(Created by Therst from the server Gorgonnash)

Therst’s Druid + Hunter 2v2 Guide
(Includes Druid Perspectives)

I am writing this guide because I receive too many whispers regarding strategies to be able to answer them all sufficiently. Additionally, the only one I am aware of is by Megatf (http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=2553) – it’s a good guide, but its kind of brief, and I thought I would elaborate by writing this.

In an effort to keep this guide under a ridiculous length, I’m going to take some things out, including talent reviews and gear info.

I realize this is a long guide, but by reading the entire thing, you will get more out of it. I try to repeat important points in each different lineup involving one of the same classes, but it gets tedious and I may forget to add some things that I already have 1 or more times in other strategies involving that class.


Druid, hunter is in my opinion, one of the most powerful 2v2 compositions that there is. I prefer it to priest, hunter for a few reasons, including, druids are much more durable vs. melee, have more mobility than priests, have heavy CC, and they compliment my play style. It really doesn’t have many hard counter combos when played correctly; my druid, Darkalpha, and I typically only lose to very skilled warlock, rogue teams and T6 geared double DPS teams, and we win more often than we lose against them.
Even if you lose games to comps that you shouldn’t, don’t get discouraged. As long as you learn something from the game, that’s all that matters. Points never stay solid, and you can always get more points to make up for any you may lose.

Talents

0/42/19 (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cZVVVoEzhMstchhbtM)
This is a very basic hunter PvP spec. It is good for 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5, as well as BG’s. I used this spec for a quite a while, and Hamchook still does. There are many variations of this spec. You can place 20 in Survival, and cut out 1 point from Careful Aim to put into Wing Clip, or take 1 point out of Entrapment and place it into Improved Wing Clip. Basically just 1-2 point variations of the same spec based on preference.

11/41/9 - Recommended (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cVbRzZVVVoEzhzstMhoh)
This is my current build, as well as Megatf’s. It is a tri-spec built specifically for 2v2 and 3v3. The idea behind this build is being able to prevent your opponents from drinking as easily, especially druids, and making a pet revive mid-game viable. Most good teams love to kill hunter pets, for good reason. Whenever your pet dies, you can simply freeze / wing clip / cyclone / root and get him back up in 4 seconds for minimal mana.

Compared to 0/42/19:

You lose 10% HP from Survivalist, 1% damage and crit bonus damage from Humanoid Slaying, 16% chance from Entrapment, Deterrence, and most importantly, Surefooted. To make up for the loss in hit, I elected to find get a 30+ hit scope (http://thottbot.com/i18283.) You can also socket your gear with +hit gems.

You gain 10% pet health, 5% health, from Endurance Training, 7% pet armor and 4% armor to yourself from Thick Hide, 2% damage from Focused Fire, Improved Revive Pet, and Bestial Swiftness.

Losing Humanoid Slaying is made up by Focused Fire; losing Survivalist is made up by Endurance Training; losing Deterrence hurts, but if you are relying on it, you’re doing something wrong. The only talent that I really hate losing is Surefooted, and that’s because I had to switch from a 28 crit scope to a 30+ hit to reach the 5% hit minimum. However, teams LOVE to kill pets, and we need them to keep our opponents in combat and from bandaging. Basically, against a healer, DPS team, if your pet dies and you cannot resurrect it, you’ve lost the game because they can drink whenever they want to. Improved Revive Pet makes it possible, and incredibly easy, it reduces the mana cost to around 1600, and the cast time down to 4 seconds. Within a trap timer and a cyclone, you can have it back up easily.

Bestial Swiftness is the other great part of a tri-spec, it makes it 10x harder for casters, druids especially to get out of combat to drink, and they get less mana from jumping off the Blade’s Edge Arena bridge to get in drink tics; your pet runs just as fast as they do in travel form.
If I skipped a talent, it’s probably because it isn’t worth getting due to being terrible, or it’s not worth trading for the better talents that I have here. Then again, there are variations of these specs, so experiment if you want to.

--A message from Darkalpha (My druid)

My Spec:
I go 8/11/42:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0zjZVMhoZVcIxcq0xsx
While I feel that insect swarm builds (13/11/37) will be very strong, they are not my play style. I am a very, very defensive player, and losing the +heal from empowered rejuv and the other talents that you can choose is not worth it, at least to me. I can avoid LOS enough to where I don't need the extra range on cyclone and roots, although I can really see it helping, especially for new Druids. Don't be afraid to try the IS build, you may really like it better for your play style.
--

Gear

Get all of the S3 honor gear. I recommend at least 335-350 resilience, and it’s incredible to have over 400 for double DPS teams. Bow > Gear > Melee weapons. Get everything enchanted with the best possible, and socket with BT gems if available. Pick up 2x 1h’ers and enchant them both with 30+ intellect, and a 2h’er with 35 agility. Use the 1h’ers as your standard weapons; they are incredible for the mana and mana regeneration you gain from Viper. Whenever you run up against a double DPS team, swap onto your 2h’er for the added resilience and higher Raptor Strikes.

If you want to gay up against a team that you know consists of a warlock or healer, you can use SR, though if you were going to do that, I wouldn’t wear more than 125 or so because you sacrifice a lot of damage for it. Additionally, resilience is kind of worthless against DoT’s, honestly, so put on some PvE gear while maintaining at least 11k health. If you REALLY want to gay it up, I guess you could wear like 300 SR, but only if your druid had it, too.
Personally, I wear 2x T6 occasionally for the +5% Viper mana regen bonus and a little extra damage. I have 335 resilience with 1h’ers on and T6 shoulders + legs. Don’t use T6 gloves, because you won’t want to sacrifice the 5% Multi-Shot damage bonus. Also, you’ll need to use a Talisman of the Alliance to make up for the loss of resil. I’ve been refraining from this lately because of an influx of double DPS teams, but if your BG supports a lot of single DPS, its great for mana regen.
Check my Armory profile for information regarding gemming your PvP gear.

Basic Information

The druid, hunter team is all about control and mana drain. Every 15 seconds, every time Viper Sting is up, you need to use it; you cannot overlook this, you will be crippling your team. You need to develop synergy between your druid and yourself through excellent communication and experience playing together. To beat some of the best teams, you need to be able to completely shut down melee classes to avoid damage and avoid getting low on mana. With this comp, the games are often very long, so make sure you stay high on arrows, and you and your druid both have at least 200 arena water each. I only carry about 160, but Darkalpha has 1200 or more on him at all times (Quiver QQ?) Use Scorpid Sting against melee DPS teams such as druid warrior, especially when they go on your druid. Always use track hidden. A great way to interrupt spell casts on yourself, mainly CC casts is to feign death.
I cannot stress enough how important communication is.

--A message from DA

Basic overall Druid ideals:
Stay mobile and stick close to a pillar. A druid that stands still is a druid who is vulnerable to any number of CC / interrupts that can screw you over. Stick to your HoT’s, and always be on the move to stay out of your enemy’s line of sight. You should never, ever, stand still except when you’re casting cyclone and roots, always be trying to gain better positioning on pillars so you can break LOS if they decide to turn to you. Regrowth should almost never be used except on very rare occasions (You baited a counterspell and your partner is below 50% life and taking heavy damage, for example).
--

Know where your partner is at all times. It really helps to put up raid markers so you can see each other through obstacles.
Never get low on mana, this is mostly true for your druid. If your druid gets even remotely low on mana, for example 60%, you need to CC spam your opponents so they can drink. This obviously only holds true for single DPS + healer teams. Double DPS games are over too quickly to warrant drinking. Always have Aspect of the Viper up, unless you encounter a double DPS team.

Pet

I use a Scorpid pet for Scorpid poison, in order to cheese the dispel mechanic with Viper Stings. He has Avoidance, Cobra Reflexes, Frost Resistance (Rank 3), Great Stamina (Rank 3), Growl, Natural Armor (Rank 3), Nature Resistance (Rank 5), Scorpid Poison (Rank 5), and Shadow Resistance (Rank 5). Max out Shadow Resist to help it survive vs. lock, healer teams, and max Nature Resist to help resist Entangling Roots and Hibernates on it vs. druid, DPS teams.

Strategy
There may be better ways to beat certain match-ups, these strategies are what my partner and I have been going with, but we constantly adapt and learn different ways to do things.

