MeinMMO demon Cortyn is sinking into the Plunderstorm of World of Warcraft. And that brings out some really nasty behavior.
The Plunderstorm mode is currently active in World of Warcraft and is considered controversial in the community. While part of the player base can’t make sense of the mode and is just happy to farm all the rewards, another group longs for more and more loot and can hardly get enough of the battle royale.
I belong to the second group. I not only took a week off at the start of the mode (even though that was more of a coincidence), I’ve also been playing for many days still, even though there are no new rewards for me anymore; just because I have so much fun with it.
But Plunderstorm brings with it some side effects that seem to fuel my inner demon. Because the game mode sometimes brings out the worst and most evil in me.
When two fight, I’m especially happy
I would consider myself “good” in the Plunderstorm mode, at least in terms of my survivability. I’m basically always among the last 6 – with the exception of unfortunate incidents where you land on the map at the same time as another person and they reach the two spells before I can. If the first 10 seconds go by without a catastrophic incident, I’m pretty sure in the “endgame”.
This is not some innate, hidden talent, but simply the result of a lot, a lot of practice. I played the mode continuously when I first tried it and quickly understood: Cortyn, you don’t win by playing particularly honorably. You win by following the old saying, “When two fight, the third is happy.”
Duel fights should be avoided in most cases. Much better to approach two fighting and take them down together. Double loot, half the effort.
That’s not honorable. That’s wonderful “scooping up” and exactly what you need in a “every man for himself” situation. That’s why I prefer the solo mode over the duo mode. On the one hand, I don’t have to rely on a partner, and on the other hand, I know that when I interfere, panic immediately breaks out among all parties involved and no coordinated response comes.
To that comes a hint of arrogance that overcomes me as soon as I’m sure I have a nice setup of abilities. Because then I try, in the best comedy fashion, to use the ability of the stealth bush as obviously as possible.
The bush is an ability where your character disguises itself as a bush. It then is practically unrecognizable, as it looks like a bush and no longer has a nameplate either.
In the right environment, such a bush is hard to distinguish from the actual shrubs of Arathi Highlands. However, if you want, you can sit down as a bush right in the middle of the road, on a roof, or by a campfire, basically telling the whole world: Here I am. Notice me!
Revenge for a “Cringe” – I can be petty
My most satisfying experience so far started with quite a disgrace. I was among the last 3 alive and wanted to – as so often – only interfere in the final battle when I was pretty sure I could kill both.
That failed. I misfired pretty much every ability, even threw myself into the storm with the stealth jump and even ran into the victorious player’s fiery axe. Not entirely without reason, he typed “Cringe” in the chat channel afterwards. I deserved that.
But I remembered the name. You always meet the same people twice in life. Or in Plunderstorm.
And so it happened, and earlier than expected. Just under an hour later, I saw the player again in the same lobby and knew that there was only one goal: revenge.
I kept myself out of fights, kept an eye on the chat (to see if he was dying) and ultimately, things went better than I could have imagined. When I encountered him, he was still level 6, while I had already reached level 9. I had already been watching him and knew that he had traps and frost circle as support abilities – so nothing that could let him move quickly.
He knew he probably couldn’t win the fight and just wanted to wait out the problem by running around a house again and again. I engaged him, intentionally ran into his frost effects to create a long chase – until the storm came and threatened to swallow us both.
Only then did I use all my abilities. With the spike traps, I held him in front of the small house, with the wind bird I shoved him into the house. And when he wanted to come out again, I shot the arcane orb after him to hold him right there as the hut was swallowed by the storm.
I had time for a /smile. That felt incredibly good. A little evil – but also very, very good. Sometimes I can indeed be a little petty. You may find that cringe. But I enjoyed it. Almost as much as my PvP experiences with a fishing rod.
