14/03/2017

She's a Maaaanhunter

Of all the Achievements in PvP - or even in the game in general - few are as coveted as <I Am Death Incarnate>. For those who aren't aware, this is the fifth and final Achievement for killing people in PvP-combat, and entails killing a total of 50,000 people. For comparison, the previous four entail killing 10, 100, 1,000, and 10,000 players. Thankfully they don't keep with the factor of ten for the final one; 50,000 is daunting enough, 100,000 would be something else entirely.

The main reason why this is such a coveted Achievement is because of the Legacy title which it grants: Manhunter. Curiously, the fourth Achievement (killing 10,000) is actually called <Manhunter>, which isn't confusing at all.

You've probably worked out the point of this blog post already, so I'll stop beating around the bush and get straight to lighting it on fire.

Wrong metaphor? Definitely.

Yesterday evening, I finally managed to earn this Achievement on Calph. It had been three years, five months, and five days since I had earned the 10,000 Player Kills Achievement.

Getting gradually closer and closer has rather dominated my priorities in PvP combat of-late, since rather than go and guard as I usually do on Calph (because Gunslingers are flippin' good guards), I found myself wanting to get more into the action to get this done quicker.

This backfired considerably on Sunday, the day I originally planned to earn the Achievement - if for no other reason than it allowing my Monday-post-schedule to be met - due to the teams we kept coming across; I needed roughly seventy kills, and whilst a couple of late-afternoon match proved decent, the only Warzones where we had any marked success during my guild's "PvP Prime-Time" in actually killing multiple players were Arenas. The teams we came across in the two VoidStar matches we were allocated had too many Healers to allow for killing no more than ten players across both rounds. These things happen, but it was rather disappointing to miss my goal.

So it was that I began Monday with twenty-eight players left to kill. As with Sunday, kills weren't particularly easy to get due to the skill/plenitude of the Healers, but I did manage to get eighteen kills between the initial VoidStar and Novare Coast matches. Odessen Proving Grounds was the third WarZone, which historically doesn't really provide much opportunity to get many kills, but as luck would have it things worked out nicely. I ended up with twelve kills, which, if you've been following closely, you should be able to work out as two surplus kills to my desired total of ten.

The Moment of Glory
~~~

Of course, with a new shiny and highly-coveted Legacy title comes the opportunity to come up with a funny Screenshot showing it in use. I decided that I would punish some of my Companions in fulfilling this goal, because I just couldn't think of anything more original at the time.

Certainly, I wasn't going to go into a Warzone, take a bloody 'selfie', and then quit never having intended to play at all. That's just not cricket.

Bowdaar wasn't particularly impressed that I would think to use him in this way, and wouldn't even return a high-five. 

"Oh, c'mon, you big lump, share the love!"
Koth was much more receptive to celebration, though, but as he is currently the focus of Calph's romantic affections I don't think he could do anything other than participate for the good of his health.

(Out of frame: C2 holding a pistol in Koth's direction)
Okay, so it doesn't really suit Calph as a Smuggler. I know that a Hunter would make far more sense, but considering that Calph is my main and the one who actually placed that triggering killing-blow, I couldn't really show it off on any other character.

Besides, I much prefer Party Crasher as Calph's Legacy title. Much more apt.

~~~

I'm pleased to finally have this Legacy title as a part of my arsenal, but I'm just so relieved to get this Achievement under my belt in general. It is by far one of the most tantalising Achievements, in spite of its "inevitable" status for people who engage in PvP frequently.

This in many ways is probably what puts a lot of people off. 50,000 is, as already mentioned, a very sizeable amount of players to kill for the 'casual' PvPer, a caste which I most certainly throw myself into. Indeed, if I were to find a way to let my younger self know that I would be getting this Achievement, I'd probably be scoffed at.

Quite how a new player feels when they look at that Achievement and its requirements I don't know; I'm sure some will see it as a challenge, but PvP is no longer as 'easy' to get into gear-wise as it used to be. Indeed, if it wasn't for Patch 3.3 reducing the gear costs to a very manageable level I probably would never have escaped from my self-imposed 'PvP drought'.

Back to the matter at hand.

It's been a long road getting to this point, and I'm happy to be 'released' back to my guarding duties in future matches. Now all I need to do is earn those pesky final seven-and-three-quarter Valor levels...

2 comments:

  1. Heh, this is definitely the worst time to get Death Incarnate. Time to kill is way too high in level cap PvP. Not so much to do with gear level as with that all classes just have very good cooldowns and health in general has come up as well (scaling of DPS vs scaling of player stats). Happy you finally got that achievement out of the way!

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    1. I agree that in several ways it has definitely got a lot worse; it seems you can't go five paces in a Warzone without coming across a Merc with reflects, for example.

      On the other hand, increased tenacity is the one area where I feel that classes are pretty well-balanced now. Whilst under the right circumstances (*cough* multiple burst-spec users against one player) people will absolutely melt this is nowhere near as severe as it used to be.

      So yeah. It's both a blessing and a curse. It's a curse because it obviously isn't as easy to kill someone as it used to be, but it's a blessing because now every class has a greater chance at being survivable than before, even if as I say I agree that Mercs have taken that one step too far.

      That said, I have come across a couple of Mercs since 5.0 who have been able to endure without using their new epic cooldown, simply by retreating and healing back up. Against a more mobile class like a Marauder this strategy has its severe weaknesses, but it's one hell of a good strategy to counteract a Gunslinger with. Can't really complain about that, as I have deep respect for people who make the most of their opponents' weaknesses to survive rather than just stun-locking, reflecting, or stealthing-out constantly.

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