To Gank or Not to Gank, That is the Question!

[AlienChild]

(with apologies to Shakespeare)

I 5 box Pally and 4xShaman Alliance on a PvP server. I often find myself getting ganked, generally for no apparent reason other than that I am on a PvP server and am the "enemy"! This is sometimes very frustrating but I am not complaining as it is part of playing on a PVP server.

Now I often find myself with the shoe on the other foot. I come across Horde players at my level or lower that are questing in the same area and obviously as a Pally with 4 Shaman strapped to my back I am in a position to destroy almost anyone of my level or below. I tend not to, but this can back fire when I leave Horde players alone and they get a mate or two and come gank me in the middle of a big fight - this is REALLY frustrating and often this tempts me to go gank every Horde player I can!

So what do you do as a general rule on a PvP server (as a multi-boxer) Gank, or No Gank and why?

[Los]

Gank ofc, what else are you doing on a pvp server, red = dead

[warbringer]

Rip'em a new one I say. I play on a PvE server, but if people are in Wintergrasp when there's no battle or when they're PvP flagged then they get to see the wrong end of a Hammer of Justice with 4x Flame shock and 4x Lava burst.

[AlienChild]

This applies more while levelling:

Personally speaking I don't think it is realistic to take the approach red=dead (as much as I would like to at times). You have to think of the practicalities. If you kill EVERYONE you see just because you can and they the enemy you end up with a problem - a whole bunch of people in your area just waiting to add to your fight if you get a bad pull and maybe killing one of your chars. If you had just let them be they generally let you be.

Also if you take red=dead approach you have to try to kill any ?? level enemy in your area - or are you a coward? :P

[Otlecs]

When I boxed on a PvP server, I took the same approach as I do on my regular home server - leave them alone unless I see them doing something I disapprove of, like ganking lowbies or killing quest NPCs :)

What goes around comes around!

I use VanasKoS (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/vanas-kos.aspx) (links to Curse) to keep track of people I have a problem with and unless they're on that list I leave them be.

[Powerwar]

I moved recently to a PvE server from a very hardcore PvP one. The reson was that I wanted to play with other friends that are on the PvE server.

While on the PvP server I had the basic rule that more than one player grouped and with red name = dead.
Single players, I didn't touch them unless they attacked first.
Two players together with red name, and none of them targeting my toons usually got ignored. At the same moment some of them targeted my toons he gets a warning hammer of justice or flame shock, whatever applies to his proximity. If they dont run away, they are dead.
For a single player, if they come too near my toons, a single thunderstorm is enough to disuade. If they dont run away, I kill them.

I have had the rare ocasions when horde players (I play alliance) come and gather around me just out of curiosity. Some even have made similar groups to make improvisated duels for fun and profit :)

Usually I found that several guilds were just trying to gank me, so anyone with that guild name became a dead corpse as soon as he reached my lightnings range. I have had the opportunity to speak with sveral of these guild people in game using my horde AH account, so they were split in two different modes.
Ones were just a bunch of idiot kids with "OMG, me pew pew you!" replies. The battles with these were not funny at all because being zerged by 5 - 10 non skilled players was not a challege at all but just a waste of time.
The others were mostly mature players that found my pala + 4 shamans group to be the most similar to a rare outdoors boss, so they just considered it as part of the fun... and most important, made me enjoy the battles with them. The battles with these were funny most of the times because they were skilled players and usually offered good battle and fair fight... like 5 vs 5 or 4 vs 5

[AlienChild]

When I boxed on a PvP server, I took the same approach as I do on my regular home server - leave them alone unless I see them doing something I disapprove of, like ganking lowbies or killing quest NPCs :)

What goes around comes around!

I use VanasKoS (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/vanas-kos.aspx) (links to Curse) to keep track of people I have a problem with and unless they're on that list I leave them be.


Thanks for that add-on - will definitely give it a go!

