The Ultime Premade BG Leader Guide(Long but Good)

[Sklug]

INTRODUCTION

Most of you are more than capable of leading very good premades. Yet, most of you are also hesitant to lead them. This is for many various reasons, but I would say mostly for the following: fear of failing, feeling unprepared, and an overall feeling of inexperience. This is OK! I too felt the exact way you guys once did when I first started leading them. That is why this guide is being written, so that you will hopefully gain enough confidence to take that leap of faith and lead one yourself. I guarantee that if you read and follow this guide thoroughly, you will have the confidence necessary to lead others into battle!


Remember this, that the strategies I will give you DO work and have worked for years, but they are not the end all of strategies, and this is not a perfect guide. Why? Because, these strats have evolved and adapted over the years and they will continue to evolve and get better and adapt as new counter strategies are developed. Therefore, don't be afraid to take what you can out of this guide, agreeing/disagreeing about strats. The key is this--add your own flare to the strategies, and most importantly, quickly adapt new techniques to the ever changing counter tactics out there.

There is a minimal amount of prep needed to lead

REQUIRED
1) Microphone (Headset)
2) Vent/Teamspeak You can Use
3)Preform AV enabler addon (latest version)
~~ I will explain later WHY this addon is necesarry(For AV and IOC).

SUGGESTED
1) Deadly Boss Mods Battlegrounds addon
~Since most people already have DBM I suggest this. Any lightweight BG timer addon is fine.

2) Group o Matic addon
~~This addon rearranges your raid groups into the exact same Raid group order they existed in BEFORE you entered the Battleground(as battleground assigns groups just in order of entry). This is useful so exact group assignments and strats can be setup BEFORE getting into a BG, and that way you, as a BG leader can call out So, setup the groups exactly the way you like them, SAVE the group, then enter the battleground, get lead passed to you, then click "LOAD" and it will auto rearrange them back. *WARNING* This only works in 10 or 15 man BGs... for whatever reason the server can't handle the instant rearrange in a 40 man group, so don't try it in AV or IOC or it will D/C you.

BEING A GOOD LEADER

Why am I talking about this first rather than some fundamental BG strats? Well, you may be a complete WOW PVP guru. You may know the coefficients used for every class and spec to determine max dps. You may have 10 lvl 80s and have played to Gladiator status on all of them... BUT, the reality is, if you cannot interact with people well, you cannot be a good leader. Let me just throw out some simple things you can do to improve your personal leadership capacity.

I once heard this when I was younger and it changed my life...

"Life is like a dogsled team, if you aren't the lead dog, the scenery never changes."

One might think that leading in WOW has nothing to do with being a leader in the real world, but I can tell you they are largely mistaken. This is an opportunity for you to step up to the plate and refine some of your skills and discover talents that you have that you may not have realized. This is a time to take that leap of faith in yourself and step up as a leader. I am certain you can do it, now YOU just need to believe that you can do it. Some people may think this sounds dumb, but the reality is that learning to be organized, delegating responsibilities, quick decision making, and people interactions are all things that you get out of this that are parallel to leadership skills in the real world.

I have come up with a few steps that will assist you in being a good leader for a premade BG.

1. CONFIDENCE

This is the most important part of leading a battleground, and in general, just being a leader. You must be confident that your team has what it takes to win. You must be confident that you have what it takes as a leader to get them to that win. Be confident in your decisions in the battleground. A premade leader is never 100% right all the time; no one is, but be confidant that generally what you are telling people to do is the right thing. If the teams sees you as confident, it spreads and they too will share your confidence. Keep this in mind, Confidence is NOT the same thing as Cockiness. Avoid being arrogant and cocky, as many people mistake these things as being confidant.

If you are not confidant in your abilities to lead what will happen is if you organize the group, other people will sense this and others will start shouting out orders and taking control... And, if you don't have the confidence in your decisions that you should, you will prob just go along with them and no longer actually be the leader, you'll just be the guy that got some people together to PVP, nothing more. Read this guide and start some of your own premades. You will win some games and you will be amazed how much your timid confidence changes into full-blown knowledge in your own abilities.

2. COMMUNICATION

Speak Clearly and try to get to the point as quick as possible. Remember, a premade is all about the team, so remind them to communicate with each other as often as possible about what is going on. Remind them to not just say "INCOMING" but to say how many are incoming to their location. That way, you don't have 5 people go help defend something when only 1 person was incoming. Do not be afraid to call a "CLEAR VENT" if it is getting too noisy or if you notice a priority that people need to all hear asap. Be calm, have fun, and don't yell in vent.

When I lived in South Africa for a few years I found that people there sometimes had a difficult time understanding my English. I mean, as an American we often speak very quickly and we have very poor enunciation, unlike the British English. So, I learned to enunciate everything I said. You know, made sure I put the t's and the s's in every word I said and was clear. This made it easy for people to understand me. So, the trick is to do this also when you are in vent. This doesn't mean sounding like a weird guy trying to imitate a British accent whilst talking slowly in vent lol -- You can sound EXACTLY like yourself and talk the same speed you do now, just focus on enunciating. This may seem odd, but it is also not a bad skill to pick up in RL too because outside of the WOW vent channel I have had several people tell me in the work environment(and even the person who interviewed me for Grad School) that they appreciated how "clear" I was in the way I spoke. So, just let it flow natural and ENUNCIATE!

This may also be a personal preference, but I would strongly recommend against the use of excessive vulgar language, etc... A swear or two is not a big deal here or there, but when you are a person that cannot communicate without expletives in every sentence or every other sentence, you start to sound less intelligent, really. Some people want to be in "mature" environments or guild, but this can mean two different things. For some it means being in a guild they can be vulgar in without anyone caring, but for others, being mature means NOT using "immature expletives and childish language." I say, sound intelligent, avoid the swearing -- This is my opinion.

**Vent BG Leader Etiquitte**

One thing I have heard before is this, "How do you keep vent from getting out of control with so many people in it?" Well, it's actually quite simple, so I will give you a few tips...

First and foremost, vent is here so you can have simple communication with your teammates, but it is also a great place to have fun, tell jokes, funny stories, etc... As the BG leader, you are going to kind of be the moderator of vent. The key is to setup some guidelines in vent for general proper usage, and this is up to you to decide.

Usually what I say in vent is this, "Hey everyone, thanks for coming! We are going to have a lot of fun today! But, I do want to remind us all to keep vent under control. Please, only 1 person talk at a time. If I call for a 'Clear Vent,' please do so. Thanks guys!"

Anyway, you should be able to say that in your own way. Don't be afraid to tell people that their mic is too loud or too quiet. Don't be afraid to tell people to clear vent, and if people are getting a little out of control, just gently remind them to focus on the BG and overall, that you guys are just together to have fun.

Remember, some people out there are ragers in vent, some are calm, and some feel like they are so smart that everyone should know that, so you will need to be able to handle all of these personalities. If someone is screaming in vent or raging against another person, call out a clear vent and just remind the raid to calm down, have fun, and please no more raging. If you ever get anyone in vent that spams some stupid loud scream sound byte... IP BAN them... You don't want immature people like that in your premade anyway.

You have to remember, if it annoys you, it probably annoys the other people in your raid, yet they are not saying anything cause YOU are the BG leader. So, just handle it quickly and people will be more happy and confidant in you lol


3.RESPECT YOUR TEAMMATES - THIS IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT

NEVER, and I really mean never rage on your teammates, and never single people out. Trust me, if you want to lead premades in the future and you want people to join yours then be calm, enjoy the game, and NEVER RAGE! If you failed, you failed as a team, and it was not an individual who failed. Show your team that respect and they will respect and appreciate you more as a result. Bitterness, talking behind someone's back, or directly raging in vent are ways to get a scarlet letter on yourself and make people do their best to avoid your premades. I remember a guy back in the Burning Crusade days that ran premades on the same server as my guild and I, yet people flocked to my premades and not his. There is a reason why people flocked to our premades and away from his. It's because he screamed, yelled, and raged against people, even though they were mostly winning. The guy was a tool. If I said I was starting a premade the same time he did... he got no one to join his.

There is nothing worse than a leader who whines and yells and singles people out by name and calls them bad. That is not how great leaders handle it, that is how bad leaders handle things. Not only is it rude and unproductive, it reflects upon their quality as a leader and kills the desire people might have to join their groups. Don't be like that... be patient, and remember, at the end of the day you are all just trying to have some fun. You are someone that needs to have this vision more than anyone, so you can pull the group back when they need to be reminded that it is just a game lol

It is OK to be disappointed and acknowledge that your premade group did bad. It is OK to say "WE" could've done better, or to say "WE" did this wrong, or "WE" need to improve on something . Even my premades have lost before, though it is rare. It just usually means WE were being lazy. Are there times you might feel like you are carrying someone in your premade? Sure, but that 1 person isn't the reason you lost a game. Just step up, be a leader, and improve.

