Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Cost, or "Drawbacks to Owning Something Cool"

  • The ribbons fly in my face when I turn the camera (due to my settings).
  • I'm hesitant to mount in front of large groups when I'm busy.
  • Mounting in front of my friends feels a bit like bragging.
  • I shift out of shadowform every time I mount, so I never have mana.
  • I get focus-fired by gankers.
That last one happened yesterday while I was doing Hodir dailies with a gal friend. Both of us are priests and I have no defenses against PVP since this is my raid character (bag space saved from having only one gear set = priceless).

Before we started, I saw this hunter from a guild that has proven itself over and over to be full of rude, jerkish gankers, and per my list of things to do now that I have a phoenix, I flew two circles around him/her/it and went on with our questing.

Two minutes into farming the quest items, I see an alliance and, in following with my "run away like a little girl" philosophy, mount up. I finish mounting before the hunter starts shooting me -- the same I flew around earlier -- and start to die fast even as I escape. I then yell "MOUNT" in party chat but spot my friend killing mobs with her little non-shadow spec spells that are adorable but take forever, so I land on the far side of her and begin to help.

The hunter ignores the easy target my friend makes and zips forward to finish me off.

The mob dies and my friend turns to attack the hunter. She dies for her trouble, switches specs, and tries again but dies twice more.

I wisely stay in the air and out of the way. Considering how the ganker follows us with me targeted and tries to land in good spots to smush me again, and how other horde nearby don't get killed, I'm pretty sure the ganking is vindictiveness because of my ride.

I decide not to get upset about my one death, because I certainly killed an alliance player once just for having a panda pet. In spite of the fact that the hunter follows us with the clear intention of further gankings (whereas I left panda girl alone after the one), I find it amusing how he keeps trying to get in range of me and keeps failing. I mean, even if he had the ability to knock me off in midair, I have levitate. Because priests are awesome.

After my friend lands and finishes her quest (while I keep our friend entertained by staying just out of range), I decide to finish that part later and my friend picks the oozes in the cave to take care of next. I choose to meet her there after leading our hunter pal on a merry chase, and I zip off and wave to another alliance in the north, then overshoot him northward, turn, and head straight west over the mountains, where I find a ledge over the cave, dismount, and levitate down. This strategy chosen because my mount is really obvious and alliance below would definitely notice it and might say something to our hunter friend in general chat. Also, if our hunter friend was collaborating with other alliance in the area, he'd think I'd gone northerly.

We head in chatting, and I think about our ganker friend as we slaughter worms and ooze. And I come to a conclusion that undermines all my rants about world PVP:

"If being more prone to gankings is my price, I can live with it."

My friend agrees. We make smiley faces at each other and finish up the rest of our quests uninterrupted.

9 comments:

  1. You got my email, right? Vindictiveness is my lifeblood. I hate HaTe HATE gankers.

    Our mutual friend T was explaining to me that I should use Avenging Wrath (aka "wings") more often. "Your problem is that you're just not angry enough," he said. "Whenever someone tries to defend themselves by healing or shielding or whatever I get angry. I get angry because they're wasting my time drawing out the fight I should have already won... and when I get angry, I pop wings."

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  2. I agree with T, first off (assuming it's T that I think you mean.)

    Secondly, GAH! That hunter was making me furious. It's not often someone can kill me in disc spec so easily unless they're hideously geared... but that's the price I pay for being hesistant to shift my priorities to PvP, as I get extremely frustrated easily... as evidenced by this post =)

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  3. I could live with it too...such a badass mount, gratz.

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  4. It's a Hunter.

    Almost every single Hunter is played by a lazy, vindictive, and stupid person.

    There is only other class that gets my goat by ganking me, and that is a Death Knight.

    In short, I have never met a Hunter that I *liked*. Tolerated, but never liked. In game and in Vent, I prefer the term "Huntard".

    I don't make a point to gank someone because of their gear/pets/mounts. But I will gank someone if they're a Hunter or a Death Knight. I mean, they pick the easiest classes in the game to play as (I once described Huntards as being able to be played by a macro, and really, anyone who's playing a DK as their main... well, I'm sure you know what I mean), and then they complain like Luke Skywalker about everything in general.

