There is one spell in World of Warcraft that I love above any other. With it, it is possible to deliver death in one cast, or to create instant hilarity for all to witness. It is, THE best spell.
Having said that, I believe it could easily be improved to be 10 times as funny, while not requiring any rebalancing and will not effect gameplay at all.
So what spell do I speak of? Mind Control. Thats right, a largely under appreciated spell is the best spell in the game, you heard it here first. I’ll often prevent an enemy from dying in a battleground, just to do something hilarious with his body. But in case you don’t believe me, here are a few of the things you can do to enjoy this amazing ability.
- The standard gravity assist. If you play Eye of the Storm, Arathi Basin, or Alterac Valley (near the alliance bridge is the best), lure your opponent near a cliff. I usually psychic scream them first in hopes they will blow their pvp trinket, and then immediately start casting Mind Control. If you get a hold of them, throw them over the edge and you’ve got a 1 spell kill.
- Drown them. I’ve only done this a few times, but I’ve loved every second of it. It is rare to have a fight under water, so pulling this off is difficult. The main thing to consider is to make sure you won’t drown yourself before your enemy, so it helps to be undead, or have a warlock’s water breathing buff. If you can’t manage those things, then get a Hydrocane from Gnomer and you’ll be fine. Lure your enemy as deep as you can while fighting him. It takes a normal player 60 seconds to drown, so try to fight him a while before mind controlling him. You’ll know he’s almost gone when you hear that gurgling noise he makes as he starts to run out of breath =)
- Hunter problem? If you can sneak up on him before he sees you, mind control him, and have him kill his own pet! He’ll feel pretty stupid once you release control and he has a dead comrade at his feet.
- Like above, except get his pet to kill him. This one takes more luck than anything, but I have in the past successfully mind controlled a hunter with low health and managed to get his own pet to attack himself and kill him. That was a good day.
- In heavy battles that are too chaotic to play close attention to individual players, you can often mind control one enemy amidst a crowd and get his own teammates to kill him. Typically this situation can attract a lot of attention to yourself which is dangerous, so make sure to do it within a very busy cluster of your allies.
All of these situations will get a definite ”LOL” from any of your teammates that witness you pull them off, which is part of the payoff. When ever I play on my hunter, no one every gets excited about you having a big crit or an awesome killing blow- it’s hard to impress your fellow adventurer. But Mind Control never fails to please a crowd.
So this is all well and good, but this blog is about implementing new features. And why of all things would I suggest we improve the best spell in the game? Because it would be so simple for blizzard to do, and as you will see, no balance issues will arise from this. I’ve always been disapointed that I can’t make my victims emote when I’m controlling them. I’d love to make them /dance as the DoTs I put on them slowly tick away at their health, but instead it just makes the spell break. So what I propose are either specific emotes to be used on mind controlled targets or, more simply, new idle animations.
My number one goal when I Mind Control people is to create the most humorous situation possible, preferably in a manner that embarrasses the victim. Here are some animations I think they should add:
- Mind controlled targets will suddenly be compelled to hit themselves in the face repeatedly
- They could do that little dance that toddlers do when they have to pee
- This is hard to explain, you might have to act it out to get the picture. Stand up, and stick your butt out as far as you can while simotaneously pushing your chest forward. Then insert one finger into your nostril whilst rotating your wrist and say “duhhhhhhhhhhhhh”. I’d like my victims to look like a fool while doing this.
I’d also like it if their pants could spontaneously drop to their ankles, revealing boxers with red hearts on them before they scurry to pull their pants up again, but sadly the character models and textures aren’t constructed in a way that this could be done easily. But any ways, I think with some new mind control animations the entire game of WoW could become vastly more hilarious with minimal effort on blizzard’s part.
