So you die a lot in PvP? Please read on

This post has developed over the last couple of days - but has once again refocused following something that happened late last night just before maintenance.

Catreann (RL partner, GM and author of Dwarf Babble) - is currently starting on her PvP achievements, gathering a bit of honor for the mounts etc. In the last hour before shutdown she queued for the daily random BG and did a WSG and an AB. She then went to bed, muttering loudly about how stupid BGs were.

She has had the unfortunate experience of finding herself in an AB with a far superior Horde team. I don't know whether they had more healers or what, but the last 5 minutes of the fight was basically the alliance holding no bases and being farmed at the starting graveyard.

A lot of readers will have found themselves in similar positions - it happens in EotS a lot, AB and on occasion in WSG and SotA. Premades 'honor farm' in AV, and it seems that only IoC is the one BG that the risks of being farmed are low.

Getting graveyard camped sucks. There is no doubt about it. On my server Alliance are so bad at Wintergrasp that we frequently find 20 horde vehicles lined up at the alliance starting area (when we are attacking) doing nothing else but taking the piss. (Personally when this happens I log to the priest and MindFlay from the graveyard, as you are immune from damage and can kill a LOT of horde)

Now although these kind of BGs are thoroughly unpleasant - players new to BGs shouldnt let it get you down. To quote Chas from Righteous Orbs:

The other big barrier to PvP joy for a lot of people is dying.

You die in PvP. A lot.

I have finally learnt this - and I am comfortable with this cold realisation - PvP and PvE are two totally different games - and whereas living in PvE is generally a sign of success, in PvP the waters are muddy and dying is going to happen. A lot.

So I've been throwing myself at PvP for a couple of weeks now and it's a mad learning curve of intense mayhem and slow realisation of what are the right and wrong things to do. As I explained before I have only just discovered the joys of BGs and arenas and PvP in general, and to admit I am/was a 'noob' would be understating the obvious.

But time passes, BGs are won and lost, arenas are entered and generally you get better.

So it was with much interest I came across two recent blog posts which said a lot of things I now totally understand, which would have made no sense two weeks ago.

Firstly Agent M's Guide to Battlegrounds over at Righteous Orb.
Then a 'I am but a decoy' response from Killing 'em Slowly

It's all true you know. Well I presume the DK stuff is true as well - but otherwise its all true. QFT and all that.

I've been actively PvPing on both my hunter and my priest since I started and they enjoy very different experiences.

I am going to give some personal advice based on my own observations of my two weeks PvP - before writing a couple of class specific posts about Sardonica and Puraa - as PvP for priests and hunters are world's apart (or at least for me they are).

1. You die - yes I've said it again but I cannot reitterate this enough.

2. Know what you are trying to acheive. Or put another way - there is not a single battleground where the objective is to kill people. That is what the objective of an Arena is - but not battlegrounds.

I know this is basic stuff but I am going to set the ultimate goal down of each of the BGs

Warsong Gulch aka WSG - carry a flag from the oppositions starting base to your starting base. Do this three times. You can only drop off (or 'cap') your opponents flag at your starting base when your flag is also at your home base. First to three flags wins. 10 players per side

Arathi Basin aka AB- get 1600 resources before your opponents. Resources are gained by having control of any of the five 'bases' in the game.The more bases you control the more resources you gain over time. 15 players per side.

Alterac Valley aka AV - the goal of this battle ground varies depending on level. In the days of lvl 60s the battles could go for hours - but with lvl 80s the easiest way to win is to kill the oppositions NPC general. To quote wowwiki "The goal of Alterac Valley is to reduce the opposing faction's reinforcement count to 0. Each team starts with 600 reinforcements. There are a number of ways to reduce reinforcements,  but killing the enemy General does it instantly". Other ways of reducing resources includes destroying towers, killing enemy captains, taking control of enemy bunkers and mines, freeing your own commanders held prisoner etc etc. 40 players per side.

