Battleground stories

[Skandranon]

Hillary's right, there was no snarkiness intended, and I'm sorry that you read some into it.  I was just wondering about the fun factor, as I have seen few people comment on it. Generally, comments are reserved for faction/hk topics. I have, at current....0 HK's. On all of my C's.

But I am very interested in battlegrounds. However...I will probably very much suck at PvP, so I was wondering (since I'll likely lose alot at first) if these are fun places to learn PvP skills.
[right][snapback]80203[/snapback][/right]

Warsong Gulch is hella fun. Alterac Valley, not so much. Actually, the Valley is a long long grind, hardcore PvPers only.

Gulch is less fun when you draw an uberguild like Blood of the Horde or Ravage and they rock you in three minutes, but that's a damn quick way to get you PvP experience.

[MongoJerry]

But I am very interested in battlegrounds. However...I will probably very much suck at PvP, so I was wondering (since I'll likely lose alot at first) if these are fun places to learn PvP skills.

Both are very fun and each are very different from one another. The Warsong Gulch capture-the-flag battleground is fast paced and intense. Matches last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and half depending on how evenly matched and well coordinated the opposing sides are. Matches are 10-on-10, so every player matters, and it's important that everyone knows what to do and where to go. There's no relaxing even for a minute in these matches.

On the other hand, I find Alterac Valley much more relaxing and fun in a different way. The battleground involves a 40-on-40 all out war, where one can capture graveyards, destroy opponent's bunkers, and kill opponent's NPC commanders. Alterac has a mix of PvE and PvP content in it, so if you get tired of the fight at the front, you can do some side quests that can also help your side. For example, you can tame and gather wolves/rams (depending on your side) and bring them back to your stable master and then kill rams/wolves to gather ram/wolf hides (depending on your side) and turn them in. After enough of them are collected, you can spawn a cavalry charge of wolf-riders/ram-riders involving ten elite NPC mobs that can really mess up the opponents ranks. If your team coordinates their charge with them, they can use the charge to get the next graveyard or bunker. There are lots of other things as well -- stuff involving capturing mines and gathering supplies, stuff involving getting a Frostwolf banner (if you're Horde), stuff involving rescuing a goblin from 3rd-party trolls (the goblin will make a shredder for you if you bring him materials once you rescue him), and even a quest involving the syndicate (one I just learned about and did today). Meanwhile, at the front, there's lots and lots of fighting and dying and rezing and fighting and dying and rezing. And while the fight is chaotic at times, it's also a lot of fun.

As far as learning PvP skills in the Battlegrounds, I think each would give you a different perspective on what PvP is like. Alterac Valley is very much about killing your opponent as quickly as possible whereas Warsong Gulch is more about snaring and disrupting your opponent. So, for example, a full-on fire built mage would be great for Alterac Valley, where his or her massive damage could kill a lot of people. On the other hand, ice mages rule in Warsong Gulch with their ability to snare and disrupt the other team.

I find each of the BG's fun in their own ways, and I choose which to play based on what I'm looking for at the moment. For my part, I couldn't stand to enter Warsong Gulch without at least a group of five on Teamspeak or Ventrillo. No way could I face entering Warsong Gulch solo with a bunch of other random people, because I know that we would inevitably be stomped on by any opponents who are at all organized and cooperating on teamspeak. So, when I'm solo and want to just have some relaxing fun, I join Alterac Valley. It usually means joining up with a randomly thrown together raid with strangers, but that's OK. I usually talk to the party of five I'm in and try to organize things a little bit in our small group. It helps being a priest when doing this, because people are amazed at the idea that someone, a complete stranger even, would actually heal them in the big zerg-fest at the front lines. The fight in Alterac Valley may seem at times so big that you might feel that your contribution doesn't matter. But believe me, having a simple party of five working together with a priest (or paladin) healing and giving dispells and the group coordinating together can make a big difference in the fight. And also, a party of 5-10 players who know each other and who work together can accomplish a lot in that battleground and really turn the tide. Finally, even if you're playing solo in an uncoordinated group, sometimes pushes just need that one extra person who's on the ball and is at the right place at the right time to take that graveyard or destroy that bunker. Individual contributions do definitely make a difference.

