Casual’s Guide to Winning BGs
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
WoW Forums -> Casual’s Guide to Winning BGs is Alliance focused for AV, but it’s otherwise pretty good. In AV, letting the other side keep at least one forward graveyard is important (or at least it used to be before 2.3 and massive zergs). For Horde I would suggest letting the Alliance have Snowfall for a maximum of chaos-creating potential - it’s not near anything critical, it’s almost exactly at the halfway point so each rezzer has to decide every time whether they want to go offense or defense, it will take them a long time to get to the battlefront again.
Due to the WoW forums eating posts on a regular basis, I am reproducing the post here.
Because I and many other members of Casual are infuriated and astounded at the staggeringly terrible level of skill and strategy displayed in the battlegrounds, I’m creating this guide as a community service.
HOW TO WIN THE BATTLEGROUNDS
This series of guides is intended to help your average pugger gain an increased understanding of strategy inside the battlegrounds so that the Alliance win rate will actually go up. Follow these instructions, internalize them, and you will start to see positive results.Warsong Gulch
The key to winning WSG is controlling mid-field. It’s not defense, it’s not rushing the flag room with all 10 people, it’s controlling the middle of the field and sticking together.The Flag - When the game begins, only one person should actually go after the flag. Ideally, a druid. You should never dedicate more than is absolutely needed to get the flag. Sending your whole team means you have lost control of mid-field. If the other team is dumb and has people defending the flag, you should be happy. This means their mid-field control is weak. Just send 1-2 people with your flag runner (preferably someone with CC) to help him get the flag and then get your ass out of there.
Offense - When the game begins, everyone except your flag runner should run off the graveyard hill and veer left. The goal here is to stop the enemy team from advancing to the flag room. If one or two sneak by, that’s okay. The idea is to break up the main force (preferably not losing anyone in the process.)
Digo’s Gladiator Tip #1: PvP is not about making the other guy die as fast as possible. It’s about controlling the other guy and not letting him use his abilities. If you have CC abilities, use them. If you can heal, do it. (This means you, Mr. LOLRetConsecrate.) If you are a paladin, for the love of christ, don’t consecrate. That breaks CC. Druids, root people and cyclone them. Do whatever you can to break up their DPS.
Defense - DON’T GUARD THE FLAG ROOM. Just keep everyone at mid-field in a big group. Keeping a few people to guard the flag is a waste of manpower and means that you will lose control of mid-field.
Mid-Field - If you lose control of mid-field, the enemy team will be able to slip multiple people past you and get the flag. Groups of 3+ flag carriers are very hard to stop. If only one or two get past and start running the flag, that’s fine, because 1 or 2 are easy to stop. Just call out where they’re headed and intercept them.
TLDR Version of How Casual Wins WSG - We control mid-field. We don’t have anyone on Defense. We have one druid or warrior run the flag.
ARATHI BASIN
The key to winning Arathi Basin is communicating where the enemy is, where they are likely to go, and fighting on the node, not on the road.The Flag Nodes - Fight on the node, not on the road. If you fight on the road or away from the flag, you are breaking up your forces and not doing anything productive. Fight near the flag so your forces will be concentrated. If you are defending a flag, it will be easier to prevent it from being capped. It only takes one hit on someone trying to cap to interrupt them. Just be a pain in the ass until more of your teammates arrive. You don’t have to kill everyone, just stop them from capping.
Strategy - This is the Casual strat:
3 to Mine
3 to Lumber Mill (usually 4 because Horde really like the Mill for some reason)
7 to Smith
1 to Stables and then whatever needs help# - After the initial rush, we send people wherever they are needed. Note that we can do this because we communicate. Even if you’re in a pug and aren’t using voice chat, use text. Tell people where the enemy is heading, where they are weak, and where they are strong. Hit them where they are weak. It’s pointless to send a bunch of people to try and cap a point that has a lot of horde guarding it.
- Controlling the smith is very important because you have quick central access to any point that needs reinforcement. If you have to choose between controlling the smith and the mine/mill, choose the smith.
