What Is So Hard About BG Strategy?

Battlegrounds…BGs…"Horde always wins"…"Allies always win"

If you live on a PvE server (as I do), chances are BGs are your first introduction to organized PvP in World of Warcraft. Oh sure, I did the occasional defense of Ashenvale when the Horde would stream in from the Barrens, laying waste to Astranaar and Auberdine, occasionally hopping a boat to Darnassus.

Or, before Burning Crusade came out, the huge battles outside Southshore: It wasn’t enough the Horde would bring massive numbers to bear, but the undead NPCs would spawn too!

But I did that more as a reaction to events, and often, as a 20- or 30-something against a bunch of Level 50-60 Horde, I generally just griped about having to wait for a quest-giver or flight master to respawn.

But in the past couple weeks (welcome to the 21st Century, Kes!), I’ve started playing in BGs (after years and years of eschewing—in fact, railing against—PvP). And if you’ve read my articles from the past couple weeks, you know I’m having a blast. Most of the time. 

I don’t expect to win every time; I’d be happy with a 50-50 split. One of the best BGs I have been in was basically a turtle in Alterac Valley. But there was a minimum of grousing, and a sense of urgency among all the Alliance players to win the battleground. We did, finally: Reducing the Horde to 0 reinforcements with only 10 left on our side. Even a loss would not have ruined the fun and excitement of that fight. (Well, maybe just a little bit.)

In fact, I’d say my record in BGs (except for Warsong Gulch) is around .500. It might even be a little higher, especially in Eye of the Storm and, believe it or not, Alterac Valley. In AV yesterday, for instance, I had five wins against three losses. But those losses were…spectacular. Talk about watching a train wreck in slow motion! Too slow, in fact. While I (unlike many, many others) never typed it in BG chat, I kept saying to myself, "Oh please let this just END!!"

I’ve had a couple AV battles that lasted well under 10 minutes; always a win for Alliance. We’ve never been defeated that quickly by the Horde. I suspect that’s because the Horde actually employ a better strategy, but don’t execute it quickly or well enough. I confess, I don’t really know enough about the AV map to be able to analyze in detail what works and what doesn’t. But I sure do know what has worked in groups I’ve been in.

Likewise, I have similar thoughts about AB and EoTS. Unfortunately, I just "don’t get" WSG. Yes, I know the objective; in fact, WSG is, in theory, the easiest of the BGs to learn. Now it could be because my PvP characters are undergeared (and not well-skilled in PvP tactics), but I have yet to feel at all comfortable there. If I were a Druid, sure: Go to Horde flag room. Grab flag. Run like hell and hope my defenders are halfway decent.

So enough rambling: What’s the secret to winning BGs? Over at Priestly Endeavors, Kirk did a great analysis of Eye of the Storm with some theorycrafting thrown in. If you have a premade for EoTS and run it regularly, read Kirk’s article and follow his recommendations. Even without a premade, his ideas should work. I am not the theorycrafter Kirk is, but I do have more than a little bit of military experience, especially in the strategic plans area. (Of course, even the best plans go to hell in a handbasket as soon as the fighting starts!)

With respect to WSG, BigRedKitty discussed that BG recently. Read about the "pain train." Give it a shot; it can’t lose any worse than whatever strategies I’ve experienced. Also, Jezrael at DPS: We Deliver talked about the hunter goodness to be had in WSG. Excellent tips, and I’m (almost) looking forward to a return there with Talonis.

Here then are my quick’n'dirty tips on how to win in AB, AV, and EoTs:

Arathi Basin: Game ends when one side amasses 2000 points.

There are five bases in AB: The Stables (ST), Gold Mine (GM), Lumber Mill (LM), Blacksmith (BS), and Farm (FM). I always type out "Mine" and "Farm" because I typoed "GM" and "FM"—not good in a close fight. Stables is a "gimme" for Alliance: The starting place is 100 yards away. It only takes one person to capture ("cap") a base, but more to hold it. So, Stable is an easy cap for Alliance. (Similarly, the Farm is for Horde.) The next closest bases for Alliance are GM and LM.

Here’s a great tip I got from Gwaendar at Altitis another blogger (and forgot to tag the article, so if you recognize this, let me know so I can give proper credit!): At the 30-second warning, make the following announcement (if no one else has): "Group 1 – GM; Group 2 – LM; Group 3 – Stables. Call incs, including how many. Remember, three bases and we win!" Generally, it only takes a little bit of initiative, or leadership, to turn 15 individuals into a team. Now you can’t just cap your bases and rest on your laurels, because the Horde do NOT go quietly (unlike Alliance, who, it seems, have the biggest bunch of crybabies on the planet, I’m sad to say). However, it’s a lot easier to defend territory than it is to retake it. Cap and defend. That’s it.

