11-17-2005, 10:10 AM
I have to agree with Trien. A rogue simply won't cut the mustard. Even if they win the fight, it will have taken far, far too long and reinforcements will have arrived. But given comparable gear and competance, chances are the rogue won't win. (Even if the rogue has vastly superior gear, bear form has enoug armor in blue equipment to last a long time against a rogue.)
If you want to kill the druid quickly, send a destruction specced warlock with their felhunter out. Death coil is an utter nightmare for me, plus the felhunter can eat my HoTs ( as well as NS and Innervate, which I no longer have) and any debuffs I put on the warlock (moonfire and fairy fire). :(
As for strategies, in my experience, AB revolves around four principals.
1) Aggression. While defense is a vital component in the battleground, it is far more important to be constantly harrassing the other team. You want to try and keep them off balance at all costs. I'm not saying to leave your nodes undefended, but in my experience, splitting your raid into three groups of five and just defending three points never wins. It's far too easy to form a ten man zerg and roll over each point - one after the other - until you have them bottled up at their first node (stables for the alliance, farm for the horde). Once you are tied down at that first node, chances are you're going to loose the match.
Which brings us to point 2) Disrupting the opposition. Your main aim in AB is to keep your opponent off balance, breaking up their zerg before it forms by harrassing their defense with small (one to two man stealth duos work extremely well) "guerilla" team(s). By the same token, if the other team decides to heavily defend one point: great! You can look at that as an opportunity to pin down the vast majority of their raid will a smaller number of your raid. If they have 10 people defending the blacksmith, send 7-8 people to constantly attack that point while the rest of your team has a free hand with the rest of the map.
3) Pin them down! I cannot emphasise just how important this is. I have seen games lost from a 4-1 lead because a team has failed to play aggressively and pin their opponents down when they had the chance. By the same token, I have seen games won from a seemingly impossible possition because a team managed to pin their opponents down in one spot.
How to do this is a little trickier. If the score is relatively evn (2-2, 3-2 or 2-3 nodes) you have to trick the opposition into thinking you're committing the majority of your team to one point. 6-7 people attacking one node can seem like a big deal. When defenders see that many people in comming, the ALL CAPS will start to fly and defenders will usually come flooding in. It doesn't really matter if you manage to capture the node - although that is a beneficial side-effect - it's only important that you draw more players to that node than you have sent there. By doing that you have stacked the odds on the rest of the map, giving your team a greater advantage when contesting the other four nodes on the map.
The other scenario here is that you have a 4-1 capture lead. In my experience as a horde player, this usually involves the alliance controlling the stables or the mine. If they control the stables, I would suggest commiting your entire team to assaulting the stables. Even if you don't capture it, you're lead will grow quickly enough to give you a fast win. (NOTE: It's important that you have a team of 2-3 people to quickly recapture any node that gets assaulted while you are assaulting the stables/farm.) If the opponent doesn't control the stables/farm, things are a little trickier as you have to split your group into two and hope that you've judged the numbers correctly.
4) The final, and most important, principle is fluidity. This is perhaps the most difficult to articulate, and it is also (in my opinion) the element which makes AB more interesting than WSG or AV. (Although that might be because I am always playing one of my druids, who typically get relegated to a fixed roll in the other BGs: ie. flag runner or healer.) I'm not quite sure what to say here, other than that it's vital you don't become so pre-occupied with a particular battleplan than you cannot adapt to the changing and varied situations that can happen in AB.
All I can think of to explain this principle is offer an example from a recent and quite bizzard match I was in while playing one of my (many :whistling: ) druid alts. The alliance had decided that the winning strategy for them was to leave five people at the stables while the other ten went from the lumber mill, to the farm, to the farm, to the blacksmith, then the mine, and finally back through the stables to the lumber mill. As the horde team, we had a riot. We adjusted our strategy to have two stealthed rogues follow the alliance zerg, wait until they had left a particular node and then recapture it. In the mean time we had three people harrassing the stables - effectively tying down a supperior number of opposition - while the rest of the raid held-up/defended in front of the alliance zerg. (Admittedly this is more an example of incerdibly poor strategy on our opponent's side, but you see where I'm coming from I hope.)
By quickly adapting our strategy we were able to get a 4-1 or 4-0 lead and pin the alliance down. It is at this point that having your team on TS for Vent is a huge advantage. The ability to quickly relay figures and discuse strategy offers a huge advantage, even more so than in the other two battlegrounds. (Of course, that's just my opinion. :blush: )
Anyway, those are my thoughts on AB. Using Bolty's group layout (which seems very nice to my eye, although perhaps the class allocation could be finnessed a little as you guys become more comfortable and familiar with the battleground and what each player wants/can do in there) and some pretty basic principles, I think that you guys will be kicking some butt in there.
I'd love some feedback on my "AB philosophy", and hope the crew on Stormrage gets into some (BG or otherwise) PvP action so we can get some interesting strategy discussions going here. :D
If you want to kill the druid quickly, send a destruction specced warlock with their felhunter out. Death coil is an utter nightmare for me, plus the felhunter can eat my HoTs ( as well as NS and Innervate, which I no longer have) and any debuffs I put on the warlock (moonfire and fairy fire). :(
As for strategies, in my experience, AB revolves around four principals.
