WoW: The joy of PvP

Tell me about stealth and stealth classes and what kind of role they play in PvP (currently). Please and thank you. :)

I personally don’t know. I’ve never seen a stealth class participating in PvP.

Level based PvP sucks. Basically, you were caught totally unaware and unprepared by a character that was built to slice wimpy mages like you to shreds, but by virtue of catassing a few more hours than your attacker you were able to win easily. This is your idea of fun? Maybe you should take a trip to your local preschool and slap some small children around. Let’s wait until you are repeatedly raped by gangs of hardcore PvPers many levels above you before you decide that “I WIN!” buttons are a good time.

For those of us who actually understand what good PvP is supposed to be like, this is yet another indicator that WoW is still a carebear game, even on the so called PvP servers.

Level based PvP sucks. Basically, you were caught totally unaware and unprepared by a character that was built to slice wimpy mages like you to shreds, but by virtue of catassing a few more hours than your attacker you were able to win easily. This is your idea of fun? Maybe you should take a trip to your local preschool and slap some small children around. Let’s wait until you are repeatedly raped by gangs of hardcore PvPers many levels above you before you decide that “I WIN!” buttons are a good time.

For those of us who actually understand what good PvP is supposed to be like, this is yet another indicator that WoW is still a carebear game, even on the so called PvP servers.[/quote]
It’s only a matter of time before the vast majority of people are going to be at or near the level cap.

Unless it’s different on the PvP server, paying the spirit healer now costs 25% degradation on all items, which blows.

No single-player game would ever penalize players for dying like an MMO does.[/quote]

Except for ones that make you start the entire level over if you die.

Level based PvP sucks. Basically, you were caught totally unaware and unprepared by a character that was built to slice wimpy mages like you to shreds, but by virtue of catassing a few more hours than your attacker you were able to win easily. This is your idea of fun? Maybe you should take a trip to your local preschool and slap some small children around. Let’s wait until you are repeatedly raped by gangs of hardcore PvPers many levels above you before you decide that “I WIN!” buttons are a good time.

For those of us who actually understand what good PvP is supposed to be like, this is yet another indicator that WoW is still a carebear game, even on the so called PvP servers.[/quote]

Gary was attacked! He fought back and won. I know that’s satisfying.

You know what you’re going into when you play a game like this. Enemy players are like dangerous, unpredictable mobs to me. I try to avoid higher level ones and enjoy preying on the ones I can beat. It adds excitement to the game knowing I can be attacked at any time in contested areas. Sometimes, just getting away from a surprise attack is satisfying.

For those of us who actually understand what good PvP is supposed to be like, this is yet another indicator that WoW is still a carebear game, even on the so called PvP servers.

Any MMORPG is all about how much skill (and which skill) your character has. UO was the same shit. GM Tactics/Swords vs Adept Tactics/Swords. Who wins? That’s what I thought. I remember having a GM archer when archery sucked, and then they made it godly for a while. I had about three or four days where I was able to just ridiculously own everyone I came across. Are you going to tell me that old school UO had carebear PvP because GM archer during patch X owned GM tankmage for a while?

Ever play Darktide in AC? Same shit, level 100 player vs level 10 player, who’s going to win? Did anyone that played DT ever actually manage to create a new char without getting cut down by the level 25 guy who camped the newbie tower? No. Carebear PvP? Please.

Then you had DT2, where level didn’t mean shit, it was all about character builds. My Defender/Mage was able to cut down people 8 levels higher in a fair fight. Why? Because I picked a better template than the other guy. How many times did the average player get killed by an engineer with 15 turrets outside a portal? Sure, there was no looting, but it wasn’t carebear.

WoW’s PvP is fine for what it is. Probably the best in terms of actual tactics/skill that I’ve seen in the genre. If they add looting and other PvP stuff, they’ll have a good game on their hands. Right now it’s just fun to gank Alliance newbies trying to steal my quest mobs in contested zones. Eventually, they will need to expand on things. That Gnome bitch who stole my XT:4 spawn got a good healty dose of earthshock followed by Rockbiter 3 enhanced battleaxe to the skull.

