WoW: Our tank had a dark secret for 15 years until a mistake exposed him

WoW demon Cortyn reveals a bit from the backstage. Because an experience with the guild in World of Warcraft left traumatic memories.

In World of Warcraft, many of us have guild mates and acquaintances who over the years became good friends – that is the normal experience in an MMORPG, where social contacts are not only unavoidable but necessary. And most of us surely think that our fellow players play quite similarly.

The main tank in our guild is a monk. A bit absent-minded, a bit too nervous, and over the years he has earned many internal “titles” among us.

After all, it is considered improper in World of Warcraft to move away from dangerous effects slowly while walking backward. Because that takes much more time than simply turning around and at least moving sideways at full speed. But since our monk never did that, and we always teased him about it, he eventually became our “Backwards Walker”.

It got to the point where our hunter eventually started imitating the siren of a heavy transport vehicle out loud in Discord every time the monk moved slowly backward out of an attack.

Until then, everything was fine. Our monk has his little quirks and the siren became a running gag that resonated multiple times in every “Mythic+” dungeon.

The second problem was that this monk is a “clicker”. No, not one of the zombies from The Last of Us, but a player who hasn’t mapped their character’s abilities to keybinds, but clicks most of them manually.

I can see in my mind’s eye how you are wrinkling your nose and thinking “Dirty Casual”. I did that too, even though I mantra-like kept telling myself: “Other people have different play styles. It’s all okay, Cortyn. Don’t eat the keyboard again.”

And to be fair: For being a “clicker”, it surprisingly went quite smoothly.

At least, until it didn’t anymore. And that day was also the revelation of the darkest secret that our monk had kept from us.

It was a typical “Mythic+” guild night. We were still running in rather low dungeons back then, because it was shortly after the launch of the expansion and we still needed to find our way.

To describe the scene a bit more precisely: It was “Mists of Tirna Scythe”, the path to the last boss. You know, those branched paths over a long chasm, where you have to defeat a lot of Gorm.

The task was clear: We assign different enemies to the individual group members because something had to be interrupted properly. Our tank also got his target.

The big moment came. The Gorm starts casting, the bar fills up. “You need to kick,” I whisper into Discord, before a somewhat panicked “CAN’T!” echoes back.

Our entire group watches as the tank runs straight to the edge of the platform and falls to his death, before the rest of the group is dismantled by the enemies.

Error analysis.

“What just happened?”
“Yeah, the kick didn’t go off.”
“What do you mean the kick didn’t go off?”
“I didn’t hit the button.”
In the background, you can hear our healer taking a deep breath and the familiar rustle of an ibuprofen pack.
“And why did you run off the edge then?”
“Because I didn’t hit the button.”
“If you don’t hit the button, does your character just run off somewhere?”
“Yeah.”

The silence in Discord lasted at least 10 seconds, while the thoughts of the entire group began to churn. I asked quietly:

“Are you playing with ‘Click to Move’?”

Another few seconds of pause before the answer came:

“How else?”

The relieved laughter in Discord eased the fact that we wouldn’t make it through the dungeon within the time limit. I rarely laughed as much with my guild as I did back then in that moment.

Our tank played WoW like Diablo – With Click to Move

If you are not familiar with the term: “Click to Move” is a way to control your character. Instead of using “WASD” or the arrow keys, you control your character with mouse clicks. You click somewhere in the environment, and your character takes the shortest path to that location. This is something commonly known from hack & slash games, like Diablo, or strategy games like Warcraft.

I don’t know about you, but I always had a modified version of the ALFA telephone commercial (via YouTube) playing in my head, you know, “Don’t drop out, learn to read and write:”

Group leader: “Say, are you really too dumb to kick? And then you jump off the cliff too? Can you actually do anything, or do you need a civil servant to play?”
Healer: “Boss, the man can’t help it. He plays with Click to Move.”
Group leader: “With Click to Move? But you can do something with that.”

Suddenly, everything from the past made so much more sense. That kicking sometimes didn’t “work” properly or that our monk was walking backwards out of effects. Because if you play with “Click to Move”, you have to see exactly where you want to go – which is difficult when the camera is aimed forward at the enemies.

We thought long about how this setting even came to be. Because you probably only activate it “deliberately” if you are relying on it for some reason. Two of us vaguely remembered that “Click to Move” was one of the very early standard settings in World of Warcraft, but it was quickly replaced. However, we are all unsure about that.

The fact is, our tank has played with this setting for nearly 15 years. On one hand, of course, regrettable; on the other hand, a beautiful memory that I will never forget.

And before someone complains: Yes, I of course asked him if I could embarrass him here a bit. He said of course, “No, please don’t.” By now, he can laugh about it – or at least pretend to fit in with the group.

He will remain the only “Backwards Walker” I will ever accept in my group. And even if it’s just for entertainment value.

So if you ever see a Pandaren with a candle on his head, dodging a skill backwards, just type a “Toot, toot, toot” as a siren sound in the chat. He will surely be pleased.