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How to win in CTF - Brista - 06-13-2005
I thought I'd get the ball rolling on this although I'm by no means an expert
First principles
- you need to form one raid. I've been in several CTF matches with no group, two groups, a raid with only half the players in it. We always get hammered.
- you need someone telling people what to do. If there is a lack of clarity people will solo. Soloing does not win matches, unless the opposition is terrible and you get lucky to boot. When I've been in raids where the raid leader says nothing all match we lose. The job is not simply inviting
- five people telling the raid to do different and conflicting things is quite possibly worse than no one telling people what do to. This is why you need it to be the raid leader making the calls. If he keeps quiet and someone who isn't the leader starts shouting then invariably some other squaddie will start shouting conflicting orders
- all classes have fantastic contributions to make. If you're a hunter track the flag carrier and keep your team posted. If you're a healer, heal. If you're a rogue support other players by applying your surprise attacks at decisive moments
- the flag is more important than the players. Keep moving towards your objective at virtually any time except when you're regrouping
- killing people off is sometimes not an effective move. There are many times in battle when players would much rather respawn ahead of your flag carrier on full health and mana. A snare can be better than a kill
- hunt in packs. Most classes work much better in a group. Even Rogues should sneak along with the pack looking for decisive moments to contribute
- organise groups sensibly. Expecially split up the healers. Don't assume people have RaidAssist or some such mod.
- if half of you are on Teamspeak then type. Teamspeak makes people lazy. If you don't bother to type crucial information and instructions you are a well-organised group of 5 plus 5 solos. Any organised group of 10 will wipe the floor with you
- fragging. If you want to get the most contribution points from a battle you undoubtedly are better off refusing to join the raid and just stalking along getting easy kills while the opponents are engaged with other team-mates. You aren't helping the team. Many many teams we've beaten have a Rogue who is streets ahead of anyone else on either side in terms of HKs. They still lose. Being as how WoW is an MMO game and reputation matters you may want to avoid doing this. It's hard enough for level 60 Rogues to get raids without developing a reputation for selfish play. Then again, if you can hit the top rank by doing this maybe you won't have to care about MC drops :rolleyes:
7, 8, 9, 0s - as you near the top end of the level range for your battlefield you become a much more effective player. It may be wise to do a lot of bg at level 29-30, 39-40 etc, get your fill for a while and then concentrate on levelling and instancing as you pass to the next tier.
Classes
Rogue - great flag carriers simply for the ability to snatch the flag at surprise moments and then Sprint. Very vulnerable to being intercepted in the middle unless you work with the team. Stun and crippling poison makes you very good at stopping or slowing other players. And killing people helps too :)
Druid - the best flag carriers. Stealth, be patient and at the crucial moment (perhaps just after a recapture) grab the flag, cat form and dash out of the base, cheetah and run off home. The ability to change and use instant heals is great so don't persist being a cheetah if you look like dying. Most snares are broken by changing shape, also you can break Rogue snares with Cure Poison. If there's more than one druid have them both do the same job - one is a backup. If the role palls then you have great utility as flag carrier support with speed, heals and entangling roots. In a running fight entangling roots is a one-cast eliminator, possibly the strongest spell in the game. Please don't run around the midfield spamming Moonfire though ;)
Hunter - natural defenders. Aspect of the Cheetah is great for chasing people but not great when you're being chased. Tracking is great if your team has lost sight of the carrier - find him and tell the raid where he is. You may need Track Beast if you're after a Druid. Feign Death is very effective in the hectic atmosphere. Freezing Trap on the flag is a great defensive move, so is Survival tree specialisation for those rare Hunters who take that path
Priest - great in a pack of players working together. If everyone spreads out and does their own thing then Priest players tend to be especially victimised. The natural place for a Priest is in the middle of an alert aggressive group. AE fear is a very strong ability and is useful for clearing oppostion packs, notably in the flag room