[Enndo]

I usually don't gank anyone who is more than 3 levels lower than me. But most of the time during leveling some smart ass 12 year old alliance will try to gank me, at that point I make him dead. Usually the same moron will come back and try at least 2 more times before giving up lol. But for the most part I don't travel around looking to gank, it usually happens by accident.. ie. I don't like it when ally players within my level range target me while im working on something, i get paranoid and pew pew lol.

[Fef]

When I boxed on a PvP server, I took the same approach as I do on my regular home server - leave them alone unless I see them doing something I disapprove of, like ganking lowbies or killing quest NPCs :)

What goes around comes around!

I use VanasKoS ('http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/vanas-kos.aspx') (links to Curse) to keep track of people I have a problem with and unless they're on that list I leave them be.


Thanks for that add-on - will definitely give it a go!Same here. I leave everyone alone, unless they attack first or they managed to make it to my VanasKOS list.

The guild sharing feature is great, it lets me know if someone made trouble to any of the other (two) members of my guild.

[AlienChild]

Noob Alert Question:

How do you know if they are targeting you or one of your alts?
(I presume you use target of target - but to do that you have to target them, or is there a passive or another way?)

[Otlecs]

I use Simple Mouseover Target (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info12361-SimpleMouseoverTarget.html) (links to wowinterface.com) and wouldn't be without it now.

You hover your mouse over whoever you're interested in and it'll pop up a tooltip showing who / what they're targeting while you carry on doing whatever you want to be doing. The advantage here is that they don't see you targeting them either.

You could use focus and focus-target in Xperl or similar, but I much prefer the mod route.

It's got some snazzy colour scheme too - a red background on the tooltip means they're on your, green means they're on the same target as you. Great for a quick check.

[AlienChild]

I use Simple Mouseover Target (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info12361-SimpleMouseoverTarget.html) (links to wowinterface.com) and wouldn't be without it now.

You hover your mouse over whoever you're interested in and it'll pop up a tooltip showing who / what they're targeting while you carry on doing whatever you want to be doing. The advantage here is that they don't see you targeting them either.

You could use focus and focus-target in Xperl or similar, but I much prefer the mod route.

It's got some snazzy colour scheme too - a red background on the tooltip means they're on your, green means they're on the same target as you. Great for a quick check.

Awesome! You are a fount of good ideas - how about a post detailing your setup and add-on you really like, etc - bet it would make great reading :)

[Otlecs]

Awesome! You are a fount of good ideas - how about a post detailing your setup and add-on you really like, etc - bet it would make great reading

Aw, thanks for the little ego massage, but it really wouldn't be all that interesting compared to what some of the other guys here are up to :)

I'm a multiboxing underachiever in comparison to most!

[Korruptor]

So what do you do as a general rule on a PvP server (as a multi-boxer) Gank, or No Gank and why?It's mood based for me. I started off on Mag attacking everyone I saw(they all happened to be green through red) that wasn't a skull.

After a while a number of skulls ignored me on multiple occasions which caused me to mellow out a bit.

I kept running into this one lvl 60 hunter in Winterspring so I decided to demonstrate to him how focused-fire works. I didn't run into him anymore after that. Later I ran into a NE DK in Winterspring who immediately engaged me. She thought that getting in the middle of my group would be my undoing, it was her's. She was down in 3 seconds and my leader with down to 20%.

What does my little rant mean? Do what ever feels right for the situation but don't gank just for ganking. I typically pass on folks who run from me (unless they attempted to gank me and then ran).

[Sam DeathWalker]

Right now I don't gank at all, I just wait to be attacked (and ususaly they are level 75 plus before they attack).

But when I hit 80 I gonna be doing some serious pvp just to show I can, and that includes some ganking, well against other 80's of course.

[Nitro]

I always gank first. Do it enough and often when people see you they will just know to get out of the area or get rolled repeatedly.