Warrior, Druid: This combo isn’t necessarily hard, it just varies in how long it lasts depending on how they play, defensively, or offensively, and on their skill level; it can be a huge pain.
Starting off, rush up and drop a freezing trap; they will most likely rush soon. Bait the warrior into the freezing trap for the chance that he will trinket out of it, essentially wasting his trinket. He will then charge you, and your druid needs to cyclone him, usually followed by a root. If the druid isn’t out yet, which it probably will not be, start damaging the warrior to force him out.

Once the druid pops, you get a judge of whether they are good or not. Throw a viper on the druid, followed by a silencing shot so he can’t cast Abolish, if he doesn’t go into bear instantly, odds are, he is terrible. Before I introduce the different ways in which to react to differing things the druid, warrior team can do, I’ll go over some basic CC. You need to communicate who is doing what, and when. Against druid, warrior teams, the druid is typically the main CC’er of the warrior, while you save your scatter shot + freezing trap CD for any time where your druids cyclones and roots are finished from diminishing returns, your druid needs any help getting away from the warrior, or when your druid gets relatively low on mana. Keep in mind that viper sting does not effect druids that are in bear form.

If the warrior goes on you, prepare for a long game. You’ll be spamming CC on the warrior while going after the druid. If the warrior goes onto your druid, and your druid is good on mana, have your druid tank him in bear, while you unload everything you have on him to drain the opposing druids mana by making him heal. Aimed shot is your friend on this comp; it makes their druid heal twice as much, using twice as much mana. Once the druid comes out to heal the warrior, viper him, and silence, hopefully getting some of his mana.

Most good teams have the druid play aggressively, but play styles differ. Whenever the druid is up on your partner or yourself, use Scare Beast, every single time it’s off CD. It can get annoying if you let the druid eat freezing traps that were intended for the warrior. If he comes out of bear to avoid it the fear, pop a viper, he will most likely go back into bear instantly, but know that it costs 600 mana each shift into bear, so you’re achieving something either way.

If they play aggressively, the game will end quickly in your favor, if they play defensively, there is no chance they can possibly win because you can reset the fight at any time and you’ll be CC’ing the warrior to death anyway. To speed up this fight, and to defeat great druid, warrior teams, you need to watch the druid very carefully, pressure the warrior, make him come out to heal, and when he does, have your druid bash him, casting viper sting at the same time. That’s actually the only surefire way I know of to make a druid eat viper stings; it is extremely effective.

Your pet should be on the druid. If he has Bestial Swiftness, he should have no problem keeping up with the druid on Ruins and Nagrand, you’ll still need to keep an eye out for him on Blade’s Edge so he doesn’t get free bridge-jump tics. If the warrior goes on the pet, spam CC’s on him, and keep the pet alive, especially if you don’t have Improved Revive Pet (which you should). Occasionally, warriors take an obsession with your pet, and they start to drain your druids mana dangerously fast by damaging the pet. If this happens, wait for your scatter CD and trap CD to come up, freeze the warrior, and have your druid drink, sacrificing the pet if necessary (only if you have Improved Rev Pet). Dismissing your pet temporarily is another option, and so is taking off Scorpid Poison and putting it on the warrior so you can DPS him. If you do choose to do that, you’ll need to have your druid on their druid so he can’t drink.

If there is any time where your druid gets low on mana for whatever reason, and their druid and the warrior go extremely aggressive on him, you need to spam freezing traps, scatter shots, fear beast, and wing clips on both of them, so he can get away to drink a bit. If this happens, it means the game will end soon, if you don’t mess up, it will be in your favor. Spamming moonfires, and shifting forms as often as the druid will be doing will drain his mana to 0, in conjunction with being susceptible to Viper Stings.
As soon as the druid is OOM, you cannot let him drink, and you need to keep putting viper sting. If the pet is dismissed, pull it out and put it on the druid. If the warrior is on your druid, DPS him, but if the warrior starts pillar humping to avoid damage, just get on their druid, slap on a 2her, and spam wing clip + Raptor Strike. Don’t let him get away, but try to get in ranged damage.
It is really helpful against druid teams to have a spell alert mod; I use Rupture unit frames. Try to Arcane shot the druid’s buffs down, so when you see the innervate(s), you can dispel them. Also, be aware the warriors can taunt your pet, so make sure you’re watching for that.

--A message from DA

Druid/ Warrior
You need to keep note of your CCs. I do a double Cyclone->Root->Root->Root->Cyclone again, skipping the 3rd cyclone, as it's 200 mana for a 1~ second CC, and overall not worth it
If you're full on mana, you can do a feral charge->bash, which can lead straight into the cyclone/root cycle again. Once you get low on mana (60-70%), tell your hunter it's going to be his turn soon. Do your cyclones, and when the first root lands, tell him to do his Scatter/trap once the roots break (make sure that he fears the druid so he can't eat the trap.) This way you get the full 10 seconds roots followed by a 10 second trap in which you can drink.
You need to be very careful on the target swapping, watching the warrior's target. The second he switches to the pet, you need to pre-HoT the pet. A warrior can 3-4 shot your pet quickly, so it's important to put the Rejuv on pre-emptively to prepare for a swiftmend when he does his MS.

If you're trying to go for a kill, you can bait the warrior into attacking you while you tank him and your hunter nukes him. If I was at perhaps 80-90% mana while their druid has higher then 10% (It happens a lot), I would run right next to the warrior after I root him (telling my hunter my plan first). I would then throw the HoT’s on myself, because he will almost always turn to me. Don't go to bear form, this will discourage him from attacking you. Throw full HoT’s on, pop Barkskin, and pump fake a Regrowth cast so you can get a real Regrowth up. If you can manage to get a regrowth/rejuv/lifebloom stack rolling, it -will- keep you alive against the warrior. This will force the druid out to heal his warrior, and since you're far away, your hunter can turn and do a viper while he's running to heal his warrior. If you're lucky, this can sometimes kill the warrior, but if not, you lose about 30% mana, but now the druid is at 0%, and a victory should come soon.

Rogue, Druid: This is a pretty easy fight, not one you should ever lose. The only way I can really see this team winning is if your druid is poor on CC, their druid is excellent, and they burst you down. Between roots, cyclones, abolish poison, freezing traps, wing clips, and everything else you have that their druid can do absolutely nothing about, you can kite their rogue all day long.

If you feel like it, you can start mounted and rush forward, dropping a flare at their entrance, or where they could be on the bridge at Blade’s Edge, but a much safer approach is to run up and flare where you’re going to stand. Your druid needs to stand in your flare on most stealth teams; don’t stop using flare once the fight starts, you can nullify vanishes. Place your pet on the druid; the rogue will go on it if he wants to win the game. If he kills the pet, it means you were poor with heals, CC, or pet control. In any case, pull back and start revive your pet, then send it back on the druid immediately. Do not let the druid drink; this game is already long enough without a drinking druid.
Don’t allow your druid to get low on mana, or you could put yourself in a situation where the rogue gets his CD’s back, and your druid gets CC’ed and gets OOM.
Keep vipers up on the druid; coordinate CC on the rogue, and DPS the rogue down. Again, probably the best tip I can give vs. druids is to coordinate bear to humanoid bash and viper stings.

SL/SL Warlock, Druid: I hear a lot of comments about this combo, saying that it’s hard for druid, hunter, and I’m not exactly sure where that stems from. If you know it’s a lock, druid team, put on some PvE gear if you have it, and if you want to cheese it, 120 or so SR. Remember to arcane both targets to get their buffs off.

Start off by running up to a pillar and dropping a frost trap, you will need it to kite the warlock and slow his pet. If the warlock rushes, start DPS on him, and viper sting him. Do this until his druid pops out of stealth, and then throw a viper and your pet on him. Basically, what your goal is in this fight is to drain the druid’s mana, take as little damage as possible, and kill his pets. Continue DPSing the warlock, and when the druid tries to go off and drink, or you have a good view at his pet (probably felhunter at this point), open up on it. Aimed Shot is incredible for killing pets, and draining mana even more. Have your druid CC their druid when he comes to heal the pet, and LoS the fears the warlock will definitely try to hit you with. If the pet is still alive, continue DPSing the pet, this essentially drains the mana faster than anything you could do with viper sting, and makes him eat stings. Once the first pet is dead, he will probably Fel Domination a Void Walker; you can anticipate this, have his buffs off, interrupt his casting, and dispel it with Arcane Shot if you time everything well. I’m assuming that the warlock will have his pet on your druid, but if he has it on you to avoid damage to it, or on your pet to eat HoT’s, there is no possible way you can lose, so this is a good situation. If the warlock gets his pet back up, continue to DPS him, viper the druid, and silence fears.