Do your best to be DECENT, HUMBLE, GRATEFUL for your teammates hard work, and be EXCITED to keep improving and doing well. Don't be shy to throw out multiple compliments on the teams. Shout them out during the game, after the game, etc. It is OK to single people out in compliments in vent/chat and it is fantastic to constantly say things like, "Awesome job everyone, keep it up!" As a leader, don't just say compliments to say them, cause people can know if you are a BSr lol -- MEAN them!

Remember this one saying in life (I use this also in the way I handle raising my kids in RL too). Use it with the team and individual members who might need some help.

"Praise in Public, Reprimand in Private"

4. DYNAMIC DECISION MAKING

The battleground is always changing and even though you may have started with a plan, the opposing faction may have caught on to that plan and therefore you need to adjust. Don't sit back and wait, make decisions fast! In a battleground like Arathi Basin, making quick decisions to get people to counter on another team if they zerg a node and take it before you got D there is a decision that needs to be made in seconds. You really have less than a minute to counter. Remember, facing against other premades(especially come rated BGs) you will need to be dynamic in your choices. Try to think ahead and anticipate what needs to be done or what the other team might do. You cannot just react to what they do. Put yourself in their shoes and try to guess what they might do next. Remember, YOU are the leader now and people are listening to you. You cannot sit back and WAIT for things to happen.

My win % on my battlegroup is over 80%(It's about 50/50 Horde/Alliance), and that is not just from premades(My premade win% is like 99% lol), I have a large amount of random groups I join. Statistically on my toon I have over 2300 BGs since WOTLK came out under my belt. Why is my win % so high compared to avg.? It is because I take initiative in the Battleground and I shouted out strats and orders and predictions as well as I could and hoped people would listen. You know what, often they did. This is much easier to do in a premade than in a pug random obviously. BE QUICK TO ADJUST AND COUNTER!

Being a Good Leader CONCLUSION

This is the core and foundation of what is necessary to lead good premades. Yes, there are other things that you will need to lead premades too, but with all of the practical strats and macros I will share next, if you don't have some basics in BG leadership they won't help. Do you still want to lead? Well, then keep reading. The following sections will be more of the logistical setups of leading a premade.

SETTING UP YOUR TEAM

Remember, just because you are in a premade doesn't mean that it is instant easy mode. Some battlegrounds, like WSG, are extremely competitive and often the best players on both sides will be found there. Just because you have a premade, if you roll into that battleground without a solid team composition you may have a tough time. Also, that alt of yours that just hit 80 would probably be more suited grinding honor in random BGs than joining a premade WSG.

1. GEAR REQUIREMENTS?

While gear is not the most important thing in PVP, skills are, it is impossible to deny the complete advantage that better gear has. I mean, no matter how skilled you are, if you run into a BG with zero resilience, that noob rogue will sneak up on you and still rape you in 2 seconds. So, the question is, where are you putting the bar for your PVP team? This is something that is 100% YOUR decision to make.

If you want to be a very competitive PVP team than have requirements in gear, or if you are just doing this together with a bunch of friends in the guild, it is purely your call. Maybe you are a new team and you all want to get geared up together, then adjust your requirements, and so on. What you CANNOT do is this, require that all the members of the team are in full Wrathful, yet you are not. The BEST leaders are the ones who lead by example. If you are only making a premade to get yourself carried, then people will see your gear, see the requirements, and get pissed/leave/troll you.

Also... if you want to have say, a minimum resil requirement, remember, resil is more essential to some classes than others. Also, you can say 1000 minimum resil requirement to get in, and end up inviting people in crap Tier 7 Deadly gear. Be specific, say you want people with at least Wrathful/Relentless.

2. # OF HEALERS

The most important characters in a BG are the HEALERS!!! Healers win Battlegrounds. I generally have the strategy of securing a bare minimum of at least 1 healer per group of 5. Though, if I can get more I will do it. Be careful though, I wouldn't say having 7 healers in WSG is the best strategy as you won't have the dps to kill anyone, even though you will never die lol. Be smart about it and get the right amount. Here is what I generally go by (Also remember, not all healers are equal, mix up the classes):

WSG = 2-3 heals
AB/EOTS = 3-4 heals
SOTA = 2 heals (This BG seems to work well with more dps, I just have one healer for each side of the beach at docks)
AV/IOC = 1 healer per group minimum. These BGs are fantastic for heals. If I had my way I would actually go 2 healers per group. BUT, 1 healer really is the minimum.

I also find it to be very prudent to use Raid marks on your healers, so that way everyone in the BG can keep tabs on their healers at all times and keep them safe.

3. DPS COMPOSITION

This is going to depend on the competitiveness of your team. If you are just getting together for a few hours for some premade fun, it is not going to be as essential. So, just grab whichever DPS is available that you know is good and geared.

But, if you are on a team that is trying to be extremely competitive and move up the ranks in a Rated BGs, you will need to be more specific. In other words, if you grab ALL melee as your dps in a team with zero casters, once you start getting to some higher ranks this may not fly. Mix things up... Get your frost mage for slowing, your DK for shackling... your rogue for ganking, etc... The composition will vary depending on the BG of course, and though this will not be as strict and comp dependent as say Arena might be, it will still be important to mix the classes up. Again, every season there are always exploitable classes that are OP, so don't be afraid to stack this. Currently Spriests, Locks, Mages, and H pallys are extremely powerful... This is just a fun bonus to get classes like this, not essential. Have some fun with the comps, but just remember, it is not that important as it is in Arena and you can prob get by with a hundred different variations of teams.

BATTLEGROUND STRATEGIES

When Cataclysm is Released I will Update to include the New BGs as Well

I want to reiterate what I said at the beginning. The strategies that I present to you here are fairly Common and well-known, with maybe a few slight tweaks. Also, they are not the end-all of strategies. You must realize that the opposing factions are constantly coming up with counter tactics so your strats, over time, need to be adjusted to counter them. Take what you can from these and adjust them to your liking...

WARSONG GULCH

This is my personal favorite BG. Why? Well, it is a pure PVP battleground. There are no vehicle gimmicks, or fighting NPCs like in AV, or bombing in IOC. It is fairly an often occurrence to get into 1v2 or 1v1 fights. Being a long-time PVPr, I look forward to these moments. Also, it is MUCH easier to organize a team of 10 players and manage them than the 15+ larger BGs. Also, if you are seeking out other premades to fight against, there is almost always some premade WSG to go against whilst in other BGs they usually end up as face roll against puggers... FUN, but not nearly as rewarding.

**Ensure that your chosen Flag Carrier is well geared(doesn't have to be a druid or a tank). An ICC 25 heroic geared tank is always helpful. But, remember, the most important factor in PVP is something we call "effective health." Before they hot-fixed resilience after patch 4.0.1 hit, I had stacked my character up to a little over 2000 resil (gems/enchats and ALL PVP gear). I even put on that weak Darkmoon Faire 100 resil Chaos trinket, just for the boost. Guess what!? I only lost about 15% damage, but my damage reduction was at 88% and my effective health was nearly 300,000HP. Resilience also boosts the effectiveness of heals on a character. So, I had cheap heals I could use on myself that would crit for 25kHP lol. I was soloing 10 vs 1. The biggest hits on me were maybe 500 damage, but most stuff was like 100 damage. Blizz has since hot-fixed the damage reduction down by about 25%, and capped it at 60%, so it is not quite as OP, but no matter what anyone tells you, Resil > stacking HP gems. -- JUST MAKE SURE YOUR FC HAS VERY GOOD PVP GEAR or they will die fast. Don't just look at their HP and say they will be fine...**


STRAT #1

This is known as the "Brute Force" Method. This is done based purely on the power of your team. This also will give you a fighting chance if your team is still working on gearing up. Essentially, the key to this working is that all 10 of you stay together at all times. You leave zero people on defense. As soon as the game starts, you go and grab the flag together. DO not hit the opposing team, and do not stop to rape the rogue at the hut. JUST RIDE TO THE FLAG ROOM TOGETHER! You can go up the side ramp or the tunnel, but I recommend coming back down the tunnel cause it puts you right in the middle of the field.

This part is critical: HIT THEIR TEAM HEAD ON ON THE RETURN. Since you had no one on Defense, they will have your flag. Basically, you make sure your team saves all their big CDs, Bloodlust, etc., then go straight for the other team. STAY STACKED UP! As soon as you hit them, drop a couple battlestandards, Bloodlust, and Burn their team down. Always remember, if they have a few healers, just slow the FC and burn the healers down asap first. If you really want to play at a pro level, then call out CCs on the healers not being burned and focus fire the 1 healer you are burning, while making sure their FC is stunned/slowed, and then quickly move to each healer repeating the above method.

