Omni is now Level 52 and in good standing with the Vindictive guild.
Officially, I am closing the Hit List, because I said I would when the WoW Honor System comes out. Last tuesday, April 19th, the honor system was released on all servers.
The hit list is also going to be stricken from my records, because it has become impossible to avenge every one of these deaths.
I expected the honor system to solve the problem of Ganking, which means the senseless killing of someone many levels lower than yourself. Unfortunately, what Blizzard gave us was too little too late. Now, killing another player who is within a few levels of yourself is considered an Honorable Kill; players who score many honorable kills can get special rewards. But ganks are not "Dishonorable Kills," they are just kills. Blizzard expected the rewards to be such that ganking is no longer worth the time of anyone who wants to PvP, so Keahrde (30 dwarf hunter), Asmira (20 human paladin), and Rashida (16 night elf druid) can quest without fear of ganks. Omni, however, being 52, is considered an honorable kill to anyone from 48 to the maximum of 60.
And now, I am also utterly defenseless. Every class has some mechanism of escape if combat somehow goes awry. Warriors have a shout that causes all enemies to run away in fear, druids have Entangling Roots, which immobilizes an enemy, allowing the druid to run away. Paladins have a shield that last for up to 12 seconds, making them immune to physical attacks, but also unable to attack. During this time, a paladin can still heal himself/herself.
As for priests like Omni, we have two defenses; one is specialized, and the other is general-purpose. Shackle Undead only works against undead enemies, but it is very effective against them: it immobilizes one enemy for 40 seconds. During that time, I can regenerate my mana and heal myself before continuing. Psychic Scream causes the nearest N enemies to run away in fear for 8 seconds. Usually that's long enough to run to a safe enough distance to disengage from combat.
In PvP, on the other hand, both defenses are gone. Shackle Undead does not work against Horde players of the Undead faction; all players are considered to be of type "Humanoid," not "Undead." Undead players also have the ability Will of the Forsaken, which makes the player immune to Fear, Sleep, and Polymorph effects. Thus, Psychic Scream is also useless against any undead player, which, last time I checked, accounted for about 40% of the Horde population. And soon, everyone else will be able to block it too: One of the lowest-level PVP rewards is the Insignia trinket, which causes a player to be immune to Charm, Fear, and Polymorph effects.
Against most classes, I can cast Shadow Word: Pain (Damage over time spell) and heal myself while they attack me. But against Rogues, I have absolutely no defense. First attack is usually Kidney Shot or Cheap Shot, both of which make me unable to react. Most of the time, I don't even have the chance to cast anything before the stun wears off. My friend Afic, a level 60 Night Elf Rogue, claims that he can kill any cloth-wearer in two hits. (This includes not just priests, but also mages and warlocks.) So far, I believe it, since most level 60 rogues I've been unfortunate enough to be stabbed by can usually do the same.
Basically, I'm tossing out the Hit List since it would be impossible to get revenge on everyone that has killed me, since the number has gone up tenfold. I'm not paying $15 a month to spend more time walking back to my corpse than actually playing the game. I wish Blizzard could hear me, because something needs to be done. A solution I could live with is a chance to move my characters from the PvP Skullcrusher server to a PvE (player vs environment) server, where this doesn't happen. But I haven't seen anything like this available.
A few more notes about the patch:
The first few minutes of being online after the release were gruesome; the Alliance players rallied at Southshore and began an all-out attack on the neighboring Horde town of Tarren Mill. Tarren Mill Deathguards were slain by the dozens, even though few Horde players were killed. A mere half-hour after the server was brought online, Blizzard opted to shut it down again. When the server went back up, another Southshore-Tarren Mill battle took place, and massive raids also began in contested areas such as Booty Bay and Grom'Gol in Stranglethorn Vale, and Gadgetzan in Tanaris.
Stranglethorn Vale and the Hillsbrad foothills, where both Tarren Mill and Southshore lie, are areas designated for players between levels 30 and 40 to quest. I imagine the number of people questing there will plummet, since the number of people PvPing there has caused such bad lag that it's almost impossible to get any serious questing done. Even if you don't get lagged, there are still level 60 asses who don't care about HKs. Since Stranglethorn Vale and Hillsbrad are no longer viable, this leaves Desolace and the Thousand Needles. Both of these are in Kalimdor, the western continent, which is a little inconvenient for Alliance players other than the Night Elves, since they tend to do a lot of their questing in the Eastern Kingdoms. Is this to curb the number of alternate characters of Alliance players?
Tell me what happened to you on the first day of the patch. I want to hear your stories, be they insignificant or world-shattering.