Understanding Battlegrounds: Premades and Group Make-Up

With Cataclysm fast approaching, one of the highest priorities on this list of many PvPers is how everything will play out with the implementation of Rated Battlegrounds.  These will act as arenas have in the past, yielding a rating which will increase with every win, and allowing the purchase of high-end PvP gear with Conquest Points (which will be earned though arenas and rated BGs).  Since Season 9 is scheduled to go live a couple weeks after the release of Cataclysm on December 7th, by the time you've got a team of players up to level 85, you will most likely be able to jump right into competitive PvP.

What does this mean for us now?

It's in your best interest right now, to familiarize yourself with premades and group make-up for PvP.  Especially if you've not had a competitive PvP experience in terms of BGs through the duration of Wrath, or even BC and vanilla.  You should start thinking about putting your premade group for Cataclysm together now, not after the release.

That's not to say that if you can't find a team now, you won't be able to run Rated BGs come Cata.  You'll absolutely be able to fine one after the expansion releases, in fact it will probably be easier after the 7th.  Why?  Because lots of teams will be recruiting.  But you'll be missing out on one of the most important things you can gain between now and Cataclysm.

I'm not talking about gear, or character progression.  And I'm not talking about the bragging rights to say you tore it up in one of the most broken periods of PvP history.  I'm talking about one, last, valuable thing you can gain before Cataclysm.

Experience

Yes, it matters.  If you get a team together NOW, and you practice with them NOW, you'll have a leg up on everyone who's still trying to figure Rated BGs out after the expansion goes live.  You'll have a chance to really get used to working with your group,and what each individual player can accomplish, as well as what you can pull together as a group.  So, with that in mind, I'm going to be posting a series of posts running you through some strategies to try to consider once Cataclysm drops.  And today I'll talk about group make-up.


The Team

The size of your premade group depends entirely on how many PvPers you can  get together.  Maybe your raid group already wants to PvP and you'll be able to jump right into Alterac Valley (which is going to be a 25 man come Cata).  Maybe you're smaller, and you'll be running only 10 mans, and PuGing five players to run 15s.  Or maybe you'll be creating more than one BG team, because you have  so many players.

As Cynwise pointed out a while back in his post on Rated BGs, it's probably a good idea to shoot for AROUND 15 players.  That way you can always run 15 mans, or 10s if everyone doesn't show.  Or you can run an Alerac Valley with a few PuGs if you get extra.

But once you've decided on a rough number, a lot of the decisions about how you want your team to function is up to you.

Ask yourself this question:  "How do I want my team to work?"

Do you want a super-aggressive, all-out beserker team?  Do you want a team that will capture objectives, then turtle them effectively?  Or do you want a balanced, all around team that you'll adapt on the fly.

With those questions in mind, let me introduce you to the four kind of players I'm grouping PvPers into.

1.  The Melee dps

Melee dps is your front line in a Battleground scenario.  While other kinds of players will hang back and attack from behind, melee dps rushes right in (or maybe sneaks in if we're talking ferals or rogues).  They're very important to the group as a whole, because as long as there's a bunch of crazies breathing down your throat, an unorganized team won't have the smarts to take a minute, and focus down your healers (more on that later.)  Melee dps also often has a lot of interrupts available (especially if we're talking DKs) and can be a huge asset in bringing down the opponent's healers.

The Melee's biggest weakness is that it tends to die.  A lot.  Before casters go down, and sometimes before even the healers go down, it's not uncommon for a group to just go after whatever's right in front of them.  And in almost every situation, that's going to to be your melee dps.  Losing this front line means your squishier players are vulnerable, so if the other group takes the bait and goes for your melee, it's important for healers to keep them alive.

2.  The Ranged dps

Ranged enough.

The ranged dps essentially performs the same tasks as the melee.  They do damage.  Lots of it.  But unlike  the melee who need to be right beside a target to blow it up, ranged dps can nuke those baddies from behind your melee.  They can also be positioned more strategically, like little turrets, standing up on higher ground, or in other clever places, out of reach of the enemy melee dps.

The ranged dps also suffers from the unfortunate weakness of generally being fairly squishy.  A warlock is, as a general rule, easier to kill than a paladin.  Sure, there are some specs, like frost mages, that have more defensive cooldowns

3.  The Healer

Possible one of the most important roles in a BG, the healer is that guy that keeps everyone alive.  Once we've had a chance to get our feet wet with premade vs. premade Battlegrounds, I suspect one the main  points in team-building will be the number of healers to bring vs. the number of dps.  A healer doing their job can make or break an encounter.

