Wintergrasp: Tips, Tricks & Commentary

[da_bizkit]

First off, I have to say that while I don't think it's perfect, Wintergrasp is a good example of well implemented world PvP. Blizzard learnt from the succcess of Gurubashi arena, as well as the failure of Halaa, and realised that in order to foster world PvP, your best bet is scheduling it. With the regular announcements in Dalaran as well as the world map icon, it is easy for potential participants to determine whether PvP will be happening without potentially wasting their time checking only to find no one there.

Additionally, the presence of Bind to Account items as rewards that require Wintergrasp being held by your faction, as well as PvP enchants and PvP gem recipes ensures that there is an incentive to winning Wintergrasp, beside the good amount of honour you get for the time invested. And, in what I consider a good act of balance, the presence of vehicles allows lower level and under-geared players to have a significant effect on the battle, rather than being relegated to the sidelines by virtue of their gear (how dare these undergeared scrubs be allowed to play this game effectively?!). Vehicles are very much a double edged sword in this respect however, as although they 'balance' a poorly geared raid upwards, there is similarly no way of improving the vehicles as they stand and once defenders learn how to focus down vehicles, there becomes less and less that the attacking force can do. However, without the flying machines that we hope to see soon, I can't pass full judgment on the issue.

Newbie Tips

Gaining Lieutenant rank early in a game can be devastating for either side. Demolishers and Siege Vehicles are both a much stronger presence than the catapult, especially when you are grouped. They also do far better damage to buildings, while being more difficult to take down players with unless you have someone assisting you.

For the defenders, the quickest way to gain Lieutenant rank is to start near one of the towers or workshops at the south. With 33k hp elites abundant but spaced out, most level 80s will have no trouble getting Lieutenant within 5 minutes of the battle starting, and the attackers is unlikely to defend these nodes as holding the two central workshops is more important, and driving from the southern workshops much less attractive.

For the attackers, the central bridge has four of these elites in close proximity to one another, meaning that if there aren't other players 'farming' them, you can gain ranks quickly here. These elites are engaged with your elites, so make sure to time your attacks to get the killing blow. If you're feeling more audacious, you can parachute into the keep from Icecrown Citadel with a flying mount. I suggest landing on the west side as you are less likely to meet defending players moving down from their respawn point. As you are in the fortress, the only elites you meet here are defending. Note that at the moment, you do not seem to gain rank from killing the ~100k ex-AV elites.

Wintergrasp Catapults are valuable tools for fighting other players. You wear down their hit points and mana before you actually have to fight them on your own character. However, with turn speed that leaves you feeling like you're keyboard turning, it can be difficult to defend the catapult from melee attackers. For this reason, a wall (not necessarily a fortress wall; any vertical object will do) and the primary plague attack work well together. Move your vehicle to the wall, face it, and fire. Melee attackers will take roughly 700 damage from the hit, and then staying in the bile will continue to damage them. Similarly, if you see a stationary siege vehicle or demolisher being harass by melee attackers, the plague attack is the way to go. Note that the initial hit - as with all vehicle and turret weapons - does more damage if you hit your opponents directly.

Lieutenant rank vehicles can be piloted and protected (manning the turrets, standing on the platforms) by any rank of player, as of writing. If you are part of an organised group, one player can work to their rank early while the others try and hold a central workshop. Once you have a lieutenant, they can build 8, 12 or 16 siege vehicles as necessary, and the lower ranked characters can drive them into battle. Likewise, if you're maxed out on vehicles, look for siege vehicles without their turrets manned: turrets do 1.5k siege damage compared to the battering ram's 2k, so it's well worth using them to assist on damage.

To leave a vehicle when you don't have the vehicle UI, use the icon in the bottom left hand corner. It appears slightly to the left of where the pet bars are, and can be obscured by them. If you can't see it, a quick "/script ReloadUI()" should fix the problem if you're using the default UI; custom UIs however may have not set the frame to visible which is a bigger problem.

Turret defense works best in pairs. If you can find someone else willing to work with you on the fortress turrets, it's very beneficial. Because the damage done by turrets depends on your accuracy, attackers will often go beneath turrets to leave you doing only 800ish damage, rather than the 5k you can achieve with a direct hit. Have your partner(s) on other nearby turrets so that you can cover their blind spots.

Tower turrets are destroyed when a tower is destroyed, unlike wall turrets which have to be manually targeted. You can position your vehicles in such a way at the corners, where the defender portals are, so that your ram and shot attacks damage both the tower and the wall you need to break through. Towers will die in usually 4-5 more shots after the wall has been destroyed.

West is best. Because of the position of the defender's graveyard, attacking from the west is the strongest way into the fortress. You're least likely to be interrupted and you can hide from turrets behind the western workshop on your way to the inner wall.

If you can't assault from the west, the front door is the next best. This is not simply because of the graveyard position, but also because it makes it more difficult for the defenders to reinforce their courtyard with vehicles. After making a vehicle in one of their workshops, they have to teleport it outside and then drive it all the way around and through the gate that you've opened.

East is by far the worst, being most likely to be interrupted by respawns, as well as the fact that if you break through there, it's the quickest way for defenders to get vehicles into the courtyard to defend with, as the workshop is easily accessible.