This is not a short fight; you and your druid will need to drink several times. You must not allow your druid to get mana drained, and you’ll need to open windows very often for him to drink. Most of the time warlocks will spam drain mana on the hunter, which isn’t that big of a deal, because you can feign + drink whenever you want to, and you should have a great deal of mana regen. If the warlock chooses to bring out a VW as his Fel Dom. pet, they no longer have a dispel, and you can freeze the warlock in order to get him off your druid. Whenever your druid needs to drink, wing clip the warlock pet, the warlock, and the druid, and do whatever else you can to stall them, such as Scare Beast, and Scatter Shot. If they continue to DPS you when your druid goes to drink, you’ll need to LoS as well as you can to avoid damage until your druid returns.

Once the pets are dead, start DPSing the warlock down, while not forgetting to drain the druid’s mana, even if he is at 0. Save all of your interrupts for hard recasts, and don’t waste more than what is necessary. Have your druid help you, if you don’t have an interrupt, have him cyclone or feral charge. If the warlock fears you, there is a good chance he is going to attempt a hard recast, tell your druid.

This combo puts out very low DPS. One game my druid and I got into a game that started off kind of rough, I was at 30% health, he was at 500 health, 500 mana, and we ended up winning the game through thorough use of LoS and abusing how OP Lifebloom is.

--A message from DA

Druid/Lock
This match requires the most communication between you and your hunter more so than any other single DPS/healer combo. You need to talk to each other about how his fear DR’s are to set up a pet kill, who's going to stop the pet summon, and when you need to set up a drink.
At the beginning you need to make sure to stay out of LOS of the warlock. If you're in Nagrand/Blade's edge, pillar humping is best, only coming out to cyclone the warlock when he drains your hunter. On Ruins, you need to be in bear form because you can't LOS the drains as well.
With your hunter beating on the warlock, the pet will take soul link damage, and when it drops to around 60-70%, throw a Lifebloom on and try to go for a pet kill. Drop to bear, and walk into LOS so your hunter can burst the pet down. The warlock will fear, so feral charge it-->Bash him. From there, rotate cyclones on the warlock and druid so they can't CC the hunter with cyclones or fears. (Cyclone one, immediately start casting on the other, immediately switch back, etc). If the pet dies, CC the warlock and try to prevent the summon. If he gets it off (he usually will), simply do it again.
This fight, while long, is actually one of our easier ones, they have almost Zero way to actually finish you off. Lifebloom can keep you alive through the warlocks damage for a long time, so don't give up if you go completely OOM, you can almost always come back.


Hunter, Druid: The idea here is to OOM the hunter, and keep him completely OOM the entire game. To make the vipers stick, silence the druid immediately after you put it up on the hunter. Your pet will go on the druid, and you’ll need to watch his health, because the game depends on him staying alive. I’ll assume the hunter will be putting his pet on your druid as well. Have your druid take him behind a pillar, get him down to 60% HP or so in bear or cat, while you LoS the hunter, or eat his auto-shots, and then bring him out to try to burst him down. If the pet dies, and the hunter is OOM, GG; your druid can now drink whenever he wants to, and his cannot.

After the hunter is OOM, start using Viper on his druid, but keep their hunter OOM. I’ll viper their hunter, then druid, and keep switching off. You must assume that their hunter has Improved Revive Pet, unless you know he does not. Don’t let him drink; you’ve got to keep DPSing him the entire game while keeping an eye on the druid. Your druid should be assisting you in keeping their druid in combat.

If at any time, you get low on health for any reason, start LoS’ing the hunter’s DPS. You can even freezing trap him, as they have no dispel. Your druid has to be spot on with abolishes on you, and himself. If he gets low on mana, CC them as well as you can with Clips, trap, et cetera to buy time.

Hunter, Priest: Abolish > them. Start off by putting your pet on their priest, and keeping vipers up on the hunter. Get the hunter OOM as fast as possible, and make sure your druid gets viper stings off you immediately. After the hunter is OOM, start working on the priest, while keeping the hunter OOM. There is no need to kill the hunter pet here, you can simply DPS the hunter and drain the hunter + priest OOM.

Mage, Rogue: This combo can be a pain, much like any other double DPS team. Start off by running up to a pillar, and dropping a snake or frost trap and flare. Both your druid and yourself need to be sitting in your flare, and you need to maintain your flare. Try to spot the rogue using Track Hidden, but don’t move out of your flare. They will usually come at you relatively quickly once the match starts, because if they don’t you can get Shadowsight and pop the rogue out of stealth.

It is completely essential that the rogue does not get an opener on your druid. Once the mage starts approaching you, put a viper sting up on him, and continue to do so every 15 seconds. If they attempt to kill you, you’ll just need to avoid all of the mages damage, while picking away at the rogue by getting away via Abolish Poison, and draining the mage’s mana. If you survive about a minute in this fashion, you will have won the game because you survived the rogues CD’s. Kill the Water Elemental if you can.

Always kill the rogue first in every DPS + rogue team.

If they attempt to go on your druid, which they probably will, you do the same thing, except you’re able to open up on the rogue. You have to avoid all polymorphs through LoS and silencing shot. Save your scatter for the rogue only, and use it to either help your druid get distance on the rogue, or during 5 second Kidney Shots. Save your trinket for the blind, and do not get Polymorped.

If they go on your druid, keep the rogue Wing Clipped the entire game. If your druid looks like he might be in trouble, go in and spam wing clip on the rogue trying to get Imp Wingclip Procs. Also, drop a frost trap for him to kite through. A good tip is for him to feral charge through a frost trap at the mage on the other side, away from the rogue, and Travel Form away while you beat the rogue.

If they are on you, and the Shadowsight buffs come up mid-game, have your druid get one so he doesn’t get blinded.

Don’t forget that you have flare. Always keep flare up in front of where your druid is kiting, or even right on top of him. If you can negate a vanish opener, or a rogue escape, you’ve done a very valuable thing.

--A message from DA

Mage/Rogue
The easiest of the double DPS teams.
You don't know which target they're going to go for, so always be careful at the start. At the beginning, if you pop out before their rogue opens, you need to ABOLISH+HOT YOURSELF FIRST before then switching to abolish/hot your hunter. This way, if the rogue is waiting for you so he can open on you, you already have HoT’s/abolish rolling and you can survive the first stun lock without using your trinket.
The fight will go one of two ways:

If they're on the hunter:
Make sure to LOS the mage in this so you can avoid counterspells. Abolish poison is your most important thing - keep it up. My personal rotation goes Abolish-Lifebloom->Rejuv(swiftmend if needed)->Lifebloom->Rejuv>Abolish->Lifebloom.
If you're 100% certain you're out of the mages LOS (and will be out of his LOS for the entire duration of the cast), cyclone/root the rogue to give your hunter more breathing room. Other than that, Watch the mage pet, when it goes up it means they’re going to shatter combo, so do a pre-emptive Rejuv for a swiftmend. Other than that, keep the full Lifeblooms rolling always, and you can usually win.
If you can pick up the shadow sight debuff, it will break the rogue's blinds, so always try to pick it up so you can save your trinket.

If they're on you:
Stay on the frost trap and kite around a pillar. Your hunter should be helping with Wing Clips if they’re next to him, but really you shouldn't have too much of a problem.
When you pop out to heal the hunter, make sure to hot yourself first, then him. The rogue will open on you, and your hunter needs to scatter him and silence the mage when he's about to cast his frostbolt shatter combo. In this fight, you need to either kite across the frost trap or pillar kite. I prefer Pillar kiting because for me it's safer, but some other people prefer frost trap kiting because it lets their hunter help more and it also lets him beat on the rogue. It's all personal preference.

Try to delay the start of the fight as long as you can. If your hunter can pick up the shadow sight buff, it will break his polymorph's so he can save his trinket for the blind.
Talk to your hunter about positioning. The ultimate goal you want to be in is where you are around a pillar, in LOS of your hunter/their rogue so you can CC the rogue and heal your hunter, while out of LOS of the mage to avoid the CS’s.