- Assist your teammates, don’t break CC, and COMMUNICATE.
- If you see that only one person is capping one of your flags, don’t send your whole team to re-cap it. Just send the bare minimum.
This all sounds like common sense, but if everyone had it, I wouldn’t be writing this post.
EYE OF THE STORM
The more towers you control, the more points you earn per flag capture.
The Opening Rush-
* - Only 1 person should head to each of the towers closest to your starting base. You only need one on each tower for a cap.
- Everyone else should head toward one of the enemy towers and completely overwhelm it. Once you’ve killed everyone there, cap it, and then push to the last remaining tower.
- If enemies slip past and try to cap the towers on your side of the field, send only enough reinforcements as necessary to hold them, and then get your ass back to the main group.
- Do not go for the flag during the opening rush. It’s not worth it at this point. It’s more important to secure the towers and break up the enemy opening rush.
Capturing the Flag-
* Once you have 2-3 towers, then you should start worrying about taking the flag.
Hunters or druids are usually best for flag running and defense.
Do NOT overcommit to the bridge. If you see 2-3 people already there, leave. Go help cap towers instead. 5-6 people on the bridge is a waste of manpower, and probably means that you are losing the towers.
A Word About Grouping
SMART: When you rez, you wait for other people before attacking. You move in a group. You assist each other. You use CC. You heal.
STUPID: You run headlong off into battle the moment you rez, eager for glorious battle. Unfortunately, you will die, wasting your team’s valuable manpower and sacrificing any chance your team had at victory.
TLDR Version: Do not run around solo. Stick together. Towers are more important than the flag. You only need 1-2 people on the bridge. Fighting over the flag is dumb. Only take it when you have a good opportunity.
Alterac Valley
Since patch 2.3 there are two good ways to win this BG:1. The Oldschool Rush - This is probably your best bet, as it requires less coordination.
2. Hold and Control the Towers - This is for smart people only who like earning lots of honor, or games with a good number of premades.The Oldschool Rush-
This strat relies on speed and killing Drek’thar as fast as possible.1. Skip Galvanger.
2. Capture Iceblood Tower (the tower next to Galvanger)
3. Capture Iceblood Graveyard and leave a couple people to hold it. If you don’t do this, people who die go all the way back to Stormpike.
4. Capture Tower Point and leave one or two people to hold it.
5. Ignore Frostwolf Graveyard.
6. Capture the Frostwolf Towers and have one or two people hold them.
7. Capture the relief hut and hold it.
8. EVERYONE in and kill Drek’thar. DO NOT LEASH HIM BY RUNNING OUT OF THE ROOM. JUST STAY IN THERE IF YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.
Note: even if you follow this strat and don’t kill Drek’thar before the Horde kills Vandarr, at least the game is over quickly, which means more honor per hour.
The Hold and Control Strat -
This strat is harder, but earns more honor, and can take a bit longer. I only recommend this is you queued up at the same time with a bunch of friends so that your team has some semblance of coordination.Remember: CAPPING TOWERS MEANS THE OTHER TEAM LOSES 50 TICKETS. You can win by capping all the towers on the map. This earns the most honor.
* 1. On the opening rush, about 10 people should protect Balinda. You only need to do this for a minute or two to break up the Horde’s initial rush. If you can stop them, they’ll give up after a minute or two, and you can then move along. If they don’t kill her during this initial rush, they probably never will.
2. Everyone else should move ahead and start capping the Towers. Only 15 or so are needed to kill Galvanger, but it is worth it.
3. Start taking all the towers on the map and hold them. Again, HOLD THEM.
4. Leave about 10 people on Defense to prevent the horde from taking the towers in your base. If you can hold these towers, you will probably win.
5. Leave the Horde a forward graveyard (stonehearth is best). If they rez back near their base, it will break up your offense. Again, LET THE HORDE HAVE STONEHEARTH GRAVEYARD.
This strat takes about 20 minutes if done properly, but earns over 1k honor.
(via WoWInsider )