This is YOUR job as the BG leader to try and look for the healers early and call them out. (TIP: Check the in-game damage/healing BG meters and you can quickly find who other team's healers are).If you see a weak FC then just burn him down right away. You can also make the call to just burn the FC and CC healers... This is why PVP is so great, you have many options on how to get the job done!

Anyway, SPAM CLICK for the flag if the FC is about to drop it, then roll over them and cap the flag. Do the exact same thing 2 more times. If you are looking for a speed run, follow this strategy, but go and meet them in the field with 9 people, leaving a stealthed class in the opposing faction's Flag room. As soon as flag spawns after your team caps, he can quickly grab the flag and run it to the team who is already making their way back up the field.

THINGS CAN GET HECTIC!!! Always remind your team to stay together. This is very intimidating to other teams.

Anyway, I use this macro for this strat...

/bg Everyone Plz go and do the following:
/bg GET FLAG TOGETHER! Stay stacked.
/bg Kill them on the way back, run past for now.
/bg Focus their healers first and protect ours.

STRAT #2

This one I don't enjoy as much, but you can have fairly good success with it, and some people swear by it being the best strategy. lol What you do is have 8-9 teammates zerg the opposing team in the very beginning. You hit them head on, BL, and stop them from making it to your flag room. While you do this, you send 1-2 players around the edge of the map to go get the flag. They grab and run it back while you are busy stopping the other team. The whole time your team pretty much sits in the mid-field except for the Flag Carrier and maybe a healer following the FC. Why? Well, there is the idea that he who controls the mid-field of WSG controls the game.

An advantage of this strategy is that it can be very demoralizing for the other team to get raped so hard in the very beginning of battleground that enough of their players give up, making the rest of the BG a faceroll. The disadvantage of this strategy is that there is always a chance your 1-2 guys that go to get flag get wrecked by 1-2 the other team left on Defense. Most of the time you will do fine, but this is just something to think about. Also, it is common to be trolled and accused of being a noob if you are fighting in the mid-field of WSG the whole game lol. I think you only become noob status with this strat if you are not even attempting to grab the flag (unless of course you are HK farming).

ARATHI BASIN

This is another pure PVP battleground. It's kind of funny how the two most popular battlegrounds in the game(WSG/AB) are also some of the original ones. This battleground has a few different strategies, but I am only going to go over the key things you need to know and deal with as a BG leader.

GENERAL STRATEGIES

5-caping in AB is the ultimate goal, and you will find that it is often quite easy in premades. But, when you face a competitive team, Arathi Basin is won by Defense, with a little clever ninjaing mixed in.

If you go up against another premade that is very good, it will be extremely challenging to successfully 4, let alone 5 cap the opposing team whilst still being able to hold your own nodes. So, bear in mind that the ultimate goal of a premade is to win, but to do that, you must always have at least 3 flags capped. With that in mind, if you are coming from the Horde side, the LM,BS, and FARM are the 3 easiest to defend. Why? If they are going to be attacked, they are so close together it is easy to get reinforcements there. For Alliance it is ST,BS, and Mine(LM also not bad either). I guarantee you will not always have these 3 right off the bat, just be aware if the game is getting tough and you are trading off nodes, aim to acquire these 3 and turtle hard.

Make sure this happens: When people call out incomings, make sure they don't just say there is "INCOMING AT FARM." If that is all the information you get, it is difficult to form a quick efficient counter. What if it was only 2 that were inc, but 10 defenders go and zerg it? Well, a good opposing team will have a great opportunity to steal one of your nodes. If someone is calling incomings, make sure they do it VERY early and make sure they say how many, like "3-4 coming LM." Clarify this.

Another important thing you need to do is make sure there are always counters happening. If you can see that the opposing faction is all running down to another node and they left only one person on D, well make sure you get your Defense team there quick to counter their attack, but try to call out 2 close-by people to go ninja the node the team all just left asap. You HAVE TO BE QUICK in these decisions and calls because all it takes is 1-2 to rez back at that node and give backup to the 1 defender if you don't kill them and cap fast enough. This means that you really have just a 30 second to 1 min time window to get in there quick and take it. If you want to be a great BG leader, you will see these opportunities and not even waste 5 seconds to act on them.

Another important issue to deal with as the BG leader is f you lose a node, and the opposing team has defended their new node hardcore... STOP ATTACKING IT. It is Futile to just keep rushing in and dying to their 12 man zerg team. Send like maybe 2-3 people in to keep em distracted, but quickly counter with the rest of the team on a different node. Again, this is all about SPEED SPEED SPEED. Don't make this call after the 5th time your team has wiped trying to retake your node. Do it BEFORE even the first wipe. You can tell that your teammates are dying, so quickly setup the counter and implement it before the other team has time to counter it.

ARATHI BASIN SINS(Remind your team of these things if they are straying):
1) Leaving a node undefended(Best to always have at least 2... this protects against double stealth ganking).
2) Fighting on the road rather than the flag

Arathi Basin is such a fast moving BG that you as a BG leader should have your map button at easy access. There is the feature to minimize the map, so when you look at it it only takes up part of your screen. You will need this a lot to keep an eye on where your teammates are.

STRONG START STRAT

This is the macro I use...For Horde

/bg Each group listed please take and hold the following:
/bg Group 1: LM
/bg Group 2: BS
/bg Group 3: Mine
/bg CALL OUT INCOMINGS QUICKLY PLEASE!
/bg REMEMBER to always FIGHT ON THE FLAG. Give Backup if no conflict at your node.

TIPS:
1)Make sure you have an ele shaman/boomkin or two in the LM team as blasting people off the edge has led us to many easy victories lol.

2)Also, if you are trying for a fast 5 cap, like a 1600-0 win, then get 2 people, like 1 from BS team and 1 from Mine team, to hit ST right away. I find the best way is to get water walking on one, riding a two passenger mount, and then to ride low on the water between LM and BS. You often go unnoticed this way. Usually there is only 1 to zero defenders.

GOOD LUCK!

EYE OF THE STORM

People have mixed reactions about this battleground. I personally am a big fan of it. The problem that I have noticed the most with this battleground is the overall lack of any type of strategic thinking by players in it. Often the games just end up a mindless fight in the mid for the flag. This will help you change that mindset and help you understand what is necessary to have a very solid win, to which hopefully you can convey to your team.

First thing that you MUST emphasize to your team is that the FLAG SUCKS! No, it doesn't completely suck, but you need to really beat this one in, as so many people that play EOTS do not understand this.

Each claimed tower generates victory points for the controlling team. The more towers your team owns, the faster your team gains points

* 1 tower controlled = 1 point/second
* 2 towers controlled = 2 points/second
* 3 towers controlled = 5 points/second
* 4 towers controlled = 10 points/second

Points from flag captures:

* 1 towers controlled = 75 points
* 2 towers controlled = 85 points
* 3 towers controlled = 100 points
* 4 towers controlled = 500 points



STRAT #1 (Main Strat)

The BEST strategy for winning, no matter what anyone else might tell you, is simply ignoring the flag and going for the towers. Your goal should be to get 3 towers. In other words:

THE TOWERS > FLAG

Why is this? If you cap 3 towers, you will be going up about 300 pts every 1 min, w/o touching the flag. If you only had 1 tower + 1 flag cap a minute it would only net about 135 pts (75+60). The other team could have 1 tower and be capping the flag from start to finish and not get enough points to come close to catching up.

Your goal in the very beginning should be to get at least 3 towers... but push for 4.

I use this macro when I play for Horde... just adjust it if you are ally:

/bg Each group listed please take and hold the following:
/bg Group 1: Push MT
/bg Group 2: DR
/bg Group 3: DR
/bg CALL OUT INCOMINGS QUICKLY PLEASE!
/bg REMEMBER to ONLY fight on the towers, ignore flag til 3 towers held!

DO NOT STOP AT BET OR FR... 1 person can come back and cap after initial push for each side. Just push hard and get to the towers asap. Crusader aura is very helpful. One side you send heavy... leaving you a 50/50 chance of hitting their heavy force as well. If by chance the tower your small 5 man team is hitting is the one that has the most defenders, then just have people run to give them backup from the other tower. In other words, with this strat there were 10 sent to DR... if there ends up being only a few ally there, then don't dismount to kill them, leave 3-4 people there to finish them off, and the rest just keep riding to give backup to the other tower.