Paladin, Warrior: The easier version of druid, warrior teams because paladins do not have bear form or abolish poison. Start off by putting your pet on the paladin, and putting up vipers every 15 seconds, followed by a silencing shot to make him eat a guaranteed tics. The warrior will either go on your pet, or he will go on your druid. If he goes on your pet, simply DPS the paladin while wing clip spamming the warrior and using other CC. If they go on the druid, and they put up Judgment of Justice on him, you need to help him out by clipping the paladin and warrior. Use Frost Traps generally, but another good tactic is to Hunter’s Mark the warrior, Faerie Fire him, and freezing trap him, followed by a silencing shot on the paladin, and then spam Hunter’s Mark to hopefully avoid the dispel. This technique can buy your JoJ’ed druid enough time to get away. If you can lure the warrior out of LoS of the paladin, you can do the same thing but its more effective.

If the paladin is good, he will be beating on your pet with Judgment of Wisdom, this makes things more difficult, especially on Blade’s Edge, but keep draining his mana, and you should have no problems. Once he is OOM, DPS the warrior down, or the paladin if he is conveniently in LoS.

Paladin, Warlock: The easy version of Warlock, Druid. It is in every way the same, except the Paladin is much easier to drain, and he can’t keep pets alive as well vs. druid, hunter teams.

Disc. Priest, Rogue: Another very simple combo to beat. Run up to a pillar, drop a flare and frost trap, and wait for the rogue to attempt to jump you. Get him out of stealth and start kiting. You’ll need to be pursuing the priest to get Viper’s up on him, and avoiding all mana burns if possible. If the rogue goes on you, there really is a 0% chance that they can win, because your druid can simply abolish you and you can kite away. If the rogue goes on your druid and you get CC’ed, things can possibly get hairy. The only way they can kill your druid is if the rogue pops all of his CD’s on him, you waste your trinket on something other than blind, or you get feared, and you’re not in a position to help him. If the priest is spam dispelling your druid, and he’s going down fast, you need to scatter the rogue, and spam Wing Clip.

Be sure not to neglect flare. If the rogue is on your druid, and you’re spamming Clip’s on him, he will vanish, and if he gets to your druid again things can get bad.

DPS the rogue or priest down once the priest is OOM. I usually choose the rogue because he’s the one most easily in LoS.

They can also kill your pet for a win - don’t let this happen. If it does, CC or retreat and resummon a new one.

Feign death if the priest puts his Shadow Fiend on you, if he puts it on the druid, have him kite away.

SPriest, Rogue: This can be a difficult combo if you let things go their way. Start off by going to a pillar and dropping a snake or frost trap, and a flare. Stay in your flare, but have your druid go off to a near spot, still in your LoS. Keep vipers up on the priest, and silence him whenever the CD is up. Of course, save your scatter shot for the rogue.

If they go on you, get distance from the rogue as well as you can. Keep a flare on yourself or where you’re going, clip spam the rogue, and try to get away with Abolish. When they’re on you, only use your trinket if you’re below 60% health and you get caught in a 5 second Kidney Shot. Damage the rogue while draining the priest. He will be OOM very rapidly, and if you survive about a minute, you’ll have won because you survived the rogues CD’s. The only way this team can kill you is if your druid gets caught in a bad CS, timed with CD’s, and dispel spam from the priest. Oh, or they can have T6 and Blades of Azzinoth – free wins for them.

If the rogue jumps on your druid, who is near you, but not on you, open up DPS on the rogue. Continue to do the same thing with the priest, but drop a frost trap on your druid, and if he gets low, silence the Spriest and Scatter shot the rogue so your druid can get away and heal.

--A message from DA

Spriest/Rogue
This fight can be the hardest or the easiest, depending on how much PvE gear they use.
Again, like the other fights, if you need to pop before their rogue does, you need to hot yourself first. If you don’t, and you trinket their kidney shot, you're setting yourself up for a Blind-Sap->Fear-silence->chastise combo in which they kill your hunter. So do your best to avoid letting the rogue getting the opener on you.

If they're on the hunter:
Like all double DPS, you need to communicate your positioning to make sure that you're behind a pillar and in LOS to CC rogue/heal hunter, while out of LOS so you can't get silenced.
Rotate cyclones if you can. The priest needs to be kept occupied so he doesn't purge off the Abolishes, so your hunter needs to help out with silencing shots when he's getting low-ish. Keep abolish up, along with a triple lifebloom, and just stay alive. The priest will go OOM shortly, and then its pretty much GG.

If they're on you:
Stay on the trap. They have no real way to keep the hunter CC’ed, so as long as you stay on the trap and pillar kite you can almost always survive their rush-down. Your hunter should be helping out via wing clips, but I found that if they go on you, it's an easier match.

Spriest, Warlock: A game of pillar humping. Immediately when the game starts, rush a pillar and drop a frost trap against it. When they approach you, viper on the shadow priest and continue to do so. I prefer to damage the spriest over the warlock if I have a choice, but generally, just hit whichever one you can, only when you’re LoS of that one, and not the other one. Shortly after the game starts, the priest should be OOM, and low on health from you picking away at him.

It is crucial that you do not get feared out into the open, or you will die. If you get AoE feared, trinket it and get back onto the pillar. I place my pet on the spriest for additional damage, but if one of them goes to drink or whatever, but it on that one.

If they go on your druid, interrupt the lock’s casts with scatter shot, and silencing shot the spriest while you DPS him as hard as you can. Don’t get CC’ed, and don’t leave your druid alone to help himself.

On Lordaeron, I suggest that you do not go on top of the pillar, because you can LoS your druids heals easily. Also, never go into the cubby, wait for them to come to you.

Rogue, Warlock: Perhaps the most difficult combo for druid, hunter to beat. Start off as usual, with a flare on top of you and your druid, and drop a snake trap. Get the rogue out, and start DPS’ing him as soon as possible. Put your pet on the warlock for spell interruption.

If they go on you, you’re probably in trouble. You must get away from the rogue so Wound Poison doesn’t build up, and you don’t take too much damage. Essentially, what can happen if you let it is, the rogue solos you while the Fel Hunter eats your HoT’s and the warlock Fear spams + Deathcoil and blind on your druid. It’s impossible to live through that, so you must interrupt it with whatever you can do, cyclone, LoS, lucky abolishes, whatever it takes. You must kill the rogue as quickly as possible. Keep a Scorpid sting up on him, and scatter after your get crippling removed. Viper on the warlock, forcing him to tap, and silence fears only.

If the rogue and warlock go on the druid, you’re almost free to DPS the rogue down, while you do the essentials, like silencing damage from the warlock, and scattering at good times so your druid can get away. Kill the rogue, and don’t let yourself get CC’ed. Don’t let your druid die; you may need to spam Wing Clip on the rogue for the first minute or so of the game. Flare should always be near the rogue in a position that you think he may go in pursuit of your druid.

--A message from DA

Warlock/Rogue
Dear god I hate this combo so much. People who run this lineup deserve to be shot. Everybody say that Druid/war is scrub express, but not nearly as much as this %*#!ing retarded combo.
Again, they may go on your or the hunter, so when you pop out, hot/abolish yourself first if the rogue hasn't popped out yet. This fight requires more communication on positioning than any other combo in the game. You need to -constantly- be talking to each other about where you are and where you are going to be moving to, so you can stay out of the LOS of the warlock to avoid fears while maintaining LOS on the hunter to keep him healed.

If they're on the hunter:
Do not cast until the warlock uses his silence. Getting counterspelled is almost GG. Don't do it.
You need to constantly be aware of the warlock, most teams will simply have the warlock dot the hunter, the Walk over to you and do NOTHING but fear...fear...fear...(blind from rogue)...fear...fear...fear, with a deathcoil when you trinket out to continue the cycle while the rogue kills your hunter. He won't dot you because dot ticks means fear could break.
So, you need to be next to a pillar and watching the warlock carefully to avoid getting feared in the first place. Keep abolish/lifebloomx3/rejuv up, Swiftmending whenever possible. If the warlock gives up trying to fear you and starts nuking the hunter, you can come out and pump fake a cyclone to bait the counterspell (If they give up they will watch you very carefully to CS, so they will almost always fall for this).

