THE LAST BAROV

After Kronos and I returned the four deeds to Weldon Barov in the Alliance camp at Chillwind Point, Barov asked us to go to the Bulwark, a Horde camp, and assassinate his brother, Alexi Barov, so that Weldon will never have to "worry about an unscrupulous gang of mercenaries seeking [his] head."  There was one piece of information Kronos and I needed before setting off on this mission, however.

Kronos: Where's the Bulwark?

After a long night of Scholomance running, the gears in my head turned slowly, but they managed to bring up images of my days of playing an undead priestess named Ariadne for the couple of months ending with the patch that introduced the PvP server.  (I and some friends like to switch factions from time to time to see more of the world and to observe the changes are made in the game over time.  I may switch back to the Horde side when the Open Beta starts, if the announced overhauls of Ashenvale, Stonetalen, and Desolace are implemented by then).  At the time, the Scarlet Monastery was the highest level instance in the game, and far less of the world was developed. 

My memory dredged up pictures of a mysterious spot on the edge of Tirisfal Glades, the undead starting zone, called the Bulwark.  It consisted of a makeshift wooden wall with an open gate and stacks of player corpses all around it.  If one did not recognize the significance of the piles of dead bodies or if one simply had an insatiable and suicidal curiosity, one could pass the gate as much as a few steps before getting "death touched" by a stealthed spider.  This was Blizzard's gentle way of saying, "Hey noob! We haven't finished the Western Plaguelands, yet.  Move along!"  It was because of such memories that I could confidently tell Kronos...

Neriad: Border of tirisfal glades

...as if I were a great and knowledgeable player who knew all things great and small about the game.  Truthfully, I had no clue what to expect, since there hadn't been a working town with NPC's at The Bulwark back when I was playing my Horde characters.

Players on the PvE server often express relief that they get to miss out on all the ganking and griefing that is a fact of life on the PvP server.  But they sometimes forget that they also miss out on the extra camaraderie among players of your own faction as well as some of the extra thrill that the PvP server provides.  Consider a quest given by the night elves in Ashenvale to assassinate a wizard in the Barrens who has been plaguing a lake in Ashenvale with his water elementals.  On the PvE server, this is a simple jog down the road and an easy mob boss kill.  On the PvP server, completing this quest is a major cat-and-mouse game as one tries to avoid detection by Horde players, while making one's way to the top of a mountain that stands next to the Crossroads, a major Horde town.  (This reminds me. I have a great idea for a trilogy.  It's about two gnomes who find a bracelet of power...).  Similarly, this quest to assassinate Alexi Barov, a mostly trivial affair on the PvE server, becomes a far more intense assignment on the PvP server.

Kronos and I avoided detection on the way to The Bulwark by staying away from the road.  I had an elaborate plan to lure potential ganking Horde into thinking that our goal was to complete some of the quests involving the western farms in the Western Plaguelands.  The last thing I wanted was for Horde players to know that our target was really the Bulwark itself and end up camping us there.  Luckily, no such plan needed to be implemented, and Kronos and I found a nook in the hills near the Bulwark that was out of sight from both the road and the outpost.  Kronos summoned an Eye of Kilrogg, a warlock minion designed to let warlocks scout nearby locations, and on it I cast Mind Vision, a priest spell that lets the priest see through the eyes of another mob or player.  This way, I could see what Kronos saw through his Eye of Kilrogg, and both of us could remain out of sight while we scouted.

It's a good thing we scouted the place before charging into town.  A party of high level Horde was across the road from where Alexi Barov, our target, stood.  Luckily, they were already mounted and were acting like they were grouped.  They would likely be moving out of the way soon.  We took the opportunity to scout further.  (Incidentally, if you're wondering why that group of Horde didn't see a bright green ball near them and suspect that something was up, an Eye of Kilrogg is naturally stealthed, so while there is a small chance of detection if the person happens to be looking in the direction of the Eye, most of the time an enemy player or mob won't see it).

