Arathi Basin Strategies and Tactics

[Tal]

I would love to see a Lurker team assembled to do some Battlegrounds.  Believe me that with a group of 15 PvP newbs that are organized vs. a group of varied-experience PvPers playing randomly in a pick-up raid, we'd slaughter them every time.  Yes, if 15 of us still new to PvP run up against a highly experienced Horde PvP group, we'll get owned, but we can still have fun anyway in the process (and learn a few things).

Anyhow, those who have quite a lot of PvP experience here (e.g. Quark, Mongo, Artega, etc) can probably add a lot more to this discussion.  This is just what I picked up after a few matches, and it's things all said before: that in Battlegrounds, teamwork is the key, and n00bs playing as a team can still dominate experts not playing well together.

As usual, hope you enjoyed the read.  I'll see you next weekend in whatever BG has a holiday - Sergeant discount for the win!

-Bolty
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I'm there. Would like to make Sergeant on Sharanna or Shalandrax.

[Pesmerga]

I'm there. Would like to make Sergeant on Sharanna or Shalandrax.
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If I can convince the wife of giving me 3 or so hours to PvP on the weekends, I'm there. PvP is fun.

[Mirajj]

To those Lurkers on Stormrage thinking about PvP'ing as a Lurker crew...

On the 'off' nights of raiding when I'm around (with the new schedule) I'd like to run a crew through Arathi Basin. Luckily, I'm more concerned about fun than rank so I tend to have a ball in AB, win or lose. I have PvP'ed enough to recognize the major players (I should make Sgt.Major this morning) so I can tell if we are going to be in for a hard fight, or a somewhat 'fair' fight.

So yeah, watch for signups on raid 'off' nights. ;)

[Mirajj]

The best defenders in the game are druids, hunters, paladins, warlocks, and rogues.  They're the ones most likely to be unaffected by sap and who can keep multiple people busy for a long time until help arrives.  (Hunters and warlocks can be sapped, but they can just target their pets at someone tapping the flag.  Also, hunters can trap the flag.  Plus, if the hunter is a stink'n night elf with a stealthed pet, that makes things (as usual for alliance) easy).

P.S.  Get your epic mount quickly!
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I'm not specced for PvP. In fact, you could say that out of the three, I've got the worst spec for it (Heavy Marksmanship) but that makes me an awesome defender, I find. The cat and I stealth, and wait. Usually there's some 'bait' at the flag. A pally, or a priest or something. Horde comes in, and then I come in to play. Half the time it's as good as done, as they can't figure out to deal with me or my pet. Or by the time they get to me, they are melee'able for me. I dealt with a rogue that way, once. By the time he made it through my arrows, I was able to finish him off with my axes.

Coming out of Shadowmeld is intense though. I owned an Orc hunter like that. The hunter came up, sicced his pet on the pally on the flag, and started pounding him. I came out of shadowmeld with Aimed Shot (Yes, I agree that needs to be changed, let's not get into that arguement) which critted, followed it up with a Conc shot, then a Multishot that critted. The next autoshot finished the hunter off. I doubt that he even saw what hit him.

[Kevin]

I'm not specced for PvP. In fact, you could say that out of the three, I've got the worst spec for it (Heavy Marksmanship) but that makes me an awesome defender, I find. The cat and I stealth, and wait. Usually there's some 'bait' at the flag. A pally, or a priest or something. Horde comes in, and then I come in to play. Half the time it's as good as done, as they can't figure out to deal with me or my pet. Or by the time they get to me, they are melee'able for me. I dealt with a rogue that way, once. By the time he made it through my arrows, I was able to finish him off with my axes.

Coming out of Shadowmeld is intense though. I owned an Orc hunter like that. The hunter came up, sicced his pet on the pally on the flag, and started pounding him. I came out of shadowmeld with Aimed Shot (Yes, I agree that needs to be changed, let's not get into that arguement) which critted, followed it up with a Conc shot, then a Multishot that critted. The next autoshot finished the hunter off. I doubt that he even saw what hit him.
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Well with Beastmaster pets being ass deadly as they are now I would think that gives all hunters an advantage as an opponent has to think "If I charge him is this pet going to stun me for 3 seconds and get huge and start tearing me up before I can get to the hunter who is probably getting an aimed shot off while I'm stunned? Should I just try to kill this pet so my teammates don't have to deal with it or just take that bastard shooting me down?"

