Rated Battlegrounds: A Comprehensive Guide

[soto]

Rated Battlegrounds Guide

Rated battlegrounds, introduced with Cataclysm, give players a chance to play their favorite objectives based battlegrounds, earn ratings exactly like Arena players can, gain the recently restored PvP titles (up to Grand Marshal for the Alliance and High Warlord for the Horde), and, most importantly, earn Conquest Points which can be spent for Arena-grade PvP gear.



Rated battlegrounds take place on ordinary battleground maps and have the same objectives as the regular battleground does. For example, victory in Warsong Gulch is achieved by capturing three flags, or, in case less flags than three have been captured by the end of the time limit, the most flags, or the most recent flag capture if both teams got 1 or 2 flags.

Only 10 versus 10 battlegrounds are used for rated battlegrounds (though blizzard has plans to make 15 vs 15 available aswell, most likely by resizing the battlegrounds and changing the objectives)


The 10v10 rated battlegrounds currently available include:

* Warsong Gulch – the classic capture the flag game, in which the objective is to capture three flags before the other team does.
* The Battle for Gilneas – a 10v10 modification of Arathi Basin on a rather Gothic-looking Gilnean landscape, the Battle for Gilneas battleground requires players to control three resource nodes – the Lighthouse, the Waterworks, and the Mines – in order to accumulate victory points and, ultimately, win.
* Twin Peaks – another 10v10 battleground based on a “capture the flag” scenario. This fight takes place in a river valley, with aerie like bases perched on the mountains on either side.

When you are queued up with 10 people, you have an equal chance to get all 3 of them, just like you were queuing for a random BG.

Joining a rated battleground in WoW

You cannot simply queue up for a rated battleground at any level, and without being part of a group. Only a premade raid group can queue up for a rated battleground; however, you can request to join any raid group which is forming, and do not need to be part of the guild organizing the raid or any other organization (such as an arena team). However, as described below, there are some benefits for those who choose to join a rated battleground group that is made up mostly of guild members.


Guilds who form rated battleground raids will receive certain benefits for doing so. At least 80% of the raid must be made up of guild members – in short, 8 out of the 10 players in a 10v10 battleground have to be from your guild in order to benefit. Carrying out a rated battleground with a “guild raid” of this type will get experience for your guild, meaning that PvP guilds can now level up their guild by participating in rated battlegrounds.


Rated Battleground Rating and Match Making Value (MMV)

Rated Battleground Rating is an individual character’s rating in the battlegrounds, which increases when you win rated battlegrounds. This score starts out at zero and builds up from there over the course of your Rated Battlegrounds career.
This score is reset after each pvp season.
At the end of each pvp season, if you are part of the highest 0.5% players, you get the Title Hero of the Horde/Alliance aswell as an epic 100% ground mount.

Match Making Value (MMV) is a calculated measure of your individual skill, where your Rated Battleground Rating is an overall measure of your success as part of a team. The Match Making Value you have cannot be seen by you or anyone else, and is simply a measure used to calculate the overall MMV for your group, which is then used to match you against teams with a similar MMV. MMV goes down after a lost game and goes up after a victory the amount of increase you get depends on the enemy teams MMV

Rated Battlegrounds are mostly about participation, if you play enough games you can get up to 2k rating very easily.
Rated Battleground Rating and MMV interact at a fundamental level – if you lose a match and your MMV is higher than your Rated Battleground Rating, then you will not lose any rating this is different from arena. If you lose a match and your MMV is lower than your Rated Battleground Rating, then you will lose some rating.


Earning Conquest Points and Titles

When you participate in a winning rated battleground, your character will earn Conquest Points. The number you can get at maximum – the weekly “cap” is calculated based on your success from the previous week, with a “week” in the rated battlegrounds running from Tuesday to Tuesday. Conquest Points can be spent on a wide range of epic gear rewards, including items for all classes with extremely good PvP stats.

You can also earn PvP titles by raising your Rated Battleground Rating to a specific level. The levels and titles they give are (with Alliance titles listed first, Horde second):

* 1100 Rating – Private or Scout
* 1200 Rating – Corporal or Grunt
* 1300 Rating – Sergeant (both sides)
* 1400 Rating – Master Sergeant or Senior Sergeant
* 1500 Rating – Sergeant Major or First Sergeant
* 1600 Rating – Knight or Stone Guard
* 1700 Rating – Knight Lieutenant or Blood Guard
* 1800 Rating – Knight Captain or Legionairre
* 1900 Rating – Knight Champion or Centurion
* 2000 Rating – Lieutenant Commander or Champion
* 2100 Rating – Commander or Lieutenant General
* 2200 Rating – Marshal or General
* 2300 Rating – Field Marshal or Warlord
* 2400 Rating – Grand Marshal or High Warlord

Additionally, there are a number of achievements for each faction which are earned by winning certain numbers of rated battlegrounds (1, 60, 100, etc.), but which do not award titles, only achievement points.

