What looks like a secret fight club in WoW Classic has a good reason – even if you don’t see it right away.
In World of Warcraft, there are a lot of things that you might not understand at first glance. Be it the story behind the Old Gods, the first time entering the inn at Goldshire on a roleplay realm – or a strange gathering of Alliance and Horde characters battling each other in numerous duels. Such was the case for a Tauren, who was quite astonished at where he had landed.
What happened? In the WoW Classic subreddit, the player alfadasfire posted a screenshot along with the sentence “I think I walked into something.” The image shows a part of the Barrens, where characters from the Alliance and Horde have gathered and challenge each other to duels. The Tauren is visibly confused by the behavior and cannot quite explain what he has stumbled upon.
Mind Control for Strong Buffs
What is the reason for these duels? In the comments, it becomes clear that many other players apparently recognize the sight and behind the duels lies a simple reason: the buff “Warchief’s Blessing”. This buff increases a character’s HP by 300, boosts attack speed by 15%, and grants 10 mana points every 5 seconds. An extremely strong buff, especially useful in raids and dungeons to maximize a character’s performance.
This buff is awarded only when a Horde player completes a one-time quest – then all Horde characters in Orgrimmar, at the crossroads and the immediate vicinity receive this effect.
However, since this buff is exclusively available for Horde characters, Alliance players need a trick to also receive the buff. This is where mind control comes into play. By dueling against a Horde priest, Alliance characters can have mind control cast on them at the moment the buff is distributed. For the duration of the mind control, the Alliance characters are considered “friendly” to the Horde and therefore also valid targets for Horde buffs.
This gathering is therefore not a quirky cult or an ominous fight club, but rather Alliance players who want to get the absolute maximum out of their characters and are willing to maintain a second WoW subscription or pay someone in the Horde with gold to benefit from this buff at the right moment.
That would definitely have been an incident ChatGPT wouldn’t have had a good answer for…
