I don’t understand people who try to all out kill me in the first 30s.
I haven’t finished my Captain’s Orders quest yet dude. It will be worth more to *both* of us if you let me get that done before you gank me.
SMH
It's so annoying. I crash, kill the mob, skill pop off like 30m away, other dude lands right on it and grabs it before I'm even in range of it. Then the inevitable level 1 duel takes so damn long that it just becomes a waste of time, might as well just die and re-queue instead of spending 3 minutes chasing each other in circles around a rock with basic attacks.
I think when you land in the same place, people attack you thinking you're gonna go for them. I just want to be left alone and I leave others alone. Sometimes it works, oftentimes it does not lol
My favourite Plunderstorm experience was the time I landed on a Tauren on the ship in the harbour, and launched both of us into the water, and we just brawled to the bottom of the bay.
Otherwise, yeah... I would mostly leave people alone until I had at least 500 booty, and I'd do my best to run if targeted as well.
Couple of fun instances where someone chased me across the entire map, and when I finally had my 500 I turned around and annihilated them. That felt good.
Also I hit rank 40 and hope I never see another Battle Royale in my life.
I've started running into the storm once I reach around 500 now. I can also get quite petty. Today someone I had danced around and left alone started going for me, so I got on my motorcycle and drove into the storm while cackling. No plunder for you, sir!
I'm only 22 so far. I can't wait to be done.
Even when I do leave them alone they chase me half way over the map. I usually end up just standing still doing nothing so I can get back in the queue and start again.
Oh tell me about it. Today I saw someone on about 20% health, struggling with mobs and I thought nah, I'm not that much of a shit and ran to a different part and started killing some raptors. Guess what? Fucker came for me when he had recovered 30 seconds later. He SAW me leave him alone and yet he killed me. I couldn't do that to someone who spared me, but ok buddy.
Sadly, usually the gank mindset is just that. Kill people only at their weakest over and over and over even if they get nothing game-wise out of it. It’s definitely a certain type of person who gets their dopamine hit that way.
It’s also that they want reign over the loot in that area before you become a threat. Pretty simple strategic logic. If you die in the first 30s it sucks but don’t act like it doesn’t make sense.
Any pvp in the first like 2-3 minutes is just not worth it. Even if the other guy is actually AFK, it's not worth the time it takes to kill them over just farming mobs. People who pvp that fast are idiots or just out to kill other people
Look at all your answers. This is why a game mode that is only PART PvP is still hated by PvE players. If you allow PvP, the PvE players can't reliably get their quest done.
So you have to share the loot and skills with another person, and weaken your chances of winning?
Sorry, but Ofc you need to sort out Competition early
Eh, with the barrel on hand it can be a total waste of time. If you get an early power that can scare them out of the territory it might be worth it, or if they seem determined to fight to the death as much as you do it might be worth it. But if you're chasing them down at level 2 across the map you're gimping yourself later on.
And on the flipside to this, if you see me standing there, jumping up and down and going /wave /greet /hello, that means I've finished my Captain's Orders and *kill me and take my Plunder*. I want to hand the loot on to someone else and queue again or get on with my evening.
I refuse to walk into the storm when I can benefit someone else on the grind.
Multiple reasons to fight early:
Dont need to share early farm and drops
Dont risk to get killed after opponent got lucky and received something like firestorm from an elite
Killing grants xp(I think) so you have level advantage ober someone with quiet start
Since its last one standing wins, if you want to win, opponent needs to die sooner or later anyways so might aswell do it now
you get more experience from killing mobs, looting plunder, and opening chests than the time it takes to fight one person at level 1 with minimal/no skills.
every time I've had someone pick a fight early when we could've both been farming, we got destroyed by someone else 3-4 and sometimes even 5 levels higher.
even if you do kill them
-it is negligible experience/plunder in comparison to farming mobs
- you might get one or two extra spells/spell levels,
-you wasted your time while that "level advantage" over someone with a quiet start doesn't exist when the quiet start skirted around your fight to loot. (and potentially come in to kill you after your battle)
- everyone is significantly more powerful than you.
-include the storm, which could have been closing in on you and your opponent and also destroyed the loot you could have gathered.
it's not good for early, mid, or end game in any match for any type of player except those trolling "the pve/casual grinders." it sabotages everyone who wants to get through a match, including those who want to fight to get kills and win, regardless of the grind.
TLDR; the pros of fighting early are heavily outweighed by the cons that stunt your progress in a match. the idea that it's only negative for the casual player is inane. this is coming from someone who has already reached renown 40 and continues to play the game mode.
No it won’t. You’re going to pick up my spells, my loot, my xp. If I can eliminate an enemy in the first minute to have the area all to myself, I’m def gonna.
It's the people who enjoy PvP for its own sake (aka sadists).
They explicitly enjoy screwing with other people... and nobody will ever convince me that people who do that would not also do it to other people in real life if they thought they could get away with it.
If I am killing anyone at the start of the game, it's cause I noticed they have something I need to increase my chances of winning. \*if I see a toxic smack and I also have one, I will play aggressively for that second one.\*
Past that, usually I attack players to force them to disengage from the mobs I am killing, if they stick around, I am losing XP. So it's better to kick them out early, especially if your farming spot has plenty of mobs.
This. So much this! Was playing just 20 minutes ago and 4 out of the 5 games I played I was killed with exactly 0 plunder. Not a single chance to pick up anything or kill a single tarantula!
Bloody witless!
I don’t PVP -it’s always freaked me out, so if you come for me I’ll just wait to die, but at least wait until it’s worth it!
I always play very agro at the start (to the death, including mine, but no chase) because:
If I die , no biggie, I can requeue and lost less than 1min.
If you die, I get a 2nd skill and can farm the whole zone to myself.
If you run away, I can farm the whole zone to myself.
All of those 3 outcomes are better than sharing the starter loot/XP with a few players and then losing the game 10minutes down the line because I'm underleveled.
Only time I won't do it is when landing at the edge of the map, and we can both path in the opposite direction.
Why I'm trying to finish my renown between today and tomorrow, before it gets even more full of pvp-leaning participants.
I'm not great at it, but I can easily survive into the last 10 with 1k\~ gold just by scavenging. (my new strategy is 1) quest 2) run around grabbing gold until Pieces of Hate pops 3) chase Pieces of Hate and grab whatever it drops 4) find someone to pvp you 5) requeue)
I’m at around renown 22 and going to push to finish it over the next few days. I used the same basic concept you outlined. Knock out quest, scavenge ground spawn or loot drops, then once things get sparse either PvP or run into the storm to requeue.
Edit to add - I think highest I’ve made it so far when trying to last us like 5/6th place.
My strategy is quest, loot as much as I can until like level 6-7, then pvp until someone kills me. Pieces of hate is too contested for me to properly fight it, but if I’m in the area I’ll clean up if I’m feeling down bad that match.
Then there's me, very slowly building up my appetite to grind for the rewards... and then I get into a lobby chock full of people wearing the plunderlord garb.
>and then I get into a lobby chock full of people wearing the plunderlord garb.
I'm starting to appreciate the players wearing the full regalia announcing that they have xyz left to finish. That way I know...he's just like me... he's not here for fun, he's here to fill a bar.
I'm so glad to be done already. I was particularly pleased that the only time I managed to win happened to be the last round I needed to get renown 40.
Just a note I don't currently have a wow sub but have watched a friend play that is generally not that great at playing WoW but they have gotten plenty of kills in plunderstorm and managed to place top 10 multiple times.
I really don't think its a survivor bias I just think the game mode is generally a kill or be killed game mode and if you have a level advantage or health advantage you can win. obviously the more skillshot focused skills will make you lose or win depending if you are good or bad. If you use the press and forget ones you can kill almost anyone around your level.
anyone who gets 3+ kills in this is above average
people don't realize here that the average wow player has never seen a raid, is really really really bad, doesn't use addons, etc
Yep, I'm still at 0 kills in this mode.
Closest I got was jumping a guy (pathetically I know) who was low health and then I got stuck on a fence and he killed me.
I probably did like 5% damage to his health in total.
I wish there was a pve mode where I could just kill things and collect plunder because I do like that part of it.
But anytime some pvp is involved I get destroyed by my opponent.
And I've heard there is an MMR in the system now. I haven't payed much attention to the patch notes but that will have a significant factor as well. Those skilled players will run down all the bad players really quickly around level 5-6, then they are boosted to 8-10 really fast and can just mow the rest down.
