That’s a loaded question, because it depends where you are.
A few people have told me to relax, that the whole new RandomBG thing will settle down and life in the Battlegrounds will rerun to some kind of normality.
I think it already is, but there is one thing I have noticed that is arse-about, and has been for a long time.
People fight for the flag in the wrong places and at the wrong time!
As a general rule, you fight for the flag:
- Warsong Gulch: ALWAYS!
- Eye of the Storm: sometimes, but only when appropriate.
What I have found though is the opposite is true.
In EotS, 7-10 people will spend the whole game trying to get the flag, regardless whether we still have a base.
As Cynwise joked:
At Least the enemy can’t cap the flag while we have it!
Of course, the flag isn’t worth much unless you control at least 2, but better 3-4 of the 4 nodes in EotS, and holding 3-4 bases makes the flag completely irrelevant – the points generated from 3-4 nodes will win the game in a few minutes.
In WSG, it’s like people have flag allergies.
If I even get close to the flag I break out in spots and shake uncontrollably.
Hey Bloodlust Battlegroup, do you know why the Horde manages to take 3-4 bases in EotS nearly every game?
Well, apart from the fact that you gave up while buffing…
What’s the plan?
Lose.. we always do…
It’s because while we have 7ish people at the flag, their 15 slaughter our remaining defenders.
Also, someone asked what to do the other night when they were Zerging.
- Don’t: mass up at the one node and fight 10 to 15.
- Do form up in groups of 3-4 and attack each node. There are enough to harry the bulk of the horde, and enough to take and hold the undefended, or under-defended nodes.
On the subject of nodes, there is a very important reason to fight ON the node in EotS.
It’s quantity of bodies that capture the node.
So if 5 of us are fighting 4 of them, the node is already turning in our favor. If you can push them off the node while fighting even better. The node may even go neutral during that initial battle meaning they can’t Rez there.
Of course, if you defend a node from the road, you are leaving it open for the attackers to cap behind your back.
The ideal starting strat for EotS is something like this (yes, it doesn’t account for healers.. it’s a pug strat).
Grp1: DR and hold.
Grp2: FRR and hold.
Grp3: One to BeT – stay and call incomings. One try to grab flag, the rest to FRR.
DON’T CAP FLAG UNTIL WE HOLD 3 NODES!
If you can’t get the flag, fall back to BeT.
2 People on nodes at all times.
Further instructions to follow.
Of course experience has shown that 80% of the time you will be greeted with silence, the other 20% doesn’t matter that much anyway because as soon as the forcefield pops, 5 people head to the nodes and 10 people rush the flag.
Popping the bubble
Speaking of which.. do you have people on your battlegroup “popping the bubble” to race around outside before the game starts, maybe standing on top of the bubble?
It’s kind of cool, the way they have found the spot to breach the bubble… it’s also kind of cool that they aren’t getting my buffs.
Play the game
Whatever actions you take around the flag, just make sure that they are the right ones for the BG.
- If you know no better.. it’s time to learn.
- If you do know better… well, how about running BGs properly for a few weeks to let the new guys know how it’s done.
Gnomer and Out!
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http://gnomeaggedon.net/2010/04/28/when-do-you-fight-for-the-flag
If you’re outnumbered on defense, it’s advantageous to fight in the road: they’ll win at the flag anyway, so if you can keep them away, you effectively win by distraction.
There is something to the “they can’t cap the flag if we have it”; if your enemy has control of the center, capping is going to give them at least one cap, maybe more. Instead, hold the flag, let them waste people in the center, and use the distraction to cap another tower.
True on both counts.
I was cheering a priest that was dfending a node with me the other day.
The priest had the flag, but wouldn’t cap it until the other 13 capped a 3rd base.
Good incentive and keeps our side away from the flag
i don’t have an opinion on the topic at hand — i’m just glad to see you posting. by my count, it had been over a week!
I’ve been sick in bed for most of that week (as well as Odin… and now the kitten). Wost part was it was a long weekend… bad way to spend a long weekend.
This post is about a week old… I might just get the next draft online tomorrow!
sick? yuck, sorry to hear it. it sounds like it was a DoT illness, or maybe an AoE, haha — couldn’t you port your healer in? : )
The cat has been doing both AoE and dots… Best not to go there…
I see this a lot when I PvP with my guild. We’re alliance, we are mostly self confessed PvP nubs – we have some res gear, but we’re not ubar brilliant at reacting and countering each individual class.
