The Axis of Asshattery

In WoW, there are certain classes (and one spec) that seem to lend themselves to asshattery and/or their abilities and playstyles attract asshats - particularly on PvP servers. I call it the Axis of Asshattery. Now don't get me wrong... I can be an asshat myself (it takes one to know one) but I'm usually not mean about it. I'll give you a little "How do you do" gank if I see someone whose name, guild name, race or class bothers me but I'll leave you alone if you don't seem like you're likely to bother someone when you get to 70. Classes near the top of the Axis, however, tend to take things to the extreme. Take our A number 1 asshats of all time...

1) rogues: The granddaddies of all that is asshat. With the ability to stealth and talents/abilities like Cheap Shot, Backstab, Malice, Remorseless Attacks, Dirty Tricks, Ambush, Dirty Deeds, etc. and the 45 abilities they have to allow them to attack you but you can't fight back (not to mention the various abilities to slink away when a fight isn't going their way - Evasion, Blind, Sprint, Vanish, Cheat Death) the rogue class seems to have been designed to appeal to the maladjusted and built for griefing. To this day, I still cringe when I hear the stealthing noise. After my mage started getting PvE epics, he started killing every single horde rogue he saw - no matter what level they were and what they were doing. They ate a pyroblast. And back then, it seemed like 95% of rogues were undead - so a LOT of undead ate it because they were guilty by association. I even rolled a rogue and ran her up to 51 just to see what rogues had in their arsenal and what I could do to combat them.

On the Asshat scale, they score a perfect 13 out of 13. The only good rogue is a dead rogue. I loathe them so much I can't bring myself to type the word with an uppercase R... Even if it starts a sentence. When I speak the word, you can feel the distaste. It is my firm belief that every single person who has played a rogue to max level was beaten as a child... And they probably had it coming.

2) Warlocks: Between the 17 fears they have and DoTs and pets and the dark, evil gear... Warlocks seem to bring out the asshats as well. While they don't have the myriad evasive abilities of rogue, they do have capability to fight you when you are not able to fight back... Or they can hit you with DoTs and run away - killing you without you being able to do anything about it. I have a twink warlock and I have a macro that cycles through three different DoTs with each push. Target someone. Push the button three times. Target someone else. Repeat. (The difference being that I only do that in the battlegrounds where people _know_ they're about to PvP.) Plus they have a pet to augment their damage or keep you from getting out of combat while they attack someone else.

Asshat Scale rating: 10 out of 13.

3) Shadow Priests: Feel the power of the dark side. I don't know that there's anything in particular about the abilities of a shadow priest that promotes asshattery, but... I've seen a lot of asshat shadow priests. Maybe it's the ability to silence and fear. Maybe it's word 'shadow' that denotes evil.

Asshat scale rating: 9 of 13

4) Huntards: Shoot you in the back and run away. Drag you though those annoying slowing traps while they plunk away... And those godawful flips that the night elves do. Apparently you can't fire a gun or a bow without jumping. And then when they get in trouble, they feign death so you have to stop and retarget them. Not to mention their pets (I may talk about this at length later but there is never a time when it isn't funny to sheep or hibernate a hunter's pet) - a second source of DPS and all around nuisance.

Asshat scale rating: 8.5 of 13

5) Warritards: Maybe it's just me, but the warrior class seems to attract unthinking brutes. I'm not saying they all are... But of the unthinking brutes that I know who play the game, their main is a warriror. Let me put it another way... My female blood elf mage once taunted a warrior in Shadowmoon Valley (who was being camped by a gnome mage at the time) by saying "I am a warrior. I will smash you with my giant epeen. Do you see how large my epeen is? Look at my glorious epeen!!!". I guess I'm implying that maybe some of them have inadequecy issues. I've been lucky in that my three favorite classes can handle most warriors pretty easily. Doesn't stop them from trying though... Like the time when my aforementioned mage sheep-kited a level 70 warrior a third of the way across Hellfire Peninsula to the safety of Thrallmar. He kept coming... And was killed by the guards.

Asshat scale rating: 8 of 13

6) Shaman: Mostly harmless now... But back in the day I used to get really excited when I killed a shaman in a battleground. They were mean. Most of their score is from Pre-BC. But they can still do a lot of damage while still being mobile... And those grounding and earthbind totems... Grrr.

Asshat scale rating: 6 of 13

7) Mages: Don't get me wrong, I love mages. I have two level 70 mages and raided up to Naxx on one but... They're cloth wearing wimps who have to stand still to really hurt you. You have to pick and choose your fights. But a well timed pyroblast to a rogue who's fighting three mobs? Good stuff. Or sheeping a hunter's pet when the pet is tanking an elite. That's just good clean fun. But on the whole, mages have to be careful - even with warriors now.

