Warcraft/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The cinematic cutscenes that end each campaign in Warcraft III tend to be of the Crowning Moment of Awesome kind.
    • Arthas returning home as a war hero after a successful campaign against The Undead only to interrupt his father reprimanding him by walking up to him and stabbing him through the neck.

Arthas: You no longer have to sacrifice for your people. You no longer have to bear the weight of your crown. I've taken care of everything.
Terenas: What is this? What are you doing, my son?
Arthas: Succeeding you, father...

      • I'm not sure that he was reprimanding Arthas. His first words to him are "Ah my son. I knew that you would be victorious"
    • Arthas has another Crowning Moment of Awesome in the ending cinematic of the Undead campaign of Frozen Throne: Arthas shatters the Frozen Throne with Frostmourne and the screen goes black. It the shows the Lich King's Helm of Domination fall and slide to the feet of Arthas, who, picks it up and puts it on, after which his eyes shine with blinding blue light.

Nerzhul: Now we are one!

      • It also draws parallels to the above moment, in which King Terenas' crown fell to the bottom of his throne in a similar manner.
    • The first thing Archimonde does after arriving on Azeroth is destroying the wizard city of Dalaran just by drawing in the sand.
      • Since we are mentioning the books, let's not forget the part in the War of the Ancients where he snaps the neck of Malorne the God-Stag. Really, anything he does there is awesome.
    • Grom Hellscream killing Mannoroth after Mannoroth taunted him in Warcraft III, freeing Orcs from their demonic enslavement. Mannaroth being so powerful that his body releases a huge burst of hellfire killing Hellscream is also awesome.

Hellscream: The blood haze has lifted... The demon's fire has burnt out in my viens... I have freed myself
Thrall: No old friend... You've freed us all.

    • Okay, so the video game version of Lord of the Clans never got made, but the the trailer was pretty cool. "Blackmoore! Tonight you sleep in Hell!"
    • The novelization of Lord of the Clans has a moment of its own: When Thrall walks up to the man who taught him how to fight(after sieging his castle), grabs his earring (in response to the challenge he gives his students when they first meet to rip it off), then simply lets go of it and walks away.
    • Another Crowning Moment of Awesome for Thrall is at the end of Warcraft III, where he confronts Archimonde, telling him that all that mattered was that the Orcs were free before being teleported away by Jaina, but not before hitting him with a lightning bolt. Considering that this actually hurts Archimonde, a commander of the demonic Burning Legion makes it pretty awesome in this troper's eyes. Even Archimonde himself is impressed by the puny mortal daring to stand defiant before a border-line Eldritch Abomination.
    • Especially since he's immune to spells, meaning he can't even be targeted normally.
    • Finally, the ending cinematic of Reign of Chaos, a Crowning Moment for Malfurion Stormrage, when he calls upon an army of thousands of Wisps to destroy Archimonde, using a World Tree empowered version of Detonate. Of course, Wisps don't work that way in the actual game.
  • Turalyon gets a big one in the novel adaptation of Tides of Darkness. After Orgrim Doomhammer, leader of the orcs kills Lothar, leader of the humans, Turalyon's religious doubts finally click into place when he realizes that the orcs are not of his world. This unlocks his latent paladin power, which is so strong that it bleaches the rocks near him. He defeats Orgrim, but instead of killing him he knocks him out, telling him that he will live to stand trial for his crimes, and so he will be able to fully acknowledge his defeat. He then turns to the other orc soldiers, and tells them that they won't be so lucky.
  • Sylvanas Windrunner and Varimathras gets their Crowning Moment of Awesome in the building of the Forsaken. While this is all majorly on Sylvannas on her speech in the creation of the Forsaken, she lets Varimathras gets some awesome sauce, by telling him to kill the bigoted racist Jerkass Grand Marshall Garithos, and while he hesitated in killing his brother Balnazzar (Even Evil Has Standards), he did this one with full pleasure and serves the corpse as ghoul's dinner.

Garithos: There, your business is done. Now, I want you wretched animals out of my city before I--
Sylvanas: Kill him too.
Varimathras: Gladly. * kills Garithos and serves his corpse as ghouls' dinner*
Sylvanas: From now on, we are the Forsaken. We will find our own path in this world, dreadlord, and slaughter anyone who stands in our way!