If you want to point to a game with shitty PvP, might I suggest DAoC or EverQuest?

It is what you make of it. SOme of the most entertaining PvP I’ve had was on EQ’s Sullon Zek.

I think it comes down to actually having something to fight for, some purpose, that makes it fun (for me anyway).

So anyway, back to WoW PvP. WHat’s Greg K. talking about when he says “There are certain higher-level fringe territories in Azeroth that are considered neutral or contested, and it’s here where the alliance and the horde may attack each other.”? Is this on all servers or just the PvP servers?

Let me spell it out for those who have lost touch with fantasy “reality”. If a mage five levels higher than a fighter sees the fighter coming and is able to prepare, then the fighter should be dead meat. But if the fighter can sneak up on the mage and get off a few seconds of attacks before the mage even knows what is going on, then that mage should be taking a dirt nap. We are talking about a huge bladed weapon slicing through cloth like butter. We are talking a mere 5 levels, not 25 levels. Clearly, in WoW PvP, Level>All.

After a couple of seconds of taking damage while I tried to figure out what the hell was going on, I rooted his ass to the spot with a Frost Nova spell, then backed off and proceeded to nuke his ass from a leisurely distance with Mark 4 Fireballs. He was a corpse about four seconds later.

Does this really sound like skill to you? It screams imbalance to me.

The warrior probably wasn’t using a shield. If he’d have been sharp enough to Shield Bash the Frost Nova, follow up with a Hamstring (if he hadn’t used that first, anyway, I like opening with that more than Rend), and then hammer Heroic Strike, he probably would have killed him for sure.

I was lucky enough to be playing before they nerfed warriors, you used to be able to Pummel and interrupt spellcasting every 10 seconds without wearing a shield. Good times, good times.

That’s true, but I wasn’t obsessed with gaining levels, in the sense of worrying if I lost XP because my goal was simply to explore and complete quests. The leveling was the means to get more quests and see more areas.

It’s sort of an arbitrary distinction, but I feel like running across the map just to get my corpse so I could run back to the place I started is pointless and boring. Running across the map to a quest, or to explore a new place, is… less boring.[/quote]

The monetary cost of repairing your equipped items 25% generally amounts to maybe 10-15 minutes of whacking monsters. It’s about the same, maybe less, than the time it took to get back the lost XP when they had that system in place.

But the item degredation is better, because
a) until your item is totally down to zero it works at full effeciency, so really you don’t get “set back” any
b) it’s a money sink for the economy, which an MMO needs to have in place from the start. Or else it eventually gets so that the only items that have any value are really rare quest items, which cost a fortune, while everything else is “worthless junk” because everyone has too much money. Inflation gets out of control. And adding money sinks after that happens makes the entire user base complain.

There’s no telling if WoW’s economy will hold up over time, but Blizzard did a good job setting it up to succeed. Between small costs for flights, item repair, auctions that don’t sell, and the using the mail system, they have a way to get money back out of the economy without breaking the player’s backs with big huge money sinks.

You can’t really judge the PvP until you get level 60s fighting each other. Then each player has full access to the talents.

Right now mages can own everyone in one on one PvP due to the blink/poly combo. Warlocks can give them a hard time I guess. Mages can just blink away, poly you, eat and drink to get to full health and mana, and then get maximum distance and hit you with a pyroblast crit. If you’re a melee, by the time you run to the mage you’re probably dead from followup nukes, and if not he can just frost nova you and move away to finish you. Or blink away. He can even poly you again if things are going bad for some reason.

If you’re a caster, getting hit by a pyroblast crit puts you one or two spells away from death. Pryroblast, instant cast fireblast, arcane missiles and you’re dead.

