Battleground Strategies

Last night I ran a few battlegrounds, in an effort to get Alamein a new helm for tanking. Shandris is in the Emberstorm battlegroup, which has a very consistent breakdown: Alliance win Alterac Valley about 75-80%, win Eye of the Storm maybe 40-50%, and win Arathi Basin about 10% of the time. (I know nothing about Warsong Gulch; I've never enjoyed running that.)

I'm collecting some data about what that means for me in terms of honor per minute. As I try for new gear I want to be as efficient as possible. But aside from that I'd rather play the battlegrounds that I enjoy, and that's usually AV and AB. I did a good chunk of both last night and I have a few thoughts on strategy.

The tough thing about losing a battleground consistently is that it never gets any better. Oh, on a battleground holiday weekend you'll get some quality premades and win something closer to 50%. But from what I've seen, the battleground results are very consistent.

The biggest reason for this is that battleground strategies are very organic and depend on everyone independently deciding to do the same thing. It's hard enough to get a PUG to even start with a very simple strategy; once some chaos is in the mix it's almost impossible to get them to regroup and adjust. This leads to reinforcing whatever strategies are norms for the battlegroup — whether they work or not.

Losing breeds chaos. Dying leads to rezzing, possibly at a graveyard far from where you were fighting. More deaths mean more scattered players who are still trying to figure out where they are, let alone what the group should try to do. Players lose cohesion and start running around as individuals instead of groups. As the game gets farther and farther from success, players either give up, or decide to bag the game itself and go for honor killings regardless of strategy.

That said, there is some evolution over time. Players see something that works a bit better and start trying to do it more. Players aren't stupid! They're just struggling to figure out what to do, in the absence of any coordination or instruction. I've seen a couple adjustments that could be made for more success.

Arathi Basin

Alliance on Emberstorm lose AB. Almost all the time. The biggest problem is that Alliance can't adjust after the initial rush. We can pretty consistently take three nodes at the start of a game, but no matter how we defend, one will be lost, and then we can never get ahead again. A good match will be 2-2 or 3-2 for most of the match, with a final score around 2000-1650. A bad match will stay between 3-1 and 4-1 until it's over at around 2000-1100. (At least these are quicker.)

The toughest part is getting squads of people formed up and attacking in groups. It's a lot easier to defend than to attack, and players need to attack in numbers. But instead everyone goes their own way, and attacks are in twos and threes.

There's no easy way to change this behavior; it involves clear leadership and good useful communication. Both are in short supply. But there's a key strategic habit that puts the Alliance at a disadvantage. Usually at the start, Alliance will send one group to the Mine and one to Lumber Mill, conceding the Blacksmith node. The Horde always send numbers to BS; it's much easier to take the other nodes.

But that's setting up for a loss. Blacksmith is unbelievably key: it holds the middle of the map. If you have a group there, you can send reinforcements to a node under attack, or send a raiding party to assail a vulnerable node. When players die and rez at BS, they can get back into the fight a lot faster too.

So: when you're setting initial strategy, try to get one party to go for BS. Send another to either Mine or LM, and keep 3 back at the Stables. Ideal would be 7 to BS, 5 to Mine or LM (change it up), and 3 at Stables. It won't win every round... but it's a much better start.

Alterac Valley

AV has been a different story for Alliance. We used to win somewhere north of 80%, but lately strategies have adjusted and the Horde are winning a lot more. Now it's still an Alliance advantage, but the last couple weeks it's probably down to about 65 or 70% at best.

Two correlated developments are causing this. First, the Alliance has built a consensus to zerg past FWGY and hit RH. Second, the Horde has decided to play defense.

The zerg to RH is a result of how difficult it can be to take RH if the Horde dies early and often. The RH graveyard is very close to the flag (same for Aid Station and Alliance, I believe) so it's really difficult to take if it's defended in strength. It's much easier if you get there quickly, so why not do it first?

The problem is that by skipping FWGY, you're leaving a pocket of Horde strength in your rear. This does two things. First, it makes it tougher to hold IBT and TP until they burn. Second, it ensures a steady stream of Horde going into Frostwolf. In a really bad game, they'll retake RH. More commonly, we'll end up with 3-5 Horde in Drek's keep. When they're smart, these include quite a few priests and warlocks, who fear the living daylights out of the whole raid. It's really tough to take down Drek under those conditions. If the Horde holds IBT and TP too — with their warmasters alive in the keep — that makes it nearly impossible.

