on Paralysis. One of the Chengs will tell you that they're not related.
    • There are two antagonists with the name Hakkar: Hakkar the Houndmaster, a demon in The War of the Ancients who later appears as the Arc Villain of the Hunter Order Hall campaign, and Hakkar the Soulflayer, the troll god who appeared as the final boss of the original Zul'Gurub raid.
    • There are two hostile female tauren NPCs named Shara: there's Lieutenant Shara, the last enemy fought during the gauntlet before the encounter with Hagara the Stormbinder in Dragon Soul, and Shara Felbreath, a vignette mob in Highmountain.
  • One-Winged Angel: A few bosses transform mid-battle, whether by activating a special ability or as a second part to the battle. Deathwing is a particularly notable case, as his transformation means being fought as two separate boss battles with separate mechanics and loot tables, rather than phases of the same one.
  • Only Killable at Home: The cosmos of warcraft is home to many different planes of existence aside from the normal one. Beings either closely attuned to such a plane, or born from it/bound to it, are — aside a few exceptions that prove the rule — Barred from the Shadowlands, with their home plane pulling their soul back to it (or the Kyrian guiding it to it if it somehow doesn't get pulled) whereafter the body is reconstituted. If slain in their home plane, the plane simply absorbs the soul, making the being suffer Cessation of Existence.
    • The Legion expansion reveals that the demons of The Burning Legion, who normally reside in the Twisting Nether, have managed to redirect a Titan's power to ensure that the 'Demons can be permanently killed in the Twisting Nether' rule is nulled, meaning that as long as the Titan exists, the demons cannot be permanently killed anywhere.
  • Only One Female Mold: This has been a consistent complaint about character models. The alpha builds, while rough, often had the females look like counterparts to the males of their race, but when it came time for final builds (after receiving many complaints about them being ugly) it was like the developers threw up their hands and said "Screw it, let's make them Barbie dolls." The dwarf, gnome, and pandaren females actually avert this, however, with the first and last being rather thick and curvy, while the second is appropriately proportioned for such a short race. To a lesser extent, so do the tauren.
  • Only Sane Man: At various times, Thrall, Jaina, Tirion Fordring, Cairne, Varok Saurfang, or Anduin Wrynn.
    • As of Legion, two of these are deadnote , one is all but retirednote , and one has fallen off the deep endnote . Only Saurfang and Anduin are still in the game and more or less trying to keep things from getting worse.
      • Jaina is back in the game as of Battle for Azeroth, and is being joined by the main Horde leadersnote  as Sylvanas's actions are heading into the deep end instead.
  • Only Useful as Toilet Paper: A quest in Theramore has you trying to discredit some dissidents undermining Lady Proudmoore with "creatively edited" versions of their flyers. One of the reactions you can get handing them out is that it might be useful in the latrine.
  • Overhead Interaction Indicator: Quest givers have an exclamation mark above their heads, and NPCs where you finish a current quest have a question mark.

    Op - Ox 
  • Open Secret: The Southern Rocketway Terminus, home of the world-famous Secret Lab; they even give tours, when the lab's not on fire.
  • Optional Boss: Several, unlocked under varying conditions
    • Several dungeons have bosses unique to Heroic Mode.
    • Algalon the Observer in Ulduar, unlocked by doing the "hard mode" for the Assembly of Iron, then doing the "hard modes" for Hodir, Thorim, Freya, and Mimiron to get their sigils.
    • After defeating Lockmaw on Heroic in Lost City of the Tol'vir, Augh steals his loot and attacks. You must kill him before you are able to get the loot Lockmaw drops, although he is considered a separate encounter and you do not have to defeat Lockmaw again if you wipe on Augh.
    • Sinestra by completing the rest of the Bastion of Twilight on Heroic.
    • The Throne of Thunder raid has Ra-den, unlocked the same way Sinestra was.
    • The Highmaul raid has Cho'gall, who is fought as the last phase of Imperator Mar'gok's encounter on Mythic.
  • Orcus on His Throne:
    • Illidan in The Burning Crusade, who does practically nothing but wait for players to come kill him. This may again be explained by the fact that he's under siege by the forces of Kil'jaeden. Arthas also gives this impression during some Northrend events, however it is eventually revealed that instead of going out and attempting to kill you while you level, Arthas has merely been waiting for you to arrive so he can one-shot your entire raid and turn the most powerful heroes in all of Northrend into his Scourge minions in one masterful fait accompli. Too bad for him it doesn't work out.
    • Deathwing from Cataclysm doesn't count, as he's basically flying around the world causing trouble, and part of the end raid is about chasing him down.
    • Garrosh from Pandaria is a mix, as he is doing a lot during the leadup to the final raid, but once the story hits that point, he just sits there waiting for you.
  • Orwellian Retcon: Many NPCs, quests, and items that referenced former Blizzard employees Alex Afrasiabi, Jesse McCree, Luis Barriga, and Jonathan LeCraft were renamed following their termination and sexual harassment allegations against Activision Blizzard and subsidiaries in 2021.
  • Our Angels Are Different: The Naaru, which are basically extremely powerful and kind shards of light. And an alien race.
  • Our Demons Are Different: They're implied to be mostly asexual (with succubi being the one exception), and a lot of them used to be good. And they're all, relative to the main setting world, aliens.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: See the main trope page for more details on World of Warcraft's dragons.
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Played with in the Ironforge dwarves, subverted somewhat with the others.
  • Our Elves Are Different: With both Night Elves and Blood Elves, there's delicious blueberry and strawberry flavors!
    • Also included, if unplayable: High Elves, Felblood Elves, Wretched or Crack Elves, Nightborne (Who are now playable.), and all cross-breeds and mutations thereof. This is to say nothing of the fact that elves originated as mutated dark trolls and are thus connected to quite a few variations of that race as well.
    • The idea of them being haughty is heavily examined. For the night elves, the original haughty ones were the noble highborne caste, and in their arrogance eventually brought demons to the world. The rest of the night elves were more humble and down to earth, and fought to stop their brethren. The surviving highborne would split into many different groups who would continue to see themselves as superior to others in various ways. The high elves and nightborne would continue to be humbled and splintered, eventually leading to a bit of a redemption for both of them. The original non-highborne elves would eventually take on a bit of a superiority complex themselves after spending the next ten thousand years staying vigilant for the return of the demons, but mellowed back out after being shown the error of that direction the hard way.
    • In what is potentially a bit of reconstruction, their initial creation from the dark trolls is said to have legitimately made them smarter, bigger, and virtually immortal, being a byproduct of the energy from Azeroth's world-soul.
  • Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Reanimated from the remains of fallen warriors. Sometimes stitched together like Frankenstein.
  • Our Goblins Are Different: They like explosions, as well as steampunk tech and money. They have been known to be fascinated by rebuilding things, even when they don't even know what it does, at one point resulting in you taking an ill-fated ride on some sort of rocket.
  • Our Gnomes Are Weirder: They like engineering, and descend from clockwork creatures.
  • Our Hippocamps Are Different: Both hippocamps and seahorses appear as aquatic mounts. They're similar models, the most notable difference being that the hippocamps have front legs and seahorses do not. The hippocamps aren't called "hippocamps", but are known as tidestallions and deepseekers.
  • Our Humans Are Different: Humans are descended from giants by way of the Vrykul, their — comparatively — small progeny after the Curse of Flesh. The Curse further affected the Vrykul, giving them even smaller and fleshier — and in their view stunted and weak — children. Many of these were killed, but some were raised in secret and hidden away in another continent to live their own lives, where they became the progenitors of the human race. While otherwise fairly normal (by fantasy standards), World of Warcraft's humans are technically the smallest species of giant in the world, and technically closer kin to hill-sized beings of living stone than to the likes of elves and dwarves.
  • Our Hydras Are Different: Hydras appear as strong enemies and bosses, and are depicted as giant, three-headed and two-legged reptiles with fins running down their necks and backs. A distinct variant, with four legs, horns and multiple eyes per head, is found in Outland, primarily in the fungal swamplands of Zangarmarsh. Their ancestors are found in the alternate timeline Draenor, and although still horned and quadrupedal they lack the Outland hydras' more alien features. Four legendary Draenor hydras are explicitly named from Greek mythology — Keravnos, meaning "thunderbolt"; Lernaea, named after the Lernaean Swamp where the mythical Hydra laired; and Echidna and Typhon, named after the Hydra's monstrous parents.
  • Our Imps Are Different: The first demons that warlocks can summon are Imps. They're small, fragile, and whiny little things with long ears and goatlike horns that can only cast fireballs and make snarky jokes. They're replaced with other, more powerful demons as the Warlock levels up. They are however fairly effective for certain purposes, as they're the only demon with a ranged attack, and often continue to be used right up to the endgame.
  • Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: Hobart Grapplehammer was advised to disavow the Gilgoblins as his creations due to a negligence lawsuit brought against him.
  • Our Ogres Are Hungrier: ... and some of them sport two heads.
  • Our Orcs Are Different: They started out as the stereotypical evil ORC SMASH kind, but were retconned into being noble savages with a shamanistic-hunter-warrior culture.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: The Darkfallen, Blood Elves that Arthas turned after Kael's failed excursion with Illidan against Arthas, are vampires, though they seem to feed off of energy as much as blood.
    • Blood Death Knights are overt vampires by design. The visual of what their talent tree would actually mean in combat is nightmare fuel incarnate.
    • Also the Nathrezim, demons who follow some vampiric rules like having the ability to summon a swarm of bats or a "vampiric aura".
    • The Blood Elves could be seen as a sort of energy vampire, and the Wretched and Felblood Elves do drink demon blood.
    • Shadow priests have spells like Vampiric Touch and Embrace which qualify them as having psychic vampire abilities. Though they probably don't count since they can give up using them anytime they like.
    • The Venthyr of Revendreth are the closest to classical vampires that World of Warcraft has yet gotten, complete with Victorian-Gothic architecture, a serious aversion to light, a leader whose title is "Sire" (and then "Prince"), and in some cases Bela Lugosi's accent. When they harvest anima, it comes out blood-red. Of course they're also in charge of the last-ditch effort to save souls from the Maw...
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: The Worgen look like werewolves but their descriptions go some way to insisting they are not. They were originally Druids who liked becoming wolves. And with the Cataclysm expansion, you can be one.