But yeah shadowmeld makes for a huge advantage for NE's in PvP. Shadowmeded warriors are not a fun thing to think about either.

As for warriors I did a few AB's a few days before Bolty was getting in there (so a week ago now). Did 3 of them actually. Two of them (the first and 3rd matches) were agains Blood of the Horde, we lost one of them very badly the other I at least got some bonus honor out of because we held 2 points for a little bit.

The other (my 2nd ever battlegroud) was against a horde PuG and unfortunatley there was so little leadership that I did the raid invites and made the attack plan and we were still forming the raid when the gates opened! We did manage to hold the stables and mill from the start and took over the smith for awhile even. But no one stayed at our stables and we lost them! then got flanked and crushed at the mill and then it was over. Very very sad but since it was against another PuG we at least got some bonus out of it. :)

I found that a gnome protection spec is very good against mages though. Why a mage was solo defending the mine when I decided to go look since I knew things were pretty hopeless, I don't know, but he was was. So I get hit with a frostbolt, go zerker and intercept then shield bash, then 3 seconds later conc blow he blinks out of conc blow. I track him down get nova'd on the way. I escape artist and close again since he was working a pyroblast I think. Shield bash again to shut him up and have gotten enough swings in to get him low enough on health so that his cold snap FN wasn't enough and I got an execute in with a lucky crit since I was low rage. Then help came and I was crushed. I think he only had 4100 HP or so and I was swapping to dual wield after the shield bashes for mare damage as well, lots of little cuts.

I liked to conc blow the rogues and warriors though while I did some squishy hunting. I did do some beating on other warriors, at least getting them hamstrung with a few swings at them but the magic attacks are much better against them. It helps to get physical in but even the big 2 hand users stop a lot of physical damage.

So I was happy to see that a prot spec has some good uses in PvP though without an organized group most of those go to waste and I don't have an epic mount so I'm not a good roamer.

I was saddened to lead the alliance in two of the matches in killing blows, fewest deaths, and honor kills with one of the three matches me leading in all 3 categories. I'm a prot spec warrior who is new to PvP and who just doesn't have some of the skills to be really good at it.

I don't have twitch skills, never have. I'm no good at mouse turning. I can really only effectively use the keyboard for about 6 skills and I'm not good at using it to swap stances even if I change the key bindings. When I play my hunters and mages even though I practice I'm no good at insta turns or jump turns. These are just skills that I won't have. I also can't always process all the on screen info fast enough. In PvE that doesn't really hurt my abilities all that much because you can know what the mobs will do. In PvP you need to be able to recognize better what people or doing since you can't predict it. I believe that I'll be good enough at PvP to not completely gimp a team and I do enjoy it as much as I thought I would (I've been avoiding it so that it doesn't become yet another time sink that I like in the game). I used to be better at stuff like this. I used to process info quicker (I was good at Starcraft, top on the ladder for a bit in the first season) in D2 I was able to effectively use every hotkeyed spell, I was OK at Halo on the X-Box, but the last year or so many of those skills have just left and they don't come back with practice. And again some of it I never had. There are reasons other than me loving swimming that I swam and ran track in High School (played football too but was a lineman) and didn't play basketball or baseball and that I'm not good at volleyball and only very mediocre at racquetball even though I've had very good coaching on many of those sports. There are some just hand eye/info processing things I simply can't do.


And yes I'd be interested in doing lurker teams for PvP.

[oldmandennis]

I do understand that 1.9 will bring a penalty to those who /afk, though.  Supposedly, you won't be able to rejoin the queue for some amount of time after you /afk.  I don't know the details, but that does sound like a start at least.

Actually, that sounds like it might be the whole solution. 1/2 hour sounds right, since I think that's about as long as an AB game can go. It makes it so you may as well fight it out, without being a killer if for whatever reason you need to go (say the queue for the BG you really wanted came up)

But anyway, this thread is about how to actually win Arathi Basin games and not how to win by losing the cp race.
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Oh, you didn't say that :) You just asked for stratagies, and it is a stratagie, even if it is a lame one. Unfortunatly my guild hasn't organised much PvP, and I haven't found a team (not Pug) that has chat but still wants to try against top teams.