[Enndo]

I always gank first. Do it enough and often when people see you they will just know to get out of the area or get rolled repeatedly.


This is true. You can always look at it like.. get them before they get you lol Most gankers will wait til your fighting mobs before coming after you to guarantee a kill. Which makes questing a pain.

[Osiris]

I find while leveling, I don't gank. You don't want the opposite faction forming a posse and interrupting your leveling. When you get to 75-80, do what 'cha like.

If they are ganking me though, I will park my 80's nearby if I'm really annoyed so I can switch...people generally leave my original group alone after that.

[Enndo]

I find while leveling, I don't gank. You don't want the opposite faction forming a posse and interrupting your leveling. When you get to 75-80, do what 'cha like.

If they are ganking me though, I will park my 80's nearby if I'm really annoyed so I can switch...people generally leave my original group alone after that.


LOL I do the same, my 80 rogue is always parked in the zone i'm in if i'm leveling normally, instead of boosting (boost with my pally). Anyone high level comes and ganks me hes getting camped by my rogue until I feel i've wasted enough of his time for wasting mine.

[d0z3rr]

(with apologies to Shakespeare)

I 5 box Pally and 4xShaman Alliance on a PvP server. I often find myself getting ganked, generally for no apparent reason other than that I am on a PvP server and am the "enemy"! This is sometimes very frustrating but I am not complaining as it is part of playing on a PVP server.

Now I often find myself with the shoe on the other foot. I come across Horde players at my level or lower that are questing in the same area and obviously as a Pally with 4 Shaman strapped to my back I am in a position to destroy almost anyone of my level or below. I tend not to, but this can back fire when I leave Horde players alone and they get a mate or two and come gank me in the middle of a big fight - this is REALLY frustrating and often this tempts me to go gank every Horde player I can!

So what do you do as a general rule on a PvP server (as a multi-boxer) Gank, or No Gank and why?
Depends on what I'm doing. If I'm in a hurry to get a quest done or have to logoff soon I ignore people. But if I'm casually playing I definitely gank anyone I come across.

I also do the occasional gank fest. Which is a special route I had on the horde side. I took the Zeppelin to Stranglethorn and ganked all the allies there, then made my path of destruction into Darkshire. Ganked all the lowbies in Darkshire and killed various NPCs, waited for higher levels to show up and killed them if need be. Then continued to Lakeshire and eventually to Elwynn to showoff and provoke noobs into flagging themselves, then hearth back to Org and bathe in the blood and tears of my victims.

[Siaea]

Up until recently I've pretty much been "Live and let live", because I hate getting interrupted while questing (especially up until I got the cash for my epic flyers). If vanasKOS doesn't flash my screen red, they usually live. Well, last night I was at the Venture Bay area doing dailies, and there was an 80 druid. I left her alone, and went about my way to turn in. Well, one of my girls lost follow and I didn't catch it until my raid warning flashes "Seaie: I'm Attacked!" (gotta love Jamba!). I went and caught up to her about the time this druid was doing the finishing blow. I then proceeded to camp her mercylessly for about an hour, along with any other hapless Alliance who showed up, regardless of level. I think I just had it with letting people live and having it bite me in the ass.

After that little session, I flew to Shadow Hold, and insta-gibbed the 4 or 5 alliance there, and parked my girls and their totem farm pointing at the flight master. People were dead before the lag from landing even caught up. After about 50 kills and about 20 horde watching (and /lol'ing and /cheering) I decided to hit the road before they brought in the major reinforcements. It's amazing how much of a stress reliever it is to break loose :)

[Enndo]

LOL well you definately showed that ally "Your not alone" lol

[Korruptor]

Seems ally druids are always messing with me. I may have to roll a group of druids for the sneak attack factor during payback.