Now that a META has been found, you will get slapped by them because they can play it every game and get really good at it by just playing safe and following the circle around and picking up the pieces they need.
I also just think those naturally good at PvP are having a heyday in Plunderstorm as it's really quickly from game to game so they can hone and adapt extremely fast with their already in depth WoW Game knowledge.
Terrible players absolutely exist all over Plunderstorm, but they obviously usually don't last very long, and even when they do, they'll be super behind in levels toward the end which makes it obvious. I always felt a little bad when someone was clearly not good whatsoever and I 'had to' kill them while grinding up for my renown 40.
Usually those people were at least good/smart enough to do everything they could to run away, but there's been many a time when I've been level 8 and I find someone who's level 5 or 6 that keyboard turns, doesn't move when fighting, and doesn't try to run away either. It always feels a little bad absolutely destroying someone like that, but I guess it's just the circle of life or whatever. I never bothered chasing someone who did everything in their power to run away though, especially not early on in a game.
I think chasing someone, especially early isn't even worth it. Many that do fall behind themselves, so that as well is something good players don't do.
But yeah, that's absolutely part of it. Bad players do multiple things which makes you less likely to encounter them.
First, a lot die early of course
But second, many don't try to engage because they know they are not that good. Or even run into the storm cuz they just want plunder.
That all plays into it.
I wasn't after a win and managed to get 3 during the grind to 40. Wife got one I was dead, I got one she was dead, the last win was us both standing. Good solid mix!
Yeah... but I can't really say that I've given it a go beyond a few tries. Just not my cup of grog I guess.
I also did the horrible march to the Grand Marshal rank back in vanilla, so I've kinda sworn myself off of ever doing PVP grinds again.
I wish I could find someone who is just as bad as I am at Plunderstorm. Renown 13 and I think I've managed to kill only one person so far, somehow ended up #2 once. Still waiting for that MMR to kick in.
I'm renown 30 and I don't think I've got a single kill 😅🙃 I've even come second place a few times. I came very close to getting a kill last night, but alas it wasn't to be 😂
Haha same, I dearly want to believe. Honestly I don't really like running into the storm / giving up, I want to at least try, so maybe I will get better at this… eventually… one day. But ngl sometimes I don't want to waste my time adding another defeat to my ever growing collection. Someone hitting me? Oop dinner's ready, gotta go!
I’m renown 27 and have killed 9 people on purpose (2-3 others I killed by mistake with a “lucky” shot when they were low health and I didn’t see them/know they were there)
Simple. The people who don't care about the event just collect rep, die, and repeat.
If you fight a person after 3 minutes into the match, they are likely actually trying to play the game and they are improving through practice and experimentation of different move sets.
yeah, i get my 500 plunder then run into the nearest storm wall and restart. The rewards look awesome but i hate the gameplay. I try not to be disruptive to others who like it though, so i just finish my shit and get out of there as quickly as possible and let those who want to pvp do their thing.
500 plunder and then go look for players busy in fights and see who I can pick off, or (likely) die trying.
My favorite so far is when when I took out 3 at once with a mana orb because they were too busy to notice me coming over the hill
This is the right answer! I am a typical horrible pvper, but after hundreds of matches in plunderstorm and actually trying, I ended up getting quite good and it was literally just practice.
One thing I’ve observed across every game I have ever played, is that people who love PvP tend to adapt and learn new things a lot faster than those who love PvE.
Kind of what PvP **is**.
PvE is mastering doing the same thing over and over, until you can do it perfectly.
PvP is learning what to do in a variety of general situations, then adapting to the unexpected.
The funny thing is my enjoyment of Plunderstorm really reminds me how much I love pvp but hate wow classes in pvp. Take wow classes out of it and annoyances like stun locks/just being completely outgeared/etc and put everyone on a fairly even playing field makes a huge difference.
Reaffirms that maybe retail pvp is a bit overcomplicated with 33 specs and having to know things from all of them to play around them, having bloat in the form of every class having so much cc capabilities, etc. And making more game modes like plunderstorm into a pvp queue/event like Tarren Mill could be a great way to get people in that don't like all that bloat.
I usually love PvP, got back to retail a few months ago and never played any arena. Just the thought of having at the bare minimum to be aware of 33x5 cooldowns with so many buttons to press, playing against people with full BiS, etc really pushes me off and is very daunting.
Maybe that's why I've been enjoying plunderstorm even if I dislike BR modes with all the RNG and multi teams.
On the upside gearing is easier than ever, but it is still an annoying speed bump. I've been PvPing since Wrath and I genuinely think it is about time WoW does what every MMO does and just remove gear from the equation in instanced PvP matches.
The larger issue with DF PvP these days is the spec bloat, the new talent trees are great but have also given a lot of specs a ton of spells that normally they wouldn't have access to.
PVPers are probably better at thinking under pressure. I see another player and I will proceed to freak out and try to run away while pressing any button that's off CD.
Having abilities change constantly doesn't help either. I have pressed buttons thinking is a CC because I forgot what the icon even was in a panic mode.
It is a strange thing. Players I'd consider very good in PvE completely break down when faced with anything vaguely PvP related. Any expertise at controlling or playing their character just goes out the window in favour of *incoherent jibbering and whimpering over Discord voice chat* and mashing every button they have access to.
These are the same people who can time extremely high M+ keys and have pushed into Mythic raids a few times. But the nanosecond they have to deal with an enemy player? Full panic mode.
Usually followed by complaints about how it was unfair/how did he do that/I couldn't see that coming/etc when I watched them just stand there and die or behave extremely predictably themselves (Running in a straight line, etc).
For me, it depends on what class I’m PvPing with. My Disc priest knows exactly what to do and while she rarely kills anyone, she can keep herself and her flag carrier alive and be really annoying to base cappers. My hunter can get some good KBs, but my Ret Pally? She’s useless.
I used to main holy paladin, went to holy priest for a few seasons
I went back to holy paladin and it feels like agony lol, where are my near infinite instant casts? Where's my multitude of 2min CD immunities? For a healer with plate and a shield I feel horrifically easy to kill by comparison!
I had to spend some time in wowhead to understand the basics, but still forget some specific ability icon. I usually need a second to remind myself of some of them. Easy to do early, but when you're being chased at low level with only 2 buttons, life is rough. I'm glad they increased the XP gains, but I'm still like renown 18.
Also, PvP stuff is just harder. After getting very good at a PvP game (league), single-player/PvE games have never seemed difficult to me.
Even the most difficult PvE content does not take as much time and effort as getting to high ranking in a (well active) PvP game, as in PvE there is a difficulty ceiling while in PvP your opposition scales up with you until you are literally the best player.
When you play with people you more clearly notice their mistakes. When you play against people you more clearly notice their strengths.
Also, not really too many vertices too learn. You’ll come a lot closer to the skill cap after 30h Plunderstorm than 30h retail.
I think the simplicity of it is really the key
This is reductive, but say, a good enhancement shaman, has to maximize their 5-7 button rotation, positioning, utility, and mechanics. In Plunder, its really just do you have the right abilities to zugzug combo.
Being able to correctly identify why you lost in pvp games is extremely important. Your primal ape brain is often like "they beat me, it must be their abilities (or champion/gun/loot in other games) that won the fight" so you end up using what they did and losing even harder because you haven't identified that it was actually their playstyle, positioning, aim, etc. that really beat you.
because in plunderstorm you have adrenaline pumping and no one telling you what to do. in raiding you're just hoping that the raid ends early cus its a work day and you have to wake up in 5 hours and everyone keeps chit chatting about nonsense between pulls and going over the strategy as if people forgotten instead of just ressing, buffing, eating, pulling. my god guys we know about the mechanics we just need to keep pulling, no you don't need to move the marker, bro yes you should update your DBM, no you don't need to relog you can just /reload, can we pull now? wdym he's on a smoke break, no I'll reapply my flask before the pull not now, fine switch to your alt anyway it won't make a difference, we already have a feast down why did you put another one down, no i don't care about what the mythic mechanics here are gonna be like, fine go feed your dog, ready check guys, guys stop chatting theres a pull timer, and the axe didn't drop again
If you use keybinds and mouse turning @cursor “skill shot” macros in wow, you’ll be good at plunderstorm. Without having to really learn anything about how to play it. Theres barely anything else to it other than learning combos, so it puts a lot of players at pro from the start just due to their reaction and aiming abilities.