The Horde is still not great at taking down Van. That means that the games usually result in a war of attrition, with a race to see who can kill more of the other side. If the Alliance fights in the keep too much, then Drek slaughters us, and reduces our reinforcements quickly. Often, the Horde on offense will do the same thing, and we're more likely than them to win. Still, it becomes more of a crapshoot.

So the key is to take FWGY. The ideal approach is to split into two groups as the offense gets south. One can attack FWGY while the other rushes to RH. Hit both at the same time and you can take them easily. Then it's just a matter of setting up the offense, defending the towers, and getting a good win.

If that doesn't happen, you'll have to regroup which is harder. Usually this means there's a crowd waiting outside Drek's keep. Try to organize a strong party of 5-7 players to go after FWGY. It will be defended and you'll have to deal with rezzers coming back from the graveyard. But a good effort will see the graveyard fall, which can really get the Horde off your back. If you need to, keep the party going north to take TP and IBT; it makes Drek easier and it gets you more honor.

End of the Great Hold

Lots of different things going on this weekend. We knew this would probably be the last weekend of holding at 39, with some hope that Firegrin would level up 40 with the rest of us. So that meant either battleground, crafting, or alts for the rest of us. For Alamein, I was most interested to get her the [Highlander's Lizardhide Boots] as a battleground reward.

Friday night then was a battleground night for us. I think I did about five battles, at some times with our whole crowd. And, for the first time, I was on a winning team in the BG. It was quite close — I believe the Horde had about 1850 points when we crested 2000 — but fairly solid for that. The first half of the match was pretty balanced, with both sides holding 2 nodes and fighting over a third here or there. The second half saw the Alliance grab that third node, and mount assaults on others. So we spent a lot of time at either 3-1 or 3-2. So that gave us a solid lead that we nicely held on to.

I had a rather good game there, as did quite a few people. I think I spent most of the time near the lumber mill, with one or two others. (I did write down one name, I'll look it up later in the day. But I do remember his "For FRODO!" yells.) Some of the early attacks got up near the mill itself, but most of the second half was fought near the crossroads below. The sight lines from the lumber mill are great, and allow you to see what's going on at the blacksmith and the farm. It's nice when you're able to control the approaches rather than fighting desperate battles at the node itself.

That battle also marked the end of the Great Hold. I had flown to Refuge Point to buy rations, and joined the group there. Wyrmm happened to notice that he'd received a quest there, which he could complete, and those few points pushed him over 40. I've never heard someone so disappointed to ding a level. Seeing Wyrmm jump up pushed Eric over the edge, so he brought Cargarios to 40 on Saturday. Then last night, I took Alamein up to 40. Wyrmm's already at 41. Firegrin is still at 37, so he didn't make it all the way. But at least it's better than the 5-level gap we had before.

Last night I played two more Arathi Basin battles to get my my 20 honor marks for the boots. And these were the complete opposite spectrum; I've never played in such lopsided battles. The Alliance side were normal pick-up groups; I'm not sure if the Horde were a premade team or not but they were definitely much more aware of what they needed to do. It was sad how quickly they were able to bottle the Alliance up at the stables, and before long they were fighting us right in the graveyard of Trollbane Hall. When one team has all five nodes, well, the game finishes very quickly. The second game went even quicker, mostly because I joined in halfway through. I suspect that many of the Alliance had bailed out. It was 3-2 when I joined but complete chaos for the Alliance, and once again we were fighting out of our graveyard. A rather disheartening experience.

Still, I got my last two marks and flew to Refuge Point to buy the boots. Sweet!

The other thing I did on Sunday was pick up the Wild Leatherworking quests. The quests themselves are easy enough, but the hard part is getting materials. I think it comes to 64 thick leather, which is a lot of grinding, not to mention the 22 turtle scales needed. I took Alamein to Dustwallow Marsh last night to hunt for the turtles; it was while grinding them that she dinged 40. She's still short on both scales and leather, so it's going to take a little while.

A fun weekend though, with promises of more to come. I believe a trip to Razorfen Downs is in order...