Asshat scale rating: 4 of 13

8) Druids: Druids are earth mother loving sweethearts. Seriously. We are. Just ask us. We'll tell you. But they can stealth and a feral druid with good gear can hurt you. As can a boomkin. Resto druids can... Umm.. Heal themselves until you die of boredom. But on the whole, they (we) aren't going to start anything with you... Plus, we're likely to run away.

Asshat scale rating: 3 of 13

9) Non-shadow Priests: Squishy, meek healers... They tend to be polite and not start anything unless they have a rogue or warrior with them. Hell... They'd probably hold the door open if you had your hands full. But they do have a fear...

Asshat scale rating: 1.5 of 13

10) Paladins: Defenders of the light. Many of them take that seriously. Even I behave differently when I'm on my paladin. I help old ladies across streets. I get kittens down from trees. I heal mages who made a bad pull and send them on their way with a friendly blessing of wisdom. Two of the three paladin specs aren't ever going to kill anything (except rogues and warriors). And so even if you do start to fight them, they'll probably just bubble and hearth... And get their druid... I'm just sayin'...

Asshat scale rating: 0.5 of 13

Which brings me back to yesterday... So there I was just minding my own business and questing on my (shadow) priest in Tanaris. I was working on the four quests in the pirate cove when some shouts went up in general chat about an Alliance rogue and warlock ganking people there and had been doing so for an hour. "Maybe the won't bother me" I thought. "Live and let live. Not my problem." I said... Until the warlock hit me with two DoTs while I was riding away from him and killed me.

Oh... It is ON!!!

I logged out immediately (OK... Not immediately... That 20 seconds is agonizing when I need to improve someone's socialization skills) and logged onto Hiahotah. Checked in at the bank to pick up my PvP set and went off to the World's End Tavern... Man... That teleport to the Caverns of Time sure is handy.

When I got there, the rogue and warlock were dispatching a level 70 rogue who showed up to help. I got a pounce, rake, mangle and a 5 point Rip off on the warlock before he realized what was happening and feared me. Didn't matter... He was dead already. Then I moved onto the rogue... Who I fought in cat form until he realized what was killing him. Then I just switched to bear form and tanked him. Rawr. Dead. It was over in less than 20 seconds.

Now normally, I don't corpse camp people. But not only were these guys ganking people AND being mean about it... They were also representing spots 1 and 2 in the Axis of Asshattery. So the 70 horde rogue and I camped them... And killed them 4 more times each. In the interim, all of the lowbies finished up their quests and left the area... As did the 70 horde rogue. But I wasn't _quite_ finished with them. I hadn't gotten my chance to quest and I wanted to show them that they didn't want to be there any more.

So I stealthed on top of that hill just to the left of the entrance to the shipyard. You know the one... Which, coincidentally (or not... Maybe they could see me while they were dead), was where they rezzed. The rogue stunned me before I got him and the warlock got off a fear. It was not my finest moment. But I'm a _good_ druid. You see... I always know where the water is.

I left them with some wounds to worry about and made for the ocean. Dropped a couple of HoTs on myself and removed Curse of Agony on my way in. I dropped below 500 health at one point before the HoTs kicked in. Once I hit the water, I hit Aquatic form and went for deep water on the other side of the boats. Every time rejuvenation wore off, I'd refresh it and hit swim form again... And the warlock kept coming. After I got to 5k health I hit one more rejuvenation and a lifebloom, dropped into cat form and stealthed. CRAZY IVAN!!!

The warlock started swimming away backward... Which is about the same speed I swam forward while stealthed. He clearly hadn't bandaged or eaten so he was still low on health from rezzing and the earlier portion of this round. It wasn't until he stopped to summon a pet that I caught up to him. Splat. Of course, his rogue buddy was lurking around and he started beating on me. His stun broke and I got into bear form... Game over.

I swam back to shore. Topped myself off stealthed near my priest's body and went to make dinner. I'd proved my point (Which was twofold: 1) no matter how well geared you are, there's always someone who can kick your ass and 2) don't mess with the alts of people who have mains who can stealth) and all the lowbies had left. I figured they'd look for me for a couple of minutes and leave because their fun was over. And sure enough... When I came back a half hour later, I had the place to myself. Plus I had 12 more HK's, 200+ honor points and a smug smile on my face because the Axis of Asshattery had been taken down a notch.