Keep the hots up, and eventually the rogue will run out of cooldowns. When he does, he will get kited and then killed. This game is simply a matter of how good you are at avoiding the fears.

If they're on you:
Frost trap owns them. Keep abolish up, Rejuv/lifebloom, and kite around the trap/pillars. Your hunter can help you here; you need to communicate very, very well. When he gets feared he should be screaming, "I got feared", if you're ok and can survive, tell him that so he can save his trinket for the next fear or blind. If you're not ok, you need to scream back "DEAR GOD GET THIS ROGUE OFF ME" and he can trinket to help you out via scatter. If you see the rogue blow trinket, you can then use a NS cyclone to buy yourself 6 seconds to get away from him.

Delay the start as long as you can so you can pick up the shadowsight, this way he can't do a blind-->sap combo in which they can kill your hunter.

Shaman, Warrior: Sit on a pillar, and wait for them; there is no need to rush a totem farm. When the warrior rushes in on you, freezing trap him, and then run to where the shaman is to start draining his mana with Viper and put your pet in. The most notable thing to know in this fight is that you must kill totems, which is very easy to do with 2 1h’ers. Windfury and Poison Cleansing are the two most crucial that you kill, along with Mana Tide when it goes down. When they pop Heroism, try to dispel it from the warrior first, and then the shaman.

If the warrior goes for you, have your druid spam CC on him while you drain the mana of the shaman and kill totems. It doesn’t matter much who you DPS at this point, because the goal is to lower his mana, and the warrior or shaman will do. They have no dispel, so you can freeze the warrior, but you need to kill Grounding Totems first. If the warrior goes on your druid, DPS him, but be aware of his health and insane sword crits.

Once the Shaman is low on mana, take your pet off of him, turn off your Scorpid Poison, and put the pet on the warrior. From this point on, having your pet on the shaman is giving him infinite mana, so keep him in combat using Viper Sting, Arcane Shot, and your druid. DPS the warrior down.

Disc Priest, Warlock: Probably the easiest out of the warlock, healer compositions. Viper Sting the priest and put your pet on him. LoS the warlock as well as you can, and don’t let any mana burns get at your druid. You shouldn’t need to kill the warlock pet, but if your druid gets low on mana, that’s one way to insure you can’t lose. I usually just DPS the priest so I don’t have to worry about mana burns, and priests are soft anyway. Once the priest is OOM, DPS whoever is in LoS, and make sure they don’t get an opportunity to drink.

Therst-

(Created by Thlop from the euro server Hellscream)


Thlop’s Guide to Eye of the Storm

1.0 Intro

1.1 Hello and welcome all to my guide on how to play Eye of the Storm (eots) battleground. Since levelling my warrior to 70 I’ve started pvping a lot more, and in fact decided to make him an all pvp character. With the recent changes in 2.3, pvp has changed a lot, but given this, eots is still one of the most overlooked bgs. In recent games I’ve got so annoyed because people don’t know how to play or just go for HK’s and hope that someone is willing to capture bases and defend, and from that I’ve decided to create this guide. Some parts are from external sources to give the best clarification.

Want tips, know how to play? Go to 4.0!

2.0 The Basics

2.1 Eye of the Storm is a battleground which combines World PVP like that in the Eastern Plaguelands and traditional battlegrounds PVP as in Warsong Gulch (Capture the Flag), with the "resource" requirements (points) of Arathi Basin.
The main objective for each team is to hold as many towers as possible, much like in Arathi Basin, and then to score points by bringing the flag from the center of the map to one of the those towers. The towers work much like in Eastern Plaguelands: players stand in them to capture them and the more people standing in them the faster the capture goes. More towers held increases the potential to score points. Each flag return to a friendly tower rewards points depending on the number of towers controlled by the team. The game ends when one side reaches 2000 points. If the flag carrier dies (similar to Warsong Gulch) then the flag is dropped and can be picked up by any player. Thus it is possible, and sometimes tactically advantageous, for one team to allow the opposing team to pick up the flag initially, then kill the flag carrier and seize the flag, returning it to one of its towers and scoring a flag capture. If the flag is not promptly picked up after being dropped, it will return to its spawn point (much like Warsong Gulch). Again, a player may return the flag to any tower owned by their team, so holding many towers is helpful not only in scoring points, but also in creating more options in retrieving the flag.
Flying mounts are not allowed in the battleground. This prevents people from using certain floating areas to their advantage.

2.2 Map of Eye of the Storm: http://www.wowwiki.com/images/7/7d/EotSbig.jpg


3.0 Some Maths

3.1 Resources are collected every 2 seconds, regardless of how many towers your team controls.

3.2 Each claimed tower generates victory points for the controlling team. The more towers your team owns, the faster your team gains points
1 tower controlled = 1 point/tick (0.5 points per a second)
2 towers controlled = 2 points/tick (1 point per a second)
3 towers controlled = 5 points/tick (2.5 points per a second)
4 towers controlled = 10 points/tick (5 points per a second)

3.3 Points from flag captures
1 towers controlled = 75 points
2 towers controlled = 85 points
3 towers controlled = 100 points
4 towers controlled = 500 points

4.0 Tips & Tricks

4.1 Holding at least two towers, preferably three, is more important than capturing the flag. If your side controls only one tower, regaining control of a second tower should be the highest priority. If the other side controls three towers it is virtually impossible to win no matter how many times you capture the flag. To see this, consider the case where your faction controls one tower and the other faction controls three. The other faction is gaining two points more per second than your faction (2.5 vs 0.5). Each flag capture is worth about 75 points (this does not take into account the 2.2.0 changes). This means that you would have to capture the flag once every 38 seconds, with the other faction never capturing it, to win the battle. Practically speaking, a faction which controls only one tower for most of the battle cannot win, no matter how many times it captures the flag, you still will gain points from the capture however which gives you more time to capture a tower back meaning it's a good idea to at least have a few people trying to keep flags capturing.

4.2 While a team holding three towers is in a better position to four-cap (take control of all the bases), they may find trouble with the opposing faction pushing in force on their third tower with only one or two people from that faction running the flag. This can ultimately make or break the game depending on how strong the defense of that tower is.

4.3 One often used strategy is to have one or two people capture each tower on the starting side of the battleground at the beginning of the match, with the rest of the team quickly pushing to the flag and gaining control of the middle. Generally fights should take place by the flag or near a tower; fighting elsewhere will not cap towers and leaves the flag open to the opposite faction.

4.4 One of the most key things to do is speak. Tell your team mates where an incoming attack is, tell them if your base is safe, tell them if the flag should be intercepted, just SPEAK! The number of times I’ve been trying to control the fight and its just silent. Silence is not good. No communication = lose. So, say things like “inc DR” or “belf safe”. It really does help the rest of the team.

4.5 During the game you will have to defend and assault a base. Don’t just sit there waiting for someone to come along and fight you, mount up and go assault an enemy base! There’s no harm in doing so. For example, if you’re at FR, the enemy has mage tower and there’s no enemies around, go attack mage tower. Tell a friend to come with you. What that does is harass the enemy into trying to kill you and forget about the rest of the battle. You die, you rez back at FR. The enemy is still at mage tower healing up. You can then defend if an attack is incoming or go again and assault the mage tower. Eventually, if your team’s not busy, they’ll see that there’s only 2 people at mage tower and come help you capture it.

4.6 When defending a base, say mage tower, and you see the incoming attack of 4 enemies…
1. Alert your team by saying “inc MT 4!”
2. Engage the enemy far away from the tower – this will not let them start pushing the capture bar more towards their side, so if you do die you have more time to rez and fight them again
3. If you win the fight, the enemies will be sent far back to their base, giving you time to heal up.
4. If you lose, don’t worry. You’ll get sent to your nearest base to rez. Once you’re up again say something like “mage tower lost, 4 there now” and get some friends to come and help take it back. Even if it means taking some people out of the flag fighters, bases > flag.

4.7 If you’re in a pug, and at the start everyone goes for the flag, try to make them spread out. If you can’t get them to spread evenly, just say group 1 flag, group 2 belf, group 3 FR. If you’re with a load of silent allies just say politely “Get 3 bases and hold please”. Hopefully, if they understand or ever read the chat log, they’ll get 3 bases and you’ll be on your way to a win.

