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Encrypted Text: How to be evil

elizabeth wachowski
Updated ·5 min read

I am not, generally, a mean, vicious, or all-around evil person -- except when UNC plays Duke in basketball, when my venom becomes more potent than a black mamba's. I help my friends move, I call my mother every week, and I give money to beggars on the street if they can come up with an entertaining story. I even volunteer with rescued dogs at the SPCA, as the many pit bull tooth marks on my shoulderblades can attest to.

But yet, I'm also a rogue -- one of the two least ethical classes in WoW, along with those demon-loving warlocks. For us to be effective in WoW, we have to be sneaky, deceptive, and just plain evil. But how can those good-natured rogues among us find ways to be bad? Sure, we can gank, but in the end, ganking is just an artless exercise of brute force. And ninjaing is just tired and outdated. Real evil/insanity requires a bit more creativity.

Fun with Lowbies

  • Follow a lowbie around, close enough that he can hear your stealth sounds but can't see you. If you're feeling lucky, you can also stealth and unstealth around him, hoping that he has a mod that will show your stealthing on the screen. The lowbie will either think you're a same-level player and AOE to knock you out of stealth, whereupon you can kill him for "attacking you first", or he'll leave you alone, and you can watch his nerves become frayed to the breaking point as he wonders when the other shoe is going to drop.

  • Team up with a rogue or rogues of the opposite faction on a PVP server and station yourselves outside a popular instance or city. Demand that anyone passing through pay a "docking fee" or "road toll.'" If they refuse, have your friends unstealth and attack. Two guilds on my server completely controlled Booty Bay using this method in the early days of WoW, making them forever e-infamous.

Fun with Lowbies, Continued

  • Get a non-combat pet of the kind found in a starter area (like cats in Silvermoon City), take out the pet, and stealth. See how many people do a double-take.

  • Communicate to opposite-faction members that you're going to help them with a difficult lowbie quest, like the STV elites or Morbent Fel. Use a lot of /point, /pat, and /charge. When they finally trust you and pull the elite, wave /goodbye and Vanish.

  • Create a macro to emote picking a certain amount of gold from a target's pocket. Note what percentage of players start yelling at you.

  • Name your guild "Rogue Trainer" and offer to teach people skills for 20% less than the big, brand-name rogue trainers. If anyone asks you to train a new skill rank, tell them that it's just like the previous skill rank, except that you do "more of it."

Honorless Targets

  • Of course, ganking is the quintessential evil PVP activity. But most people on PVP servers have learned to wait out ganks and gankers, or at least go watch the Simpsons and laugh at the person camping your logged-out corpse. For extra fun, gank wearing a wedding dress or using a fish in your offhand.

  • Chain sap isn't quite as awesome as it used to be, but you can still enjoy using it, particuarly if the other person is racing for a node/quest mob/gate to a city.

  • Follow a warlock or mage around while they're farming and tag all their mobs the instant before Shadowbolt/Pyroblast hits.

  • Follow people at the maximum distance for Distract and spin them in circles.

  • If caught off-guard, wait until you're almost dead, then blind and bandage. So few people actually break out consumables in world PVP that they may die from shock.

The Dark Side of PVE

  • The next time you're in a raid and a nice caster sword/dagger drops that no one wants, take it and wear it around Org/IF. When casters lambast you, explain that it had higher DPS than your previous weapon, and you're sure that the mage and warlock you rolled against will get something else later.

  • Spend most of the raid talking about how high you are. Bonus points if you play techno in the background of voice chat.

  • If the raid is doomed but the raid leader insists on pushing onward, see how far you can stealth ahead before an enemy notices you. Alternatively, see how long you can stay stealthed in combat before the raid leader starts yelling at you.

  • Refuse to kill anything in the Caverns of Time because you don't want to risk killing your own grandfather.

  • If you pull aggro, yell, "Look, I can tank better than the warrior!"

  • Jump like a 12-year-old Counterstrike player after snorting Pixy Stix.

Antisocial Shenanigans!

  • Buy a tuxedo and stand in front of instances that require keys. Offer to open the doors for "a ha'penny farthing."

  • If you're Horde, go to Silvermoon City and kill all the cats. When someone complains (and they will), tell them you're roleplaying a character with allergies.

  • When someone asks you to open a lockbox, claim your lockpick is broken and have them go get you a new set of Thieves' Tools.

  • Give your outdated weapons horrible enchants (spell damage, healing, etc.), wear them around town, and tell people you did it for the glow.

  • See how many rogue class ability and talent names can be used as double entendres in guild chat.

I'm sure there are better examples out there than the ones I've given. What's the most evil, nasty, or utterly insane thing you've done in-game? Is being evil the responsibility of a rogue?