Rated Battlegrounds 4.2

[QtDemon]

Hi there, this will be a guide on Rated Battlegrounds in 4.2. Mostly on Comps and Strats, hope you can find the info useful, and please, share some with me. I'm by no means the best at anything, and i'd like information just as you all would. I'm currently 1900 in rated battlegrounds after tanking my rating just to get conquest points. I was 2250 last season, and i managed to get to 2194 on the first day of this season. I have around 220 Rated Battleground Wins right now, and almost 150 losses.

Comps

Comps are most important in Rated Battlegrounds in my opinion, not only do you need geared and skilled players, but you need geared and skill players that play certain classes and specs, that can listen. You want a variety in everything, you never want more then 2 of the same class. More variety = more utility = easier wins.

Druid: Great utility, awesome burst.
Balance: Knockback is super helpful, great AOE pressure with constant high crits.
Feral: Amazing burst, can be temporary flag runners if not specced for tanking, AOE dash is nice.
Restoration: Least prefered healer, too squishy, can get zerged down easily. HoTs are nice for when FC's run ahead or got smoke bombed.

Shaman: Great damage, some utility.
Elemental: Knockback is better then typhoon. Nice overall damage, nice AOE roots.
Restoration: Great healers, spirit link totem is amazing if used correctly, carnate is also very helpful.
Enhance: Great damage, not much utility though.

Death Knight: Chart topping damage, good flag carriers.
Blood: 2nd best flag carriers because of self heals.
Unholy: Great damage, aoe slows are very annoying and very helpful, very good for keeping enemies at useless nodes or away from their FC.
Frost: AoE freeze is nice, great damage.

Mage: Should always run with at least 1 mage. Great damage, great CC.
Frost: Best choice, AOE cc's are insane, amazing burst.
Fire: Ok damage, ok CC, not the best choice.
Arcane: Amazing damage, horrible CC, no surviability. Useless against higher rated teams that know how to call targets.

Warrior: Amazing damage, best flag carriers.
Protection: Best flag carriers, most common flag carriers, chargers give quick escapes and faster routes back to base.
Arms: Amazing burst damage.

Paladin: Great utility, very effective healers. Freedom and bubble are amazing, as well as lay on hands for flag carriers.
Holy: Amazing, best healers in my opinion.
Retribution: Ok damage, good burst damage.
Protection: decent flag carriers, less common.

Warlock: Amazing utility, very effective AoE damage.

Rogue: You should have at least one rogue in your group, always. Smoke Bomb is a must for flag carry games, and rogues can ninja bases easily.

Hunter: Great damage, not much utility. Can remove buffs and slow groups.
Marksman: Great burst damage. Can maintain a nice amount of damage as well.
Beast Mastery: Amazing burst damage, damage overall is amazing as well.

Priest: Life grips are a must in FC games, nice utility, good damage.
Shadow: Amazing damage when paired.
Discipline: Good healers, can life grip out of aoe's, fear is nice.

What to use with what? Melee and Casters, but which?

Try to pair up with casters and melee who have the same class mechanics. Shadow Priest, Balance Druid, Affliction Warlock for example, so much AoE raid damage, but don't get all casters or all melee. Here is what i run. There is a lot of variety, but we do have two priest, which is fine, but try not to go over two. The healers work together great, Holy Pallies can Freedom and Discipline Priests can life grip flag carriers. Restoration shaman can 1 heal a our raid on offense. The Protection Warrior is a great flag runner, being able to charge back to our base if anything is in the way. The feral druid provides lots of utility for both offense and defense, he can battle rez the flag carrier and Stampeding Roar for the flag carrier when needed. The Affliction Warlock is great CC and aoe damage, something is usually always feared. The Shadow Priest is great aoe damage as well, can mana burn if needed. The Subltle Rogue provides smoke bombs which make a big difference between a kill or a defeat if used at the right time. The Beast Mastery Hunter provides amazing damage and is usually our opposing teams top threat, his frost mage is great CC in every battleground, along with amazing burst damage when needed. Last but not least the Frost Death Knight, amazing CC and damage, can slow opposing team from getting to a certain point. You don't have to run with this, this is simply my comp that i use on an everyday basis. Just try to know your member's utility and not stack classes.

Restoration Shaman
Discipline Priest
Holy Pally
Protection Warrior
Feral Druid
Affliction Warlock
Shadow Priest
Subtle Rogue
Beast Mastery Hunter or Frost Mage
Frost Death Knight

Strategies


Go over your strats for each battleground before you enter the battleground, this makes everything easier, and makes your group much more prepared. Make sure everyone knows what their job is, and where they are going.