[Moorea]

back to topic: I usually don't kill green and try to only kill yellow/red players - I also usually only kill people once and don't corpse camp; unless they attacked me while I was rez'ing/started the hostilities - I do use VanasKOS too so I can remember everyone who ever attacked me and they will eventually pay the price :-)





Sam flame removed.
-Svpernova09

[Dominian]

Everyone i faced who was 70 when i was leveling my team killed me, now i simply payback.

[Enndo]

So VanasKOS does the same thing as Carbonites KoS list?

[Malekyth]

I kill flagged toons within my level range just once on principle, because it's good PvP mechanics, especially for those quests that automatically flag you, e.g. Grizzly Hills and Ymirheim. If you're doing a PvP quest and are in no danger of being killed by an enemy player, then the quest isn't working as designed (on the same note, even as a carebear I find it annoying when people rant about people killing them while fishing for the achievement in an enemy capitol. It's not SUPPOSED to be an easy achievement, that's why they put it in a ridiculously dangerous place!).

I don't kill anyone twice unless they attack me. I won't kill a player a lot lower than me even once, but just give them a menacing /wave and be on my way. PvP mechanics are one thing, bullying is another. You can assume that someone who just can't stand up to you but is still flagged is probably not still asking for it -- it takes awhile for the flag to burn off, after all. I don't want to grind someone's play session to a halt because people have done it to me and it sucked the fun out of the game, so ... golden rule, an' all.

I had a bad time in Grizzly Hills a few weeks ago where I was five-manning the shredder return quest, and an Alliance DK realized that, for the price of a guaranteed corpserun, he could kill my shredders 100% of the time before my caster-heavy group brought him down. As ridiculous as it sounds that a single toon was griefing my 5-man group, that's pretty much what it was. The first time was funny and kind of admirable, one dude kicking my ass. /salute, y'know? It taught me to bind a key to "leave vehicle" if nothing else. The second time was a little obnoxious. The third time sucked ass. My solution, and it's probably not the best one, was to grief this little Alliance warrior trying to do his version of the quest. I killed him twice, figuring he'd bitch to the DK to stop messing with me and just let me finish so I'd leave. I don't know whether it worked the way I planned or if the DK just got bored and left, but I delivered my last shredder without issue. A small stain on my honor, but probably not by many peoples' standards.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

If I'm on a PVP server, I generally leave folks alone when I'm trying to get quests done. Unless they run at me. Or target me. Or look at me funny. Or fart. Or make any rude gestures. Or wear pink. Or kill a mob I'm farming. Basically, unless they're groveling at my feet or being overtly friendly, it's on like Donkey Kong. Much as some others have noted, I've been ganked far more often by people I've left alone than people actively coming into the zone to start shit. With the exception of that druid that had the spy account on Mag and would camp our lowbie groups for hours.

[falsfire3401]

I grew up so to speak on a PvP server. Originally on Arthas then took the first ever free transfer wave to Nathrezim. This was way way back in the day when blizz hadn't implemented anything to prevent unfair/unwarranted PvP. The goblin town guards wouldn't attack you if you PvPed, there was no rule against rooftop ganking with a ranged class. PvP happened constantly, I never went a night without being killed at least a dozen times while leveling my first toon (a rogue). Yep, even being a rogue with the lovely stealth ability, people would still kill me in the neutral towns, or friendly towns if they were higher level than the guards, and catch me out in the open when I was fighting mob(s).

That lasted til about spring of '08, so almost four years of having a PvP server as my main server. Then I'd finally had enough, I had friends playing horde on a PvE realm and I switched. Now Shadowsong is my home and horde is my faction. I still have many of my original alliance toons, some have been transferred to other friends' servers, some have been deleted, but my original trio of rogue/priest/warrior still exists. The warrior went to Hydraxis-PvE when one of my friends and his wife transferred all nine of their toons because they got fedup with doing dailies on the "horde territory" Isle of Quel'Danas. The rogue and priest are still on Nathrezim. I did come back and level the rogue to 80 and do a handful of PUG raids to get some purpz, but the priest has been parked at L66 for ages and since I got fedup with crappy PUGs the rogue lies forgotten and gathering dust.

