I had a fun conversation with Ruuaarr after a Heroic ToC run a few nights ago, and I thought the conversation was well worth relating here for a bit.
Ruuaarr is a member of our guild, and is known mostly for playing his Hunter.
I’ve played with Ruuaarr in raids like Naxxramas, in 5 man runs, and more recently in our takedown of Onyxia.
He’s always provided some serious DPS, and can be counted on to play attentively and with great skill.
That being said, he’s a bit of an oddity in our rather laid back social guild.
You see, Ruuaarr’s first love is not for PvE content in groups.
Nope, Ruuaarr is, instead, a devoted afficianado of PvP.
Any time of the day or night, you could expect to see Ruu in Wintergrasp or one of the other Battlegrounds, presumably pwning face.
Because of my PvE background, the world of PvP for me is a bit like a closed book. Talking about it, aside from telling stories about this really bitchin’ Alterac Valley I did on my Druid back in Burning Crusade whilst grinding towards some epic shoulders, consists of ”PvP, huh? So… fun, then?”
The conversation started when Ruuaarr dropped his third Fish Feast for the group, after a ’I died and ran in and died and ran in but the bastards are dead so screw it’ encounter.
I commented that I really needed to get to farming some fish to give to him, since he was being so very generous with dropping the Fish Feasts for the group.
Ruuaarr replied that he didn’t mind, he had plenty of fish. All the fish he could ever want.
He got them while fishing for Rogues to gank in Wintergrasp.
Well, there’s a story just begging to be told there, so I had to learn more.
“What I do”, Ruuaarr said, “Is go fishing in Wintergrasp, and I’m the bait. Rogues can’t resist trying to kill someone just standing there fishing. So, they stealth in to take me down, and that’s when I destroy them.”
Wait… somehow, this sounds like you’re cheating, and destroying these poor unsuspecting Rogues… but to do it, you have to stand there motionless and fish. Just standing there. And you have to wait for them to come in and make their attack.
“Yes, they come in to gank me, and when they do I kill them. That’s why I’m there. But I get a lot of fish, too.”
…..
That’s awesome. But this leads me to ask… why the vendetta against Rogues?
“Back when I first started playing, my son had been playing for a while and liked PvP. I wanted to try it, and went to join a Battleground. My son warned me, wait until I was 28 or 29, but I didn’t listen. I went in at level 25, and I was killed instantly. There was this Rogue there, and he just stayed and killed me over and over. The match seemed to last forever, and I was killed by this one Rogue 18 or 19 times. I refused to stop resurrecting, and I refused to stop playing, but he spent the entire match doing nothing but waiting for me and then killing me. That was when my war against the Rogues began.”
Well, I can certainly see how that might irritate a person. You must really hate people that corpse camp, after having to deal with something like that so soon in your playing.
“I don’t hate them, but the way I see it, if you are going to corpse camp someone, you deserve what you get. There was one time, my son was playing and got killed, and the other player corpse camped him, killing him over and over for 15 minutes or more.”
“I logged onto my main, and went and found the player corpse camping him, and killed him.”
“Then I sat on him and corpse camped him back, killing him five or six times.”
“He logged off, logged onto an Alliance character and asked why I was being an asshat and corpse camping him.”
That would make my day, personally.
It sounds as though you mostly like playing to have the challenge of an evenly matched battle. What are your thoughts on twinking?
“Twinking would work a lot better if they opened the pool of players to be cross game, and not just cross battlegroup. There just aren’t enough players in one battlegroup taking part. I think looking for the most advantage you can is built into the desire to twink… to be able to gank your opponent mercilessly and be overpowered. There are people that enjoy twinking their character to play in the twink only matchups, but if Blizzard wants that to be a success, they need to open the potential pool of players. There just aren’t enough in one battlegroup right now.”
It sounds to me like you don’t look for opportunities to destroy weaker opponents. Do you always play looking for an even match, in level at least?
“There was one time, and I still really feel bad about this. The arena in Stranglethorn Vale, I don’t know if you’ve done it, but it’s a free for all arena. You can kill people of your own faction in it too.”
“I was in there once, and there was a big fight moving all around, and I was taking on any target I saw, and I saw out of the corner of my eye someone enter the arena area and become flagged, and I took him down instantly. It turned out to be a level 31 or so of our own faction. I still feel really bad about that, I normally look to see what level someone is first, but in the arena I saw someone flag and just turned and took him down.”
Ruuaarr… thank you very much for giving me this look into the life of a PvP player, that truly does not fit in with any of the stereotypes I see all the time.
It was really refreshing to talk to someone that loves the PvP game, someone that really lives for the hunt and the hair trigger tension.
I hope that your story will help a few other folks remember that PvP isn’t all about corpse camping or ganking lowbies. A lot of very mature people love it too.
They just don’t get all the publicity. And maybe they should.
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