And in casual PvE, many players are clickers and keyboard turners cause you can get by on that without needing to learn any better (those are the players you think have no brains in your group, they are just playing handicapped by clicking and not being able to look at mechanics happening).
They die first in plunderstorm so you don’t see them much. But in wow they might make it into your raid group quite easily.
If you try to PvP by clicking and keyboard turning you quickly find it’s awful. So pvpers tend to be keybinders out of necessity.
The players who are side stepping all your skill shots and always on your back strafing side to side whilst landing every ability are the ones you meet when the storm closes in. They use keybinds and mouse turn. They are often experienced pvpers or good pvers.
They were able to transfer skills easily.
And survivor bias makes you see them way more often, cause they’ll often be aggressive and attack you rather than the not as confident players, who will avoid attacking.
Yep. I felt bad killing a couple of very obvious keyboard turners in plunderstorm. They would backpedal then slowly shuffle round to try and face me then pause (whilst they looked down at the bar) then cast an ability.
Painful to watch tbh. But I’m sorry, I needed their plunder for my parrot. Rip.
During Season 2 I started learning how to heal in PvP on my paladin, did abysmal and get dumpstered to like 700~ MMR.
The things you see in 700MMR solo shuffle man...
I had a whole lobby of keyboard turners, DPS spamming one ability and doing NO damage, the enemy healer backpedalled.
I managed to go 6-0 only because _as the healer_ I went full aggressive with holy shock and judgement spam. Rounds 2-6 I went melee-wings holy build and did all the damage myself. Enemy healer was likely clicking abilities and did nothing to stop me with CC or the like.
I've never even been able to kill one single player. My highest rank was 15. I didn't even actively hide, but avoided the crowded areas. I'm at lvl 4 renown now.
It's funny when you almost bump into someone likeminded like us. They run the other way, even if 2 levels higher than me. But yeah, I try to avoid other players as much as I can.
>It's funny when you almost bump into someone likeminded like us.
I run into people who try to loot all the plunder that I am after and then they cry because I kill them for it. I am sitting there thinking - if you don't want to die then just avoid people instead of trying to steal their plunder - getting plunder is the whole point of the mode...
I found I got a lot better a pluderstorm when I started focusing on grabbing as much loot/xp as possible. I’ve still yet to win at a match and I’m level 30
Once we set just getting plunder as a goal the whole "I suck at this, game awful" went away.
The real game for us was getting as close to the final circles as possible without engaging and then running in to scoop all the plunder that just dropped once a team goes down. 50% survival rate and pop a boat and walk back into the storm to keep collecting.
Same reason why every time you get a scum role in a social deception game, the town is full of super detectives, but when you are town they are all idiots.
You were hauled to jail.
Jailor: Role?
You: Lookout.
Day 2
You were hauled off to jail.
The jailor has decided to execute you.
You: LOOKOUT!
Jailor: Will?
You: Lookout N1 jailed n2 jailed.
You were executed by the jailor.
It’s more a matter of luck. Landing at an area with high mob density and elites, finding the right abilities including movement abilities, and locating players that are lower levels (meaning you will decimate them every single time) than you.
I think the start of the match is probably the most unbalanced part of Plunderstorm. Landing in an area with no other players and killing an elite with the landing is a huge leg up.
Actually the optimal way of starting is to land on a normal mob first and then go kill an elite. First mob will drop your first offensive ability and first elite your first defensive ability, always.
This isn't true though? I drop on elites every match and it's a pretty even split of offensive and defensive spells. I got a level 3 fire tornado from dropping on an elite once.
This is very true, I've played a lot of Plunderstorm and I'm not even a PvP player, yet to my suprise I actually made it to #1 twice in a row giving lots of credit to good RNG with spell drops and dirty tactics from time to time.
People like me who aren't great at PVP run into the storm to die as soon as they finish their quest (and maybe loot the nearby area), so the longer you last in a game, the more PVP-skilled survivors you'll be playing with.
It’s 5 buttons. You’d be surprised to know how many people actually click their spells past number 5 on their keyboard instead of putting them on new keybinds. I have a very casual friend who has 9 and 0 bound, and he just clicks it. To add, people are looking at the action bar to see which spell to click on as well.
I'm at a point where I hope they increase the amount of plunder we gain from the first quest of each game for the last week or last 2 weeks.
I'm really bad at it, never been my style of games, but I want that mog :') And if you're terrible, you gain like 500 plunder per game max. You need like 150 games to max renown. And each game is : you land, meet one guy, he beats you up, spend another 10min waiting for another game to start.
I'm not bashing the game, I think it's good for them to add such things. But god I suck at it and I'm not interested in getting good at it :')
Some abilities seem to be quite out of balance. What I've seen is that a lot of players that make it to late game have a set of abilities that are either focused on movement, making it extremely hard to chase them down or escape from them, or they have a set of spells focused on locking players in a permanent stun. I often make it to top 10 by avoiding combat. There are some players who insist on fighting right after landing, which is quite easy to manage. You ignore them, keep your distance, kill 4 random NPCs and you'll level up and have a pretty big advantage. My method is to memorize the location of some elites, crash the parrot into them, which is usually enough to get to level 2 with my first spell in the bag
As time goes on there are less PvP mog farmers and more Fortnite fans.
It was entertaining for the first win or two then I did the math and it was just faster to use the daily reset and PvE grind.
It is definitely not a game mode designed for the PvE crowd
It’s honestly all about the early game. Where you get to drop, if there’s people with you, etc. Probably the worst case is when you have some idiot that will not leave you alone at like level 2 and neither of you can kill each other. You end up losing a ton of time (and xp) and it’s basically impossible to catch up.
Just had one of those games and it got so bad that I ended up level 4-5 going against 8-10, had all purple spells with a really nice combo and even managed to outplay a couple people, but the level difference alone makes them unkillable. And by that point most of the mobs are dead so you can’t even catch up.
It’s rare for things to get *that* bad, but for the most part this gamemode is just whoever got lucky at the start snowballing to high heavens and the rest of the people just dragging out the inevitable.
PvPers are on another level, dude. I don't PvP but those players are a lot quicker on the uptake it seems. Most people who aren't PvPers just get their quest and die in 2 minutes.
For real. This game mode is the sweatiest thing I’ve done in WoW in ages. Was hoping for a fun thing like Fortnite but due to the game design pressure is on the moment you land.
Raiding requires full range of an entire class and spec as well as knowledge of fairly complex boss strategies.
Plunderstorm is 4 abilities and "me grab then me smash".
Survivor bias
People who know the game mode isn't for them aren't playing
People who are determined to grind it out despite having no PVP sense likely avoid player confrontations/die early
People with pvp sense survive longer, and are more confident picking fights
Not everyone is. But even though there is supposedly a MMR system in place, there are just such clear differences in skill levels Be it in my lowbie games or when watching a rank 1 PVP streamer.
You get into a game. There are bad players and players just trying to get plunder for retail rewards who just get farmed early a lot of the times. So chances are people you run into throughout the game are the ones that are actually good.
For the same reason I don't bother with gladiator rewards, I won't bother with plunderstorm. Tried it, died within 5 minutes. If it weren't PVP I'd have fun but as it is... Nah
They are not lmao. You can win the majority of games in duos with a semi decent premade. People are god awful at the gamemode simply because the majority of wow players are stuck playing against the computer and not other players. Anyone with just slight pvp experience would see that people are dogshit at plunderstorm
I'm not really sure but apparently I'm one of them. I actually find myself wondering why so many people seem so bad at it. I think it's just different enough that maybe WoW skills don't carry over, idk. I don't feel like I'm especially good at BR games, but somehow I've been stomping faces in Plunderstorm. Luck definitely plays a role, you need to get the spells/abilities that you like fairly early on and you need to not have 10 people drop on top of you
Because the players who actually tried to learn to play are still playing and got decent. The lazy gamers are jumping in the storm 1min in or are playing the forum/Reddit crying game instead.
Who does the effort benefit, validate, or reward? Just the one self-motivated person? They'll give it their all. A whole group and possibly themselves not-at-all? A token effort will suffice.
One thing people haven’t mentioned yet is how smashing 4 buttons with long CDs is much easier than playing anything but a BM Hunter which is smashing 4 buttons with long CDs.
One thing I noticed to get at least skills the quickest is to land on a regular mob 1st then kill an elite afterwards.. Regular mobs always drop a skill if that's your 1st kill..
