06-09-2005, 07:39 AM
Whew! A marathon hour and a half first-day Capture-the-Flag match involving The Offenders + others vs a group of 10 Exiled players occured Tuesday. Man, that was an awesome match.
The Offenders group started the afternoon as a group of 10 who tried to get into the same Warsong Gulch instance. After an hour of waiting for the game to actually let us into an instance, though, we lost several members and ended up breaking up into a smaller group of five, figuring it'd be easier to get in with five than ten people.
We got in a few matches against pickup groups (with five pickup players on our own side of course) and had some fun. For the most part, we dominated the other side, because it's hard for a pickup group to beat a coordinated group, even if it's only half the group that's voice coordinated. (To be fair, too, we had a couple of flags taken against us despite this advantage). Along the way, we picked up a non-guild warrior, Maldazzar, who sometimes parties with us and who joined us on teamspeak. The six of us then joined another match, where we and the four pickup players annihilated the totally disorganized pickup alliance group. (I'm not bragging here -- that particular group of Alliance was just awful).
Since that match ended so quickly and the four pickup players seemed nice and willing to work with us, we figured we'd try once again to get into a CTF battle with ten people. The stipulation was that if the game didn't let us into an instance in two minutes, then we'd break up and go our separate ways. To our surprise, however, the game put us into an instance almost immediately. Cragb mentioned his theory that the game tries to match teams of similar numbers together. That is, if you try to get into an instance with a group of ten, the game will try to match you up against a group of ten on the opposing side. There may be something to this theory, because when we entered the instance and checked the battleground roster, we found our opponents to be:
Copykitty, Memory, Kutsuki, Pjkitten, Av, Canth...
Oh, ho! I recognized quite a few of those names from the Kargath - Searing Gorge - Blackrock Mountain battlezone. This was 10 Exiled, the largest Alliance guild on the server, and these names were some of their more experienced PvPers, too. You could bet that they were all on teamspeak or Ventrillo. What's more, we knew from IRC that this group was 7-0 coming into this battle, so we knew that they were already experienced with how Warsong Gulch worked and with working with one another. Meanwhile, we're sitting there with only six people on teamspeak and without having really worked with the other four people in our raid. This was going to be tough.
Our typical strategy when we grouped with pickup players was to play in five-man zones. One five-man group would go on offense, trying to capture the opponent's flag, while the other five-man group would play a zone defense in the open area in front of our base. Of course, if a member of the offence gets the flag to the open field, the defenders can certainly move in to help, but generally we split the raids evenly into offensive and defensive groups.
However, the first sign that this wasn't going to be a normal CTF run was when we realized we had to abandon our initial plan almost immediately. When we poured into the open field, we saw a tight mass of eight alliance players, approaching like a barreling freight train. The group had two priests, two paladins, two mages, a warrior, and a druid who were cross healing, sheeping, and coordinating attacks. There was no way we could leave the base defense up to a simple party of five -- especially a party of five pickup players who had never worked with each other before. Our offensive team dismounted, and a long tough battle ensued for supremacy of the open field. For a while, both sides ignored the flags altogether and just PvP'd like we were meeting in Searing Gorge. At first, I thought the Alliance was going to punch through, because of their superiority of healing power, but gradually after deaths on both sides, the Alliance charge was turned aside and the Horde gained the upper hand.
We gained the upper hand, but we couldn't do much with our advantage. Our already weakened group charged the Alliance base, but with rezed Alliance players joining the two Alliance defenders, our own charge was turned aside. The battle went back and forth, back and forth. The fights were even and tough. Both sides got each other's flags multiple times, but most of the time the flag carriers were taken down before reaching their home base. However, due to some good coordination and luck, the Horde managed to twice capture the Alliance flag. So after about 20 minutes, the score was 2-0, and we were feeling pretty good.