  • Illidan: YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!
    • More Narm on Illidan's part than awesome to most people I know. Though the short action scenes for the nameless playable characters(the Draenei paladin, Blood Elf priestess, etc.) are pretty neat.
  • In the War of the Ancients trilogy, Jarod Shadowsong, reluctant hero and leader of the mortal forces, willingly stands against Archimonde when challenged by him, with full knowledge that Archimonde could crush him like a bug.
    • Before that, he got another moment when the gods of Kalimdor accept him as their leader.
  • Also from the War of the Ancients trilogy: Broxigar Saurfang. This orc threw himself into the portal in the Well of Eternity, and starts slaying demons left and right until he is standing on a hill of their bodies, taunting them to face him. He then wounds Sargeras, before Sargeras kills him personally. He's so awesome that the night elves erected a statue of him in his honor.
    • And he did this with an axe made out of WOOD.
      • Blessed by a demigod. Still, it took some serious fighting skills to get that far.
    • His brother, Varok Saurfang, also has a few moments of his own, such as delivering an epic speech and then cleaving his way through hordes of enemies at the battle for Ahn'Qiraj, saving the assess of horde players in an awesome quest chain in Borean Tundra, and kicking ass in the Battle for the Undercity just after learning of his only son's death. Blizzard also had to nerf him in Icecrown Citadel because he kept 1shotting entire raids with a single cleave.
  • The bug with Hakkar the Soulflayer's initial release in Zul'Gurub, where his Corrupted Blood debuff became a plague upon entire servers due to a programming error. This is an incredible simulation of what happens in a real epidemic, right down to the breakdown of travel, the desolation and devastation of major urban centers, the retreat of people into isolation, the collapse of large-scale trade, everything. The way it spread from a minor error with how the debuff's interaction with pets was handled is also an interesting parallel to the worries of influenza jumping species. It was how an epidemic plays out in real life, historically. For all intents and purposes, it was an epidemic. Such a small bug. Such a large body count.
    • There were shades of this with the plague zombie infestation before the release of Wrath of the Lich King. Players could get infected (via roaches, rats, and 'conspicuous crates') and then become zombies, and then fight other players and NPCs, thereby spreading the plague. This turned the capital cities into Zombie Apocalypse battlegrounds. Whether this was Awesome or Fail depends on your viewpoint: while it was fun being a zombie or fighting to stop them, when things were at their worst it was very difficult to do anything in a capital city (where the auction houses and most banks & class trainers are located).
    • What makes it awesome in this troper's eyes is that the incident has been studied by pathologists in an attempt to predict how a real epidemic would play out, and might end up saving thousands of lives.
  • Tirion Fordring, gets several of these in WoW. Most notably:
    • Avenging the death of his son by killing Isillien and his guards, who were responsible for it, and vowing to restore the Order of the Silver Hand.
    • Confronting Arthas at the Battle of Light's Hope Chapel and purifying the cursed sword Ashbringer by sheer force of will, then stabbing the immortal Lich King with a single leaping blow and forcing him to flee.
      • And by "will" we mean "awesome". And by "flee" we mean "turn tail and run like a sissy, stopping only briefly to growl an unconvincing threat, and incidentally lose his grip on the minds and wills of a whole army of Elite Mooks who then proceed to swear everlasting vengeance." God, I love Tirion.
        • Diminished greatly, however, seeing as how it was revealed that Arthas basically let him win.
