One of the most fun CTF matches I've had lasted about one and a half hours, 9 'hey-who-wants-to-go-CTF?' guild members and a pickup player, most 60's, one or two high 50's; hunters, warlocks, warriors, druids, one paladin, one rogue. None of us were really spectacularly geared, and the opposition looked like a pickup horde group consisting of warriors, rogues, mages, and shamans. I'm not too sure about their gear, but no obvious epic items that were easily visible. No priests around, so for healers, it was 2 druids on our side and a paladin vs their 3 shamans.
We settled on a 7 offense 3 defense strategy to start, figuring the 2 hunters and warlock would be able to slow any flagrunners down long enough for the main group to come kill them if necessary. Charged through their 5-man defense for the only easy capture of the game. After that, both sides started using 7-8 packs in the midfield back and forth as necssary, and leaving a minimal amount on guard at the flagroom, counting on the mobility of the main pack to handle the offense and flag chasing, whereas the flag room defense was only to slow them down as possible. Lots of flag grabs and returns (probably 20 or so for each side). Horde totally blew us away in kills (close to double I think), thanks to their arcanite-reaper wielding warriors, rogues and mages, while our reliance was more on speed & snares, and separating people from the pack to pick them off.
So a few more comments about the classes:
Shaman - Agree with the all-around role. Earthbind & Frost Shock on defensive, wolf form for flagrunning. Heals where needed. When they had their warrior with the flag surrounded by their shamans, it was VERY difficult to get the flag back. Not as squishy as the priests so couldn't bring them down quite as quickly, and even though they don't have the same mana pool or big heals as a priest, a few of them in the mix made things difficult.
Druids - Stealth entrance and tracking to assess their defensive layout. Dash to escape, travel form outside. Shapeshifting to break snares (except frost shock and frostbolt ... supposedly supposed to be fixed for months now, but still no luck). I played more midfield roamer while the other druid did the running, so use my mobility to keep up with the other druid, keep them healed. Root the guy on the mount who's chasing the flagrunner, feral charge the other guy to stop them for a few seconds, and bash a 3rd guy who's running after your carrier. Hibernate on druids in forms or shaman in wolf forms is another great stopping tactic. Slow the other group down so your group can come for the kill. As flag carrier, one can hunker down into bear form for extra surviability, especially if supported by healers (8000 bear armor and near 5000 hp unbuffed is nice...)
Rogues - Saps for taking people out of the fight before it starts. They had 3 rogues, which made for a real pain at times. Can make a good initial flag stealer with stealth & dash, though he often handed it off the the shaman or warrior once they got to a safer place. And of course, ambushing the one guy who got separated from the pack, or just plain taking someone down.
Mages - Polymorph annoyance to no end (at least for non druids). Also make a nice initial flag grabber. One mage had a particularly nice tactic of blinking into the flag area, and immediately ice block to let cooldowns happen. Then he'd cancel the iceblock, grab the flag and run and have another blink available soon. On a few occasions outside, he'd iceblock as soon as we came in for killing hits (which drops the flag), and then immediately cancel the iceblock before we could return the flag, grab the it and blink away. Not sure how he did it so quickly. Frost nova snares as well. Typically handed off to shaman or warrior again after getting away with the flag. And of course, hard hitting spells to take people down.
Warlocks - Fear to scatter groups. Curse of Exhaustion to slow people down, and dots as possible. Succubus for charming as well. We kept one on defense to scatter offensive groups, and the other with the roamers.
Warriors - Well geared defensive specced warrior holding the flag with a few healers on him... hard to kill. Mass fear to scatter groups. Charge/Intercept, hamstring to slow people down. And properly geared (and specced), can hit very hard. Arcanite reaper wielding warriors are scary, especially the arms/fury specced ones.
Paladin - Typically ran as a support guy to the offense. Cleanse magic slowing debuffs, Blessing of Freedom on flag runner. Heals as necessary. One stun to use wisely (talent though, I believe?).
Hunters - Great defensive. Tracking. Traps. Concussive shot, scatter shot, wing clip. Nice ranged damage as well to take down those slowed down.
PvP trinkets on 5-minute timers ... used where possible, but typically the game was much too fast paced to make much use of it.
Epic mounts. About half of both teams had them, and for the mobile midfield pack, makes a big difference for running to support offense or defense. If chasing down a druid or shaman runner, the extra speed of a mount is absolutely necessary.
Group formations: 5O/5D is the 'standard' formation, and as mentioned, full 10-man mobile group is common as well, but again, leads to both sides holding the flag. I think that's why we settled on the 7/8 mobile group, leaving 2/3 at the flag. If they come as a 10-man group, our mobile group can meet them along with the defensive. Can take out most if not all of a 5-man offensive group if we run into them, while not leaving our flag room bare, and have enough to push throuhg a 5-man defensive group, or at least enough of a distraction for a stealth runner to get in and out. At one point in the game it did devolve into the 10v10 formation ... we had each others' flags, everyone grouped around to defend it. Should keep it flexible though, have people peel of to help on offense/defense as needed. Coordinating when to do that is left as an exercise to the reader :)
All in all, great game. The other side pulled their organization together admirably. 1-0 first cap for us. Then 1-1, then down 1-2. Tied at 2-2. At 2:30 in the morning, half our group was saying "we have to get up tomorrow morning, let's quit", and we decided on one more push... druid got their flag just as we broke up a stealth group tryijng for ours. we snared their chasers ... ran for the capture just in the nick of time. And of course, too pumped up to sleep afterwards, oh well...
