Have you been playing with War Mode on?

Battle for Azeroth introduced a new way to engage in World PVP: War Mode. It lets you have more control over how you engage in player vs player combat while playing in Azeroth — as well as giving a 10% boost to Artifact Power and War Resources gained. I turned it on as soon as it was available. In Legion, I’d caught a bit of the PVP fever. World Quests like Operation: Murloc Freedom and the Bareback Brawl were tons of fun. I especially loved having the knockback spell you got by riding on a goat. The new PVP brawls that tweaked the battlegrounds made for some fresh gameplay in areas I’d spent many many hours in. I didn’t always love PVP though.

When I first started playing Warcraft I was on a PVP server. I hated it. It was my first experience with MMO-style gameplay and being surprised by random Rogues popping out of stealth on top of me was no fun. Sometimes I won — but mostly it just felt like too much of a drawback. I wasn’t in a guild that focused on PVP, and I didn’t have any friends to level with. I was just one lone Hunter against the world. I didn’t stay on that server for very long, making a new character on a PVE server to get the hang of things.

So what changed?

The ease of toggling is the biggest reason. If I’m having a bad day, or just want to go and do some fishing I can just turn War Mode off.  I wasn’t stuck on a server if I didn’t want to be. Knowing that the people who have War Mode on really want it on helps too. I’ve been the guy dragged onto a PVP realm randomly through the group finder — only to find five members of the opposite faction just waiting for easy kills. Now I know that if I’m using the group finder I’m just seeing people in War Mode groups and can prepare accordingly.

There’s also the bounty system and supply drops! I’ve seen lots of players with their Horde or Alliance Slayer titles and heard their stories of how they got them. Close calls, epic duels, and a madcap dash to get to that supply drop can really get the heart pumping. The first time I got to be a Horde Assassin it was just me and a Paladin from my guild exploring Drustvar for the first time. The spooky woods felt a lot more dangerous knowing that we could be running into an Alliance player around any tree. The extra resources have been just a cherry on top.

Do you have your own War Mode stories? Were you involved in finally claiming the bounty on someone who’d been a thorn in the side of your faction, or found an impromptu group battling for control of a supply drop? If you’re not using it right now, why? Is there anything that Blizzard could change that would make you try it?