  • Our Wyverns Are Different:
    • Wyverns have almost no draconic traits whatsoever — they look like lions with batlike wings and a scorpion-like tail (your encyclopedia of mythology would identify these as traits more befitting a manticore). They are apparently quite intelligent and used by the Horde as flying mounts.
    • Creatures with the usual body shape of wyverns were introduced in Wrath of the Lich King and named proto-dragons. They were among the original lifeforms that lived in Azeroth before the Titans came, and the Dragon Aspects were created from five of their kind. Unlike dragons, they are generally unintelligent beasts.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: And playable since the beginning.
  • Outside-Context Problem: In Battle for Azeroth, the players are sent to one of two of the islands the game takes place in, depending on their faction. This starting island houses a number of story quests to explain the context behind the dungeon levels and overall background of the island itself. After certain prerequisites are met, the player is sent to establish a foothold on the opposite island, but aside from the invasion plot, there's no story quests available for the invading player. Thus, while there's still narration for dungeon battles, the context for why the players are invading these dungeons is miniscule, so Alliance players will wonder what the big deal behind Yazma is while Horde players will see Lady Waycrest and Gorak Tul as a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere.
  • Overly Specific Afterlife: The Shadowlands, the afterlife of Warcraft are a near-infinite plane of existence with myriad domains. Souls are judged by the Arbiter based on how they influenced the living realm while they were alive and judge their destination. There are also specific afterlives ran by powers that influence the living world that people can be predetermined to enter such as the Holy Light or the Other Side.
  • Oxygen Meter: Players get a "Breath" meter when swimming underwater. It lasts 3 minutes for all races but the undead. Forsaken used to have 10 minutes on their breath meter; as of Warlords of Draenor, Forsaken need not breathe at all. Some spells or items give players a water breathing buff; in the case of Vashj'ir, a shaman gives players a permanent buff, but it only works in that zone.
  • Oxygenated Underwater Bubbles: Some areas have fissures which spew enough oxygen for your character to breathe underwater.

    Pa - Pe 
  • Pacifist Run: It is indeed possible to reach top level by doing only nonviolent activities such as mining and herbing. This can lead to the amusing situation of some random schmoe who collects herbs becoming as powerful as an Old God. There’s also some debate in the community as to whether it counts as pacifist to level by healing, as you get credit for your party’s kills.
  • Palette Swap: Comes up with mounts. Many mounts look like each other but with color differences. Understandable with horses, etc, but gets to be annoying when the rare drake drop you finally got is simply your other drakes with different color/marking.
  • Panthera Awesome: There are a lot of big cats in the Warcraft universe, nearly all of the of the sabretooth variety. Aside from the regular cat beasts like lions and tigers and leopards, there are more exotic felines like the spirit beast Loque'nahak and the White Tiger Celestial Xuen. There are even felinoid humanoids like the Tolvir and the Saberon of Draenor.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise:
    • One Death Knight quest involves you ambushing a Scarlet Crusade courier by hiding behind a small tree literally made of cardboard.
      Courier: Hrm, what a strange tree. I must investigate.
    • In Burning Steppes there's a quest where you infiltrate the enemy army wearing, essentially, a paper mask and no other disguise. And they give no sign, whatsoever, of being at all suspicious of you, even though your backside is completely obviously whatever race you are. Lampshaded when you turn in the quest to create said disguise: the person you turn in the quest to basically says "THIS is the disguise that guy came up with?! Well, it was nice knowing you, buddy." Which, of course, makes it that much funnier when it actually works. And subverted at points during a late quest, where some of the recruits will realize you're not what your mask appears to be.
    • And in Blasted Lands, there's a truly hilarious quest where you get past the enemy's miners disguised as a box. And every single one of the miners and foremen comments on the walking box, but not one bothers to look under it.
    • In the Goblin starting area, you hide among a tribe of pygmies by simply wearing one of their oversized helmets. Pygmies aren't too bright and as a goblin you really are about the right size, but you still essentially put on a hat as a disguise.
    • In Stonetalon Mountains, Alliance players are tasked with meeting a gnomish spy who has infiltrated a goblin oil-drilling facility. Her disguise? A flimsy goblin mask.
    • In Borean Tundra, a D.E.H.T.A. Druid became "king" of the Winterfin Murlocs by wearing a Murloc disguise suit. On closer inspection, you can see a zipper in the back. One murloc is not fooled, however, and he lets you know it right away, though he tolerates your presence because your actions are helping the Winterfin.
      • King Mrgl-Mrgl has become a recurring character in later expansions, giving out murloc-related world quests in Highmountain in Legion and follower experience quests in Nazjatar in Battle for Azeroth. Ankoan followers comment on him and even they can't tell exactly what's wrong about him (and free reminder, this is a plush suit that's twice the size of normal murlocs with one of its eyes falling out).
    • In Loch Modan, a very blatantly drunk dwarf makes a "costume" for you so you can sneak up on a diplomat and throw murloc pee on him. It basically consists of holding a potted plant in front of yourself. It is amazingly effective.
    • In the Horde into to Stormheim, the player is sent to kill two disguised SI:7 agents living among the local ravenbears. One is a night elf druid whose moonkin transformation lets her blend in seamlessly. The other is a human wearing shoulder pads and a headband with antlers.
    • In Highmountain there's a quest chain in an area inhabited by kobolds, who are hostile until you complete the quest that gives you one of their skull hats to wear. This works even for Tauren, who are roughly four times as tall as kobolds.
  • Parachute in a Tree: This is how one first arrives in Sholazar Basin.
  • The Paragon Always Rebels: Many charismatic leaders, either due to desperation or the influence of mind-altering magic, turn evil and take large numbers of their followers with them. Examples include:
    • Neltharion, a.k.a. Deathwing, was originally tasked to watch over the earth by the Titans and pursued this task happily. Exposure to the Old Gods drove him insane, corrupting the entire Black Dragonflight at the same time.
    • Sargeras was once the Titans' champion, but then he realized the universe he was trying to defend was beyond normal means of saving, in his eyes, and turned to more... radical methods.
    • Malygos came to believe that it was the use of magic by mortals which caused the world's problems and began a pogrom to eliminate them with most of his flight following.
    • Kael'thas' efforts to safeguard his people became increasingly extreme as time passed, and many of his people followed him even after he openly aligned with the Burning Legion.
    • Fandral Staghelm was never well-liked, but his eventual conversion to Ragnaros' service resulted in many disillusioned druids he had trained joining him.
    • Garrosh Hellscream exemplified everything the younger Orcs believed a warchief should be, but his drive to secure his people's place and well-being gradually transformed into a lust for conquest, supported by his "True Horde".
    • Arthas Menethil was not the King yet, but he was first in line for succession, and beloved by the people when he became obsessed with destroying the Scourge and eventually fell to Frostmourne's corruption.
  • Pass Through the Rings:
    • In Mists of Pandaria, one of the quests to get East Asian dragon-like flying mounts involves riding one through rings above the Jade Forest.
    • In Dragonflight, this is used by quests for the dragon riding skills (takeoff, high speed flight, gliding, acceleration etc), with the Dragon Isles being specifically designed for said skills. Also applies to the early quests for the Dracthyr/Evoker race/class itself, which has similar (if less developed, but usable outside the Dragon Isles) abilities.
  • Patchwork Map: Quite a bit of it, especially in Outland which is itself basically a Patchwork World.
  • Pelts of the Barbarian: The Lich King, who sits on the Frozen Throne, wears furry boots and fur-trimmed gauntlets as part of his Scary Impractical Armor.
  • Pendulum of Death: A common breed of trap found in Torghast, though without any victims strapped to a slab underneath it. The player, however, will take heavy damage and be knocked back if they touch one. To make matters worse, they are sometimes found in conjunction with lasers coming out of the floor.
  • Permanently Missable Content:
    • Many breadcrumb quests become unavailable if you go to the quest giver that breadcrumb quest would take you to before taking said quest. Luckily, said quests are typically not required for quest achievements, and usually only give a token amount of experience or gold.
    • Averted in some locations where the entire zone is changed drastically at a point over a player's progression; should this happen, Zidormi (a bronze dragon) is always available in the zone to allow the player to travel back in time to the point before the change and undertake low level quests in the area. As of writing (8.2) this includes the Dustwallow Marsh (changed for Mists of Pandaria), Blasted Lands (changed for Warlords of Draenor), Peak of Serenity (changed for Legion), Silithus (changed at the end of Legion), Teldrassil and Tirisfal Glades (changed at the start of Battle for Azeroth) and Darkshore and Arathi Highlands (also Battle, which are now both warfronts for max level players).
  • Perpetually Static: Started out pretty straight at the game's release, but each expansion has delivered additional ways for players to impact the game world.
    • Static examples:
      • The Horde and Alliance will always be at war or on the verge thereof, no matter what other conflicts arise and no matter how idiotic its leaders have to remain to enforce this.
      • Unless completely removed (or phased; see below for more on this), all major encounters, bosses, and dungeon enemies will respawn a certain time after being defeated, no matter how many times you've killed them before. You can still go and kill Onxyia in her lair, despite her being canonically dead in the main storyline and an undead version of her being an encounter in Blackwing Descent. Similarly, Ragnaros is still fightable in Molten Core, despite having been canonically summoned and defeated there, summoned and defeated yet again in Mount Hyjal, and being the end boss of the Firelands raid.
      • As if to rub it in, quests exist that can be repeated daily for progressive rewards, even if these focus on killing the exact same NPC you defeated the day before. There are multiple lampshadings of this, however, including the "Glop, Son of Glop" quest in Deepholm which functions on the conceit that the badguy you're killing today is the absolutely identical son of the previous one, ad infinitum; and a quest giver in Tol Barad Peninsula who remarks on how uncanny it is that he receives a new set of orders every day at exactly 3 AM (which is when daily quests reset).
    • Aversions or attempted aversions:
      • Holiday events come and go periodically, with their associated NPCs and buildings spawning for the duration, then disappearing once it's over.
      • Various one-time events have heralded the introduction of new content, particularly before each expansion, and also with some content patches like the War Effort pre-Ahn-Qiraj, the Scourge Invasion pre-Naxxramas (with an upgraded version pre-Wrath of the Lich King), the building of the Argent Tournament, and the retaking of the Isle of Quel'Danas. In many cases this results in permanently missable special rewards. In a counter-aversion, some of the NPCs related to these events are still around to accept any left-over tokens or quest turn-ins, even though the events are long gone, never to return.