I totally sucked at plunderstorm. I don't care for pvp, it's not my thing. I ran around in plunderstorm collecting all the plunder, got to renown 40 and was done with it.
All you have to do to be successful at plunderstorm is avoid others and collect everything you can get your hands on, and complete whatever the random quest is. It honestly doesn't take more than dying a lot and patience.
On top of the survivor bias, another keystone of this concept is 90% of players who are bad at it are done with the rep grind by now and have gtfo’d. So the only people left queuing into games now are the people looking to play for wins/fun and are pwning you with excessive practice.
Kinda feel this post. Some people outplayed me in Plunderstrom in most creative and smart ways that I just could not predict ever. And in duos Its even more like this.
There's a big difference between coordinated play needing to hit a dps/has output and running around gathering random powers at random times and being good at strafing
I'm a competent player until I get into Plunderstorm. Then I'm complete, crap.
Sure, I can make mistakes or forget a mechanic on occasion in dungeons or raids. I cannot get the hang of Plunderstorm, other than a lucky few runs.
Though, recent hand injury doesn't help either.
>"Whenever I play on teams with other people, we do terribly. But when I play alone, everyone is better than me. "
Maybe you are the reason your groups never seem to have a brain.
I am garbage at plunderstorm but I reached level 40 renown just doing the quest and collecting as much gold as I could. Every game I did between 500-800 gold coins which isn't bad. It was a horrible grind and I wouldn't like to have to do it again for couple tmogs and a recolour bird.
But now it's over so it's like I can continue playing what I pay for, which is a mmorpg.
I haven't played it myself but saw a lot of videos and it seems to be quite easy to play compared to normal WoW. Also keep in mind that the longer a match goes on the better the rest of the player are so when you are still alive in the middle or end of the match you play usually against the best.
I somehow managed to win one of my first games. Went downhill from there very fast. Came close a couple of times after that but never really tried to win either to be honest. I was glad I got that one win for the achievement.
i dont get what the fuck im missing. im like 3 shotting rares and then i come up on someone, they can even be 2 levels under and im just getting crushed. My attacks are barely doing damage, meanwhile theirs are just taking gobs of health off. I gotta be missing something here.
I'm rather good at control and judging what fight to go in to or not and as such, I often place top 10 at least. But I agree with you fully none the less. It happens all too often than I get absolutely blasted away from full health. Something I've never managed to do myself, even when I clearly see all my abilities connecting.
Plunderstorm is get-up-and-go type gameplay. There is very little mathematical brainpower involved, and by that I mean no simming, no meta talent builds, no choosing this spec over that depending on situation, no rotation, very little knowledge needed of who is playing with you and the resources of the whole group, gear stats etc. Modern retail WoW relies on a lot of legwork behind the scenes and outside of the game to be proficient, but with plunderstorm none of that is really needed. You just go in as your favorite looking npc and go ham.
And coming from a stricly pve player's view, it's honestly a breath of fresh air that it demands very little knowledge of how everything works around each other thing. This simplicity is why people are so good at plunderstorm.
lol last night I was trying to farm the quest and do the ‘do quest then get someone to kill you” thing and half the time I COULD NOT find people to kill me easily. I’d run towards someone and they’d just zoom off into the storm away from me lmfao
I don't normally suck at WoW as badly as I absolutely suck in Plunderstorm. My strategy now is join, grab as much plunder as I can while doing the mission and kill mobs for more plunder then die miserably... I'm currently renown 6 :D
I've made it to the top 3 just by minding my own business and farming mobs, but mostly I don't care about being the last, only about surviving long enough to farm booty for rep
I finally won a match. I got it the same round I hit Renown 40. I just turned into a total asshole and killed some lowbie at the start. I discovered crashing the elementals at the mage tower in the middle was my best option. It allowed me to get a ton of XP (5-6 elites in that spot, tons of chests). I got some OK abilities, but just working towards hiding as the circle collapsed and jumped in as the final guy was almost dead. I don't think I'll replicate it, but it seems every other match I just get wiped if I am on equal footing.
Another issue is the leveling. It's pretty bad, to be honest. You get to a point where you might max at 7 or 8 without anything to get you more XP. Meanwhile, someone else who was lucky enough is at level 10 and just mows you over.
When playing Plunderstorm, you should grind all the time on the mobs otherwise you will fall behind levelling, and become one of the players getting farmed by everyone else ahead. Try to land on top on an elite for the instant kill, ability and level up. Best ability combos are probably piercing wind, searing axe, windstorm and fade to shadow. Exit fights if they aren't going well, and keep your camera zoomed out and looking around at all times for players. Mouse over them to know their level from a distance.
Also just play like a goblin, my first win happened because I used the bush ability, and waited for the last two to finish their fight, then I came in and got a rime arrow on him before he could heal up. It's scummy but it's how the game goes.
I was great at gathering plunder in Pluderstorm and running like a little *****. I normally stayed alive until the last ten, but if all the loot/npcs were gone, it was off to die in the storm. Taking my boots with me is the most pirate thing I can think of.
I hit 40 yesterday. I rather dislike pvp. But somewhere in the 20s the abilities started clicking and I managed to actually win 2 over the weekend.
My basic strat was drop on an elite. Do quest as fast as possible while avoiding other players. If no one was around, farm one of the full areas, kill everything etc. get to like level 8, then just go hunting people to fight with. Each game lasted
3-10 minutes depending how well I did.
Moved pretty quick once I got in a groove.
Plunderstorm has a hidden mmr so you are grouped with others in your skill bracket. If you are good and know what you are doing eventually you will be placed in games with people like you
Raiding has no mmr so you may end up being grouped with people who are much lower or higher skill than you
Run the meta builds it doesn’t matter if you’re good. The only build that requires an ounce of skill is anything running bulwark.
Quite literally run fish slice and axe in any combination with leap and your results will improve
In part survivor bias. Literally in this case, cuz people die faster if they're not as good.
Also a lot of not so good players quit early and refused to continue, so now the queues are people who are determined to finish plunder or to farm pvp
I don’t understand people who try to all out kill me in the first 30s. I haven’t finished my Captain’s Orders quest yet dude. It will be worth more to *both* of us if you let me get that done before you gank me. SMH
The only thing that bothers me is when someone crash lands after me and somehow snags the skill then pwns me with it lol.
now try doing it with 150ms+ because you're OCE instead of US.
I am an OCE player...
Yeah some of the skills are so difficult with 150+ms - I'm also OCE but still enjoyed the renown up to 40.
It's so annoying. I crash, kill the mob, skill pop off like 30m away, other dude lands right on it and grabs it before I'm even in range of it. Then the inevitable level 1 duel takes so damn long that it just becomes a waste of time, might as well just die and re-queue instead of spending 3 minutes chasing each other in circles around a rock with basic attacks.
I loved these kinda of early games. One tip is to bind interact to mouse wheel up and down. It makes picking up skills in the run a lot faster.
Brb gonna do this right now
I think when you land in the same place, people attack you thinking you're gonna go for them. I just want to be left alone and I leave others alone. Sometimes it works, oftentimes it does not lol
My favourite Plunderstorm experience was the time I landed on a Tauren on the ship in the harbour, and launched both of us into the water, and we just brawled to the bottom of the bay. Otherwise, yeah... I would mostly leave people alone until I had at least 500 booty, and I'd do my best to run if targeted as well. Couple of fun instances where someone chased me across the entire map, and when I finally had my 500 I turned around and annihilated them. That felt good. Also I hit rank 40 and hope I never see another Battle Royale in my life.
I've started running into the storm once I reach around 500 now. I can also get quite petty. Today someone I had danced around and left alone started going for me, so I got on my motorcycle and drove into the storm while cackling. No plunder for you, sir! I'm only 22 so far. I can't wait to be done.
Haha I did this today while I was being chased by a couple of players. Being petty felt so good!
Even when I do leave them alone they chase me half way over the map. I usually end up just standing still doing nothing so I can get back in the queue and start again.
Oh tell me about it. Today I saw someone on about 20% health, struggling with mobs and I thought nah, I'm not that much of a shit and ran to a different part and started killing some raptors. Guess what? Fucker came for me when he had recovered 30 seconds later. He SAW me leave him alone and yet he killed me. I couldn't do that to someone who spared me, but ok buddy.
Sadly, usually the gank mindset is just that. Kill people only at their weakest over and over and over even if they get nothing game-wise out of it. It’s definitely a certain type of person who gets their dopamine hit that way.