[Bob the Beholder]

I've done a couple of Warsong Gulch matches, seeing as I'm level 50 and can't go into Alterac Valley yet. It's lots of fun. Although, I've heard people say that matches only last ten minutes or so (although I can't remember where, exactly), which is kinda nuts, seeing as each match lasted over 45 minutes. Although, I suppose, if the entire enemy party were morons, and all scattered solo through the area, then maybe you could get three captures in ten minutes. But who's dumb enough to do that?

Anyway. Lots of fun. I can see how a skilled hunter can come out on top in these matches... but so far skilled mages have come out on or near the top each time. Myself, in particular. And other mages near the top as well. The first match, I got 79 kills, and 25 killing blows, which put me on top. Second place being yet another mage. And I was second in the second match, with a warrior in first. Although I have no idea how he did so well--he must rock hardcore.

The second battle was notable. The enemy used some weird tactics, and some absolutely convoluted leaning from defense to offense, in such a way that we had no idea what was going on through most of it.

Most of their attacks ended up with a hunter, mage, warlock, whatever, up on the roof, raining arrows/fire/AoE down on the defenders. I still don't know how they got up there, but that's beside the point. I was on the high end of the level scale, and was busily defending the flag, so I'd counterspell the casters, and target whoever was best in line of sight up there, drop a fireball in that direction, and they'd kinda go, "OCRAP THAT GUY JUST HIT ME FOR 900 DAMAGE (before ignite!)" and jump down to make use of the twisty tunnels and doors and such to keep out of line of sight... which allowed the meleers to rip them apart quite handily.

It was basic stuff, most of the time. Sheep people, nuke people, snare meleers, stay up in the hunters' deadzones, try to keep some allies around me, etc..

I'm willing to bet the alliance in the match were insane, though. In one of the rare offensive pushes I participated in--trailing slightly behind the rest of the attackers--we found every single one of the enemies standing around in the flag room. All ten! Needless to say, seeing as we actually left defenders behind, the rest of the group died before I caught up, and I was only a few seconds behind them. At which point it kind of turned into a game of 'chase the mage,' which rarely ends well for the mage in question.

And not long after, with half our team heading towards the enemy base, the whole alliance side once again collected together, passed RIGHT BY our offensive line, and ran straight to our base. They all charged headlong into the flag room, and I laughed, and began the destruction. There were three of us in the flag room right then--warrior, mage, priest-- so I just started AoEing them all. Blast Wave, and spamming arcane explosion over and over and over and over, weaving in and out of them, nuking like a madman.

Most of them were too busy making a mad dash for the flag, or trying to take out the warrior who was doing his best to keep them off of it, to notice anything puny like a 'mage' who was only 'killing them all horribly.' So, I ran out of mana... and I had killed eight enemies. Flag room's kinda small, yes? AoE fills it with burning, destroying love.

A gnome mage was hiding in a nearby corner and a night elf rogue with less than 10 percent hp left finished off both the priest and the warrior, somehow... but I killed him with wand shots. Wand shots! That's gotta be degrading. Aaand, the mage ran for it. I'd regenned a bit of mana, so I counterspelled... and did a single scorch. Bam, gnome on the ground.

Haha. I sat down to eat and drink, and read the raid channel, people were frantic trying to figure out what was happening, where the enemies were, whether they were attack or defending, or spinning around in circles. The people who had died and were rushing back to defend the flag started yelling about the attackers all being dead. My only contribution to the conversation at that point: "Damn right."

But, our third flag capture was coming our way, and the match ended before I could even get out to defend the carrier. :(

[Fin]

The session in Alterac Valley yesterday on Draenor (EU) ran for over 14 hours.

I was in 11hrs of those and when at around 6 o'clock in the morning the Horde team fell under 10 players the Battleground was disbanded and Alliance declared winner. Even with 40vs10 we could not really advance past the last graveyard, the champion guards spawned like mad and most of the team was in that BG for 10hrs+, so we just killed Karrak for the nice rewards (pike, xbow) as the 5 min. countdown ticked away.
Top scorer was a troll hunter I think with close to 2000HKs.
My rogue got out of there with a little over 200HKs and ~6000CPs.