      • Burning Crusade introduced world PvP objectives, where players could fight over zone-specific control points and earn their side a temporary buff. This fell out of popularity and was revisited in Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm in the form of entire zones dedicated to PvP, with battles fought every two hours for control of the zone and its associated quests/dungeons.
      • Wrath of the Lich King introduced a technique called "phasing" to the main quest lines, which allows zone features and NPCs to appear differently for players after they've passed certain quest milestones. One major use of this is in the Death Knight starting zone, which changes dramatically as you complete quests. For you, that is. That village you attacked may look conquered and on fire to you, but to a Death Knight who has yet to complete the attack quest, it's still full of Scarlet Crusade.
      • With the Cataclysm expansion, the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor have been completely redone thanks to Deathwing's emergence and subsequent rampage. Of course, this leaves the world in a Perpetually Static state of having just suffered this wave of destruction. Parodied by the repair crew trying to move a fallen statue outside Stormwind City, who cannot agree on how to move the statue, and the foreman tells you they'll probably be there "for a long, long time."
      • Cataclysm, however, vastly expands the phasing system. Players will start seeing the world change around them as a result of their actions by level 15 or so now, although the same caveat — other players see the zone as a result of their actions or lack thereof, not yours — still applies.
      • Several outdated quests have been removed from the game. Examples include the quests after the Angrathar the Wrathgate quest, which lead up to the Battle for the Undercity (which involve meeting with Thrall, who has since left the Horde to help the Earthen Ring in Cataclysm). The quests to save Princess Moira Bronzebeard from Thaurissan are no longer in the game, as she is now part of the Concil of Three Hammers, but still appears in the boss encounter with Thaurissan unless the players have done the quest to save her already, in which case a Dark Iron Priestess replaces her.
      • Thrall has members of the Kor'kron elite guard replace the abominations that used to guard the Undercity after the horrific consequences of Varimathras and Putress' betrayal at the Wrathgate to make sure nothing like that happens again, and because most of the abominations were killed when the Horde retook the city. The guards, referencing the events, express contempt and distrust for undead players and give words of caution to non-undead players when spoken to. They, however, are present for players who have not completed the Wrathgate quest chain yet, and if spoken to before then, say that they are here to guard the city because most of the troops are in Northrend.
      • As of patch 5.4, Siege of Orgrimmar, Garrosh's Kor'kron forces have most of the city on lockdown as they prepare for the siege in question. The troll sector of the city, in particular, is completely shut down, and several citizens or groups of people, such as Gamon and the Warlocks under the city, are being held at gun- or axe-point to quell dissidents. Meanwhile, a massive rebel army, led by Baine and Vol'jin, gathers in Razor Hill. However, this is mostly flavor. Questing and the overall functionality of the city itself remains undisturbed, no matter how many times people clear the titular raid.
  • Perpetual Storm: The Maelstrom between the continents. It was created in the backstory by the Great Sundering, where the Well of Eternity collapsed into itself, destroying nearly 80 percent of Kalimdor's landmass in the process.
  • Personal Effects Reveal: Improbably enough, this is done with the Lich King.
  • Perspective Flip: The "Beachhead" World Quests for the Tortollan Seekers involves protecting recently hatched turtles from predators like crabs and seagulls. Another set of World Quests called "The Cycle of Life" has players helping the hungry crabs hunt the turtles while dodging the unfair onslaught of other adventurers. Both are given by the same questgiver; she accepts that life can be cruel, but admits she has a bias towards the turtles.
  • Perspective Reversal:
    • King Varian and Lady Jaina. Previously, King Varian hated the Horde, and is one the main reasons the Alliance and Horde are at war now, while Jaina has been seeking peace between the two. As of Mists of Pandaria Varian has softened his approach, though he still fights the Horde as it is now led by the warmongering Garrosh Hellscream; Jaina took the brunt of the Horde offensive when Hellscream destroyed Theramore, and used Dalaran to sneak the Horde into Darnassus, causing Jaina to abandon her peaceful approach in favor of full war.
    • As of Battle for Azeroth, reconnecting with her estranged family is reversing her perspective once more, enough to agree with Thrall's suggestion that the war needs to end peacefully before things spiral even further out of control.
  • Pet the Dog: If you beat Tragic Monster Deathbringer Saurfang as an Alliance race, Varian gets one when he orders Muradin to stand aside to let his father collect his body.

    Pi - Po 
  • Pink Elephants: Invoked with the Pink Elekks, the Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm companion pet obtained in Brewfest. There's also a quest in which you have to get drunk or use Synthebrew goggles, then use an Elekk Dispersion Ray outside some of your faction's cities to kill some Elekks.
  • Pirates: The "Booty" in Booty Bay refers to pirate booty, not the other kind. There's even a quest where players become pirates, and kill Ninjas.
    • There's also a commonly available food that will turn you randomly into one or the other, as well as costume wands given out around Hallow's End that let you turn other people into them.
    • Freehold in Kul Tiras is another example of a pirate town.
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Hemet Nesingwary, a supposedly legendary big game hunter, is never actually seen hunting said big game and sends the player to do all his dirty work.
  • Place Beyond Time: On the Timeless Isle, an island that randomly disappears and reappears, time stands still. No matter what time it is outside, it is always just before sundown there. Both Wrathion and the Bronze Dragonflight take a keen interest in the place.
  • Plague Doctor: Grand Apothecary Putress wears a mask inspired by the beak mask and is a plague-spreader. Warlocks have a similar armor set from Ulduar; they, however, being demonic mages, have nothing to do with plague. Other sets with this theme include the Horde cloth set from the Darkshore warfront and the cloth set from the Castle Nathria raid.
  • Plaguemaster: The Forsaken of the Royal Apothecary Society, who as of Wrath of the Lich King have brewed a plague capable of destroying both the living and undead.
    • Death Knights are the only player class capable of casting diseases and the Unholy talent tree grants numerous bonuses to them.
    • Professor Putricide in Icecrown Citadel boasts of creating a plague that can destroy all life on Azeroth, and attacks the raid with a variety of chemical and biological weapons, including transforming himself into a tentacled monster.
  • Planet of Steves: Mentioned under Laser-Guided Amnesia, the inhabitants of the Temple of Akunda in Vol'dun have all named themselves some variant of "Akunda the [adjective]" in honor of their loa, and the player has to do the same in order to enter the temple proper. When their memories are restored, they go back to using their real names.
  • Pocket Dimension: This is functionally what instances are. A portal takes players to an area that is cut off from the rest of the gameworld, though thematically they are still in the same world that everyone else is in. This is most apparent with the outdoor instances like Shadowfang Keep or Zul'Gurub, players can fly over these areas and find very little there until they go through the portal and find the places crawling with ghosts and trolls.
    • The Firelands area is next to the Molten Front, and players in MF can get a quest to fly over FL and bomb the enemies there; on occasion, they may see a "raid group" at the start of the "instance", who can also be bombed.
    • Mists of Pandaria breaks instances out of this by making the dungeon present in the world, to scale, and inside features outside segments to remind players where they are.
    • Scenarios often take place outdoors, and many of those scenarios take place in locations where players have been before. For example, the Fall of Theramore scenario takes place in a ruined Theramore, and after completing the scenario, the world is updated accordingly to show it in ruins. Players can sometimes shift certain areas back and forth by talking to Zidormi, one of the Keepers of time, who is nearby the altered area.
  • Pokémon Speak:
    • Golgoss in Townlong Steppes.
    • Rottgut in the death knight order hall campaign.
  • Poke the Poodle:
    • By the Undercity Champion at the Argent Tourney during 'confession.'
      Champion: I punched a penguin on my way in here.
    • While he may suck at being evil, the Champion does go into confessionnote  just to tell the priestess that he punched a penguin. Not to apologize.
  • Politically Incorrect Hero: Alleria and Vereesa Windrunner. Both of the Fantastic Racism variety.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Probably the main reason why the Alliance and the Horde are at war now. Of course, there are many renegade groups within both factions who want just that to happen. The novels and the comics make that especially obvious.
    • The reason tensions flared for Legion - King Varian dies as a result of Sylvanas sounding the retreat for the Horde. Genn Greymane has no idea why she did so, suspecting it was a case of Divide and Conquer, while those on the Horde side know that it's because they were being overwhelmed by the Burning Legion even as the Alliance was pressing the attack on Gul'dan. The Horde even realizes that the Alliance is going to horribly misinterpret their actions once they get home, but apparently didn't consider clearing things up. This, despite the myriad ways a message can be delivered in the Warcraft universe, or the characters who could have done it personally without risking being killed on sight.
    • Legion reveals that in Burning Crusade, Illidan was working on a plot to open a portal to the Burning Legion's headquarters and wipe them out once and for all. However, he never bothered to tell the good guys, so when we found out about some of the horrible things he did to get that plan to work, we assumed he was just evil and killed him, falling for Kil'jaeden's gambit to get anyone who knew about the plan out of the way.
  • Porn Stash:
    • While Reshad is rummaging through Syth's collection of old scrolls, Percy finds some of his "erotic sorcery-fiction", including a book titled Fifty Layers of Shadow.
      Reshad: Percy, what's that you've got there? Come now, let's see it... Fifty Layers of Shadow?! PERCIVAL, YOU PUT THAT BACK THIS INSTANT. Nasty bird...
    • A quest in Swamp of Sorrows requires you to recover stolen supplies from Goblin thieves, including a "stack of questionable publications".
  • Portal Network: A fairly extensive one has slowly grown up over the years, allowing rapid travel around the game world. Typically, each expansion has a "capital city" with portals to all the main cities such as Stormwind and Orgrimmar, as well as the previous capitals. Stormwind and Orgrimmar also have portals to the major areas from Cataclysm, and all cities have portals going to the original Burning Crusade version of Hellfire Peninsula. In Legion, the updated Dalaran now has two portal areas - one with portals to all the original cities, along with the Pandaria capital, and one that has portals to plot-important areas, such as Wyrmrest Temple, Karazhan, the Caverns of time, Shattrath, and even the original Dalaran site. About the only place you can't get to is the original Northrend!Dalaran, which you shouldn't be able to anyway for storytelling reasonsnote .