This is an easy way to get an instant 4 cap, but sometimes you only get 3 if the other team is strong. The best part about this is that often the opposing team will get the flag, think they are awesome... but guess what, you have at least 3 towers, maybe even 4... and they have nowhere to cap it lol. It's an easy win from here. Just keep reminding people to call out incomings...

STRAT #2 (Alternative)

This is a strategy designed for playing against a stronger team... Often, when hitting them head on you have a good chance of not being able to push hard enough. Sometimes you are just with a group of people who are gearing up playing against a superior team. I often use this strat when I am in a random PUG group and facing a premade and I have had a lot of success.

Essentially, 90% of the time premades do the same thing, they follow Strat #1 and whoever has the more powerful better PVPrs wins the fight. This often just ends up with 2 towers vs 2 towers and then a fight for the flag... this sucks.

So, what you do instead is get the team to follow the EXACT same macro as strat 1, but instead... TELL THEM ALL TO RUN THROUGH MID. Yes, you sacrifice BET and FR... but you completely avoid all conflict and you easily cap the opposite side's towers. The only exception is that you have 1-2 people who are running through mid, grab the flag and bring it to a tower. DO NOT CAP IT. This only works obviously against another smart premade who you know is going to rush your towers and not some other team you are going to run into in the mid lol

Now, you seem like you might be in a stale mate, each having 2 towers, but YOU have the flag, so the BG can go a couple different ways... It is possible that the opposing team might not be able to break your two tower possession. In this case, just hold on to the flag until you hit 1500 pts. Both of your teams will be tied, but your cap will guarantee and instant win and not give them time to cap a flag themselves.

But, if they are just overpowering you, it is because they are leaving stuff undefended. Get a team of 2-3 to sneak around to the far opposite corner of where their team is hitting and start attacking their tower. This will have 2 possible results. One, you will not cap the tower because they other team fell back to D it, but this is a VERY GOOD THING. If they are on D, they are not on Offense. Or, they take your tower and you take theirs... it's a trade off. You just have to move fast and counter them. Remember, towers is how you win.

Ideally, you will get to rely on strat #1, but again, this is backup strat for weaker teams.

TIPS:
1) NEVER cap flag unless you know you have 100% control of the mid. Often, once you have 2 towers... the other team is so busy trying to cap your 2nd tower that you can literally have 1 flag runner going back and forth capping. This is OK.

2) After initial push... DO NOT EVER IN THE GAME switch focus back to flag. Flag is a secondary goal 100% of the time, it will never be primary goal. Often, premades will get the 3 towers in the beginning, and then immediately shift focus to getting the flag and abandon all of their towers to have a noob fest in the mid for flag. Be on your toes and make sure your team avoids this at all costs.

I like to use this macro once we get a little bit ahead:

/bg Good Work so far everyone, keep it up!!!
/bg REMEMBER: Call out Incomings Quickly!
/bg Always fight ON the towers please!

STRAND OF THE ANCIENTS

SOTA is one of the BGs that I like the least, but at the same time, this battleground can be a TON of fun in a premade. The strats are relatively simple and there really is only 1 good strat for Offense and Defense, so read up and perfect your skills.

DEFENSIVE START

I pop this macro as soon as the game starts if we are on Defense:

/bg EVERYONE: Hurry and get to the beach.
/bg Need at least 1 gunner on each side.
/bg FOCUS SIEGE ASAP
/bg Leave siege at 10% HP if not occupied.
/bg DISARM SEAFORIUM!

Make sure when people get to the beach they are spread out on each side and there is at least one healer on each side. I have heard people say this to me, "Cannons suck, I can do MORE DPS outside of cannons." That may be true, but in BGs, it never works that way. I ask them this, "How much DPS can you do when you are stunned? How much DPS can you do when silenced?" When you are in a cannon, you do 6-10k(damage scales with your gear) hits every 1.5 seconds without being interrupted. Just have 1 person on the cannon on each side as backup if the team against yours is CC heavy smart and you can't kill the tanks in time.

The trick here is to burn down the initial push of tanks and kill off their team... Get a healer and a couple dps to the middle rez point on the beach to start camping the rezzors.

As soon as new tanks spawn (or any the opposing team never hopped in) start DPSing them down. DO NOT KILL THE TANKS UNLESS THEY MOVE!!! This is the key to defending the beach without losing any walls. I have done this countless times for a full 10 minutes of defense with the walls taking zero damage. What you do is simply this, leave the tanks that are not occupied at roughly 10% HP. Careful with your dots so they don't finish em off. Why are we not killing? Because, if you kill a tank, it just re-spawns with FULL HP 30 seconds later. If you leave at 10% HP it stays there forever, and only as soon as someone hops in it, you can 1 shot it down. Then, just burn the new tank that respawns again down to 10% hp before another ally shows up.

You only need maybe 1-2 people on each side watching the tanks, the rest can fall in to the center GY to camp the team rezzing(no gunners needed anymore at this point).

If by chance they make a solid push in the beginning and get lucky on knocking a door down I pop this macro:

/bg A Gate is down. FALL BACK TO 2nd GATE!
/bg The rest stack up on the gys!
/bg Protect GYs at ALL cost!

Immediately Fall back to the second Walls. Again, get someone on the guns. Want to know a cool trick with the cannons? Well, the graveyard flags are within range of the cannons, so all you need to do is keep spamming your shot near the GY and the flag will be impossible to cap. It is kind of boring for the gunner, I know, but it allows the team to camp the doorway that fell. Whatever you do, DO NOT LET THEM GET GYs.

OFFENSIVE START

As soon as I see that we are starting in the boats on Offense I pop this macro:

/bg 1) Take ALL 4 siege to same announced gate.
/bg 2) RANGE get in and PROTECT TANKS
/bg 3) All Grab Bombs!!! No excuses
/bg 4) SLOW, CC, Stun... keep em off tanks.

You may feel like you want to announce which gate you want to hit right away, but don't! The thing is, what if you say "ATTACK THE BLUE GATE," but the opposing faction decided to all rush just one side. It happens. What you do is make the call AS YOU arrive at the docks, you have about a 5 second window to do this without wasting any. If you only see like 2-3 defenders on your side, call all the tanks to the gate on your side. If you see like 10 people attacking your side of the beach, it is obvious the best gate all 4 siege should attack is the other side. Be quick, be dynamic, and CALL FAST.

Don't forget to have people grab seaforium bombs right way on the docks. It only takes 1 extra second to do it and you can grab them while mounted.

THIS IS THE KEY TO WINNING FAST
If you have it, get 8 ranged classes to hop into the passenger positions on the demolishers. If you have less than 8, then make sure every person who is range is inside. Also, I recommend throwing on your highest DPS set of gear in the demo (could be your zero resil PVE set). While you are in a tank you can free cast and the other team cannot catch you. Espcially since the last patch, now that tanks move so fast, once you kill their initial push, they cannot catch up to you. The tanks go SO fast now that you can barely catch up while on a mount. This makes it incredibly easy to win in even under 2 minutes time now.

BUT!!!!!!!!! Your priority is NOT to kill them first. You really must communicate this well with your team. Your priority is to slow them and CC them off the tank first. Once they are off the tank, then burn them down and kill them. If you have a rogue running towards you and a hunter coming towards you, who do you kill first? The hunter, because he can range your tank. You can slow and CC melee classes, so take care of those range on you first.

Engineers are kind of a fun bonus here as they can build a device that repairs vehicles for like 7.5k HP. Ya, it doesn't seem like much, but the funny thing though is in my PVP guild I'd say 75% of them are engineers, so we have had some close calls with tanks getting down to like 5kHP and then 8 guys zapping a tank at the same time and seeing it climb back up to 60k HP lol -- ENG FTW right? lol (Will prob be nerf'd in rated BGs I am sure.)

If they are really putting up a tough fight, that is what seaforium is for. Always use it. I have, for fun, in several premades had the team not even touch the tanks and we all just bombed the doors with seaforium. Having 15 people running seaforium is impossible to disarm lol. We still got to the last relic within 4-5 minutes.

When the First walls drop I usually post this macro:
/bg GJ EVERYONE! NOW GY GY GY fast!!!
/bg AVOID southern GY or we fail, SO STAY AWAY!
/bg Keep grabbing bombs and bringing tanks. GG!

From here you need to be careful that your team doesn't start going in one tank at a time. Regroup as many siege as you can again ASAP, then push up again. Make sure that range once again hop in the tanks. Shout out in vent, "Tanks are up, range hurry and get in them," etc..

TIPS:

1) Do NOT cap the southern GY! Why? because, you will then rez far from your tanks, forcing you to run backwards to go get them, costing you precious time. Only exception is someone can cap if you know you are about to win and you want extra honor bonus.