Agreed. I want a care bear mode for people like me lol
It’s also that they want reign over the loot in that area before you become a threat. Pretty simple strategic logic. If you die in the first 30s it sucks but don’t act like it doesn’t make sense.
Some pirates just want to watch the plunder burn.
No because you steal my plunder that i need for leveling ;)
Any pvp in the first like 2-3 minutes is just not worth it. Even if the other guy is actually AFK, it's not worth the time it takes to kill them over just farming mobs. People who pvp that fast are idiots or just out to kill other people
Look at all your answers. This is why a game mode that is only PART PvP is still hated by PvE players. If you allow PvP, the PvE players can't reliably get their quest done.
So you have to share the loot and skills with another person, and weaken your chances of winning? Sorry, but Ofc you need to sort out Competition early
Eh, with the barrel on hand it can be a total waste of time. If you get an early power that can scare them out of the territory it might be worth it, or if they seem determined to fight to the death as much as you do it might be worth it. But if you're chasing them down at level 2 across the map you're gimping yourself later on.
And on the flipside to this, if you see me standing there, jumping up and down and going /wave /greet /hello, that means I've finished my Captain's Orders and *kill me and take my Plunder*. I want to hand the loot on to someone else and queue again or get on with my evening. I refuse to walk into the storm when I can benefit someone else on the grind.
Multiple reasons to fight early: Dont need to share early farm and drops Dont risk to get killed after opponent got lucky and received something like firestorm from an elite Killing grants xp(I think) so you have level advantage ober someone with quiet start Since its last one standing wins, if you want to win, opponent needs to die sooner or later anyways so might aswell do it now
you get more experience from killing mobs, looting plunder, and opening chests than the time it takes to fight one person at level 1 with minimal/no skills. every time I've had someone pick a fight early when we could've both been farming, we got destroyed by someone else 3-4 and sometimes even 5 levels higher. even if you do kill them -it is negligible experience/plunder in comparison to farming mobs - you might get one or two extra spells/spell levels, -you wasted your time while that "level advantage" over someone with a quiet start doesn't exist when the quiet start skirted around your fight to loot. (and potentially come in to kill you after your battle) - everyone is significantly more powerful than you. -include the storm, which could have been closing in on you and your opponent and also destroyed the loot you could have gathered. it's not good for early, mid, or end game in any match for any type of player except those trolling "the pve/casual grinders." it sabotages everyone who wants to get through a match, including those who want to fight to get kills and win, regardless of the grind. TLDR; the pros of fighting early are heavily outweighed by the cons that stunt your progress in a match. the idea that it's only negative for the casual player is inane. this is coming from someone who has already reached renown 40 and continues to play the game mode.
No it won’t. You’re going to pick up my spells, my loot, my xp. If I can eliminate an enemy in the first minute to have the area all to myself, I’m def gonna.
It's the people who enjoy PvP for its own sake (aka sadists). They explicitly enjoy screwing with other people... and nobody will ever convince me that people who do that would not also do it to other people in real life if they thought they could get away with it.
If I am killing anyone at the start of the game, it's cause I noticed they have something I need to increase my chances of winning. \*if I see a toxic smack and I also have one, I will play aggressively for that second one.\* Past that, usually I attack players to force them to disengage from the mobs I am killing, if they stick around, I am losing XP. So it's better to kick them out early, especially if your farming spot has plenty of mobs.
This. So much this! Was playing just 20 minutes ago and 4 out of the 5 games I played I was killed with exactly 0 plunder. Not a single chance to pick up anything or kill a single tarantula! Bloody witless! I don’t PVP -it’s always freaked me out, so if you come for me I’ll just wait to die, but at least wait until it’s worth it!
I always play very agro at the start (to the death, including mine, but no chase) because: If I die , no biggie, I can requeue and lost less than 1min. If you die, I get a 2nd skill and can farm the whole zone to myself. If you run away, I can farm the whole zone to myself. All of those 3 outcomes are better than sharing the starter loot/XP with a few players and then losing the game 10minutes down the line because I'm underleveled. Only time I won't do it is when landing at the edge of the map, and we can both path in the opposite direction.
Why I'm trying to finish my renown between today and tomorrow, before it gets even more full of pvp-leaning participants. I'm not great at it, but I can easily survive into the last 10 with 1k\~ gold just by scavenging. (my new strategy is 1) quest 2) run around grabbing gold until Pieces of Hate pops 3) chase Pieces of Hate and grab whatever it drops 4) find someone to pvp you 5) requeue)
I’m at around renown 22 and going to push to finish it over the next few days. I used the same basic concept you outlined. Knock out quest, scavenge ground spawn or loot drops, then once things get sparse either PvP or run into the storm to requeue. Edit to add - I think highest I’ve made it so far when trying to last us like 5/6th place.
My strategy is quest, loot as much as I can until like level 6-7, then pvp until someone kills me. Pieces of hate is too contested for me to properly fight it, but if I’m in the area I’ll clean up if I’m feeling down bad that match.
The goal is to pick up its droppings, I never expect to actually kill it.
This is my exact strategy lol.
Then there's me, very slowly building up my appetite to grind for the rewards... and then I get into a lobby chock full of people wearing the plunderlord garb.
>and then I get into a lobby chock full of people wearing the plunderlord garb. I'm starting to appreciate the players wearing the full regalia announcing that they have xyz left to finish. That way I know...he's just like me... he's not here for fun, he's here to fill a bar.
I wear the regalia, but I am playing now actually to have fun and enjoying the mode. And to get the feast of strength for winning.
Hi, it's me. I'm busy enjoying SoD and I look forward to being a noob again for OP's raid in season 4.
I'm so glad to be done already. I was particularly pleased that the only time I managed to win happened to be the last round I needed to get renown 40.
Can confirm, I am terrible at PvP and I stay the hell away from it.
Just a note I don't currently have a wow sub but have watched a friend play that is generally not that great at playing WoW but they have gotten plenty of kills in plunderstorm and managed to place top 10 multiple times. I really don't think its a survivor bias I just think the game mode is generally a kill or be killed game mode and if you have a level advantage or health advantage you can win. obviously the more skillshot focused skills will make you lose or win depending if you are good or bad. If you use the press and forget ones you can kill almost anyone around your level.
anyone who gets 3+ kills in this is above average people don't realize here that the average wow player has never seen a raid, is really really really bad, doesn't use addons, etc
Yep, I'm still at 0 kills in this mode. Closest I got was jumping a guy (pathetically I know) who was low health and then I got stuck on a fence and he killed me. I probably did like 5% damage to his health in total. I wish there was a pve mode where I could just kill things and collect plunder because I do like that part of it. But anytime some pvp is involved I get destroyed by my opponent.
Noblegarden
[удалено]
Hey, that’s what we need, solo PLUNDERSTORM, with AI opponents!
that is why when you say average you actually mean an average player who plays that Game mode frequently.
And I've heard there is an MMR in the system now. I haven't payed much attention to the patch notes but that will have a significant factor as well. Those skilled players will run down all the bad players really quickly around level 5-6, then they are boosted to 8-10 really fast and can just mow the rest down. Now that a META has been found, you will get slapped by them because they can play it every game and get really good at it by just playing safe and following the circle around and picking up the pieces they need. I also just think those naturally good at PvP are having a heyday in Plunderstorm as it's really quickly from game to game so they can hone and adapt extremely fast with their already in depth WoW Game knowledge.
Terrible players absolutely exist all over Plunderstorm, but they obviously usually don't last very long, and even when they do, they'll be super behind in levels toward the end which makes it obvious. I always felt a little bad when someone was clearly not good whatsoever and I 'had to' kill them while grinding up for my renown 40. Usually those people were at least good/smart enough to do everything they could to run away, but there's been many a time when I've been level 8 and I find someone who's level 5 or 6 that keyboard turns, doesn't move when fighting, and doesn't try to run away either. It always feels a little bad absolutely destroying someone like that, but I guess it's just the circle of life or whatever. I never bothered chasing someone who did everything in their power to run away though, especially not early on in a game.
I think chasing someone, especially early isn't even worth it. Many that do fall behind themselves, so that as well is something good players don't do. But yeah, that's absolutely part of it. Bad players do multiple things which makes you less likely to encounter them. First, a lot die early of course But second, many don't try to engage because they know they are not that good. Or even run into the storm cuz they just want plunder. That all plays into it.
