Militia duty

I'd just finished my dailies last night, when a distress call went out on General. A group of four extremely well geared Alliance players were creating an unusually large and intense disturbance on the island, repeatedly ganking people who were simply trying to do the quests. I've said before here that if the Alliance themselves don't cause trouble, I will not bother them, and will even sometimes try and help them; but that if they start something, I'm going to make my best attempt at finishing it.

I will also admit that, as insanely stupid as this possibly sounds, I'd never had any truly experential, emotional understanding of the concept of patriotism before having a character in the Horde. It was my earliest exposure to the behaviour of the Alliance that actually created that in me. There's no stronger motivation for developing the strong perception of, "Us," than when there is also persecution being engaged in by a vindictive, arrogant, and cowardly, "Them." From the very first time I encountered them as a Horde player, the Alliance became the enemy.

At first, that was with fairly extreme reluctance. Then, as I grew to actively despise the behaviour of the Alliance players on my particular server, fighting them became easier.

So myself and a group of around three other people got together, and went hunting.

I admit; we never really had a chance. The Rogue was Sub spec with warglaives and apparently actually hacking; someone noted that Vanish and three chain Sprints were used in a manner that seemed faster than the cooldowns for those abilities would allow. The Moonkin Druid, in addition to being well geared, was also the first native of his spec that I have encountered in the game who was genuinely skilled.

I was able to kill both of them once, but only once. They both then ganked me at least four times, sometimes camping me.

I initially killed them with my usual combination of Wyvern Sting, and then Aimed, Multi, and Arcane Shot, and I believe provoked a significant amount of anger in them by doing so, judging by their subsequent response. Given that the above combination and Frost/Snake Trap kiting are my only real defense against Druids in particular, once the Moonkin started adapting, there wasn't really anything else I could do. He began making use of Abolish Poison to pre-emptively counter the sleep of Wyvern Sting, and Barkskin in addition to the already high base armour of the form, in order to mitigate my burst. He also created an enclosure around me with treants and then simply killed me with Moonfire.

I've been using Beast Mastery on the island before, and the 1:1 rotation is a lot easier to use in PvP than the 1:1.5 of Marks/Survival. I have a strong preference for Survival while questing or farming, however.

Still, it seems I might have to consider using BM while doing dailies, especially given that I'm considering guard duty after finishing them more often. I'm tired of being ganked, and of fellow Horde players being ganked as well, when if they left me alone, I'd be more than willing to simply quest and let others do the same.

I'd prefer that it didn't have to be this way, but it's becoming apparent that the Alliance on Thaurissan need to be sent a message.

A temporary cease fire

While doing dailies last night, I found myself reverting briefly to my own Care Bear roots in terms of my dealings with the Alliance.

There was a Gnome Rogue who was in danger of being killed by three Dawnblade Blood Elves in Dawnstar Village at one point; I helped kill them, /waved, (without targetting the gnome, lest accidents happen) and got a /hug in return. Later, during the Dawnblade Reinforcements quest, a Night Elf Druid was similarly in danger of being killed when I saved him, getting a /cheer in response.

The interesting thing was, on both occasions, I'd started to do it even before I'd actually thought about it, and didn't think about it until afterwards. Normally I don't do such things where the Alliance are concerned; opting instead to simply avoid them if they do not attack me. I can only remember perhaps one other occasion where I've actually tried to help one of them.

I think what that proved to me was that Rilgon was right when he said he couldn't see me as primarily PvP. I had to roll on a PvP server initially because my offline friends were there, and later had to adapt to PvP out of necessity. My first character, a Mage, was designed for pure PvE; until they began to consistently attack me, I hadn't had any plans to attack Alliance players myself at all.

Although I do enjoy the battlegrounds, my reasons for attempting to adapt to the Arena are purely gear based; s3 Arena gear is the apparent equivalent of t6, certainly in terms of armour pen at least, if nothing else, and given that my chances of progressing to the Black Temple in raid terms are basically non-existent, if I want to move forward in the game at all, it's pretty much the Arena or bust.

Hence, while I enjoy the battlegrounds recreationally, and the Arena is basically a gear grind, in terms of the non-instanced game world, truthfully I'd much rather have peace with the opposite faction. It means I can do what I need to, and they can do the same; it's a much more certain means for us to both ultimately get what we need, than is fighting each other.