It’s been a while since I played WAR seriously, and as a result it seems my PvP-meter has declined back to its usual “OMG NO!” state. I’ve been avoiding scenarios on all characters and making sure I play at times where no oRvR is likely to be going on (i.e. 6 o’clock in the US morning).
PvP is not a natural playstyle or choice for me, and as soon as I stop practicing I retreat to my comfort zone, which involves not doing it if I can help it. I’ve been dreading T3 scenarios ever since Ysh turned 22 and couldn’t go into T2 anymore — I’d just got used to Mourkain Temple, dammit! Well, I say “used to,” but what I really mean is “able to stand 7 minutes of chaos without comporting myself too poorly or soiling her velvet-nap SW outfit.” All I’ve ever heard about T3 is that there’s only one scenario — Tor Anroc — and that it involves spending most of your time boiling in lava. Not being one of the classes that can pull victims in or one of the classes that can then AoE them to death, and given my utter inexperience with it, I suspect I’d spend 95% of the time in lava and the other 5% running back from the respawn point.
I did get to the stage, in T1, where I can cheerfully die and just run back to the fray. In T2, I still lose the pedals now and then and just end up running around like a headless chicken, prey to whatever Chosen or Witch Elf fancies a slice of High Elf for dinner. In T3… I dunno. I don’t like being ignorant (of the landscape, of tactics, or other folks’ choices), I don’t like being confused (though you’d think I’d be used to it by now), and I don’t much like being dead all the time. I had a bad time in Stonetroll Crossing — half a dozen attempts and confused and/or dead almost all the time, except for one time I got the bloody pacifier, alone, just in time to see 8 Destro come up on the knoll and wonder where the hell Order was; and I had a fairly bad time in Phoenix Gate — and I *still* don’t get the point of that scenario. I understand what we’re supposed to do, I just don’t understand WHY anyone would want to do it. It’s a giant empty scenario map with mini- or mega-mosh stages and… that’s about it.
My intense and probably irrational hatred for game-death is part of what’s kept me from enjoying PvP all these years (aside from, you know, the asshats who tend to gravitate to it); it’s not really that onerous in WAR, but after 5 or 6 chain deaths I do start getting a bit frustrated. To my credit, at least I don’t vanish from scenarios the way lots of people seem to be doing now when they don’t like the way things are going.
/tangent — and WTF is up with that anyway? You join a scenario to play a time-limited game and you bloody well stick with it, win or lose. You don’t fark off when you’re losing just because you can’t stand the thought of not obliterating the enemy, or because the NPCs on your side aren’t providing you with whatever service you think it is they owe you. (I’ve already ranted about player tendency to see anyone else in a game as “not real,” just a bunch of quasi-NPCs who are there to heal them, tank for them, or otherwise provide whatever it is Joe Q Asshat thinks he’s owed — but I may rant about it again, just for fun.) I may have had a horrible time in some scenarios — the ones where everything goes wrong from the start, for whatever reason, or the ones where there are 5 of you and 11 of them, or the ones where your side is all level 1 and they’re all level 11 — but it has never, not once, occurred to me to bug out of one because it wasn’t going the way I wanted. Serisouly — WTF? /tangent
The thing is, there isn’t a whole lot to WAR if you don’t do at least some RvR on the side, and I know from past experience that it can be fun, even though it also tends to be l-l-l-laggy and crash-to-desktoppy. Besides, Ysh has some Devastator boots and I wouldn’t mind a) being able to wear them someday, which isn’t likely since she’s RR17 and they’re RR23 req to wear and b) getting some of the other set pieces someday, preferably before Ysh hits 40 and they’re no use to her. That’s sort of what happened with the T2 Tracker set — by the time I got even the first piece, I was levels and levels above having a use for it.