Paladin - another great pack player. Paladins are usually bottom of Horde players' priorities simply because they're so frustratingly hard to kill. Stay close to others and use your heals to keep them alive and your group will roll over anything even remotely disorganised and will beat same-sized horde groups that can't match your group's healing power. In a wierd way that fact that shamans have so many interesting things to do with their mana is a Horde disadvantage in pvp since they will often drain themselves spamming marginal damage spells. Turn the screw on any such naievity by making sure no one in your group dies
Shaman - good flag carriers, good pack members, a shaman is a well rounded class which can support anywhere without being outstanding anywhere. Use your snares well and you'll win matches
Warrior - very much a pack player. From a healer's perspective nothing keeps you safer than a Warrior because if they target you the Warrior will rip them apart while you self-heal and if they target the Warrior they will do poor damage which you can easily heal. Warriors work so much better in packs than alone, perhaps more so than any other class. Key skills are Charge Intercept and Hamstring plus Hitting Someone Very Hard ™
Mage - a devastating class. First you have a great ability to control movement, accelerating your own with Blink and slowing others with Frost Nova and chill effects. Next you do good damage. And finally area effect is fantastic against clumped players. Played with agility a mage often attracts people to try for a kill without them being able to quite kill you. Make sure everyone has drink at the start or before, people get a lot of chances to drink during these matches.
Warlock - The main things I found to do with my warlock on the test server were running around dotting people, disrupting people with Fear and Seduce, hitting the flag room with area effect just as our flag carriers go in (they will all focus on you) and sending pets off to harass distant players from a position of safety.
Winning strategies
5 attack 5 defend One of the simplest, 5 of you wait to mob whoever comes into the flag room, 5 of you run up the side of the map, avoiding fights and burst into the enemy flag room as a unit. This is the quickest way to beat disorganised opposition. From the Horde perspective I'd suggest running up along the east edge of the map since the ramp up is that side. Defenders, if overwhelmed, usually respawn soon enough and far enough ahead that they get a second bite. Remember to run towards the middle when you respawn though!
10 attack I've seen this a lot in 51-60 battles. I think the idea is that this strategy beats the very common 5/5 formation - you will easily grab the opposition flag and you may be able to meet a 5 strong flag carrying group with your 10. In practice it always seems to result in both sides getting the opponents flags and then a long drawn out hunt for the flag carrier (who is always very near their own flag room waiting to drop in and win). I'm unconvinced that this beats 5/5 but it's very popular with high level players so I guess people feel it does
9 defend one stealths. Boring but very effective. Your 9 back at base will marmalise the opponents until they get frustrated enough to attack with everything. I've only actually seen this done a couple of times and it's worked both times.
How to win in CTF - Sabra - 06-13-2005
Boy oh boy, Brista! Thanks for this! I'll keep this handy till I get it down cold.
How to win in CTF - ima_nerd - 06-13-2005
Very nice class breakdown. It describes exactly what classes should be doing in Warsong Gulch.
The most important thing I've noticed in my experience is healing. I am currently 0-7 (Alliance is pretty much composed of bitchy 13 year olds on my server) but the only close match I've had was when we had a good Priest. One good Priest. Not two, one. He kept our defensive team alive and kicking and it made all the difference in the world. The most important member in a PvP party is the healer. Hands down. Without him/her, you're toast.
On a sidenote, Druid and Shaman's ability to shapeshift while carrying the flag sucks. It is virtually *impossible* to chase down a 40 Druid that has half a brain. If he has a 2 second headstart on you; you just gave up a cap. Quel dommage to Alliance as they have half as many flag runners as Horde. Not even half as Druid is one of the least populated classes and Shaman is one of the most populated classes. Yet again, I wish I had made Horde...
How to win in CTF - Gurnsey - 06-13-2005
Awesome! My comments on classes after quite a few matches:
Classes
Rogue - Better defending than attacking simply because you can wait for them to come to you. Crippling Poision is great for runners.
Druid - the best flag carriers, hands down, but also decent as a midfielder - Entangling Roots is great, and Hibernate can defend against other druids.