A Trip to Arathi Basin

Run to the gate. Watch the other Allies come in. Buff up everyone with Mark of the Wild. Start to drink. Notice that I forgot to buff myself. Also put on Omen of Clarity. Stand, buff, and drink again.

30 seconds.

Watch /bg channel for a plan. See no plan. "/bg strategy?" Wait. Finally see a message: "G1 to mine, G2 stable, G3 LM, HOLD YOUR POSITION, STAY WITH YOUR GROUP and we can win this thing!!!" (Yeah, that'll happen.) Type "g1 mine, check".

Horn sounds and gate opens. Pop into cheetah form and run for mine. Take wrong turn and start heading for blacksmith. Cut across and rejoin group, which is amazingly five at this point. Watch three people trying to take flag, decide to scout up the road a bit. Get to top of hill and see several Horde massing. Try to type "inc mine from farm" at the same time as switching to normal form. Struggle through it at the same time as a hunter's pet shows up. Select hunter and hit Moonfire, then try for Wrath. Watch my cast bar jiggle back and forth as I take shots from two hunters.

Realize that scouting was a bad idea. Die.

Rez at mine graveyard. See fighting around mine and jump in with a couple quick buffs. See a Tauren warrior running amok. Hit with Entangling Roots and smile as he gets double-teamed and killed. Try to find next Horde. Get backstabbed by rogue and stunlocked. Fortunately teammate tackles rogue and I break free. Hit him with Moonfire and then Roots. Realize I'm getting fire from hunter again, duck around building. Select other hunter and start Starfire cast. Finish the cast unmolested and watch a nice crit on the spell. Now taking fire again, try to run but see hunter die just before me.

See two allies leave battleground.

Rez again at mine. Battle seems to be over with two allies left at mine. Heal both up quickly. Quick glance at map, see fighting at both stables and lumber mill. (Thanks, Cartographer!) Mill is contested, farm and blacksmith are Horde, mine and stable are Alliance. Switch off map to see Horde waiting at top of hill again. Remember to cast Nature's Grasp. Wait in line with two other Allies. Select warrior in distance. Watch him get close, drop Moonfire and then try for Roots again. Warrior charges and stuns me. I'm dead, no wait, Nature's Grasp fires and I back away, heal myself, run across to attack hunter. Pet attacks but gets sleeped by my Green Whelp Armor. Heh, love that! Send Wrath on hunter but see an ally go down and free up the warrior, coming my way. Desperately spam Moonfire, burning as much mana as possible before my inevitable death.

Rez at stables. Realize mine is now contested. Check map and don't see any allies at mine. Fighting at lumber mill and stables. Decide to help at stables until more of the mine group rez. See battle, select an ally paladin and drop a heal on him. Select another druid and prepare a heal, but get hit with a warlock's Fear and run around aimlessly. Pop out of that when I'm hit with arrows again, get stunlocked by a warrior, and die once more.

Get message in BG channel: "stay with your groups! FFS!" Thanks for the advice...

Rez at stables again. Now the map shows that Horde controls mine, blacksmith, and farm, with Stables contested and lumber mill Alliance. Also see group of allies heading for mine. Pop into cheetah and skirt left to avoid stables battle, and try to join with group attacking mine. Get close in time to see three allies fighting two Horde; pop into elf form and hit one with Moonfire in time to see them die, then attack the other with Wrath. He goes down too. Mine moves back to contested.

See another ally leave battleground. See score is now about 1000 Horde to 450 Alliance. Heal up the group at the mines, just in time to see a rez-wave of Horde coming back in. Root the lead warrior and then get hit with Moonfire, locate the druid and tap him back (just saying hi, you know). Circle around and reselect the warrior, who's now battling with a hunter, and hit him with a Moonfire and a Wrath. Satisfied to see him go down but now taking fire again from the druid. Mana is starting to run low -- uh-oh. Drop a Moonfire and then change into Cat, and try to take the druid along with a paladin in the area. Druid is pretty healthy and takes me out quickly.

Rez at stables again. Check the map: now the Horde have three nodes, and are contesting both lumber mill and stables. Score stands at 1500 Horde to 600 Alliance.

Two more allies leave the battleground.