2) Remind them to keep running seaforium. In close matches, BOMBS are what wins. If you make it all the way to the final gate and they are turtling hard, just grab a bomb and bring it to this point... it STILL damages the wall even though you aren't near it. The opposing team will just think you are stupid and LOL at what you are doing... or at least scratch their heads a little lol. Enjoy your little SOTA exploit here

ALTERAC VALLEY

This may seem odd to some, but this is one of my favorite battlegrounds. Some of the best times I have had playing World of Warcraft have been in Premade AVs. This one is also very dependent on your Battlegroup's que times if you will be able to Premade this or not as I will explain. Short ques means that it will be possible, and long ques mean no.

Let me first say this, the KEY to winning in AV is having a strong D. Yes, you can always go and zerg it, but guess what... all the opposing factions needs is 1-2 smart players to wipe your zerg. How? As the tank rushes in just Cyclone the tank as a druid and BAM the boss with his guards runs around wiping everyone. Or, simple, just target a pet of any class (hunter/mage/lock/DK) and get that pet to chase you into boss' room prematurely pulling the boss and wiping the zerg team before they were ready. A good team will never lose to a zerg because of how easy it is to defend.

Therefore, having a solid Defense is what wins...



MAIN STRAT

Ever wanted perfection? Well, there are a couple of ways to get it. This way in particular is my favorite because it is efficient, calculated, and can get you a perfection very quickly. Our fastest Premade BG record is an 11 minute perfection (This includes prep time, so really 9 min). That means that we capped all 4 towers, killed their mini boss and didn't lose anything on our side. We obviously killed their King General as well considering the game ended. I would say on average though, games last about 15-18 min. Perfection is pretty sick honor too.

Alterac Valley is so large and there are so many people in it, that it will take quick thinking and dynamic decision making more than ever, or else you will see games last 45 minutes instead of 15 minutes.

*THIS IS FOR 40 MAN AV... I HAVE NOT YET FACTORED IN 25 MAN RATED BG STRATS YET**

I have a macro setup for all 8 groups and I will go over each one's responsibilities:

These groups I setup BEFORE ENTERING THE BG and this is clearly catered for Horde.

/RW Look at what group you're in now!
/raid 1 Choke, at all times [Traps,Flares,D&D,etc.]
/raid 2 Main Galve Defenders [Fear Bombs/AOE]
/raid 3 Choke/IBT/Galv backup, be Dynamic
/raid 4 Defend first wave against Galv/Choke - Then hit IWB

and...

/raid 5 Kill Balinda then fall back to SHB [2 will go SHB asap]
/raid <<Bloodlust Balinda>>
/raid 6 Kill Balinda - Rush Aid Station
/raid 7/8 Rush Rush Aid/Towers - turtle til caps


This is where I will go over each group assignments one by one the first time. I will tell them all in vent, "Be patient, I am going to go over all of your responsibilities thoroughly one time, so next game we won't have to go into as much detail." I will say to them, "Remember, this strategy is only as good as you guys following it. STICK TO YOUR GROUP."

I also spam this macro right before I explain the groups, and also maybe 1 more time as a reminder right before we officially que up... and this is VERY IMPORTANT because unlike the other BGs where you can use the "group-o-matic" addon to rearrange the teams how you had them outside the BG, your raid groups are going to be completely different in the BG. When you say "group 3 I need you here." You are NOT referring to the group that is in the BG, you are referring to the original raid group outside the BG.

/rw This is CRITICAL!!! Please Read!
/raid Remember the group # you are in now.
/raid When we enter the BG your group will change.
/raid PLZ follow instructions for THIS GROUP # ONLY
/raid You can /p and ask if you forget.

GROUP 1
This is the choke team. For Horde, the choke point is just to the right of Iceblood Tower, to the left of IBGY. The reason it is called the choke is because the ONLY way for Alliance to get down south is through this narrow passageway. Stay stacked on this point. It is good to have people like Hunters(especially now with their permanent detect stealth up), DKs and mages for slowing, etc...

GROUP 2
This is the main Galve defense team. It is THEIR JOB to call out incomings on Galve before the team even gets in. I like to stack locks/spriests in this room, though other classes are viable. The reason why is because all they have to do is Fear Bomb and aoe... put them in the same group and have em /p and discuss the order of their fear bombs and they will rape.

GROUP 3
This should be a power comp... These people should all be very well geared and very good PVPrs... also, they should have their AV recall trinkets to base. Their main job is to Help defend galve if the 5 there are not enough (Which is always the case in first push), get back IBT, defend the choke if they are getting hit hard, and recap and clear out anyone that gets down south past the choke. This is a really fun team to be in.

GROUP 4
This team is mainly here for backup against the first push against Galve/choke in the beginning. They are also a 'dynamic' in-nature team. As a BG leader I usually put myself on this team because it brings me to Defense and Offense. The idea here is that you will help against the initial push against choke or Galve, clear them all out, then rush to IWB and turtle it asap. BUT, the trick here is this team is dynamic. What if SHB's 5 people are getting hit pretty hard, then rather than hit up IWB, go rush to give backup to SHB. Then, the 10 of you can go hit IWB together... This is a very fun team to be in.

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: Group 3&4 should not just rush inside of Galve's room in the very beginning... this is a bad idea. 9/10 times that opposing team will try to rush in and kill him asap, so you need to make sure you are all near him (hiding behind the trees or the wall just outside of Galve), but stay mounted. There is a chance they may try to zerg. In this case, the 5 people you have at Choke are going to get rolled. So, of you see no one heading to Galve, leave the 5 guys in group 2 to guard him, and RUSH FAST to defend the ally zerg to choke. If you ran inside of Galve's and the ally are going choke, you will have to run out and remount and take too long. Don't make this mistake. So, get there fast, and even if some get past, you will destroy their rush and kill a good number of them and group 3 will go back and clean the few up that got past. You need to be able to see these things happening and make these changes FAST. You cannot be slow and call for groups 3 and 4 to defend choke instead when 20 Alliance have already run past lol

GROUP 5
Your goal is to help Kill Balinda, then take SHB. I find that it is best to select 2 people from group 5 and send them straight to SHB in the beginning, just to get the timers going. The other 3 can go hit Balinda (With group 6). But, it is VERY important that the 3 that hit Balinda FALL BACK to SHB as soon as she is dead. 5 good players on Bunker Defense can last a long time pillar humping til backup arrives.

GROUP 6
Kill Balinda ASAP... then head up to SPGY/Aid... This team needs to be dynamic though... if the groups in the ally base already say there is no resistence, then they should hop in and help out IWB til group 4 arrives as backup.

GROUP 7&8
This team is a lot of fun to be in... I basically find it great to load up stealthers into these teams. Just think... 10 stealth team of death running together. Throw them 2 resto druids and they will be unstoppable. Make sure they keep D in the towers til they cap though... I find a lot of rogues like to cap and run away lol

THIS IS JUST THE FUNDAMENTAL STRATEGY SETUP. Let me first say this, it only occasionally goes as perfectly as this. Perfection? Sure that is easy to do, but to do it quickly is the key. Sometimes the Alliance will turtle hardcore. YOU as a BG leader must have communication with your defense so you are aware that they aren't having any resistance anymore. Don't wait 10 minutes to make this decision, make it asap. Group 3 was the dynamic defense team? Well, tell them to head up on offense and group up and help out.

What happens if you had everyone but the choke team push on Offense and then you managed to take every gy but left the ally with SFGY? Yup, all of a sudden their entire team is now going to rez at SFGY... Galve will be dead soon. When you see that your team is capping that last gy, send back 2 groups to Defense right away, they might have just enough time to make it back and defend. Tell them to STOP FIGHTING and run back now... It is imperitive that YOU are dynamic in your decision making.

If they get into a tower... start pushing to get your tower capped back right way, don't wait til only 2 min are left until you start reminding people to get it back asap. For all you know they have 2 holy pallies and 5 spriests at the top lol -- SPEED SPEED SPEED... You will prob still win, but having 30min+ games makes people not want to be in your premades cause they get bored. Gotta bring em to 15-20 min games and you will become an idol to these people on your server.

TIPS:

1) DO NOT CAP SFGY EVER! Why? Do you want a full turtle? Capping SFGY just forces the Alliance to turtle, prolonging games. Let them cap it and keep it.

2) DO NOT TAKE SHGY in the beginning. Wait, WHAT!!?? Let me explain this... if we had zero defense I would say yes, take it... but guess what, we are going to have 20 people on D(groups 1-4) to crush the Alliance offense. Because of this, if you take SHGY, all of those Alliance your team just killed are now going to rez at SPGY and our entire offense will now be facing off against a turtled ally team. BUT, if you do not take SHGY in the beginning, let the ally have it, they will just keep rezzing there and rushing choke/galve and getting raped by the remaining 15 players on Defense. It is ONLY ok to take SHGY after the Alliance have fully 4 min capped SFGY and rez there. I hope you can logically make sense of why this is critical to a fast win.