Hunter - Agree with everything you said ;)
Priest - Great on defense and offense - AoE fear FTW! Keep Renew on your flag carrier too.
Paladin - Not a bad flag carrier, but not fast enough even with the bubble advantage. A devestating defender though - you won't go down before the flag gets picked up, and then stun the flag carrier to delay them.
Shaman - A Shaman's snares are his/her most effective tool - learn the range of your Eathbind and you'll do well. Don't forget Purge either - you can Purge Priest's shieds (but not Paladin's bubble :( ). You probably won't do as much damage as other classes but if for some reaon it comes down to a one-on-one fight, you'll devestate casters.
Warrior - Not enough experience with them to say anything.
Mage - A horrible spell in PvE and general PvP becomes amazing here. Properly Talented, a single Blizzard can put a 7.5s-long snare on everyone in a decent area (like say, the flag room, a pack of defenders chasing your flag carrier, or a group running off with your flag). I say snare, but at 15% of normal speed, they might as well be stopped dead.
Warlock - Fear and seduce. DoT those Rogues so they don't dissappear on you. Best of all DoT a running flag carrier - every bit of damage counts when you are desperate to catch them.
How to win in CTF - Drasca - 06-13-2005
A few warlock tactics:
Enemy distruption defense with howl. Jump from up top onto your flag and howl. Howl at tunnel entrances, howl near corners as enemies come.
Felhunter: Watch the enemy healers for spell lock. Drain mana if you've got time to, and always devour that bubble of love on the run.
Succubus is nice, but felhunter owns.
One of these days I'll have a doomguard out and cripple on enemy carriers.
Summon infernal when the battle is even, and it'll scare the bejesus out of enemy priests.
Hunter / lock defense, Druid / lock offense combinations work very well, as lock fears rogues and other enemies off the hunter/druid, and Hunter can scatter while druid can heal high hp lock if on defense--or just run on offense. Lock follows druid with howl in tow.
Don't be afraid to hellfire. It'll likely be interrupted before it kills you, and if you are being pounded, you were going to die anyways.
If mages are on your team, start CoEl'ing everything. Chances are, it won't be removed, and pyroblasts, and fireblasts will start racking up damage.
If you invested in CoEx, you'll own CTF. Spam Exhaustion and watch as you win.
How to win in CTF - savaughn - 06-13-2005
Can I just say that Shamans make the most annoying defenders in the list? Earthbind totem on the flag is just HARSH.
How to win in CTF - Tal - 06-13-2005
Gurnsey,Jun 13 2005, 01:52 AM Wrote:Paladin - Not a bad flag carrier, but not fast enough even with the bubble advantage. A devestating defender though - you won't go down before the flag gets picked up, and then stun the flag carrier to delay them.I bubble I drop the flag.
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How to win in CTF - lemekim - 06-13-2005
I could add some extra tibits:
Priests - Mind vision is an alternative way of finding flag runners who are trying to hide. Targeting range is so big in CTF, that it allows you to do this, sometimes even better then Hunter/Druid tracking.
Druids - Bear form is very useful as well for flag running. If you have to fight through the other team to get to your base, it's much easier to keep the druid alive in Bear form
Warriors - they actually make good flag carriers, especially if you are running 10 man full assault, in part because they are hard to kill, and in part because trying to kill a warrior just gives them lots of rage to work with, in addition to probably giving them enrage buff. A warrior with enrage and full rage bar = world of pain.
In addition to the above, warriors also bring a few other things to the table. AOE snare in form of piercing howl can give enough room for that druid to run ahead and score. AOE fear with unlimited targets in crucial situations can make a huge difference. And Mortal Strike debuff makes healing difficult to say the least.
How to win in CTF - ima_nerd - 06-13-2005
Gurnsey,Jun 13 2005, 05:52 AM Wrote:Don't forget Purge either - you can Purge Priest's shields (but not Paladin's bubble :( ).
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I think Purge does remove Paladin's shields. I remember my Paladin friend whining about that at some point.