    ...I think I should stop ranting.

    Sorry. Hunters annoy me.

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  5. XD Husband plays both DK and hunter. Though I will say in his defense that he played shaman for all of Burning Crusade and only changed because he got fed up with how easily hunters killed him in PVP. And then he tried DK like everyone else in Wrath. Funny story, actually, about him pwning a rogue for me recently:

    "Beth and I had some fun PvP last night. We had just done a WG, she was on Dusty and I was on Severian. I had just finished the "Healing with Roses" quest and Beth was just arriving. There were a couple of Alliance about (it was how I got my items, it's SO fast if you can catch players there and all my reservations about ganking are set aside) but I left to turn it in since it was getting late. I had just gotten to the fortress when I see the Cheap Shot icon on Beth. She got Rogue'd =(

    So, I rushed back and Beth had ressed and was there, flying. I swooped around for a while and the Rogue showed his face, which I proceeded to stomp. Funny how Rogues don't like it when you attack *them* when they don't suspect it. It got low, popped sprint and vanished...which I pulled out with DnD. It immediately Prepped and tried to vanish again...which I pulled out with a latency-enhanced Chains of Ice! One more attack and Beth was half done with her quest. A short trip over to a clueless Night Elf DK finished it up very easily after that =)"

    I made all sorts of huggle emotes at him afterward. He came to my rescue!! :D And helped me finish my quest. /nod nod happy happy

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  6. Wow, Victor. That's pretty harsh. I am not lazy, stupid or vindictive. Yet I've played both a DK and a Hunter. The DK isn't my main, but I levelled him to 80, and I don't play the Hunter nearly as much as I'd like, but I enjoyed both classes immensely.

    I don't know how you determine they are the "easiest classes to play". I don't know how I would decide which was "easiest". But I can attest that in order to play either of those two classes well requires some effort. I mean, I think DK has been the easiest for me to play in terms of levelling to 80 the fastest . . . mostly because you get to start, essentially, at level 58 in a nice set of gear. If "ease of play" means learning and utilizing abilities, integrating the right gear into the role you choose to pursue, then Druid is the easiest for me simply by familiarity and personal preference. I mean, it's just the class I like best, so figuring it out kinda' comes easy.

    DK tanking requires as much work, as much patience with morons, as much situational awareness as I've needed while tanking as a Warrior or Druid. And breaking 2K dps required I pick up a dps spec, accumulate the right gear and pay attention to my rotation . . . kinda' like I have to do with my Cat. Except that I couldn't break 2K dps on my DK until I'd picked up some heroic drops while my Cat is already nearly there at level 76.

    I will engage in world PvP. I do like it. In fact, it's the whole reason I made the Hunter. However, I've set some pretty high personal standards for when I attack someone. Not initiating fights with people who are a lower level than me, for example. I certainly wouldn't attack someone simply because she's got a better mount than I do. Of course, maybe if she was taunting me with the fact . . . you know, maybe just one fight . . .

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  7. Both classes have been super-OP at some point in the past, and lazy/vindictive people do tend to be drawn to OP.

    Husband tends to reroll classes that smush him in arenas, so he has about half of them and still plays hunter and DK most, though he's considering settling on his hunter for the next xpac.

    He says hunter doesn't take a lot of skill to play but it takes a lot to play well. Like, he says raid hunters have a pretty complicated setup with traps and pet management and everything. After trying to find space for all my druid buttons, I believe him.

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  8. I have to agree with Jack here Victor... They're both easy classes to play, but it's also easy to see who doesn't play them *well*. And tbh, as the first person in my guild to break 5k dps back in Naxx days, I'm damn proud of what I can do with my hunter.

    That hunter didn't gank Birdie because he's a hunter, he did it because he's an $^%@*#&$%! That's all. That being said, being on a pvp server, there's nothing wrong with what he did, in terms of, you know, the terms of game play. And that's why I play on a pve server ;o)

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  9. *shrugs* I did say most, and not all.

    I happen to have a friend who can tank as a DK well, which astounds me.

    I should also point out that I've played a Mage for most of my WoW experience, so both of those classes tend to one or two-shot me like nobodies business.

    Remember, this is my opinion, and not stated fact.

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