She's my original WOW toon with over 120 days /played, most of that at L60 (used to be a hardcore 40-man raider back in the day), and now she's a mediocre-geared 80 rogue that can barely make the top 10 on a 25-man PUG's dps meter lol.


I'm done with PvP. If I ever want to play the rogue again I'm gonna transfer her to Hydraxis as well where my friend and his wife play, along with the priest. Nathrezim is over for me. I prefer the relaxed environment of a PvE server far too much now that I've gotten used to it.


But as for the main topic, my rogue was probably one of the least-likely-to-gank-you tier2-geared L60's on the server back in the day. I had a private KOS list, which included about 5 horde players plus one entire guild (my raiding guild and their raiding guild were perma-at war, constantly getting involved in 40v40 action at raid gathering spots like Thorium Point, BRM, AQ gates, etc). I generally left the horde alone. If I was leveling a lowbie and a higher level player attacked and camped and griefed them bad enough, I'd bring the rogue out and show them how tough a tier2 geared rogue was.

I got attacked alot while farming with the rogue, but had the benefit of being full tier2-epicced (back in the days before resilience and actual "pvp gear"), so I could usually annihilate whoever attacked me without breaking a sweat (since back then most 60's had a mix of greens and blues, fully-raid geared toons like me were probably only 10% of the server and most raid guilds left each other alone, except for some of the at-war cases like I described)

I do have some fond memories of the big 40v40 fights our raid guilds got involved in, ambushing each other, fighting for control of the MC/BWL/AQ zone-in area or wherever the flight path deposited people straggling in like Thorium Point, etc.

[moji]

I'm on a pve server, so at 80 if you're flagged, you're just trying to be a badass, so I have no problem making you corpse run. My main prot warrior is ridiculously geared, so it's very fun swapping over to 3pc deadly with 1500 sbv, and charge> pop trinkets and slam someone to next tuesday. 3 days ago on the ledge outside ramparts, I saw an alliance 70 bugging people and dancing around the stone while another horde group was trying to summon people - he was trying to get them to click and attack him instead of clicking on the summoning portal. Even though my locks are 60, my dk is 65 and preist is 68, so I gripped him sent some shadowbolt volleys his way and he went down really fast surprisingly. I just got lucky with the RNG and got very few misses, plus he only went after my DK, not the stack of undead over by the instance lighting him up and healing my dk.

Just because it's carebear doesn't mean you can be a prick.

[Malekyth]

plus he only went after my DK, not the stack of undead over by the instance lighting him up and healing my dk. hehehe. I love it when you find yourself tanking someone in PvP. I've caught myself on the other side of that too, attacking a warrior or pally while some cloth dps was burning me down, and thinking, "am I really this dumb?" :)

[falsfire3401]

plus he only went after my DK, not the stack of undead over by the instance lighting him up and healing my dk. hehehe. I love it when you find yourself tanking someone in PvP. I've caught myself on the other side of that too, attacking a warrior or pally while some cloth dps was burning me down, and thinking, "am I really this dumb?" :)

I remember way back in the L60 days when prot warriors had no dps whatsoever and were only useful for PvE. I specced my 60 warrior prot, equipped a 1H+shield and went into Arathi Basin. I could almost see the stunned looks of the enemy through my monitor, as in "WTF is this guy doing?!?" It was actually a useful tactic, as vs physical damage classes it took them so damned long to down me my team could cap a flag or interrupt a flag cap attempt with ease.

Now that same warrior (who is only L61 lol, two plus years and she's only made 1.5 levels) is specced prot again because prot has ridiculous dmg output now. I took her on a test run through a handful of HFP quests and can't believe the dps she can put out via Revenge and Shield Slam

[Catamer]

I'm on a PvE server and don't get much chance to PvP, not that many people go around flagged.
I was doing one of the grizzly hills daily and I needed to flip the ownership of the Venture Co area so I could purchase some items from the NPC and
I proceeded to mow everything down with my pally team and found that one of the dead NPC didn't disappear... as a matter of fact it had a name on it.
the poor horde player ... I didn't even notice he was there until he was dead.

for some reason I thought this was incredibly funny.