Paladins and Hunters are excellent defenders. 2 Paladins, 2 Hunters and a Priest is the best Alliance defense group I can think of. Two traps, plenty of healing, plenty of snares/stuns and AOE Fear to boot.
How to win in CTF - Tal - 06-13-2005
ima_nerd,Jun 13 2005, 12:26 PM Wrote:I think Purge does remove Paladin's shields. I remember my Paladin friend whining about that at some point.
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It doesn't. Nothing in the game removes Divine favor. Seal of protection MIGHT be purge-able but I would need to test it.
How to win in CTF - lemekim - 06-13-2005
Tal,Jun 13 2005, 05:13 PM Wrote:It doesn't. Nothing in the game removes Divine favor. Seal of protection MIGHT be purge-able but I would need to test it.
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Blessing of protection is Purgeable.
How to win in CTF - Tal - 06-13-2005
lemekim,Jun 13 2005, 01:31 PM Wrote:Blessing of protection is Purgeable.
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Thankee. :)
How to win in CTF - Trien - 06-14-2005
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.)
How to win in CTF - Nefera - 06-15-2005
Excellent post about CTF, I agree on most of your points, but want to expand a bit on a few. most notably the bit on mages as an offencive strike force =D
One of the more efefective flag groups I've been in contained three mages, one for the flag, and two to distract/ set off the frost trap/ wreak havok with the offence. We'd go up to the second or third story where people hardly go, target the defenders, cast ou Mana shields (left down because they draw attention) and charge in. save the frost nova for the run out, and polymorph on the way in, also have to target the earthbind totems that are usually there with fireblast. and use improved counterspell to silence a defending caster. The best part is thatthis can all be done while running full tilt, even the sheep if you have presence of mind.
On defence a frost spec mage is amazing, even with only a few points of permafrost you can run alongside the flag bearer not actually doing damage, but keepig him at a crawl untill your friends show up, or you can blink ahead and sheep him if they are not a shapeshifter.
Mages are also far more durable than most people percieve, as long as you have MP you will survive. use every trick you can to regain MP, from potions, to the conjured mana agate, I went engineering and have a minor recombobulator which gives me ~200 HP and MP. all these can extend the long run with the flag. Or long walk as it usually turns out to be.
How to win in CTF - Artega - 06-15-2005
I'll chip in with some Warrior theorycrafting. All CTF-specific experience is based off of my leet UT skillz, not Warsong Gulch -.-
My preferred ten-man setup is seven offense, three defense. The idea being that the best defense is a strong offense, but someone can slip past your death squad and steal your flag, so you want some people there to kill that particular spook :)
As for Warrior skills, it really depends on their talent builds. Each is particularly good at different things.
Protection Warriors would do very well on offense; zip in, AE fear, stun one, silence another. Stun people chasing your flag carrier and silence priests and warlocks to prevent them from getting a Fear off.
Arms Warriors would do pretty much anything very well, but would be better at defense, due to the fact that the 50% healing debuff on the enemy flag carrier would expedite their demise :)
Fury Warriors would only do well if they had their Blood Guard's boots, bringing their Intercept cooldown down to 15 seconds (vs. 25 seconds for Arms and Protection Warriors), making it pretty easy to stay with the flag runner.
How to win in CTF - Trien - 06-15-2005
The Equipment Factor
Can be a big big factor. Our lil' guild group of 60's, many who are just starting to collect their blue sets, got torn up many a time by pickup opposing groups with a few players decked out with epic gear, Quel'Serrars, whatnot. A little bit of coordination with the healing and focus firing on their end (easily done with /assist) and they mow right through us... kill off our healers before we kill theirs off, the rest fall soon after...
How to win in CTF - DarkCrown - 06-16-2005
My tiny bit of CTF strategy. Any form of protection or stealth causes the flag carrier to drop the flag. So one fun way to get the Horde to drop the flag is to have a priest mind control the flag carrier and have a pally drop blessing of protection on the Horde player as soon as the mind control takes hold.
This is lots of fun when it works.