I use this macro in the beginning of ALL premade AVs as a reminder...

/bg This is a <Enter your realm or guild here> Premade AV!
/bg If you are not in it, please Do the Following:
/bg Kill Balinda ASAP, then push SPGY/Aid
/bg DO NOT CAP SFGY OR SHGY!!!
/bg Enjoy your honor and no whining!

Just watch your map and make sure no one is moving to the GYs to cap lol

3) Sometimes a games ends up like the map below... This is due to the alliance reading your premade and then just full turtling lol. As you can see your team has SFGY as well... This happens because sometimes you have people that end up in AV with you that are not in your premade who don't care and take SFGY, regardless of what you say... and these people think it is funny too! lol Well, basically, you now have a 45 minute game on your hands which actually can be a lot of HK killing fun (we have purposely done this is some premades just to farm HK lol), but at the end of the day, long games means people will leave at the end. So, make this decision ASAP!

So, what you do is call out in vent, "I need the first 15-20 people to meet me outside IWB(or anywhere not in combat really). Then, you all mount up and have them follow you on the following route as shown on map. Do not ride on the road, ride down low, go up the hill and under the bridge, cut hard to the right... skip SPGY, and go straight for the North bunker, all 15 of you. DO NOT CAP AND LEAVE FOR OTHER BUNKER OR GY! Please stay in the same bunker til it caps. This will have 2 possible effects: One, you have all 15 people turtle the North bunker til it caps and then move to the south(don't worry too much about GY), or two, the Alliance will fall back to defend their tower, and as a result your offense will have enough strength to push up and take SPGY. Usually you end up capping SPGY AND the tower lol. To be honest, these matches remind me of Vanilla AV at lvl 60 days and are a good nostalgic HK fest.


4) You will probably not get all 40 people into an Alterac Valley game (Though I HAVE done it myself lol). So, depending on your battlegroup's que times, if they are fast and almost instant, than sure, go ahead and try to get 35+ people in your raid (I kind of have a rule of getting no more than 37 myself). If you are wondering why I will explain it in my next segment of how it is possible to do a premade AV in the first place! But, if you have really long ques, then you might want to drop the team size down to just a 15-20 man team, adjust the strat a little bit, and rely on the non-premaders to handle offense while you do the wet-work on Defense and sustain the team. This will not be an issue when Cataclysm is around and the battlegroup is region wide.


HOW IS PREMADE AV EVEN POSSIBLE?

It's actually quite simple. As most people are aware, the in-game system only allows parties to que in with a max of 5 people in the same group to que for AV. Well, let me give you a little bit of back story of how this works and then you will hopefully understand...

A long time ago, when level 60 was the cap, we ran premade AVs. Back in those days the battlegrounds actually had numbers on them, so you know how many were running. Well, you would get like 30-40 people, have everyone in vent, and the BG leader would count down together in vent like "3...2...1...QUE NOW!" Basically, everyone would que at the exact same moment for Alterac Valley. Then, if our numbers were all the same we would all take that BG together. In other word, we'd all agree in vent and say, "Ya, AV 2 popped, anyone not get it?" Thus, premades were possible...

Well, an addon came out that made this process MUCH simpler. In fact, all that this addon does is streamline what we were doing in vent before. While it has features within the addon to use it with every BG, the only one that really makes since is to use it with AV or IOC, as you can raid que in-game in for all other BGs. Also, the premade vs premade matching system seems to not be so strict anymore as of patch 4.0.1 and groups are getting priority in BG ques over solo quers it seems.

This addon is called PREFORM AV ENABLER

HOW IT WORKS

THIS IS CRITICAL!!!

Remember, since you are not actually queing as a raid, as there is no real way to do that, you are pretty much just clicking "join battle" all at the same time with this addon. As a result, different BGs might pop for other people. The trick is to take the BG that pops at the exact same time for everyone. This is a dead giveaway that you got into the same BG.

CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO PICTURE OF ADDON -- Too big for forums

1. BG Names

2. Slider/Threshold Bar

This is another feature that I personally choose not to use, as it is something that just tries to automate the process a little bit. Basically, whatever your threshold is set to if that many people get qued into the same battleground the addon will automatically tell people to take the que. For example, if you have the threshold set to 10 and you have 15 people in your raid, if the same BG pops for 10 people or more, the addon will automatically say to the people in raid, "Your raid leader wants you to accept the que." Since I am someone that likes to go with 100% of the people that I qued up with, I just set threshold to 40 and ignore it, and I just communicate in vent if they should take que or not. This is a common misconception with this addon, but be aware that the threshold bar in now way affects your chances of getting into the same BG.

3. Status check

Sometimes when a person just joins the group it might say under "version" that it is not installed, even though it is... I just spam the status check and all it does is basically refresh everyone's status, whether they have the addon installed, have deserter status, are offline, etc... The addon will tell you. A PERSON MUST HAVE LATEST VERSION FOR THEM TO QUE WITH BG LEADER

4. Que/Leav Que/Join

a.) QUE: As long as everyone is ready, hit the que button and for whichever BG you choose, it will automatically que everyone at the same exact time for it. AGAIN REMEMBER, this is generally only useful for AV/IOC, imo.

b.) LEAVE QUE: Since you cannot leave que for people other than yourself, they will have to do it. BUT, with that being said, let's say you have 20 people qued for Alterac Valley and the que pops for only 5 of them, then you will want to click "LEAVE QUE" which will pop up a window to your teammates telling them to leave their que. All they need to do is click "OK" and it will leave it. Sometimes they close the window and may need to right click the BG que and leave it manually. Then as soon as everyone leaves que, then que it again(You may need to get on people's cases to leave que quicker). I would say that when I have 15 people, maybe 1 our of 3 times I will need to tell the raid to leave que quickly so I can reque it. IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU REMIND THEM OFTEN TO NOT TAKE QUE UNLESS YOU SAY TO! If those 5 had taken the que they would be in that AV alone.

c.) JOIN: You will know that the BG that has popped is for everyone because it will pop all at the exact same time. Click JOIN, and in the player's chat box it will say "Your raid leader wants you to join this battle."

Anyway, I know this seems like a lot of information, but I am trying to be as thorough as possible so that you will have less questions and worries in your mind when the time comes for you to lead a premade BG yourself.

IMPORTANT TIP

This is sooo important. I have been running Premade AVs with this addon for about 3 years now and I have perfected the way to get into a BG. Let me explain why this addon ONLY works with fast ques. The reason is because if you have 35+ people in a raid, this means there are only a few spots for others, this means you need to time the que so that you get a fresh BG for yourself, and not split it where 20 end up in one BG and 15 in another.

How do you do this? Well, time it... Que up your team, if the que is quick and it pops, you can say "OH WAIT, everyone LEAVE QUE ASAP. Only 25 people got into that BG. So, you leave que, then other people start filling up your spots cause you left que. You que again 10 seconds later and BAM, only 15 of you got in... then you repeat and tell your raid to LEAVE QUE again, you que again and BAM, 5 people got into that BG, while the others sat in que... You have to move fast, and it may take a few tries, but the trick is to get it timed just perfectly so you hit que and no one ends up in that same BG that people were 10 seconds ago. You have to move fast and your teams has to move fast. Don't be afraid to kick people that are too slow, as this is critical to your timing.

If it takes you 5 min or more to get a que for AV to pop, you obviously can't do this... BUT, your que time is less than a minute, it's doable. It may take some practice, but it's a lot of fun and so worth it!

ISLE OF CONQUEST

I have to admit that while I didn't initially enjoy Isle of Conquest, being such a heavily vehicle based BG, it has grown on me and now I find it to be quite a fun battleground with more diversity and successful strategies than any other battleground.

The thing that is neat about Isle of Conquest is that there are more than just one or two solid strategies to win, there are several. The real key is picking the one that you enjoy and successfully enforcing a solid counter defense. Depending on what offensive strategy you choose will determine the defensive strategy you use. I will try to cover each successful strategy in depth, with the pros and cons, and the successful counters needed.

So, before you go on reading, remember this one important thing, IOC is won with a healthy balance of Offense AND Defense, but Defense, imo, is the most critical part to winning. What you will need to know and master is how to adjust your defense continuously throughout the match. Read on to learn and become a master of IOC.

GENERAL IOC STRATEGY INFO


It is impossible to 100% predict what the other team might do all of the time, so therefore you really must be on your toes as a BG leader to call out quick changes in strat when the other team changes theirs.

