The Ashenvale Outrunner is one of the most lovingly crafted mobs I’ve ever seen.
On WoWhead, it has four abilities, but I’ve seen a 5th used in Classic.
- Scorpid sting
- Stealth
- Kick (knock down stun)
- Shoot (ranged attack, switches to melee in melee range)
- and, bizarrely, explosive trap
The mob sits in stealth, spying on the Horde base. If you’ll notice, they are female night elves, meaning that, according to the Warcraft 3 lore, they are able to shadowmeld. The positioning and gender of the Outrunners seems to be a nod to Warcraft 3 shadowmeld’ed archers. When engaged in melee, the Outrunner will switch to melee, stun the player if not on cooldown, run back 10 yards, and revert to using their favored weapon, the bow. Sometimes, the stun appears to be paired with the placement of an explosive trap (?). The mob appears to have slightly lower health and armor with high dodge chance, a nod to them wearing light armor and being elves.
Every part of this mob seems to be designed with a story in mind, from it’s placement on the map, to it’s armor/weapons, to it’s AI/abilities. It’s clear, just from playing DnD and Warcraft 3, that this is a night elf archer unit using the perpetual darkness of Ashenvale to shadowmeld outside an orc outpost, spying on them. The archer prefers to stay hidden than fight, having a low aggro radius, and prefers their weapon of choice, the bow, over their sidearm, a sword. They’re dexterous with low constitution, giving them high dodge but lower health and armor.
You don’t even need to read the quest to “get” what’s happening, the mob embodies the story.
I really hope that in the next expansion, Blizzard considers using Island AI to craft their world mobs with the same level of detail and care as they did in vanilla. They have the technology now, IE: Islands and Compstomp, to do this way better, if they want to. Mobs should have 5-6 abilities, varying block/dodge/armor/parry/health/damage, story relevant placement, and they should tell a story with those variables, like the Outrunner does.