The Conquest Point cap and Honor Points

After the first few weeks of the new rated battleground system, Blizzard realized that there was no incentive for players to continue playing in the battlegrounds after they had reached their Conquest Point cap for the week.

Although some players would naturally keep playing for the challenge and fun, many would not, which would reduce the number of players in the pool after mid-week (or however long it took most players to reach their Conquest cap), and rated battleground would get long queues, or simply not run at all after a while.

To change this, Blizzard has introduced a new system. When your character reaches their Conquest cap, they will now begin to earn Honor Points instead, and since there is no cap on the amount of honor you can earn in a week, this will give people an incentive to continue playing the rated battlegrounds. This makes for a livelier PvP scene all round, with more teams and varied styles, and helps to keep the battlegrounds active for everyone.


Restricted items in rated battlegrounds

The same restrictions apply to consumables and engineering items as in Arenas. In short, all consumable items except for bandages and conjured mana drink or conjured food, and many engineering items are out and out banned (fail to work), while others have specific uses removed as soon as you enter the rated battleground. For example, all engineering goggles have their stealth detection removed in rated battlegrounds exactly as is the case with arenas. You will need to check on a case by case basis to see if specific items can be used in the battleground.

I hope that with this guide I have clarified the basics of Rated Battleground play, not everything in this guide originated from me but I am the one who compiled this information.

If there is interest in a guide on setup and how to win certain BG's, I wouldn't mind making it.

[Gbo]

You're wrong about "Restricted items in rated battlegrounds" As Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite - Item - World of Warcraft still works in rated bg while it does not work in arena.

EDIT; This item is super good for getting to WW in gilneas before the other team

[Seli]

Rated Battleground Rating and MMV interact at a fundamental level – if you lose a match and your MMV is higher than your Rated Battleground Rating, then you will not lose any rating this is different from arena. If you lose a match and your MMV is lower than your Rated Battleground Rating, then you will lose some rating.

Did you actually played rBGs? Points loss are random at the moment, you lose +-0 points but at some (random) gamelose, you will lose -x (let's say -11). From then on you ALWAYS lose points if you lose a match. So you always get -0 from until you get the first time -1 or more. From that on you will alwys lose points.

Playing rBGs on ratings 2900+ and you can be sure it works like that. Blizzard didnt fix that till now. Some guys are lucky and are on 3000+ rating because the still get -0 by losing, but 70% of our team gets minus points.

[Gbo]

Did you actually played rBGs? Points loss are random at the moment, you lose +-0 points but at some (random) gamelose, you will lose -x (let's say -11). From then on you ALWAYS lose points if you lose a match. So you always get -0 from until you get the first time -1 or more. From that on you will alwys lose points.

Playing rBGs on ratings 2900+ and you can be sure it works like that. Blizzard didnt fix that till now. Some guys are lucky and are on 3000+ rating because the still get -0 by losing, but 70% of our team gets minus points.

No luck about it, rating goes by your mmr. If you have shit win/loss you will start losing points.

[soto]

Did you actually played rBGs? Points loss are random at the moment, you lose +-0 points but at some (random) gamelose, you will lose -x (let's say -11). From then on you ALWAYS lose points if you lose a match. So you always get -0 from until you get the first time -1 or more. From that on you will alwys lose points.

Playing rBGs on ratings 2900+ and you can be sure it works like that. Blizzard didnt fix that till now. Some guys are lucky and are on 3000+ rating because the still get -0 by losing, but 70% of our team gets minus points.

Did you even read what I posted?
At this level you describe (2900) your RBG rating is higher then your MMV, thus your losing points, but 99% of the community won't reach that kind of rating and therefore it is safe to say you usually only win points and don't lose any
On my alt im now at 1800 rating and havn't lost a single point yet

[Seli]

I happens to low rating players also (like my twink) at 1300 rating and 80% win rate. You can read some forums like arenajunkies to get the conformation.
But anyway, nice wall of text for those who want so start with rated battlegrounds and have no information yet.