BG tips for newcomers and random BGs

PVP Battlegrounds
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Hi, I do not see many BG content anywhere, let alone useful guides. I got into rated BGs this patch. I am also lvling alts and doing random BGs with them. I see players making silly mistakes all the time, mistakes that cost matches ,so here are a few tips for random BGs or for those starting out in RBGs:

  • get the battlegroundenemies addon -pretty much mandatory. It shows the frames of all the opponents and you can click of them for easier targeting, amongst other things. You can use it for locating enemy players so you get to bases where help is needed instead of going somewhere where help is not needed and thus wasting precious time.
  • it is good to keep track of where the enemy rogue is, especially through the BGE as they will try to ninja bases / slow down flag carriers
  • kill or atleast CC healers (HHTD addon is useful in this)
  • do not let enemy healers drink in the back during team fights! Often you can win just by outlasting the enemy healers mana pools
  • in flag carry maps, slow down the enemy tank before they even get to the flag, or ideally, kill them in advance
  • NEVER leave a base unguarded. If you see a healer defending a base alone, switch them. Ideally healers should be helping in teamfights. A base left alone will be taken over and then you will have a hard time taking it again
  • you can try to CC cap a base - like have a priest mind control the enemy while you cap… If you are a druid, cyclone them over and over until your teammate caps… etc. This one grinds my gears so much because in random BGs I try to CC cap and the other player always just breaks the CC… and we would have had a base if they just kept the cc and followed it up with their own CC.
  • do not try to engage a tank defending a base by yourself, you will not win (unless you outgear them)
  • use your dispels on dispellable CCs on your teammates (get addons that show dispellable CCs on your frames, I use BigDebuffs)
  • defend your healers - peel for them, pretty please :smiley: they are very important players in BGs
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Nice list, but you’re sort of assuming there -are- actual ‘team fights’ and you left out many things, like ‘get the correct cart in Silvershard’ and ‘always kill EFC’. You know, the basic things ally almost never gets right…

Healers don’t probably ‘drink’ these days of mana buns and pies.

Rogues can’t basically be tracked, because they stealth so much.

The whole cyclone-thing - yeh, that never works unless your team knows exactly what they’re doing, and you communicate your intentions in advance. No hope just assuming they will cap while you CC, or that they’ll keep something CCd while you cap.

Sometimes it’s good to leave a base unguarded, if it gives you an advantage, or if you’re dominating so much.

Are there any CCs that are ‘dispellable’? With the CC, stuns, snares, roots, ‘fears’ and other stuff being so overwhelmingly out of hand these days, I doubt that would even help. Would be cool to be able to ‘dispel’ a rogue stun, SAP or something, but alas, nothing works for that.

Healer peeling is very difficult, as you’d have to be 100% aware of so many enemy and friendly players simultaneously. Sometimes you can help a healer that someone attacks, but in a chaotic battle situation, it’s difficult enough to survive or escape, let alone perform advanced tactics like that.

Engaging a tank can work, if you have a spell that pushes them off a cliff - LM, for example. If you’re a druid, Shaman, hunter or monk, you can sometimes pull off something like that. They might even lose motivation to try to get back.

With players being able to release from CC, and CC not always being long enough, sometimes it’s just faster to kill the flag defender than do the ‘CC+cap’-trick.

How do you prevent enemy healers from ‘drinking’ in the back anyway? You’d have to get so close to them that their protectors would just eliminate you anyway.

HTTD sometimes shows non-healers are healers, and healers as non-healers, so it’s not infallible, but I agree that it’s useful. (I have been shown a warrior as healer more times than I can count - the addon should only show who’s a healer spec and joined the BG as healer, not ‘anyone that happens to do some kind of healing’)

Killing or slowing down enemy tank may work, but sometimes other players will take the flag, or a fast monk or druid might bring the flag to the tank, so the tank can stay out of reach.

There are lots of other mistakes ally team often makes, like fighting on roads instead of flags, not caring about bases or the flag, or caring about flag but not bases… not going for flag, fighting mindlessly in the middle, going Mines in Gilneas instead of WW, taking the wrong carts in Silvershard, letting the other team take all the nodes, and so on.

But someone could probably write a book about these mistakes that are so prevalent you see them every day.

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true but at the very beginning of a bg u can track where they go on mount before they stealth, it is sometimes a very valuable information

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Killing efc is self explanatory, going for carts, that is for one specific BG I wanted more general stuff that does not apply only to one BG, cause then I could start going on and on about the azerite node strats etc.

Healers do drink, maybe not in random BGs but definitely in rated. So that is just a tip for the future if someone decides to go rated. To prevent them from drinking all you have to do is get a bit close to them and do a ranged attack, even meelee classes have them now.

Following up a cyclone with your CC when you see the other guy capping shoudl not be difficult either. Yes, sometimes it does require coordination but if you are just trying to CC 1 or 2 enemies so you can CC cap, it is doable on the spot. I see it even in 0 CR groups with no voice. Can try to cap a base guarded by a tank like this for example.

Leaving a base unguarged that is needed as well sometimes yes, it is risky but it can pay off if you know what you are doing. In general for newer players, I would probably not recommend. Especially in randoms where there are like 15 players instead of 10, someone is bound to ninja cap it.

Many CCs are dispellable. Polymorphs, fears from warlocks and priests, mind control can be purged, hex decursed, cyclone can be mass dispelled, off the top of my head. Of course, not all CCs are dispellable. Better sacrifice that GCD than leaving your healer polymorphed while the enemy mage just popped combustion, should be common sense. And ofc, sometimes dispelling is tricky when the team has SP and warlocks.

Peeling for a healer should not be too hard when you see their health frame dipping - just pop a stun here and there, off heal, etc. I guess it can take some practice, reacting immediately.

Rogues can be tracked. Through BGE you can see if they are in combat somewhere or not and how close they are to you. This is useful information in general, but even better for someone like a DH tank - they should not waste spectral sight while the rogue is in combat somewhere else. And if they see the rogue stealthing again, they will probably go the tanks way. In that case you can guess it would take the rogue about 20 secs to get to the DH base. So DH would pop spectral sight when they think the rogue should be near already, instead of wasting it when the rogue is still pretty far away and then have no spectral sight when the rogue is close. Then the DH has a good chance of avoiding a sap.

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Don’t underestimate that newcomers don’t know the terminology and abbreviations so when I say kill efc I can sometimes tell who doesn’t even know what that is ^^

Otherwise nice to see a post made with good intent.

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