5.0 Conclusion

5.1 So from all this, Eye of the Storm isn’t actually the hardest game in the world. Thanks for reading my guide, hope its helped you in some way and I hope you enjoy playing your next Eye of the Storm. Stick to the tactics and you’ll do well. Just remember, and spread the word, Bases > Flag :)

(Created by Cottonmouth from the euro server Laughing Skul)


Intro:
This post is some of thoughts on how to play Arathi Basin battlegrounds. PvP never been so popular before 2.0.1 patch. Sometimes I get so frustrated about how people play this game and it's a bit late at that point to try to tell them they are a bit clueless and usually it leads to non constructive flame in battlegrounds chat which is pointless. So I decided to write down my thoughts and post them here.


Seconds that rule the game
Even if you played since American closed beta, you might think that Arathi basin is a game about running around and killing each other. Let me tell you: you are wrong, this game is all about the flags, just like battlefield 1942 which I happened to play a lot. Killing opponents there is to distract you from main goal of the game.
Also you might think that it is a pretty long filled with action game, if it is so - you are wrong again. This game only consists of a 10 second frame of time when someone tags the flag and another 50 seconds when nobody tags it back. Those are the moments of the game everything else there is just to fill gaps and to make those 10 seconds possible.


Hold 3 (now defend)
You can pretty often see a message by someone "skilled": "hold 3 and we win"
Let me tell you one thing - 3 node game is 30 minutes if you manage to hold them all the time not tagged by enemy a single time.
On other hand 4 nodes on same conditions is only 10 minutes when 5 nodes is 1 minute game. That's why premades always go for 5:0. And it is always a good idea to tag more, while defending what you have.
Usually it is pretty enough to have one person guarding node when everyone in team is aware/reporting where enemy is, and in what amounts and other members are fast enough to react and support where it's needed. Hint: needed is usually right away.
You are given a 15 persons team which is a lot of resources to attack and defend.


To kill or not to kill

So you see enemy on a halfway between your node and enemy node, and you have a good chance of surviving while killing him. Will you kill him? 99 times of 100 people go for kill.
What's more important is were you going to attack that enemy node or were you defending your node. Returning to seconds that rule this game - there is another one "a 30 seconds spawn timer".
Let's say you were attacking that node and killed enemy but he managed to reduce your hp by a fair amount and forced you to use some cooldowns. You bandaged/had some food/got healed and moved on while he is already fresh (full hp/full mana), fully aware of your intentions to tag his node and most probably he notified his teammates of your intentions and numbers.
So now you approach his flag but he is there and his teammates are coming. Was that kill worth it?
On other hand when you see a big group incoming to your flag it is best to force them to unmount and fight as far away from your flag as possible just to get them busy and to reduce their numbers/mana/cooldowns before they reach your flag, while informing your team of their presence/direction, and amount and a cherry on top - classes.
It is very important to always have a person watching the flag because 10 seconds to tag it - is a very small window and if you miss it you might not be able to get it back in 50 seconds while you can't respawn on this node already.

TAG ffs!!!
I already told before that this whole game is about tagging flags and not letting enemy to tag it.
So whatever you do inside arathi basin should be based on what goal you are reaching now "tagging" or "not letting tag" if your actions do not fit this goals - you probably playing your own game which is not a subject here.
For example you can just ride along having 2-3 enemies on your tail simple as. You are not killing/healing anything and not getting killed. But you are kiting 2-3 enemies around which prevents them from tagging. Or you might ride in circles around poorly defended but not soloable for you flag to get enemies attention. They might decide to leave their spot to try to kill you. That gives your teammates a good opportunity to tag. Which in turn prevents enemies from spawning here.
When you attack a good defended node - the longer you fight there and the more you kill there - the worse are your chances to tag it, because enemies will just respawn. 30 seconds respawn time works for you when you defend and against you when you attack.
So whatever you do - watch the flag. If you attack try to get all the enemies turned away from flag if you are already engaged in fight. If you are not yet - try to tag it. Chances are that nobody will notice you. The thought "ah.. I'm owning that sucker" forces most players to focus on the killing and not on flags. If you are defending - always watch the flag. Try to position enemy far away from the flag so even if you die he has to run to the flag - that gives you precious seconds.

One of the best moments to cap is when your node get's zerged. Even if they tag yours. If you manage resources right. You still have one minute to kill them all on your node and they will not spawn there
and at the same time they will not spawn on node you taged. So if you manage to defend new tagged one and clean up where you were kicked off you are on top and now have one more node to defend.


Positioning.
Positioning is even more important when you are solo defending/watching the flag. If you are not a pet class/iceblock mage/bubbleboy and you stand next to flag - you are in a bad position. Since 2.0.1 crowd control effects don't last longer than 12 seconds, but standing next to flag solo - you give rogues best chances to tag. (unless you are a pet clas/ice block mage/paladin) they just sap you tag the flag and go back to stealth and now you can't get flag back and you don't see the rogue.
Seduce/sheep - are pretty much the same in terms that they let attacker tag and after that you still can't get flag back until you kill them. There are not that much positions where you can hide but you can try. Your position should give you enough time to call for support and delay attackers. If you were not killed for a while, you probably don't have a "resurrection on corpse spot delay". So if flag is in danger and you just died defending it, but you know help is close, it's well worth a try to run to corpse and not wait for ghost res only because 10 seconds is so not much time to tag flag. And you can prevent taging one more time, while help is on the way. Life is cheap and honor gain was nerfed. That's why when you attack and kill before you tag collect insignias always. One second to shift-right-click corpse but saves you from being stabbed while you tag the flag.

Be aware
Whatever you do in AB you should remember of your goals (tag/prevent tagging) and those seconds that rule the game (10 sec tag, 50 sec vulnerable to backtagging and 30 seconds spawn time). You should always know where and how many enemies there are. Checking map often helps a lot. For example if you see a lonely dot at a friendly flag rapidly moving It might be dying to defend a flag but for some reason didn't report an attack. Or you can see a flag that is not guarded. Checking score list before the game is a lot of help as well. If you came to defend a node and there is much less enemies than your teammates you should think of where the hell is all other enemies. It is ridiculous some time how the wish to kill enemy blinds people. Full team of horde might wait for the moment that paladins bubble runs out to kill him when his full team rushes to horde's other node and succeeds in caping it because every horde player was waiting for the bubble to run off. Be aware. If there is no enemy here - he is somewhere else trying to fulfill his goals. Pay attention to raid chat and inform others it is the key.

This post is subject to change.

p.s. never kill oom paladin


"Buffs and how to use them"
speaking of normal buffs - you got enough time at the start of battle to buff everything around. Cheapest buffs are paladin ones. I have a paladin myself, cos they pissed me off too much. I usually buffed alot in battlegrounds as a paladin (it is really damn cheap) but rarely got any buffs from paladins back.. so i buffed them back with salvation. So you know it. What i wanted to say is it is always good to buff people around at the start at least. First blood and how it is spiled decides alot. In battlefield 1942 tournaments - first minute of the match was actual win or loose.. all else is just waiting for the fact to happen. So if you can help your team a bit - please do. Never say "water pls" mages hate it. if they don't - they are not mages. And no, it is not polite. It is more like "heal ffs".

There are temporal buffs spread on the map: sprint, rejuvination and berzerker. They are not there for you just to grab. especcially berzerker buff on your own node. So if you just spawned and plan to go somwhere it is not a good idea to grab it and run away. Most probably the guy who watches for this node and positioned himself so he can grab the buff and kill a single attacker fast counts on it. Please mind how you are using that buff to ride around with glowing arms. it does not really help.
Same goes for rejuvination thingie. If there is someone seriously hurt or oom let him take it. even point it to him. althou i prefer to die if situation allows and respawn fresh.