I'm sure that the Horde nodes are lightly defended, but they're able to camp the stables graveyard and it's a struggle to get out. We need to mount an attack somewhere, anywhere to take back nodes but it's impossible to get organized enough to make that happen. The horn sounds, and the match is over.

Return to Stormwind. Speak to battlemaster. Join queue. Repeat.

Battleground Noob

I made my first venture into the battlegrounds last night.

I got online after dinner and got an instant /whisper from Cargarios: "You have to come here and try this!" We'd talked about doing it before, but that was right when we leveled to 30 and we decided to wait until we were higher in our zone. Last night, Wyrmm and Cargarios decided to give it a try. They loved it and so I jumped in too.

We started in Arathi Basin. DK was eating dinner, so Cargarios and Alamein jumped in. Compared to PvE, it was simple chaos. The Horde were attacking from all over, and it was all I could do to find a reasonable fight and try to get off some damage before death. The first couple fights quickly devolved into a desperate battle to keep the Horde off the stables, and in each case we more or less quickly lost.

Fundamentally, the Horde were much more organized and capable than the Alliance. Some of it was a better level of PvP tactics; they knew how to fight well. It's taken me time to develop my PvE skills -- the druid is flexible enough to be complicated -- and I'm going to have to learn things all over again for PvP. But a lot of it was much better team tactics. They had a plan and a mission and knew what they were trying to do; we had maybe one or two chat messages ("take lumber mill??") followed by lots of improvisation. In the end, we were just overwhelmed; we went in a second time and lost even faster.

We tried that a few times, and then switched to Warsong Gulch to see what that was like. The good news was that it was a bit simpler to figure out, and the Alliance was able to do better, but still the Horde just had better strategy and tactics. So we lost there too, but at least I started to get a better sense for how I needed to fight. I started to show up near the top of the rankings at the end of the match -- below many Horde players, of course, but at least looking respectable from an Alliance perspective.

It's amazing to me how fast these games evolve. I've played a very small amount of online FPS games against human opposition, and frankly I suck at it. I'm probably too old to have the twitch reflexes to match my opponents' speed; I don't play enough to have the tactics; and my hardware is slow enough that I can run into lag problems too. In PvE, I can find a place to stand and work from there, maybe backing up to kite a mob, but no more. In PvP it's imperative to stay constantly moving, and that in itself is a big challenge for me.

Key realizations:

• I figured out I was going to die so fast that mana efficiency just didn't matter. So: spam Moonfire. Towards the end of the night I was living long enough where this became a small issue, but frankly I didn't have a better strategy to switch to.
  
• Rogues suck. Many of my deaths came while I was stunlocked by a Rogue. Hence it became very important to keep Nature's Grasp up as often as possible. That's my best defense against stunlock.
  
• Warriors were a problem too; they would Charge me and establish stunlock from there. But if I could Root them then I had a very good chance to deal with them.
  
• I don't have a good strategy for hunters. Hibernate can be useful against the pets, but only if I have enough time to cast it without interrupution, AND if the pet is unlikely to get attacked by someone else. On the other hand I can reach out to them with Moonfire and Wrath, so at least I can fight back.
  
• The casters present unique challenges, particularly because of their DoTs and curses rather than their nukes.
  
• As much as I've played WoW at this point, my biggest enemy is situational awareness. Figuring out what's going on is challenge #1, and sometime that starts with "what direction am I facing?" and "where are they coming from?"

We played for a while in Warsong Gulch, and then switched back to Arathi for a last go. And this fight went rather better than the others. I was able to do some real damage, and take down a few Horde. The pinnacle was when I came up on a single level 37 Tauren warrior coming up the road.

We saw each other and knew the battle was on; nobody had surprise. I didn't have Nature's Grasp up (still on cooldown) so it was going to be a challenge, but I got off my first Roots before he could lock me up, and from there I was able to kite him and heal myself. It worked beautifully, and I saw him crumple... a split second before my screen went black. My worst time yet for a system crash. By the time I got rebooted and logged in, the match was over. So I didn't even have a chance to check my stats. Frustrating; but I know that I did better and that we came much closer to actually winning the match.

Of course, I was exhausted and sweating by the time I finished. It was... intense. But also a lot of fun. I'll be trying that again soon.