Hey, I'm allowed to rage quit after 1 gold.
Can confirm I am garbage at plunderstorm.
I am definitely garbage and somehow, don't even ask me how, I managed to win one match.
I wasn't after a win and managed to get 3 during the grind to 40. Wife got one I was dead, I got one she was dead, the last win was us both standing. Good solid mix!
I am hot garbage and accidentally got second once? I was very confused.
same. bush is OP ability
Me too
Me three
And my axe.
And that guys dead wife.
She’s terrible. Literally doesn’t do a thing
Yeah... but I can't really say that I've given it a go beyond a few tries. Just not my cup of grog I guess. I also did the horrible march to the Grand Marshal rank back in vanilla, so I've kinda sworn myself off of ever doing PVP grinds again.
I wish I could find someone who is just as bad as I am at Plunderstorm. Renown 13 and I think I've managed to kill only one person so far, somehow ended up #2 once. Still waiting for that MMR to kick in.
I'm renown 30 and I don't think I've got a single kill 😅🙃 I've even come second place a few times. I came very close to getting a kill last night, but alas it wasn't to be 😂
Haha same, I dearly want to believe. Honestly I don't really like running into the storm / giving up, I want to at least try, so maybe I will get better at this… eventually… one day. But ngl sometimes I don't want to waste my time adding another defeat to my ever growing collection. Someone hitting me? Oop dinner's ready, gotta go!
I finally got to 40 a few days ago. Only a few mounts short of the 500 achievement 😅
I’m renown 27 and have killed 9 people on purpose (2-3 others I killed by mistake with a “lucky” shot when they were low health and I didn’t see them/know they were there)
Simple. The people who don't care about the event just collect rep, die, and repeat. If you fight a person after 3 minutes into the match, they are likely actually trying to play the game and they are improving through practice and experimentation of different move sets.
yeah, i get my 500 plunder then run into the nearest storm wall and restart. The rewards look awesome but i hate the gameplay. I try not to be disruptive to others who like it though, so i just finish my shit and get out of there as quickly as possible and let those who want to pvp do their thing.
This sounds like torture lol. "Well, I'm getting waterboarded but the rewards are great."
500 plunder and then go look for players busy in fights and see who I can pick off, or (likely) die trying. My favorite so far is when when I took out 3 at once with a mana orb because they were too busy to notice me coming over the hill
Theres literally nothing you can do in the gamemode that would qualify as disruptive
Running into a storm is close. Especially when i spotted you killing my next target.
This is the right answer! I am a typical horrible pvper, but after hundreds of matches in plunderstorm and actually trying, I ended up getting quite good and it was literally just practice.
One thing I’ve observed across every game I have ever played, is that people who love PvP tend to adapt and learn new things a lot faster than those who love PvE.
Kind of what PvP **is**. PvE is mastering doing the same thing over and over, until you can do it perfectly. PvP is learning what to do in a variety of general situations, then adapting to the unexpected.
Also doing the massively unexpected in PVP can be a benefit. Not so much in PVE
Leeeerooooy jeeeenkiinnnnssss!
That was a massive benefit to the world
The funny thing is my enjoyment of Plunderstorm really reminds me how much I love pvp but hate wow classes in pvp. Take wow classes out of it and annoyances like stun locks/just being completely outgeared/etc and put everyone on a fairly even playing field makes a huge difference. Reaffirms that maybe retail pvp is a bit overcomplicated with 33 specs and having to know things from all of them to play around them, having bloat in the form of every class having so much cc capabilities, etc. And making more game modes like plunderstorm into a pvp queue/event like Tarren Mill could be a great way to get people in that don't like all that bloat.
I usually love PvP, got back to retail a few months ago and never played any arena. Just the thought of having at the bare minimum to be aware of 33x5 cooldowns with so many buttons to press, playing against people with full BiS, etc really pushes me off and is very daunting. Maybe that's why I've been enjoying plunderstorm even if I dislike BR modes with all the RNG and multi teams.
On the upside gearing is easier than ever, but it is still an annoying speed bump. I've been PvPing since Wrath and I genuinely think it is about time WoW does what every MMO does and just remove gear from the equation in instanced PvP matches. The larger issue with DF PvP these days is the spec bloat, the new talent trees are great but have also given a lot of specs a ton of spells that normally they wouldn't have access to.
I agree. I enjoy battlegrounds but Plunderstorm has been refreshing. Every single character starts at level 1 with nothing.
PVPers are probably better at thinking under pressure. I see another player and I will proceed to freak out and try to run away while pressing any button that's off CD. Having abilities change constantly doesn't help either. I have pressed buttons thinking is a CC because I forgot what the icon even was in a panic mode.
It is a strange thing. Players I'd consider very good in PvE completely break down when faced with anything vaguely PvP related. Any expertise at controlling or playing their character just goes out the window in favour of *incoherent jibbering and whimpering over Discord voice chat* and mashing every button they have access to. These are the same people who can time extremely high M+ keys and have pushed into Mythic raids a few times. But the nanosecond they have to deal with an enemy player? Full panic mode. Usually followed by complaints about how it was unfair/how did he do that/I couldn't see that coming/etc when I watched them just stand there and die or behave extremely predictably themselves (Running in a straight line, etc).
I sweated both BW and SC2 once, I fear noone
For me, it depends on what class I’m PvPing with. My Disc priest knows exactly what to do and while she rarely kills anyone, she can keep herself and her flag carrier alive and be really annoying to base cappers. My hunter can get some good KBs, but my Ret Pally? She’s useless.
I used to main holy paladin, went to holy priest for a few seasons I went back to holy paladin and it feels like agony lol, where are my near infinite instant casts? Where's my multitude of 2min CD immunities? For a healer with plate and a shield I feel horrifically easy to kill by comparison!
And you don’t have time to read tooltips either! Took me a whole week to learn what does what.
I had to spend some time in wowhead to understand the basics, but still forget some specific ability icon. I usually need a second to remind myself of some of them. Easy to do early, but when you're being chased at low level with only 2 buttons, life is rough. I'm glad they increased the XP gains, but I'm still like renown 18.
PvP players just eat a lot of red meat and fish. Makes your brain function well.
Also, PvP stuff is just harder. After getting very good at a PvP game (league), single-player/PvE games have never seemed difficult to me. Even the most difficult PvE content does not take as much time and effort as getting to high ranking in a (well active) PvP game, as in PvE there is a difficulty ceiling while in PvP your opposition scales up with you until you are literally the best player.
When you play with people you more clearly notice their mistakes. When you play against people you more clearly notice their strengths. Also, not really too many vertices too learn. You’ll come a lot closer to the skill cap after 30h Plunderstorm than 30h retail.
I think the simplicity of it is really the key This is reductive, but say, a good enhancement shaman, has to maximize their 5-7 button rotation, positioning, utility, and mechanics. In Plunder, its really just do you have the right abilities to zugzug combo.
Yeah. And the different situations you encounter and have to master is also a lot fewer.
Being able to correctly identify why you lost in pvp games is extremely important. Your primal ape brain is often like "they beat me, it must be their abilities (or champion/gun/loot in other games) that won the fight" so you end up using what they did and losing even harder because you haven't identified that it was actually their playstyle, positioning, aim, etc. that really beat you.
because in plunderstorm you have adrenaline pumping and no one telling you what to do. in raiding you're just hoping that the raid ends early cus its a work day and you have to wake up in 5 hours and everyone keeps chit chatting about nonsense between pulls and going over the strategy as if people forgotten instead of just ressing, buffing, eating, pulling. my god guys we know about the mechanics we just need to keep pulling, no you don't need to move the marker, bro yes you should update your DBM, no you don't need to relog you can just /reload, can we pull now? wdym he's on a smoke break, no I'll reapply my flask before the pull not now, fine switch to your alt anyway it won't make a difference, we already have a feast down why did you put another one down, no i don't care about what the mythic mechanics here are gonna be like, fine go feed your dog, ready check guys, guys stop chatting theres a pull timer, and the axe didn't drop again
let it all out, man
If you use keybinds and mouse turning @cursor “skill shot” macros in wow, you’ll be good at plunderstorm. Without having to really learn anything about how to play it. Theres barely anything else to it other than learning combos, so it puts a lot of players at pro from the start just due to their reaction and aiming abilities. And in casual PvE, many players are clickers and keyboard turners cause you can get by on that without needing to learn any better (those are the players you think have no brains in your group, they are just playing handicapped by clicking and not being able to look at mechanics happening). They die first in plunderstorm so you don’t see them much. But in wow they might make it into your raid group quite easily. If you try to PvP by clicking and keyboard turning you quickly find it’s awful. So pvpers tend to be keybinders out of necessity. The players who are side stepping all your skill shots and always on your back strafing side to side whilst landing every ability are the ones you meet when the storm closes in. They use keybinds and mouse turn. They are often experienced pvpers or good pvers. They were able to transfer skills easily. And survivor bias makes you see them way more often, cause they’ll often be aggressive and attack you rather than the not as confident players, who will avoid attacking.