"30 second teleport"
I wanted to add another thing. If you look on the map - you can predict where all those who you kill will spawn. Hint: it is closest enemy flag. And you can also predict where you will be ported when you die.
So if you are last one at Lumber mill and gone "to help" at stables or farm, while having blacksmith caped - when you die you will spawn at blacksmith. Meanwhile lumber mill can be caped.
Same goes for continious zergs. Worst nodes to zerg are blacksmith and stables. Everithing killed in the middle of the map respawns at blacksmith if enemy owns it. Go and scout something else. And at stables, while ghost, you can perfectly see the flag and decide for yourself is it a corpse resurrection situation or you can wait for full hp/mana.
This leads to one thing only while killing things or dying - mind where enemies/you will respawn and how it fits your goals (taging/preventing enemy from tagging)


p.s. i win buttons ftw
i seriously recomend reading linked article
http://www.sirlin.net/archive/playing-to-win-part-1/
and maybe more from that site


From replies:

---

Q u o t e:
Ailawiu <> Bronzebeard
Two things to add - DoTs do not interrupt flag capping. This includes Mind Flay(unless it procs blackout). If you are a priest and want to interrupt cap, while being too far away to fear - use wand. If you are a lock - don't dot, coil instead or use searing pain/fear/another fast cast.
Also, if you know you are going to die and they will be capping, you can try dying somewhere around the corner so you don't lose your insignia and quickly corpse run before you get moved to other GY. There is a chance that attacker will move away for split second - or maybe you even manage to res *just* before he tags, or he is at very low hp to finish him off - letting you succesfully defend.

---

I had a section there about insignias and preventing caping/waiting for enemy to run off and recap
but had nothing about what iterrupts caping as my post was originally not aimed at this. Good adition.

---

Q u o t e:
Lancetfluke <> Azjol-Nerub

- If you're trying to cap a node, but there are too many defenders, go and camp their graveyard. When they spawn they will attack you instead of going for the flag, which makes it easier for your teammates to cap. (This is particularly important at the Aid Station in AV.) Corollary: if you're being camped at a graveyard, ignore the campers and run to the flag!

- If I've CC'd someone and am capping the flag, don't break the CC. The defender probably has me targeted and is mashing the keyboard so that as soon as it breaks he interrupts me.

- If there's one defender, and someone else is keeping them busy, cap the flag, don't assist.

- Attack from both sides. If a group of you is attacking LM from the south, chances are their defenders are drifting away from the flag, and may not be watching for attackers from the other side. Corollary: always fight at the flag!

- Don't fight melee classes in the water. It's like being permanently hamstrung.

- Use the terrain. If you're riding past LM, stick close to the cliff, a lookout at LM might miss you. Stand in the bushes and don't move - even though you have a big red name over your head, in a bush it gets broken up and attackers will often not see you. Goes for healers too.

- If you see a guy ramboing around solo, and you're also ramboing around solo, then just follow him instead.


General tips:

- Use CC to incapacitate healers.

- If you're a healer, and your healing, try to stay back and out of sight.

- If you're lucky enough to have someone healing (far fetched, I know) then try to keep them alive.

- AV biscuits and health pots are the best in the game, use em.

---

All good and solid points of wich some made it to my guide, some didn't cot they were not ab specific, like attacking cc'd ppl.
got to love fat cows charging what i just sheeped to be able to cap.

(Created by Juliatribal from the euro server Bladefist)


Ok it seems like it that I am kinda mad at the close to foolish way players play in the BG’s so here a list of tips I tricks of a tactical gamer. Notes and the end and I ask you friendly to read first before posting and if you post keep it constructive so I can build out this post.

1: WSG old school CTF (capture the flag)
2: AB conquest in battlefield anyone?
3: AB guide by Fi
4: AV clever rushing
5: AV fresh PTR tactics from Blaen
6: EYE stupidly easy
7: tricks for all BG’s from Azretha


1: WSG

As I said old school CTF anyone who ever played a shooter must know this one capture the enemy flag bring it back to your own and score. Can’t be easier but still people fail to see it.

Tricks
1: adept. Plays your enemy heavily defence go more on the offence and the other way around

2: only defend or attack don’t mid field fighting it wont get you anywhere but closer to a defeat.

3: gather info. It is wise to send in a rogue or druid first before you go and rush for the enemy flag this way you can adept to their defence.

4: let wars palas or druid get the flag they can sup stain the most hits.

5: guard your carrier with your life if needed.

6: if the enemy breaks trough your defence and catches the flag. Don’t go and run after them with your defending group your are outnumbers and way behind. Just return and be ready for the next attack. In this case the offence groups should turn back and intercept him. It has no use to take their flag and wait 3 hours till one finally scores.

7: I case you didn’t find out work in two groups if you die try to get back to them don’t go on a solo run you are easy prey if you do that.

8: (thanks to Sá) As a flag carrier, don't take the speed boost and run away from the guys who once were close to you and no longer can reach to heal you.

Tips
1: if you carry the flag it leaves a trail behind witch disappears fast but still can be followed. If you can kill then one that’s hunting your or slow him. If you move away from him than try to walk in a circle they don’t expect that and that give you time to get people to defend your or to score.

2: let hunters, rogues and mages defend. A hunter traps the flag and can warn when there is a attack and how many there are. The rogue can quickly take down people and is not seen if they check out your defence. The mage is a master of slowing targets down. Gives others and him/her more time to kill the efc.

3: don’t use ice block divine shield if you have the flag you will drop it if you do.

4: hunters if you have the flag don’t use aspect of the cheeta unless your are way clear from enemy’s. If you get dazed you can forget it.
5: at the start of each game buff up every one it will give you the starting advantage.

6: target the healers first.

7: (thanks to Sá) Defence doesn't mean you have to stand drooling on the flag, don't hunt the enemy flag carrier, meat up with him. (my edit) but keep a few at the flag to many times people return the flag and 3 sec later a horde who has been waiting picks it up again.

8: (thanks to Herfst (why do you call yourself after this season it sucks :P)) Run not straight towards the enemies but stay bit out of range and draw them away from your FC. Most of the time they are tempted by the easy kill you represent and will rather go after you instead of the FC.
Gives your FC a good advantage to gain precious seconds.


2: AB

Take points on the map and keep them to get score points. Easy fun lots of pvp but undoable if you don’t play it well.

Tricks
1: a lot of people will tell you to hold 3 points. DON’T attack and attack and leave 2 to defend positions no more. If you attack you don’t give your enemy the time to regroup and it will make them quite annoyed to see one big group taking over all places.

2: get a few druids to ninja places you would be surprised how many times they don’t defend or only one lowbie. When your are lvl 40+ any one can do this thanks to the mounts.

3: don’t let them take the stables or farm (depending or your side) a good group of five can keep 8+ easy at bay in your starting point.

4: BS is seen as the most important point on the map but it isn’t the farm (for aly) or the stables (for horde) are more important see point 3, but also you can now spawn from two sides of the map makes it way harder for your enemy to defend.

5: assault and wait. Assault point x and wait till you have it kill any horde around and move on. Just don’t leave before you have it.

6: if your team doesn’t have 3 points or more split into 2 attack groups to disorientate your enemy even more.

7: if you have 5 points don’t split up and defend keep the attack group intact and move around to aid points witch are under assault.

Tips
1: watch out for these ninjas they take points behind your lines if you don’t defend them. If you see them intercept and kill.

2: speed buffs are gold if you need to aid a point witch is under assault.

3: those food/drink buff is very useful in attack or defend, but also as mage you will love those because you loose quite a chunk of mana to buff yourself after resurrecting.

4: berserker buff. Just pick it up in attack or defence.

5: if you defend try to hide it will give you a small advantage.


3: AB guide by Fi

1. The key to everything is communication.
2. The key to strategic success is flexibility.
3. The key to tactical success is speed.

We'll examine these in more detail in a minute, but first some basic rules.

- Always fight at a flag.
- Never leave a flag undefended.
- Always target healers first.
- Tanks defend, healers attack.
- Always keep one eye on the map and one eye on raid chat. Shift click the bg icon on your minimap to display the bg map (truly amazing how many people don't know this).
- Healing classes should heal. Priests who stubbornly remain in shadow form or retridins who only do damage are depriving their team of the most important ingredient of success.

Let me repeat the most important rule again. Always fight at a flag. The game is about holding nodes. You gain no points for holding random stretches of road, so you should always be trying to capture or defend a node. If you're not in range you can't do either. Simple basic common sense.

OK, let's look at communication, flexibility and speed.

1. COMMUNICATION.

Knowledge is king. Reporting the enemy’s location is always the first priority. When defending a flag, the golden rules about reporting are as follows:

a) Report as early as possible. If that means reporting first and fighting second, so be it.
b) Report numbers. For example: “BS inc 2”. It’s no good just calling “Inc BS” when one rogue attacks you and having ten of your team mates rush to support you.
c) Report when you need more help and when there are additional incoming numbers. If you get overwhelming numbers of incoming enemies, don’t wait to count them all, just report “Big inc BS”.
d) Report when you’ve beaten off the attack successfully: “BS safe”.

