RBG Cross Realm - EU - Horde

[pharoma]

What Im hoping to get together is: (Other setups are okay tho)

Protection Warrior (Flag Carrier)
Holy Paladin (Healer)
Disc Priest (Healer)
Resto Shaman or Holy paladin (Healer)
Frost/Fire Mage (DPS), the best is if you have a mage with sets of gear for both specs. You need your mage to be frost in AB/WSG/TP and fire in Eots/BoG.
Affliction Warlock (DPS)
Feral Druid (DPS) <-- That will be me

This is the core of any good RBG group, for the 3 remaining spots, we can pick a mix of the following classes/specs.

Frost Deathknight (Max 1) The deathknights only role is deathgrip, he shouldn't push into the enemy team to far since they will switch on him and kill him easily considering DK's are one of the squishiest targets alive.
Elemental Shaman (Max 1)
Shadow Priest (Max 1)
Affliction Warlock (Max 1)
Balance Druid (Max 2)
Subltey Rogue (Max 1)

Please use format below *Spaced for less clutter* and copy paste this to this post.

Access to a mic and vent is 100% a must for Rated Battlegrounds.

BEST way to contact you:

Character you are going to play on (with armory link):

Race:

Class/spec:

Resil:

Experience (Arena or RBG):

Current RBG Rating:

Time/Day available:

Other info (optional):

Addons that help RBG gameplay (All addons from Curse - WoW Addons, Minecraft Mods, Curse Client and Gaming News)

Decursive- Decursive - Buffs & Debuffs - World of Warcraft Addons - Curse
Capping- http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/capping-bg-timers (DO NOT USE WITH DBM)
Battleground Targets- BattlegroundTargets - PvP - World of Warcraft Addons - Curse
BG Spy - BG Spy - Battleground - World of Warcraft Addons - Curse
SpellAlerter- SpellAlerter - PvP - World of Warcraft Addons - Curse
CCReport- CCReport - PvP - World of Warcraft Addons - Curse


Other usefull links:

http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/worl...rounds-v2.html (All you need to know about leading Rated Battlegrounds v2)

Strategy

The biggest thing about strategy is making sure you know where the opposing team is and where your team are.
You need players who can listen and understand what you are saying and know how to follow orders.
Having a vocal team is great, they can help you in making strats and observing little things that you didn't notice, however at the end of the day, your making the executive calls, so you need to be able to tell people to shut it and listen if they are trying to lead themselves.
For the individual battlegrounds I am going to assume you already know the basics mechanics on what to do and i'm not going to explain how the work, im only going to explain what is different in RBG.

3.1 Warsong Gulch

This battleground is the bread and butter of each team and has been around the longest in the wow history.
It is a simple capture the flag battleground and lasts 25 or untill someone has captured 3 flags.
Most competitive games will last the full 25 minutes, unless someone manages to capture 2 flags, in which case its GG 90% of the time.
In the start of the game you want 9 out of 10 people to leave the gates trough your graveyard.
The 10th will go trough the tunnel and pickup the speed buff, so that the enemy FC can't get it if he manages to push trough you (which will happen 90% of the time)
Have one of your highest DPS who isn't melee (a warlock/boomkin most of the time) pickup berserking in your hut and gather in the middle.

You should have 9 people stacked close to eachother and your FC on the right side of the map, so he can slip trough as soon as the fighting starts.
DONOT have your FC try and get the flag before the midfield fight has started because otherwise they might turn around and try to kill him, if they succeed they have a huge advantage and even if they fail they force you into a bad position (fighting close to their base, near their GY).

If you see the enemy FC slip trough and you know you can catch him, try and do it to get a gib, you will force them into a bad position and have an advantage because their tank is slowed down and he might have to use 1-2 cooldowns.

90% of the time the fight will start when a DK gets a decent grip going and people connect on that target, if you donot have a DK, make sure you engage them first because if they grip you you are in a bad shape
Now you will usually wait 1-2 minutes with everyone hopping around abit until someone gets a solid engage/grip on the other team.
If they have a feral FC (about 1 in 20 games) you need to also engage asap, because most likely he is trying to stealth past your group and you get a disadvantage because their FC is further then yours.

When the fighting starts, have one of your paladins near the edge of the fight and as close to your FC in case their rogue (or mage) goes for your FC, this will happen sometimes.
In this case the FC should keep going on his mount and ask for a HoF from the paladin allowing him to escape his assailants.
This paladin should only go to the FC incase he is needed though, he should be with the group otherwise.