Note: Was doing twin peaks last night, i had CrysisMK2's Lag Switch up (All credit to him where he deserves it, awesome guy.) and decided to send my original flag carrier to the left right into their team, so their WHOLE team would be on the left side of the field, i lag switched to the speed boosts on the alliance side, picked it up, picked the flag up, hit the lag switch at 0 seconds on the speed boost, made it to the river in twin peaks, popped dash, used lag switch again at 0 seconds, and ran into the base before their team could kill ours, capped it. For the rest of the game neither team could get a cap off, so i guess its safe to say i kinda...won the game. Or... CrysisMK2 won a game for me that he wasn't even in. x) I'm sure you can get banned for this, but it's an easy way to get a cap if you have a lag switch and the CC for the other team. GL.


Warsong Gulch: Have three people, including the flag carrier, run into the enemy base trying their best not to be touched by the enemy team, the flag carrier and two healers usually, try to always take a holy pally for freedom. A discipline priest is second most useful, Resto shaman being third, and resto druid being last, for helping a flag carrier. The remaining team goes straight for their flag carrier, and slows him asap, if you can't kill him, keep a rogue or a feral druid on him, and kill healers by focusing down one healer at a time, then kill the flag carrier. Keep him slowed as much as possible. If enemy team is running this strat, send some from offensive to help our flag carrier get to their base and back, while having a few stay back and slow and kill their flag carrier. Have someone go tunnel at the start of the game, pick up speed boots, then run down and grab berserker from the hut so the enemy team doesn't get them. If your offense dies once their team's flag carrier has made it back to the base, as soon as you rez, wipe their offense in the field, try not to let them get into our base to touch our flag carrier, this is the one time it is okay to fight in the middle. If you do wipe them, go on ahead to kill the flag carrier, if you're having a hard time dropping him, like... only getting him to 95% health while cc'ing healers, then keep wiping their offense while stacks of flag carrier builds up, at 4-6 stacks, wipe their offense then quickly run into their base and pop everything on their flag carrier.


For alliance, black line is the FC and his 2 healers, Red line is a rogue/druid to pick up speed boots and berserking then stealth, and green line is the remainder of the raid.


Same thing, red line is FC and his healers here, green line is raid, black line is rogue/druid.

Twin Peaks: Same deal as Warsong Gulch, the water is annoying so have a shaman waterwalk everyone before the game starts, have one person go for berserking as soon as you get outside. Watch out for elemental shamans and balance druids that will push you off of the waterfall, don't stand to close. Try your best not to go straight through middle, but rather the side the enemy team is not on, this gives you more time to get across before they catch up, for both offense and defense. Priests can leap of faith a target back onto the ledges in our base, so enemy melee has a hard time keeping up with the flag carrier, elemental shamans and balance druids can knock enemies off the ledge as well.

Ok, One for Alliance, you want your flag carrier, and the 2 healers to follow the orange line to the horde base, make sure to have waterwalking, if not, cut across the rocks and go into the base from the front. Make sure to get the berserker buff if its there. A rogue or a feral druid runs out the opposite side of the FC, the gryphon side, and picks up berserking and stealths. The remaineder of the team goes out front, and intercepts their team, the front ramp is faster then the left side for the alliance


For horde, its the exact opposite, red line for flag carrier, black line for rogue/druid to stealth ahead, and orange line for the remainder of the team.

Arathi Basin: Be sure to check the enemy team for rogues and feral druids, if they have a rogue, leave a stealther at Farm or Stables, if they don't have one, leave whatever you want. Be sure to call incomings on vent asap. Be sure to be specific when calling incomings and asking for help. Saying, incoming gold mine, need help, isn't specific enough. Call everything out as early as possible so team mates can get there asap before they show up. Watch flags, don't let rogues ninja cap while you're not paying attention, do not let them kite you away from the flag either. Teams almost never send lots to mine, so you can easily take that if you send some there, most games, there is usually a decent amount sent to Blacksmith no matter what, and a few sent to LM, sometimes none. If you set your view distance on Ultra, you can see exactly what goes where as soon as the game starts, and re-arrange accordingly if possible. Don't let your whole team trying to cap flags while theres still more then 5 enemies alive at a node, focus target healers and CC dps, kill as fast as possible. If you can't get a node, start pulling off and head to another, teams can't hold far nodes, meaning its almost impossible to defend farm and stables or mine and LM at the same time, push both of these at the same time and you should be able to get one. Keep pressure on everything, send a stealthy hard hitting rogue or druid to a node they leave a small amount at and get him or her to pop everything, to have them send some back to that node, making your team mates get a node easier. BUT do not leave a node without someone defending it, ever. Once you've taken 3 nodes, leave 2 at each node, a healer and any non-squishy dps. Have the remaining team float in the middle of the nodes you have, and send them to whatever node is being attacked, but do not send all at once. It's okay to leave 1 stealthy by himself at farm or stables if they can call out incomings fast, that gives you 5 players that float in the middle that you can use to defend any node at any time. If you're holding 3 with no problem, feel free to send some to other nodes, but as always, never leave a node empty. If you're having a hard time, just hold those 3 the best you can. In Arathi Basin, the easist nodes to hold are Lumber Mill, Farm, and Blacksmith.

