1/gank = reversing a gank

What's this? A second post for today? Odd, Adam is usually rather lazy. Well, I went home for lunch and had leftover sausage Jambalaya that I made yesterday. I also played a bit of WoW. Since I didn't have much time, I just checked on my auctions and headed to Arathi Highlands to do some mining. Well, someone else was mining the route that I normally take, so I was only getting a little bit of iron. I decided to head into the Witherbark cave in order to find maybe some Mithril.

As I entered the cave, there were 2 Orc's in there, a lvl 34 Shaman, and a lvl 43 Warrior (pictures taken after our encounter). They were working on a Troll and seemed to be on their way out, so I figured it was cool for me to just scoot past them and into the cave. Since they were surely on the way out, I was in no danger of being ganked. I mean, if I'm leaving a cave, I'm not gonna waste my time ganking an easy target. FYI, Shaman are healers, so this is a great little gank squad vs. me (lvl 44).

Anyway, I start working on a Witherbark Shadow Hunter, and change my view to look behind me. I see the two Horde finish off their Troll, and loot him, but they aren't leaving just yet. Of course they are discussing whether or not to gank me. After about 10 seconds, they both head my way, and now I know for sure that they are not gonna play nice. As soon as the Warrior takes a swing at me I face him and decide to ignore my Troll. Well, after about 3 seconds the Shadow Hunter I was fighting casts "Shadowed Silence" on me, and I can't cast spells for 5 seconds. Now I have to decide wether to try to take this Warrior with the possibility that I might not have spells, or ignore him for 10 seconds and remove this Troll.

I turned to face the Troll, and finished him as fast as possible (without using any cooldown spells). Then I turned on the Warrior, with only about 50% health. Thank heavens I have high end plate armor. My first heal was at about 25%, with the Warrior at about 60% or so. Not really sure about his exact health lvl because he was being healed by his Shaman the entire time. But he should fire that dude, because he was only healing about 20% of the Warriors health each time. I burnt my Divine Protection on that first heal, there was no way around it. The second heal was a greater health potion, but that just delayed the inevitable Lay On Hands that took me from about 15% to 100% in an instant.

My Warrior friend was at about 40% health at this time, and I'm sure he thought he had me wrapped up before that Lay On Hands. Now with a 60% health lead, I devoured that Warrior in just a few more seconds. My Seal Of Command was hitting him on almost every attack, and I was getting rather fortunate with my crits on both Command, and my regular attacks.

Once the Warrior was down, the Shaman was shaking in his leather armor. It took only about 2 seconds for him to realize that he should be running. He split, and cast a totem or Earth Bind to slow me down. This gave him enough of a lead that I wasn't gonna catch him, and on my one chance to use Hammer Of Justice, I blew it and used it while still stuck in his Earth Bind totem. He broke my stun before I could get out of his totem's range, and he seemed sure to escape. But as soon as we got out of the cave, he started weaving left and right, taking a zig-zag pattern rather than a straight line. Since the exit from that area is almost a true straight line, I just stayed on that track until I caught him. Then I taught him exactly why you NEVER MESS WITH A PALADIN THAT IS AT A HIGHER LVL THAN YOU ARE!

I knew that I had won by using Lay On Hands, and that a second encounter might be disastrous for me, so I left the area. I saw them a few minutes later with another horde (lvl 38 something) in about the same area, and just watched them from a distance. Once they killed what they were working on, they left, directly away from me. HAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!! Tremble and Fear before the might of Airhawk Alliance!

But all gloating aside, here is what they did wrong:
1. The Shaman should have been healing the Warrior the entire time.
2. The Warrior definitely needs better armor and weapons. If it was 1v1, I would have worked him without healing.
3. The Shaman should have ran in a straight line, dropping Earth Bind totems along the way to slow me.

I still don't think that I've lost what I consider a fair match, and I've beaten several horde that were many lvl's above me. 5 lvl's is my personal best so far. From what I hear, I need to try a half decent Mage now. In theory I would never get even close to a properly played mage. With Blessing Of Freedom and Hammer Of Justice I think I could give them a good run for their money.