While struggling in the mid try and wipe them one by one, follow your targetcallers orders and very important
ANNOUNCE YOUR CC'S AND GET OTHER PEOPLE TO DO THAT ASWELL.
That way, people know the DR's on targets and nothing gets cc'd uselessly.
Try killing them and pushing them back to their graveyard.
Use combat resses on the first of your team to die, unlike pve you donot have a maximum of CR you can use, so if you have a team with a druid 2 locks and a DK, make sure you abuse that advantage.
Ofcourse, if you know the opposing team has CR's aswell, make sure you loot corpses for victory (and money).
Always call out when your combat ressing someone as non-druid so healers can top that person quickly.
If you get close to their graveyard, stop advancing and just keep them boxed in, make sure nobody escapes, that way, when their FC enters midfield, you can easily swap onto him and kill him.

By now, both FC's should have the flag and should be running back, if you are wiping them your FC should take the tunnel, if they are wiping you you should all disengage and meet up with your FC at the ramp to get him across the map safely.

If you see their FC come out of your tunnel and you are on their side call for a disengage, have everybody sprint across the map and try to kill their FC.
This will usually force 1-2 major cooldowns (last stand/shieldwall) out of their tank or even kill him allowing you to get an easy cap.

If this doesn't happen, have your FC stay behind the group, and have an Hpaladin keep an eye on him, if they want to swap onto your FC they should either use a grip (which can be countered by life-grip) or charge trough your full group, which leaves them and their healers exposed allowing for a quick wipe.

Once you start pushing them towards their graveyard, send your FC together with 1 hpaladin back to your base and start pushing for their FC.
Keep an eye on their spawntimers and try to kill some of them while the rest just spawned for an easy second wipe.
A good way to do this is have a stopwatch set to 45 seconds and push it every time they ress (if one of you addon people read this WTB ADDON FOR THIS NAO)
With 3 stacks up a Deathgrip-Stun-Smokebomb should force major cooldowns/get you a kill.

If you donot have the group to wipe them and they are pushing you back, the only way to win is to have a stealth team kill their FC.
If you are near your GY you should be able to kill 1-2 of them and just keep protecting your FC by having him near the graveyard or even life-gripping him up the graveyard.
Warriors can intervene/leap up the graveyard to be immune to all forms of melee attacks. Keep in mind that they can be gripped down by DK's and that warriors/rogues can shadowstep/charge up the graveyard aswell.
Then ask a team of 2 stealthers to disengage (usually rogue+ mage/boomkin) and go for their flag, if their flag is behind their team you have a very narrow time window before they back up and kill your stealthers, if they have already pulled their FC back to their base.
Usually if your mage and rogue open on the FC, they will panic and have their DPS pull back to kill your mage and rogue, this is your opportunity to push into them easily and get a good grip on the enemy FC.

If they already send their FC back into their base, your rogue+Boomkin/mage have to do a 2v2 against a healer+ tank with 3+ stacks, which they should win easily. While they are doing this, you need to make sure your tank survives above all.

If you are ahead 1 flag and its almost time, you can consider camping your roof, this is a pretty risky strategy but it can pay off very well.
Donot consider camping unless there is less then 10 minutes left when the flags are first picked up.
The way to camping is having your melee stand below the ramp, ranged stand up the ramp and FC stand near the edge of the roof, that way, if they want to reach your FC, they will have to go trough your entire team before reaching him.

Also make sure to utilize knockbacks on roof to the fullest extend, knocking 3 dps off while their rogue is bombing is priceless

This is basically the strategy for WSG, for further flag caps just rince and repeat what I just written before and you should be fine strategy wise.