I just showed you where the floating points are. Purple for Farm, Bs, and LM. Green for Farm Mine and BS, Blue for Mine Stables and BS, White for LM BS and Stables.


Battle for Gilneas: The Battle for Gilneas works the same way Arathi Basin does, again, check to see what the enemy team has before the match starts, leave team mates at mine or lighthouse accordingly, send the remainder to Waterworks, never give up waterworks from the beggining, thats a higher chance you'll lose. Have a frost death knight or mage place a ring of frost or hungering cold in the water of waterworks while other team mates try to get a cap before they get to the flag itself, have a rogue smoke bomb if this happens. If they do manage to get to the flag, (Or if you're horde/started on the horde side) run up to the flag and leave one person there to aoe constantly, a rogue with fan of knives is great, or a druid with swipe and thrash, or have a shaman magma totem every few seconds on the flag. The others should focus down healers while cc'ing dps. Once most of them are cleared out, have one person spam clicking the flag to get a cap off before they rez and get back. As soon as you cap Waterwors, have some go back to mines or lighthouse, leave three at each node, have the rest float between each node. Use the Mountain between Mines and Lighthouse to your advanatge, leave a rogue or feral druid up there watching for when they leave their 1 node slightly defenseless, then put up as much pressure there as possible, have this rogue call out incomings as soon as they rez.

Floating points:
Orange for Mine and Waterworks
Purple for LH and Waterworks
White is the mountain in gilneas, and the floating point for mines and lh, use this to see where your enemies go, anywhere in the battleground.

Leading a Rated Battleground

As a leader, you need to be prepared to call out things asap, and have the patience to accept loss after loss to get practice in with your team. Your team depends on you to lead them through everything, no matter how good they are, they'll listen to you, whatever you call, goes. Know what utility you have on your team, talk to each member privately before rated battlegrounds start, see what they can do, find out their strong points and their weak points and leave them in battlegrounds accordingly. If they can top damage charts, don't leave them defending, if they can call targets, don't leave them defending, if they can only tunnel vision heal, put them on defense. Don't let a man do a baby's job, and try to get a baby to do a man's job. Don't yell, if you're having a hard time winning, yelling at your team won't make it easier, i can promise if your running with new members, they're nervous already. I don't mean to sound like i'm telling you how to raise a kid, but praise your members for doing good, if you have a rogue thats steadily getting ninja caps off, tell him how amazing he's doing, and i'm sure he'll put his best into it everytime.
Also, check in with your memebers after each rated battleground to see what they think, the knowledge you have about a certain battlegruond may be nothing compared to those of others, go over what your team could have done better.
Also, have set out focus target callers, have someone at all times calling a focus target to kill. If your dps is spread out and on different things, the healers will have no problem healing through it all.

Rating, Titles, and Conquest Points

If your team is high rated, then i'm sure all of your members will constantly want to do rated battlegrounds because they are eager to win and get their rating even higher, which is good. Once your team starts getting titles, everyone will have some feeling of success, so if you're leading and having members who complain about such and such, pushing for rating or titles will help you out a lot. Also, every tuesday i'm sure many people will be willing to do rated battlegrounds for their conquest points. In 4.2 you can get a higher conquest point cap from Rated Battlegrounds then arena, by 30% if i'm not mistaking. But, you'll have to fill up those points by doing whatever you earned the cap in. So you can't farm up 2200 rating in rated battlegrounds, get a conquest cap of 2900 and do arenas every week to fill up that cap. Doing 1 rated battleground a week after you've broken 1500 will keep your cap up, if you don't do a bg, your cap will be judged off your highest arena team, if its above 1500, if it doesn't get a cap from arena, it will return to its regular cap. Losing 1 rated battleground for the week will get you your cap for next week, your cap comes from the HIGHEST point you were in any rating during that week. If you had 3,000 rating in rated battlegrounds on Friday, then tanked it down to 1500 rating on monday, your cap on tuesday will be from the 3,000 rating.