[Mirajj]

Well with Beastmaster pets being ass deadly as they are now I would think that gives all hunters an advantage as an opponent has to think "If I charge him is this pet going to stun me for 3 seconds and get huge and start tearing me up before I can get to the hunter who is probably getting an aimed shot off while I'm stunned?  Should I just try to kill this pet so my teammates don't have to deal with it or just take that bastard shooting me down?"
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It can be tricky. My thought is always to go for the hunter, because when the hunter dies, the pet disappears, too. But then, I'm generally fighting from the back ranks, and don't have to deal with a pet in the first place. ;)

[Tal]

It can be tricky. My thought is always to go for the hunter, because when the hunter dies, the pet disappears, too. But then, I'm generally fighting from the back ranks, and don't have to deal with a pet in the first place. ;)
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I've run about 50/50 versus hunters on Shalandrax. In general I've had better luck killing the hunter first.

[Trien]

I had a big long strategy written up a few weeks after AB was first released, but never did get around to posting it. In the mean time, I've been playing AB a *lot* (bar is halfway through revered to exalted, and I typically only run with pickup groups since at best I can usually only find a friend or two to come with me). I'll try to summarize what I'd written up here...

Some key concepts:

Mobility - those with epic mounts are better suited to be roaming, putting pressure on the opposing team to prevent them from mounting a full-out assault (*really* hard to defend if they decide to leave 1 or 2 at each point, and hit you with a zerg of 11 or 12). If a node gets attacked, call out incomings as soon as you see (not when they're there already), if possible along with the number of incoming, so the roamers know how much they will have to divert. For defense, I prefer to have 2 at each node, 1 defender only if a hunter or a druid which can hold off a single rogue (can't sap the druid in forms, pet on agressive will attack even if hunter sapped)... but usally prefer to have 2 if possible, pull one away when you need to push hard. Keep the rest mobile ... sitting 5 at each node only works if the other side doesn't organize attacks.

Crowd Control - 30 second resurrection timer, means you have to eliminate all the defenders at a flag within that timeframe and capture it before they return. If there's just a few left, or a lone defender or two, go for a sheep, sap, trap, etc. and cap. rather than going for the kill, since that'll take time which could allow more defenders to come. If you see someone else CC an opposing player, don't break it. Goblin rocket helms are a common sight, as are Green Whelp Armor.

Flag interruption - point often missed by inexperienced AB players... and which annoys me no end when I see "______ has assaulted the ____" and I look and the map and see 7 dots there... Keep them off the flag! If your node becomes contested, you no longer have the advantage of being able to res there and continue the fight.. AOE people who pile one (note paladin consecration does not seem to interrupt, and hurricane does not seem to either. Neither do any DOT's, only DD spells), mass fear, etc. If a friendly player is tapping the flag mid-fight, keep the opposition off. Stuns, fears, etc. If the area is clear for the time being and someone is tapping, don't just stand there watching. Move ahead to where the opposition will be coming from (down the path, from the graveyard, etc.) and run interference there before they get in range to interrupt your tapper.

Map layout:

Since the goal is to hold at least 3 nodes to get the resource advantage... the preference is to hold 3 nodes which are close together so defenders can rally quickly. The best formation is mill-smith-farm ... it is *very* difficult to take that away from a determined group which keeps a couple at each node, and sits the majority of their roamers at the crossroads to reinforce as required. This combination tends more often to the horde side, obviously, with the farm. Alliance more typically gets mine-smith-stables, which is not quite as easily defended, as defenders who head to the mine have a less direct detour path back up to the smith, giving a slower response time. From an alliance point of view, my preference for the opening game is to hit either one of the mill or smith hard, since losing both of those at the start quite often leads to a loss.

Class specifics:

I can't speak much for other classes having never played them, but a druid makes a good defender, as they can last a long time. Run circles in travel form to kite, moonfire (rank 1) to interrupt as needed. Bear form it out if you end up being pounded on, swipe for a 3-hit limited aoe if you have to when they pile on the flag. Watch out for the opposing stealthy druid who will come and hibernate you and try to grab the flag. Can't be sapped or mind controlled if in animal form, can't be polymorphed.

Horde vs alliance advantages? Horde have a bit of an opening terrain advantage (mill-smith-farm formation), but that can still change over the course of the game. The blacksmith flag is closer to the horde starting point. With carrot + spurs + riding enchant, and optimizing my path to the shortest distance possible, I can only get there in time to interrupt the flag grab from 30 yards a fast horde player who beelines it there. Mill flag seems to be closer to the alliance starting point, usually I can get a second or two of tapping before I get hit with a ranged interrupt. Not so sure about the mine, as it tends to be ignored more often. Alliance have more of a defensive advantage with paladins and shadowmeld to hide their defenders. On the horde side, tauren have warstomp as an AOE interrupt once every 3 mins. Horde killing speed in general tends to be a bit higher... shamans, and their plate wearers are all warriors rather than paladins, which can come into play when trying to clear all opposition within the 30-second window you have to grab the flag. Other racial skills... various CC breaking methods on both sides... fear ward, WOTF, escape artist.