      • Not to mention that the Argent Dawn was losing the battle until Tirion showed up, and he was able to turn the tide even though the forces of the Light were outnumbered 300 to 10000. Oh, and by the way, doesn't "300 vs. 10000" seem a little bit like a Shout-Out?
        • Arguably his greatest crowning moment is where he confronts the Lich King up on the Frozen Throne. Admittedly, it is a little lame that he gets frozen at the beginning of the battle, leaving you and your raid group to fight, but when the Lich King decides to show his true power and deal 1,000,000 damage to every member of your party, wiping you all, Tirion clealy isn't going to take it. He epically prays to the Light and it sees fit to send down a bolt of utter pwnege, smiting the ice block. Tirion the LEAPS forward, and CUTS STRAIGHT THROUGH FROSTMOURNE, pretty much ending the Lich Kings reign. Talk about awesome.
        • The Final Battle with the Lich King at the Frozen Throne is just one long CMoA, period. Between the epic danger of the val'kyrs snatching players up and tossing them off the edge of the Citadel, the massive pools of blight, earthquake spells, getting sucked inside Frostmourne, it's insanely fun, challenging, and keeps you on the edge of your seat. Even the scripted phase at the end is incredible. After the above mentioned shattering of Frostmourne, the thousands of souls trapped inside it break free and stun the Lich King, allowing you to open a can of whoop ass to finish him. That alone could qualify as a CMoA by itself, not to mention a Tearjerker, when you consider it's the ghost of Arthas' dead father that resurrects you when everything looks hopeless, and it's the souls of all the people murdered/enslaved by the Lich King that help you bring him to justice. A suitably epic end for one of the most memorable villains in the Warcraftverse.
  • The Wrath Gate event in the Dragonblight and the groundbreaking EPIC of a quest chain that follows it proves why Blizzard is the master at storytelling. It simply has to be experienced in order to grasp the sheer awesomeness of it all. Without spoiling anything, the HSQ is ridiculously high and the player actually feels like they're having an impact upon the game world. In an MMORPG no less.
    • It also ends up with an excuse as to why the Horde and Alliance are at war again... though thankfully it's appropriately played with and made into a major plot point in Icecrown. Ultimately, I just said to myself "Screw it, I'm with the Argent Crusade."
      • How much of an impact has this questline made in WoW? Go to the forums and post anything that as posted above. Watch it hit 26 pages in 3 hours.
        • It's safe to say that this had to be done, because Blizzard has always held that one of the things that makes WoW work is the Horde/Alliance dichotomy - people were actually legitimately surprised at the end of the Zombie Apocalypse scenario because there were NPCs (one of whom just so happens to be the one to reignite the conflict by rather brutally murdering hundreds of Alliance soldiers) actually calling for the two factions to actively work together, leading a few to suspect something similar to the City of Heroes/Villains cross-factional events was soon to transpire. In other words, for a certain few, the capstone of this chain actually made enforcing the normal game rules a Wham! Episode.
    • The Wrathgate event itself is a CMoA for the Forsaken rebels. Even if you don't agree with their philosophy, the fact that they're able to take down an Alliance army, a Horde army, and a Scourge army, no to mention driving the Lich King himself into retreat, is pretty damned badass.
      • It's certainly one for Putress himself. Yes, he's an evil, traitorous bastard, but he managed to truly boil the entire Forsaken philosophy, the sheer zealotry of their all-encompassing hate of the Lich King and the Scourge, down into about a minute of screen time.

