Hunting in Warsong Gulch

When battlegrounds were added to Classic I mentioned that I might give Warsong Gulch "a try in one of the lower-level brackets if there are enough people queueing to keep wait times at a reasonable level". I was reminded of this resolution when my nelf hunter travelled through the Arathi Highlands and past the (currently still non-functional) Arathi Basin entrance.

As she was level 29 at the time, I decided to queue up for some WSG the next time I was in Ironforge. Being at the top of your level range is never a bad thing, and I thought I remembered hunters being pretty good in the lower level brackets.

My queue pops weren't quite instant, but close, and I played a total of four matches that day, three of which the Alliance lost. It was a pleasant enough nostalgia trip, reminding me of all kinds of details about the battleground that I hadn't thought about in ages (a speed buff spawns in that nook here, there's a gap in the fence over there etc.). I realised that I really liked the map and its music, and the experience also stirred some pleasant memories of playing with my rated battleground team back in Cataclysm.

Lowbie pugs have nothing like the co-ordination of a rated team of course, though considering the number of twinks on both teams, things were certainly more organised than they could have been. Each match lasted between 10 and 35 minutes, and the latter was a stark reminder of why I really didn't like this battleground much in its original incarnation: spending more than half an hour fighting just to lose anyway and end up with zero bonus honour doesn't make for the most fun of experiences.

That said, I have a knack for seeing the upside when evaluating the scoreboard at the end of the match. Sure, we lost horribly and only got four kills throughout the entire match, but at least I got the killing blow on all four of them! Or: Sure, we lost, but nobody died as many times as me - I win at dying!

(As an aside, I've come to the conclusion that this is because I'm the objective-orientated mirror image of "that guy who fights on the road" - note that I'm not saying "opposite": I have a tendency to blindly run towards the objective with no regards to my own safety, which is why I die a lot when things aren't going well. Not really that much smarter than road guy I guess, just a different kind of stupid.)

Anyway, my favourite thing that happened during all of these matches and which I just have to recount on here was when I hopped down from the graveyard, unsure of which way to head after just respawning, and a human mage beckoned me to come with him. The enemy was holed up in their base with our flag, and he thought that we could take them on. In fact, he had it all planned out as he explained to me in whispers: we'd both nuke the warrior who was carrying the flag, and he would take care of the warlock and priest that were guarding him by sheeping one and using his Gnomish Mind Control Cap on the other.

So we went into the tunnel together and up the ramp on the inside, where we ran straight into the warlock. My mage friend hit his magic button to mind-control him and... I got to watch his name turn red as the cap backfired and turned him into an enemy instead of turning the warlock into an ally. I died soon after but was laughing too hard to do anything useful anyway. It's these kinds of moments I play Classic for.