Useful items:

I already mentioned goblin rocket helmet... non-rogue sap. And green whelp armor... great for a solo druid defender to keep rogues at bay while waiting for reinforcements to arrive. Grenades for extra AOE interruption, as well as crystal charge, available from Un'goro for anyone... 3 yard AOE.

Will add more later if I can dig it out of my memory...

[Xame]

Having spent the weekend in AB I've come up with a few strategies from having lost and won as horde.

I've come to the realization that Alliance has some real advantages in AB:

1. Palidins are will never die. As a mage I just sheep them so we can tap the flag. A group of 6 of us took over 90secs trying to drop a single palidin. Just when you beat the life out of him, up comes the shield + heals, respawns from the graveyard and another beat down. Even zerging cann't stop a palidin determined to live with epic gear.

2. Night Elf hunters on the mine. From the roof two hunters can trap the entrance to the roof and kill most classes before then can make it to the roof top. Basicly, they are shooting fish in a barrel and with shadow meld, rogues have a hard time taking them out (plus there are lots and lots of NE hunters that love the free HKs of the mine).

Thus the basic match goes as follows:
Horde: 5 to the mill, 10 to the smith (1 from the smith team taps the farm)
Alliance: 3 to the mine, 12 to the smith (1 taps the stables)

Horde leaves 2 at mill and sends 3 to stables. Alliance wins blacksmith and presses for the farm.

Horde takes stables and Alliance takes farm.

Both sides return to defend home turf (farm/stables)

Horde is behind because they have lost smith and lose the match, because a dual palidin team will hold the smith 'til hell freezes over and all of alliance is zerging mill and farm (execpt 2 at the smith and 2 at the mine, they defend the stables from the smith).

In the early going the Horde gets a good lead (3 bases to 1) because the smith is a huge fight and remains contested for a long time. But once alliance captures the smith it is game over for the Horde since the farm/mill is so close to the smith. If the horde wins the smith and can defend it, Horde wins (Alliance will attack between smith and farm but horde roamers can cover easily because of good raid calls from the mill to direct the defense, thus the Horde's battle call for "3 and defend").

Horde's biggest problem, once Alliance captures a base, it is very hard to kick them out if Alliance puts up a defense (2 NE hunters on roof of mine, 2 palidins in smith). The delay and the call for help means that even zerging won't change the flag since Alliance roamers will cover. Thus I really like MongoJerry's idea of druids as defenders since it might even things for the Horde in defending.

Basic team/guild ideas: Kill the cloth wears / and rogues first. Ignore the hunter's pets and get the hunters. Leave the tanks to the end of the fight (CC them to buy time). If your side ends up with more cloth wears living then their side, you win the battle. Simply thats it. The tanks die really fast once the cloth wears can CC and dmg in a focused way without the distraction of other cloth wears (with the exception of epic palidins which just never die).

[Gorthag]

Yep, unfortunately that often happens on our server.  The Core has had a lot of arguments about it.  We've finally fielded a "no afk" team that adamently refuses to afk against anyone, and the games have been much more fun for me since then.  However, when we don't have our "A team" on, there's a lot of grumbling to afk against known good alliance teams, because some people are trying to rank up to get items.  The current system where you are basically fighting against your own faction in the race for cp's and where you don't have any incentive to stay in difficult games needs to be radically changed.  Unfortunately, I haven't thought up a good system myself.
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1. Kudos to not afk'ing, I certainly have more fun when I concentrate on killing alliance as a reward in itself rather than accumulating honour. :)

2. I think the solution is relatively straightforward. They've made the pvp grind a ladder system, but without the most basic requirement of a ladder, that defeating people of higher rank than you is worth more than defeating people of lower rank. Sure the individual honour varies but that means squat compared to the bonus honour. I'm pretty sure if they made the bonus honour from AB/WSG/AV variable and dependent on the aggregate ranks of the opposition relative to your own, that you'd see /afk as a tactic disappear.

[Trien]

More thoughts.

