Biggest Waste of a Warcraft Villain (poll)

[Highelf]

I don't consider Vashj, Kael, or Illidan villains. The whole story of BC is a hot mess that makes little sense, using recognizable characters, that by the end of WC3 weren't actual villains.

[Ateo]

I voted Garrosh but in reality it goes:

Deathwing
KaelThas
Garrosh

Those 3 had the fam bases, the character designs, the lore, and the voice actors to have such better storylines in game and better interactions with the players but they were wasted. Garrosh arguably got the best treatment of the 3 but his ending was just so terribly written. True waste.

[Stardrift]

Azshara definitely. What in the flying fuck was 8.2?

Deathwing wasn't as bad as people say he was. He should've had a stronger presence and had a lot more intelligence to him. But he still shit all over the world to display how powerful he was. The race to flushing him down the toilet before he finished what he started was cool too. Especially after ripping apart his back to stop him from flying.

Azshara on the otherhand.. What the hell was that? We weren't even in Nazjatar! We were in it's fucking overgrown backyard! Not to mention her moustache twirling bullshit that had no weight to it whatsoever. And the severe lack of story.

[Nathasil]

I dont think Garrosh was wasted as a "Villain"...he sure as hell was wasted as a character, though. When he became a Villain, Blizzard pushed him into a racist corner and there really was no way he could have more room to grow there.

If we define Villain as characters that already had crossed the line when WoW began...my vote goes to Deathwing. Cata did not really do him justice at all. But Archimonde+Kil'jaeden are a very close second. Most of the others on this list i would personally not consider villains at all (at least not when WoW started) or actually had a quite decent time to shine, imho.

Azshara definitely. What in the flying fuck was 8.2?

Deathwing wasn't as bad as people say he was. He should've had a stronger presence and had a lot more intelligence to him. But he still shit all over the world to display how powerful he was. The race to flushing him down the toilet before he finished what he started was cool too. Especially after ripping apart his back to stop him from flying.

Azshara on the otherhand.. What the hell was that? We weren't even in Nazjatar! We were in it's fucking overgrown backyard! Not to mention her moustache twirling bullshit that had no weight to it whatsoever. And the severe lack of story.

This may be all true, but:
#1: Azshara is not done yet.
#2: I LOVED the in game cinematic where she "spoke" with N'Zoth...i'm still not sure if she was taunting or comforting him there...and that is exactly why i love it. It's awesome. It's one of the best in-game cinematics WoW has had, imho, and the VO is close to perfection.

Deathwing can claim neither for himself.

[Highelf]

I voted Garrosh but in reality it goes:

Deathwing
KaelThas
Garrosh

Those 3 had the fam bases, the character designs, the lore, and the voice actors to have such better storylines in game and better interactions with the players but they were wasted. Garrosh arguably got the best treatment of the 3 but his ending was just so terribly written. True waste.

Yeah I don't get how people can vote for Garrosh and DW. DW had a prescence through Cata(he changed zones forever even) and really felt like, holy crap this dude is bad. The end fight was a little lame but honestly what else could do they do against an almost god at that point.

[Triceron]

IMO it would be Ner'zhul from Alternate Reality WoD.

Alternate Gul'dan proved to be more cunning than his real counterpart. Ner'zhul is arguably much much wiser than Gul'dan. Yet in the Alternate Reality, he's a total chump who is motivated by his dead wife, rather than his own pursuit of power. That pursuit of power is what defines him, from destroying Draenor to becoming the Lich King.

I don't understand how an important lore character like that could be thrown to the side and made even less important than Gorefiend and Cho'gall.

[Torvald]

You know who deserves to be on the cotender list? Ner'zhul (original timeline Ner'zhul). I know the list mentions "Lich King / Arthas," but even that's kind of telling, you know? Ner'zhul WAS the original Lich King, and in the Lich King expansion the Ner'zhul half is absent, because Blizzard decided that the Arthas half killed off the Ner'zhul half, off-screen, in a book. Ner'zhul really could have provided a stronger tie-in to the Lich King theme for the non-Forsaken Horde. The fact that the original Lich King WAS Ner'zhul would likely have been a revelation to people like Thrall, and Ner'zhul's life as the orc leader of the Horde following the Second War would have been well known. In fact, it could even have provided a nice moment or two acknowledging the lands of the previous expansion - Ner'zhul was the one who actually destroyed Draenor and turned it into Outland. What a waste.

That said, in terms of the biggest waste... I'm going to say Kael'thas. Boy is it a close decision, but Kael'thas's death didn't just waste a character (in a way that made no good sense), and it also didn't just knock out a ton of potentially great interactions and storylines, but it even left the Blood Elves a leaderless mess for years. Even when Lor'themar started to get development in MoP, he's still a "leader" today calls himself "Regent Lord." The Blood Elves CLEARLY don't know how to move on.

It's like, "Hey, Lor'themar... I think you can safely declare that a government is no longer a regency after your soldiers have decapitated the prince that appointed you his regent."

[buffolone]

I voted Deathwing because he was a mastermind then turned into a mad screamer.

