Hogger

Hogger, chieftain of the Riverpaw pack, is a elite gnoll found atop his hill in southwestern Elwynn Forest. His defeat is the objective of a quest for low-level Alliance players.

While Hogger's significance in-game was originally minimal, his relative difficulty at such a low level has caused him to become one of the most well-known and popular minor characters in the game. His role in-game has since been expanded with Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm.

After his death at the hands of the adventurers in the Stockade, the gnoll packs in the kingdom found themselves leaderless, becoming messy and easy for the armies of Stormwind to defeat and repel.

Classic
A quest from the Westbrook Garrison in Elwynn Forest, near the border of Westfall, offers a reward for Hogger's death. He is an indirect agent of the Defias Brotherhood along with the rest of his Riverpaw pack.

Wrath of the Lich King
Hogger is a "memory" in the fight against Argent Confessor Paletress in the Trial of the Champion encounter of the Crusaders' Coliseum. This was introduced in patch Patch 3.2.0, "Call of the Crusade".

Cataclysm
In Cataclysm, Hogger as leader of the Riverpaw gnolls now has his own hill named after him, Hogger Hill, that he is restricted to. Getting him too far from it will cause him to reset. Rather than being killed, after being defeated he is now arrested and taken to the Stockade in Stormwind City, where he is later faced again by adventurers and killed.

Following the death of the gnoll, Shaw mentions that the Hogger's Trousers are kept in the stockade by guards as a memento that improves the morale of the troops.

Battle for Azeroth
When the Horde breaks into the Stockade, they find a Hogger costume and Kazul, who was imprisoned for impersonating him at some point.

Objective of

 * WANTED: "Hogger"


 * Drops Huge Gnoll Claw for Wanted: "Hogger".

Strategy
Hogger has a reputation as a particularly dangerous foe, primarily because he is one of the first elite mobs a human will meet. Thus, new players will sometimes underestimate him, not knowing what the elite tag indicates. In classic, this mistake was a recipe for a very quick death.

In recent years he has become a bit less of a threat than he originally was; for most classes, he can be soloed relatively easily. Mages and other cloth wearers may still want to group up though, as Hogger can hit fairly hard.

Abilities

 * Note: causes Upset Stomach, which stuns Hogger for 10 sec, if he is hit while eating.
 * Note: causes Upset Stomach, which stuns Hogger for 10 sec, if he is hit while eating.



Culture
A "Hogger raid" is where many level 1 characters (a full 40-man raid back in the day, nowadays usually no more than 25 persons) attempt to kill Hogger by zerging him. Level 1 players can no longer form a raid group.

Hogger is also used as a joke when it comes to where loot drops. Many people will jokingly say that items such as, and are rare drops from Hogger. Keep in mind that Hogger has no extraordinary loot, and these claims are false. Hogger is also often referred to as an extraordinarily difficult mob on par with other raid bosses, which has no basis in fact and serves only to glorify him.

In almost every respect, the cultural icon of Hogger far exceeds that of the actual in-game character. Hogger is often aggrandised in jokes traditionally featuring Chuck Norris. With the introduction of the statistics system, the number of times the character has been killed by Hogger is specifically listed in each player's statistics pane, even for Horde characters.

Trivia

 * He was one of a very few old-world elite mobs who kept his elite status after Patch 2.3.
 * He can play the role of Flat Tusk for Alliance players.
 * Hogger originally had exactly 666 health, the Biblical, just like Old Icebeard and Captain Flat Tusk (NPCs similar in level and difficulty to Hogger, for dwarf and orc characters, respectively).
 * In a PC World article, Hogger was voted as #24 of the 47 "most diabolical videogame villains of all time".
 * The upcoming Character Battle VII of GameFAQs includes Hogger as an entry in Division 7. His description reads: "An unbeatable 40-man raid boss in World of Warcraft. No guild can take him down."
 * During the BlizzCon 2009 live raid by the raiding guild Premonition, the final boss they fought was a level 80 heroic version of Hogger which they were not able to defeat.
 * Since World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, many player stats are tracked, including deaths to various things (mobs, lava, drowning, etc). One such way of dying recorded is deaths to Hogger.
 * On rare occasions, Hogger appears as level 8 or 10. The cause of this is unknown.
 * Hogs' Studded Collar, a miniature version of Hogger, is rewarded from the That's Whack! achievement at the Darkmoon Faire.
 * Hogger appears as a legendary card in Hearthstone. His flavor text reads "Hogger is super powerful. If you kill him, it's because he let you."
 * He also appears as the first boss that new players face in the game's initial tutorial.
 * A corrupted version of Hogger, known as Hogger, Doom of Elwynn, appears as a legendary card in the Whispers of the Old Gods expansion. His flavor text reads: "When C'thun went to sleep, he checked under his bed for Hogger."
 * Additionally, the Hogger card back was rewarded for achieving Rank 20 in Ranked Season 24, which took place during March 2016. The flavor text reads: "The Terror of Elwynn, the King of Gnolls. They say he bathes in the tears of young heroes, hence the wet dog smell."
 * Hogger is a playable character in Heroes of the Storm. He is depicted wielding a flail, similar to gnoll creeps in Warcraft III.
 * Samwise Didier hoped to include Hogger in Heroes of the Storm as early as 2014.
 * A "Wanted: Hogger" poster appears in the Warcraft film.