WoW Journal - Day 12

Day 12 I explore Ashenvale, from east to west. Especially the eastern part is nasty, having invisible spiders up to level 29. Arriving at the western end, Zoram Strand, I do a quest where I have to summon a hydra Vorsha the Slasher, from the ocean and slay it. That and my other Ashenvale quests make me ding 27.

At 8 pm I do a census of both Horde and Alliance. Horde has 541 players online, highest level 53, and 19 players of level 40 to 60. Alliance has 1010 players online, highest level 44, and only 6 players level 40 to 60. Seems that the Alliance has more players, while the Horde has more power gamers.

On a second run to Ashenvale from the Barrens, I meet a big group of about 20 Alliance players, some with PvP flag on, which are just crossing the border into the Barrens. Not much I can do, but they can't attack me, and so I just give a warning on the Barrens local defence chat channel. A good bit further into Ashenvale I meet a night elf hunter of my level, who also has the PvP flag on. Well, if he wants ... I whack him. But he just turns his speed buff on and runs away. Nothing I can do, except kill his pet. He comes back with 3 friends and they kill me. Did I mention how pointless PvP in MMORPG often is? This is a typical example. Most people only attack if they have superior numbers or levels.

Back in the Barrens the Alliance invasion has reached the Crossroads. Which is a strategic blunder, because that is the central airport of the Horde side on this continent. Everybody calls in his guild mates, the Horde soon outnumbers (and outlevels, see above) the Alliance forces, and they all go down. I participate, but the main difficulty again is getting an enemy into the range of my sword. I manage to hamstring one, but he is only level 17, and the fight is pretty pointless again.

Time to do something fun instead. A guild group gathers to do Blackfathom Deeps. Having done that instanced dungeon six times with my night elf druid on the US servers, I know it well. But it is interesting that for a Horde group it plays slightly different, because the quests are different. The group is level 25 to 27, me as tank, a priest, a shaman, a rogue, and a mage. Nice setup. And all good players. We kill the turtle and I finally get the Tortoise Shell armor, but end up not using it. Sure, it has 100 more armor than my Shining Silver Breastplate, but it has absolutely no stats boni.

Short time later the mage goes linkdead. We continue while waiting for him to come back, but he never comes back. Surprisingly we still manage to finish the whole dungeon with just 4 people, doing all quests, and killing the optional big hydra mob at the end. The hydra drops a very powerful blue 2-handed sword. I lose the roll against the rogue (who later finds out that rogues can't use 2-handed weapons), but I don't mind. I prefer 1-handed weapon plus shield anyway, my role is to tank, not to deal big damage.

But I don't end up empty-handed. Because one of the quests in BFD is to dive for a stone in the temple pool, which then summons a huge water elemental. Who then drops a glowing stone, which starts another quest. You just need to hand in the stone and get the Outlaw Sabre, a blue 1-handed sword that is better than the Wingblade I had up to now. On that happy note I end day 12.
- posted by Tobold @ 11:59 PM Permanent Link