[Svpernova09]

It's World of WARcraft. not World of Don'tKillMePlzCraft.


Which is why I play on a PvE server :_X

[Enndo]

LOL "horde territory" Isle of Quel'Danas" Yeah i'll admit this one, if your name was red in this zone you were dead. LOL. I can't even count how many ally i spanked while they were trying to do dailys here. Plus i liked the ore that could be easily found here and if I was heading to a node and found an ally tapping it PEW PEW lol.

[Svpernova09]

It's World of WARcraft. not World of Don'tKillMePlzCraft.


Which is why I play on a PvE server :_Xdivide.by.zero.errorEh?

My mains are all PvE because my roots are all on Madoran, I've got toons on a few different PvP servers, it's just always come down to Madoran has the toons I've done the most on, and I'm not going to swap mains from my druid anytime soon. What puts me off from PvP servers is the people who run around JUST to hassle others. I do gank, I have no problem getting ganked by someone my level. But when it's a roving band of 5-10 people running around skullraping people for lols, it's just as frustrating when an 80 swoops in and 1 shots a lowbie just because they're there. This is why I don't play my mains on a PvP server.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'm on a PvE server and don't get much chance to PvP, not that many people go around flagged.
I was doing one of the grizzly hills daily and I needed to flip the ownership of the Venture Co area so I could purchase some items from the NPC and
I proceeded to mow everything down with my pally team and found that one of the dead NPC didn't disappear... as a matter of fact it had a name on it.
the poor horde player ... I didn't even notice he was there until he was dead.

for some reason I thought this was incredibly funny.That happens a fair amount on PVP servers. It's especially funny when you're like, "Uh, WTF! Why won't this damn mob DIE?!? I've just about one-shot everything else here." Then you realize not only is it not a mob but a player, and he's like 8+ levels above you. :P Or trying to loot a stack of corpses and realize that one you can't loot isn't a bug.

[X-Ifist]

Kill them all :P makes it alot more inntresting
Getting attacked by 5 players around youre lvl and surviving is a great boost when youre boored to death lvling:P

[Tasty]

There's currently a thread on my real forum detailing where I'm leveling so that people can come gank me :P

[heyaz]

I gank just about anything I see. I'm mainly out doing dallies, so people are either interfering with the mobs I need for the quests, or I'm in Icecrown and have the pvp kill quest.

I like to camp out on the Skybreaker and just wreck as many alliance as possible. The guards have about 25k hp and are nothing.

Sometimes people like to follow me around on their flyers, if they get close enough to the ground where I can survive a fall, I blow them up mid air.

I don't get ganked much anymore. Ocassionally someone will try, but I think it's because they think my alts are follow only or are bots. I'm sure they're pleasantly surprised when they get 4x lava burst in the face.

Sometimes I will get an AOE'er though. It never works anymore though, unless we're in Wintergrasp and they have tenacity. Warriors bladestorming for 8-10k per second, forget about it. Doesn't prove anything though.

[Tdog]

While I was leveling on Mal'Ganis server alittle while back I came across so many alliance, i was horde at the time, that didn't bother me as long as I didn't bother them. Help lots of times we would all be just questing in the same area and just let each other be. Sure every once in awhile some asshat would come along and kill ya, although it always seemed to be someone who would undoutable win the fight, as in someone 10 levels higher than you.

My take has always been, keep an eye on them just in case but otherwise I let it be.

[valkry]

There's currently a thread on my real forum detailing where I'm leveling so that people can come gank me :PIt's a very good thread. I love it. Die more imo.
Gank, always gank. No exceptions, no regrets :P