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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: What are your rules of engagement for world PVP?
by Mike W. McVey 
Sep 11th 2011 at 8:00AM
I have found that everyone likes to PVP in different ways. Some like to play in the Arena, some in Rated Battlegrounds, some in regular PVP, and some like to do my favorite -- world PVP! I personally have rules for world PVP:
- I only attack when I am within one level of my prey.
- If they are fighting a mob, I wait until they kill the mob.
- I will not attack if they are less than 90% health/mana.
- I refuse to camp someone.
I realize I am not a typical world PVPer. I know I am not unique in the hundreds of thousands of times that I have been ganked. But even in a game, I have a problem taking out my anger on another human being, even if it just their avatar. Do not get me wrong -- I still get angry. But I take it out in dungeons or battlegrounds.
Do you have any rules of engagement when you PVP?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 7)
Rievar Sep 11th 2011 5:38PM
I am a Rogue.
These are my daggers. There are many like them, but these are mine. My daggers are my best friends. They are my health bar. I must master them as I must master my health (and energy) bar.
Without me my daggers are useless. With my daggers I am useless (unless it's a disarm... then I can always blind, vanish -> garrote, etc.). I must stab my daggers true. I must stab better than my enemy who is trying to gank me. I must gank him before he ganks me. I WILL...
My daggers and I know that what count in War(craft) is not the secondary stats, the sweet looking enchant visual effects, nor the combo points we produce. We know it is the hits that count. We WILL stack hit... (to the 5% cap for pvp).
Before the Light, I swear this creed. My daggers and myself are the defenders of the Alliance. We are the master of our enemy. We are the saviors of my health bar.
So be it, until victory is MINE and there is no enemy... because I have ganked them all (or peace, I guess).
ravyncat Sep 11th 2011 1:21PM
Ugh. I absolutely hate pvp of any sort and I won't do it. I refuse to attack another person even if they attack me first. I can't see other characters as game things...they are people. It doesn't matter if they are people who choose to play a different faction than me.
It just feels awful and wrong to hurt a person. :(
None of the holiday achievements that involve pvp will ever be done by me.
My only exception is when my city is being attacked and then I will defend it. But I don't like it at all...it is more a sense of honor and a need to protect it than anything else.
(And if I know the "attack" is something people are doing for a holiday, I let it slide.)
Sintraedrien Sep 11th 2011 1:26PM
This.
So much this.
/hug from a belf DK ;)
Sintra E'Drien of the Ebon Blade, né Sindorei
bethontheharbor Sep 11th 2011 1:35PM
I play on a PvE server.
If they are over level 25 and still don't no not to flag, or they go into a bg from somewhere out in the open, then return, They are fair game.
Don't want to get killed don't be stupid.
Stilhelm Sep 11th 2011 3:15PM
I've come back and killed more than a couple who thought they should bother my lowbie for being flagged from a BG while out questing. Most are cowards, though; they will hang around to camp my lowbie, killing me as soon as I rez, but as soon as they think I logged out and are on my way back with something to give them a proper fight they flee. One of the best things in WoW is that rare occasion when I manage to find that coward still flagged and camp him until he waits the 5 minutes to unflag before rezzing or logs.
vegetto375 Sep 11th 2011 1:39PM
I play in a PvP server and by my personal rules, it means is all out war. My server is really small so the only places that we see Horde/Alliance at the same are in major dailies areas. With that being said after I complete all my molten front dailies I go for the hunt, doesn't matter what class spec or race as long as you're the opposite faction. I don't camp, is just boring to me, when I can instead just go find some more fresh blood.
One rule you could say I have is never ever ever get mad that you got ganked, tag teamed, or camp. If you enjoy the killing of other PC's learn to live with the fact that sometimes you are the ones that's gonna die.
Leethax Sep 11th 2011 2:26PM
It seems that the majority of alliance on my server aren't very good at pvp.
Being an arena-geared warrior, I will *always* go out of my way to kill any horde that are attacking any alliance, unless I specifically see the ally dude start it.
One time, there was a guy in molten front who was so appreciative that I'd stopped the horde's constant ganking of him for a few minutes that he gave me about half of the gold from all the dailies that day. That was pretty awesome.
Scunosi Sep 11th 2011 2:27PM
I tend to have pretty much similar rules as you listed, if I PvP at all. I'm not the worst PvPer thanks to my old friends, but now that they're gone and I haven't done any rated PvP to get any gear beyond the easy stuff, I'm not really confident in myself enough to go around picking fights. I'll help if I'm called on and jump in if I see someone being a bully, but other than that I mostly just use my Druidy wiles to stay alive and laugh if they fail.
It doesn't help when you play a spec most people laugh at anyway like Balance.
Stilhelm Sep 11th 2011 3:01PM
Being on a PVE server, I will generally live and let live, realizing that they might be flagged from a recent BG or something. Unless they are taunting people, trying to get in the way of others' attack to try to flag them, or things like that, in which case I will attempt to kill them until they go away. I keep a main in reasonably current pvp gear just for those situations.