14+ hours for a single round??? urgh

I know it was only the 2nd day and tactics are going to be worked on but when both sides improve at a similar pace I can't see this getting over sooner or at all. I hope there will be ways.

[Quark]

I've done a couple of Warsong Gulch matches, seeing as I'm level 50 and can't go into Alterac Valley yet.  It's lots of fun.  Although, I've heard people say that matches only last ten minutes or so (although I can't remember where, exactly), which is kinda nuts, seeing as each match lasted over 45 minutes.  Although, I suppose, if the entire enemy party were morons, and all scattered solo through the area, then maybe you could get three captures in ten minutes.  But who's dumb enough to do that?
[right][snapback]80228[/snapback][/right]

<_< You might wanna try the level 60 fights before you say that. When we get stuck fighting Blood of the Horde they have a few advantages on us. They all have epic mounts - that's a huge advantage with their strategy of "get the flag, hold it, then kill their flagbearer". They all have gear from MC/Onyxia. They got bored with the endgame, so they've all rolled alts on a PvP server. They're all on Teamspeak, and while we had 8 on TS there were a few times where the other 2 got thrashed because they couldn't hear what we were saying and we couldn't type fast enough.

The first time we played them (our first experience) we went 5 off 5 def, and they went all off. They wiped the floor with us in no time. The second time we tried to get organized and together, but couldn't quite get it done and though we actually fought them, we didn't win any battles. We ended up fighting them a third time last night. We still couldn't get a flag point out of them, but we lasted much longly simply because we stayed together. Now we've got somewhat of a strategy down, but we're still lacking on tactics (most of us haven't PvPed much) and equipment - either PvE gear or just plain inferior to their purples. So while we can get some nice kills in, it'll still be a monumental effort to actually beat them.

It makes me wonder if Blizzard could ever implement some sort of ladder like SC and WC3, so more even abilitied teams could fight it out. The only way I see that being possible, though, is if there could be inter-server matches to make the sample size that much bigger.

[MongoJerry]

I'm willing to bet the alliance in the match were insane, though.&nbsp; In one of the rare offensive pushes I participated in--trailing slightly behind the rest of the attackers--we found every single one of the enemies standing around in the flag room.&nbsp; All ten!&nbsp; Needless to say, seeing as we actually left defenders behind, the rest of the group died before I caught up, and I was only a few seconds behind them.&nbsp; At which point it kind of turned into a game of 'chase the mage,' which rarely ends well for the mage in question.

All ten?!? Oh, my God. Our team eats up groups that try to do that. It's my basic contention that the flag rooms are indefensible against anything but a small one or two person attacking party. The simple way to mess a group like that up is with a series of aoe fears and snares. The typical thing would be to have a warrior charge into the flag room and intimidating shout. A mage improved Blizzards and/or Frost Novas to snare more people. I as the priest fear anyone else who's still active and picks a caster to Silence, while the druid snags the flag and books it out of there with me right on top of him giving him heals, dispelling magic snares, and fearing any enemies who catch up. Once the druid's out in the open field, it's travel form and cap the flag for the win. Sure, a team that holes up in the flag room has plenty of firepower to kill an attacking party, but we don't stick around long enough to let them do that.

It is far more important to control the middle of the field and the proper way to defend the flag against an assault is in front of the base. You can fight them there and kill, slow down, or at least use up their mana there. Then, if you die, you can rez at your graveyard with full health and mana and go again. The nearness of the graveyard is the greatest advantage defenders have. A team that defends the flag in the flag room itself loses this advantage. Yes, it's occationally helpful to have one or two people go back to the flag room to guard against solo or duo attackers who try to steal the flag, but having more than two people stay in the flag room itself is counterproductive.

[MongoJerry]

14+ hours for a single round??? urgh

The thing about Alterac Valley is that you shouldn't really expect to "win" in the sense of finally beating the main commander. It's supposed to be a long hard-fought war. I guess I'm used to games like this, because of my experience of playing the old network game, Netrek. It was very difficult in those games to get a complete genocide against your opponent, and it took great coordination and skill to do so. Meanwhile, though, there were lots of minigoals to accomplish during the battle -- stopping the enemy from retaking a planet, getting behind the lines and bombing that planet that just popped armies, retaking a planet that had just been lost, etc. -- so it's not like there was nothing to do. And when you did actually fully win, the win felt all the sweeter, because you really did something extraordinary. I like Alterac Valley for this same reason. You can't just be a little better than your opponents. You have to really coordinate your pushes and employ as much NPC power as possible to break through and destroy one of the enemy's main base bunkers. If you don't, then you don't win. It's that simple.