The ultimate goal you should have is to lockdown two nodes. At the end of the day it doesn't matter which ones you lock down, as long as you have two(though I prefer WS + Hangar or WS + Docks). It is quite easy to counter the other team if they only have 1 node. So, the question is, what will you go for, the Hangar, the Workshop, or the Docks?

Let me put these in order of most effectiveness! The funny thing is how many people will disagree with me on these too. But, I will try to logically explain why I feel they are the best in the following order:

The Workshop > Docks > Hangar

"Wait, huh!? Why isn't the Docks number one with their all powerful glaives? Why isn't the Hangar at the top with the ability to launch your whole team over in to their base? WTF, you're a noob!!!!"
- I get this quite often actually lol. Let me explain...

THE WORKSHOP

The reason the WS is up here as my first choice is because of the power that these bring and the ease in defending the 4 demolishers and 1x siege. On top of that, you also have access to bombs at the WS that do about 6k damage each. Yes, this is slightly less than the bombs inside the opposing team's base, but they are not on a respawn timer. Literally, you can have all 40 people in your raid grab a bomb at the WS instantly and run it straight to the fortress door and drop em all. Now, you will probably not do it exactly like that, but when you have 4 demos that have 5x the health of each glaive, and bombs, and a soon to be incoming siege engine, the other team has no choice but to deal with you, and hopefully you kept a sizeable force at your demos to deal with their Defense.

IT IS MUCH EASIER TO DEFEND DEMOS THAN THE GLAIVES

Also, when positioning your vehicles, make sure you get them LOS of the cannons. This is not very hard to do. Here is an example of a good spot... *WARNING* Some range classes can drop to lower wall and still attack you, make sure you have range D to defend them.



THE DOCKS

In almost every IOC random BG I get into I would say almost everyone wants to zerg the docks. They see the damage the all powerful glaives do and think it's an easy win if they have Defense on them. The problem is this... glaives are so ridiculously easy to kill. And they move so slow too, which gives you plent of time to get a few D in position to take them out.

"BUT BUT BUT... what if we have the entire team on D guarding them?"

It doesn't matter, all you need is a couple of range to get in their and throw up a few dots or anything and they are dead in seconds. I personally have solo'd two glaives while there was at least 20 Alliance defending them. The reality is this, you CAN'T defend them easily. All you need is one stealther to get in there and gank it. I mean, I can burn a single glaive down in about 2-3 seconds, there is nothing they can do.

Therefore, think of it this way... It is extremely unwise to place your win in IOC on the reliance of 2 vehicles that have very little HP and can be killed so easily. I think that if a team wins by glaives, it is purely out of luck because you clearly went against a bad team that had no one go to kill them. I have been a demo driver who left my vehicle and ran all the way back to base to kill glaives cause no one else was so yes, there are a lot of teams that are bad and ignore them. Now don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean don't try to use them and defend them, but I can say heartily, you CANNOT count on them for your win.

Anyway, if you do end up getting them, there is an ideal position to put them (for Horde) and the best places to keep D at with flares/D&D/etc, to ward off stealthers.





But, I still have the Docks as my second preference. Why have preference over the Hangar then? Catapults!!! Catapults are amazing! Yes, they don't offer the same mobility as having an unlimited amount of people jump off the airship from the Hangar, but in the initial push in the game, the catapults can get you to their base quicker. Then, just line up at the catapults and have 10 or so jump in. With 4 of them you should easily get people into their base quickly to help bomb from the inside and clear people off top of tower.


THE HANGAR



Who remembers patch 3.2 when the Hangar was so OP that pretty much the entire game was a zerg to the Hangar? So, it was pretty much a game where you won if you had a pally with crusader aura and got you there first lol. I mean, it was so OP that people started calling the BG the Isle of HANGAR instead lol. But, Blizz saw the flaw and immediately nerfed the bombs so that they had a respawn timer on them and were no longer unlimmited use.

Did they nerf it too much? I don't think so at all! In fact, the hangar is still a great node to control, but I still don't think it is quite as good as the others. One very nice thing about the hangar is the 4 guns on the airship. These guns cannot be stopped unless the Hangar node is put in conflict and the ship returns. This basically means you will be able to free cast on their fortress wall while you are flying over them. The damage is minimal, but over time it really makes a difference.

Yet, the reason it is not that good is because there are only 4 Huge Seaforium bombs within the fortress that can be placed at a time. While this can be HUGE damage and definitely drop a wall over time, it is no longer efficient to drop 20+ guys over the wall. Imo, 10-12 guys at the very most should be in their fortress. 4-6 guys running bombs, and 6+ guys killing any of the opposing faction that shows up to try to stop you. If they end up turtling hard with 15-20+ people, then forget about bombing from the inside and join your team running bombs from the WS.

Another problem with the Hangar is that it will go back and dock at the hangar for no reason, rendering the players in the airship useless, and the extra splash damage from the guns useless. Thus, you pretty much get 2 passes in the air, then 3 minutes of wasted time going back to the Hangar bay. Also, if some rogue manages to ninja your node, BAM, the airship immediately returns even if you quickly recap, wasting more time.

NODE SUMMARY

IOC is all about utility. At the WS you get demos/bombs/siege. At the Docks you get glaives and catapults... and the catapults do the same thing the Hangar does anyway. The hangar gives you some minor damage from above and the ability to jump in easily, yet not 100% of the time if the ship is heading back to Hangar. I hope you are kind of starting to see where I am coming from on this now. Hopefully I can make this all more clear with the strategies.

My Favorite Strategy

The reason this is great is because you just really need to make a 15 man power team, and when there is only 15 it is easy to use the AV enabler addon and get everyone in. Though, the more you can get in the premade the better.

I start with this macro...

/bg This is a <Guild or realm name> premade! Listen up:
/bg ALL ZERG THE WS, wait til it caps.
/bg You MUST grab a bomb, no excuses.
/bg Take vehicles and bombs to the right(WEST) gate.
/bg Keep running Bombs and guarding tanks

- I usually just ask for 1-2 volunteers to go quickly cap the refinery.

MACRO 2 - pop once the WS is first capped

/bg 15 man premade group heading on D
/bg We will take docks first, then fall back to base.
/bg We will call for backup if we need it.

If by chance you are NOT in a premade and trying to lead a random then just say:

/bg We need 15 on D right asap!
/bg Head to the docks first, then fall back to base.
/bg Call for more help asap if you need it.

As I am Horde, when looking at the fortress it is easy to say, head to the EAST gate, but if you are looking at the map it technically is the WEST gate. People think left when you say west though, so I just say RIGHT GATE lol

Also, once you have catapults to the fortress, remind them to get 10 or so guys in there to start bombing from the inside. SPEED is quick.

Ok, where am I going with this? So far with that push it was really just for one node, the WS. Yup, and now you have to deal with them coming with glaives and and jumping in from the hangar. First things first, kill glaives always. Use your power team to take em out and take over the docks. Leave 2 to guard the docks, then the rest of you fall back to the Base to clear the rest of them out from the Hangar.

Now you should have Docks and WS and and have a quick easy win. As long as you have your defense team to clean up the ones jumping in the base you should be fine. Even if you aren't completely killing them in the base, but you are keeping them busy with you instead of running bombs, you will be fine lol.

IMPORTANT DEFENSE FOR THIS STRAT

This is where you need to adjust if needed and make quick judgment calls. For example, if you rushed the WS and only like 5 of the opposing faction did, the you can easily make a judgment call that they are probably zerging Hangar or Docks. Therefore, if they have their whole team jumping in the base from the hangar, your 15 man team is going to get destroyed. So, find out what is happening, but start calling for additional backup. Don't be afraid to have 20+ people on D, while you only have 15 people on tanks and guarding them. You only need that many to slim them down, then quickly throw em back up on bomb running duty. BE A DYNAMIC DECISION MAKER!

Also, it is critical that you remind the offense to keep running bombs constantly from the WS. It makes a HUGE difference. I mean, how often have you seen a team of 20 people doing nothing but humping the fortress wall without even any vehicles or anything? People just get tunnel vision and enjoy the HKs... remind them to focus on the wall with bombs, not their eyes lol

Strat #2

This strat is essentially the EXACT same as the last one, except you are opting out of D and turning it into a game of SPEED. The reason this is one is questionable in its execution is because you have to have a full battlegroup that cooperates with your strategy.

What you do is hit the first macro where you tell everyone to zerg the WS. This time, you do NOT send anyone else to capture anything else except for a couple of people to the Quarry and Refinery. IGNORE DOCKS AND HANGAR. The only catch is this... when the glaives start rolling up, get a couple solid players to take out the glaives, thus their only damage to your wall is coming from the bombs inside your base. Shortly after the 1st macro is hit, I have a 2nd macro for this strategy.