However we’ll join EotS or AB and we will generally win, because we’re a group of 4-5 people who can consistently support each other. It’s a bad habit and bites us in the ass when we enter BGs solo, but we stick together, identify targets and smash down onto a target. As we get better at PvP we get more effective at doing this. When we enter an EotS we always go MT and then FFR, and we’re normally one of the first to engage at FFR.
If nothing else we keep 5-7 defenders pinned down at one objective, and while we tend to a lot of close calls, we generally have a winning trend.
On the other hand, our Battlegroup is not known as a good one for PvP. It’s imbalanced and a true PvP battlegroup would eat us alive.
The axiom in our guild is that 5 people on vent can completely win a battleground.
It’s mostly true, too. Having a coordinated group to lead the charge (both due to the fish theory and just a good squad working together) usually results in better communication throughout the entire bg team.
I’m trying to learn to not let it drive me nuts when folks go immediately to middle flag in EOS before we have bases.
Leaving bases undefended makes me a tad mental and I’ll often end up defending which is frustrating as a healer but at least I can usually last a bit before help comes if I get attacked.
I almost always make suggestions for strategy at the beginning of a bg. As a healer I mention a strategy and which base I’ll be heading to and suggest if here is another healer to go to BE or Mines etc. Sometimes this has been successful. I usually keep the communication up by saying LM is good or LM is good I’m healing at Farm. Sometimes this communication opens up for others to do the same. Sometimes they just find me annoying hehehe.
In WSG I’ve oftened helped get our flag carrier to our base with the horde flag only to have no offense going for our flag. They choose to fight in the middle because traveling as a pack to get our flag back is way too dangerous and they might actually die… IN A GAME
Grrr sorry now I’m ranting hehehe..I’ll stop
“- Don’t: mass up at the one node and fight 10 to 15.
- Do form up in groups of 3-4 and attack each node. There are enough to harry the bulk of the horde, and enough to take and hold the undefended, or under-defended nodes. ”
This. A thousand times over. The number of times I’ve seen 10 people on each side fighting for DR and CALLING FOR MORE HELP is staggering. Excuse me while I go attack FRR (… and inevitably get killed by the lone lock defending it).
Sidenote: anyone else finding that the other team always has at least one really good warlock? Bane of my existence. Just give me your cookie.
Siderant: Bloodlust has been at (by far) its worst for Alliance since… well a long while. I don’t know how it is in your timezone, but I’m at the point where I don’t even bother going for my daily random anymore. I think my win:loss ratio for the past week has been 7:50.
~ Endario @ Proudmoore
lol yeah. Last night in AV
“Need more at north gys!”
Guys at Drek
“WTF! we need people at Drek, they are all in on Van. What the he’ll are you doing there?”
Bloodlust has been messy lately. 2 days ago I had 4 SotAs where we were ground into the beach, followed by one where the Horde barely bothered to get off the ship & one of our demos made it all the way from beach to relic unopposed. I think it was a charity game.
Mind you I have been reading lately that Bloodlust has the toughest Arena group… So I guess people in our BGs might fight harder as well
Can you recommend a writeup on EOTS, and in particular the tower changes? I understand ABasin. I never PvPed outside a BG so “similar to plaguelands” is not much help. In particular, can one stealth person take a tower? how long?
Should you just send one person to the tower while the rest got to FR? Or would more people at MT help convert faster? The more I type it, the sillier the EoTS mechanics seem.
I can’t recommend one off the top of my head. Wowwiki might have that info though (can’t check right now).
One person can cap, but the more bodies of the same faction will give. Quicker cap.
Allied bodies – enemy bodies = number of bodies at the node effecting the speed.
You can’t cap while stealthed. The timer is only effected by unstealthed bodies. You can stealth there, but then need to unstealth.
Thx for the stealth info! I would never have guessed that.
I suppose the design goal of EotS was to make something similar to AB, only worse.
Yeah, it’s half AB, half WSG, all monster.
It’s a great BG, one of my favorites because it can be so dynamic and a strat change can be as simple as leave or take the flag.
Unfortunately where the WSG flag is a hidden mystery, the EotS flag taunts people, even otherwise sensible people.
Cynwise has just put up a great guide for children’s week PvP… But is has some great info for people new to WSG as well… Like how to get in/out of bases and where the flag probably is based on map location.