Titles: Titles are given as soon as you hit that rating, you don't have to wait till Tuesday.

1100 Rating: Private Scout
1200 Rating: Corporal Grunt
1300 Rating: Sergeant Sergeant
1400 Rating: Master Sergeant Senior Sergeant
1500 Rating: Sergeant Major First Sergeant
1600 Rating: Knight Stone Guard
1700 Rating: Knight Lieutenant Blood Guard
1800 Rating: Knight Captain Legionaire
1900 Rating: Knight Champion Centurion
2000 Rating: Lieutenant Commander Champion
2100 Rating: Commander Lieutenant General
2200 Rating: Marshal General
2300 Rating: Field Marshal Warlord
2400 Rating: Grand Marshal High Warlord

75 Rated Battleground Wins - Veteran of the Horde/Alliance title, and Vicous War Wolf or Steed.
150 Rated Battleground Wins - Another Wolf or Steed to mail to your alts.
300 Rated Battleground Wins - Warbringer or Warbound and another Wolf or Steed.
If you think there is anything else i should put in this guide please let me know, leave your questions and suggestions as well.

<3 Ownedcore.

[Hemorrhage]

1st. Awsome guide for rated bg's! +++REP

[QtDemon]

1st. Awsome guide for rated bg's! +++REP

Thanksss, will update later. <3

[TehVoyager]

friend of mine leads a RBG Guild and he has told me that for FC the order of Best to worst is Warrior>Druid=DK>paladin


how certain are you on your comments for FC?

[QtDemon]

friend of mine leads a RBG Guild and he has told me that for FC the order of Best to worst is Warrior>Druid=DK>paladin


how certain are you on your comments for FC?

Probably not as certain as you, but i know my group has a really hard time getting down blood dk's, warriors are rather, squishy. But thats just from the experience i have playing with the people i get faced up against in rbg's. I'm not 100% sure by statistics or anything. But i don't see how a warrior could be better then a DK, or even a druid, druids are so squishy if caught out of bear form. But yes, you're probably right.

[cher]

The reason warriors are considered the best flag carriers, is their tools to get out of a bad situation fast. Charge, Intercept, Intervene, and heroic leap when combined and used well, can help you cross half the field, or get out of a tightly packed group of enemies. Throw in spell reflect and a clever warrior can escape most situations. Deathknights just do not have this mobility.

[horst]

nice guide, thx a lot

but i miss eye T_T
edit: cant open the pictures, is it just me?

[QtDemon]

The reason warriors are considered the best flag carriers, is their tools to get out of a bad situation fast. Charge, Intercept, Intervene, and heroic leap when combined and used well, can help you cross half the field, or get out of a tightly packed group of enemies. Throw in spell reflect and a clever warrior can escape most situations. Deathknights just do not have this mobility.

Ah i see. Thanks.

And @horst, i can open them fine but....i'm the one who uploaded them so. If anyone else has this problem i'll upload them to imageshack and link it here, but the pictures aren't that much of a help.

[TehVoyager]

"Attachments Pending Approval" thar's ur problem

plz approve screenies mawdz

[QtDemon]

"Attachments Pending Approval" thar's ur problem

plz approve screenies mawdz

Ohhh. It's just pictures with the battleground maps with lines on them. Nothing big.

[wac]

Death Knight: Chart topping damage, good flag carriers.
Blood: Best flag carriers because of self heals.

Warrior: Amazing damage, best flag carriers.
Protection: 2nd best flag carriers, most common flag carriers, chargers give quick escapes and faster routes back to base.

You may want to fix this... /confused

[sunshoes]

friend of mine leads a RBG Guild and he has told me that for FC the order of Best to worst is Warrior>Druid=DK>paladin


how certain are you on your comments for FC?

Definitely not. More like DK>=Warrior>Druid>=Paladin, depending on your comp.

[QtDemon]

You may want to fix this... /confused

Wow i'm an idiot. sorry!

[Zoidberg]

Approved the attachments. You should all be able to see the pictures now.

[QtDemon]

Approved the attachments. You should all be able to see the pictures now.

Tyyy <3