On the whole, fun as it can be, RvR is something I have to force myself to do. The more I’m confronted by people who just don’t understand how someone couldn’t love it (or whatever activity it is they’re hawking), the more obstinate and contrary I get — actually, the more anyone tries to get me to do anything, the more contrary I get, but that’s another story and the reason why I never joined the armed forces.
So now I’m wondering — could I just get Ysh to 40 and worry about RvR then? The Devastator shoes are just shoes, and I don’t really care about items. I can always pass them on to someone more deserving. And in the meantime, I wouldn’t have to agonise about stupid PvP and could just PvE — as long as I don’t make a big deal of it, people might not notice. (Does blogging about it count as a big deal? Oops.)
Stylish Corpse 
What would change at 40 though? If you got there and still didn’t want to do RvR, would the trip have been worth it? Is so, then go for it. If not, then I think you need to just jump back into the pool and get your RvR Groove going again.
I’m kinda sorta struggling with the same kind of issue. 1.1 is here, my time card is here… but do I feel up to jumping into the RvR pool? I’m not so sure. Particularly at this time of year when all these special PvE events are happening in other games…
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Ysh, I think you should do whatever sounds like fun on a given evening, and not worry about when you can wear what piece of armor, or what renown rank you need to be. That’s a path toward grinding and frustration, and you’re fighting against your natural tendency to enjoy the game if you force yourself to play a way you don’t want to play, just to wear a piece of armor.
And the Shadow Warrior is actually a pretty darn good class for Tor Anroc, and I really like a couple of the other T3 scenarios.
I don’t know if you have an assist button (I hope so!), but if you do, just find a Bright Wizard, Engineer, or another SW, follow them around, and /assist on their targets. When you see trouble coming your way, run earlier rather than later…keep some potions on hand…and accept that WE’s and DPS tanks are going to kill you pretty quick. I consider that a fair trade if I’m able to ruin a few Destro opponents before they take me out 🙂
You’re right that at 22, you’re not going to last long if someone gets you 1 on 1, or 2 on 1, but if you pick your spots well, you can help someone else take down targets a little bit faster, and you’ll get nice RR gains too. Remember, RR experience scales, giving people lower in a Tier more renown than someone at the top of the tier. I can’t believe how much more Renown I got in T4 at level 32 than I was getting in T3 at level 31, sometimes almost 10x as much. That RR 17 to 23 trip might not take as long as you think!
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You could, yes. But at 40 it will be mostly Serphant’s Passage, though your side wins that pretty frequently. ORvR is a whole lot more confusing and massive, with focus on zone locks and such. You’ll also have a really hard time actually GETTING to 40 with little to no RvR earned experience. You will very shortly be reaching the point where if you strictly PvE you’ll have to start getting half a level in your pairing, then moving elsewhere to finish off a level because you’re too low to get the next camp’s quests. There just aren’t enough quests to get you straight to 40, you’ll be going back to do previous chapters in different pairing to get there. The required xp as you move up is monsterous. Heck, it took me nearly a whole zone of quests to get the 960,000 xp needed to move from 39 to 40. I really found myself wishing that I’d done a bit more RvR.
I’m not much for RvR either, it can be really fun, but I can’t only take it in short bursts. It frazzles my nerves. My best recommendation is to make friends, do scenerios with a guild group or some such. And also, read up on the tactics and goal of each scenerio before you hop in if it takes you that long to get it. Stone Troll is hella confusing, and I’m only really getting how it’s won on my second time through t3. Tor Anroc does indeed suck… but you’re Order. You only have BO and Chosen to worry about for knockbacks. It’s destro that spends all the time frying, freaking Ironbreakers, Arch Mages, Engineers and every other class on Order that gets knockbacks in t3 while most of destro has to wait until t4. My DoK won’t get her knockback until 40 -.-
Tor Anroc can be fun, and it’s not all that complicated. Just gather your courage and run it a few times, no one will notice if you’re lost. I promise. They’re too busy throwing people into the lava, or boiling in it themselves 😉
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