    • As of Battle for Azeroth, both Stormwind and Orgrimmar have purpose-built portal hubs to facilitate transport between the various expansion worlds. However, it's not quite as good as the original setup (among other things, the Mists portal brings you to the Jade Forest on the east side of the continent, rather than the capital in the center). Also, the secondary portals from Dalaran have been shut down without being replicated in the Portal room, greatly reducing your travel optionsnote .
    • Said portal rooms do include portals to Northrend!Dalaran, with no in-game explanation ever given.
  • Portal Statue Pairs: The Dark Portal connecting the worlds of Azeroth and Draenor is flanked by reliefs of two hooded, looming figures, holding swords planted tip-first into the ground. (Who or what they represent never gets mentioned.)
  • Portmanteau: In Stormheim, there are pirate vampires. When Vydhar sends you to deal with them he tries to figure out what to call them.
    Vydhar: Dreygrot is infested with pirate... vampires... pira-vamp... vampirates? GRAH! Just go slay them.
  • Possessing a Dead Body: In Battle for Azeroth's Xal'atath storyline, when you liberate her from her blade, she possesses the body of the void-crazed high elf you just killed, taking on the appearance of a void elf.
  • Potty Failure: Silverpine's orc sea dogs when intoxicated.
    Orc Sea Dog: I may or may not have pissed myself!
  • Powder Trail: Master Boom Boom, a Hozen fighter at the Temple of the White Tiger has an attack where he sets and lights four powder trails in an "X" pattern, with a large explosive cache in the center. Players can stop the attack by running to each of the trails and stomping them out.
  • Power Copying:
    • The death knight spell Dark Simulacrum allows them to copy the next spell their target casts and fire it as their own.
    • Hex Lord Malacrass can use an ability on players that grants him a few abilities from their class. For example, if he targets a Druid, he can cast Moonfire on his enemies or heal himself.
    • Druids previously had the ability "Symbiosis", which gave them one ability from the target class that would be good for their spec, and gave the target one of the Druid's spells in return. The usefulness of that spell, however, varied widely. For instance, a Rogue received Growl - a taunt skill. The skill gained was too often either Awesome, but Impractical or Boring, but Practical, but very rarely in the sweet spot between the two, and that led Symbiosis to the chopping block in patch 6.0.
    • A rarely found item gives non-Druids the ability to use the spell that Symbiosis confers on them, even without a Druid around, but only in Pandaria.
    • Many talents that have been added to the game as levels increase are abilities used by bosses, suggesting that the explorers have spent time learning how to emulate what they can from a given encounter.
    • During the Paragons of the Klaxxi encounter, a raid member can click on a fallen Paragon to obtain an ability based on them and their title, their choice of which Paragons they can copy depending on their chosen role. The title isn't permanent, but you can keep it for up to an hour.
  • The Power of Hate: Alizabal, Mistress of Hate is the third boss in Baradin Hold. She once used her powers to incite her guards into a murderous rage, she uses the word "hate" in everything she says, and one of her special attacks is called "Seething Hate".
    • About halfway through the battle with Ishi at the end of the Operation Shieldwall/Dominance Offensive questline, he, corrupted by the sha, decides to give in to hatred and brutally kill his enemies, but Garrosh tells him to control his emotions.
    • In the Corrupted Taran Zhu encounter in Shado-Pan Monastery, if the players' Hatred bar fills, they receive a significant boost to their damage, but their hit is reduced to the point at which they are almost completely ineffective, and they must meditate for a few seconds in order to fight normally again. There is an achievement for defeating the boss while all players have maximum Hatred, but it's difficult to do unless the players wait until he has only a small amount of his health left before maximizing their hatred.
  • Power Creep: Inevitable in a game as old as this, though it becomes fairly jarring at times given the huge boost of power granted by each new expansion. It's quite the sight to see a lone level-capped adventurer storming Icecrown Citadel, effortlessly carving a swath through the Lich King's forces, and then bringing him to the brink of death single-handedly. Only a scripted event prevents the player from completely demolishing the former leader of the scourge. This was dealt with in 6.0 because stats were well on their way to overflowing the variables assigned to hold them. And thus the Squish - a universal reduction of player and enemy stats.
    • Even in Classic, this happened with the Trinket equipment slot. Trinkets were, for the most part, varied in their use. Some would give you a temporary Status Buff, some would do things like summon ghostly allies to deal Scratch Damage or cherry tap enemies for you. Some would just do things like, when activated, make people around you dance or make your mount move 3% faster. Sure enough, people preferred the ones that would temporarily buff your character or increased your stats. Throwing a boomerang that could do an extra hundred or so damage was nice, but why bother to carry that around when you could pop a cooldown that boosts your spell power for a few seconds? Many of these were moved to the "toy" tab.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: Mogu magics are explicitly said to be powered by fear. Fear of the Mantid, fear of them, fear of being put into a statue ect. ect. This fear was what made their empire so powerful, but when the first Monk had too much and showed off his training by killing an abusive taskmaster, the Pandaren realized they could fight back, depriving their foes of their magic in doing so, and the Mogu empire fell not long after.
  • The Power of Rock: As an April Fools gag, Blizzard stated that there was a bard hero class for the Expansion Pack that utilized Guitar Hero-style controls and abilities such as "Epic Jam", "Shoegazer" and "Nonconformity". Don't forget their epic axe, "The Facemelter", with the chance on hit to "blow your target's mind".
  • Power-Up Food: Eating food restores your health and provides a buff to statistics. Raids generally have a designated person who brings a feast that gives everyone who eats it a buff that most benefits their class, and it is generally required that everyone eats from it before pulling a boss.
  • Power-Up Mount: Mounts can double your ground speed or let you fly at even higher speeds, but you have to dismount to do almost anything else. Several mounts have special abilities unique to them. Some of them are: A) "Sidecar" slots to carry a passenger. B) Mounts that carry vendors, allowing you to stay in the field longer. C) Water walking - while some classes like Shamans & Death Knights could do this as a spell/ability, with the right mount anyone could do it. D) there are a couple of mounts that increase swim speed, though not that much. One of the BFA patches added "Mount Equipment" that can be added to any mount to add abilities like speed increases or water walking, and some temporary mount buffs that allow gathering while mounted.

    Pr - Py 
  • Practical Taunt: Every tank spec has a taunt, which boosts the tank's threat level to that of their target's current target and forces the target to attack them for a few seconds no matter what.
  • Pre-Battle Banter: During the trailer cinematic for the final big patch in Mists Of Pandaria, Garrosh Hellscream, the rampant Warchief of the Horde who had become a power-hungry warmonger without Thrall to keep him in check, and Taran Zhu, the leader of the Shado-Pan - a Pandaren defense force tasked with combating the Sha - get in a great round of this before they come to blows, the latter even getting in some Punctuated! For! Emphasis! for good measure.
    Taran Zhu: ENOUGH! You have run rampant for far too long, Hellscream. But that. Stops. Now.
    Garrosh: [laughs] Step aside, Pandaren! You confront a force beyond reckoning.
    Taran Zhu: Your father dabbled in powers "beyond reckoning". Where is he now?
  • Precision F-Strike: Garrosh called Dark Lady Sylvanas a bitch in post-Cataclysm Silverpine Forest after she openly showed him that she was raising the dead and flippantly responded when called on her becoming like the Lich King.
  • Precursors: The Titans.
  • Predators Are Mean: Strangely, predator mobs will run to attack players, critters, and some NPCs, but don't eat them at all. Even a few of these who have been tamed by hunters will attack critters when they're not on hostile.
  • Prehistoria: The Un'Goro Crater and Sholazar Basin zones.
  • Press X to Die:
    • A few instances. It's possible to dismount in midair, potentially falling to your death. Attacking Chimaeron without talking to Finkle Einhorn, thereby getting a buff that enables you to avoid being one-shotted at above 10,000 HP will lead to the battle becoming Unwinnable.
    • One of the items dropped from a rare mob on the Isle of Thunder is a haunted sacrificial dagger. Using it will cause your character to plunge it into their chest, killing them instantly.
    • Post-Cataclysm, the Cape of Stranglethorn has an area with an enormous whirlpool. Falling in kills you instantly, but you may be tempted to jump in because there's a similar area in Darkshore that actually takes you somewhere.
    • The original version of the Shadow priest talent Surrender to Madness. Pointed out in a disclaimer in the spell's description:
      All your Insanity-generating abilities generate 100% more Insanity, and you can cast while moving, until you exit Voidform.

      Then you die. Horribly.
      • The Shadowlands version is similar, except you're given 25 seconds to kill your target before you die instead.
    • If you use an ability or item to glide then cancel it mid-flight, you'll plummet to the ground faster than normal and die unless you use an ability to negate the damage (Warriors have Heroic Leap, mages have Slow Fall, druids and monks can activate Flight Form and Zen Flight in midair, etc.).
    • On Argus, attempting to enter Antorus through the front entrance (assuming you can even get past the elites guarding it) will cause the lava to shoot out fireballs that will deal massive damage to you regardless of level, hence the entrance to the actual raid being a hole in the side of the vicinity.
  • Pretty Boy:
    • Blood Elves, such as Kael'thas Sunstrider (who wasn't quite so pretty the second time). And how! One of the silly lines for playable Blood Elves is "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
    • Also applies to the High Elves, who are a separate political faction of the same race; what minor differences exist between the two are based on their different approaches to satisfying their magic addiction.
    • Lampshaded aboard one of the ships traversing the Great Sea. One of the female sailors complains that the male high elf first mate is prettier than her.
    • Humans are not a popular race if we talk about handsome guys. The human male character has a tough look in his body and face, even if you choose to play a non-Strength based class, like magic users or Agility based classes like Rogues or Hunters. Always. But then, you enter the Arathi Basin battleground and the loading screen shows us this guy to the left who looks like he escaped from a Manga! Some players wish humans could look like him, really!
  • Pride: The seventh Sha is the Sha of Pride. It is more dangerous than the others combined, and is the only Sha Emperor Shaohao could not defeat, as he was a victim of pride. Emperor Shaohao tells players that the mists around Pandaria were caused by his own sense of pride, and it dissipated because he finally realized that the Pandaren needed help; and drops a none-too-subtle hint that pride is what's keeping the Alliance and Horde at war.
  • Prison Rape: Millhouse Manastrom learned one thing in prison, actually two if you count how to hold your soap.