My advice is to not focus so much on the all-or-nothing end goal of beating the enemy commander but instead enjoy the minigoals -- taking a graveyard, destroying a bunker, getting your ice lord or druid-guy up, ordering a wolf-rider/ram-rider cavalry charge, stopping your opponents from taking your graveyards or destroying your bunkers, killing that annoying mage who sheeped you, etc.

[The Gnu]

I had a fun round of Warsong a few days ago, where an attack team of three mages managed to turn 0-2 into 3-2 within a few minutes. With blink, PoM-Polymorph, Frost Nova, Counterspell and Cone of Cold and good voice communication, we were near unstoppable. :)

[Catlyn]

Here's my story:

Got asked if I wanted to give it a try... I say yes.

I go to the place, and find out I didn't really need to go at all, and couldn've stayed where I was and just joined the group.

Get called into the battleground sooner than some of the group was expecting, so not everyone makes it in... we're in short handed and without healers.

Everyone runs off and does whatever they feel like, and we die horribly, over and over...

Thankfully, we were so bad that it was all over in record time, and I was released from that particular hell.

I'm done. :)

Have fun... No idea how anyone could enjoy that.

[MongoJerry]

I'm done. :)

Have fun... No idea how anyone could enjoy that.

Awww... sounds like a problem with the group you were with and not the battleground. Give it a fair shot and then see how you like it.

[Skandranon]

Awww... sounds like a problem with the group you were with and not the battleground.&nbsp; Give it a fair shot and then see how you like it.
[right][snapback]80261[/snapback][/right]

Cat went in with a Lurker group. I assure you that her account of her experience is not to be taken as gospel truth.

[Hillary]

Cat went in with a Lurker group.&nbsp; I assure you that her account of her experience is not to be taken as gospel truth.
[right][snapback]80278[/snapback][/right]

And I take huge offense to the tone of this post simply because I organized it. Why don't you ASK the rest of us what happened before you make it sound like we're a bunch of incompetent boobs, Catlyn?

We had 10 people. Kalamere went LD RIGHT before we got pulled in. The ONE healer we did have (me) was having UI problems. CTRaid would NOT work right for me and I was in the middle of a reboot when you got pulled. So you were down 2 not because of people bailing but because of unfortunate circumstances. The disorganization was a direct result of, see above: 2 people being doa before you even got in there. Without me, the flag bearer has no cover whatsoever.

To compensate for the disorganization, some of us (most) are on Teamspeak, which generally helps with planning. If you want in on the major scheme of things, download it. You won't feel left out then, but with something as fast as WG, typing instructions is a complete waste of time, because by the time you get the sentiment out, your flag bearers already dead.

I'm terribly sorry it was such a horrid experience. I assure you, I won't put you through it again.

[Catlyn]

I'm terribly sorry it was such a horrid experience.&nbsp; I assure you, I won't put you through it again.
[right][snapback]80284[/snapback][/right]

Thank you.

[Hedon]

Hmm, I had very good experience with random pick up groups in Warsong Gulch.

Of course one is in disadvantage against a thightly organized guild all on teamspeak, but as long as someone had pervious experience with the CTF playing mode on other games like e.g. UT2004 one should feel immediatly at home without a great amount of talking.

Like Mongo pointed out, one should't make the mistake to get stuck hunting down individual players, the flagbearer being an exception of course, but focus more on disrupting the enemys movement and postioning.

1.) You will always get automated system messages who has the flag, so it is easy to know who should get supported or tried to be stopped at any given moment.

2.) Move a lot. Standing in one place is generally a bad idea, as you wil become fodder for rogues and mages stunning, sheeping, forsting and killing people to disrutpt enemy positioning. When you move around it is much harder for the enemy to disrupt your positioning.