With this in mind, it's EXTREMELY important to do your part (assuming you aren't healing) and keep your healers alive.  Keep those pesky dps CCed and off your heals as often as possible.  A poor-playing PuG (which is what a premade will probably streamroll a lot of before Cataclysm) might not target your healers, but count on other premades focusing yours down in the blink of an eye.  Healers are what makes Crowd Control in larger-scale PvP just as important as it was in places like the arenas.  Heals make or break a group.

4.  The Off-Healer or the Secret Healer

This is one of the sneakier things you can do with a premade group.  When your team breaks up into little groups to capture certain objectives, you can cleverly plant a player that can heal, but doesn't.  This means you have a character who is specced to heal, and geared and experienced enough to do the job, but have them dps, or pretend that they are.  See, in most cases (with the possible exception of a Holy Paladin, which has a much greater mana pool than any other pally spec), it's almost impossible to distinguish a healer from another member of your group.  Lets use the example of a priest.

What you would do with said priest, is have them specced for healing (let's say disc), but cast a lot of shadow spells.   Now a group that's got their wits about them will notice the priest isn't in shadow form.  But they're probably not going to be looking too closely at that, they'll be going after the paladin a few feet away that's healing like crazy.

Until the group's ordinary healer starts having trouble, you have this closet healer just pretend to dps.  Keep them off the enemy's radar.   THEN, once your main heals starts having trouble, they switch gears and start healing up a storm.  If the other group took the bait, and hasn't been attacking that first healer, this will almost certainly wipe the other group.  However, expect it to only really work once, after you've tricked the other team, they probably wont' fall for it again, and your secret healing player will be up at the top of the hit list with the rest of your heals.

Trees before 4.0.1:  The ninjas of the healing family.

Making the Group

Now, once you've got a rough idea of how you're planning to use each kind of character, you'll have to think about how exactly you're going to put them together.  Working with your team mates, and gaining some serious team synergy, is one of the greatest challenges you'll face as a Battleground group.  But if you take some time now, and practice, you'll find you've left this expansion with something lasting and important, that will carry you well into Cataclysm.

Experience

Death Grip: Fun toy, or life-saving purple-y beam of doom?

Although DKs are sadly underrepresented in the blogging community as a whole, the few blogs that are written to our credit have covered one ability perhaps more than any other.  It has been one of the most controversial DK abilities, as well as one that caused more forums complaints that any other (besides perhaps miss-use of Army of the Dead in a raid).  You all know what I'm talking about:  Death Grip.

While this ability remains something of a niche tool for tanking in raid content (used only to pull casting mobs and such), it is absolutely invaluable in PvP.  As a Death Knight, Death Grip should ALWAYS be on your action bars, and if you aren't using it, I invite you to bust out your purple beam of doom loving self, and give it a whirl.  Just please, practice safe Death.

The don'ts.

While Death Grip may seem like a safe bet at any point in a PvP encounter, there are some major don'ts that you should keep in mind when using it.  First, keep in mind DG has a 30 second cooldown.  While not a tremendous number, that's 30 seconds that you will be without arguably the best peeling move in the game.  So, keep these things in mind when DGing it up.

1.  Is my enemy a healer, or a damage-dealer?  If the answer is damage-dealer, look around and make sure there are no healers nearby.  While pulling that annoying boomkin might seem tempting, killing that sneaky priest behind him is infinitely more valuable for your team.

2.  Is my enemy fairly close to me?  If so- don't DG.  Just chains of ice him, then run up and take his head off.  Simple, beautiful, and elegant. 

3.  Is my enemy extremely far away?  While chasing after that elusive rogue sprinting away may be tempting, I wouldn't recommend it.  If the enemy is out of range of DG, and just ignore them.  Running into the enemy team at random to pull them towards you will only end one way- and it won't be pretty.

4.  Is my enemy running towards me anyways?  This might seem obvious, but seriously- I've seen it done.  And done it myself before.  Sometimes that shiny DG button is just too big a temptation.  But let me state here and now, that if you enemy is a melee class, and running towards your team ANYWAYS, you should NEVER DG him.  He'll reach you in a few seconds anyways.  Don't waste that precious CD.