3.2 Twin Peaks

My guide for twin peaks is essentially the same as warsong gulch, but I will give a few more pointers which are unique to TP but that is it.
In the start always try to get across the water asap or else donot fight near the water, not being able to run away because of the bridge LOS or because water slows you down sucks major balls, so just avoid the water alltogether.
If you are getting pushed back, try moving towards your middle graveyard while having your tank stand inbetween you and the graveyard so you get quick resses.
If you really cannot hold it anymore consider going back into your base and up the ramp, especially with knock-back classes and good path blocking it is pretty easy to defend a tank there while your rogue+mage/boomkin try and kill the enemy flag carrier.
If you have an elemental shaman and your alliance, try to knock the enemy flag carrier off the map while hes crossing the water near the alliance berserker buff hut, this is really a great strategy, as it gives you a huge chance to get a cap (considering the flag stays in limbo for quite some time before returning itself, which gives you alot of time to get on the flag spot).
Catching flag carriers in the water is a great strategy as horde, you can easily have your casters rip into him from up the ramp and he isn't going anywhere because damage removes his water walking. Water+Slow=not going anywhere.
If they all gather up in their base to turtle, the best thing you can do is wait for abit of time and then send a rogue and mage in from one of the ramps, rogue+mage has a really good chance to kill

For the strategy again its the same as WSG

3.3 Arathi Basin

Arathi Basin is the hardest map to lead on, which is positive, considering you can win against teams much better then you by just outleading them.
What you need to do is keep your cool at all times and keep control of your group, people have the tendency to think that they know better on this BG and try and ninjacap bases/go on their own for some reason.
For this game you need to split up your group in 5 subgroups
G1=Warlock=Capping Stables/Farm in the start and then moving to LM, his job is to keep an eye on stables/farm to see if nobody is trying to cap it while you cap LM, you should try to account for all enemy players just incase they try and get farm, this barely ever happens though.
G2=Rogue=Going mine in the start and rest of the game trying to ninjacap any opponent base (even if you already controll 3 bases)
G3=Rsham+Dpriest+4 DPS=LM
G4=Paladin+Prot war=BS, their main job is to make sure enemy team doesn't cap it, ~75% of the teams will also send a FC+Hpal to the BS so its basically a staring contest for most of the time there
G5=Mage=LM+ stays there to defend

In the start all groups will go to their assigned base, the BS group is just stalling the opposing group for as long as possible.
Rogue will most likely duel rogue vs rogue at GM, may the best rogue (your rogue if you recruited properly) win.
Warlock caps stables and when he has capped it moves to LM.
The team of 5 dps+healer goes LM and tries to clear it
If your G3+5 succeed in doing this, have the mage stay LM, give everybody slowfall and have them jump down to BS to cap that aswell.
As soon as your dps land on BS, your tank will go to the Farm/Stables and your warlock goes BS, make sure your tank reaches farm/stables before the warlock starts moving though.
G3+4 should then be able to cap BS, since all their DPS are still ressing at farm/stables, or even their starting place if the LM group was quick.
If they manage to get to BS before you can safely cap it, just wipe them again
If your rogue also manages to cap mine, you should now have 4 bases. Most groups however will send 1 dps to mine to help their rogue cap, this is okay, just have your rogue stall them as long as possible and then die. Like that they will have 1 less player on the BS which makes the fight easier there
Keep mage at LM, prot war at Stables/Farm warlock+Holy paladin at BS and rogue at GM have G3+Rsham go to wherever help is needed.
Once they have properly commited to 1 base leave 1 person on the other 2 bases (mage or prot war or warlock) and all focus on wiping them on the base they are attacking.

The above was all assuming that the enemy doesn't wipe you and that you can get 3/4 bases in the start.
The hard part starts when you arn't able, for instance you get wiped on LM.
What you do then depends on how fast you get wiped, if you lasted long enough to ress on stables/farm it should be fine, you can easily get to BS before the enemy team caps it by slowfalling down from the LM.
Send your mage to your rogue at GM if he hasn't capped that yet so you atleast get that base. Then have the frostmage stay there.
If you failed badly on LM and get a ress in your starting base, you may consider going LM instead, if they are all in the air slowfalling they are really slowed down from getting to LM, and if they only left 1 person there you can easily rape him and ninja the base.
This does however give you the LM-GM-Farm/ST base combination, which is really hard to defend.
If you fail on this aswell and the opponents take BS, you first and foremost need to keep your calm.
What you then do is move your entire group to the point inbetween the 3 bases they have (so for instance if they have LM-Farm-BS, move to the bridge between ST and farm.
There you should try and wipe anyone in your way, which should be easy since they usually have a couple of floaters. Once those are dead you need to see where they have least people defending, BS or LM/GM. Have your mage leave the GM/LM and have him go with your rogue to open on the stables or the farm (whichever applicable) and then send your entire team to the base where they have the least players. Have your DK stand between the BS and that base to slow them down, you should be able to wipe them very easy on the base of your choice and if you cannot, your mage & rogue will get ST/Farm NP.
This should get you back to 3 bases and then just employ the defending strategy I mapped out earlier.
The key to winning this map is the opener and communication, people need to be constantly on the lookout for enemy movement patterns to see where they are going asap, keep an eye on the enemy team rogue and their other stealthers, every person assigned to solo defend a base should be able to keep that base alone for atleast 30 seconds if they use full cooldowns.
If you are doing a mass fight you should always be on the lookout for people who are trying to ninjacap, this is mainly the job of the person assigned to defend that base, so if he sees someone trying to ninja while hes cc'd, he should ofcourse call it out. The person best suited to keeping an eye on the flag is the DK, since howling blast allows them to instantly stop any capping attempt.
This BG is where the good people distinguish themselves from the average ones, keeping a base against a rogue-mage helbend on either ripping you apart in a global or ninjaing that base from you is really an art.
If you have incommings here, make sure you say it, even if it is only one and you think you can handle it, as soon as its needed people should be coming over to wipe them.