Grand Apothecary Putress: Did you think we had forgotten? Did you think we had forgiven? Behold, now, the terrible vengeance of the Forsaken! Death to the Scourge! And death to the living!" * the New Plague continues to do its thing in the armies below* "Now, all can see this is the hour of the Forsaken."

    • I consider Wrathgate to be a CMoA for Blizzard, because it has successfully turned the actual Horde vs. Alliance player rivalry from something that happens casually in YouTube comments to something that provokes incredibly long, vitriol-filled arguments over in-game politics even by Tropers that should know better than to be sucked into such an obvious Caesar Gambit.
      • Well, that's a Cold War. Not an arms war. Hence the lack of actual violence. Second, the REAL CMoA is Saurfang the Younger riding up triumphantly followed by the Horde and his call to his people.
  • The final level or Warcraft III is not only the Best Level Ever for being a really intense Hold the Line, but is awesome for having the Orcs(with Troll and Tauren allies), Humans(with High Elf and Dwarf allies), and Night Elves(with Furbolg and Dark Troll allies) all working together to save the world.
    • That level was so awesome that Blizzard made a raid where the group goes back in time to take part in that battle FOR NO REASON (story-wise) EXCEPT THAT IT WAS THAT AWESOME!!
      • The fact that all 25 raiders get to experience their own Crowning Moment of Awesome if/when they defeat Archimonde simply because not only is he That One Boss but the raid itself is That One Level and has some of the craziest fights in all of WoW.
  • The player characters receive their own Crowning Moment of Awesome when performing the Storm Peaks quest chain, as the Drakkensryd event has you battling mounted drake-riders while several hundred feet in the air...by harpooning their drakes, leaping onto it alongside them, and throwing them off. Later on, you get a daily quest to tackle a flying dragon in midair, hang on and climb to its mouth, and then throw the Spear of Hodir down its throat, Odin-style. It's like Kratos dropped in for a visit.
    • Thorim, an ancient viking type being who is a major character in this chain, gets one for jumping off his throne, falling just under two kilometers, and landing on his old mount.
  • This quest. The interactions between my character and the down-trodden Taunka before finally triumphantly swearing them into the Horde and watching them cast aside their refugee rags for Horde battlegear gave me chills. This was the first time the game itself felt like it wasn't treating me like Sir Random J. Fartknocker Esquire and that I actually belonged to The Horde. Lok'Tar Ogar!
    • Not to mention the Taunka Chieftain, Roanauk Icemist. The guy is in chains when you find him, not sobbing in despair, but getting angrier and angrier at the Crypt Lord who chained him up. When you free him, he demands that the Crypt Lord face him. The beetle refuses, so Roanauk jumps up a waterfall, grabs the 500kg (roughly) Crypt Lord, and throws him off the cliff, just so that the Crypt Lord is forced to face him. He then proceeds to beat the beetle to hell and back. And to top it all off, YOU get to crown him High Chieftain of the Taunka. Best quest ever.
  • The hero of the WoW comic discovers his identity:

Naga Siren: "Just like before. All bluster, no fight! Not even worth ransoming. You're nothing..."
Varian Wrynn: "I am the King of Stormwind, AND NO ONE -- NOT THE NAGA, NOR THE SCOURGE, NOR THE FIERY LORDS OF THE BURNING LEGION -- WILL KEEP ME FROM MY PEOPLE!"
Varian cuts the naga in half.

    • Likewise, Alexandros Mograine's last moments in Ashbringer:

Tell your master that a thousand of his minions will not suffice! I will deliver you all...
And when I am done I will stand...
AGAINST A THOUSAND MORE!

  • High Overlord Saurfang became a memetic Badass during the War of the Shifting Sands, but to most he just stood around in Orgrimmar actually doing nothing. With Wrath, it seems that he's not just earning his reputation, but surpassing it.

"We will fight you with every fiber of our being- Until we are nothing more than dust and debris. We will fight until the end."

    • Even his writing is awesome.
    • His original Memetic Mutation came from the fact that he could be mindcontrolled due to a design oversight.
  • Let's go oldschool: In the second to last orc mission of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, you are finally given your last missing piece of the techtree, and the Large Ham narrator announces in the mission briefing:

Fortunately... Orgrim Doomhammer has saved his greatest weapon... ready to unleash it upon the unsuspecting Alliance... at just this moment...
DRAGONS!