Communication is key. 

Alterac Valley: Too much QQ and not enough PewPew.

Are you like me? Have a love/hate relationship with AV (and those who play there)? One thing to keep in mind is there are two types of BG currency: Honor, and Marks of Honor. Honor comes from killing bad guys (and gals), from winning (you get less for losing), from attaining objectives. Marks of Honor come from playing: You get one for showing up; you get three for winning. There are no draws. (Now wouldn’t that be interesting?? OMG the drama!)

I swear, I really need to turn off BG chat once the fight starts. Some of the idiocy is beyond belief. Or maybe I’ll just do some screen caps for another article. Nah…I like you people better than that.

Okay, the objective here is to reduce the other side’s resources ("reinforcements") and/or kill their General. Killing their general, Drek’Thar, is a lot easier Alliance controls more resources. But the keys are the East and West Frost Wolf Towers, and the Frost Wolf Relief Hut (no, it’s not a Port-a-Pottie!).

At worst, if Alliance controls the RH, the closest Horde graveyard is the Frost Wolf GY. "Ahh, then let’s cap the FWGY!" NO NO NO NO NO!!! NOT until Alliance has the RH!!! Why? Because if we (Alliance) own FWGY but not RH, the Horde rezzing turns into a zerg: Every time we kill one, he respawns right on top of us! This is NOT good strat, and an even worse tactic. What happens now, in most cases, is this:

Yeah, the classic turtle. Basically a long battle of attrition. Who can kill more of the enemy fastest? Of course, if Horde are attacking the Alliance general, Vanndar Stormpike (Vann), while successfully turtling in Frost Wolf, we are screwed.

However, I think I’ve only lost two AV fights because of Vann getting killed. Usually, it’s because we keep throwing ourselves against the Horde defense in FW, and die in large numbers. (Remember what I said above: Defending is easier than attacking, all other things being equal.)

So here’s the plan: Groups 1 and 2 attack Galv then push to RH; groups 3-6 push to Frost Wolf and take the relief hut. Groups 7 and 8 defend Dun Baldar. Simple, huh? It is if the Horde only leave two or three groups to defend FW. In any case, leave the FW graveyard ALONE, even if there’s no one there but NPCs to defend it, until after the RH is secured. There are always a few folks who’ll cap the Iceblood and Snowfall graveyards; this is good.

Once RH is Alliance-controlled, rush Drek. And don’t stand around waiting for someone to start fighting: I lost two fights in a row because everyone (yeah, me too) was waiting for…something. I’ve no idea what, and neither, it seems, did anyone else. Talk about frustrating! A couple people need to take out his dogs; they only respawn if Drek resets, which you aren’t going to allow to happen. Right?

Following this strategy, I’ve been on a winning team that had Drek down in 7 and 12 minutes. (Yes, 7: s-e-v-e-n.) Not a ton of extra honor, but we all got three Honor Marks.

Eye of the Storm: 2000 points, and flag-running too!

EoTS may be my favorite right now, perhaps because you can see almost the entire battlefield from any point on the map. It can also be very frustrating when people are doing silly stuff. Take this morning: I didn’t want to run the WSG daily, but I had time before leaving for work to hit EoTS once. Bleh. We capped three towers early, then started giving them up because, it seemed, everyone and his cousin wanted to run flags (hell, I ran one myself). We had five Druids, all of whom, I think, wanted to score five flags each. Well guess what? If you’re down 1200 – 800 and Horde has three towers, you can run flags all day and still lose. Badly. But if you have three towers, you can come back to win. Oh, yes, you can!

Group 1: Blood Elf Tower. Group 2: Fel Reaver Ruins. Group 3: Mage Tower and Dranei Ruins. Cap three then run flags. Call out incoming red dots: where and how many. If DR has three horde inc, run the flag to MT, not DR. If the Horde have three towers, stop running the damn flag till we get a tower back!

EoTS is easy; it has to be, given the number of times I’ve won there (easily 2/3). Just play smart. 

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So there you have it: Kestrel’s strat-in-a-nutshell. Obviously, there is a lot more to consistently winning in BGs than what I’ve outlined. But from my limited experience, and having won more than I’ve lost, the strats I’ve outlined have been the ones that work. But the most important aspect of any successful BG venture is to COMMUNICATE!!

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