[Guide] Beginner's Guide to Battlegrounds
Posted: 22 Mar 2013, 08:28
Original Author-Zach Yonzon
Edited for 2.4.3 by me-Akeno.
Beginner's Guide to Battlegrounds 2.4.3
Alright, so you have some kind of vague idea about what a Battleground is. Basically, Battlegrounds are where players go to consensually bash each others brains out. Or fry them. Or freeze them. These instances are designed for players to enjoy PvP and get a bit of honor.
What are Honor Kills ?
As you participate in PvP, you accumulate Honorable Kills (HK). Generally speaking, an Honorable Kill is awarded whenever you or someone in your group kills a player of the opposing faction, if that player has sufficiently high level (not gray).
Not all HKs are equal. Each HK comes with a certain amount of "Honor Contribution Points" (CP). You get more CP for killing the enemy Field Marshal than for a player with no prior PvP experience. In addition, you get CP for fulfilling Battleground objectives. You can see your lifetime HKs, last week HKs, and last week Honor Contribution Points on the "Honor" tab of your character screen in WoW GUI.Your Ranking Point score is a measure of your PVP effort as compared to all the other ranked PVP players on your side of your server. For example, if you consistently play with a weekly standing of 100 every week, your overall ranking should approach 100, and whatever rank that position holds on your server. The only way to make more progress is to put more time into PVP and get higher standings every week.
1.Warsong Gulch
Basically, Warsong Gulch is a Capture-the-Flag type of game where players must take a flag from the enemy base and bring it back to their own base while having control of their own flag, with the first team to capture three flags winning the match. Flags can be taken by right-clicking on it, and captured by stepping into the spot where your team's flag is. Your team's flag must be at its spawn point in order for your team to score.There are 10 players per side in Warsong Gulch, currently making it the smallest Battleground.
Warsong Gulch Map
Rewards:
Because the Alliance and Horde know that players actually play for loot on top of enjoyment (you mercenary, you!), each game of Warsong Gulch awards bonus honor for winning a match as well as capturing flags. If your team doesn't capture any flags (and likely lose), you don't get squat. How's that for incentive? You do get honor for killing enemies, though. Players are also awarded Warsong Gulch Marks of Honor at the end of every game -- three marks for every member of the winning team, two marks for tied games, and one mark for those on the losing side. These Marks of Honor are currency for items such as mounts, tabards, lower level potions and food, and even as turn-ins for quests that award honor.
2.Arathi Basin
Arathi Basin is a resource accumulation Battleground with 15 players on each side. The goal is to gather 2000 resource points, with the first team to reach that number winning the match and ending the game. There are five resource nodeswhich can be controlled by capturing the associated, nearby flag -- an 8-second channel (formerly 10 seconds) action similar to opening a chest (you'll see a progress bar). Once a flag is tagged, teams must protect it for one minute until it comes under their control. The one minute window allows opposing teams to recapture a tagged flag.
The rate at which resources are gained depend on the number of resource nodes that a team controls -- the more nodes, the faster resources are accumulated. Capturing all five bases guarantee a rapid gain of resources and can be difficult or impossible to overcome if allowed to continue uncontested for a certain period of time. Players also gain honor and reputation according to the resources gained, so teams that win the match get the maximum bonus honor while teams that lose have varying levels of honor gain. It is virtually impossible to have a tied game of Arathi Basin.
The five nodes are the Farm, Blacksmith, Lumber Mill, Gold Mine, and Stables. The Farm is nearest to the Defiler's Den, the Southeastern part of the map where the Horde contingent spawns. The Stable is on the Northwestern part close to Trollbane Hall, where Alliance players start the game. The Lumber Mill is situated to the central West of the map, with the notable geographic feature of being atop a small cliff. It's always fun there. At the center of the map is an island where the Blacksmith is, and slightly Northeast to it would be the Gold Mine.
Arathi Basin Map
Rewards:
Arathi Basin Marks of Honor -- three for those on the winning team, one for those on the losing side -- which you'll need to purchase gear or turn-in in your quest for more honor. And everybody loves more honor.