    • After that, the final mission's objectives are simply "DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU BEHOLD IN THE NAME OF THE HORDE!" Then the completely kick-ass Orc Ending Cutscene.
  • Very noticeably, the Creative Closing Credits of the Frozen Throne, Seeing Arthas rocking out with an Ice Guitar while Thrall, Grom and an unknown Troll Shadow Hunter(may or may not be Rokhan) randomly tear up legions of Undead.
  • One for the dev. team themselves, apparently in the new expansion they intend to split the Barrens in half. On behalf of every new player who's ever found themselves stuck there with Barrens chat, thank you.
  • "Let them come. Frostmourne hungers".
  • Two Words: Bolvar Fordragon. (Well, actually, it's a name.)
  • The entire Saurfang family, or the ones that we're given details about: Varok Saurfang is already known as the Chuck Norris of the Horde, his brother Broxigar is so badass the Night Elves made a statue of him after he single-handedly delayed one of the most powerful beings in the universe (using a very powerful magical axe, but still), and Varok's son Dranosh who took the Lich King himself to actually kill him. A fourth Saurfang, Thura, who is the niece of Varok and Broxigar, was given by Broxigar's axe by Thrall. No other details are known about her yet.
  • Heck, the Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain song, Power of the Horde is essentially a CMoA for the Horde, and more specifically, for Horde Shamans(and even more specifically, for any Warsong Clan Elementalist Orc Shamans out there). Similar with Rogues do it from Behind for the entire Rogue class, Nightfall for Death Knights to a lesser extent, I Am Murloc for Murlocs, and Terran Up The Night for Terrans. Yes.
  • Though you don't see it, one of the Frost Dwarves tells you how the Frost Dwarves met their current king, Yorg Stormheart aka Muradin Bronzebeard. A group of dwarves, returning from an undescribed trek across Dragonblight, stumbled across a mountain dwarf (a type they'd never heard of before), who couldn't even remember his name, lost in the snow, so they decided to take him back home with them. On the way, they were attacked by a giant jormungar (Giant, acid-spitting worms), who swallowed one of the group before they could even react. They thought they were doomed, "...but behind him, a furious roar rumbled across the snow, and he turned to see the mountain dwarf growing in size, his skin taking on a stone-like texture, and his hands sizzling with lightning. The dwarf barreled forward with a sound like rolling thunder and hurled a shining metal hammer, lightning coursing over its surface, directly into the jormungar's throat. The jormungar collapsed instantly, its head barely still attached to its convulsing body." Do NOT mess with Yorg/Muradin
  • When Garrosh is getting uppity, wanting to take Valiance Keep and other Alliance holdings by force, Varok Saurfang tells Garrosh to cut his shit out or else.
  • The Balance of Light and Shadow for Priests. After looting the Eye of Divinity in Molten Core, you would head out to Eastern Plaguelands and meet an NPC priestess who tells you her story of how she failed to save Stratholme peasants as they fleed from Arthas and his scourge and how the now-ghosts must relive the experience. She tells you that must succeed where she failed by saving at least fifty out of sixty-five peasants as Scourge Archers attack them and lesser scourge attack you. Other players may not interfere for a demon called The Cleaner will spawn, instantly kill them, and end the event. This event was actually pretty difficult in its time. The vast majority of Priests would fail in their first attempt. Most would find friends (or even a Priest of the opposite faction if he/she happened to be there) to exploit around The Cleaner and Priests would seek out full buffs from every other class and use consumables. Successful completion of the event yielded the Splinter of Nordrassil. When combined with the Eye of Divinity and the Eye of Shadow, the Priest receives Benediction, a staff that Priests at 60 would wear past Blackwing Lair and level 80 Priests still farm for because it's one of the best-looking staves in the game.
  • The Shadowmourne questline in its entirety is bound to make any player feel like a Badass. After you gather the materials to craft Shadow's Edge, Mograine performs quite the impressive forging scene. After, Mograine tasks you with harvesting the souls of one thousand of the Lich King's minions within Icecrown Citadel to empower Shadow's Edge. As you feed souls to Shadow's Edge, the Lich King himself whispers you. As far as I know, the whispers continue after you begin the infusions. You must infuse Shadow's Edge with the power of Unholy, Blood, and Frost by performing special tasks while killing the end-wing bosses of the Plague Wing, the Blood Wing, and the Frostwing Halls. Then you collect 50 Shadowfrost shards from the bosses of Icecrown Citadel. Once this is complete, Mograine hands you Shadowmourne and gives you a quest to kill the Lich King himself. In doing so, you receive a chest that drops only once per Shadowmourne and rewards five items. As such, said items are incredibly valuable. One is the very mount that Mograine rides; said mount sells for no less than 100k gold on any server. The other four items, novelty items with neat uses, sell for at least 20-30k gold.
  • The pre-Cataclysm novel by Christie Golden, The Shattering, is basically one long string of these, especially for the Horde (though Anduin Wrynn also gets his fair share). Cairne Bloodhoof has one pretty much any time he's in a scene, especially his epic Take That at Garrosh Hellscream, basically calling him a gorilla and pimpslapping him right in Grommash Hold. Even Garrosh himself managed one, with his hilariously insulting letter to Magatha Grimtotem after she seized control of Thunder Bluff. It's just that amazing a book.
  • The Redridge Mountains storyline in Cataclysm. Wow. Nothing like putting Rambo into Azeroth and have him basically nuke an orc base, drive a tank through an invading orc army, and take down a freaking Black Dragon!