That blink-poly stuff just is too much right now.

I’m not sure of the specifics off hand, but I believe priests have a silence spell or talent that can be pretty harsh on other spellcasters.

Edit: but mages have counterspell to throw into the mix… it gets interesting… I haven’t tested all this stuff yet, but can’t wait to.

I’ve never used it in PvP, but the Rogue’s kick is great at disrupting spellcasters in PvE. Obviously that’s useless if I get jumped by a mage, but in a fair fight, I dunno.

If it makes TrodKnee feel any better, today I got rushed by a a horde rogue that was roughly equivalent to my level on two occasions, and on both occasions I got sliced to bits before I had time to respond.

I think I enjoy PvP servers better. There’s just something more nerve-wracking about travelling through contested areas, there’s a “don’t go into those woods alone” kinda feel that I like.

It is good, but blink is an insta-cast spell. They can blink far enough away so that they are hard to get to before they cast polymorph on you. Once they cast poly on you, it’s pretty much game over.

Thanks for the tip, Mark.

This is exactly why I play PvP servers. Ever since getting my first taste of this on Rallos Zek lo these many years ago, it’s been PvP all the way for me. I actually really like WoW’s setup, with allied “safe zones” for the first 20 levels or so. That’s cool.

One thing that is completely messed up about the pvp system is that moonglade counts as contested. This is basically the druid training area, and you have to go there to learn shapeshifting etc. You always teleport into the same spot, and the first couple of times you go it’s highly likely that enemy druids outlevel you.

The first time I went I got attacked and killed while exploring by a druid at level ??.

The second time I was attacked while getting a quest from the arch-druid, but got away because I had speed potions and my enemy didn’t.

The third time I ganked some low level tauren with arrogant ease.

Every single time there were skeletons piled all over the area, especially the place you port in. All the while night elf and tauren guards are standing around enjoying the show. Pretty sloppy work by blizzard in my opinion.

Does this really sound like skill to you? It screams imbalance to me.

No, sounds more like the warrior was an idiot. Didn’t have a freedom potion. Didn’t build up rage before engaging to get a quick stun in. etc.

Right now mages can own everyone in one on one PvP due to the blink/poly combo.

False. Wait until you start running into competent Shaman. You might be agreeing with Trodknee real quick. Remember, all poly does is buy you time. As soon as it wears off (or if I see you first), you’re in deep shit. I’ve taken mages higher level than I. Yes, they used poly. Yes, they tried to use frost nova. And yes, they tried to use blink. But I can counter those things. They don’t have a counter for the talent points I spent in the shock line of spells. :)

Man, last night I was running from Loch Modan to Dun Algaz with my Level 14 Night Elf Hunter, with “Track Humanoids” on to watch out for NPC Orcs along the path. Just as I exit one of the tunnels into the Wetlands area, 3 blips show up really quickly headed in my direction, followed by visual sighting of 3 level 20-30 Horde guys, a Tauren Shaman, Orc Warrior, and something Rogue. I managed to hit the Tauren with one Concussive shot, backed up, had my next two shots deflected, and died in about one hit.

It’s pretty cool anyway, because I didn’t lose XP and items didn’t degrade when I got back to my body, plus it did add a nice surprise and future tension whenever I cross that area again.

Afterwards, I agreed to a few duels with some Gnomes back in town, just to see how I’d handle a straight-up PvP situation, and managed to take down a level 13 Gnome Mage, but lost to a level 19 Gnome Mage. My Concussive Shot stunned the level 13 guy for a few seconds, allowing me to fire off a poison shot and critical with a regular shot as well; he managed to freeze me for a few seconds, but by then it was too late - as soon as I thawed, I charged him and killed him with one Raptor Strike.

The level 19 guy just polymorphed me right off the bat, and as soon as I reverted, I was frozen to the spot and ate a few fireball thingies. I managed to get off 2 shots with my rifle before I died in that one.