Eye of the Storm aka EotS - WSG meets AB. Winner is first to 1600 resources - with four bases to hold and a single flag which can be capped by returning to a base you control. 15 players per side

Strand of the Ancient aka SotA - Team A attempts to capture the 'relic' - an orb held behind a series of walls. Walls are destroyed with demolishers (similar to those uses in Wintergrasp or for FL in Ulduar) or seaforium bombs. Team B defends the relic. If and when captured, the time taken is recorded. Roles are now reversed and Team B attempts to capture the Relic in a a quicker time than Team A managed.  Up to 15 players a side

Isle of Conquest aka IoC - the ultimate goal is the same as AV - "The goal  is to reduce the opposing faction's reinforcement count to 0. There are a number of ways to reduce reinforcements, named below, but killing the enemy General does it instantly". Generally this means destroying the gates of your opponents keep and killing the General. Destruction of gates is usually done using seaforium bombs, vehicles etc. Up to 40 players a side.

Now to summarise:

The goal of all battlegrounds is to achieve victory in the quickest way possible in order to gain honor efficiently so that you can join a new battleground.

OK side comment here - my son things this is wrong. He's a leader of a QQ group and I suspect that he would say that the goal of battlegrounds is just to "gain honor efficiently' - and that honor/hour is more important than winning BGs. He's got a point - but as doing random BGs gives the victory bonus of over 1800 honor, he's going to have to run a perfect AV cave farm to compensate for the winning bonus.

3. The reward from BGs is honor points. Honor can be used to purchase a variety of things from gear through to mounts. Honor is good.

Now lets look closely at how honor is gained. Honor comes from a number of sources - and I accept it comes from honorable kills (HKs) - but this is a very minor part of the total honour gained from a BG. You get significantly more honor doing something either working towards your BG achievement goal, or stopping your apponents achieveing theirs. For example in AB - taking control of a base or defending a base when an opponent tries to take it, gives more honor than you get for killing the opponents standing in your way.

Winning a BG gets you the biggest amount of honor - so winning the BG should be your ultimate aim.

"Aaaaah" I hear you say "You get honor from killing opponents though - so why would I stand about defending some flag whilst everyone else is down killing each other?"

Well the answer is obvious - because defending a flag allows you to win - and winning a BG will give more honor than gaining 100 HKs. And Blizzard rewards you for playing correctly - as when standing at a capture point that you control, you will gain a buff called Honorable Defender. This buff grants +50% honor gained from kills. Listen to Blizz - they designed the game and are rewarding those that listen.

4. Killing opponents - this is fun I admit - but if you want to kill hordies/alliance then at least have a reason to be doing it. And make the reason something to do with meeting the objective of WINNING THE DAMN BATTLEGROUND!!!!!

So that means dont fight in the middle of WSG if the flag carrier is in the capping room. Go fight where the flag is! It's a wide enough area that you can get to the flag carrier without being ganked in the middle for a pointless HK or two.

In AB don't fight on the roads - fight at the bases to either defend or cap a flag. In SotA - take out the demolishers or the players carrying bombs. Or fight the players killing your demolishers or capping a graveyard. Just don't kill someone because they are standing at the graveyard, 30 seconds away from the action.

5. Resilience is your friend - this is probably the biggest thing I have learnt over the past couple of weeks - PvP gear makes a lot of difference to the PvP experience. We all know you will die a lot, but resilience gear means you live longer doing whatever you should be doing (killing vehicles, defending bases etc) before you die. It's worth cashing in 200 emblems of triumph and getting 5 or 6 pieces - 600+ resilience is noticable.

6. Simple instructions in /bg are a godsend - it can be something as simple as 'all attack green' or "inc ST" but the key to winning BGs is working as a team. Each mmber of that team is the eyes and ears of every other member, and sometimes people just need a direction to assist getting the job done. So don't be shy with posting the odd instruction or two - although "F*****g Noob" probably isn't the most helpful comment.

So thats a novice's POV on BGs. I'm definately no expert, but as a newcomer these are the most obvious pointers I could give to someone considering entering PvP for the first time.

Oh yeah one last thing - expect to die. A lot.

;)