When you are on the offensive and need to capture one or more flags, reporting is equally important. Someone needs to scout enemy held or neutral nodes and report visible defenders, e.g. “2 horde vis at mine.” Knowing at any one moment which are the heavily defended flags and which are the most vulnerable ones is the key to success.

2. FLEXIBILITY.

Specific strategies will vary according to the relative strength of your group and that of your opponents, but flexibility is the key. A good premade up against a PUG will have a totally different approach than two equally matched PUGs or two equally matched premades. For example, a good premade who expect to steamroller the opposition might send a group of two or three to the mine, a group of two or three to the mill and the rest to the farm via the blacksmith. Equally matched groups might find themselves contesting the mill and the mine and subsequently their respective home bases.

Whilst it’s useful to prescribe groups to attack initial targets, once the game has started it’s too cumbersome to keep ordering attacks by group. Players may have ressed in different areas and time spent forming up groups is time wasted.

The best AB teams don't have a single leader. It is everyone's responsibility to identify the best node to attack, to communicate that to the rest of the team and then it’s up to everyone else to recognise if they are in the best position to join the attack successfully.

In other words, everyone must be able to think for themselves.

Above all, remember one basic strategic rule:

Hit the enemy where he’s weak.

If the enemy has gathered large numbers in one location that means he will be weak in other places. It is extreme folly to continue to try to attack a well-defended flag. Even if (and especially if) it's your "home" node. Every flag has an equal points value so if you can use your resources to cap two flags in 2 mins instead of using them to cap one flag in 4 minutes then you should do the former.


3. SPEED.

Moving groups of players from one location to another in the shortest possible time is the cornerstone of success in AB.

For example, let’s say that a warrior is defending the mine alone and he sees a group of four opposition coming to attack. If he announces it immediately that might give you 20-30 seconds to react before he‘s overwhelmed and the flag is capped. Someone ressing at BS graveyard might go immediately, the Stables defender might also be needed, requiring someone from the mill to cover the stables before the opposition realise it‘s undefended..

The object is to move enough people at least to interrupt any opposition attempt to cap the flag. Remember that until the opposition assaults the flag you will ress at the nearest graveyard.. So if the warrior is killed just as or just before the reinforcements arrive, they can occupy the enemy and prevent them from capping until he can ress, and so on and so forth.

Similarly in offence, if you change the focus of attack from one flag to another, the objective is to get a sufficiently overwhelming force to the node as quickly as possible before the opposition has a chance to reinforce and interrupt your attempt to cap the flag.

If you can manage this speed of movement it magnifies the overall power of your group hugely because you can minimise the number of defenders you need at any one point and that enables you to concentrate your forces where you can do most damage.


4: AV

With the new AV defence of the towers have become way more important. Although I still prefer the old one here we go.

Tricks
1: rogues and druids your time to shine even brighter. Ninja towers all the time attack or defence. and with this new AV defence of towers is importand and can slow down you enemy. (it takes 4 min to catch it so retake it at 1 min to gain 3 more min) (other classes can do this to)

2: speed is important here try to keep one focused attack group take down the general than IB tower once all npc are death 3 defend it. Same for other towers.

3: the o so important GY these things let you win or loose try to hold them try to capture them and always have some defence at your most forward placed GY you will need it.

4: once you destroyed all the towers time to kill the boss and don’t worry they go down fast enough just make sure that you NEVER RUN OUT during the fight.

5: if played well you can have 2 towers standing when all your enemy’s are down.

6: use 10 on defence (stealth ones) and rest on offence defence just has to secure towers if all your towers are down you wont make a big difference anymore.

7: speed is on the essence here do what I told you fast every sec you loose you will feel in the end.

Tips
1: not much here just keep a eye out for your towers many people attack them and leave them.

2: if you die and your are transported back to a GY behind your defence go and spirit run if you where on the attack party.


5: AV fresh PTR tricks from Blaen

1: Team set-up. Whoever is the battleground leader must sort teams quickly at the start. We've found this can make a huge difference. Teams 1 - 6 should be the core offensive teams, make sure you put a prot specced tank and two off-tanks with two healers into group 1. Group 1 is the team that will focus on grabbing agro on the enemy captain and later general. Groups 2 - 6 ideally all need one healer and lots of DPS. Groups 7 - 8 should be two teams of stealth. Team 7 should be all level 70 stealth, ideally 3 rogues and 2 druids, their job will be the recapture your towers before the 4 minute timer has gone and they work together closely, even if the druids are feral specced they should aim to heal during the initial attack on a tower. Team 8 will rush down the map and cap enemy towers as fast as they can, then move on to graveyards. Teams 5 and 6 should be used to defend the first 2 towers captured, with only 4 minutes to hold them they should easily manage it.

2: Mines, these are now of vital strategic importance to capture. Get a rogue or feral druid in defence to go straight to your mine and grab it. Ideally grab the second mine as well if you can, a rogue or feral druid below level 70 is capable of this quite easily.

3: Captains and generals seem to benefit hugely from buffs. Ideally get sub 70 players to rush to your captain and buff with stamina and motw. These buffs might seem small but will delay the killing of your captain and later general.

4: Healing, healing, healing! Every player you lose brings the enemy closer to victory. The only way to achieve consistent wins is to work as teams and keep people healed up. Each group should work closely together but also help out any other group in trouble.

5: Objectives - once again these have become more important. If you have a few very low level e.g. 61 - 64 people in the raid, they should priory looting enemy corpses. Ideally these people should also have the AV trinket so that once they have a lot of bits to turn in they can return to your base before it's under attack to boost your NPC's armour and maybe get a flight or two into the air if your wing commanders made it back safely.


6: EYE

O I hate this place I really do. Why? Because it is so dam easy and still we loose.

Tricks
1: Get 3 towers and no not 2, 3 is they for victory in any pug eye. your team gets more points if you cap the flag the enemy gets less points for each cap. what els do you want.

2: when you have tree towers keep presure on the 4th just try to get that one to with a group. so the most of your enemys will defend that tower or are the same fools and fail the the flag bait. kepp this up and you have won soon.

3: yell scream do anything to get this into the minds of other players. (stay polite though or they wont listen) in the start they say you are nuts but later they will see.

Tips
1: keep those towers and scream for help if you get a inc you can't handle.

2: in every pug there are people for the flag don't waste your time get basses less kill but more change for victory (and for every kill on the same guy you get 10% less honor anyway)

7: General tricks BG’s from Azretha

An advice that goes for most Battlegrounds:
-- Fight near the flag, don't let yourself be drawn away from it or someone else will ninja it.
Countless times I see people chase enemy’s miles away from the node they are defending, while another enemy is happily capping the node (Graveyard ninja works on PC as much as on NPCs 75% of the time, which is kind of sad).

-- Don't run past people that are fighting. If it looks like a "x vs x" battle, your interference may quickly turn the battle in your (and your team mates) favour. If you can heal, don't be afraid to throw out a heal. You don't have to be healing spec to help out with healing.

-- Focus on the healer. Seriously. Any DPS + healing combo can completely destroy 4-6 people as long as the healer is not focused. Likewise, as a healer, try to find a DPS 'pet' that will keep you safe while you keep him alive.

- Harass. Use everything you have to keep other people from doing what they want to do. Even if you are outnumbered while defending a node, try to stay alive as long as possible while keeping the other side from capping it. CC , heal each other, interrupt capping in any way you can (using small, rank 1 instant cast spells will even suffice, as well any charge or stun). In AV, try to kill people that are tanking or healing the tank, and the NPCs will do the rest. In a similar way, CCing someone next to a group of friendly NPCs is a great way of getting them killed quickly.

- a tip form Sergra: another tip, use show target of target. simple option to switch on. it will tell you who an enemy is trying to attack. it will give you an idea of how many enemies are protecting the flag in just a few clicks. it has a million other uses. again as a warrior i can use this to find out who is targeting our healer and put a stop to that. and as a rogue you will know if someone can see you while in stealth.


well that was it hope you learned something :D
and Thanks to all for there great support and guides.