5.  Is my enemy over-geared, or tough to bring down?  The main purpose of DG is to pull dangerous, ranged enemies towards your team.  Especially when two groups of players are standing off against each-other, that one key squishy being dragged towards your side against his/her will can be a huge moral boost to your side.  Your team will probably instinctively focus on the DGed enemy, even if you're in a worst-case, random PuG scenario.  If you pull someone that has either A) a ton of AoE damage potential, or B) is just tough to kill, you're actually working against your team.  You'll either be significantly weakened, and easy prey for the remaining Alliance (or Horde if you took the wrong side), or you'll spend so much time trying to kill that freakin' paladin, that your team will find itself overrun with enemies.

The Dos

Most of the things that can go WRONG with DG in a PvP situation are pretty self-explanatory.  But, there's a subtle difference between not using DG wrong, and using it oh-so right.  So, let me list some of the best times to launch your enemies to their own demise.

1.  The interrupt.  It may be a little-known fact among DKs that haven't spent much time PvPing, but DG actually acts as an interrupt.  If you see a healer, within range of DG, casting a big heal, pulling them towards you will not only bring said healer within range of your vast array of weaponry, but also stop the heal they were casting, leaving anything short of a very good healer disoriented, and easy picking.  This is possibly the best, and most general use of DG in PvP.

2.  The mob factor.  When you're in a situation in one of the larger BGs or just in a big showdown in WPvP, where you find yourself in a face-off with the other side, DGing ANY enemy usually spells certain doom for them, since no one can take 10+ players single-handedly.  Sometimes, when the healers (which even in this situation should be your main target) are out of reach, just picking off the enemies one by one with DG can be a good strategy.  Also, in Alterac Valley, this method can be applied to your boss' room, before too many of your towers have been capped.  DGing a baddie into the throne room with you will sick the NPCs on them, and you probably won't even have to lift a finger.

3.  The CC.  While DG on its own is not a direct CC, it can turn into one.  In situations where slowing an enemy is the best thing for your team, combining DG with Chains of Ice, can give your team the boost they need to succeed.  Some of the big times this is especially worthwhile:  On the enemy flag carrier in WSG, or on that obnoxious melee chasing your destroyers in Strand.  CoIing your opponents after a DG is just good practice in general, but sometimes the precious seconds it buys make the difference between victory and bitter defeat.

4.  The chain.  Probably one of the more niche-y tactics that work with DG, this is actually a cool enough idea that I will probably discuss it in a future post.  But, let me say that it basically boils down to have DKs line up, and use DG one after the other, essentially pulling a bad-guy much further than DG normally should.

The conclusion?

DG is more than a cute toy, it's one of the most deadly abilities in the PvP DK's arsenal.  But like all weapons, it can be misused, or abused.  Just try to keep common sense in mind when applying it to your game, and you'll find it slowly seeping into the core of your DK.  Eventually, you'll probably come up with plenty of epic ways to employ it that I've never even dreamed of, and when you do, I'd love to hear about them.

But for the time being, keep your head about yourself and try to practice safe Death.

Season 9 Models Revealed

Earlier today, MMO Champion revealed the new models for the Season 9 armour sets.  For those of you living on a proverbial PvP rock, Season 9 will be the first PvP season of Cataclysm, bringing with it all the beauty of a new arena season, and, for the first time ever, rated Battlegrounds.

All kinds of awesome

I was complaining earlier this week to a guildy about how, although DKs have a history of getting some of the coolest PvE tier gear EVER (tier 8 and 10 are both absolutely amazing in my opinion), our PvP gear has been somewhat lacking throughout Wrath.

But no more, this new DK tier set looks absolutely badass, and I think I'll actually feel like a hardcore harbinger of doom running around in this, unlike my somewhat plain armour from season 8 (and don't even get me started on the helms we've seen lately... our relentless helm looks like a fish on the undead model).

Warlock?

It also hasn't escaped my notice (and, I'm sure, the notice of other DKs around the world), that this new set looks almost... warlock-ish.  The horns on the helm, especially, seem like they belong on a warlock to me).  But the skull with the chest plate certainly looks like it belong on a Death Knight.

Regardless, this is just one more thing to look forwards to with Cataclysm.  I can't wait to get my paws on this stuff, and to put it to the test.

4.0.1 Death Knight Round Up - The Dawn of Frost

This is not my first kick at the can.

What you're looking at right now, staring imperiously at your from across the internet and the little pixels on your computer screen, is the result of more failed blog attempts than I can count. It's been almost a full year that I've been kicking around the concept of making a blog about WoW, but everytime I start, I never seem to get far.

Why?

Because I get bored with it.  See, I've been writing under the weird impression that if I don't write about "accepted" topics- raiding, theorycrafting... whatever all those "real" bloggers do, I won't get any readers.  But A) it's ridiculous to write a blog because you want readers, you should do it because you enjoy it, and B) there are a lot more topics that I had originally considered.