Magma totems. Really really annoying, as they'll keep on interrupting until destroyed. Especially if one is thrown down and then everyone clusters on top of it so you can't click-target... and have to resort to a macro or trying to tab through everything.

More recently, have been seeing a wave of shamans using some sort of exploit with a sentry totem to capture a flag and not actually be standing beside it (at least, from the client point of view), makes interruption very very difficult unless you've sicced a pet on him beforehand... get out of range errors (looks like some sort of lag effect... you see their character running away from the flag). AOE's around the flag don't hit them. Once the capture happens, they warp back to a position beside the flag.

AFKing out. Used to do it, but no longer out of principle. It's just plain rude to those who end up joining after you leave.

[NotSoDarklord]

Honestly I've never found a druid that was difficult to kill unless they were wearing green whelp armor. Sending one rogue should be sufficient. 1 on 1 with all their cooldowns (beginning of a new round) I can't imagine why the rogue would lose. (Not quite a lern2play assessment... but... sortof).

[Trien]

Honestly I've never found a druid that was difficult to kill unless they were wearing green whelp armor.  Sending one rogue should be sufficient.  1 on 1 with all their cooldowns (beginning of a new round) I can't imagine why the rogue would lose.  (Not quite a lern2play assessment... but... sortof).
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Well, can't speak for other druids, but typically I have little trouble with rogues unless they happen to catch me sitting down drinking. When defending a flag, I'll typically be prowling, rarely standing still. 5/5 feral instinct puts you at the same stealthiness as a rogue wtih 5/5 master of deception... add the night elf racial bonus if you're an alliance druid... still roughtly 50-50 who sees who first. If I'm wearing druid PvP gloves with improved stealth detection, I almost always see the rogue while they're still looking for me. Oftentimes they'll think nobody's there and make a grab at the flag, which leaves me to hit them from behind.

Even if a rogue does get the first hit on me and decides to blow all his cooldowns, I typically do pretty well still. Bear form it out (8000+ armor, close to 6000 HP). Save stuns for healing, NS+Heal for a dodged stun or if the rogue trinket out of a stun. *shrug* YMMV I guess.

[Watto44]

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

[mjdoom]

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.
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This is a very good point and it doesn't even take 6-7 people to make it work. I could easily relay to you many times where I will attack the farm solo or with only one other person (a healer to extend the attack is a plus) and just start doing damage to the inevitable one or two horde defending. In many cases this can bring a big response from the horde and being that I am a warrior in plate I can at least live for 5-10 seconds (longer with a good healer or other disrupting class by my side). I have had times where the horde were killing me at the farms with 7 people!!! Shortly thereafter as I'm sitting in a graveyard somewhere I watch as "Alliance has assaulted the mill." or some other similar announcement. Sure, I got 0 hks (one if I was lucky) but it is a big boon to your side winning.

5-10 seconds can be a monster difference when it comes to capping flags in BGs. Even making that new rez wave slow down to kill you off means that it buys your team a few extra seconds to get into position. As I've said before; time is money in AB and the better you understand that the better you will do.

----------------

Last night we had 5-10 guildies running AB matches for a little while. Each time I called for: Group 1 -> BS, Group 2-> Mines, Group 3-> Cap stables and then help BS. Even against solid horde teams this strategy lead to us rolling in a few matches. I know others have mentioned this before, but holding three nodes in a triangle is the best thing you can do. This generally allows you to survive with 2-3 defenders at two nodes and usually 3-5 at the BS (naturally the BS is contested more regularly).

This leaves enough people to form two groups; one to roam the road in the middle of your triangle to provide reinforcement when attacks come and one to keep poking the attackers before they even get to your nodes (or attack nodes if the other side leaves them open). Even if your offensive group gets wiped out trying to poke at an oncoming rush they have still burned important mana and health off of that rush and they will likely rez again before the rush has any chance to cap the flag they are attacking. Sometimes suicide in AB can have high rewards for the purposes of winning a match.

It should also be noted that at least one person (usually at the BS unless they are occupied at the time) should be watching roads for incoming attacks in order to get out warning ahead of time. This sounds very simplistic but it is an important thing to consider. Try to get people who can play the game with high graphics draw distances (yes, this makes a huge difference) and/or have an ornate spyglass to facilitate seeing into the distance. An intelligent player roaming between the stables and BS on the mill side can easily spot an opposing attack on the stables coming from the mill or farm and get back to the stables to help defend against that attack before the call for help even goes out.