3.Alterac Valley
Alterac Valley is a 40-man per side Battleground situated in the Alterac Mountains. It is a vertically-oriented map that has been criticized as being imbalanced in some areas as favoring one or the other faction. It certainly is the most asymmetrical Battleground map, and until Patch 2.4 had the Horde starting closer to the middle of the map than the Alliance. The game can be won in two ways: killing the enemy General and whittling down enemy reinforcements to 0. Each side begins with 600 reinforcements, which can be reduced by achieving various Battleground objectives.
The various reinforcement-affecting objectives are as follows:
Killing the enemy Captain takes away 100 reinforcements. Captain Balinda Stonehearth is the Alliance Captain, while Captain Galvangar serves the Horde.
Burning down an enemy bunker or tower takes away 75 reinforcements. There are four towers per side, for a total of 300 reinforcements. Additionally, burning down a bunker or tower eliminates an Alliance Marshal or Horde Warmaster respectively. These elite NPCs serve as the Generals' bodyguards and increase the Generals' total health by 25% each (for a total of 100% additional health if all four are up).
Killing an enemy player reduces enemy reinforcements on a 1:1 basis.
Capturing a mine will grant 1 reinforcement every 45 seconds.
There are other Battleground objectives which do not directly affect the win conditions but have strategic value. The most important of these are the Graveyards, which can be captured thus giving teams more places from which to resurrect. Ideally, the graveyard captures is a forward motion, allowing teams to continue their push towards the enemy base.
There are also Wing Commanders held in enemy territory who grant 25 bonus Honor for each one who makes it safely back to the base. Though most games will never see it, Wing Commanders provide some strategic value when the Call of Air quests are completed. Enemy players and NPCs drop items which are turned in to a Wing Commander who has made it back to base; if enough of these have been turned in, gryphons or wyverns will take to the skies and bombard enemy players from above.
The most important and obvious Battleground objective are the enemy Generals who are holed up in their respective keeps. Drek'thar is the Frostwolf General who commands the Horde forces while Vanndar Stormpike is the Stormpike General who leads the Alliance. Killing the enemy General will reduce enemy reinforcements to 0, winning the game.
Alterac Valley Map
Don't worry about floundering around for a bit during your first few games. The map is large and can be a bit confusing for new players. Take the time to familiarize yourself with the landscape, particularly the locations and names of key points such as graveyards and bunkers/towers. Don't worry too much if you lose your way going to a place, and it's generally a good idea to follow the crowd for the first few games just to get into the flow of things.
To make matters a little more difficult, most players already familiar with the Battleground will abbreviate all objectives so it will take some getting used to. I'll list common abbreviations used in Alterac Valley below just so new players can get an idea of what to expect in Battleground chat:
Horde Locations and NPCs
Relief Hut - RH or Relief
East Tower or West Tower - sometimes called East, West only
Frostwolf Graveyard - FWGY
Tower Point - TP
Iceblood Tower - IBT or IB (sometimes confused with Icewing Bunker)
Iceblood Graveyard - IBGY or Iceblood
Captain Galvangar - Galv
Drek'thar - Drek
Rokholar the Ice Lord - Rok (rarely summoned)
Alliance Locations and Captain
Stormpike Aid Station - Aid or Aid Station
North Bunker - Sometimes called North or NB
South Bunker - Sometimes called South or SB
Stormpike Graveyard - SPGY
Icewing Bunker - IWB
Stonehearth Graveyard - SHGY
Stonehearth Bunker - SHB
Captain Balinda Stonehearth - Bal
Vanndar Stormpike - Vann
Ivus the Frost Lord - Ivus (rarely summoned)
Other abbreviations
Snowfall Graveyard - SFGY or SF
Field of Strife - FoS (hardly used as it's not a specific objective)
Starting points - The Cave (which spawned the term AFKavers)
It might seem a bit daunting to have to learn so many terms, specially after the simple Warsong and Arathi maps, but it gets easy after a few games. There are many specific strategies to win Alterac Valley, so we won't get into the specific ones but there are just some important things to remember while inside the Battleground. We can worry about specific strategies later.
Towers and bunkers are more important than Graveyards
This might be a controversial statement to make, but I say this because these structures can be destroyed permanently and directly affects the reinforcement count. A tower or bunker has a flag inside it which can be tagged through a 10-second channeled action. Once tagged, it will burn after two minutes. While some strategies involve yielding towers to the enemy to facilitate forward movement, it's never a bad idea to try and recapture towers to impede enemy progress.