But then, things broke down. I can't say exactly all that happened, but our coordination lapsed. I think we had a few deaths when trying to unsuccessfully get the Alliance flag back to our base. The Alliance then formed up their train and pushed inside the Horde base. The undermanned defenders then panicking and rushed the Alliance force in singles and pairs that were summarily wiped. The Alliance got an easy flag. Then, not long after, the Alliance again found our team spread out too thin and they quickly evened the score. Roughly guessing, I would say the score turned 2-2 at about the thirty minute mark (possibly the 45 minute mark, though, as I wasn't watching the time).
We then told everyone on the Horde side to stop what they were doing and get back to the area in front of our home base to group up and get organized again. We had to hunker down. The Alliance freight train came again and this time we were ready for them. Barely. They still managed to get inside our base and get the flag, but we killed the flag bearer and got our flag back. This was a sign of things to come, as we were forced to wage a largely defensive war against constant onslaughts from the Alliance. First, their warrior Av, who seemed to be their preferred flag carrier, would get the flag and after great effort, we'd finally bring him down and return our flag to the base. But then a few moments later, their druid would grab the flag and exit a different direction and we'd have to chase her down. Then a mage would grab the flag and we'd chase her down. We managed to launch some excursions of our own to the Alliance base, but the Alliance hunter and warrior who were stationed there did a good job of defending against or at least delaying any small parties we sent up there. (The hunter would place a frost trap at the flag). We made a few good attempts, but botched coordination on our part and good defense on the Alliance part resulted in us rarely getting the Alliance flag even out to the open field much less back to our base. Meanwhile, the Alliance kept getting multiple attempts on the Horde flag. We kept up the defensive struggle for 45 intense minutes, but it seemed inevitable that at some point, our guard would drop and the match would be lost.
But then, one time that the "train" came, we saw something strange. Kutsuki was charging around, attacking people. Kutsuki was the warrior who had been defending the Alliance flag, you see, and sure enough in the back of the group was the Alliance hunter. On teamspeak, we chatted about this and tried to get an Alliance head count. It seemed like the Alliance was trying a full team rush, and we relayed this thought to the raid channel. The pickup druid in our party said he'd check out the Alliance flag just in case, while the rest of us settled in to meet the coming rush.
The Alliance had been able to breach the interior of the Horde fortress many times with just eight players and with ten players, they were cutting through the defense like a knife through butter. I spent most of the initial surge in sheep form, and since I was the Horde's only priest, our raid had no one to dispel them and had to make due with the heals of only one shaman and one druid. We fought hard, but the Alliance pushed through and Av grabbed the flag and started running back down the tunnel toward the open field. Meanwhile, every Horde defender did everything in his or her power to stun, snare, or damage him. Frost nova, entangling roots, fear, Very Sticky Glue, you name it was used to slow him down. At least a half dozen times we had him under 10% health, but then the Alliance would come back with a Desperate Prayer or just a good series of heals to bring him back to full health. Av slowly, ever so slowly, made his way across the field. Meanwhile, Horde players would die to Alliance escorts, rez at the graveyard, mount up, catch up to the party, and snare and pound Av all over again. Finally, at the mouth of the entrance tunnel to the Alliance stronghold, when all hope seemed to be lost, Av finally was taken down and the Horde flag was restored.
But what about the druid who checked on the Alliance flag? He got to the flag chamber and found it completely undefended. So, he picked up the Alliance flag and hid in one of the houses on the hill. This was smart, because if he had emerged from the Alliance fortress, he would've been easily spotted and killed on his way back. So he hid in that house, waiting for the Alliance players to get out of position or when an escort could be arranged for him. When Av died, his moment had come. He screamed, "Come to me now!" That moment was like an interception in football. Suddenly, the defenders turned into a wall of blockers. The Horde used Frost Nova, fear, stuns, anything to form a screen for our flag carrier. The Alliance players were already beat up and exhausted from their attempt to escort Av back to their base, and they were totally out of position. The druid raced out of the house in travel form, broke into the open field, and took a straight shot back to the Horde base practically unmolested. The 3-2 victory for the Horde was complete!
