The World is Different on The Other Side

I finally finished collecting valor on my horde hunter and moved on to the next part of the legendary quest line.  The part I dread most from the alliance end of the spectrum.  Time to PvP.  I have alliance character after alliance character backed up at that point where I play and lose over and over until I give up on that character for a few months, like I have on my lock, my shaman, my druid, etc, in the past.

I did not go straight into the PvP, I knew that horde side there would be a lot of waiting involved.  One of the side effects of being on the winning team, people want to play even more.  So I went and did the PvE part of the quest first.

This turned out to be one of the few moments I can say alliance had it easier.  I could solo the horde commander on a healer.  He hits like a wet noodle, he has one ability that gives you an extra action bar, and if you hit that instantly it really does not do anything to you.

Even before they nerfed them down so people could do them in smaller groups soloing the horde commander on an alliance character with a pet, like a hunter or lock, or using a tank so they could heal, was easy.

So I expected the alliance commander to be just as easy.  Just look out for one ability that doesn't need a super quick response to it and make sure it does not hurt me.  Even in a lesser geared ungemmed and unenchanted character this should be a piece of cake.  And then I died... on a hunter.  Yeah, I was shocked too.

I started the fight, saw the gun ability, the shockwave like ability, the bomb things on the ground, I avoided them all no problem, then he started to cast something.  Normally I interrupt but I had already started to cast a cobra shot and I did not have my stop casting macro for my counter shot on this character.  So I figured this would not be his big move because you need to actually, you know, do something about it, so I would just interrupt after the cobra but I was wrong on both count.  It was his big thing and I did not interrupt it in time.  Damn travel time, I interrupted with more than enough time, but it did not make to him in time.

Out come six dwarves from hell.  No big deal right, misdirect and multi shot and I will mow them down with the boss.  Not exactly.  Holy crap these guys hit hard.  They hit 10 times harder than the commander does and there are six of them.  Even my glyphed mend pet has no prayer in hell of keeping up with their damage.  Dead pet, and I died too because apparently I was not really set up for kiting like I am on my regular hunter.  Oops.

I run back, revive my pet, and go back in but holy crap the six dwarves are still there.  Like an idiot I get all of them and the commander again and die once more.

Third times a charm right?  Not exactly.  I go back up this time and slowly pull, only getting three of the dwarves and not all six and the boss this time.  Mend pet does not stand a chance, these guys are the dwarves from hell and they are beating my pet in a way he has never been beaten before.

Twice bitten thrice shy they say, or at least I do when it comes to this, and I saw my pet dying so I readied myself to feign ahead of time and did not die but thankfully this reset the dwarves and they disappeared.  Awesome.  As it was going I would have needed to try to pull them one at a time if I wanted to kill them and get back to trying the commander a second time.

With the dwarves dead this time and the knowledge that I must interrupt that ability at the cost of anything I had no problem with him when I tried him the second time.  If only it were not for travel time I would have done it the first time.  If only I had my stop casting macro I would have done it the first time.  If only if only if only.

I am so embarrassed I died on my hunter to such an avoidable thing.  I should have read up on it before I went.  I just figured it would be something stupid simple like the alliance version was.  The alliance version didn't have no "do this instantly or die" things.  Unless you want to call pressing an extra action button a "do this instantly or die" thing.

I should have my hunter card suspended for a month for that indiscretion, for dying to something a hunter should never die to.  But I made up for it.  After I was done with him I went out and killed the three alliance rares.  After I was done with them I yelled out, I am in your base killing your dudes, and then let out an evil laugh before getting out of there like a cow out of hell, on a bat.  Or was that like a bat out of hell.  Either way, I was done with it even if my ego was a little wounded from dying in a situation I should have never died in.

After getting back to the shrine I decided to queue up for the two battle grounds.  It took me 9 minutes to get into the first one.  A huge change from the near instant time I am used to for alliance, but a wait to win is better than an instant loss any day if you ask me.

So did I win?  Not exactly.  We lost, it was a really close match however.  Not like the alliance losses were we are always brutalized.  I actually thought we were going to win up until the last second.

I started to think, maybe it is just me.  Maybe I am really just that bad of a PvPer that I taint whatever group I am in.  But 15 minutes later I would find out.

I enter the mines and there are two people explaining what we are going to do.  No one is insulting them for trying to lead the group like always seems to happen on the alliance side.  The two people working together explaining are not even together, they are from different servers, but I suppose they could know each other.

We head out and follow the plan and take a quick cart, then another.  We listen for call outs and the group, the entire group, responds near instantly.  Alliance teams usually keep doing their own thing thinking "someone else will get that".  I was not used to this type of team work.

It was not an easy fight.  The alliance did not just fall over for us but we took it from them.  It was a really nice feeling to win and I do not care even for even one second that I needed to wait 15 minutes to get in.  Even when we lost we almost had it.  It was not a brutal defeat like the ones I have become used to.

My next wait happened to be 23 minutes.  The temple was a joke.  We walked in there like we owned the place and we kept it.  We got a lock on all four orbs early and just hung out in a group in the center.  Every so often some alliance member would walk in and offer themselves as a sacrifice.  They even killed one of us carrying an orb once in a while.  They would grab the one and we would send a few out to go get it back, which never took long.

It actually made for a very boring battle ground even if the start was very fun and exciting.  When you are trying to get points it always seems like the winning team is gaining them so fast and the game passes like a blink of an eye.  But when you are there sitting on an 800 point lead 1200 to 400 and you are waiting for that last 400 points to come it damn near feels like it is taking a year and a day.

So given the option, get into battle grounds instantly and losing all the time or getting into only 3 in an hour and winning 2 of them I do not think there really is a comparison.  I will take the winning with a wait over the losing instantly any day.  Any horde member who complains about queue time I have two words for you, roll alliance.  After experiencing that for a while you will never complain about the wait for a battle ground again.

So now on to the rest of the legendary quest story line on my horde hunter.  I like to experience it all on both sides, it make for a much fuller story.  I'll resume it whenever I am bored again.  It was a nice change of pace after spending the first few days of the week losing every battle ground I stepped into.  Most definitely the world is different on the other side.