So the 15th Anniversary event is now over, and with it goes one of the most fun, useful and personally paradigm-changing events WoW has ever had: Korrak’s Revenge.
Fun? Useful?
Yes, definitely, in both cases. Never has levelling been either as fun or as fast. With most of my 8 characters that were levelled solely in KR, I was averaging 3 to 4 levels per hour. That is a pace that is far far faster than the standard 1½ to 2 hours spent questing per level, around 8 times faster!
The minimum acceptable levelling pace for me is about 45 minutes per level. Anything slower than that and I begin to get bored and annoyed. Faster than that is a lot better, especially when it’s my 5th, 11th, 15th(!?) alt of the expansion.
So all in all I managed to crack out 85 levels in total, with 7 characters doing 110-120 and my Priest going from 105-120.
Paradigm Changing?
Surprisingly, yes. Before now I was only very occasionally dipping my toes into PvP when it was required for PvE purposes. But after having spent a good couple of dozen hours in Alterac Valley over the past few weeks I’ve really managed to start finding the fun in twatting other players.
It helps that Alliance have fairly fast queues as well. On average a queue for KR was about 2 minutes long, whereas for Horde it was more 14 minutes per queue.
The only issue I ever had in any of my games were Russian Horde premades. These guys just do not want to win. Instead, Russians much prefer to farm honour kills as much as possible, rather than push a game to its end.
In the end we (the Alliance players) found it much more time-efficient to stop respawning, in order to deny them the one thing they were there for: Honour kill farming. This then forced their hand and made them go on to kill the Alliance boss and end the game. Not doing this would see games drag on for literally hours at a time while they pushed then dropped back to allow Alliance players to respawn, then push forward to farm them again. A cycle which would repeat over and over.
They are extremely hard to play against, because to be fair, as a premade they are highly organised, use voice comms, and work to a unified strategy. Which, when you come up against an Alliance side where 5-10 players are AFK, 4 are trying to kill Korrak for the quest, leaving 26 random players vs 40 organised PvP players? No contest really.
Outside of those games though I began to find PvP a lot of fun. I know I’ve said I’ve found PvP fun occasionally in the past, but this has fully opened that door for me now. PvP is now an activity I’m more than willing to participate in if I find myself at a loose end, or up for something faster paced than running World Quests for the umpteenth time this week.
With patch 8.3 arriving in a week bringing with it Season 4, I think it’s time I began to practice PvP more earnestly, especially as I’m not guaranteed to be raiding at the moment, having left Foundation a week or two back to move back to Fade after Foundation’s 2nd team seemingly bit the dust.
I’m a couple of Honor levels away from getting my first PvP Mount, the Bronze Courser, which is a very nice mount to be honest. There is a TON of rewards waiting for me to be earned in PvP, and I think that I’ll be choosing a few characters from my now full suite of 120’s, and finding them a PvP Guild or PvP Community on Silvermoon, and spending some time outside of raids playing random BGs, and hopefully dipping my toes into Rated PvP for the first time!
That Hippo mount will still be mine…
Specs I found most fun in PvP
Top of the heap: By far it has to be Fury Warrior. This spec is very fast-paced, mobile and decently tanky. Zipping from target to target, self healing, with snares & fears? Perfection. By far my number 1 choice as a melee spec for PvP at the moment.
Elemental Shaman: A nice surprise, this was one of the most fun specs to play in PvP. Self-heals, big flashy spells, fun AoE and impactful looking single target spells made this spec a surprise standout and my joint number 1 Ranged DPS spec for PvP.
Frost Mage was good, allowing a nice amount of control, kiting and CC, all while having a nice amount of output.
Frost DK was a also fun. Not as mobile as Fury, but good at staying alive and with good AoE and Single Target.
The other highlight was obviously BM Hunter. This is clearly the spec I am most familiar with, and the one where I showed the most skill. Here there was no CC required, it was all about simply burning targets down fast. Mobile as ever, it was a lot of fun, but I still find Fury & Elemental slightly more fun in PvP in all honesty. I would however put it still joint top with Elemental overall for choice of Ranged DPS due to my familiarity & skill with the spec.
Lowlights
Priest, sadly. Current king of raids & PvE, in PvP I found it very squishy and wet. With Shadow needing a fair bit of ramp up time and therefore hitting like a wet noodle in the short-lived 1v1 bursts, I ended up switching to Holy in order to level her.
Warlock. I used my 120 Boost on a new Warlock (saving £50 on having to race & faction change my 120 Belf Lock) and took her in for a few games. Didn’t enjoy it as Affliction all that much. Switched to Destro for a few games and had more fun, but overall I think Affliction Warlock, like Priest, is better suited to PvE at the moment. I did however have a bit more fun with my Belf Lock as Affliction, which is slightly better geared, so it could just be those 10 or so extra item levels making a difference.
Middle of the pack?
The remaining specs all fell into the middle of the pack with both good points and bad.
Ret Paladin. Ret at the moment is very average. Not overly fun yet not terrible either. Overall a bit meh and bland?
Assassination Rogue. Was fun going into stealth and taking down targets, but my lack of love for the Rogue class overall sees this fall into the middle of the road.
Havoc Demon Hunter. This was again mobile, and able to skip parts of the AV map other classes couldn’t. Decent output but very little in the way of self-sustain.
Balance Druid. I had fun, but it wasn’t much to write home about. Again, as with Rogue, the ability to use Stealth is a big bonus in PvP and a lot of fun.
Windwalker Monk. Mobile, with decent CC options, it didn’t feel very powerful and self-sustain is problematic, but overall the spec is not terrible either.
Final Thoughts
In the end I had a ton of fun, and wouldn’t have chosen any other method to level 8 characters from 105+ through to level 120. Dynamic and with different challenges every time, I found Korrak’s to be well worth the while running.
I found a couple of specs I’d be more interested in using in PvP in a more serious manner, with Fury & Elemental, and will be looking for some sort of organised PvP with them for 8.3/Season 4.
Overall though, this was a great anniversary event all round, with great rewards and a lot of fun to be had. And the gift? A newly discovered attitude towards PvP which will sustain me during future downtime in-game!
Well done Blizzard! 🙂