SECOND MACRO

/bg Want a fast win? Do THIS!:
/bg All go back for 2nd bomb at WS
/bg Repeat this until wall is down.
/bg Only takes 2 runs if ALL do it.

From here, you have all 35+ people grab bombs and bring them to the same west wall, drop them. Then, immediately ALL run back to WS, grab new bombs again and bring them back. When you have 70+ bombs go off, with the 4 vehicles getting up there too, that gate drops instantly. Again, this strat is completely reliable on getting people to keep running bombs rather than anything else. Anyway, I have never lose with this method, but imo, it's not quite as much fun because you don't really get to do much PVP lol. It STILL works though. If you can get a full premade in there with 30-35+ people using the AV enabler, then this is a quick 4 min win, no joke.

Strat #3

This one, you are going to take 20 people to the WS and 20 people to the Docks right off the bat(ask always for a volunteer to grab refinery).


/bg This is a <Guild or realm name> premade! Listen up:
/bg Groups 1-4 Zerg WS!
/bg Grab Bombs and Take Demos to Right Gate
/bg Groups 5-8 Zerg the Docks!
/bg Use catapults to get over the wall asap!


Now, one of these nodes you are probably going to steamroll, the other might give you some trouble. This is important to communicate this. When the 20 man teams are hitting WS and Docks, find out which place is getting steamrolled. If only 10 or so showed up at the docks to fight you, then you might have a pretty good idea that a bunch went to the WS and they probably need backup. Get like 10 people from the Docks to get to WS asap. Tell them to mount up and go, not to wait around. They must move fast. What usually happens though is that the opposing team often splits their team 3 ways, thus your team that only is split in half usually doesn't have any problems. Just be mindful, and be quick to make adjustments and shift your forces around where needed.

From here, just win the usual method of vehicles from the WS with people running bombs, and of course the help of catapults. If you can, use the glaives, as they do make a difference if the other team is too fail that they don't try to counter them lol.

The most important thing is setting up a solid 10+ man force, depending on how hard they are hitting you from the hangar. I would start it off with 10-15 people, immediately after capping WS and Docks, have them fall back to the base. Essentially, you are trying to get 10-15 guys on the ground in your base before they jump from the airship to you. As long as that team stays stacked, they will destroy anyone that drops down, especially since people coming down will be scattered. Always adjust your numbers as needed. If their entire team did a noob rush to the hangar, then you will definitely need more than 10 to clear em out lol . Regardless, you will win so fast if all they have is hangar and you have the others...

Strat #4

Just do the exact same thing as the previous Strat #3, except this time you send 20 to hangar and 20 to WS instead. Use a 10 man team to clear up glaives and catapult jumpers. I would say that if a team has the docks it is the absolute easiest to defend against. The glaives are easy to kill and therefore your only worry of damage is catapult jumpers bombing from within... So easy.

FINAL CRAZY DEFENSE STRAT

Ok, I don't normally recomend this strat, because it makes the games very long lol. But, if you are looking for a great HK grind and some odd fun, this method works very well. What you do is simple, have all 40 of your teammates sit on D in the base lol. Yes, this may seem dumb, but really, if you are all 40 clumped up they can't do anything to you. Then, you let the wall fall, and just HK farm them as they try to run in. It is critical that you do not split up. But, it is a lot of fun, you just let it be an endless HK grind to drop reinforcements.

This method is also commonly used to get the mine achievement. Essentially, in the beginning of the game you knock down their wall. BUT, you do not try to finish the game. What you do is get your entire team to fall back to your base stacked up inside your own fortress... making em think you are just trying to HK farm them. It is critical that you lose your base's gy, thus allowing the opposing faction to rez there. While they are doing this, have 5 people(ideally stealthers) go to the various nodes and cap them and hold them. I prefer to tell them to all cap at the same time to not allow the team any time to counter and delay even more as they decide where to go to.This works because the other team is too busy trying to clear you out of their fortress lol. While those 5 are turtling the nodes, have another 3-5 man team finish off their general. You have to do this VERY quickly so they don't have time to recap, but it's a lot of fun and a good honor grind too since you are getting a bunch of HKs also.

The opposing team won't even know what hit em lol -- It is a quick 1 min win out of nowhere.

CONCLUSION

This is the core of what is necessary to lead good premades. Yes, this is not absolutely every strategy out there. That is the beauty of PVP isn't it? There is so many options, so much spontaneous gameplay, and a diverse group of strategies to tackle each BG, unlike in PVE where it is the same exact mechanics and fight each week.

So, do you still want to lead? Well, go grab those macros and get it going! The reality is this, once you take that first step to leading a premade, the rest will come easy, but you are the one that has to take that first leap of faith in yourself.

Outside of my time in WOW I work a lot of different kinds of people, and if there is one thing I have learned in my life is that most people are not living up to their full potential, and most of the time it is because they just never thought of themselves as one to do it!

Good Luck!

[ohmaigawd]

Awesome guide! I'm still a noob in PvP but I'll use it once I learn more ^^ +repped

[Sarick]

Awesome guide. +Its really nice.

+3 From me

[lolzad87]

+repped for the effort ill read it later

[Hellson]

/bg This is a <Enter your realm or guild here> Premade AV!
/bg If you are not in it, please Do the Following:
/bg Kill Balinda ASAP, then push SPGY/Aid
/bg DO NOT CAP SFGY OR SFGY!!!
/bg Enjoy your honor and no whining!

Minor typo -
Haven't spotted any others yet, will edit this post if I do.
Very well written.. +Rep from me.

[shaddydxd]

This is epic dude xD thanks a lot xD +Rep

[Sklug]

/bg This is a <Enter your realm or guild here> Premade AV!
/bg If you are not in it, please Do the Following:
/bg Kill Balinda ASAP, then push SPGY/Aid
/bg DO NOT CAP SFGY OR SFGY!!!
/bg Enjoy your honor and no whining!

Haven't spotted any others yet, will edit this post if I do.
Very well written.. +Rep from me.

AH, I just corrected this. Thanks for pointing this out! I am in the process of re-reading for grammer/spelling/mistakes right now...

Glad you guys have liked this so far... I am working on the final IOC part now as we speak... just had some baby aggro last night lol
Minor typo -

[ViND_]

I love this guide.

But please put that AV Enabler picture in a spoiler tag, it's stretching the page.

[abhorsenjay]

Excellent guide, Rep from me

[LindeCutah]

Great guide and effort! +Rep

[Sklug]

I love this guide.

But please put that AV Enabler picture in a spoiler tag, it's stretching the page.

Ok, I just linked it instead... should just open in new tab... ANyway thx for pointing this out... it's often hard to tell on my monitor how other people see things.

[mihaitza]

Amazing guide, really well written +rep, you really deserve it.

Just one question though, how do you react when you start burning out just a tiny bit and people start taking over; or when they just start yelling orders over you. How would you handle that situation without repeating "clear vent" for about 10 seconds ?

[Sklug]

Amazing guide, really well written +rep, you really deserve it.

Just one question though, how do you react when you start burning out just a tiny bit and people start taking over; or when they just start yelling orders over you. How would you handle that situation without repeating "clear vent" for about 10 seconds ?

I assume you are talking about getting burnt out from having to constantly call out clear vents, etc... This could be for various reasons... One, you could be a young kid still with a pre-pubescent voice who is trying to lead premades. Well, if this is the case, don't expect people to really listen to you much in vent. It is only older people's natural instincts to talk over you. You could always just tell them you are a girl if you still have a high voice lol

Now, let's say it's just because the group you have is rowdy, etc... This is really situational, are they getting rowdy in vent because your team is losing and people are getting frustrated and starting the blame game? Well, you have to step up and stop this, say that you all did a great job, you just got out played/geared -- DO NOT POINT FINGERS... Also, if you are leading and you are losing and, for example, you call everyone to zerg the flag instead of go for the towers in EOTS. Well, you may have some people in your group that disagree with you and they might be vocal about it lol ---

The reality is this, the strats I have shown you here are logical and good. If you are playing with good pvprs with experience and are smart, then they will see the strats you give them, agree with them, and work with you. You have to be careful as a BG leaders also to not be a nag, condescending, or anything along those lines. Have confidence in your teammates that they will fulfill their assignments and respect them. You don't have to feel like the BG nanny.

Another situation you might be facing is that all of the people you dragged into your premade are BG noobs. If this is the case, it is hard to lead because people tend to wander and do their own thing and rage when things aren't going right. I will add a section about Vent Controls in the leadreship area just because you brought this up. In my experience, good players will respect you as a leader and you will minimally need to remind people to clear vent... Anyway I will write up that other part now.

[pauk]

Amazing guide repped you (and accidently repped the first reply to)

[PWT]

Elite Elite?