The Offenders group started the afternoon as a group of 10 who tried to get into the same Warsong Gulch instance. After an hour of waiting for the game to actually let us into an instance, though, we lost several members and ended up breaking up into a smaller group of five, figuring it'd be easier to get in with five than ten people.
We got in a few matches against pickup groups (with five pickup players on our own side of course) and had some fun. For the most part, we dominated the other side, because it's hard for a pickup group to beat a coordinated group, even if it's only half the group that's voice coordinated. (To be fair, too, we had a couple of flags taken against us despite this advantage). Along the way, we picked up a non-guild warrior, Maldazzar, who sometimes parties with us and who joined us on teamspeak. The six of us then joined another match, where we and the four pickup players annihilated the totally disorganized pickup alliance group. (I'm not bragging here -- that particular group of Alliance was just awful).
Since that match ended so quickly and the four pickup players seemed nice and willing to work with us, we figured we'd try once again to get into a CTF battle with ten people. The stipulation was that if the game didn't let us into an instance in two minutes, then we'd break up and go our separate ways. To our surprise, however, the game put us into an instance almost immediately. Cragb mentioned his theory that the game tries to match teams of similar numbers together. That is, if you try to get into an instance with a group of ten, the game will try to match you up against a group of ten on the opposing side. There may be something to this theory, because when we entered the instance and checked the battleground roster, we found our opponents to be:
Copykitty, Memory, Kutsuki, Pjkitten, Av, Canth...
Oh, ho! I recognized quite a few of those names from the Kargath - Searing Gorge - Blackrock Mountain battlezone. This was 10 Exiled, the largest Alliance guild on the server, and these names were some of their more experienced PvPers, too. You could bet that they were all on teamspeak or Ventrillo. What's more, we knew from IRC that this group was 7-0 coming into this battle, so we knew that they were already experienced with how Warsong Gulch worked and with working with one another. Meanwhile, we're sitting there with only six people on teamspeak and without having really worked with the other four people in our raid. This was going to be tough.
Our typical strategy when we grouped with pickup players was to play in five-man zones. One five-man group would go on offense, trying to capture the opponent's flag, while the other five-man group would play a zone defense in the open area in front of our base. Of course, if a member of the offence gets the flag to the open field, the defenders can certainly move in to help, but generally we split the raids evenly into offensive and defensive groups.
However, the first sign that this wasn't going to be a normal CTF run was when we realized we had to abandon our initial plan almost immediately. When we poured into the open field, we saw a tight mass of eight alliance players, approaching like a barreling freight train. The group had two priests, two paladins, two mages, a warrior, and a druid who were cross healing, sheeping, and coordinating attacks. There was no way we could leave the base defense up to a simple party of five -- especially a party of five pickup players who had never worked with each other before. Our offensive team dismounted, and a long tough battle ensued for supremacy of the open field. For a while, both sides ignored the flags altogether and just PvP'd like we were meeting in Searing Gorge. At first, I thought the Alliance was going to punch through, because of their superiority of healing power, but gradually after deaths on both sides, the Alliance charge was turned aside and the Horde gained the upper hand.
We gained the upper hand, but we couldn't do much with our advantage. Our already weakened group charged the Alliance base, but with rezed Alliance players joining the two Alliance defenders, our own charge was turned aside. The battle went back and forth, back and forth. The fights were even and tough. Both sides got each other's flags multiple times, but most of the time the flag carriers were taken down before reaching their home base. However, due to some good coordination and luck, the Horde managed to twice capture the Alliance flag. So after about 20 minutes, the score was 2-0, and we were feeling pretty good.