Kronos pointed out the yellow "!" floating over an NPC's head.  An alliance quest given in the middle of a Horde town?  That seemed bizarre.  But then we figured out what it really was -- a group of Argent Dawn camped out at the Bulwark.  The Argent Dawn is made up of both horde and alliance elements united by a common hatred of the Scourge who infest the Western and Eastern Plaguelands.  There are some Argent Dawn reputation quests that ask you to collect different kinds of "scourgestones" off dead Scourge mobs.  Every time you turn in sets of these scourgestones, your reputation with the Argent Dawn increases.  When your reputation is high enough, you can then purchase items from the Argent Dawn quartermaster.  Currently, one can only purchase a limited supply of Major Health and Major Mana potions, which is still actually a pretty good reward in it's own right.  However, the quartermaster's text description seems to imply that additional items may come up for sale in future patches, if one's reputation with the Argent Dawn is high enough.  An Argent Dawn NPC to whom you turn in your scourgestones and an Argent Dawn quartermaster stay at the alliance camp of Chillwind Point.  Apparently, the Horde has its equivalent Argent Dawn NPC's at the Bulwark.

After the Horde party left the area, we waited a few beats to make certain that they weren't returning and then jumped out of our nook in the hills to charge Alexi Barov.  There weren't any NPC guards nearby, so we had a straight shot at Barov.  But when we closed on him, we realized our first mistake.  We'd spent so much time scouting the outpost for Horde players and NPC guards that we'd forgotten to scout out our target.  It was only when I started blasting away at Barov that the realization came to me, "Oh, c***! He's elite!"  As you can see in the screenshot above, Barov was able to crit me for 976 health, more than a third of my health, in one hit.  He tore through my cloth armor like it was rice paper.  The first assault was a complete disaster.  No way was I going to be able to tank Barov for any length of time -- at least not in the equipment and talent configuration I use for instances.

Neriad: We need a tank.
Kronos: Breaking out the VW (e.d. voidwalker)
Neriad: Good idea

On the first assault, Kronos had used his imp for the extra buffs and firepower. From now on, we'd use his Voidwalker as our tank.  Unfortunately, even with a voidwalker, it would take several tries to achieve a partial success.

Luckily, the Bulwark provided plenty of trees, hills, and man-made structures that we could hide behind while medding.  The first assault with the voidwalker was a disaster from the start as Kronos sent the voidwalker directly from our hiding spot to Barov, a path that took it through an NPC named Shadow Priestess Vandis.  We had no chance with a second mob joining the fray.  (I realize now that I could've Mind Controled Vandis and softened Barov up a bit.  It's stuff like that you forget when you've gone thirty hours without sleep).  The second assault went better, but I pulled aggro off the voidwalker and got summarily pummeled.  The third assault went even better until a *!^@ horde rogue rode by and stabbed us from behind.  It was at this point that I was glad that this quest was not well known, because after helping Barov kill us, he left.  He probably thought we were just out getting jollies killing random Horde NPC's or something.  If he'd known that alliance players had to kill Barov for a quest, he might have stuck around, knowing we'd be back.

The fourth assault with the voidwalker, however, achieved a partial success.  This time, I was very careful not to pull aggro off the voidwalker.  I let the VW get several torments in before doing anything.  I then avoided using Mind Blast or any other such skills that cause extra aggro.  I mostly used Renew to heal the voidwalker and held my dps in check.  It worked for a while, but in the end I still ended up pulling aggro off the VW.  This was very frustrating.  A voidwalker is supposed to be a warlock's tank pet, and yet they can't hold aggro worth a darn.  Whenever my hunter and an equal level warlock friend group together, my hunter's pet can consistently grab and hold aggro far better than my friend's voidwalker.  Voidwalkers need their Torment boosted significantly.

Barov came and chopped Neriad to bits when he was below half health.  It was then that I did the next dumb thing.  Somewhere in my sleepy consciousness, I thought that I could run from the graveyard at Faol's Rest back to the Bulwark in time to provide some help.  So, I released.  About halfway back, Kronos announced that he'd finished Barov off (nerf warlocks!).  Of course, since I had released my spirit, I was nowhere near Barov when he died, and therefore I couldn't loot his head off the body.  Grrrr...