-DC
How to win in CTF - lemekim - 06-16-2005
DarkCrown,Jun 16 2005, 03:32 PM Wrote:My tiny bit of CTF strategy. Any form of protection or stealth causes the flag carrier to drop the flag. So one fun way to get the Horde to drop the flag is to have a priest mind control the flag carrier and have a pally drop blessing of protection on the Horde player as soon as the mind control takes hold.
This is lots of fun when it works.
-DC
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And is a cheap trick as well. Why? A single engineer paladin can take the flag from the opposing team. Mindcontrol Cap (instant, nondispellable), BoP, pick up the flag. You can't stop it either (Divine shield = immune). You shouldn't rely on this a lot, as it will probably will get fixed. You might say that this is a smart use of class skills... But consider the following strategy.
This is similar to the above - catch an opponent player near the exit gates, and Mindcontrol him with a priest through the gates, so the player exits the CTF arena. This will also drop the flag as well if that player was carrying one. Again, this is completely legal use of skills, right? But it doesn't make it less cheap.
This reminds me of another bug, that allowed flag carriers to be summoned by Warlocks! Again, while it used legal class skills, the result that it produced was unintended. So it was fixed. And so I think will the above two methods as well.
How to win in CTF - Nefera - 06-20-2005
lemekim,Jun 16 2005, 10:37 AM Wrote:And is a cheap trick as well. Why? A single engineer paladin can take the flag from the opposing team. Mindcontrol Cap (instant, nondispellable), BoP, pick up the flag. You can't stop it either (Divine shield = immune). You shouldn't rely on this a lot, as it will probably will get fixed. You might say that this is a smart use of class skills... But consider the following strategy.
This is similar to the above - catch an opponent player near the exit gates, and Mindcontrol him with a priest through the gates, so the player exits the CTF arena. This will also drop the flag as well if that player was carrying one. Again, this is completely legal use of skills, right? But it doesn't make it less cheap.
This reminds me of another bug, that allowed flag carriers to be summoned by Warlocks! Again, while it used legal class skills, the result that it produced was unintended. So it was fixed. And so I think will the above two methods as well.
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What about shamens? in the level 21-30 bracket they can drop an earthbind totem, shift into their ghostwolf form with the flag, and take off at accelerated speed with being nearly invisable. My opinion is that shape shifting should cause you to drop the flag, like activating a divine shield, of mounting of going invisable. (and they're doing two out of the three with that =P)
-Nefera of Shadow Council
How to win in CTF - BoddoZerg - 06-20-2005
All very good tips. In my experience (Horde), the 7/3 O/D ratio works the best. The job of 3 people on defense is not to stop an incoming 7-10 man zerg, it is to prevent a single person from getting the flag, and to wound an incoming 3-5 man offense force.
When it comes down to it, Attack vs. Defense is basically a matter of managing attacking healers. An attack force without healers is screwed; a much smaller number of players can easily suicide the flag carrier and get the flag back. As long as an attack force contains several healers with adequate mana supply, it is very difficult to kill the flag carrier. Once their healers die or run out of mana, the flag carrier dies in short order.
So the job of a defensive force isn't really to kill all the attackers, just to kill or run OOM all their healers. Rogues, Mages, and Warriors are great at dumping DPS on healers and killing them quickly. Whereas Hunters and Priests are very good at mana draining healers, particularly Pallys/Shamans that don't have a huge mana pool.
It is very important to note that, when in an attacking group, crippling a defending player is much better than killing him. Kill him and he will respawn within seconds with full HP and Mana. Sheep or freeze him somewhere where there's no one to dispel it, and he is taken out of the battle for much longer. Drain a spellcaster's mana and he is out of the battle for an extremely long time. (granted, it is rather difficult to actually drain a defender's mana)
Although Alliance players often complain about the Horde shaman imbalance (which is indeed a -terrible- imbalance at lower levels, when ghost wolf > all), in games between well organized teams, Paladins really give the Alliance a slight edge. It is awfully hard to kill a flag carrier when there is an army of invulnerable healers keeping him alive.