  • Private Tutor: One questline in Duskwood involves unraveling the mystery about Stalvan Mistmantle, a former schoolmaster hired as a tutor by a wealthy family for their two children. As he instructs them, he becomes infatuated with Tilloa, the beautiful elder daughter, until she appears one day in company of a suitor, which leads to tragic results.
  • Produce Pelting: Upon completing their introduction quest line, Death Knights have to go to their respective faction's capital city (Orgrimmar/Stormwind) and get pelted with rotten vegetables and fruits on the way to meet the faction leader, because to the population they belong to the genocidal Scourge. It calms down once things are sorted out with the faction leader.
  • Promoted to Playable: All of the races that were introduced in expansions, with said races' origins dating back to either the original Warcraft games and lore or earlier in World of Warcraft.
    • Blood Elves and Draenei appeared in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne in 2003 and were introduced in The Burning Crusade in 2007 (though only in the form of the Lost Ones for the Draenei in 2003, their appearance was changed, plus 2002's Reign of Chaos had the Eredar in the form of Archimonde).
    • Goblins (dating back to 2002's Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos) and Worgen (the original 'World of Warcraft', 2004) became playable with new skins in Cataclysm in 2010.
    • Pandaren (first appeared in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne) became playable in 2012 with Mists of Pandaria.
    • As for classes, Death Knights (Warcraft II for the original ones, Warcraft III for the Scourge ones) became playable in 2008 with Wrath of the Lich King and Demon Hunters (Warcraft III) became playable with the Legion pre-patch in 2016.
  • Prongs of Poseidon: Immerseus drops a Trident of Corrupted Waters, a weapon for DPS who use Agility.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: Orcs most obviously, Tauren to a lesser extent. Vrykul are something of a deconstruction, playing it dead straight to the point of being a bunch of brutal murderers.
  • Pseudo-Santa: Greatfather Winter, who presides over the Feast of Winter Veil. A dwarf for the Alliance, an orc for the Horde.
  • Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Shadow Priests + Mind Control + a tall cliff = amusing easy kill.
    • While some bosses use Mind Control to force players to attack their fellow raid members, a few use it to force players to commit suicide, such as Nefarian in Blackwing Descent, Kaz'tik the Manipulator in Siege of Orgrimmar, and the Jailer in the Sepulchur of the First Ones.
  • Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: As a Stage Magician, the Great Akazamzarak pulls rabbits out of his hats as part of his act; but as he's an actual mage, the rabbits are living in a small pocket dimension inside his hat. At one point, a wolf finds its way inside the hat, so he asks players (mages only) to go in and save his rabbits. The quest ends with Akazamzarak pulling the player out of his hat.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
    • Cataclysm expansion, Twilight Highlands. The quest is entitled "Madness," and you're to accompany a Horde negotiator to the leader of the Dragonmaw clan of Orcs. Along the way, he questions "Hey, does this Red Shirt make me look expendable?" along with invoking retirony. And worse, at the end of the negotiations, he exclaims that "This is madness!" A Sparta kick into the flames behind him accompanies the following-
      Warchief Mor'ghor says: This is.....
      Warchief Mor'ghor yells: DRAGONMAW!!
    • Also:
      Garrosh Hellscream: YOU ARE DISMISSED!
    • Egregious example:
      Garrosh Hellscream: GET!
      Garrosh Hellscream: OFF!
      Garrosh Hellscream: MY!
      Garrosh Hellscream: SHIP!
    • Earthbreaker Dolomite, an NPC in Deepholm, also occasionally yells "This is Stonehearth!"
    • General Husam in the Lost City of the Tol'vir:
      Husam: [combat starts] Invaders! You. Shall. Go. No. Further!
      Husam: [on dying] Siamat must not go free. Turn back. Before. It is. Too. Late.
    • The Dragon Soul raid, the final Deathwing fight: "I. AM. THE CATACLYSM!"
    • Algalon the Observer, post-defeat.
      Algalon: I. Have. Felt. NOTHING.
  • Pungeon Master: Durumu the Forgotten, a floating demon with a large eye, likes to make references to eyes and looking.
    Durumu: I'm keeping an eye on you ...
  • Punished for Sympathy: Part of paladin Highlord Tirion Fordring's backstory. Not long after the second war against the orcs, Tirion has his life saved by one, Eitrigg. When Eitrigg is captured Tirion tries to save his life and return the favor, only to be ostracized, declared a traitor, and exiled.
  • Puppeteer Parasite: Merciless Ones, squid-like servants of the Old Gods, have this as their schtick. You get to see them do this firsthand when you fight one as a boss in the Throne of the Tides. Later in Suramar, you can see them controlling some captive vrykul, then they're found infesting settlements in Tiragarde Sound and Stormsong Valley.
  • Pure Is Not Good: Garrosh Hellscream. 'Uncorrupted' Orc who despises the use of demonic powers and fiercely adhered to Honor Before Reason. Still a massive asshole. His faction leader story hints that his sense of entitlement, and lack of empathy for the other races or the Horde, is related to the fact that he, unlike Thrall and other Orcs, never understood what it's like to be The Atoner.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: As they say it themselves, "The gender of your character is purely a cosmetic feature and has no impact on that character's abilities or statistics."
  • Purgatory and Limbo: Revendreth is a gothic-themed purgatory in the Shadowlands, where "flawed" souls are being tortured so that they can then atone for their sins and then move on to other realms in the Shadowlands.
  • Purposely Overpowered: Heirloom gear is Bound on Account, can be sent cross-faction, never needs to be repaired, gives you experience bonuses, levels up as you do and is always comparable to dungeon-quality equipment for your level. Needless to say, having heirloom gear in every available slot will make your character tear through lower level content. The thing is, the only way to get heirlooms is to already have a max-level character who's done a bunch of the endgame content. Their purpose is to let new characters of an already experienced player zoom through the low-level stuff as quickly as possible.
    • If you manage to defeat Garrosh Hellscream, you have a chance at getting some very powerful bind on account gear.
    • Legendary weapons. While not so game breakingly powerful that you can curbstomp anything you come across with them, the amount of time and effort you put into getting them pays off significantly with higher stats than you'd find on any equivalent item of that raid tier. Each weapon usually also has a special passive effect that adds to its already amazing strength. In Mists of Pandaria, as a result of the legendary questline, you can equip a legendary cloak and a legendary meta gem in your helmet, both of which have good stats and powerful abilities, and can also add a Sha-touched gem or extra gem slot to certain weapons.
    • Death Knights were very strong compared to other classes on the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, especially in their starting zone, and right after it as well. It was not unusual at launch to see a group of five DK's successfully going through the first few on-level BC dungeons.
  • Pushy Mooks: Some enemies, especially elites have this quality. This is both dangerous and frustrating - not only can they push you into a chasm but some of them hit hard enough to send you flying out of their aggro range, causing them to reset to full health.
  • Put on a Bus: Gnomes return after a long absence, while dark trolls disappear off the face of Azeroth.
    • Turalyon and Alleria Windrunner. Originally the pair were supposed to appear in The Burning Crusade expansion, but two expansions later they have yet to make an appearance. Despite their son wandering around Honor Hold having visions of Turalyon's apparent death, Word of God says the pair are "stuck in a portal world"... though, come Legion, they've made quite the comeback.
  • Pyrrhic Victory:
    • Silverpine Forest in Cataclysm. The Alliance forces retreat to Gilneas, but have otherwise suffered fairly small losses. The Forsaken, on the other hand, have been severely weakened; their forces have been devastated by Worgen raiding parties, a group of newly raised Forsaken rebel and seize control of Shadowfang Keep, and Sylvanas is given a harsh reminder of her own mortality.
    • In Mists of Pandaria, in the Dread Wastes the Klaxxi are ultimately able to kill the corrupted Empress of the Mantid with the help of the player characters, ending the Swarm. But large portions of the the Dread Wastes are permanently damaged and life-giving Kypari trees are killed from the Sha corruption, and most of the Klaxxi High Council and one of their ten Paragons die in the process.
    • Varian says this would be the result if the Alliance decided to dismantle the Horde after Garrosh's defeat; they would likely succeed, but there would be many, many casualties in the process.
    • The end result of the Battle of Dazar'Alor ends up being this for the Alliance. They succeed in their goal of greatly crippling the Golden Armada, the major reason the Horde wanted to align with them, and end up killing King Rastakhan. However, in the process Jaina is injured and forced to retreat with what forces she can, Mekkatorque is fatally wounded and seals himself in a cryogenic stasis to survive, which the gnomes have no idea how to fix, and the Alliance leaders greatly regret Rastakhan's death, as they hoped he could have been reasoned with or surrendered instead of fighting to the death. Killing Rastakhan also has the side effect of putting the Pro-Horde and revenge-wanting Talanji as Queen, whose first action after her coronation is to have the empire officially join the Horde instead of simply being allies. Finally, while the Horde is now so far on the back foot that the Alliance could easily run them over and finish the war once and for all, Anduin abstains from this, finding the idea too close to being the Hope Crusher that Sylvanas has proclaimed herself as being, and refuses to sink to her level.
    • Two of Sylvanas' most one sided victories are largely empty: In Stormheim she easily handles Genn Greymane, but loses an artifact she worked hard to obtain and fails to enslave a val'kyr demigod. Later, at the conclusion of the war campaign, she kills Saurfang in a duel but in the process ends up alienating the majority of her followers, who generally believed in her propaganda. Even some of her trusted Dark Rangers defected.

    Q - Ra 
  • Quicksand Sucks:
    • Sul the Sandcrawler, part of the Council of Elders in the Throne of Thunder, can create pools of quicksand that will slow and trap players in place, as well as dealing damage so that anyone caught in one will eventually die. Because the quicksand doesn't fade after time, he casts it every 30 seconds, and when he uses his special move, each puddle turns into an add while the surviving adds are healed and strengthened. Many groups taking on the Council will kill Sul first.
    • Farraki Wastewalkers in the Horridon encounter have a similar move to Sul's called Sand Trap.
  • The Quisling:
  • Rabble Rouser: During the coronation to crown Talanji queen of the Zandalari, a riot breaks out and the Horde Champion is tasked with dealing with the instigator of the riot, Enforcer Malzon.
  • Ragdoll Physics: Some of the player characters' death animations can be considered this.