Also, if a max level (or very high level) kills my lowbie or quest NPCs, I will spend potentially hours looking for them to kill and camp them, with help from friends if necessary. The exception is if I'm doing something like the Midsummer festival on a lowbie and a high-level kills me once for dousing their flames, I'll let that slide because I might do the same. They better not bother me when I rez, though, or I'll come give them the fight they're not looking for.
stvoyager73 Sep 11th 2011 3:05PM
i play on a rp-pve server i generally avoid all pvp, unless of course you attack me first.
Ominous Sep 11th 2011 3:06PM
You keep referring to "they". You attack several people or do you mean "him" / "her" ?!
Taco McGee Sep 11th 2011 3:15PM
When you used to get morons that would attack the starter areas, IE the 1-10 zones, they got camped unmercifully. And even attacking "The Roads", they got camped until they hearthed.
On my rogue, red is dead. Other classes? Not so much, unless they are being an assclown, or it is the obnoxious alt of an extremely annoying guildy, you know the one...
Neirin Sep 11th 2011 3:25PM
If I'm questing, I'll usually leave the other guy alone. If I kill him, then he'll most likely come after me when I'm fighting a few mobs and then I'll respond in kind and neither of us will get anything done for 2 hours.
If someone attacks me, I'll fight back. When I die, if I was beaten because they attacked me when I was at 50% health with 6 mobs on me I'll return the favor and get a revenge kill or two, but if someone beats me straight up I don't mind giving in and letting them get the quest mob or w/e they're after. If I'm killed because 16 horde stalked me around the entirety of the Isle of QD (ah, BC *nostalgia*), I'll deem it worth the corpse run just to have that story to tell and leave it at that.
MisterRik Sep 11th 2011 3:28PM
I prefer to keep my PvP to BGs. In "world PvP" situations, I refuse to gank. The other day I was on my level 85 human rogue doing the "Blackriver Skirmish" daily in Grizzly Hills. There was also a flagged, level 79 Horde character there. I was aware that, through some oversight on Blizzard's part, the Alliance quest doesn't flag you, but the equivalent Horde quest ("Blackriver Brawl") *does* flag you for PvP. So aside from the fact that I was several levels higher than the Horde player, the inherent unfairness of him being "force-flagged" while I wasn't led me to decide to just keep my distance and let him finish the quest in peace.
Susinko Sep 11th 2011 3:48PM
I tend to leave people alone. I am a kind person in real life and that tends to translate into my gameplay. But if they hurt me first or if they are attacking one of my faction, I will go all in.
Xantenise Sep 11th 2011 3:57PM
I'm on a normal server.
Nothing is funner than being on my 85, and seeing a low level flagged Ally going OH SH*T and BOLTING the opposite direction, and catching up to them on my 310% flying mount, and...
... /hugging them.
I'm sadistic, I know.
Vicvictorw Sep 11th 2011 4:10PM
If they're worth honor, they are so dead it's not even funny. Even moreso if they're going to put themselves at risk by being at low health and flagged, it being a PVE server and all.
But I don't camp, unless they provoke the fight or happen to be attacking a town.
Maccabeus Sep 11th 2011 4:48PM
I have no rules. Red = dead. I will camp you. I will chase you. I will toy with you.
Stray Sep 11th 2011 5:08PM
My main rule is that I do not engage until I have determined that the combat is consensual. This is typically determined by the other player "starting it" in some form--though the form must be combative and not, say, griefing or baiting me in a non-cambative manner through emotes. If after some combat the starter runs away, I don't give chase.
Typically though, the majority of the World PvP I partake in happens when a member of the opposite faction begins killing and camping my guildies that are only questing or farming. Then we take whatever guild members we have on and let the opposite faction know that screwing with one member is screwing with the whole. This involves killing the player until the player backs off. We do not corpse camp, but we do plant the guild standard and run off to shadow our victimized member while urging that guild member to continue on as he or she was. We then act as bodyguards until the guildie is finished or the threat disappears.
We do enjoy city raids, where the rules of engagement are completely different. I don't hold back when in another faction's city, mainly because I know the courtesy won't be returned, no matter what you're doing. See Old Crafty/Ironjaw. I suppose they're attacking us for depleting their food stores, there XD
Dif Sep 11th 2011 5:35PM
Unfortunately I'm stuck on a PVP server because I have RL friends and a good guild in general on it and also because I have levelled too many alts to afford the switch, otherwise I would have "rerolled PVE" as many PVPers usually suggest to us carebears.
Still ... I often wonder if it is really me that doesn't understand what a PVP server is really meant to be or if it is that some (just some, I give credit that not all are like this) PVPers who is wrongly believing that a PVP server is a Counter Strike-like game with PVE as collateral content.