Keep killing them constantly here, because if they get a full assault going while your on 3/4 bases, your going to be outnumbered and forced to either leave bases alone or get wiped.

Thats about it for AB, the key to winning this place is great internal communication combined with excelent strat knowledge and solo performance.
Good luck, this is the hardest BG to lead that there is.

3.4 Eye of the Storm

This is the worst BG you can get, it is a BG that is essentially decided in the first ~4 minutes of the game and from then on you have the choice to either play fun or turtle for the win. Having double balance druids/elemental shamans/fire mages really owns on this map.

Send a rogue to one base and the prot warrior to the other one (it doesn't really matter which one goes where), the prot will probably stay on his base for the entire game picking his nose (fun gameplay, I know) while the rogue should try to find out what class is on the tower opposite to him and occasionally try and ninjacap it (have him ask you for permission first though). You need to avoid having a protection warrior on the MT/BET because it is really easy for a mage to ninjacap from him there

Classes that rogues cannnot cap against are: mages, good hunters, prot warriors.
Every other class is either vurnerable to sap-smokebomb-cap and blind the trinket or can be easily soloed by decent rogues.

In the start of the game have 8/10 of your team charge the middle.
Make sure your mage gives everyone eccept for the rogue/himself slowfall.
If you fail to do this this can have potentially horrible consequences, because half your team is at half health when you reach the middle.
Once all are in the middle, start pushing them back with bloodlust/knockbacks/pressure.
If they are pushed back far enough your ele shams/boomkins/locks (instasummon succubus-knockbacks are really mean here) knock them off to create even more pressure.
Try and wipe them asap as this fight is the most important one in the game.
Your DK should keep an eye on the flag with howling blast to avoid them from ninjacapping it, but if you already do good damage this should never happen
Once you start wiping them push them back and tell your healers to cap the flag.
The best person who can do this is a resto shaman because they can ghostwolf with the flag for less downtime.
Have him run to the prot war and drop flag and then go back to the middle again, instruct your FC to only cap flags when you say it.


Just keep wiping them if they try and push one of your towers or your FC.
Your flag carrier is basically unkillable due to not getting debuffs for carrying the flag.
If you play it really gay you can just have 2 people on 1 base and the other 8 on the base they are currently attacking when you get the flag and wait with capping till 50 points left for an easy win
If you have a semi-decent team, you should never ever ever lose a base because of the graveyard being so close to each base (except maybe MT).
Then when the score hits 1550 (this will take a long time) have your FC cap the flag, good game, you just won in the most lamest way ever.

If the opponent has better pressure then you you are basically ****ed on this map, you really can't win.
Your best bet is to have 7/10 push into one base which isn't opposite to the and have your rogue leave his base and go to the other base together with your mage, and hope they get can actually ninja it, the chances of this happening are very slim though. I wish you good luck.
A really good trick you can use if you have a DK if you want to force them to cap is to Deathgrip the FC to the flagspot, this is quite hard however since most FC's won't get in LOS of the flagspot if they notice your trying to do this.

Again, this is really hard, so thats why this game is essentially won in the first 3 minutes or by the amount of cleave casters you can get.