  • Rage Breaking Point:
    • Many creatures and bosses have an Enrage mechanic. Particularly raid bosses have an Enrage timer, as a mechanic to stop raid groups from spending far longer than necessary to kill them. Should the timer expire the boss gains attack buffs and a wipe soon follows.
    • Some friendly NPCs hit the Rage Breaking Point as a result of Stop Poking Me!.
  • Raiders of the Lost Parody: About half of Uldum consists of helping "Harrison Jones" find a magic relic in an ancient temple and fight Nazi goblins. He also shows up to give out dailes in the Garrison, with the same sort of theme.
  • Railroading: Most of the game is fairly open, allowing players a choice on where to go and which questlines they want to do, but Cataclysm got a bad case of this. First the Goblin and Worgen starting zones are cut off from the rest of the game world, and only by following the very linear story to its end can players join the rest of the open world. Then the newly added high-end zones each had a linear storyline running from beginning to end; Deepholm and Uldum had some choice, but that choice was limited to "which of two linear questlines do you do first?"
    • Aside from the starting zones, Legion introduced content scaling so enemies and quest rewards level up along with the player, allowing them to play sets of zones in any order, partially averting this trope.
    • Content scaling was then added to the main Azeroth zones, so you didn't have to abandon a questline once you levelled out of it, and could quest pretty much anywhere and be the right level.
  • Rainbow Pimp Gear: Often, especially while in Burning Crusade, the most statistically viable piece of gear for a certain slot doesn't match the other pieces you have on. The former page image for the trope, in fact, was from this Penny Arcade comic making fun of the way most cloth-wearing casters actually ended up looking like in Hellfire Peninsula. Of course, if you have gold to burn, the Transmogrification merchants can make a piece of gear resemble any that you've collected, making it look like it matches, at least.
  • Ramming Always Works: The Emerald Dream zone of Dragonflight has a world quest where the drake-riding player simply has to ram 15 enemy proto-drakes in the air.
  • Random Drop:
    • This seems to have been majorly overhauled since Cataclysm, if logic dictates they should always drop the item you're after, it will usually be a 100% drop rate, if not, they may drop grey items that are damaged versions of what you're after. You still find Zhevra that apparently lack legs and some birds don't always drop feathers, but it's not so frequent now.
    • Makes an unfortunate return in Mists of Pandaria, which features tigers that apparently have no blood, gazelles that have no meat, eels that have no heads and bugs without legs.
  • Randomly Generated Levels: Torghast is the Jailer's tower where he keeps his most desirable possessions, namely the most powerful souls he has captured. The justification for the randomness is that the Jailer himself frequenty reshuffles the rooms.
  • Random Transportation: The item "Scroll of Recall" could potentially have this effect. Normally it acts similar to a Hearthstone, sending you back to a previously set home point. If your level is too high for that particular level of scroll, however, the effect becomes more random.
  • Ranged Emergency Weapon:
    • All ranged weapons, for all classes except Hunters. Their most common use is initiating battle from a distance in order to lure mobs to a more favorable position, although some abilities, such as Death Grip and Heroic Throw, have similar effects. For casters, wands are a backup weapon for when they run low on mana.
    • Mists of Pandaria did away with the ranged weapon slot, instead having all ranged weapons equip to the regular weapon slots or done away with entirely in the case of throwing weapons. Rogues, who relied on the latter the most, instead received an ability to throw daggers when needed.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking:
    • While the Alliance leaders have both authority and badassery, one is rarely the result of the other. At least, in the lore. From a gameplay perspective, Rank Scales with Asskicking is in full effect as the racial leaders are all powerful raid bosses.
    • The Pandaren leaders on both factions are the highest ranking members of their dojos and trained under the Old Master on the Wandering Isle.
    • Tends to be in full effect for just about every raid and dungeon boss in the game, as well as all of the city leaders being ridiculously powerful.
    • There is a subversion in a quest chain with Salhet, who is shown to be pretty much the worst soldier in Ramkahen but proves himself as an accomplished tactician and becomes a high ranking commander in the war with the Neferset.
    • The Lords of the Burning Legions are titanic demons able to kill most any character with a simple backhand. Of course, nobody expects a player to fight one alone. The Commander demons under them are pretty powerful too.
  • A Rare Sentence: From the quest text for "A Wolf in Bear's Clothing"
    These Worgen take us for fools! One would think that only an idiot would mistake one of their druids in bear form as a real bear. Unfortunately, there are many idiots here at the Forsaken Front. We've already lost a few battalions to organized worgen bear attacks. Yes, it's even more idiotic than it sounds.
  • "Rashomon"-Style: "The Day That Deathwing Came" in the Badlands and the "Deadliest Catch" storyline in Drustvar play this trope for laughs.
  • Rated M for Manly: Their commercials. They've been endorsed by Chuck Norris, Mr. T, William Shatner, and Jean Claude Van Damme among others.

    Re 
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Cataclysm reinvented the 1-60 leveling experience in part because it had aged so much in comparison to the expansion content that it became a major complaint of both old players and newcomers, in addition to Deathwing altering much of the environment and several changes in the leadership of certain races.
  • Really Gets Around: Marcus, the main character of A Steamy Romance Novel and its sequels.
    • In Legion, Marcus makes an in-game appearance in the Highmountain zone: you walk into a Tauren dwelling just as Marcus wakes up, says "Well, that was different", and strolls out... leaving behind two Tauren cuddled together on the sleeping mat.
  • Real Money Trade:
    • Despite intensive efforts by Blizzard to prevent it, a massive black market exists for gold-buying and powerleveling services. In the old ad-setup on TV Tropes, odds were that the ad banner on the left of the very screen was for such a service. Though as some people likely found out, if you do this and get caught, you will lose your account — if not to Blizzard, then to the hackers you stupidly gave your password to.
    • Just clicking on one of those gold-selling ads could take you to a website that would infect your PC with keylogging spyware. Much of the in-game gold sold at those sites is taken from accounts that have been hacked and stripped bare of all gold and items. Getting a SecureKey tied to your account makes it more difficult for hackers, but there are a few cases of even that protection being hacked through.
      • The point of said protection was not so much to provide absolute protection, but to make it so difficult for the average hacker to get into your account as to make it 'unprofitable' to devote the effort to it. Since most hackers are just 'average', you're mostly safe... mostly.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Both main factions and most of the individual races used to have these. All were systematically removed from power by Blizzard when the Cataclysm expansion came out, mostly because it was starting to stretch suspension of disbelief that they were still at war long after all their actual grievances had either been settled or rendered moot. Their replacements are all either ineffectual or psychotic.
    • Arguably, Varian is in the process of becoming more reasonable by undergoing Character Development and learning what it means to be a good leader in Mists of Pandaria. After his death in Legion, his son Anduin is trying his best to be one as well.
      • Contrasted oddly enough by Jaina, who used to be a voice of reason, going rather crazy due to the Horde bombing Theramore and all. She becomes one again in Battle for Azeroth.
    • On a lesser scale, Gorgonna in Wrath of the Lich King sends playes on various quests that put them into opposition with her General Ripper sister. The sisters end up fighting to the death and Gorgonna, with the Horde players' help, kills her sister and takes over Conquest Hold.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Garrosh and Thrall exchange several in their climatic final battle in Warlords of Draenor.
    Garrosh: All I did, I did it for the Horde!
    Thrall::No. You failed the Horde.
    Garrosh: You! You made me warchief! You left me to pick up your pieces! You. Failed. Me!
    Garrosh: You made me what I am!
    Thrall: No. You chose your own destiny.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: In Legion, The Corruption of the Emerald Nightmare now has this coloration. During the classic game to Cataclysm, it had no major impact on the appearance of the land and beings it affected beyond making some dragons look sicklier, so the recoloring was likely added for the sake of identification.
  • Redemption Equals Death: In Talador, Orgrim Doomhammer realizes just how brutal and dishonorable the Iron Horde has become, and joins Durotan against his clan leader, Warlord Blackhand. Orgrim dies during the fight.
  • Red Herring: In Mogu'shan Vaults, you fight against the ghost of Feng the Accursed, a Mogu who kept reviving when four generals betrayed him, such that they had to destroy his body entirely. After fighting his ghost, Lorewalker Cho says that it's not the last we've seen of Feng, as he'll simply re-appear later. This never happens, all the way through to the end of the expansion Feng never reappears in any capacity. Instead, the next boss you fight, Gara'jal the Spiritbinder, returns as a ghost in Throne of Thunder to make your life difficult by possessing and empowering the Zandalari council.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The two playable Pandaren factions and their respective leaders/teachings, Aysa Cloudsinger and all the students of the Tushui are blue, while Ji Firepaw and all the followers of the Houjin teachings are red. Not coincidentally, the Tushui join the Alliance, whose signature colors are blue and gold, and the Houjin ally with the Horde, who use red and black.
  • Red Shirt: Lampshaded.
    • In a quest named "Madness" in the Twilight Highlands, you're to accompany a Horde negotiator to speak with the leader of a clan of orcs who you're informed the previous two negotiators sent in have not returned from. The quest giver is confident that the player's presence will change this situation, but when talked to the negotiator asks you, "Hey, does this red shirt make me look expendable?" In an attempt to doom himself even further, he invokes Retirony in telling you that "After these negotiations, I am looking forward to a long and prosperous life." Guess how the negotiations fare for him?
    • And then of course, Red Shirt Guy himself. Eh? Eh?
    • In the Gate of the Setting Sun dungeon, the Pandaren defenders of the wall keep trying to send recruits to light the signal fire and summon reinforcements, but they keep getting cut down by the mantid army. One officer says that the red shirts make them stand out too much.
    • In Nagrand on Draenor, you help the Steamwheedle Preservation Society obtain an ogre artifact. When they're neutralizing the arcane barrier around it, one of the workers dies and comments "I just had to wear the red shirt..."
  • Redundant Rescue: In the Alliance quest line to unite the Wildhammer dwarf sub-clans in Twilight Highlands, you need to rescue Fanny Thundermar, who has been kidnapped by ogres. When you find her in the ogre den, she's already killed her guards. Keegan Firebeard arrives shortly afterward, and he finds the fact that Fanny can take down ogres with her bare hands to be incredibly hot, which bodes well for the marriage pact involving him and Fanny that has been proposed in order to heal the rift between the Firebeards and Thundermars.
  • Reference Overdosed: The game is absolutely loaded with references to other works - parodies, satires, expies, celebrity cameos, Captain Ersatz's galore, Whole-Plot Reference. You name it, Warcraft's got it, and it's Lampshaded at least half the time.