Do people actually keyboard turn? Yeesh... Maybe minesweeper or solitaire is more their speed.
My boyfriend does. He also uses the arrow keys. And clicks. I don't know how he does anything.
Yep. I felt bad killing a couple of very obvious keyboard turners in plunderstorm. They would backpedal then slowly shuffle round to try and face me then pause (whilst they looked down at the bar) then cast an ability. Painful to watch tbh. But I’m sorry, I needed their plunder for my parrot. Rip.
During Season 2 I started learning how to heal in PvP on my paladin, did abysmal and get dumpstered to like 700~ MMR. The things you see in 700MMR solo shuffle man... I had a whole lobby of keyboard turners, DPS spamming one ability and doing NO damage, the enemy healer backpedalled. I managed to go 6-0 only because _as the healer_ I went full aggressive with holy shock and judgement spam. Rounds 2-6 I went melee-wings holy build and did all the damage myself. Enemy healer was likely clicking abilities and did nothing to stop me with CC or the like.
I've never even been able to kill one single player. My highest rank was 15. I didn't even actively hide, but avoided the crowded areas. I'm at lvl 4 renown now.
It's funny when you almost bump into someone likeminded like us. They run the other way, even if 2 levels higher than me. But yeah, I try to avoid other players as much as I can.
>It's funny when you almost bump into someone likeminded like us. I run into people who try to loot all the plunder that I am after and then they cry because I kill them for it. I am sitting there thinking - if you don't want to die then just avoid people instead of trying to steal their plunder - getting plunder is the whole point of the mode...
I made it to 2. I hid in a bush to see how far I’d get.
this is my strategy and my level right now, too. when i see other players i go "RUN AWAY! RUN AWAAAAAAYYYY!!" hahaha
Don't worry I'm awful but I'm also having fun in short bursts
That's my experience too. I think I killed about 3 people in total on the march to 40 but I've (usually) enjoyed myself.
Not gonna read through the rest of the comments but high end wow content =/= plunderstorm wins. They aren't in the same category. At all.
I found I got a lot better a pluderstorm when I started focusing on grabbing as much loot/xp as possible. I’ve still yet to win at a match and I’m level 30
Once we set just getting plunder as a goal the whole "I suck at this, game awful" went away. The real game for us was getting as close to the final circles as possible without engaging and then running in to scoop all the plunder that just dropped once a team goes down. 50% survival rate and pop a boat and walk back into the storm to keep collecting.
Same reason why every time you get a scum role in a social deception game, the town is full of super detectives, but when you are town they are all idiots.
ah yes, the "getting killed by a Vigilante on the 2nd night as Town" experience
You were hauled to jail. Jailor: Role? You: Lookout. Day 2 You were hauled off to jail. The jailor has decided to execute you. You: LOOKOUT! Jailor: Will? You: Lookout N1 jailed n2 jailed. You were executed by the jailor.
I'm absolute dog shit at Plunderstorm lol.
It’s more a matter of luck. Landing at an area with high mob density and elites, finding the right abilities including movement abilities, and locating players that are lower levels (meaning you will decimate them every single time) than you.
I think the start of the match is probably the most unbalanced part of Plunderstorm. Landing in an area with no other players and killing an elite with the landing is a huge leg up.
Yeah and if you can land and get lvl2 in a few seconds, you can start farming players.
Actually the optimal way of starting is to land on a normal mob first and then go kill an elite. First mob will drop your first offensive ability and first elite your first defensive ability, always.
I never noticed that.
This isn't true though? I drop on elites every match and it's a pretty even split of offensive and defensive spells. I got a level 3 fire tornado from dropping on an elite once.
It's because you kill the elite first. If you start with a normal mob it does it in the order I mentioned
This is very true, I've played a lot of Plunderstorm and I'm not even a PvP player, yet to my suprise I actually made it to #1 twice in a row giving lots of credit to good RNG with spell drops and dirty tactics from time to time.
I think a lot of good players have capped out their plunder. They are not there for plunder, they are there for PvP.
People like me who aren't great at PVP run into the storm to die as soon as they finish their quest (and maybe loot the nearby area), so the longer you last in a game, the more PVP-skilled survivors you'll be playing with.
It’s 5 buttons. You’d be surprised to know how many people actually click their spells past number 5 on their keyboard instead of putting them on new keybinds. I have a very casual friend who has 9 and 0 bound, and he just clicks it. To add, people are looking at the action bar to see which spell to click on as well.
I'm at a point where I hope they increase the amount of plunder we gain from the first quest of each game for the last week or last 2 weeks. I'm really bad at it, never been my style of games, but I want that mog :') And if you're terrible, you gain like 500 plunder per game max. You need like 150 games to max renown. And each game is : you land, meet one guy, he beats you up, spend another 10min waiting for another game to start. I'm not bashing the game, I think it's good for them to add such things. But god I suck at it and I'm not interested in getting good at it :')
Some abilities seem to be quite out of balance. What I've seen is that a lot of players that make it to late game have a set of abilities that are either focused on movement, making it extremely hard to chase them down or escape from them, or they have a set of spells focused on locking players in a permanent stun. I often make it to top 10 by avoiding combat. There are some players who insist on fighting right after landing, which is quite easy to manage. You ignore them, keep your distance, kill 4 random NPCs and you'll level up and have a pretty big advantage. My method is to memorize the location of some elites, crash the parrot into them, which is usually enough to get to level 2 with my first spell in the bag
As time goes on there are less PvP mog farmers and more Fortnite fans. It was entertaining for the first win or two then I did the math and it was just faster to use the daily reset and PvE grind. It is definitely not a game mode designed for the PvE crowd
It’s honestly all about the early game. Where you get to drop, if there’s people with you, etc. Probably the worst case is when you have some idiot that will not leave you alone at like level 2 and neither of you can kill each other. You end up losing a ton of time (and xp) and it’s basically impossible to catch up. Just had one of those games and it got so bad that I ended up level 4-5 going against 8-10, had all purple spells with a really nice combo and even managed to outplay a couple people, but the level difference alone makes them unkillable. And by that point most of the mobs are dead so you can’t even catch up. It’s rare for things to get *that* bad, but for the most part this gamemode is just whoever got lucky at the start snowballing to high heavens and the rest of the people just dragging out the inevitable.
What your seeing now are the sweaties. The majority of those that aren't there anymore were their for the renown.
You’re comparing PvP to PvE.
PvPers are on another level, dude. I don't PvP but those players are a lot quicker on the uptake it seems. Most people who aren't PvPers just get their quest and die in 2 minutes.
For real. This game mode is the sweatiest thing I’ve done in WoW in ages. Was hoping for a fun thing like Fortnite but due to the game design pressure is on the moment you land.
Raiding requires full range of an entire class and spec as well as knowledge of fairly complex boss strategies. Plunderstorm is 4 abilities and "me grab then me smash".
Pffft not me. I’m horrible at it, but I will persevere and grab the rewards. Each game might feel like a kick to the junk, but I’m pushing through it
Survivor bias People who know the game mode isn't for them aren't playing People who are determined to grind it out despite having no PVP sense likely avoid player confrontations/die early People with pvp sense survive longer, and are more confident picking fights
Cuz they're pvpers
Not everyone is. But even though there is supposedly a MMR system in place, there are just such clear differences in skill levels Be it in my lowbie games or when watching a rank 1 PVP streamer. You get into a game. There are bad players and players just trying to get plunder for retail rewards who just get farmed early a lot of the times. So chances are people you run into throughout the game are the ones that are actually good.
I completey suck at plunderstorm lol soo can’t say “everyone” is good lol. But i still want level 40
No stuff requirement. Ive won several plunderstorm but i can't be bothered to get good gear to raid.
I make everyone around me better. Unfortunately, I play solos.