Defend what you tag
Corollary to bunkers and towers being important, players should never leave what they tag. Just as with Arathi Basin, where it's a bad move to leave a flag unguarded, graveyards or bunkers and towers should be defended until they are captured or destroyed. Can you imagine how much of a setback it is to have a bunker with thirty or so seconds left on its timer get reclaimed by the enemy? Careless defense of tagged objectives often spells the difference in close matches.
Be useful
This might seem like a no-brainer, but there are unscrupulous and lazy players who tend to just 'soak' honor by entering Alterac Valley and not participating actively in the battle. In fact, this behavior led Blizzard to introduce the debuff that prevents players from gaining Honor while its on. Report players who exhibit suspicious behavior by being in odd areas of the map where there seems to be no activity by clicking on their 'dot' in the map and selecting 'Report Player AFK'. There are many ways for players to be useful in Alterac Valley, from defending nodes to capturing them, as well as good old-fashioned killing enemies.
Rewards:
Alterac Valley Marks of Honor- three for those on the winning team, one for those on the losing side -- which you'll need to purchase gear or turn-in in your quest for more honor or gear rewards. And everybody loves more honor and new gear.
4.Eye of the Storm
Eye of the Storm is a Battleground that combines the resource accumulation mechanic of Arathi Basin with the flag capture aspect of Warsong Gulch. The map accommodates 15 players per faction in a game where the goal is to accrue 1600 resource points, or Victory Points as noted on the counter at the top of your screen. The accumulation of resources is dependent on the capture and control of points of interest on the map as well as the capture of the flag, which is located on the center of the map.
Taking the flag is a 10-second channeled action and players cannot ride a mount without dropping it. The flag can be captured by taking it to a tower that your faction controls and crossing over a capture point marked by a metal circle on the ground. Each flag capture grants an amount of resources depending on the number of towers your faction controls:
1 Tower or Ruin controlled = 75 Victory Points per flag capture
2 Towers or Ruins controlled = 85 Victory Points per flag capture
3 Towers or Ruins controlled = 100 Victory Points per flag capture
4 Towers or Ruins controlled = 500 Victory Points per flag capture
Teams also acquire resources at a rate that scales with the number of towers they control. Blizzard introduces a new capture mechanic in Eye of the Storm which is also evident in several world PvP objectives in Burning Crusade -- strength in numbers. Points in Eye of the Storm can be captured through proximity, with the number of players expediting the capture timer. In order to capture a point of interest, players simply need to be near the objective.
The more players there are, the faster it takes to capture a ruins or tower, although enemy presence cancels this out on a 1:1 basis. That is to say, if there are equal numbers of Horde and Alliance within the proximity of a point, it will be a stalemate and control will not change. The moment one side has more players than the other, control begins to shift towards the numerically superior faction. An advantage of 5 players is the fastest a team can capture a point, so there's no difference whether you have a party of five or a raid of fifteen sitting by a tower. Assuming there are no enemies in sight, they will convert at the same time. Speaking of being in sight, stealthed players do not count towards the capture of a key point.
As with the flag captures, the more that your team controls, the faster you accrue resources:
1 Tower or Ruin controlled = 1 Victory Point per second
2 Towers or Ruins controlled = 2 Victory Points per second
3 Towers or Ruins controlled = 5 Victory Points per second
4 Towers or Ruins controlled = 10 Victory Points per second
The four points of interest in the game are the Mage Tower, Draenei Ruins, Fel Reaver Ruins, and Blood Elf Tower located at the Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast areas of the map, respectively. These are usually abbreviated on Battleground chat as MT, DR, FR, and BE. The Horde start the game on a rock in the Southern end of the map while the Alliance start up North. Each of these locations also grant a nearby Graveyard where players from the controlling faction can resurrect. Teams that don't control any points respawn in their elevated starting area.
Eye Of The Storm Map
Rewards:
Eye of The Storm Marks of Honor -- three for those on the winning team, one for those on the losing side -- which you'll need to purchase gear or turn-in in your quest for more honor. And everybody loves more honor.