See, I'm not a raider.   I never have been, and unless it changes significantly from the way it is now, I probably never will be.  Oh, sure, I've raided.  I even have a druid dedicated pretty much exclusively to PvE.  I'll probably raid once cataclysm comes out too, but that's not the reason I play the game.

I play the game for PvP.  For epic campaigns spread out across my server (The Venture Co. US happens to have one of the best WPvP communities around, since the act of fighting outside of combat zones is almost dead elsewhere).  For pitched battles in the battlegrounds, for skirmishes in the arenas, for facerolling alliance in Wintergrasp... I play the game for PvP.

So I'm going to write a blog about it.

Patch 4.0.1

That's where the latest patch comes in.  See, not only do I PvP, but I do so with a Death Knight.  And I've noticed that there is a sad amount of Death Knight bloggery going on in the WoW blogging community.  I'm not sure why exactly, since we're arguably a lot better than everyone else.  But, there it is.  There are not enough DK bloggers.  And, as far as I know, none of the few DK bloggers out there, write mostly about PvP.  So I'm filling a niche which, to my knowledge, has not yet been filled.

So.  With fun little intros out of the way, let me hop right into the meat of the blog.  Content.  Information.  All that jazz.

Please note, that this post is NOT about specific talents.  It's about my feeling for the class in general, since the patch.  It's been out long enough now, that I'm assuming anyone reading this blog has already had a chance to go through all their own talents, so I'm not going through everything new talent by new talent.

Unholy = Disease 'n Stuff

UH remains a powerhouse of a spec, with damage focused even more on disease than before.  Although I haven't had a chance to play around with this too much (frost has taken most of my time since the patch), with transforming ghouls, undead minions, and disease, what more could our necromancy-happy friends want?  I'll post a more in-depth look at the tree once I've experimented a little bit more.

This spec remains very viable for PvP, BUT (as I'm about to discuss), at least until cataclysm, frost may have actually become the "it" spec, something we haven't seen ever, throughout the whole expansion, in the world of PvP.

Frost = OMGBBQ (But in a cold way)

Some wizened, veteran DKs may remember when WotLK was just a beta,  and DKs hadn't been released on live realms yet.  The talk of the whole town, with the coming expansion- was DKs.  How will they play?  What will the mechanics be like?  Et cetera, et cetera.  In those early days of the class, frost was originally meant to be the tanking spec, with frost presence providing the tanking bonuses, and a lot of defensive abilities tied to the spec.  Blizzard eventually denounced the idea, decided that "any spec can tank", but the idea sort of stuck.  Frost has been largely outshone by it's ghouly counterpart throughout wrath.

No longer.  Frost has come into it's own in a big way since 4.0.1.  Yes, it is pretty much ridiculously overpowered with Wrath's low health pools, and since I'm not in the beta, I can't comment on how things are going to play out come cata.  But, for the time being, I'm enjoying being OP for a change.

Frost PvP has actually been simplified in some ways, it's still a LOT about proc watching, but it's also about a new mechanic for DKs.  The concept of always wanting runes on CD for the RP generation boost.  As a result, while priority based, it almost seems a little spammy to me.  The spec/rotation I'm currently using, uses a very dumbed-down version of our old rotation.  You no longer need Obliterate, and even our new and shiny Festering Strike, doesn't get any use either.  The basic idea, is to specialize in Howling Blast as much as possible, then make use of it.  It basically goes:  HB x2, PS x2, BS x2, and then HB x4.  Mix in frost strikes for Killing Machine procs, and Runic Empowerment if you get to the end and everything in sight isn't dead.

Sound simple?  It is.  Like  I said, frost is very OP right now.  I  can't wait to see if we remain competitive throughout cataclysm.  It would be nice to have an option to play something beyond ONE UH spec for serious PvP.

Blood = Tanks

Blood is now our dedicated tanking tree, if you didn't already know.  Frost presence now includes a damage boost, and blood is the new frost.  All our defensive cooldownsPvP in their tanking trees with a lot of success (because they're damn near impossible to kill), But I don't know if that's the case for blood, I really haven't touched it since 4.0 dropped.  Once I've figured out UH, I'll get back to you on blood in PvP.

The Conclusion?

We're at a good place right now.  Frost is OP, but Blizz has stated numerous times that we are now balanced for level 85, not level 80.  Who knows what the PvP game is gonna look like come Cataclysm.  I know one thing for sure, though.

I can't wait.