A few weeks ago, I wrote a post with some tips on winning battlegrounds. While it generally got good reviews from regular readers and followers on Twitter, it’s come to my attention that so much more needs to be done. If you’re a PvPer, feel free to spread these tips around to the folks in your BG. Go ahead and take credit for them too, I don’t much care. But if it means more wins in the battlegrounds, quieter BG channels and some honor (and rep, if you’re an achievement whore like myself), I’m all for the dissemination of knowledge.

Today, we’ll look at each BG’s individual objectives. Why? Shouldn’t this be known already? Well…yes. But it clearly isn’t by a large number of BG participants. So I wanted to put this out there for the newer members to the PvP scene.

Warsong Gulch

Warsong Gulch, or WSG as it’s more commonly known as, is your basic Capture the Flag game. The Alliance base is to the north of the map and the Horde is to the south. They’re set up almost identically to each other with the flag in the back of the main room, or FR for Flag Room. The objective is to capture the enemy’s flag when they do not have yours.

Let me repeat that last part: When they do NOT have yours.

If the enemy has your flag, you will not be able to capture theirs and vice versa, obviously. Killing the flag carrier is a priority. This means anyone on offense should be killing their flag carrier and not randomly fighting scrubs in the middle of the map. Honor Kills are not the way to fame and glory. Winning BGs is. The HKs will come with time, particularly if you start amassing wins. So stop fighting in the middle. Please. Think of the baby seals. Whom I will club if people keep fighting in the middle.

Ahem. Sorry. Sore point with me right there. Where were we?

Ah yes, capturing flags. A team must capture the flag of the opposing team 3 times to achieve a WSG victory. Capturing the flag also increases your rep with that BGs faction (Silverwing Sentinels for Alliance or Warsong Outriders for the Horde). This is really only good to know if you’re going for the Battlemaster title (which requires exalted with the 3 main BG factions. Good luck with that.).

Either way, it’s not difficult. Kill the other team’s flag carrier and protect your own. And don’t fight in the middle lest you incur Arrens’ wrath. Next!

Arathi Basin

AB is one of my personal favorites, especially if everyone works together as a team. The objective (which will change slightly in 3.2) is to achieve 2000 resources before the other team. To achieve resources, a team must capture nodes. The more nodes a team has, the faster they gather resources. The 5 nodes include Stables, Farm, Blacksmith, Lumber Mill and Gold Mine (ST, Farm, BS, LM or GM in Basin lexicon). If you’re fortunate enough to be on a team that can capture and defend all 5 nodes at once, you’re in luck. The AB match will last roughly 1 minute or so. If you’re not, it could take a while longer.

The key to winning AB is defense of nodes. If you race from the gates once the match starts and cap Farm only to ride off into the sunset picking a fight with someone on the road to LM, do us both a favor, won’t you? Shoot yourself with a shadowbolt. Because I will hate you. Instead, if you cap a node, have the good common courtesy to defend it. Ask a friend to stick around with you so you can chat and D up together. If you see the opposing team coming towards you, call it out in /bg. And wait for them to come to you. Never, ever, ever leave your post. Fight on the flag.

“But Uncle Arrens, there’s guys with red names coming to me! I wanna close the gap!” Oh, you beautiful fool. Don’t. Just sit tight. Why? Let’s say you and your defending teammate that you’ve been discussing the weather in Arathi in /say run off to go smack that idiot Death Knight around. You’re about 40 yards or so away from the flag. What you failed to notice was the stealthed druid behind the DK who is now ninjaing the flag. Had you sat tight, you could have still smacked the DK around, but also tapped the druid, thus preventing him from taking one of your key nodes.

So let’s review AB: Get more nodes than the other team, defend those nodes, call out incomings and fight on the flag, not away from them. Enjoy your victory.

Eye of the Storm

EotS is almost exactly like AB except it has a capture the flag component as well. Four bases are there for the taking: Mage Tower (MT), Draenei Ruins (DR), Fel Reaver Ruins (FR) and Blood Elf Tower (BE or BET). Each base is in the 4 corners of the map. In the center is a flag that can be taken and placed at a base your team holds.

For example, let’s say your team holds MT and DR. You capture the flag and take it to MT. On top of the resources you’re gathering from holding those 2 bases, capturing the flag will automatically grant your team another 100 resources. Like AB, the first team to 2000 wins.

But like the 2 aforementioned BGs, there’s a strategy here. If you’re team is able to capture all 4 bases, forget the flag. Let the other team have it. They have no where to turn it in. If your team has only 3 nodes, forget about the flag. They won’t be able to recover the loss of resources because bases are greater than the flag.

However! If your team is only able to capture 2 bases, fight for that flag. If you grab a flag and notice a whole bunch of red names in the middle, hang on to it near your captured base before turning it in. Let your team get a few folks in the center so they can get the next flag.

Also, stop fighting on the roads. It’s stupid, senseless and allows stealthers to go into your captured bases and tap it.

Alterac Valley

AV combines the best of PvE & PvP requirements. To win, one team must kill the other team’s NPC leader (Vanndar Stormpike or Drek’thar) first. But wait, there’s more! There are bases that must be destroyed along the way. And graveyards that must be captured. Why? Without destroying the bases first, the leaders get some pretty incredible buffs. 50% increase in damage and health is a pretty serious whooping you’re going to take without those buildings destroyed. Plus, destroying the buildings (Stonehearth Bunker, Icewing Bunker, Dun Baldar North, Dun Baldar South and Stormpike Aid Station for Horde. Tower Point, Iceblood Garrison, East Frostwolf Tower, West Frostwolf Tower and the Frostwolf Relief Hut for the Alliance) will grant an enormous boost to honor. There are also 2 NPCs that need to die before the main boss, one for each faction. Balinda is the Alliance mage that the Horde needs to kill and Galvangar is the Horde blademaster that the Alliance must stomp.

There is also a resource component to AV. For each base you destroy, the opposing team loses resources. There are mines near each starting area that can be taken to increase your resources. The first team to reach 0 resources loses. This is only a viable option if you’re in what’s known as a “turtle”. A turtle refers to a slow moving battle where one side has no clear advantage thus necessitating a gathering of resources. The only way to gather resources in AV is to cap both mines. This is not advised. Instead, I highly recommend destroying bases (which includes defending them for the 3 minutes until they go kaboom) and going back to recap bases the other team has taken from your side (before they go kaboom).

Teamwork: It’s not just for professional sports.

Strand of the Ancients

SotA is the newest BG to be introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. The premise is to use siege engines to knock down walls and get to the Titan Relic that’s currently housed behind the main wall in the back center of the map. As it stands now, the Horde always start on defense while Alliance gets a nice, calm boat ride before they get to jump into vehicles to knock down said walls. They have 10 minutes to do it and touch the Titan Relic before the Horde goes on the offensive. If the Horde gets to the relic in less time than it took the Alliance, the Horde wins.

The only viable strategy is to agree beforehand which walls to knock down and charge. If half the team goes for one wall and the other half goes for another, it will take twice as long to get it done. Defend the siege vehicles (if you’re on offense, otherwise target the living hell out of them first) and go touch something titany. And relicy.

So there you have it. The five battlegrounds in a small (ok, not really), concise (maybe not) post.

And if you’ve gained nothing from this, here’s the TL;DR version: STOP FIGHTING ON THE GODDAMN ROADS!