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Season 8 is about to begin January 26th. We should all be planning for the next season and that means stacking up on honor and honor saving devices. The two servers I play on, Shattered Hand Alliance and Staghelm Horde, are both greatly outnumbered by the opposite faction. The battle groups also seem to have a good losing streak on their hands. So when I run a battleground I try and go with friends and we seem to almost turn the tides and win with a group of 4-5 people. Here are a few strategies for each battleground that have worked for me.

Warsong Gulch

The basic strategy for this battleground is to have 2 people go for the flag while the other 8 rush to the middle and prevent the other team from entering from the ramp or the tunnel. In a perfect world you would have 3 healers, 1 tank, and 7 dps but most likely you won’t get that but chances are also neither will the other team. The best flag carrying team would be and healer/healer, healer/dps, or healer tank combo, and your defense group should consist of at least 1 healer but if you don’t have that no big deal. Try and prevent the defense from pushing too far forward to the point where you are “camping the graveyard”.  Keep everyone posted between the tunnel and ramp, rinse and repeat 3 times, and you should have a win. The strategy is easy as that.

Arathi Basin

With 10 man battlegrounds it isn’t imperative that every PUG in the BG follows the strat, but as you get into the 15 man BGs you start having to rely more on them. Most of the time if someone steps up and puts out the strategy, people will follow.

So the strategy for Arathi Basin is: Group 1 – Lumber mill, Group 2 – Blacksmith, and Group 3 – Mines. Notice I did not put stables or farm anywhere on this list. That is because one of the PUG players will capture the first base without the strat saying so. If people follow this your on your way to a 5 cap win. As all the bases are captured you leave 1 man behind at each base to defend and everyone else should rush to the last base which is either farm or stables depending if your alliance or horde respectively. Once you get to the final base and capture it, spread out and defend. If all goes well and people cooperate, you should have a relatively quick win.

Eye of the Storm

With eye of the storm I will give an Alliance version and Horde version due to the different starting areas. Since my main character is Alliance we will start there.

Alliance:

Group 1 – Fel Reaver Ruins, Group 2 – Blood elf Tower, Group 3 – Split up and go to either Fel Reaver or Blood elf tower. If anyone dies defend Mage Tower and Draenei Ruins. As your team runs towards either FR or BE they should run through MT and DR to start capping it.

Horde:

Group 1 – Mage Tower, Group 2 – Draenei Ruins, Group 3 – Split up and go to either Mage Tower or Dranaie Ruins. If anyone dies defend Blood elf Tower and Fel Reaver Ruins. As your team runs for MT or DR they should run through BE and FR to start capping it.

This battleground will bring out the  non listeners out there. As you can see in these strategies there is nothing that says, “and Joe Snuffy go capture the flag.” That’s because towers win EotS not flags. If your team holds 3 bases the opposite side can capture as many flags as they want, they won’t win. That doesn’t matter to some people. There will always be at least 4 people who rush for the flag. As long as most people follow the strategy you shouldn’t have a problem capturing and holding 3 bases.

Strand of the Ancients

Lets start with offense. You have a good amount of time while your waiting for the boat to dock so use it to fully buff everyone on your same boat. As soon as it docks you should have melee drive tanks and any ranged class possible should get on the sides to defend it. Hunters drop frost traps, mages sheeping and using frost nova, warlocks fearing anything that comes close or casting curse of exhaustion, druids rooting, and shamans frost shocking like crazy to keep people from hurting those tanks. Also if everyone rushes one side it’s easier to defend those tanks. As long as the tanks are protected you should be in the relic chamber in no time!

Now onto defense. Rush down to the beach, every one, and take out those tanks as soon as possible. That’s it. The enemy will not be able to destroy gates without tanks and that means a win for you. If no one is actually getting in the tank you are killing, bring the tank down to about 5% life and leave it. This renders the tank pretty much useless because it will take about 5 hits to kill it and thus doing little to no damage to a wall. If a wall breaks immediately fall back to the next one and defend it like you did the last. As long as there is a quick retreat you should be able to keep the relic defended for a win.

Isle of Conquest

This battleground is an animal in itself. There are so many different ways that this battleground can be played and strategies for it have gone so many different ways. When it first came out the strategy was rush the Hanger and get everyone inside the base bombing the walls. For about a month this is what happened and graveyard camping was common. Somewhere along the lines the strategy switched and now the docks are a must to get the win. The docks give you four catapults and 2 glaive throwers. The catapults will launch you inside the enemy stronghold so you can commence bombing efforts on the walls. The glaive throwers have a huge range and can shoot the walls from out of range of the keep tower cannons. So as you can see this is what makes the docks a key item to have. This being said, at the start of the battle have everyone rush the docks (alliance seems to always get there first) and capture it. Make use of the catapults to get inside and start bombing one wall. Others need to defend the glaive throwers from random enemies trying to destroy them since defense towers can’t. Before you know it you will be inside and killing the enemy general for the win. The other bases aren’t a MUST in this but if you have the oil refinery and the quarry you will be able to kill walls easier with the siege damage increase buff from each. If the enemy captures the docks before you, just be sure to kill the glaives before they get to your base.

Communication is key to victory

I won’t go into Alterac Valley too much because I really don’t have a strategy for it. I generally just go with the flow and do the best for my team that I can. Sometimes  it means being the only member to defend a tower that is about to be destroyed, or capturing a mine to have more reinforcements. If you go in with a group you have a much better chance at working as a team. Your 5 man group can go and back cap towers or defend towers that your team has captured.

As a general rule with every single battleground, communication is key. Don’t be afraid to step up and put out the strategy. Call out any incomings to bases. For example, ” 2 Incoming to Mines,” “Tank incoming from purple side,” “Their flag carrier is coming out of tunnel.” If communication is good, and people follow strategies, you will see more victories and have a better time overall. I hope you will bring these into your next battleground and come back and comment on how it went. If you have any questions feel free to contact me on twitter with @aellerian or on the discussion forums. As always feel free to change any of these strats and let me know what has worked for you!