  • Reformed, but Rejected: One of the main reasons the game even exists is due to the lack of trust the Alliance side has for the Horde, in particular the orcs who used to be demonically possessed invaders. This in turn leads some of the younger orcs who didn't live through the First or Second Wars, most notably Garrosh, to become incensed at the Alliance for their lack of trust, and insist that rather than appease the Alliance, the Horde should take what it needs.
    • The Scryers in Shattrath may have turned their backs on Kael'thas and pledged support to the Naaru, but the Aldor are finding it hard to forgive them after the bloody war they went through.
    • Death Knights face this initially, until they talk with the king of Stormwind or the leader figure of Orgrimmar who declares them allies.
  • Regenerating Mana:
    • All caster classes consistently regenerate their mana. The rate of regeneration is lower in battle than out and can be increased with the Spirit stat. Getting mana regeneration as high as possible is critical for healers, but has been made less and less of an issue for the other specializations as to not disadvantage mana users compared to other resource types. However, it remains a key element for Arcane Mages.
      • Spirit was removed from the game in Legion, with healing specs now having a built-in ability to regen mana. There are also a few trinkets that help with regen.
    • The General Vezax fight essentially removes this ability unless you stand in the residue left behind by destroying Saronite Vapors.
  • Regional Redecoration: World of Warcraft has a Cataclysm Backstory involving the Great Sundering. Ten thousand years ago, Queen Azshara created a portal for Sargeras in the Well of Eternity, the heart of Azeroth's magical power, to lead his forces to conquer the world. With no other choice, Malfurion Stormrage and his troops destroyed the well, which set off a catastrophic chain of events. The continent of Kalimdor shattered into four smaller landmasses and several islands. The area where the well once was is now a swirling vortex known as the Maelstrom.
  • Religion is Magic: Shamans, Priests, Paladins and Druids. All of them get their powers from their respective spiritual authorities: elemental and ancestral spirits for Shamans; the Holy Light for Paladins; the Holy Light or deities such as Elune, the loa animal spirits, or the shadow for Priests; and nature itself for Druids.
  • Religion of Evil:
    • The Cult of the Damned, founded by Kel'thuzad as a means of infiltrating Lordaeron and spreading the plague of undeath, continues to serve the Lich King after Arthas assumes the title.
    • The Twilight's Hammer, and the cults following the Burning Legion, a demonic force dedicated to extinguishing life wherever it's found.
  • Remembered I Could Fly: In "The Day Deathwing Came", Martek remembers that his motorcycle can fly, and uses it to fly up to Deathwing to challenge him to a knife fight; this was after driving through a dangerous obstacle course, and he notes that flying would've been useful then.
  • The Remnant: The Alliance navy and the Dark Horde.
    The RPG sourcebook: They are fighting a war which nobody told them was over. Nobody believes that they will win the war, not even themselves, and that makes them very dangerous.
  • Renovating the Player Headquarters: One of the features of the Warlords of Draenor expansion. The base has three tiers, and an additional port, that unlocks many different buildings. Many of these are related to crafting and gathering professions, enabling the players to order their workers to make items they could not craft for themselves or gather crafting reagents they would not be able to get in the wild without the right professions. The player can also take on other tasks to improve the base, such as recruiting followers.
  • Repeatable Quest:
    • In classic World of Warcraft, many collection and/or turn-in quests were able to be repeated indefinitely until your goal was reached. Later expansions added the concept of daily and weekly quests, which can only be completed once per day/week but otherwise fit the trope.
    • There are also quests with a monthly limit and even yearly.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The only hostile "normal" druids are the Druids of the Fang, who can turn into snakes.
    • The naga are one of the few Always Chaotic Evil races.
    • The saurok are another example. They were created from large lizards by the mogu as warriors for their army; unfortunately, the mogu forgot to make the saurok loyal to them. Nice job breaking it, villains. They now exist as a threat to the Alliance, the Horde and the Mogu, and the playable factions work to neutralize their threat while directing them against the Mogu.
    • Of the Trolls' animalistic gods, who span the gamut of alignments, the snake/reptile ones always seem to be the most evil.
    • On the flip-side, the player trolls have a great affinity with reptiles, preferring them over mammals or birds as mounts, companions, familiars, and even deities.
    • Averted with Pandaria's majestic cloud serpent flying mounts, and especially the celestial Jade Serpent, a very gentle and feminine goddess of healing. On the other hand, some cloud serpents are hostile to the players, such as those that are Sha-corrupted or in service to the Mogu.
    • Battle for Azeroth adds the Sethrak, a race of humanoid cobras. Subverted in that there are two factions of them; the "Faithless" being the main evil in the Vol'dun zone, and the "Devoted" being friendly.
  • Rescue Arc: Several questlines have you rescuing various Non Player Characters, but the record for the longest in time from the kidnapping to the rescue, is the lashtail raptor rescue in Zul'Gurub. Players in North Stranglethorn are befriended by a raptor hatching, which is soon stolen by a Gurubashi Troll, and an attempt to rescue the raptor then and there is foiled; to save the raptor for real, players have to defeat the raptor trainer in Zul'Gurub. North Stranglethorn is a level 25-30 area, while Zul'Gurub is a level 85 Heroic dungeon.
  • Reset Button: The Halls of Origination is a planetary Reset Button left by the Titans, who contained the Old Gods and created many of the lifeforms on Azeroth; if anything goes wrong, its purpose is to reduce Azeroth to a planet-sized cloud of dust and start over. The quests in this dungeon involve stopping it from going off.
    • Do note that this is the SECOND time the player has to stop it. The first time was when it was remotely set off by Algalon the Observer from Ulduar until the player and their raid defeat him, where upon he hands over the item used to turn it off before it starts up completely.
    • Visions of N'Zoth has three groups vying for control of the Halls of Origination. N'Zoth tries to corrupt it to use it to reform Azeroth into a new Black Empire. The Amathet want to carry out the Halls' original purpose of reoriginating Azeroth to destroy the Old God corruption, via destroying everything. Finally, MOTHER uses the Halls of Origination for some planetary surgery, by resetting N'Zoth.
  • Resurrected for a Job: Argent Crusader Olakin Sainrith is killed by the Scourge, and his body dissected to make abominations; Darkrider Arly realizes that they really do need him, so she sends the player on quests to retrieve his body parts, and resurrect him.
    • Sylvanas resurrects Lord Godfrey, Baron Ashbury and Lord Walden to help her conquest of Silverpine Forest. They eventually betray her and kill her, although it doesn't take.
    • In the Death Knight Class Hall Campaign, the player resurrects Nazgrim, Thoras Trollbane and High Inquisitor Whitemane to reform the Four Horseman and declare war on the Legion. They also attempt to resurrect Tirion Fordring, but thanks to Lady Liadrin their attempt fails, and it costs Darion his life... for a short while, at least.
  • Resurrection Sickness: Characters who choose to use a spirit healer rather than find their corpse lose 75% of their stats and damage for 10 minutes, essentially rendering them useless, but making them worth no honor if they're killed.
  • Resurrective Immortality: Players and demons.
    • When a player dies, a spirit healer tells them it's not their time, and will send them back.
    • Several demons will remind you that killing them is futile, as they will eventually be resurrected and return; they can only be killed permanently in the Twisting Nether. Argus, the homeworld for the Burning Legion is on the boundary of the Twisting Nether, meaning a demon killed there is Deader than Dead; and it's where we're going in patch 7.3.
  • Ret-Canon: They are separate canons and similarities have been said to be unintentional, but lore from Warcraft has begun to appear in World of Warcraft.
    • Khadgar turning down Guardianship in his Harbinger video is said to be because it's too dangerous, when the only reason why it became a problem in the game timeline is that Medivh had been possessed. Only in the movie was Guardianship itself a dangerous role to hold.
    • His Harbinger video also has another reference at the end. He says he found a reminder, but the speech he gives is almost word for word what he was told by Alodi in the movie, an encounter that didn't happen in the game timeline.
    • Fel magic has begun to be referred to as "the fel" in game, when the movie originated that way of phrasing it.
    • The events of Bonds of Brotherhood, a comic that serves as a prequel to the movie, were made canonical to the game timeline in Chronicle Volume 2.
    • Blackhand's design has almost never been the same twice, yet his artwork in Chronicle Volume 2 depicts him with the movie's design.
  • Retcon: A LOT of Warcraft's lore has been retconned throughout World of Warcraft's history. Here are a few examples:
    • The most notable and important retcon is the orcs' transition from Always Chaotic Evil to an enslaved and manipulated culture of formerly mostly-peaceful Noble Savages. They were also revealed in The Burning Crusade to have a brown skintone naturally, the demonic corruption turning their skin green. For further confusion, orcs who are corrupted again turn red.

      The skin color appears to be a product of both the demon whose blood is used and the time since corruption. In WC3 and The Burning Crusade, orcs feeding on Pit Lord blood turn red. In Warlords of Draenor, those who drink Archimonde's blood turn a dark blue.
    • When the draenei were revealed as a playable race in The Burning Crusade, their backstory explained how the eredar who fight for the Burning Legion were once peaceful, and the draenei are exiles who refused to join Sargeras with their brethren. However, a line in the Warcraft III manual had said the eredar had always been evil, and in fact were one of the races which made Sargeras lose faith in the idea of a perfectly ordered universe. The backlash over this change was so enormous, Chris Metzen wrote a public apology on the official forums, stating it was a genuine oversight on his part, but they were going to run with the new lore because it was cooler than the old lore.
      • While on the subject of the draenei, the 'original' draenei which appeared in The Frozen Throne were revealed to be 'Lost Ones'; devolved forms of the original draenei who had become decrepit and lost their minds. On top of that, the draenei led by Akama, who aided Illidan in TFT, were retconed into 'Broken' draenei, a half-state between normal draenei and the fully devolved Lost Ones. To add further to this confusion, in TFT, Akama and his followers had the appearance of the Lost Ones, and weren't even called Broken until The Burning Crusade.
