The unexpected pleasure of PvP
Everyone’s heard me say this time and again: I suck at PvP. I don’t know if Elemental Shamans suck or if it’s, um, operator error, but whatever it is, I get pwned. A lot. Seriously, it’s not even funny. I still like playing battlegrounds because there are people around to help you. Plus, I am quite good at defense in Warsong Gulch. However, in Azeroth and Outland, I try to flag only when absolutely necessary because otherwise I’ll get sapped, stunned, feared, ice-blocked, or whatever, to death. I feel like a dope because afterwards I always have the “d’oh!” moments where I think of the tactics I could’ve employed but failed to think of in the heat of battle.
This makes me, as you’d imagine, quite the carebear. Whenever I come up against the opposing faction on my (non-PvP) server, I hug them, wave, kiss, dance, or do whatever I can to persuade them not to kill me on sight. Either that or I throw down an Earthbind Totem and just run the heck away. Yeah. That’s me: carebear or chicken. Pick one, you got a 50-50 chance. I also don’t play in the Arenas or any other PvP place where I’m not surrounded by many faction buddies to bail me out of bad situations.
So imagine my surprise last night when I got such a charge out of a random PvP encounter that I went bouncing around my apartment pumping my fist and doing my own personal victory dance (an amusing cross between a shimmy and the twist, with a dash of MC Hammer).
Let me set the scene for you. Slig is now an oink away from level 69. So I’m out in Blade’s Edge, minding my own business, trying to find some drakes to off, when I happen upon the Alliance Fire for the Midsummer Fire Festival. It called out to me with a tantalizing yellow exclamation point, begging me to take the quest and steal the Ally fire. I looked around. No one but low-level NPCs. Ha! It’s mine, I thought. I trot over, take the fire and gallop away on my trusty kodo, completely unmolested. I felt like I’d stolen the Hope Diamond.
Then I hear that sickening bah-DUM chord that plays when you’re flagged for PvP. I’m all, “oh MAN! Why didn’t I think that through??” But still, there seem to be no Allies around so I flag off and hope to survive for the 5 minutes it takes to clear.
More beating of drakes. (Handily, I might add.) I swing around to loot a corpse and there are two Level 65 Allies looking at me: a Warrior and a Druid. Oh crap. I wave. “Hey there nice Alliance peoples! I’m just a happy, goofy Tauren helping you clear out your drake problem here! Please don’t kill me!” Immediately the Warrior flags and starts wailing on me. It takes me a few seconds to realize that my fuzzy welcome didn’t appease them. I stand there while he whacks me. I shrug and say, “Oh well, another PvP death. I’ll just wait here till you’re finished.”
Then I noticed something. This guy was banging away on me and my green health bar was barely affected. I mean, almost like he wasn’t hitting me at all. His Druid friend hadn’t flagged yet either. So I thought, well, what the hell. I’d tried to be nice but he was still pounding on me. So I dropped my Fire Elemental Totem.
Oh the carnage was a beautiful thing to see. That fire elemental is a nasty bad-ass. I’ve taken down Level 68 elites with that thing. These guys did NOT know who they were messing with. I Frost Shocked him when he tried to run away from the totem and then it only took about 3 swings to kill him. I ran back to the fire elemental totem and Mr. Level 65 Druid was still standing there, looking at a level 68 with a Fire Elemental and the genius decides to flag and hits me with a Moonfire. I’m all, “What?? Dude! Did you just see what I did to that Warrior?” Maybe he thought I was out of mana. Maybe he thought the elemental would time out (it still had 2 more minutes of glorious DPS left in it). I have no idea what he thought because he never changed to bear form or run-away-form or anything. He had time to try to cast a heal (which of course I stopped with an Earth Shock), but his armor was no match for me and he went down very quickly.
The funniest part of this story is what happened after they rezzed. I had no intention of camping them, but I did need to get one more drake. As I finished it off, I saw them mount up and take a few steps toward me (I was unmounted). Flush from my 2-on-1 PvP massacre, I was damn cocky. I mounted and took two steps forward. They blasted off in the other direction so quickly that all I could see was dust. I was lmao.
Wow, what a charge I got out of winning that ambush! I got a serious rush from it. Now I understand why people like PvP so much. Who knows, maybe I could learn to like it. Eventually. Someday…
June 26, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Hee hee hee… how funny. And the adrenaline is really amazing, isn’t it?
I know people get really frustrated getting ganked and corpse camped on PvP servers, but I’ve heard such funny stories of encounters on them, I’m still tempted to try it. It is nice to control when you want to be bothered by PvP and when you’d rather get things done though.
Maybe time to dip a toe into the battlegrounds again?
June 26, 2008 at 1:00 pm
FOR THE HORDE!
June 26, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Awesome job! Yes, you will have an uphill battle as a ele shaman in PVP, but you can still have fun. Have you tried out enhance?
June 27, 2008 at 6:55 am
And the ganked becomes the ganker. Brilliant!
June 27, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I was never a fan of pvp in other MMO I played, but in WoW is pretty fun with all the ganking and the multiple options you get for pvp.
Yesterday when I was at TM, I headed to SS to put out their bonfire. 63 b-elf ret pally, shouldnt be much trouble I think. Unfortunately, the fire is being guarded by a 70 and a 64 war. I turn right back. But they decide to follow and catch me off mount near TM fire.
Although I play a pvp server, I don’t start pvp fights myself or kill anyone lower lvl than me. I wave and the 70 doesnt make a move and I got a bit relaxed. But then the 64 unmounts and charges towards me. It was an epeen fight. The fight goes in my favor with him almost dying and me taking 25% hp loss. His 70 friend jumps to save him and I bubble and run to guards. For some reason, they follow me to the guards and the 70 starts wiping the npc and guards while the 64 heals and come back for another solo with me again. This time I kill him and the 70 starts killing the guards towards me. Unfortunately, a 70 orc war was lvling his alt and he gets his main from the TM inn and kills the human. We team up and end up camping the both all the way back to SS. As a final rub, we put out the SS fire right infront of them as they watch from their mounts. But then time I left TM, I had 12 HK off those guys.
June 27, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Heehee, that’s awesome. This is the reason I like PVP servers so much. When you get ambushed and die, it can be really annoying, but when you get ambushed and WIN, it’s SUCH an awesome feeling.
June 30, 2008 at 7:56 am
Very much a gratz. A very nice introduction to the winning side of World PvP. Naturally had they been serious and well…. cooperating with eachother (like, a measily heal from the druid perhaps) they might have wiped the floor with you and crushed your hopes of attaining PvPness. On to bigger and better. Pretty soon you’ll be getting the flag in WSG from 10 allies turtled up in their base
.
July 2, 2008 at 8:51 am
No…don’t give in to the Dark Side!! (Even if Slig is a hordie!)
(I, too, suck at PvP, but every so often, it is kinda nice to turn the tables, isn’t it?)