3.5 Battle of Gilneas

Battle of Gilneas is after TP/WSG my favorite battleground, before blizzard changed the spawnpoints it was really impossible to win after you were 1 base down because people could just spawn-rush you pretty hard making it impossible to take a base off the opponents. Luckily once they changed this it very possible to win this even after overcomming a wipe in the first fight

In this battleground it is the best to have your prot war defend GM/LH and the rest of your group will go WW.
If you are horde, send 2 people with waterwalking around the back of WW incase they manage to slow your maingroup down and are trying to smokebomb-cap WW, these people should preferably be a dk-healer or atleast have waterwalking.
When you reach WW you need to start wiping them asap, pop BL and give everything you got, this first fight is really important.
Make sure you wipe them before they wipe you, again your DK should be keeping an eye on the flag to avoid them ninjacapping it.
This fight can last for quite long, but even if you notice your getting wiped, keep going, you can still recover if you all die, because you can pop BL again.

Once you controll WW, send your hpal to the mines/LH with the prot war and have your lock/dpriest stay at WW.
Your 2 stealthers (rogue/balance druid) should go stealth on the platform in between Mines and WW.
The rest of your dps+resto shaman should be on the little ramp right next to the waterworks (in between mines and waterworks).
So if they choose to instead of going for a base go for the inbetween group, they can very easily go trough the backway to either mines or WW.
If they choose to engage the group standing there it is really important that you donot get caught, as this will certainly lead to your death.
Also never try to pick fights away from bases.
If they go for the WW and kill someone, he will spawn at the mines, if he has 10 second left and is considered a capable base defender (see the list I posted previously) your prot warrior can then move WW to prevent them from capping the base and thus to buy you some time, you do need to coordinate this properly though.

If they win the first fight over waterworks, you need to make sure that you donot panic, have everybody wait for their ress and buff up, you still have plenty of time.
Then move towards the big mountain in between LH and Mines.
See where their in-between group is and engage that one.
Most likely you will kill 1-2 of them and they will all push back into WW, this is excactly where you want them.
Have your DK stand in between the WW and the LH to slow down any attempts from the enemy team to go LH and have your entire group push LH.
There should only be 2 people there which are easily wipable so you can cap that base.
If it does turn out to be a really long fight at LH you can still wipe them, considering you already killed 1-2 of them earlier.
If this strategy fails just rinse & repeat till you get it right, it does take some discipline from your group to not chase them to WW here.

Always make sure your defenders are communicating with you wether or not their bases are under attack this is again of key importance.


4.0 Tips

1. Buy battlestandarts, in mass fight that extra HP boost can be great, especially if you can always keep one up (which is prettymuch the case if you have 10), make sure you place them strategically, in houses, behind your group or atleast as far out of reach of the enemy as possible.
On the other side, always be on the lookout for badly placed battlestandarts, even healers can 1-shot these things.
2. Use your combat resses, these things are really invaluable and can help a huge lot, especially during the first fight in TP/WSG.
3. Loot enemy corpses, this prevents SS/combat resses, especially early in the game
4. Get DBM for the unrelenting assault timers and timers for when you win the battleground, which can be usefull in Gilneas/AB to know when you only need 1 base to win
5. Get battlegroundtargets, set it to show health pools and range of enemy players, like this it is easy to see how many they got attacking a certain base.
6. Always keep an eye on their rogues, if they are disengaging on a node battleground they will most likely try and ninja something, if they are disengaging on a capture the flag BG have a healer move close to your tank for when he opens with smokebomb
7. Look enemy players up on the armory before the game starts, if they have sub-par pvp gear they are most likely carried alts who make for easy targets
8. Always stick together unless your called to do otherwise, ramboing really doesn't help.
9. Call out your cc's and the targets your using them on
10. During queue times, donot go afk or use loading screens, this might cause the queue to bug
11. When queue times are long, my rule of the thumb is wait till 15 minutes, then requeue and wait till 10 minutes and then call it a day, yours may vary though.
12. If accepting a certain player in your group doesn't feel good, don't do it, trust your gut feelings on who to take.
13. If you run alot of good pugs, you may become famous and people will constantly spam you asking if your making a group again, always be polite when responding to them because you might need me later.

Well thats about it for this guide guys, I hope you enjoyed it and learned something usefull from it.
Please donot copy-paste this without giving me credit. - Credits to Soto for making the guide

[pharoma]

Bump - Next RBG will be on Sunday, 19:00 Game Time