That's OK, we thought.  At least we knew that we could kill Barov without calling for reinforcements.  All we had to do was wait for Barov to respawn.  So we waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  I got a target lock on Shadow Priestess Vandis, and since trees and shacks apparently don't count as obstacles as far as line-of-sight is concerned, I could Mind Vision her and scout the place without leaving the relative safety of our hiding place.  (Incidentally, occasionally people will make lists of the most "useless" priest spells on the priest board and Mind Vision nearly always makes the list.  Morons). We waited some more.

Finally, it took so long (and did I mention that we'd been awake more than 30 hours?) that both Kronos and I submitted Game Master requests to find out if a GM could possibly cause Barov to respawn.  After a while, Kronos got a response from a GM who told him that Alexi Barov isn't respawning at all and that we'd have to wait for the next server reset to try again.  Argh!

So I said, "farewell!" to Kronos and told him I'd log off right there in our hiding spot in the Bulwark, take an afternoon nap, and then log back on later to see if Barov had respawned.  Kronos offered to help if he happened to be on, and I figured I would also be able to grab one or two more people to help out when the time came.  We parted ways, and I logged off to get a little sleep.

Several hours later, I logged back on to find that Alexi Barov had indeed respawned. Woohoo!  Kronos wasn't online, but Kupeludo, the warrior in our earlier Scholomance party, was.  Perfect.  Since he had collected the four deeds along with the rest of the party, he would be just as interested in getting the head of Alexi Barov as I was.  In addition, I knew I could recruit a lvl 60 rogue friend, lem, to help.  Not only is he a good friend and likely to be just as curious about this strange quest as I, but I also keep him well bribed with stacks of fadeleaf.  (Rogues use fadeleaf to create blinding powder, a hot commodity on the PvP server as you can imagine).

Kupeludo and lem came over to the Bulwark and proceeded to rip Alexi Barov a new one, while Neriad stood there looking pretty.  (She does that very well).  Remember that 976 crit that Neriad received from Barov?  Here are the hits that Kupeludo received according to the screenshots I took  of the battle:

Alexi Barov's Rupture is absorbed by Kupeludo.
Alexi Barov's Rupture is absorbed by Kupeludo.
Alexi Barov hits Kupeludo for 64 (48 blocked).
Alexi Barov's Sinister Strike was parried by Kupeludo.
Alexi Barov hits Kupeludo for 158.
Alexi Barov crits Kupeludo for 216.
Alexi Barov's Kick parried by Kupeludo.
(At this point Neriad casts Renew on Kupeludo. Glad I could be of help!)
Kupeludo suffers 107 Physical damage from Alexi Barov's Rupture.

Disgusting.

Kupeludo and I looted our heads of Alexi Barov (who knew that he was actually a hydra?), and the three of us headed back to Chillwind Point.  It was at about this time that a GM responded to my still open help request ticket.  I suppose I should have abandoned my ticket, when Kronos received his answer, but sometimes you get different answers from different GM's, and I wanted to get the full scoop on this whole Alexi Barov respawn situation.  It's a good thing I did, because I ended up talking to a more knowledgeable GM.

This GM (Xilven or something close to that) told me that Alexi Barov does in fact respawn, but he's on a long respawn timer by design as a punishment on the Horde for letting him die.  He's the quest NPC who gives Horde players the same "get the four deeds" quest that Weldon Barov gives alliance players, you see.  It was then it hit me.  The Bulwark and Chillwind Point are not only similar to one another, they are mirror images of one another.  Consider:

1. Both camps lie on the border of the Western Plaguelands and are where quests for the Western Plaguelands are given.

2. Both camps have Argent Dawn stationed in them, including Argent Dawn quartermasters.

3. Each camp has only one faction NPC guard -- High Executor Derrington (pictured above) at the Bulwark and Commander Ashlam Valorfist at Chillwind Point.  Both commanders protect the main body of their camps from players of the other faction, but both are stationed far enough away from their respective Barov brothers that they won't interfere with any attacks on them.  The commanders aren't elite, by the way, so they can be killed easily.

4. Each camp has a Barov brother who is murderously competitive with the other.  At Chillwind Point, Weldon Barov asks Alliance adventurers to retrieve the four family deeds and then kill his brother Alexi.  At the Bulwark, Alexi Barov asks Horde adventurers to retrieve the four family deeds and then kill his brother Weldon.