In general, if you're expecting a long game with large numbers of both factions attending, destroying the defender's workshops is the best option once you've broken in from either the west or east during the early game. This forces them to try and take the middle workshops, splitting up their forces and weakening their defences. Breaking into the inner courtyard without destroying the workshops can result in defensive Siege Vehicle turret spam, where the defenders amass these in the inner courtyard and simply man their turrets to do large quantities of damage to attackers. Of course, if you're a defender, that is a great tactic if the attackers have left your workshops alive.

Other Tricks and Tactics

'Protecting' Demolishers and Siege Vehicles by jumping into the spare slots will remove you from combat (so long as you are not in combat with an NPC). A great trick when low on health is to jump into one of these protected spaces, where you cannot be targetted, and eat and drink up. If you are going to move on foot, staying nearby one of these can keep you alive and effective for much longer.

Ice Crown Citadel's invisible wall only stops you dropping into the Fortress if you try and flying directly from within the Citadel. If you skirt the edges, flying from Dalaran, you can get right behind the Fortress main without being dismounted. From here, there are several tactics, but the best by far is a small group camping the defender's graveyard. At present it is undefended, and a well organised group can put a significant dent in the reinforcements allowing the rest of your forces to break through to the relic with less resistance.

Defending Siege Vehicles on your own can be tricky, but remember that you can switch places to deal more damage to attackers. Since using the ram is generally ineffective against attackers on foot, it's often best to simply stop the vehicle (preferably somewhere you can't be shot at by a fortress turret) and simply switch to the turret yourself. Gun down the attackers as best you can, and if successful, jump back to the driver's spot. Ranged characters can do the same on Demolishers, using their platforms to cast from.

Dealing with Tenacity is a major issue for all of us. Obviously, fighting someone with tenacity alone is not a good idea, and if you see classes of a certain spec, you may well have to just leg it. In particular, Arcane Barrage mages, Affliction warlocks, feral Druids and Death Knights are not easily killed, even with minor Tenacity buffs, as they offload more damage than is easily mitigated.

When you're in a group, crowd control is the best method of dealing with someone with high Tenacity. Making sure as many stuns, interrupts and silences are used as possible, as well as keeping them slowed is a much stronger tactic than simply trying to dps them down as fast as possible and leads to fewer casualties.

Detect Invisibility is a great defensive ability when you're holding the Relic. Because of the mana cost of AoE spells, and the width of the gate, preventing people using Cloaking Devices, Invisibility Potions and of course Invisibility itself getting into the chamber can be difficult. As a mage, I've capped a fair few otherwise impregnable last stands in this way because the warlocks weren't using this ability. Use it, or ask a warlock for it if you're defending! Similarly, Flare and Freezing Trap are excellent abilties for dealing with stealthed characters, as well as Demoralising Shout and Death & Decay, without using mana.

Final Words

Overall, I've enjoyed Wintergrasp thus far and expect to continue doing so. It's more personal, being limited only to your realm, and personal vendettas are quick in developing. In general, games have gone to the more organised team, regardless of Tenacity. However, one exception to this is really of a critical mass of defenders in the Relic chamber. In rough numbers, I think it was something like 60 attackers against nearly 100 defenders. We had a decent stack of Tenacity of course, but despite getting the walls and gate down within the first 10 minutes, we were unable to take the relic. Tenacity is of no use here, because a 10 second timer is very easily interrupted once the defender's pure goal is just to defend that room.

Because Tenacity has no effect on crowd control, a larger force will still in general beat a smaller one even with Tenacity, because while the health and damage totals might in theory be the same, much more crowd control is available to the larger force. Whether Tenacity should affect crowd control is something that I expect a kneejerk reaction of, "no way," to, as most people would judge how impossible it would make the smaller 2v3 etc. skirmishes. However, in the bigger picture, I think reducing the duration, or possibly causing diminishing returns to set in after the first control may be necessary to balance this situation.

As to capturing the Relic itself, while the instant cast of Strand of the Ancients would simply be too unbalanced for the attackers, I do think that having Tenacity reduce the casting time of the attack - maybe by 2 seconds per 5 Tenacity, from 10 seconds at 0 Tenacity to 2 seconds at 20 Tenacity - would be another (alternative, perhaps) way of dealing with this issue.

In general though, especially when smaller numbers of players are participating, it remains my opinion that the winning team is usually the more organised, and to some extent, more skillful (which is in some ways the same thing really). In that respect, I think Wintergrasp is definitely a success on Blizzard's part.

[obox]

nice copy pasta m8 Wintergrasp: Tips, Tricks & Commentary | Blogryn | WoW Riot | WotLK, Wrath of the Lich King, WoW, World of Warcraft, Arena Season 4

[Anthonyrox8]

thats very fail for a contrib.. Sad

[Joevlol]

Slick move kiddo, copy pasta from a pretty damn good blogging site. Now if you are the same person, then do prove it, else gtfo.

[pauk]

really brings down the reputation of contributers...

[Archonox]

cool, interesting guide,

[DrPieper]

rofl..........

[omberg]

rofl..........

!

(fillzor)

[Dragonshadow]

kewl. I haven't tried WG yet, but I plan to.

[Kingpin]

Thats disappointing

[da_bizkit]

OK what the **** you expect? Why don't you go flame all the ppl who posted guides from Wowinsider, Idemise, Zygor leveling guide, etc.. ? This is the same. Wether it is copy-paste from 1 site or another i don't think that there is big of a difference. If it is useful and it is not in mmowned guides section than soon or later it will be here. I don't understand why the hell you have to flame for that.

[dryad]

fail. copy paster..