1) Aggression. While defense is a vital component in the battleground, it is far more important to be constantly harrassing the other team. You want to try and keep them off balance at all costs. I'm not saying to leave your nodes undefended, but in my experience, splitting your raid into three groups of five and just defending three points never wins. It's far too easy to form a ten man zerg and roll over each point - one after the other - until you have them bottled up at their first node (stables for the alliance, farm for the horde). Once you are tied down at that first node, chances are you're going to loose the match.
Which brings us to point 2) Disrupting the opposition. Your main aim in AB is to keep your opponent off balance, breaking up their zerg before it forms by harrassing their defense with small (one to two man stealth duos work extremely well) "guerilla" team(s). By the same token, if the other team decides to heavily defend one point: great! You can look at that as an opportunity to pin down the vast majority of their raid will a smaller number of your raid. If they have 10 people defending the blacksmith, send 7-8 people to constantly attack that point while the rest of your team has a free hand with the rest of the map.
3) Pin them down! I cannot emphasise just how important this is. I have seen games lost from a 4-1 lead because a team has failed to play aggressively and pin their opponents down when they had the chance. By the same token, I have seen games won from a seemingly impossible possition because a team managed to pin their opponents down in one spot.
How to do this is a little trickier. If the score is relatively evn (2-2, 3-2 or 2-3 nodes) you have to trick the opposition into thinking you're committing the majority of your team to one point. 6-7 people attacking one node can seem like a big deal. When defenders see that many people in comming, the ALL CAPS will start to fly and defenders will usually come flooding in. It doesn't really matter if you manage to capture the node - although that is a beneficial side-effect - it's only important that you draw more players to that node than you have sent there. By doing that you have stacked the odds on the rest of the map, giving your team a greater advantage when contesting the other four nodes on the map.
The other scenario here is that you have a 4-1 capture lead. In my experience as a horde player, this usually involves the alliance controlling the stables or the mine. If they control the stables, I would suggest commiting your entire team to assaulting the stables. Even if you don't capture it, you're lead will grow quickly enough to give you a fast win. (NOTE: It's important that you have a team of 2-3 people to quickly recapture any node that gets assaulted while you are assaulting the stables/farm.) If the opponent doesn't control the stables/farm, things are a little trickier as you have to split your group into two and hope that you've judged the numbers correctly.
4) The final, and most important, principle is fluidity. This is perhaps the most difficult to articulate, and it is also (in my opinion) the element which makes AB more interesting than WSG or AV. (Although that might be because I am always playing one of my druids, who typically get relegated to a fixed roll in the other BGs: ie. flag runner or healer.) I'm not quite sure what to say here, other than that it's vital you don't become so pre-occupied with a particular battleplan than you cannot adapt to the changing and varied situations that can happen in AB.
All I can think of to explain this principle is offer an example from a recent and quite bizzard match I was in while playing one of my (many :whistling: ) druid alts. The alliance had decided that the winning strategy for them was to leave five people at the stables while the other ten went from the lumber mill, to the farm, to the farm, to the blacksmith, then the mine, and finally back through the stables to the lumber mill. As the horde team, we had a riot. We adjusted our strategy to have two stealthed rogues follow the alliance zerg, wait until they had left a particular node and then recapture it. In the mean time we had three people harrassing the stables - effectively tying down a supperior number of opposition - while the rest of the raid held-up/defended in front of the alliance zerg. (Admittedly this is more an example of incerdibly poor strategy on our opponent's side, but you see where I'm coming from I hope.)
By quickly adapting our strategy we were able to get a 4-1 or 4-0 lead and pin the alliance down. It is at this point that having your team on TS for Vent is a huge advantage. The ability to quickly relay figures and discuse strategy offers a huge advantage, even more so than in the other two battlegrounds. (Of course, that's just my opinion. :blush: )
Anyway, those are my thoughts on AB. Using Bolty's group layout (which seems very nice to my eye, although perhaps the class allocation could be finnessed a little as you guys become more comfortable and familiar with the battleground and what each player wants/can do in there) and some pretty basic principles, I think that you guys will be kicking some butt in there.
I'd love some feedback on my "AB philosophy", and hope the crew on Stormrage gets into some (BG or otherwise) PvP action so we can get some interesting strategy discussions going here. :D
I hate flags
"Then Honor System came out and I had b*$@& tattoo'd on my forehead and a "kick me" sign taped to my back." - Tiku
Stormscale: Treglies, UD Mage; Treggles, 49 Orc Shaman; Tregor, semi-un-retired Druid.
Terenas (all retired): 60 Druid; 60 Shaman. (Not very creative with my character selection, am I?!
"Then Honor System came out and I had b*$@& tattoo'd on my forehead and a "kick me" sign taped to my back." - Tiku
Stormscale: Treglies, UD Mage; Treggles, 49 Orc Shaman; Tregor, semi-un-retired Druid.
Terenas (all retired): 60 Druid; 60 Shaman. (Not very creative with my character selection, am I?!