(Edit: added a few more points to each class which came to me, spelling and grammar issues.)
We settled on a 7 offense 3 defense strategy to start, figuring the 2 hunters and warlock would be able to slow any flagrunners down long enough for the main group to come kill them if necessary. Charged through their 5-man defense for the only easy capture of the game. After that, both sides started using 7-8 packs in the midfield back and forth as necssary, and leaving a minimal amount on guard at the flagroom, counting on the mobility of the main pack to handle the offense and flag chasing, whereas the flag room defense was only to slow them down as possible. Lots of flag grabs and returns (probably 20 or so for each side). Horde totally blew us away in kills (close to double I think), thanks to their arcanite-reaper wielding warriors, rogues and mages, while our reliance was more on speed & snares, and separating people from the pack to pick them off.
So a few more comments about the classes:
Shaman - Agree with the all-around role. Earthbind & Frost Shock on defensive, wolf form for flagrunning. Heals where needed. When they had their warrior with the flag surrounded by their shamans, it was VERY difficult to get the flag back. Not as squishy as the priests so couldn't bring them down quite as quickly, and even though they don't have the same mana pool or big heals as a priest, a few of them in the mix made things difficult.
Druids - Stealth entrance and tracking to assess their defensive layout. Dash to escape, travel form outside. Shapeshifting to break snares (except frost shock and frostbolt ... supposedly supposed to be fixed for months now, but still no luck). I played more midfield roamer while the other druid did the running, so use my mobility to keep up with the other druid, keep them healed. Root the guy on the mount who's chasing the flagrunner, feral charge the other guy to stop them for a few seconds, and bash a 3rd guy who's running after your carrier. Hibernate on druids in forms or shaman in wolf forms is another great stopping tactic. Slow the other group down so your group can come for the kill. As flag carrier, one can hunker down into bear form for extra surviability, especially if supported by healers (8000 bear armor and near 5000 hp unbuffed is nice...)
Rogues - Saps for taking people out of the fight before it starts. They had 3 rogues, which made for a real pain at times. Can make a good initial flag stealer with stealth & dash, though he often handed it off the the shaman or warrior once they got to a safer place. And of course, ambushing the one guy who got separated from the pack, or just plain taking someone down.
Mages - Polymorph annoyance to no end (at least for non druids). Also make a nice initial flag grabber. One mage had a particularly nice tactic of blinking into the flag area, and immediately ice block to let cooldowns happen. Then he'd cancel the iceblock, grab the flag and run and have another blink available soon. On a few occasions outside, he'd iceblock as soon as we came in for killing hits (which drops the flag), and then immediately cancel the iceblock before we could return the flag, grab the it and blink away. Not sure how he did it so quickly. Frost nova snares as well. Typically handed off to shaman or warrior again after getting away with the flag. And of course, hard hitting spells to take people down.
Warlocks - Fear to scatter groups. Curse of Exhaustion to slow people down, and dots as possible. Succubus for charming as well. We kept one on defense to scatter offensive groups, and the other with the roamers.
Warriors - Well geared defensive specced warrior holding the flag with a few healers on him... hard to kill. Mass fear to scatter groups. Charge/Intercept, hamstring to slow people down. And properly geared (and specced), can hit very hard. Arcanite reaper wielding warriors are scary, especially the arms/fury specced ones.
Paladin - Typically ran as a support guy to the offense. Cleanse magic slowing debuffs, Blessing of Freedom on flag runner. Heals as necessary. One stun to use wisely (talent though, I believe?).
Hunters - Great defensive. Tracking. Traps. Concussive shot, scatter shot, wing clip. Nice ranged damage as well to take down those slowed down.
PvP trinkets on 5-minute timers ... used where possible, but typically the game was much too fast paced to make much use of it.
Epic mounts. About half of both teams had them, and for the mobile midfield pack, makes a big difference for running to support offense or defense. If chasing down a druid or shaman runner, the extra speed of a mount is absolutely necessary.
Group formations: 5O/5D is the 'standard' formation, and as mentioned, full 10-man mobile group is common as well, but again, leads to both sides holding the flag. I think that's why we settled on the 7/8 mobile group, leaving 2/3 at the flag. If they come as a 10-man group, our mobile group can meet them along with the defensive. Can take out most if not all of a 5-man offensive group if we run into them, while not leaving our flag room bare, and have enough to push throuhg a 5-man defensive group, or at least enough of a distraction for a stealth runner to get in and out. At one point in the game it did devolve into the 10v10 formation ... we had each others' flags, everyone grouped around to defend it. Should keep it flexible though, have people peel of to help on offense/defense as needed. Coordinating when to do that is left as an exercise to the reader :)
All in all, great game. The other side pulled their organization together admirably. 1-0 first cap for us. Then 1-1, then down 1-2. Tied at 2-2. At 2:30 in the morning, half our group was saying "we have to get up tomorrow morning, let's quit", and we decided on one more push... druid got their flag just as we broke up a stealth group tryijng for ours. we snared their chasers ... ran for the capture just in the nick of time. And of course, too pumped up to sleep afterwards, oh well...
(Edit: added a few more points to each class which came to me, spelling and grammar issues.)
Onyxia:
Kichebo - 85 NE Druid
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Kichebo - 85 NE Druid
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.