John J. Keeshan: "Redridge'll heal, but them orcs sure won't..."

  • The final quest of the "Fiona's Caravan" Questline in Eastern Plaguelands counts as both this, Big Damn Heroes moment, and a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. The final quest involves storming a slaughterhouse and facing Baroness Anastari who tries to convert Gidwin Goldbraids into a Death Knight. The player and Tarenar Sunstrike begin to fight Anastari. The banshee laughs and states that the two of you don't stand a chance. Queue the rest of the caravan entering and charging Baroness Anastari, defeating her easily, and rescuing Gidwin!
  • It's a CMOA for any player when they purchase their Flight Master's License in Cataclysm, which finally allows them to use flying mounts in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. This troper of course had to play some apropos music for this moment: Judas Priest's "Riding on the Wind".
  • Garrosh Hellscream gets one of these at the end of the post-Cataclysm, Horde quest chain in Stonetalon mountains. Overlord Krom'gar has spent the entire quest chain determined to bomb a school for Druids which he claims is hiding a weapon of mass destruction, to the point that he murders the wife and son of the local Tauren chieftain who was attempting to prove that the druids were innocent. He destroys the school, however at that moment Garrosh emerges from a portal, decries him for murdering innocents, and drops him straight off the cliff.

Garrosh Hellscream: "YOU ARE DISMISSED!"

  • How do you mention CMOA for World of Warcraft and not mention Harrison Jones? This is a man who, for all intents and purposes, was thought to have died in Zul'Aman only to return in the Grizzly Hills an expansion later for a quest where HE escorts YOU. Then come Cataclysm and he goes to Uldum for an entire quest chain of his own which is nothing but one massive Shout-Out to the Indiana Jones series with enough awesome and funny moments, this Troper just had to stand back and have an HSQ moment.
    • YMMV. Most other people who did that chain thought it was a lazy, poorly written immersion breaker and it wasted Uldum's promise as a zone that would advance the titan storyline.
  • While we're on the subject of Uldum, Gnomebliteration anyone?
  • Kurdran gets one at the end of the Council of Three Hammers short story Fire and Iron, where he takes the Wildhammer scepter needed to reforge a fake hammer, and smashes it into pieces. He then offers the other council members to aid him in destroying the rest; Muradin jumps at it, while Moira reluctantly does so too. They then smash the rest of the pieces needed. Moira was certainly not happy.
  • The Darkspear leader Vol'jin gets one in Cataclysm, as he oppose the other trolls who want to rebuild their ancient empire. Mixed with Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.

Troll:" You dare to stand against your people!?"
Vol'jin:" The Horde is my people!!"

    • Vol'jin gets another one during the Troll starting quests, where he shows you a vision him him telling off Garrosh.

I know exactly what i'll be doin' about it, Son of Hellscream. I'll watch and wait as ya people slowly become aware of ya ineptitude. I'll laugh as dey grow to despise ya, as I do. And when that times comes, when ya failure is complete and ya power is meaningless, I will be there ta end your rule. Swiftly, and silently. You will spend ya reign glancin' over ya shoulder, and fearin' da shadows. For when the time comes, and ya blood be slowly drainin' out, you will know exactly who fired da arrow that pierced ya black heart.

  • Theldurin the Lost, and "The Day Deathwing Came" quest. This troper kept the fist weapon reward so that he might one day punch that dragon in the face.
    • The best part? Given we see him punching fire elementals to death later on in the Protectors of Hyjal daily, his story has crediblity.
  • Thrall gets one during the Dragon Soul instance. Standing on an Alliance aircraft, he takes aim with the Dragon Soul. A dragon head made of light begins emerging from the artifact as Deathwing tries to move out of the way. A spotlight appears on his back as it cuts to a view of his stomache, which is then has a hole blasted right through him by a column of light as he goes plummeting into the very Maelstrom he created.
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