    • Garona Halforcen was originally described in The Last Guardian as a half-orc, half-human. However, as Warcraft lore continued to develop, this made increasingly no sense, as it was revealed there were no humans on Draenor, and even assuming she was birthed after the opening of the Dark Portal, there would have been no time for her to mature. To mix things up, Community Manager Caydiem once said Garona was half-orc, half-draenei. Eventually, it was revealed in the comics that Garona was half-orc half-draenei, and even recieved physical changes to match such as glowing eyes, a larger forehead and hoof-like feet. The half-human plot was Hand Waved as Gul'dan convincing her as such so she could get closer to Medivh and King Llane more easily.
    • In Warcraft III, Vol'jin shared the elderly witch doctor model with his father, and dispensed wisdom and useful spells to the heroes rather than taking an active role. In World of Warcraft, Vol'jin is now a shadow hunter, much more active, and appears much younger. During the Darkspear Rebellion, dialogue initially referred to Vol'jin working with Rexxar and Chen Stormstout rather than Rokhan, who was in their party, implying that Vol'jin's shift might have been due to him having been confused with the younger, more active shadow hunter from the Founding of Durotar campaign.
    • In Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Illidan defeats Magtheridon at the Black Citadel in Hellfire Peninsula. In Burning Crusade, however, he rules over the Black Temple in Shadowmoon Valley. Word of God states that the two are the same structure. As if to add to the confusion deliberately, there is a citadel in Hellfire Peninsula with Magtheridon locked in the basement.

      Prior to BC, Outland had a much more limited tileset and Draenor/Outland as a whole has undergone some significant changes in its landscape and flora since its first appearance in Beyond the Dark Portal, to its return in Frozen Throne, to its appearances in World of Warcraft.
    • Worgen were originally extra-dimensional hellhounds who seemed to be fighting the Burning Legion, by observations, being fed by energy from wherever they came from. Cataclysm retconned them to be disgraced, insane, and formerly Sealed Evil in a Can druids whose attempts to be quadrupedal wolf shifters twisted them into infectious werewolves with the standard Horror Hunger for human(oid) flesh.
    • One of their earliest bits of lore in World of Warcraft states that they come from a "nightmare realm" full of hostile predators of which the worgen are one of the nicer things. They are also summoned into Duskwood with the scythe of Elune. While the new lore feels like kind of a stretch, it's not completely unsupported by prior lore.
    • An early female orc quest giver in the base game stated that Thrall had opened up the Horde army to women recently as before they him were not allowed in the military. Later writing seems to have simply left this detail behind with Thrall's own mother being an accomplished warrior. Her AU version even asks him at one point why his mate didn't come with him, indicating that she isn't an exception.
    • In the original games, demons were never indicated to be very numerous and very powerful, but still killable. Illidan even stated at one point that Kil'jaeden was one of the last few great demon lords left, indicating that the deaths of those like Archimonde, Tichondrius and Mannoroth were meant to be permanent. While this is kept through part of World of Warcraft - Balnazzar's survival was a major twist - by no later than Warlords of Draenor, this was changed to them being immortal unless killed inside the Nether.
    • Early on, Thrall's reasoning for settling the orcs in Durotar rather than the more fertile surrounding lands was said to be both a show of penance for their brutal ways during the First and Second Wars and because the land's harsh ruggedness was reminiscent of their homeworld of Draenor. True enough, Durotar does resemble the parts of Outland shown in Warcraft 3. However, those areas (Hellfire Pennisula and Shadowmoon Valley) were later established to be blasted hellscapes from heavy Fel corruption and their natural state were lush forests not disimilar from the nearby Ashenvale. Thrall's reason was changed to be purely about paying penance and many orcs were indicated to not be entirely happy about being forced into a harder life as a result. Setting the stage for Cataclysm, where the Horde invades Ashenvale to claim it for their own.
  • Retirony: Lampshaded. A horde negotiator in the Cataclysm quest "Madness" informs you on the way to negotiate with the leader of the Dragonmaw clan of orcs that "After these negotiations, I am looking forward to a long and prosperous life." He also asks "Hey, does this Red Shirt make me look expendable?" Guess how the quest ends for him?
    Warchief Mor'Ghor: This is DRAGONMAW!
  • Retraux: The Classic rereleases of old expansions add models from the modern release that weren't present in the originals, but are intentionally made lower in detail so as not to clash with the older graphics. The Burning Crusade Classic does this with the incubus warlock minion and Wrath of the Lich King Classic does this with the Kalu'ak Whalebone Glider mount included in the Northrend Epic Upgrade.
  • Revealing Cover-Up: In Deepholm, the Horde finds a missing piece of the World Pillar and tries to return it to the Earthen Ring, only to be shot down by the Alliance. While it seems pretty clear the Alliance did it, the Earthen Ring thinks it's too obvious, and investigates the nearby gunship; they find it commandeered by the Twilight's Hammer.
  • Revenge Is Not Justice: By the time of World of Warcraft, Arthas has slain his mentor, Uther. When the Shadowlands expansion, centered around the afterlife, rolls around long after Arthas himself has been slain, we learn that Uther, now a Kyrian, with a bit of goading from a Forsworn, tossed Arthas' soul directly into The Maw without it receiving the Judgement of the Dead it was due under the guise of it being 'justice' for all the atrocities Arthas committed in life, and definitely not vengeance. This puts Uther in line with the rest of the Forsworn during a civil war between them and their Kyrian brethren, and when the Forsworn's connection to The Maw is revealed, Uther has a Heel Realization that no, what he did was very much vengeance, and his refusal to see that means he played a part in a plot that might have doomed the Shadowlands as a whole.
  • Revenue-Enhancing Devices: The World of Warcraft TCG, paid server transfers and character race/faction/name changes, and the Pet and Mount Store.
  • Reverse Escort Mission: An escort quest in Northrend features the Adventurer Archaeologist Harrison Jones, who escorts you out of the catacombs.

    Rh - Ry 
  • Rhetorical Question Blunder: An exchange between Kil'ruk the Wind Reaver and Ka'roz the Locust:
    Kil'ruk: I cannot argue with your results, but how can a proud warrior of the swarm make his name chasing down peasants and farmhands?
    Ka'roz: Easily: You don't have to leap as far between kills.
  • Rhymes on a Dime:
    • The Headless Horseman combines this with Chewing the Scenery and Evil Laughing, and is fully voiced.
    • The Monkey King speaks entirely in rhyme.
    • Deacon Andaal, a quest giver in Eastern Plaguelands.
    • Lost Sybille, an ash ghoul in Theotar's court, speaks entirely in brief rhymes, sometimes using up to four words that rhyme with each other.
  • Ribcage Ridge: A very popular terrain feature, notably in Tanaris.
  • The Rival: Ellia Ravenmane is this to you in the Chi-ji series of dailies for the August Celestials.
  • Rival Turned Evil: Ellia eventually becomes filled with despair after repeatedly losing to you and fights you in the final battle of the Chi-ji series of daily quests.
  • Rolling Pin of Doom: Grandma Wahl uses one to bash a Forsaken that tries to steal her cat, and "Captain" Cookie from the Normal Deadmines can drop one for players to use.
  • Rousing Speech: The nobles of Gilneas are fond of these. They give speeches so inspiring that you get powerful health buffs just from being near them. Prince Liam's speech directly before the Battle for Gilneas City is itself based on Winston Churchill's famous "We will fight them on the beaches" speech.
  • Rule of Cool:
    • Everything from names to titles to armor to technology. Chris Metzen basically said in a recent interview that the game's mythology is based initially on Tolkien with added Rule of Cool craziness whenever possible.
    • The quest "The Day Deathwing Came" runs off this.
    • The in-game store description for Tyrael's Charger in the Warlords of Draenor beta:
      While one might wonder why the Light-winged denizens of the high heavens would have any need for a flying steed, the answer is simple: BECAUSE ARMORED ANGEL HORSES LOOK TOTALLY AWESOME.
  • Rule of Three: In the Western Plaguelands, there are a trio of quests to train a druid troll named Zen'kiki. In the first two missions he proves completely useless; he can't control his transformations, and his aim when firing spells is terrible. In fact, he can even kill himself with his own spells, forcing you to return to the quest giver and retrieve him again in order to continue the quest. After a few quests, players go back for a third quest where you have Zen'kiki try to remove the plague from some bears, and he does it, even his teacher is impressed.
  • Rule of Symbolism:
    • The Scepter of Sargeras was built with some specific cosmetic choices by the Eradar he set to the task. He demanded a jeweled eye in the center of the staff, while they added ethereal Dreadlord wings on either side. The jewel represents the eye of the Titan soul of Azeroth, which has haunted Sargeras's thoughts ever since he saw her. The wings represent what Sargeras wants with Azeroth. To corrupt it and make her his.
    • In Warbringers: Azshara, Azshara sees a fish on the ground that had fallen out of the ocean while she was trying to hold back the crushing waters. Its helpless gasps for air were in sync with the queen's own labored breaths, showing that her power was waning and she would soon meet her end.
  • Rule 34:
  • Rule 63: Can be invoked by players drinking the Transmorphic Tincture that alchemists can make in Warlords of Draenor.
    • As of Shadowlands, it's an appearance customization exactly like hairstyle, and you can change it in a barbershop for a nominal fee - of in-game gold, not real money.
  • Running Gag:
    • What is a "samophlange", and what does it do? Nobody is quite certain, but Goblins think they're worth a fortune, which makes it a shame they always seem to break when they're handled by player characters for any length of time.
    • There's at least one quest per expansion in which the players have to sort through dung.
    • In Cataclysm, a large number of quests involve someone wearing a Paper-Thin Disguise:
      • In Southern Barrens, a Goblin has infiltrated the Dwarf stronghold there by wearing... a hat made of cheese.
        Weezil Slipshadow: Give me the plans, quickly! Our time grows short. Mostly because I've been eating my disguise.
      • In the Burning Steppes, Horde players go to great lengths to secure materials for a disguise to blend in with the Blackrock Horde nearby. After constructing it in an elaborate sequence, it is revealed to be... a Hallow's End mask. Use of these masks as disguises has in turn becoming a running gag.
      • In the Blasted Lands, Horde players are asked to help sabotage the Nethergarde Mines, and at one point get told to use a large box as cover to sneak by a large amount of enemies.
        Nethergarde Engineer: Hey! Somebody's ambulatory cube is escaping!
    • Johnny Awesome regularly shows up to make a jab at certain player behaviors.
    • The biggest, scariest monster in the seas of Azeroth is the whale shark. It shows up whenever some kind of Border Patrol is needed in aquatic environs.

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