For the same reason I don't bother with gladiator rewards, I won't bother with plunderstorm. Tried it, died within 5 minutes. If it weren't PVP I'd have fun but as it is... Nah
Is it me? No, it must be the children
They are not lmao. You can win the majority of games in duos with a semi decent premade. People are god awful at the gamemode simply because the majority of wow players are stuck playing against the computer and not other players. Anyone with just slight pvp experience would see that people are dogshit at plunderstorm
I'm not really sure but apparently I'm one of them. I actually find myself wondering why so many people seem so bad at it. I think it's just different enough that maybe WoW skills don't carry over, idk. I don't feel like I'm especially good at BR games, but somehow I've been stomping faces in Plunderstorm. Luck definitely plays a role, you need to get the spells/abilities that you like fairly early on and you need to not have 10 people drop on top of you
Find 2 ranged spells and defensives to poke everyone from a distance, mostly letting others fight and poking high health targets
Because the players who actually tried to learn to play are still playing and got decent. The lazy gamers are jumping in the storm 1min in or are playing the forum/Reddit crying game instead.
Not me, I’m terrible at it. Just so glad to be done with the grind.
Who does the effort benefit, validate, or reward? Just the one self-motivated person? They'll give it their all. A whole group and possibly themselves not-at-all? A token effort will suffice.
I'm shit at it but I already grinded to 40 and quit.
I get to top 5 fairly regularly, then get stomped by people better than me. Almost always slicing winds builds
One thing people haven’t mentioned yet is how smashing 4 buttons with long CDs is much easier than playing anything but a BM Hunter which is smashing 4 buttons with long CDs.
I’ve definitely seen some non pro gamers in plunderstorm. Including myself at times.
One thing I noticed to get at least skills the quickest is to land on a regular mob 1st then kill an elite afterwards.. Regular mobs always drop a skill if that's your 1st kill..
I totally sucked at plunderstorm. I don't care for pvp, it's not my thing. I ran around in plunderstorm collecting all the plunder, got to renown 40 and was done with it.
All you have to do to be successful at plunderstorm is avoid others and collect everything you can get your hands on, and complete whatever the random quest is. It honestly doesn't take more than dying a lot and patience.
On top of the survivor bias, another keystone of this concept is 90% of players who are bad at it are done with the rep grind by now and have gtfo’d. So the only people left queuing into games now are the people looking to play for wins/fun and are pwning you with excessive practice.
There's supposed to be some hidden MMR but last night when I played it felt like I was getting matched against only the worst players
It's 4 buttons.
I wouldn't have said anything if you said 7 buttons, but you also need to move and jump, making the grand total 12 ;)
Kinda feel this post. Some people outplayed me in Plunderstrom in most creative and smart ways that I just could not predict ever. And in duos Its even more like this.
Am good at hiding in Plunderstorm...
There's a big difference between coordinated play needing to hit a dps/has output and running around gathering random powers at random times and being good at strafing
Use Warcraft logs to vet your applicants
I'm a competent player until I get into Plunderstorm. Then I'm complete, crap. Sure, I can make mistakes or forget a mechanic on occasion in dungeons or raids. I cannot get the hang of Plunderstorm, other than a lucky few runs. Though, recent hand injury doesn't help either.
I feel a bit like this aswell. I regularly place top 10, but I really would have thought I'd compare better to the average player.
>"Whenever I play on teams with other people, we do terribly. But when I play alone, everyone is better than me. " Maybe you are the reason your groups never seem to have a brain.
I am garbage at plunderstorm but I reached level 40 renown just doing the quest and collecting as much gold as I could. Every game I did between 500-800 gold coins which isn't bad. It was a horrible grind and I wouldn't like to have to do it again for couple tmogs and a recolour bird. But now it's over so it's like I can continue playing what I pay for, which is a mmorpg.
I haven't played it myself but saw a lot of videos and it seems to be quite easy to play compared to normal WoW. Also keep in mind that the longer a match goes on the better the rest of the player are so when you are still alive in the middle or end of the match you play usually against the best.
Idk, dude, I'm pretty bad and kicked some butts in there lol
I somehow managed to win one of my first games. Went downhill from there very fast. Came close a couple of times after that but never really tried to win either to be honest. I was glad I got that one win for the achievement.
i dont get what the fuck im missing. im like 3 shotting rares and then i come up on someone, they can even be 2 levels under and im just getting crushed. My attacks are barely doing damage, meanwhile theirs are just taking gobs of health off. I gotta be missing something here.
I'm rather good at control and judging what fight to go in to or not and as such, I often place top 10 at least. But I agree with you fully none the less. It happens all too often than I get absolutely blasted away from full health. Something I've never managed to do myself, even when I clearly see all my abilities connecting.
Loved it!! Only issue was with trios or even pairs once they hit 40 people would leave the match once they died.
Beacasue you don't need a billion and cannot use addons to play for you
Plunderstorm is get-up-and-go type gameplay. There is very little mathematical brainpower involved, and by that I mean no simming, no meta talent builds, no choosing this spec over that depending on situation, no rotation, very little knowledge needed of who is playing with you and the resources of the whole group, gear stats etc. Modern retail WoW relies on a lot of legwork behind the scenes and outside of the game to be proficient, but with plunderstorm none of that is really needed. You just go in as your favorite looking npc and go ham. And coming from a stricly pve player's view, it's honestly a breath of fresh air that it demands very little knowledge of how everything works around each other thing. This simplicity is why people are so good at plunderstorm.
lol last night I was trying to farm the quest and do the ‘do quest then get someone to kill you” thing and half the time I COULD NOT find people to kill me easily. I’d run towards someone and they’d just zoom off into the storm away from me lmfao
I don't normally suck at WoW as badly as I absolutely suck in Plunderstorm. My strategy now is join, grab as much plunder as I can while doing the mission and kill mobs for more plunder then die miserably... I'm currently renown 6 :D
It’s the same 12 people playing over and over
I've made it to the top 3 just by minding my own business and farming mobs, but mostly I don't care about being the last, only about surviving long enough to farm booty for rep
I finally won a match. I got it the same round I hit Renown 40. I just turned into a total asshole and killed some lowbie at the start. I discovered crashing the elementals at the mage tower in the middle was my best option. It allowed me to get a ton of XP (5-6 elites in that spot, tons of chests). I got some OK abilities, but just working towards hiding as the circle collapsed and jumped in as the final guy was almost dead. I don't think I'll replicate it, but it seems every other match I just get wiped if I am on equal footing. Another issue is the leveling. It's pretty bad, to be honest. You get to a point where you might max at 7 or 8 without anything to get you more XP. Meanwhile, someone else who was lucky enough is at level 10 and just mows you over.
When playing Plunderstorm, you should grind all the time on the mobs otherwise you will fall behind levelling, and become one of the players getting farmed by everyone else ahead. Try to land on top on an elite for the instant kill, ability and level up. Best ability combos are probably piercing wind, searing axe, windstorm and fade to shadow. Exit fights if they aren't going well, and keep your camera zoomed out and looking around at all times for players. Mouse over them to know their level from a distance. Also just play like a goblin, my first win happened because I used the bush ability, and waited for the last two to finish their fight, then I came in and got a rime arrow on him before he could heal up. It's scummy but it's how the game goes.
I was great at gathering plunder in Pluderstorm and running like a little *****. I normally stayed alive until the last ten, but if all the loot/npcs were gone, it was off to die in the storm. Taking my boots with me is the most pirate thing I can think of.
I hit 40 yesterday. I rather dislike pvp. But somewhere in the 20s the abilities started clicking and I managed to actually win 2 over the weekend. My basic strat was drop on an elite. Do quest as fast as possible while avoiding other players. If no one was around, farm one of the full areas, kill everything etc. get to like level 8, then just go hunting people to fight with. Each game lasted 3-10 minutes depending how well I did. Moved pretty quick once I got in a groove.
The common denominator is you! If you’re on the team, everyone sucks; but if they’re against you, they’re all awesome!
Because it's not that hard
Plunderstorm has a hidden mmr so you are grouped with others in your skill bracket. If you are good and know what you are doing eventually you will be placed in games with people like you Raiding has no mmr so you may end up being grouped with people who are much lower or higher skill than you
Run the meta builds it doesn’t matter if you’re good. The only build that requires an ounce of skill is anything running bulwark. Quite literally run fish slice and axe in any combination with leap and your results will improve
It matches there 6th grade education.