But on a smaller scale Sicco Thermaplugg was built up as this big bad for Gnome characters from day 1 of your intro to the story as a player. He was killed in a dungeon with little world changing consequence then recycled for the world event, this time granting the new Gnome starting area, but it's not as if Gnomeregan will ever be fully reclaimed at this point.

Loved the answers of Malygos and Anub'arak by other posters.

[melzas]

Anub'arak. Major character in WC3 The Frozen Throne, relegated to a throwaway 5-man boss and the end of a forgettable raid. He deserved much more.

I love Anub'arak but calling him major in TFT... I don't agree. From the story perspecitve he was pretty minor, a sidekick for Arthas. The only "major" thing about him was that he was actually a Hero unit, but he wasn't particularly important for the story. You could take him out of TFT campgain and it wouldn't change a thing.

He was cool but not major at all.

[Ateo]

Deathwing while flying around burning shit was cool and his Minor quests weren’t too bad, his raid was a complete let down. Propagated with nothing more than made up characters as raid fodder to then face deathwing “himself” on two back to back insanely horribly designed fights that absolutely no one wanted was disappointing.

We should have fought him in human form then have him fly away, us on his back, broke the plates, Have him crash in a weakened state on land or in deepholm then A typical dragon fight with interesting mechanics weaved in like atrimedies had.

The whole let’s fight a back then let’s fight tentacles was not what anyone wanted or expected.


Garrosh was the perfect true orc horde leader archetype. He had a great story until mop where he just threw all honor away and became a old god puppet then dies in a fight where thrall cheats.

He deserved a better more iconic ending, not just to be fluff for thralls character.

[guisadop]

unfortunately there are so many of them. the MMO format really limits the ways the story could follow. arthas probably wouldn't have taken the same path if WC3 happened in WoW.

[Highelf]

IMO it would be Ner'zhul from Alternate Reality WoD.

Alternate Gul'dan proved to be more cunning than his real counterpart. Ner'zhul is arguably much much wiser than Gul'dan. Yet in the Alternate Reality, he's a total chump who is motivated by his dead wife, rather than his own pursuit of power. That pursuit of power is what defines him, from destroying Draenor to becoming the Lich King.

I don't understand how an important lore character like that could be thrown to the side and made even less important than Gorefiend and Cho'gall.

Anything from that garbage expansion and alternate timeline is a waste.

[A Chozo]

It's Archimonde.

[OokOok]

Kael'thas!? LOL

it is and always will be KJ

[jstnw89]

IMO it would be Ner'zhul from Alternate Reality WoD.

Alternate Gul'dan proved to be more cunning than his real counterpart. Ner'zhul is arguably much much wiser than Gul'dan. Yet in the Alternate Reality, he's a total chump who is motivated by his dead wife, rather than his own pursuit of power. That pursuit of power is what defines him, from destroying Draenor to becoming the Lich King.

I don't understand how an important lore character like that could be thrown to the side and made even less important than Gorefiend and Cho'gall.

I too was gonna say Ner'zhul.. how they handled it in WoD was lame

[Ashcrack]

Remember the Dreadlords? They were pretty cool in WC3...

[Clozer]

Kael'thas and lady vashj could easily have their own expansion.

[Explorer]

Deathwing by no doubt. Not only was Dragon Soul one of the worst raids ever, rehashed content by every meaning, but also because the Deathwing-Encounter was bad, but especially Deathwing itself: there was simply 0 lore around him.

Ok, there was LORE in BOOKS.

But one villian is completely forgotten by any meaning: The Twilight Father. He played a big part of Cataclysm-Lore, naturally in FRICKING BOOKS and then was an Endboss in the last 5 man dungeon in cataclysm.

So in the end: Deathwing was from the List here the biggest waste, but the Twilight Father was the biggest waste of all: even forgotten in this poll!

I'm really shocked someone else also remembers him. Indeed he was wasted, I expected him to be a boss in final raid.
Well, at some point I made fan-concept of his bossfight myself.

[Irian]

I'm not going to vote for Kael'thas because frankly, he should have never been a villain to begin with. He wasn't evil until lollore just fucked up his character.

If I don't include Kael'thas, Kil'jaeden is definitely my biggest disappointment in WoW. I was absolutely sure, with how hyped he'd been and how clever and diabolical he was said to be, that he'd somehow escape and possibly even end up on our side in an effort to usurp the Legion after we defeated Sargeras. But nope, he went down like any other generic baddie.

The mightiest known villain in Warcraft, dropped like a typical raid boss... I mean yeah, Sargeras was the leader technically, but his entire identity and even location was shrouded in so much mystery that it was debated whether or not he was even alive. In my eyes, KJ was the true figurehead of the Legion, and I wanted to see so much more of him.

[KelthuFreakingZad]

Archimonde in WoD.

"Hey, remember that guy who took the combined armies of the Horde, Alliance, and Night Elves to simply SLOW HIM DOWN long enough to use a very specifically designed trap that only worked because he was so powerful. Let's have him taken down by a raid of 25 PCs, Grom, Yrel and Khadgar!"

What a god damn asspull for an asspull of an expansion. At least Kil'jaeden was built up the whole expansion up to that point and killed by artifact wielding Order Hall Champions. It's not MUCH better, but I wouldn't call it a waste like Archimonde was.