As a priest I would often run into the enemy base, shield up, silence the occasional enemy mage to prevent sheeping and frost novaing, hit psychic scream to scatter the enemy, while another player who follows a bit behind grabs the flag and runs with it. Then i will mindflay any pursuers to slow them down. If I get killed in the process, I simply rezz at my base and run from there the to support the flagbearer with heals, or once again psychic scream to scatter pursuers or mind flay them.

If you find yourself in the middle of the playing field try to clear the way of potential enemys that might hinder your own flagbearer on his way home or might support an enemy flagbearer.

Once again move! You will find yourself mounting and dismounting often for quick postion changes. CTF is more a game of quick wits and common sense, than one of deep strategy.

[Tal]

Shoulda stuck around for round two - was a lot better organized and we were only down one person. :) We even held our own against Blood of the Horde for a lot longer than I thought. :D

[Skandranon]

Thank you.
[right][snapback]80291[/snapback][/right]

Oh no. You don't get away with that. You don't get away with slagging our Carpe Aurum allies, who are some of the most dedicated, competent players on the server, with just "thank you". People who invited you because they wanted you to have a good time. I joined the group after you left, and in our next two runs we put up a damn good fight against Sharagrim and Blood of the Horde, two of the top Horde guilds on Stormrage. Kalamere had computer problems all night, but we still had a good time and fought well. Difference? No Catlyn.

I know it's easier to make everyone else look bad and the experience seem totally unenjoyable to anyone, but that's incredibly self-centred and egotistical of you. You don't get away with "thank you". The next thing you say starts with "sorry".

[NotSoDarklord]

Edit: Deleted entire post because it was in the wrong place.

Here's a new one! I've had some nice experiences in battlegrounds thusfar. It's sad the way zerging has become the common tactic and it gets a bit routine, but the games have their fun spots still. Often my most enjoyable moments come when I am sent as a one/two man ganksquad to get our flag when we have theirs.
Notable moments have been when I failed to get the drop on a hunter who would have then killed me had he not tried to mindcontrol me with his pet out (apparently it backfires every time). I used the hunter to kill his own pet then made short work of him and retrieved our flag.

Another moment was when the horde was zerging our group with their flag and dropping it looked imminent. I was staring at their flagholder (a rogue) who was guarded by a mage. I ambushed the rogue and began to try to burn him down quick when the mage started aoeing me (why aoe I am not quite sure). Managed to get the rogue down and click the flag just as the mage killed me... our third capture (against ravage I believe... not their A team though) :)

As for the early days when people just sort of did their own thing, I had all sorts of fights such as when two rogues got the jump on me alone, but due to some lucky crits and using timers I walked out relatively alive with both lying on the ground.

[Catlyn]

... Difference?&nbsp; No Catlyn.&nbsp; ...&nbsp; The next thing you say starts with "sorry".

Sorry I suck so much.

[MongoJerry]

Here's a new one!&nbsp; I've had some nice experiences in battlegrounds thusfar.&nbsp; It's sad the way zerging has become the common tactic and it gets a bit routine, but the games have their fun spots still.

It's not possible to zerg in a CTF match, at least in the usual definition of "zerg," which is to overwhelm an opponent with pure numbers rather than to use skill or finesse. Since both sides are evenly matched and since the number of people involved is small anyway, one can't really "zerg." One does get involved in group-vs-group battles, but those can be very fun since skill, tactics, and coordination really shine in those battles. It's good to get a group to focus fire on one or two targets (usually healers) and know how to protect their own squishy healers when they need help.

[Brista]

It's not possible to zerg in a CTF match, at least in the usual definition of "zerg," which is to overwhelm an opponent with pure numbers rather than to use skill or finesse.&nbsp; Since both sides are evenly matched and since the number of people involved is small anyway, one can't really "zerg."&nbsp; One does get involved in group-vs-group battles, but those can be very fun since skill, tactics, and coordination really shine in those battles.&nbsp; It's good to get a group to focus fire on one or two targets (usually healers) and know how to protect their own squishy healers when they need help.
[right][snapback]80324[/snapback][/right]

I would call the tactic of attacking with all ten at the start of the match a zerg