Breakfast Topic: Dirty tactics
by Jennie Lees 
Mar 6th 2006 at 7:00AM
While we might assume by default that every
other player is a honourable and upright paragon of virtue, sometimes little quirks of behaviour manage to shatter our
illusions beyond repair. From chat spammers to mob campers, we frequently run into some dirty tactics which serve to
convince us that perhaps WoW isn't such a nice place to be after all.Ganking aside, what are your favourite or least favourite tricks to employ in these situations? One of mine is excessive politeness--it may be the Englishness of it, but saying "I'm terribly sorry, old chap, but would you mind pushing off for a few minutes while I finish this quest?" has surprising effects.
Filed under: WoW Social Conventions, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
PodMonkeys Mar 6th 2006 8:09AM
My least favorite tactic, is when its obvious you're headed for something (especially as a Pally), and a nearby warlock/wizard/cleric/hunter range attacks the mob before you can reach it. Even worse, is when you're one step away from the mob you're about to attack and a warrior Charges it to get the hit.
This was especially annoying for me, when I was killing mobs for a quest as a level 40 Pally, and some level 60 Tauren warrior was there farming.
Branislav Mar 6th 2006 8:36AM
Two things are coming to my mind :
- you have this quest to finish in a cave. You enter the cave and discover a group of allies (i'm horde) inside. They will obviously interfere if you start killing what they consider as being their mobs. What i do is the following : i get close to them while they are in a serious fight, help them killing their mobs, /bow all of them. 95% of the time, they would not bother me while farming close to them.
- what I hate the most is doing escort quests and being killed by a group of gankers at the very end of the mission.
Harri Mar 6th 2006 9:51AM
You're in a high-mob-density area and you've just cleared your way towards a chest. You're just finishing off the last mob when... oh no!
Someone just ran in and stole your chest.
Now I play on a PvE server or else I would have just feared them away and grabbed it while he and the mob were running around flailing their limbs. But it's SO annoying when this happens. It goes for named mobs too, I can't count the number of times I've had to wait for a respawn because someone stole my hard-earned kill.
Dave Mar 6th 2006 10:12AM
More often than not, it's my own faction that I want to gank. From chat spamming in IF (yes, I know that you want to go to UBRS, please shut up now), to chest and mob stealing, at least with the opposite faction you have a chance to kill them.
I still think that there should be a limited "Force Duel" ability for your own faction that you could use once a day or so. So when that annoying lowbie gnome tries to take your chest, you can put them and you into combat and make them pay for their breach of civility.
the ninja Mar 6th 2006 10:17AM
I'm guilty of it, and I've been doing it alot at the twilight camps in Silithus lately...
MOONFIRE SPAM! It's alot of fun to tag a mob from 30 yds. away with the loveable instacast moonfire and snag those dirty cultists away from the nearest alliance noob :D
R.O.B. Mar 6th 2006 10:35AM
@ the ninja: Hooray for Moonfire! GAWD, I love that spell... I occasionally just go to low-level areas where the mobs can be killed in 1 hit from Moonfire, and take 'em all out in 20 seconds. It's fun as hell.
One thing I hate: Allies [or Horde, I play Horde] in Hillsbrad and Booty Bay. I'm a bit higher level now so I can handle them, but around level 19 it was hell for me. They were all at least 10 levels above me, almost all were mounted, all had expensive looking weapons and armor so I know they were too high level to get any honor from killing me, yet they never stopped killing me. Seriously: If you don't get any honor from it, DON'T KILL IT. It's that simple.
GlennZilla Mar 6th 2006 10:50AM
Well the ganking is easier to understand when you realize that the ganker is follwing the adage, "If it's red it's dead."
I realized this when I was leading some guildmates into an instance and they insisted that we jump all Horde we came across.
But the tactic that annoys the most out of me is when I break down and look up a walkthrough online, or ask how someone completed a quest only to hear "I'm a rogue, stealh in, loot and leave..."
Mrs.EB Mar 6th 2006 1:41PM
two things seriously annoy me - one is when someone solo'ing pulls their aggro over to me, and invariably end up in the middle of it (ie, when at Sven, and someone solos Bride). The other is when people simply can not say THANK YOU! Numerous times I've joined a group to assist, only to be left hanging without a thanks.
Kieron Mar 6th 2006 6:00PM
I was working in a cave the other day with my Warrior and ran across a Rogue. We were both farming the same mobs for a quest, basically leapfrogging each other. Up ahead there was a chest but there were two mobs ahead of us. He engaged the first one just as I was finishing up a kill, so I engaged his mob to help him on his kill.
I was fine letting him have the chest, and was typing that when he vanished and went for the chest.
Unfortunately for him, the last mob was near the chest and agroed on him while he was trying to open it. Even worse was that I finished off the mob he left me with before he could finish of his. So istead, I walked up to the chest and looted it while he was engaged.
Man, he was pissed.
It was a bit petty, but I was annoyed at the way he dropped his kill on me to finish off (and get no experience for) while he went to loot the chest. I was even more annoyed since I was willing to let him have it--no rolls, no debate.
Kieron Mar 6th 2006 6:04PM
I was working in a cave the other day with my Warrior and ran across a Rogue. We were both farming the same mobs for a quest, basically leapfrogging each other. Up ahead there was a chest but there were two mobs ahead of us. He engaged the first one just as I was finishing up a kill, so I engaged his mob to help him on his kill.
I was fine letting him have the chest, and was typing that when he vanished and went for the chest.
Unfortunately for him, the last mob was near the chest and agroed on him while he was trying to open it. Even worse was that I finished off the mob he left me with before he could finish of his. So istead, I walked up to the chest and looted it while he was engaged.
Man, he was pissed.
It was a bit petty, but I was annoyed at the way he dropped his kill on me to finish off (and get no experience for) while he went to loot the chest. I was even more annoyed since I was willing to let him have it--no rolls, no debate.
Marsh Mar 6th 2006 9:03PM
The thing I find the most annoying is actually kinda dumb, but nonetheless it infuriates me. It's when bored members of your own faction stand on your lure when you're trying to fish, so that you can't click on the lure to catch the fish.
I was in Org fishing and a bunch of 60s on mounts thought it would be funny to do this while they waited for BG. I swear, it made me madder than being corpse camped!
Lyttuch Mar 8th 2006 8:53AM
I usually quest with two friends; we've been doing this for more than a year now, every Friday night. We always set the Loot Level at Free-for-all. We then take turns...it ain't that hard with only three of us. And, if we forget who got the last one, we usually just say whoever is closest can loot. We share the coin anyway, and give each other any gear they can use and we can't. In other words, we are very cordial when it comes to loot.
What we can't stand...to the demise of some...is allowing a stranger into the group if they ask to join us, not setting the Loot Level to round robin or whatever it's called, and having the stranger run to and loot everything that drops...sometimes before it even hits the floor. We warn the stranger that we SHARE loot, but usually the wanker will continue. We actually left a guy in the middle of a bunch of pissed Satyrs when we warned him a number of times to stop stealing. It didn't turn out too well for him.
Now, we're forced to change the Loot Level. So much for courtesy.
The other thing that's annoying is having my Priest be told "Heal me, Priest"...notice the lack of "please"? Same happens with my Mage and Water. "Give me..." seems to be the standard way of asking. When that happens, I tell the person to "please" would work much better...or I tell 'em to hose off...depends on my mood.
There. I've vented. Good hunting to you all, Alliance and Horde alike (I run both types).