In general even as you're holding nodes you want to be attacking; just remember to do it in moderation. In many cases intelligent teams will notice that you are overcommited and make you pay accordingly (see Watto's post for some of the ways they accomplish this). Try to keep two defenders at or near any node that you control. Even the best solo defenders are susceptible to the right form of attack but a group of two is a lot trickier to "steal" a node from, thus allowing the rest of your team to help as necessary.

And last but certainly not least I'd like to reiterate the point that on defense you want to fight in the vicinity of the flag. The instant a flag is assaulted your defense is significantly weakened and if you're not about to soundly defeat the opposition and recap it back it could bite you in the behind very quickly. Do whatever you can to keep an attacker off of the flag (and remember that many DoTs will NOT accomplish this): direct damage spells, fear, direct attacks, stuns; anything you can do to stop a cap is worth it even if you lose out on a killing blow or it leads to your death. For the umpteenth time time is money and keeping the opposition from assaulting a flag is the biggest thing you can do to buy time in AB.

Also note that as Mongo pointed out (I think) a lot of the tactics that are used to keep the opposition off of flags also apply on offense. Fear bombs/stuns/CC/etc. can buy your teammate that extra second he needs to complete a flag cap to weaken the opposition's defense significantly.

Anyway, just a few thoughts; some of which have been mentioned earlier. Use of voice software (ventrillo or teamspeak) can help immensly with keeping things fluid and quickly relaying information about enemy positions but it is quite doable even without this benefit. If you are running with pickups it is not always easy to convince them that solid defense with an active and adaptable offense is the way to go but if enough of them buy into it you are taking a step in the right direction.

- mjdoom

[Trien]

One more thought on paladins after rereading the story of the paladin holding off 5 guys... what do the experienced horde do against the lone paladin that is left... or anybody without an AOE interrupt for that matter, if they have 3 or 4 (or more)?. They all pile into the flag in the exact same spot (so you can't select individually with the mouse cursor) and all tap.

Personally, I think it's rather cheap (especially when they have a rogue/druid with noggenfogger shrink or world enlarger destealth inside a kodo someone's parked beside the flag, but that's another story...), but admittedly effective, and is used by the experienced players on both sides, though more effectively by horde since alliance does not have as many AOE interruption options. You often just can't tab-target through all the players and hit them fast enough before one of them manages to capture. 1.5s global cooldown on spells, add network latency and your own finger pushing speed... you'll probably only hit 3 in the 10 second timeframe, 4 if you get lucky. And unless you're using a really fast attacking weapon or duel-wielding...

Counters to this... Mage AOE. Priest psychic scream (5 targets only). Druid bear form swipe (3 targets only)... hurricane as far as I can tell does not interrupt. Warrior intimidating shout/thunderclap if they have the rage built up. Hunter multishot (3 targets only)... not sure if volley interrupts or not. Warlock howl of terror (5 targets only)... again, not sure about their aoe damage spells, since I don't remember instances where that wasn't stacked on top of some other spells so not sure which caused interruption. Shaman magma totems (takes a while for the first pulse to fire though), chain lightning. All Tauren can warstomp. Engineering grenades, or Un'goro crystal charge.

Rogues can't do much, though if they attack fast enough and get lucky with the tab-targetting they might be able to stop it. Paladin consecration does not interrupt so they're pretty much stuck.

Edit: Forgot chain lightning for Shaman

[MongoJerry]

Rogues can't do much, though if they attack fast enough and get lucky with the tab-targetting they might be able to stop it. Paladin consecration does not interrupt so they're pretty much stuck.

You pretty much hit it with engineering grenades, E-Z thro Dynamite, and Un'Goro crystal bombs -- staples of any reasonable paladin PvP'er. I believe immolation potions work, too, although you'd have to stand on the flag for it to work. This is not a limitation.

Usually what I do is mind control the paladin and walk him as far away from the flag as possible while my teammates tap. If his bubble cooldown is available and the paladin bubbles quickly, you're sunk unless the other team is really slow and the paladin doesn't have backup rezing at the local graveyard any time soon. That's definitely one reason you do what you can to encourage a jumpy paladin to bubble as quickly as possible. On occation, though, you get a really slow paladin who's the last defender and doesn't bubble out of mind control quickly enough. But that's just a function of playing against a bad paladin.

As far as rogues go, I've never seen them have trouble stopping a group of people from tapping, although I don't know what the technique is. I don't know if it's blade fury or just tabbing through and gouging and hitting as many people as possible.