So by killing Alexi Barov, who has a long respawn timer (some have mentioned the figure of five hours, but I can neither confirm nor deny this number), alliance players are indeed fulfilling Weldon's wish about not needing to "worry about an unscrupulous gang of mercenaries seeking [his] head."  In this case, the "unscrupulous gang of mercenaries" is a group of Horde questers.  If Alexi is dead, then Horde players can't get the quest to kill Weldon, so Weldon is safe, relatively speaking.  Considering the symmetry of the outposts and quests, I suspect it works the same way on the Horde side.  Alexi asks Horde players to kill Weldon so that he doesn't have to worry about being killed by alliance players.  This is a neat concept.

In the heat of the moment, after dealing with the irritation of having to wait several hours to get another chance at Alexi's head, I told the GM that the long respawn timer was also a punishment on alliance players who would not be able to complete their quests in a timely manner.  Now that I understand the logic of the story and mirror image nature of the two brothers, however, I'm leaning toward liking the long respawn time.  Of course, I already have my head of Alexi Barov.  If I didn't, I might not feel the same way.

One of the fun things about visiting the Bulwark as an alliance player is that even though it is technically a Horde outpost, the Argent Dawn is a neutral organization that will treat horde and alliance players equally.  Alliance players can turn in scourgestones to Argent Officer Garush as you can see above.

In addition, alliance players may purchase potions from Argent Quartermaster Hasana.  It turns out that Hasana is right on the edge of where a level 60 player would aggro High Executor Derrington, so if the player comes from the north and doesn't get too close, he or she can purchase potions without needing to fight Derrington.  So an Alliance player could spend all day buying out potions from the Bulwark's Argent Dawn quartermaster and prevent their purchase by members of the Horde.  There are some great spots in the hills to the north of the outpost to hide in while waiting for potions to respawn at the shop.  This would be an awfully boring and tedious way to grief members of the another faction, but I've heard of other more boring and tedious methods of griefing being employed.

So we got our heads of Alexi Barov and returned them to Welden.  What reward did we get?  A trinket that calls forth three "servants of the House of Barov to fight, cook, and clean for you."  This is the funniest and best trinket ever.

The servants last for 15 seconds and the cooldown time is only 10 minutes.  Unlike, say, the Mithril Mechanical Dragonling or the ever popular Gnomish Battle Chicken, these servants of Barov are level 59-60 and therefore actually hit their targets from time to time.  (Why can't the mechanical dragonlings and chickens have the same level as the summoning character so that they can be somewhat useful at higher levels?)  Plus, most importantly, they're hysterically funny.  They even had a somewhat practical moment in a PvP situation.  While taking the above screenshots of the Argent Dawn in the Bulwark today, a level 52 shadow priest jumped me from behind and started blasting away.  I recovered somewhat (it helped to be level 60), but being jumped while equipped and spec'd for instance running, I was still at a disadvantage.  Partway through the battle, he got a Silence off on me and probably had me dead to rights, so out of desperation, I hit the button for the Servants of Barov trinket (apparently you can still activate trinkets while silenced).  On a practical level, they acted like a poor man's curse of tongues as they hit and stuttered the shadow priest.  But the biggest effect they had, I think, was the, "What the h*** are those things?!" effect.  I swear I could almost see the other player's confused look through the computer screen.  Those extra seconds they bought me let the silence wear off and let me finish off the attacking priest.  It felt good.

(Incidentally, any chance of a truce to allow Neriad to travel to places and get screenshots and all?  I'm trying to benefit everyone here.  Yes?  No?  Worth a shot...).

This "PvP" quest to kill an NPC in an outpost of the opposing faction is very fun, and I hope more such quests are implemented at some point.  These kinds of quests would be especially fun on the PvP server, where players can intentionally make it more difficult for members of the other faction to fulfill those quests.  For example, some of the ganker/PvP guilds of both factions could post a guard or two near their respective Barov brother around the clock to jump any members of the opposing faction who try to complete the "Last Barov" quest.  I highly recommend that they do so.  The fact that such a system would leave I and a few friends as being some of the few to own this nifty trinket is by no means my motivation for this recommendation.

Well, that was a fun and unexpected excursion, and it made us wonder if turning in the quest to kill "The Butcher" would lead to further quests.

UP NEXT:  Jandice Barov