But then, things broke down. I can't say exactly all that happened, but our coordination lapsed. I think we had a few deaths when trying to unsuccessfully get the Alliance flag back to our base. The Alliance then formed up their train and pushed inside the Horde base. The undermanned defenders then panicking and rushed the Alliance force in singles and pairs that were summarily wiped. The Alliance got an easy flag. Then, not long after, the Alliance again found our team spread out too thin and they quickly evened the score. Roughly guessing, I would say the score turned 2-2 at about the thirty minute mark (possibly the 45 minute mark, though, as I wasn't watching the time).
We then told everyone on the Horde side to stop what they were doing and get back to the area in front of our home base to group up and get organized again. We had to hunker down. The Alliance freight train came again and this time we were ready for them. Barely. They still managed to get inside our base and get the flag, but we killed the flag bearer and got our flag back. This was a sign of things to come, as we were forced to wage a largely defensive war against constant onslaughts from the Alliance. First, their warrior Av, who seemed to be their preferred flag carrier, would get the flag and after great effort, we'd finally bring him down and return our flag to the base. But then a few moments later, their druid would grab the flag and exit a different direction and we'd have to chase her down. Then a mage would grab the flag and we'd chase her down. We managed to launch some excursions of our own to the Alliance base, but the Alliance hunter and warrior who were stationed there did a good job of defending against or at least delaying any small parties we sent up there. (The hunter would place a frost trap at the flag). We made a few good attempts, but botched coordination on our part and good defense on the Alliance part resulted in us rarely getting the Alliance flag even out to the open field much less back to our base. Meanwhile, the Alliance kept getting multiple attempts on the Horde flag. We kept up the defensive struggle for 45 intense minutes, but it seemed inevitable that at some point, our guard would drop and the match would be lost.
But then, one time that the "train" came, we saw something strange. Kutsuki was charging around, attacking people. Kutsuki was the warrior who had been defending the Alliance flag, you see, and sure enough in the back of the group was the Alliance hunter. On teamspeak, we chatted about this and tried to get an Alliance head count. It seemed like the Alliance was trying a full team rush, and we relayed this thought to the raid channel. The pickup druid in our party said he'd check out the Alliance flag just in case, while the rest of us settled in to meet the coming rush.
The Alliance had been able to breach the interior of the Horde fortress many times with just eight players and with ten players, they were cutting through the defense like a knife through butter. I spent most of the initial surge in sheep form, and since I was the Horde's only priest, our raid had no one to dispel them and had to make due with the heals of only one shaman and one druid. We fought hard, but the Alliance pushed through and Av grabbed the flag and started running back down the tunnel toward the open field. Meanwhile, every Horde defender did everything in his or her power to stun, snare, or damage him. Frost nova, entangling roots, fear, Very Sticky Glue, you name it was used to slow him down. At least a half dozen times we had him under 10% health, but then the Alliance would come back with a Desperate Prayer or just a good series of heals to bring him back to full health. Av slowly, ever so slowly, made his way across the field. Meanwhile, Horde players would die to Alliance escorts, rez at the graveyard, mount up, catch up to the party, and snare and pound Av all over again. Finally, at the mouth of the entrance tunnel to the Alliance stronghold, when all hope seemed to be lost, Av finally was taken down and the Horde flag was restored.
But what about the druid who checked on the Alliance flag? He got to the flag chamber and found it completely undefended. So, he picked up the Alliance flag and hid in one of the houses on the hill. This was smart, because if he had emerged from the Alliance fortress, he would've been easily spotted and killed on his way back. So he hid in that house, waiting for the Alliance players to get out of position or when an escort could be arranged for him. When Av died, his moment had come. He screamed, "Come to me now!" That moment was like an interception in football. Suddenly, the defenders turned into a wall of blockers. The Horde used Frost Nova, fear, stuns, anything to form a screen for our flag carrier. The Alliance players were already beat up and exhausted from their attempt to escort Av back to their base, and they were totally out of position. The druid raced out of the house in travel form, broke into the open field, and took a straight shot back to the Horde base practically unmolested. The 3-2 victory for the Horde was complete!
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